COTTON CULTURE. 79 



Wetumpka, are wide and very productive, but farther 

 north, the good cotton lands decrease in amount, there 

 being in this part of the State many pine and black oak 

 barrens, where half a bale per acre is a good yield ; but 

 the valley of the Coosa is good land, as far up as Rome, in 

 Georgia. 



GEORGIA. 



This State is naturally divided into three parts or sec- 

 tions; southern Georgia, middle, and northern Georgia, 

 or the Cherokee lands, as they are familiarly called. A 

 line drawn westward from Charleston or from Beaufort 

 separates the most of the flat pine barrens from the better 

 parts of the State, which lie north of such a line. The 

 Cherokee lands may be described, in a general way, as 

 that part of the State lying north of the thirty-fourth par- 

 allel, or an east and west line passing through Marietta. 



These northern lands, being situated among the spurs 

 and foot-hills of the Alleghanies, are high and rough, well 

 adapted to grazing, corn, and wheat, and but ill suited to 

 the production of the great southern staple, which flour- 

 ishes best on lands that are unsuitable for wheat. 



The climate of southern Georgia is, of course, well 

 adapted to cotton, but the difficulty is with the soil. In 

 the valleys of the Chattahoochie, the Flint, and on the 

 waters of the Altamaha, there are many rich bottoms, but 

 rice is found to be a more profitable crop on many of these 

 lands. The region about Columbus, however, is a good 

 cotton soil, and a large amount is raised in that part of the 

 State. The good and the poor lands of Georgia are more 

 mixed than in any of the south-western or new States^but 

 in a general way, the middle counties of Georgia are the 

 cotton counties. The natural growth on these lands is 

 white and red oak, chestnut, hickory, poplar, sycamore on 

 the water courses, with pine on the poorer lands, and black 

 jacks on the barren hills. 



