SOUTHERN AGRICULTURE, 1790-1860 277 



plowing was little followed. The ground was usually scratched to 

 the depth of about two and a half inches by the old iron breaking 

 plows universally in use on the plantations, and when this shallow 

 cultivation had ceased to be profitable, the planter removed to 

 new lands. 



This system of agriculture which was so rapidly depleting the 

 cotton lands of their fertility, was not characteristic of the South 

 alone. It had been the method universally practiced in all the 

 North American colonies, and it is still the only system known on 

 the wheat lands of the Northwest. Intensive culture has never 

 been resorted to by any people or in any region as long as the 

 extensive system has proven the more profitable. Labor and 

 capital are too scarce in a new country to admit of any other 

 than an extensive system being pursued. " New settlers are not 

 censurable for beginning this exhaustive culture." 



But what was notable about Southern agriculture was that even 

 the apparent injury done to the land by the " one-crop " system 

 had little or no effect in bringing about a change in the methods 

 of cultivation. " The system is such," wrote an editor of a South- 

 ern agricultural paper in i860, " that the planter scarcely considers 

 his land as a part of his permanent investment. It is rather a 

 part of his current expenses. He buys a wagon and uses it until 

 it is worn out, and then throws it away. He buys a plow, or hoe, 

 and treats both in the same way. He buys land, uses it until it is 

 exhausted and then sells it, as he sells scrap iron, for whatever it 

 will bring. It is with him a perishable or movable property. It 

 is something to be worn out, not improved. The period of its 

 endurance is, therefore, estimated in its original purchase, and the 

 price is regulated accordingly. If it be very rich, level land that 

 will last a number of years, the purchaser will pay a fair price for 

 it. But if it be rolling land, as is the greater bulk of the interior 

 of the Southern States, he considers how much of the tract 

 is washed or worn out, how long the fresh land will last, how 

 much is too broken for cultivation, and in view of these points 

 determines the value of the property." 



As the land became exhausted in the old cotton states, such as 

 South Carolina and Georgia, the planters abandoned their estates 



