SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE, 1790-1860 275 



compost and marl scattered throughout the Southern States, 

 " ample for a perpetual supply for all possible drain upon the 

 resources of the soil," and although the long coast line was 

 able to furnish ' ' abundant stores of fish and seaweed for manur- 

 ing adjacent fields," very few of the planters knew of the value 

 and use of these fertilizers, and of those who did know, but few 

 applied them. 



Cotton is said to be the least exhaustive to the soil of any of 

 the great staple crops of America, and if the seed is returned to 

 the soil there is comparatively little of the vitality of the land 

 withdrawn by cultivation, but even this slight effort of fertilization 

 w r as not resorted to by the majority of the cultivators. There were 

 always, of course, a few planters who gave their attention to im- 

 proved methods of cultivation and made a profitable use of ferti- 

 lizers, and there were many more who scattered on their lands 

 the cotton seed or the small supplies of stable manure which had 

 collected over winter. So little attention was given to stock rais- 

 ing, however, and to the preservation of the stable manures, that 

 these feeble efforts to delay exhaustion were of little avail. The 

 planters in the rich bottom lands along the Mississippi hauled 

 the cotton seed into the bayous to be eaten by the hogs or to be 

 carried into the Gulf by the " Father of Waters." 



During the later years of the slave regime cotton seed became 

 a valuable article for the market, and the planters began hauling it 

 to the cotton-seed mills. Had they stipulated for a return of the 

 hulls after the oil had been extracted, and returned these to the 

 soil, there would still have been but little loss to the soil and per- 

 haps a gain, but few of them did this. Land was so little valued 

 that the owners did not consider it profitable to attempt to main- 

 tain the fertility of old lands when new ones of greater fertility 

 were to be had almost for the asking. It was considered more 

 profitable to withdraw the entire wealth from the soil than to 

 replace it, more profitable to " kill land " than to cultivate it. 



As was naturally to be supposed, the first signs of exhaustion 

 came from the Atlantic coast states, and some attention had been 

 given in the Carolinas and Georgia during the 50's to restoring 

 the fertility of the soil by means of manuring and crop rotation. 



