e he likes
the increase of Jacob's speckled sheep. The Southerner invests his in
diamonds because he likes show, and diamonds have a pretty steady market
value. There is method, too, in the colonel's associations, and all his
acquaintance is gilt-edged and bankable.

His business is now done, and he does not tarry, but wings his way to
Millefleur and Rottenbottom, where he moults all his fine feathers. He
goes into fertilizers, beginning with crushed cotton-seed and barnyard
manure, if possible, before February is over. He follows the
shovel-plough with a slick-jack, and plants, and then the labor begins
to fail him. He talks about importing Chinese, and writes about it in
the local paper. He is sure it will do, as he is positive in all his
opinions. He is true pluck, and tries to make new machinery make up for
deficient labor. He buys "bull-tongues," "cotton-shovels," "fifteen-inch
sweeps," "twenty-inch sweeps," "team-ploughs with seven-inch twisters,"
and a "finishing sweep of twenty-six inches." He hears of other
inventions, and orders them. The South is flooded with a thousand quack
contrivances now, about as applicable to cotton-raising as a pair of
nut-crackers; but the colonel buys them. He is going to dispense with
the hoe. That is the plan; and by that plan of furnishing a large
plantation with new tools before Lent is over the five thousand dollars
are gone. But he writes cheerfully. It is his nature to be sanguine, and
to hope loudly, vaingloriously; and he writes it honestly enough to his
merchant--and draws. The labor gets worse and worse. In the indolent
summer days the negro, careless, thriftless, ignorant, works only at
intervals. Perhaps the June rise catches him, and there is a heavy
expense in ditching and damming to save the Rottenbottom crop. Maybe the
merchant hears of the army-worm and is alarmed, but the colonel writes
back assuring letters that it is only the grasshopper, and the
grasshopper has helped more than hurt--and draws. Then possibly the
army-worm comes sure enough, and cripples him. But he keeps up his
courage--and draws. The five thousand dollars appear to have been
employed in digging or building a sluice through which a constant
current of currency flows from the city to Rottenbottom and Millefleur.
The merchant has gone into bank, and the tide flows on. At last the
planter writes: "The most magnificent crop ever raised on Red River,
just waiting for the necessary hands to gather it