THE LOWER PINE BELT, OR SAVANNA REGION. 61 



pecially adapted to these light soils that are not run together and packed 

 by winter rains, but it is not generally practiced, because the weak force 

 on the farms are scarcely ever sufficiently up with the work to afford the 

 time. Fallowing is only practiced to the extent of letting fields lie idle 

 during summer, which it is found greatly benefits them. A rotation of 

 crops is attempted so far as the exigencies of the cotton crop allow ; by 

 following cotton with corn, and that in the same year with oat§, sowing 

 peas on the stubble, and following with cotton again next si)ring. Home 

 made manures are used, so far as they go, with excellent results. Composts 

 of muck and stable manures are coming more into use, and the field pea, 

 either turned under green or allowed to wither on the surface, adds largely 

 to the fertility ; by these means almost any of the uplands are made to 

 produce a bale of cotton to the acre. The limited means at the disposal of 

 the farmers in these regards, in a section where little attention is paid to 

 corn and cattle, is largely supplemented by the purchase of commercial 

 fertilizers, especially the Charleston phosphates. In Clarendon, these are 

 used almost exclusively, but in Colleton they are coming somewhat into 

 disfavor, and the preference is given to the potash salts. Cotton seed, 

 which were once thought to be only valuable as a manure for corn, are 

 now applied with great benefit to cotton, and with the exception of a very 

 small amount fed to stock, it is all employ etl in this manner; selling at from 

 ten to fifteen cents a bushel. 



PLANTING AND CULTIVATION. 



Under the best system the land is broken up broadcast, with single or 

 double plows, in the winter or early spring, but the prevailing practice is 

 simply to turn the old beds into the alleys by running the bar of a single- 

 horse plow to them, making two to four furrows to the bed, the usual 

 width of the rows being three and a half feet. This leaves an open furrow 

 in the centre of the old bed, in which the manure is deposited as early as 

 practicable in February and March. The furrows are then re-covered, 

 and the dirt thrown on the manure, the bed built up again, and the 

 land is ready for planting. The seed used belongs to the more prolific 

 and improved varieties of short staple, and passes under the names of 

 Dickson's or Herlong's improved, select, or cluster cotton. From one to 

 three bushels are sown to the acre. Cotton-planters are much used, a 

 cheap machine, drawn by a mule, rolling on a wheel similar to that of a 

 wheelbarrow, by the rotation of which motion is imparted to fingers that 

 keep the seed moving in a hopper containing them, and from which they 

 fall into the furrow ; a plow in front of the hopper opens a trench to receive 

 the seed, and a board follows and covers. There is an arrangement to 



