THE LOWER PINE BELT, OR SAVANNA REGION. 55 



STATISTICS. 



The lower pine belt contains 10,226 square miles, of which 4,500 are allu- 

 vial or swamp lands, either covered with water or subject to overflow. The 

 tilled land is 358,533 acres, by the census returns of 1880, which is 30 per 

 cent., or 171,306 acres, less than the number given by the census of 1870. 

 There are 1.6 farms and 35 acres of tilled land per square mile, or 20 

 acres of tilled and 400 acres of untilled land to the farm. Something 

 less than 1 per cent, of the total area, or 6.4 acres per square mile, is 

 })lanted in cotton ; there is in grain of all kinds 15.8 acres, and in other 

 crops and fallow, 13 acres per square mile, with 1.8 head of work stock 

 and 23 head of all live stock. These figures represent the minimum 

 (the area in other crops and fallow alone excepted) to be found anywhere 

 in the State. Notwithstanding the small proportion of stock to the area, 

 the people here are the staunchest adherents of the fence law, and claim 

 entire freedom of range for their cattle. This, too, while the entire num- 

 ber of stock of all sorts is only 1.15 per capita of the population, being- 

 less than in any part of this State, except upon the coast. 



The population numbers 203,748 (including 49,999 in the city of 

 Charleston), or 18.9 per square mile, which is less than in any part of 

 the State, the sand hills excepted, where the numl>er is 11.7. The ratio 

 of colored to white is greater tlian elsewhere except upon the coast, and 

 is sixty-nine percent., the same that it was given at in 1870. 



Tlie tilled land is 1.7 acres per capita; .2 acres more than on the coast. 

 This is not quite one-lialf the average for the whole State, and is owing, 

 1st, to the large area of unreclaimed swamps; 2nd, to the number of the 

 population engaged in the turpentine and lumber business. The large 

 l>odies of land held solely for the forest products they yield, as turpentine, 

 lumber, shingles, staves, &c.^ accounts for the fact that while the number 

 of farms to the square mile is few, the number in proportion to the pop- 

 ulation is as great, even as among the small farms on the coast, being one 

 to every twelve and a half of the population. Nevertheless the amount 

 of land tilled per capita has decreased thirty-eight per cent, since 1870. 

 Showing that the forest industries are gaining on agriculture. 



In point of production we have 2.7 bales of cotton per square mile 

 against 1.9 in 1870, an increase of forty-one per cent., but still less than 

 half the minimum produced elsewhere, except on the coast. Per capita 

 the yield is only sixty-eight pounds of lint, but per acre planted in cotton 

 it is 219 pounds, showing that in tliis little cultivated region the yield of 

 the land planted is not only above the average of the State, but is abso- 

 lutely the maximum any where reached. So, too, of the grain crop, while 



