134 PLANT LIFE OF ALABAMA. 



these rivers, in the counties of Covington and Geneva, and the lower 

 part of Coffee, Dale, and Henry, about 10 per cent is under cultivation. 

 The large areas of the farm lands are used for the pasture of cattle and 

 sheep, which are left without attention to roam throughout the open 

 pine forests and intervening swamps. The people of these sparsely 

 inhabited regions depend for their livelihood mostly upon the timber 

 and the resinous products of the longleaf pine forests. The land under 

 cultivation is devoted principally to the growing of food crops, chiefly 

 corn, sweet potatoes, rice, with some sugar cane, the several products 

 scarcely sufficing to meet the home demand. It is only of late years 

 that the possibilities of the soil of the better class of pine lands have 

 received a proper appreciation. Wherever the sandy loams rest upon 

 a more retentive, somewhat clayey subsoil, these lands, with the help 

 of a slight outlay for fertilizers, never fail to give satisfactory returns 

 to the tiller. In the few localities where the experiment has been made 

 the cultivation of cotton has proved successful. The tropical sugar 

 cane is grown on every farm for the production of the largely con- 

 sumed table sirup and raw sugar to cover the needs of the homestead. 

 On the best of the pine land this crop will prove to be profitable, if 

 undertaken on a more extensive scale. For on these lands the cultiva- 

 tion of the sugar cane is easier and less expensive than on the heavy 

 alluvial lands, which frequently require large outlays for drainage. 

 Moreover, the cane grown on these pine lands yields a juice of great 

 purity and rich in crystallizable sugar. 



With the increased facilities for transportation to distant northern 

 markets, much attention has been given to truck farming all along the 

 railroad lines, and the large shipments of cabbages and Irish potatoes 

 and other vegetables and fruits made every spring show the increasing 

 importance of this industry. Among fruits, strawberries and water- 

 melons are raised in large quantities for shipment. On the rolling 

 pine lands, with a suitable subsoil, peaches and grapes under proper 

 modes of cultivation, succeed well. 



This industry of truck farming is carried on most extensively on the 

 Coast plain. Upon this low land, where the winter climate is tempered 

 by the proximity of the sea, the warm, sandy loams produce crops which 

 reach their perfection at an earlier date and with less risk of injury by 

 frosty weather. During the winter and early spring the extensive fields 

 of cabbages present a most peculiar compact plant formation of a bien- 

 nial member of the Brassica tribe, alternating with a tuber-bearing, 

 solanaceous annual the Irish potato. The planting season of the vari- 

 ous crops of early vegetables for northern markets extends from the 

 middle of October to the middle of March. The mean temperature of 

 this period averages about 57, with a mean of all the monthly highest 

 temperatures of 78 for the coldest part of the growing season De- 

 cember to February; conditions highly favorable for starting and fur- 



