REGIONS AND HUMAN ECOLOGY 15 



THE EASTERN COTTON BELT 



The Eastern Cotton Belt is divided into five subregions 

 differing in soil, characteristic, vegetation, and extent of 

 cotton culture. In this region the cotton acreage begins 

 at the southern border of Virginia and swings southwest- 

 ward through North Carolina, South Carolina, and 

 Georgia in two unequal strips, separated by the Sand 

 Hills. This region is the oldest of the Cotton Belt, cot- 

 ton culture in parts of the Carolinas dating back to 

 colonial times. Many rivers fed by rains from the coast 



frontispiece in the present volume. Many of the names given the 

 regions are applied locally, and the changes from one to another 

 can be noted by the casual traveler by automobile or train. 



The figures of average yield per cotton acre were compiled 

 for the Cotton Atlas from the census years 1879, 1889, 1899, 1909, 

 while the figures of production of the acre are averages of the 

 five years 1911-15. These averages are taken as being more nearly 

 normal than any to be secured after the advent of the boll weevil. 

 The statistics of size of farm and type of tenure are taken from 

 the atlas analysis of cotton production, studies of counties in the 

 different regions. The number of typical counties selected for study 

 in each is regarded as being enough to give an adequate sampling. 

 Each of the regions has the following number of counties studied: 



COUNTIES 

 REGIONS STUDIED 



Atlantic Coast Flatwoods 7 



Upper Coastal Plain 16 



Sand Hills 9 



Piedmont Plateau 20 



Black Prairies of Alabama and Miss 7 



Yazoo Mississippi Delta 10 



Black Prairie of Texas 10 



Interior Coastal Plain 9 



~~88 



When the plantation system is mentioned the definition is that 

 of the census one continuous proprietorship divided into holdings 

 among five or more tenants. 



