IRRIGATION OF RICE IN SOUTH CAROLINA. 



WHERE IRRIGATION HAS BEEN PRACTICED FOR A 



CENTURY. 



BY WILLIAM FERGUSON HUTSON. 



WITH the probable exception of some 

 of the lands originally cultivated 

 by the Franciscan missionaries in Texas 

 and New Mexico, the rice industry of South 

 Carolina and Georgia is the oldest example 

 that we have in this country of a system of 

 agriculture based on irrigation, and abso- 

 lutely dependent on it for its existence. 

 The records as to when the different plan- 

 tations were cleared and banked are, with 

 scarcely an exception, lost; some in the 

 Revolutionary and the rest in the late war, 

 but the places are nearly all about as they 

 were a hundred or more years ago, for so 

 well were the fields laid out that the mod- 

 ern planter finds little in their arrangement 

 that he need ever change. Many things, 

 including the climate, character of the 

 labor, and system of cultivation under 

 which each planter controls his own water 

 supply, force the use of large plantations 

 and forbid any attempt to plant it by small 

 farmers. 



The planting of rice is confined to the 

 " low country " near the coast, almost the 

 entire South Carolina crop being raised in 

 the coast counties of Beaufort, Berkely, 

 Colleton and Georgetown, where the coun- 

 try is very flat pine land, intersected by 

 many creeks and rivers, which originally 

 spread wide on either side, making great 

 swamps and marshes. These were cleared, 

 diked and drained, and the differences 

 of locality gave rise to the two different 

 methods of irrigation now found in this 

 region. On the reclaimed swamps and 

 marshes along the large rivers use has 

 been made of the tides, which, coming 

 far up the rivers, back up the fresh water 

 and thus raise it above the level of the 

 fields, while in the once swamp lands higher 

 up the water is obtained by putting a dam 

 across some narrow part, thus making a 

 "backwater" from which the rice fields 

 below can be flooded. Sometimes these 

 two methods may both be seen in use on 

 the same plantation, a "back water" be- 



124 



ing used to flow some fields that the tides 

 cannot reach. 



The river places especially are wonder- 

 ful examples of hydraulic engineering, 

 and everything about them shows that the 

 early colonial settlers of this part of the 

 country must have commanded a large 

 amount of capital to carry out as a private 

 enterprise such a task as the clearing and 

 diking of a large place. 



PREPABING THE GROUND. 



An idea of the labor that must have been 

 expended in beginning a plantation can be 

 obtained by noticing the general plan of 

 one and the amount of earthworks neces- 

 sary to control the water. In the first 

 place, all along the river, and whereve 

 the low alluvial fields do not abut on higher 

 ground, it is surrounded by a strong dike 

 about five and a half feet in height, four 

 feet wide at the top, and with the base in 

 proportion. The fields are divided off into 

 squares or plots of various shapes, in ac- 

 cordance with the slope of the land, the 

 difference in level in one square being 

 usually limited to eighteen inches. These 

 squares are separated from each other by 

 "check banks" about two feet high and 

 two to three feet wide at the top. The 

 squares may vary in size in a large field of 

 several hundred acres all the way from ten 

 to seventy-five acres or even more. Through 

 the fields run canals, so placed that each 

 square takes its water directly from the 

 canal by a double floodgate, called a 

 "trunk," into a canal on the other side, 

 though on many river places the water can 

 be let on the land through "trunks" con- 

 necting it directly with the river, and the 

 canals are wholly or partially dispensed 

 with. The "trunks" are simply wooden 

 cribs passing through the embankment, 

 covered over with earth, and having a gate 

 at each end that can be raised for the pas- 

 sage of the water. Where the place is 

 flowed by the tide water all of these flood- 



