1920] The Regional Geography of South Carolina 111 



If illiteracj' is a safe criterion, the quality of the foreign-born 

 population of South Carolina has deteriorated a little in recent de- 

 cades, while the natives, both white and black, have made great 

 progress. The foreigners are still a little superior to the native whites 

 in that respect, however, except in the coast strip, where they are most 

 numerous. (In the other regions they have probably never consti- 

 tuted as much as 1% of the population since there has been a census.) 

 Nearly half the negroes in the lower pine belt were unable to read and 

 write at the time of the last census, perhaps because that region had 

 less than ten white people per square mile ; not enough to maintain a 

 very efficient system of rural schools. There is much less variation in 

 illiteracy among the negroes in different regions than among the 

 whites, which agrees very well with what we already know about 

 that race. 



Turning now to the agricultural statistics, the percentage of im- 

 proved land depends largely on soil fertility, and is lowest in the 

 poorest region, but in South Carolina some moderatel}' fertile regions, 

 like the coast strip, have large areas of swamp and marsh, which ma- 

 terially restricts the possible improved acreage. This may explain 

 why the lower Piedmont region has a trifle less improved land than 

 the upper, instead of more, as we might expect from the smoother 

 topography, etc. 



The expenditure for fertilizers depends partly on soil fertility 

 or the lack of it, and partly on the intensity of cultivation, being 

 nearly always high near cities. In South Carolina, however, the upper 

 pine belt leads in this respect, though it has neither the poorest soil 

 nor the largest urban population ; and the explanation may be simply 

 that the farmers there (and also in the corresponding part of North 

 Carolina) have acquired the fertilizer habit. A farmer in ]\Iarlboro 

 County established a world's record for corn in 1889 by raising 255 

 bushels on one acre, of course with the aid of heavy applications of 

 fertilizers. It will be noticed that the exjienditure for fertilizer ])('r 

 acre in the state more than trebled between 11)00 and 1!)1(). This may 

 be paiMly due lo a progressive exhaustion of tlie natui-al fei-tility of 

 the soil, and llie decline in value of money (amounting to about 40% 

 in that decade) following the discovery of gold in the Klondike region 

 in 1897, certainly had sonicihing to do with the increased expenditure, 

 but after making allowance for these a growth of the practice of usintr 

 commercial fertilizers is still apparent. 



