SYSTEM AND ROTATION. 75 



ECTION IV. SYSTEM AND ROTATION IN COTTON CULTURE. 



Gov. BROOME : I propose, in this article, to detail that 

 system of rotation and shift of crops which I have in success- 

 ful operation here at La Place, and which has thus far given 

 entire satisfaction. In adjusting and adopting this arrange- 

 ment, I have not been governed so much by the largest amount 

 of cotton that might be grown on the plantation, as by the 

 amount of independence in plantation economy, which the ca- 

 pacity of the farm, under proper management, is competent to 

 secure to the labor and pains-taking of the proprietor. In 

 other words, after innumerable experiments and tests, this 

 system has been adopted as the one best and surest, calculated 

 to feed and clothe the operatives of the plantation, supply all 

 the stock necessary to its various uses, improve annually and 

 protect the fertility of the land, and leave, at the end of each 

 year, the proceeds of a fair cotton crop as the clear profits of 

 the plantation with all its outfit. I shall not presume to say 

 that there have not been favored localities in the older plant- 

 ing States east of this, whereon three of the above-stated 

 important conditions of plantation independence were for a 

 time possessed; nor do I say that there are not such favored 

 localities in the new or western States ; but this I will say, 

 that the total absence and disregard of the fourth and all- 

 important condition, the improvement and protection of the 

 fertility of the soil, together with the increasing population of 

 the country, having shorn such favored localities in the old 

 States of these advantages, will deprive them in the new States, 

 wherever the great principle of improvement is disregarded, in 

 the absence of some system of plantation economy that might 

 otherwise sustain them. It is this great error, this fatal error 

 in the plantation economy of the cotton-growing States, I have 



