76 COTTON CULTURE. 



which is wholly alluvial, intersected by numerous streams, 

 and of enormous productive power. 



The Yazoo is its eastern limit, and Deer Creek, Yala- 

 busha, and its tributaries, the Sunflower, Coldwater, and 

 Tallahatchie Rivers, permeate it in various directions. 

 About two hundred miles in length, with an average width 

 of twenty-five miles, it comprises over three million acres 

 of soil, which is literally exhaustless, and situated in the 

 very centre of the cotton belt. 



The crop is more certain here than in any other part of 

 the Mississippi Valley. It is, however, like the correspond- 

 ing section in Louisiana and Arkansas, west of the river, 

 subject to overflow, but does not require protection by 

 such enormous and extensive levees as those which guard 

 the lands on the west side of the river. 



Leaving now this great alluvion, we come to a different 

 class of cotton lands from any on the west side of the great 

 river. The hills or uplands of this State are of far greater 

 breadth than the submerged or alluvial lands, and some 

 parts of the State are covered with almost unbroken 

 forests of the southern pine. This is true of the fifteen 

 counties that lie in the south-east corner. Placing these 

 out of the account, there remains a range of counties ex- 

 tending diagonally across the State from Woodville to 

 Holly Springs, in all of which cotton is grown in large 

 quantities. 



These uplands are, in their natural state, covered with 

 a growth of white oak, red oak, beech, poplar, magnolia, 

 with pine interspersed. The soil is very soft and friable, 

 so that the surface, unless plowed with care, is soon ruined 

 and cut to pieces by the washing of the winter rains. 



When properly cared for, however, they deteriorate 

 very slowly in cotton culture, many of them being now 

 fully as valuable as they were from thirty to fifty years 

 ago, when they were first opened. The average crop of 

 this class of lands in Mississippi is about half a bale of 



