SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE, 1790-1860 . 271 



increased, and yet the boundaries of the cotton belt have been 

 pushed comparatively little beyond what they were in 1850. In 

 the new states west of the Mississippi the cotton region lay 

 entirely to the south of the isothermal line for mean summer 

 temperature. East of the river it extended north of this line, 

 which passed through northern Alabama and Georgia and mid- 

 dle South Carolina. The area of chief production began in 

 southeastern Virginia, and, usually avoiding the coast, passed 

 through the central portions of the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama 

 and Mississippi, then widened to the northward and embraced 

 northern Louisiana and southern Arkansas, and ended in the 

 central portion of the great state of Texas. 



It will doubtless surprise many readers to learn that notwith- 

 standing this vast area within which cotton was the leading staple 

 cultivated, the actual acreage devoted to this crop at any time 

 previous to the Civil War was very small. The crop of 1859- 

 1860, which was by far the largest that had ever been pro- 

 duced, being in excess of 2,000,000,000 pounds, was raised on 

 an acreage less than that included within the boundaries of . v 

 Carolina, even when the most liberal estimate of the cotton acreage 

 is accepted. 



In 1836, when cotton cultivation had begun to extend beyond 



the Mississippi, Woodbury's report, estimating the production 



per acre at a little less than 250 pounds, considered tin 



amount of land then devoted to cotton raising to be not far 



2,000,000 acres. From calculations made on the basis 



of the census of 1840, De Bow estimated the number of acres 



devoted to the cultivation of cotton at 4,500,000, and in 1850, 



as superintendent of the Seventh Census, he estimated the 



i area at 5,000,000 acres. The census of 1860 estimated 



tin large crop of cotton grown that year to IK- the product 



968,498 acres, but as already mentioned, Kit IT and 



ites nearly double the acreage. It is quite prob- 

 able that tlu- estimates of early years were also too conscrv- 

 and that t cage was larger than it was then 



supposed to be. Hut even if the Liter estimate of 13,000,000 

 for 1860 be allowed, we Mill find the total acreage to have 



