More than half the population wore
wooden shoes, when they wore any at all. Their wants were few, and were
all supplied at home. Save a little flour, powder, and shot, they
purchased nothing. These were paid for by the sale of the produce of
the poultry-yard--the prudent savings from the labor of the women--to
the market-boats from the city.
There were, at the period of which I write, but half a dozen Americans
upon the bayou. These had found the country illy adapted to the growth
of cotton, and some of them had commenced the planting of sugar-cane.
The results from this were very satisfactory, and consequently
stimulating to the enterprise of men of means, who felt they could be
more profitably employed in this new culture than in cotton, even in
the very best cotton regions.
There was one man of high intelligence and long experience who denied
this--Stephen Duncan, of Natchez--and the subsequent experience of many
brought bitter regret that they had not yielded to the counsels of Dr.
Duncan.
The great flood of 1828 had not touched the La Fourche or Teche, while
the entire alluvial plain above had been covered many feet, and for
many months.
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