5G THE LOWER PINE BELT, OR SAVANNA REGION. 



it was only seven bushels in 1870, and in 1880 only eleven bushels per 

 capita, and only 236 bushels to the square mile, it averages over fifteen 

 bushels to every acre planted, which is nearly Hfty per cent, above the 

 average of the State. The increase in the amount of grain produced has 

 been eighty -two per cent, on the crop of 1870. Tlie work stock during 

 the same period have increased fifty per cent., and the live stock seventy- 

 six per cent. 



The explanation of these seemingly paradoxical facts is found in the 

 consideration, that this fertile but thinly peopled region is scarcely re- 

 claimed at all from the dominion of the waters for man's uses. That there 

 being neither capital or organized labor commensurate with this under- 

 taking, what of either of these forces is to be found, employs itself in cul--- 

 tivating the poorer, but more easily tilled land, or in the more tempting 

 occupation still of gathering the products of the forest, whioli nature with 

 lavish hand offers in abundance. 



PRODUCTIONS. 



The most characteristic, if not the most important, crop of this region 

 is the rice crop. The various methods of its culture fall under two classes, 

 the dry and the wet culture. 



The dry culture is pursued on uplands and on low grounds not suscep- 

 tible of irrigation. It is cultivated very much like cotton, planted in 

 drills two and a third to three and a half feet, and in hills eighteen to 

 twenty-four inches apart, twenty to thirty seed being dropped in the hills. 

 The ground is afterwards kept clean and stirred by the use of the plow 

 and hqe, with one hand picking of the grass in the hills, when the rice 

 is about six inches high. The yield varies with the soil and culture, from 

 fifteen bushels to fifty bushels to the acre. Tliis rice sometimes fetches a 

 fancy price, as seed rice, being free from the seed of the red rice that 

 springs up as a volunteer in the fields under water culture. 



The water culture of rice is conducted on three sorts of low grounds. 

 1st. Flats, which may be irrigated from ponds or water " reserves " lying at 

 a higher level. 2nd. River swamps, into which water may be conducted 

 by canals running from the river above, and returned to it again at a lower 

 level ; such lands may be found anywhere in the State. 3rd. The tide 

 water lands, which are only found near the coast. These lands lie in such 

 a position on the lower course of the rivers, that while they are subject to 

 a sufficient " pitch of the tide" to irrigate them on the flood and to drain 

 them on the ebb, they may be dammed against the invasion of salt water 

 below and from the freshets above. By taking in the fresh water from 

 the rivers above and letting it out below at low tide, these lands have been 



