COTTON CULTURE. 71 



washed clown the debris of secondary rocks. The bed 

 thus formed was once under salt water, but by gradual 

 upheaval, has been lifted to a moderate elevation. Thus, 

 through a wide belt, Texas affords the advantages of an 

 alluvial soil without the dangers of overflow, and free 

 from the miasms of river bottoms. 



While this description applies generally to the south- 

 eastern half of the State, it should be stated that the 

 extreme flatness of some of the prairies renders them unfit 

 for tillage, and the bottom lands of the Guadalupe, Colo- 

 rado, Brazos, and Trinity, especially the two latter, are 

 subject to spring overflow. Yet after subtracting the flat 

 prairie, and those overflowed bottoms which cannot e"asily 

 be protected by levees, there remains a vast breadth of 

 well-nigh virgin soil in this State admirably adapted to the 

 production of a very fine staple of cotton. 



Throughout this region, to which should be added the 

 superior cotton lands near Red River, on the north-eastern 

 border, the average yield per acre is seven hundred and 

 fifty pounds of cotton in the seed, or about three-quarters 

 of a bale of ginned cotton, which is more than double the 

 average yield of either Tennessee or South Carolina. 



As an unbroken body or strip of cotton land, probably 

 the valley of the Brazos is not surpassed on the American 

 continent. But a small part of it has yet been brought 

 under the plow. The bottom is, on an average, includ- 

 ing the second bottom which is fully as fertile as the imme- 

 diate bank, five miles wide, and between three and four 

 hundred miles long. Here are included a million of acres, 

 almost every square rood of which can be plowed, and all 

 capable of producing for a long series of years two bales 

 to the acre. Thus two-thirds of the largest of American 

 cotton crops might be grown in this valley. 



Barely less productive than this bottom is a wide, but 

 irregular body of lands, lying between the rivers, and 

 known as the black rolling prairie. The dip of these sur- 



