loam to a loose coarse sand changes from one extreme to the other 

 taking place rapidly and within narrow limits. The dip and depth from 

 the surface of the clayey stratum which underlies most of the area at no 

 great depth are of prime importance in its bearing on the crop interests 

 of the overlying soil, as this stratum forms the moisture reservoir, and 

 where more than 3 feet from the surface the lands are poorly suited 

 to the general crops of the section. On the other hand, where it ap- 

 proaches within a few inches of the surface on level lands, the soils 

 without special treatment are poorly suited to any but the grass and 

 small grain crops. 



MANAGEMENT OP PLANTATION. 



The agricultural methods in use on this plantation differ in many 

 respects from the general methods of the community and have been 

 found in practice to give uniformly better results. When the present 

 owner took charge of the place several years ago many of the fields were 

 in poor yielding condition, and the surface soil was very shallow. By 

 gradual and careful deepening of the preparatory plowing, a systematic 

 rotation of crops, and the continued use of cowpeas in the rotation the 

 soil proper has gradually deepened, until it now averages about 7 inches 

 in most of the tilled fields and is quite mellow and loamy in character. 

 In increasing the depth of the seed bed not more than one-half inch of 

 the subsoil was turned up at any one plowing, in order that the yield 

 should not be decreased in any one season by the addition to the sur- 

 face soil of an excessive proportion of unweathered materials. The aim 

 has been to follow as closely as possible the following rotation : Begin- 

 ning with corn for the first season, two rows of cowpeas are sown 

 between the corn rows at the time of last cultivation, from which the 

 vines are harvested for fodder, the roots alone remaining to improve 

 the soil. The second season the same field is planted in oats sown the 

 fall of the preceding season, followed by a crop of cowpeas after the 

 crop of oats is harvested, the vines in this case also being gathered for 

 fodder. The third season cotton is grown with, possibly, a single row 

 of some smaller variety of cowpea sown between the cotton rows in the 

 early fall, from which the vines are not gathered, but left to be plowed 

 under in the preparation for the fourth season. The fourth season the 

 field receives the same treatment as in the third, thus giving a four-year 

 rotation corn, oats, cotton, and cotton, with at least two, and pos- 

 sibly four, crops of cowpeas. This is the system practiced on lands 

 not suited to the type of tobacco grown here, and when tobacco does 

 not enter the rotation. On the tobacco fields a different procedure is 

 necessary to preserve the required thinness of the leaf. Beginning with 

 tobacco the first season, cotton follows the second. The field is allowed 

 to lie idle the third, producing a crop of weeds which is plowed under 

 for the benefit of the succeeding 'crop of tobacco, making a three-season 



