SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE, 1790-1860 279 



western expansion existed at the North, and while the methods 

 of cultivation there were far from perfect, it had been found more 

 profitable in New England and the Middle States to manure the 

 ground and to rotate the crops when the fields showed signs of 

 exhaustion than to abandon them for western lands. Only the 

 surplus population was sent to the new states. 



The diversity of crops grown was much greater in the North 

 than in the South, and this permitted the adoption of a more 

 complex and beneficial system of tillage than the one- or two-field 

 systems. In the South the greater crops of all the slave-holding 

 states were hoed crops, cotton, corn, tobacco and sugar cane, and 

 a rotation of these was of little value in preserving the fertility 

 of the soil. To some extent the planters were excusable for not 

 cultivating other crops. Wheat and other small grains were often 

 unprofitable on account of the rust. For many other commodities 

 there was no market. A diversified system of farming demands 

 to a large extent a local market, for many kinds of produce raised 

 under this system, such as vegetables and fruits, will, on account 

 of their perishableness, difficulty of transportation, etc., meet with 

 only a local demand. The small urban population of the South, 

 itself largely a result of the difficulty of applying Southern labor 

 power to urban pursuits, created very limited local markets. There 

 were in the ten great cotton states in 1850 but seven cities hav- 

 ing each 8000 or more inhabitants, and in i860 there were but 

 eleven such cities. With the exception of Indian corn, such crops 

 as were raised were produced for the world market. Corn was 

 raised only for domestic use. With bacon it constituted almost 

 the only food used by the slaves and a considerable portion of the 

 whites. As the com fattened the hogs as well as the negroes, 

 the subsistence of the laboring population was practically condi- 

 tioned by the supply of this one commodity. This explains its 

 extensive cultivation at the South. But com was never intended 

 to take the place of cotton as the principal crop. Cotton was 

 given the best lands, and by many planters not enough com was 

 raised to supply the needs of the plantation. 



Another important reason for the continuance of the " one-field " 

 system of agriculture lay in the speculative character of cotton 



