THE UPPER PINE BELT. 



77 



The body of these swamps lie below the point where the above sample 

 was obtained, and are of course more fertile. Such soil, well cultivated, 

 yields, without manure, 1,200 to 1,500 pounds of seed cotton, and from 

 forty to seventy-five bushels of corn. These lands were being rapidly 

 cleared and cultivated anterior to the war. Since then they have been to 

 a great extent abandoned for the higher and more easily tilled uplands. 

 The freshet of 1865 broke the dams on the Great Pee Dee, which excluded 

 the freshets, and they have never been repaired. These lands are subject 

 to overflow, and the erection of levees for protection has been only prac- 

 ticed here and there by large planters. In the absence of records show- 

 ing the risk from freshets to these lands, the following extract from a 

 plantation record, kept by James H. Hammond, is taken. The island 

 field is at Silver Bluff, on Savannah river, and lies rather lower than the 

 average of the Savannah river swamps. It received no manure, and be- 

 ing small and of little moment in the larger operations of the plantation, 

 it had hardly average care bestowed upon it. It was planted continuously 

 in corn and pumpkins (no record kept of the latter crop, which was always 

 abundant). The years not entered are due to the absence of the proprie- 

 tor, the land being planted as usual : 



Year. Acres Planted. 



1838 25 



1839 25 



1840 15 



1841 20 



1842 25 



1843 20 



1844 25 



1845 25 



1847 10 



1848 25 



1849 . . 25 



1850 25 



1851 25 



1852 25 



1854 30 



1855 30 



1859 30 



1860 25 



Giving an average yield of thirty-five bushels corn per acre. During 

 these twenty -two years only one crop was seriously damaged by freshets. 



