SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE, 1790-1860 299 



Hamburg, Georgetown, Cheraw and Columbia. These boats had 

 an average capacity of 600 bales of 320 pounds each. The usual 

 method, however, of transporting cotton on the rivers was by 

 means of flatboats. These boats were managed by a " patroon " 

 and five hands. They carried usually about no bales of cotton. 

 The freights, including insurance, amounted to ^i per bale from 

 Columbia or Camden to Charleston, and $i.7S from Augusta or 

 Hamburg to Charleston. Transportation in this way was neces- 

 sarily slow and expensive. A writer in 1831 says: 



The rich inhabitants of the back country of South Carolina and of those 

 parts of North Carolina and Georgia which trade with Charleston are obliged 

 at great expense to transport their produce and receive in return their supplies ; 

 weeks and not infrequently months have elapsed before places, not more dis- 

 tant in a direct line than one hundred and twenty miles, could effect their com- 

 munication, and then and at all times with great expense and at no time with- 

 out great risk of loss and great delay. 



The profits of the planter, or what ought to be his profits, are but too often 

 consumed in the expense of transportation, and the merchant finds it impos- 

 sible to calculate with that certainty which his operations require, the time he 

 may expect arrivals or hear of his shipments having reached their points of 

 destination. 



Those planters who did not live along a navigable stream were 

 usually compelled to haul their cotton overland by wagon to 

 market. Even those who had the opportunity to make use of the 

 rivers as highways of commerce often preferred to send their 

 cotton overland. Thus Mills tell us that, although the freight 

 from Columbia to Charleston by way of the Congaree and Santee 

 rivers was in 182 1 only $1.50 per bale, "this route was so long 

 and hazardous that shippers preferred to send their cotton by 

 wagons at a cost of $3 per bale." 



The small planters often sold to dealers in the small towns 

 who undertook to haul the cotton over the poor roads, sometimes 

 one hundred and fifty miles, to where it could be sent by flatboats 

 to cities on the coast. 



The era of railroad building began in the South with the con- 

 struction of the Charleston and Hamburg railroad, which was 

 begun in 1830 and completed in 1833. But although there was 

 a gradual development of railroad building in the South between 



