Highland rice-indigo

American Farmer, 5.12.1828

Buckingham county, Va., Aug. 18, 1828.
Mr. Skinner, Sir, - Permit me to inquire, through the columns of your inestimable "American Farmer," whether there is any kind of grain cultivated in the United States under the denomination of "Highland Rice?" And if so, whether it is the same, or a different species from the Quinar, presented to you by F. S. Cooke, Esq., of Baltimore, in March last - where it can be obtained, and the proper process of cultivating it?

I also wish to make some inquiry relative to the Red or Turkey Indigo: Whether cotton can really be dyed red with it, and if so, what is the process?

About five-and-twenty years ago, a gentleman who had moved from this county and settled in Georgia a few years before, returned into the neighbourhood of his former residence, and brought with him some of the rice and indigo seed above mentioned, and said that cotton was dyed red with the indigo, but he had neglected to obtain a recipe bow to use it.

A few days ago I ascertained that the indigo was still growing within a few miles of me, and went to see it. I found it a large umbelliferous plant, much larger and coarser than our common indigo, and having a yellow blossom. The old lady in whose gardea it was, said she had heard that the red or Turkey cotton was dyed with it, but that she was ignorant of the process; that, in trying experiments with it, she had succeeded in producing a yellow, but could not obtain a red colour.

Your most obed't.
L. BOLLING.