25, 1825, and _Alexandria Gazette_, Feb.

11, 1826, quoted in the _Charleston City Gazette_, Dec.

1, 1825 and Feb.

20, 1826; _The American Farmer_ (Baltimore, Dec.

29, 1825), VII, 299.] [Footnote 2: _Hunt's Merchant's Magazine_, IX, 149.] At the height of the plantation system's career, from 1815 to 1860, indigo production was a thing of the past; hemp was of negligible importance; tobacco was losing in the east what it gained in the west; rice and sea-island cotton were stationary; but sugar was growing in local intensity, and upland cotton was "king" of a rapidly expanding realm.
The culture of sugar, tobacco and rice has been described in preceding chapters; that of the fleecy staple requires our present attention.
The outstanding features of the landscape on a short-staple cotton plantation were the gin house and its attendant baling press.