COTTON CULTURE. 13 



ally away from the bank rather than towards the stream. 

 But the soil is admirably adapted to cotton and the under- 

 drain is such as to compensate for the flatness. Successive 

 overflows haTe deposited an exhaustless bed of vegetable 

 mould, mixed with fine sand and wash from the hills, 

 through which the falling rains easily pass to a porous sub- 

 soil. 



In dry seasons, a copious dew, which is rapidly evapo- 

 rated by the hot morning sun, drenches the plants. The low 

 lands are covered by a heavy growth of gum, magnolia, 

 poplar and cypress, with, in many places, a thick under- 

 growth of cane. The labor of clearing, and the vegetable 

 rniasins of swamp lands, render them less desirable for per- 

 manent residence than the two classes above described, but 

 their exhaustless fertility, and the ease with which great 

 crops can be marketed, the steamboat in thousands of cases 

 coming within a few hundred yards of the gin house, can 

 but form a very strong attraction to every enterprizing 

 cultivator. In 1860, the general price of bottom lands, 

 cleared, cultivated, and safe from overflow, was one 

 hundred dollars per acre. 



Suppose now a person has a capital that enables 

 him to possess and cultivate a cotton farm of two hundred 

 acres, about half of which he proposes to put in cotton, 

 the remainder being devoted to corn, vegetable garden, 

 pasture, and woodland. What stock and implements, and 

 what number of laborers should he have ? 



Of draft animals, his principal demand is for mules or 

 horses. Oxen are too slow and heavy for the business, 

 unless it be in the fall, in hauling long distances to market 

 or a shipping point. It is desirable also that his mules be 

 of medium size, and remarkable for a fast walk above 

 every other quality. The cultivation of cotton requires 

 rapid movement rather than strength. Except in opening 

 heavy timbered land, weight of bone, either in animals or 

 laborers, is unnecessary and frequently objectionable. 



