76 THE UPPER PINE BELT. 



chemical constituents of these soils, it must be stated that their greater 

 productiveness can only be attributed mainly to their excellent and ju- 

 dicious management, by which lands, naturally yielding only three to 

 four hundred pounds of seed cotton, are made to give a bale of cotton one 

 year witli another. A good, though not a thorough, drainage, by open 

 ditches, has lowered the water level in those lands at least four feet. The 

 physical properties of the soil lend themselves readily to improvement. 

 The sandy surface soil, although thin, is very fine, and the clay is of so 

 fine a texture as to be usually described as floury. It is noteworthy, also, 

 that fresh land of a grayish color, or where the plow turns up the subsoil 

 of a yellowish or reddish cast, blackens on exposure, and becomes darker 

 year by year as they are cultivated. The exemption from drought, which 

 these lands in large measure enjoy, while greatly due to their drainage 

 and good tilth, may depend somewhat on the body of live water in the 

 quicksand which underlies them at a depth of fifteen to twent3'-five feet, 

 whose inhaustion, in hot dry seasons, through the fine texture of the in- 

 tervening clays, is not unlikely. At any rate this locality rarely sutlers 

 from drought. 



The swamps, covering 1,000 square miles of this region, are of two 

 descriptions : 



1st. The river swamps. The soil is of a mulatto or mahogany color, 

 and is a heavy alluvial loam, rendered lighter sometimes by an admix- 

 ture of fine sand and mica, whence they are called isinglass lands. Such 

 swamps are found on the banks of the Savannah, the Santee, the Con- 

 garee, Wateree and Pee Dee rivers, varying from narrow strips to broad 

 bottoms six and eight miles in breadth. The following is an analysis made 

 for the patent office, by C. T. Jackson, M. D., of Boston, in 1857, of the 

 alluvial soil of the Savannah river : 



Silica 78.000 



Alumina 10.040 



Lime 0.260 



Magnesia 0.200 



Potash 1.000 



Soda 0.730 



Peroxide of iron and oxide of manganese 4.850 



Phosphoric acid 0.310 



Sulphuric acid trace. 



Chlorine 0.050 



Crenic, apocrenic and humic acids 0.400 



Insoluble vegetable matter 4.300 



100.140 



