Indigo production was troublesome and uncertain of results. Not only did
the furrows have to be carefully weeded and the caterpillars kept off the
plants, but when the stalks were being cut and carried to the vats great
pains were necessary to keep the bluish bloom on the leaves from being
rubbed off and lost, and the fermentation required precise control for
the sake of quality in the product.[11] The production of the blue staple
virtually ended with the colonial period. The War of Independence not only
cut off the market for the time being but ended permanently, of course, the
receipt of the British bounty. When peace returned the culture was revived
in a struggling way; but its vexations and vicissitudes made it promptly
give place to sea-island cotton.[12]

[Footnote 11: Johann David Schoepf, _Travels in the Confederation,
1783-1784_, A.J. Morrison tr. (Philadelphia, 1911), pp. 187-189.]

[Footnote 12: David Ramsay, _History of South Carolina_, II, 212; D.D.
Wallace, _Life of Henry Laurens_, p. 132.]

The plantation of the rice-coast type had clearly shown its tendency to
spread into all the suitable areas from Winyah Bay to St. John's River,
when its southward progress was halted for a time by the erection of
the peculiar province of Georgia. The launching of this colony was the
beginning of modern philanthropy. Upon procuring a charter in 1732
constituting them trustees of Georgia, James Oglethorpe and his colleagues
began to raise funds from private donations and parliamentary grants for
use in colonizing English debtor-prisoners and other unfortunates. The
beneficiaries, chosen because of their indigence, were transported at the
expense of the trust and given fifty-acre homesteads with equipment and
supplies. Instruction in agriculture was provided for them at Savannah, and