FARMERS' REGISTER— RxVIL-RUAD TO CHARLESTON. 



363 



way ; but I am certain that with the money laid out 

 at Vances,* it certainly would. 



The experience in banking has been great — as 

 great as the ignorance of its nature and results has 

 been marked. As to incredulity, it can only be 

 compared to that of the cockneys, who, early in the 

 reign of George the 2nd, went to the theatre to see 

 a mountebank get into a quart bottle. However, 

 *' he was indisposed" that evening and pacified the 

 multitude by promising on the following night to 

 pack himself into one containing only a pint. 

 Thus, the planters have tried to restrain an extra- 

 ordinary current of water, proceeding from a fall 

 of rain or a melting of snow, with the banks of 

 the same canal as that, to which it had been ac- 

 customed to flow in a season of ordinary character. 



The consequence lias been, that banks have been 

 broken, gullies for mud and whole acres of soil, 

 worth four years since, according to the reckoning of 

 the sapient calculating and humane proprietors i^50 

 or ^100 per acre, have been swept away and de]>o- 

 sited iu Santee swamps. Hence, plantations for 

 which not ten years ago bonds to the amount of 

 $50,000 were given, and many of them not re- 

 deemed, are not now worth a quarter the sum, and 

 others for which .*!35,000 were offered, could not, 

 at this time, fuid a prudent cash purcliaser for 

 $3,500. In sliort, unless a channel for the extra 

 water of the freshets was provided, attempts, all at- 

 tempts to render the swamps safe for cultivation, 

 are as futile as would be the scheme to check tiie 

 streams of the Mississippi or the Ganges. This 

 has been very clearly and expensivel}'' proved this 

 3'ear. 



But the bank from the vicinity of dry swamp to 

 the stone landing just above Stateburg, and which 

 cost -S 12,000, is clear proof of the folly of disre- 

 garding nature. Like all other banks, it failed, 

 and although an '' object of high expectation and 

 heavy expense, left the state burdened with works 

 not only useless but hurtful." This is the exact 

 character of all the works in question, and planta- 

 tions which 40 years ago were triennially covered 

 with a thick alluvium and at no expense, produc- 

 tive to the owner, have now become channelled 

 into sterility or covered with sand and thus been 

 made useless, and after a very heavy expense, 

 wholly unproductive. The folly of one generation 

 has been punished for its inattention to the practi- 

 ces and precepts of its predecessors. 



However, it is now time to allude to the pass- 

 ways across the swamps. As I have before observ- 

 ed, my leading motive is, lest some persons should 

 be so enamored of all Charleston and great man's 

 schemes, as he advocated the rail road bridge, 

 instead of the embankment system, to discuss the 

 relative advantages of perishable wood with those of 

 imperishable earth.^ 



In advance, I would observe, for the benefit of 

 those, so sage and prescient as to confound an em- 

 bankment with a road on it, with one intended to 

 confine or exclude water, that the bank near State- 

 burg above mentioned, first gave way at where 



* However, sucli wus tlie sujierlative wisdom of the 

 Senate, or its, of course justly founded confidence in 

 the great expander, that the Senators from Camden and 

 Claremont, the two districts most interested in a good 

 work of the kind, voted for this foolish work and waste- 

 ful expenditure. 



t The errata in this paragraph must be ascriljcd to the 

 paper from which we copy. — [Ed Farm. Reg. 



there had run for ages, a natural stream. Hither 

 the greater force of the fluid was concentrated, and 

 as soon as it reached a certain height away went the 

 fabric. — But, suj)posing that it had been intended 

 for a passway, there would have been substituted 

 for solid end.)ankmenl at this natural stream, Gum 

 Swamp, I think, a sufficient number of arches, so, 

 that the descending water would have gradually 

 filled the swamp; above and below the dam, and 

 thus the higher would have fully counteracted the 

 lower pressure. 



I would next advert to tlie expense of embank- 

 ment, on the supposition, that it is to be performed 

 by "that class of labor'" not furnished by New or 

 Old England, Germany or France; hut by the ne- 

 groes of Carolina. It is to their employment and 

 the expenditure of (he capital of f/ie state within the 

 state that I look. 



We will suppose one of these embankments to 

 be 6 miles or 36,000 feet. An embankment 60 

 feet base, 20 fijet wide and 18 feet deep, can be per- 

 formed by able bodied negroes, at the rate of one 

 foot per day — thus, on the calculation that they 

 are to be hired at the rate of 25 cents per day, or 

 !i^75 dollars per year, costing .99,000.. This simi 

 w'ill cover the erection of the wooden bridges ne- 

 cessary 'till the work is completed ; when, and at 

 the public leisure,! should propose to found brick 

 piers or bridges permanently on the granite, that 

 could then be brought, for the purpose, with both 

 ease and cheapness. 



To the advocates for wood, I leave the calcula- 

 tion of a Avooden road across the same distance of 

 swamp. I think, but am not certain, the superin- 

 tendent calculated on bridging Murray's swamp 

 for i^S per foot. This makes the wooden system 

 infinitely greater in expense than the embankment 

 plan. However, its advocates can state it exactly, 

 and the accounts of the Charleston road will shew 

 what it has cost that company. 



But, in the actually depressed state of land in 

 this country, it is impossible to avoid adverting to 

 the subject of its improvement ; and, if we think it 

 at all practicable, suggesting a position and a plan 

 which may unite in rendering a service to the 

 landholder, and in conferring a benefit on the state. 



In the first place, 1 would suggest the simulta- 

 neous formation of an embankment and a canal 

 with a lock or locks into the river, from the Cam- 

 den road at Boykin's mill, on Swift's cieek, to the- 

 late Mr. Ancrum's ferry. The creek to be turn- 

 ed into the canal by a dam, and thus all the low 

 ground below, would only have to contend with 

 back water, a part, if not the whole of which, 

 might be rendered harmless and jaossiiZ?/ altogether 

 excluded. 



In the second place, I would suggest a dam from 

 Garner's ferry through the Garner, Miller and 

 Furman property, to the land where it is high and 

 [)erfectly safe. — This is one of the most favored 

 situations on the river. Nature has provided a 

 connected chain of lakes and a correspondent range 

 of high land, along which the present road runs, 

 which assures us of her sanction, and that if we open 

 another channel, such a one as the formation of an 

 embankment of 60 feet base, &c. we shall not 

 thwart, but second her efforts. A large mass of 

 v/ater thus brought out, in a double portion to the 

 eastern shore of the last lake, would then have to 

 be provided for; but, it is a matter of little ques- 

 tion whether, as in low^ freshets, the Kcnlock dam. 



