THE UPPER PINE BELT. 87 



which killed by their shade the grasses that were especially troublesome 

 on cultivated lands, has been almost wholly abancloned. Nor is there 

 any regular or general system of rotation of crops. Cotton lands espe- 

 cially are planted year after year in the same crop, and if properly man- 

 ured, are thought to improve. Rotation, when practiced, is two years 

 cotton, one year corn ; small grain is planted in the ftiU, after the corn is 

 gathered, and the next summer a crop of corn or cow-peas is grown on 

 the stubble, to be followed the next spring by cotton. In Marlboro county, 

 land planted in cotton for fourteen successive years, without additional 

 manure, except the increased cotton seed from the larger croi)s, })roduce 

 double what they did at first. 



The fall plowing of cotton and corn lands, once much practiced, has 

 been very generally abandoned ; some still think it pays to break the 

 land eight or ten inches deep in the fell about every fourth year, other- 

 wise it is only done to turn under weeds on land that has been resting. 



The depth of tillage varies from two and a half to six inches, measured 

 on the land side of the furrow, and it is very rare to see more than one 

 animal used in plowing. It is only the larger farmers, who are becoming 

 scarcer, who use two-horse plows occasionally. 



The amount of land once cultivated, that has been abandoned, is stated 

 as very little in Hampton county ; at from ten to twenty per cent, in Barn- 

 well ; at ten to fifteen per cent, in Orangeburg ; at twenty-five per cent, in 

 Darlington, and, excluding swamps, at nothing in Marion and Marlboro. 

 When the uplands are turned out in this region, they grow up first in 

 broomsedge, which is succeeded by short leaf pine, beneath which in time 

 all grass and undergrowth disappears. When again taken in, they yield 

 well with manuring, but without good treatment they deteriorate more 

 rapidly than virgin soil. It is a cj[uestion — on which there is a diversity 

 of opinion — whether the second growth of pines is a benefit or an injury 

 to land ; in the lower country it is thought to be injurious, supporting 

 the view that narrow leaved growths do not improve the soil. In the upper 

 country the opinion is, however, decided that the soil improves under the 

 old-field pine. With some other growths there is no question, in this 

 regard ; for instance the persimmon always improves lands, and seems to 

 exert no bad influence even on the growing crops in cultivated fields, it 

 being often remarked that the tallest cotton is found under such trees, 

 where it is dwarfed by the proximity of a pine or a post-oak. Certain 

 other forest trees seem to favor particular growths here, as the sugarberry, 

 under which verdant patches of blue grass are often seen, when found no 

 where else. There seem to be friendly and unfriendly relations among 

 plants. Bermuda grass will not grow under pines or cedars, but thrives 

 most under the Euonymus. Polk is said to give the rust to cotton, 

 and Jamestown weed will, it is believed, eradicate nut grass. 



