58 THE LOWKR PINK BELT, OR SAVANNA REGION. 



is it, tlien, that rice culture is in so depressed a condition, and cotton 

 culture so flourisliing ? It may be briefly stated as that condition of in- 

 dustry which favors small enterprises, and discourages accumulation of 

 capital in large investments and tlic organization of laljor into large 

 masses, which the embankment, drainage and irrigation of a rice field 

 requires. 



It has also been asserted that tlie i)r()tective duty of 2J cents per 

 pound on rice operates adversely to its culture. This culture recjuires a 

 large outlay of vested capital in dams, ditches and waterways. But as 

 an act of Congress may ain^ day remove the protective tariff, and thus 

 lower the market value of the product by one-third or more, capital is 

 unwilling to encounter such a risk, refuses to enter into permanent in- 

 vestments in improving and restoring these lands, or in mortgages given 

 for this puri)Ose, and prefers to restrict itself to hand to mouth advances 

 on the growing crop at exorbitant rates. Thus throwing largely into the 

 hands of mere speculators what was once tlie most solid and certain in- 

 dustry of the State. One thing is certain : while the cotton croj) has 

 largely increased, even while burdened with a tax of two cents per i)0und 

 on it, the rice crop, with the protection of a duty of two cents per pound, 

 has not recuperated, and amounts to scarcely one-third of the production 

 it attained formerly without protection. 



The allurement of the read}^ money realized by collecting the products 

 of the forest, and by rice and cotton culture, has diverted attention from 

 other cro[)s in this section. The culture of corn as a market cro}) would 

 be profitable. The red rust proof oat is admirably adapted to this 

 climate, and is one of the most certain crops, yielding readily thirty 

 bushels to fifty bushels to the acre. Although Xew England, and even 

 European, hay has for many years been i)urchased to subsist, in i)art, the 

 work stock in this section, Mr. Ruffin, who came from the clover fields of 

 Virginia, says in his official report on the agriculture of the lower and 

 middle parts of South Carolina : " Few countries possess greater natural 

 fiicilities, or which are more improvable by industry, for producing in 

 abundance, grasses, hay and live stock, and their products of nieat, butter 

 and milk, all of which are now so deplorably deficient." 



COTTON. 



Although the lower pine belt comprises nearly one-third of the State, 

 it produces only a fraction over five per cent, of the cotton crop. The 

 per centage of the total area planted in cotton is less than one-tenth of 

 one per cent, in the southeastern third of Charleston county, in the whole 

 of Georgetown county, and in the greater portion of llorry county. 



