56 
and often in exhausting succession upon the same land. Soil prepara- 
tion and fertilization are often entirely ignored, and when practiced at 
all are very imperfectly attended to except in the case of cotton. 
Many counties report the repetition of this crop through twenty or 
twenty-five years, while in one—Wilcox, Alabama—lands have been 
kept fifty years in cotton without intermission. Occasionally this 
crop is alternated with corn, small grain, or grass. In some districts 
the soil appears to bear this strain with but little indications of exhaus- 
tion. In other cases, however, the normal results of this ruinous 
system are painfully apparent. In Louisiana new-comers occasionally 
attempt to introduce improvements, but are unable to resist the influ- 
ence of universal example, and ultimately fall into the old routine. 
Some idea of this routine may be gathered from our report from Terre- 
bonne Parish : 
For the first year the land is put in corn and cane, it being too rich to put in solid 
cane; usually two rows of corn and two rows of cane are planted alternately; the 
corn ripens and is bent down before the cane gets very high, this admits the sun to the 
cane. The following year the two rows of corn are planted in cane, and all is thus 
kept in cane for two years more ; then corn follows, and when it gets its last plow 
a row of pease is sown on each side of the row, which covers the surface of the groun 
with a dense mass of vines; these vines are then turned under with four-mule plows, 
having revolving pea-vine cutters attached in front like a colter. Generally one year 
in corn and pease is sufficient to enable us to plant cane again. If the land is old, corn 
and pease are continued until the desired fertility is reached. The most approved plan 
is to keep old land two years in cane, i. e., one year of plant and one of stubble, and 
then follow one year with corn and pease; this course steadily improves the land. 
Among the special industries of this section of the Union, rice-culture 
is especially mentioned in Georgetown district, South Carolina. Two- 
thirds of the rice-lands have lain waste since the war. 
In Tennessee, West Virginia, and Kentucky; though in the majority 
of the counties reported there is an entire absence of systematic rota- 
tion, yet in other counties it is practiced with considerable regularity 
and with excellent results. The rotation generally embraces corn, small 
grain, and grass, tobacco being sometimes interpolated in the series. 
In Robertson County, Tennessee, it is found that wheat follows clover 
more advantageously than corn. A three years’ course commonly 
adopted is: first, corn; second, wheat; third, clover. This is changed 
to five years, as practiced by others: first, corn; second, wheat or other 
grain; third, clover three years. Others still practice a course of four 
years, with two years in clover. 
In Monroe County, West Virginia: 
Twenty per cent. of our people are tobacco-growers; they grow on new land gener- 
ally two crops of tobacco, followefl by wheat, which is considered a-sure crop after 
tobacco; about one-third seed-clover on the wheat in the spring, and retain as perma- 
nent pasture, or turn over in two or three years for corn, and follow with wheat on 
corn-stubble. 
In Oldham County, Kentucky : 
About one-third practice rotation, the remainder plant corn in new timber-land 60 
long as it will yield twenty bushels to the acre, then sow oats and repeat corn, and 
tinally become so poor themselves they are compelled to sell the land and “go west.” 
Another class, when the land has become impoverished, try clover for two years, then 
put in corn and follow by wheat or oats; this is what we term ‘four years’ rotation ; ‘M 
about two-thirds follow this plan. Others, after corn, sow orchard-grass seed, one 
bushel to the acre, and one bushel of clover-seed to the eighth of an acre, with wheat 
or oats for two years, at the end of which time the clover has pretty well died out ; 
the four following years cut for seed, which is one of the principal crops in this imme- 
diate neighborhood; this is termed the “eight-year system,” i. e., two grain crops, two 
years in pasture, and four years’ cutting. 
According to the practice of the best farmers in Fayette County, 
Kentucky : 
Clover-sod is turned under in the fall or early spring, and two crops of hemp or 
