CULTURE AND CURING IN NORTH CAROLINA. 123 



THE MIDLAND DISTRICT. This is the most extensive and important of the four divisions, as it is also the 

 oldest ; fie one in which this industry took its rise and reached an extended development before being transplanted 

 to other regions. This division is strongly contrasted in several of its physiographical features with the one already 

 described : in its topography, in the geological origin of its soils, in some of their physical characters, and in their 

 indigenous forest growth. This region is generally hilly, and is often described as the hill country, the streams 

 having cut their way down through the decaying and easily abraded strata to the depth of 50, 100, and often 

 more than 200 feet below the water-sheds or summits of the intervening ridges. 



The bright-tobacco soils are very irregularly distributed, forming, even ill the most favored counties, a small 

 proportion of the whole area, and even of the tobacco-growing area. So controlling is the constitution of the soil 

 that a part of the same farm, and even of the same field, may produce the finest brands known in the market, and 

 another part be wholly incapable of making anything better than the commonest article. The quality of the tobacco 

 is determined absolutely in the field before the cutting, and no manipulation in the handling or curing will make a 

 " fancy-bright " tobacco out of a plant of inferior texture and color of leaf, although, of course, the best grades 

 may fail and be spoiled in the curing. As a general statement, the bright-tobacco patches and belts of land are 

 found on the ridges and benches, the divides between the water-courses. Wherever there is found on these ridges 

 a subsoil of a gray or yellowish, gravelly, or sandy loam, covered with a gray, sandy, or gravelly soil, the bright 

 tobacco may be grown. These favorable conditions of soil are always indicated by the native growth, and are 

 readily recognized by the experienced tobacco raiser; and even in riding over a region for the first time he can with 

 unerring certainty point out the best bright-tobacco tracts. The most noted sections of the district, which have 

 obtained the highest prices for their product, are commonly described as pea ridges, chincapin ridges, and 

 huckleberry ridges. The forest growth is usually of stunted oaks, chiefly post oak and white oak, generally mingled 

 with pines (Pinus mitis), and sometimes with an admixture of dogwood, hickory, black-jack, or sourwood ( Oxydendrori). 

 All these characteristics of the best bright-yellow tobacco soils are obviously also those of leanness and infertility. In 

 fact, such soils are generally nearly worthless for wheat or corn, or for any other of the ordinary crops of the country, 

 and until this new industry developed their capacity they were valued at $2 or $3 per acre, whereas they are now the 

 most valuable lands of the district, most eagerly sought after, and are valued at $10, $15, $25, and often more, per acre. 

 Here, as in the eastern district, the distinctive features of these favored soils are, first, an open texture of soil and 

 subsoil, securing drainage and warmth ; and second, the absence or low percentage of humus, of clay, and of iron oxide, 

 with the same (consequent) unproductiveness as to other crops. In the former case these conditions were found to 

 be dependent on the geological origin of the soils, the constituents which would have made a more fertile soil 

 having been eliminated by the mechanical and the chemical agencies by which it was found. In the Midland district 

 the geological conditions are very different. The soils here are of the other class of " sedentary soils", formed by 

 the decomposition and disintegration of the underlying rock in situ; so that whatever this rock contains is in 

 general to be found in the soil. This carries us directly to the question of the relation of geology to the origin and 

 distribution of these bright-tobacco soils, and suggests the important inquiry : What are the favorable conditions 

 of geological formation and structure under which such soils may be expected to occur ? 



As already stated, the rocks of the Midland district belong to the oldest formation, the Archaean, and consist 

 of granites, gneisses, schists, and slates of various structure and composition, indicated even to the casual and 

 uninstructed observer by difference of color, bedding, texture, and other obvious physical characters. These 

 differences of physical characters indicate profounder differences of lithological and chemical structure and 

 composition. A little observation suffices to show that wherever the rocks consist of light-colored feldspathic, 

 binary granites, as about Oxford, in Granville county, or of light-colored feldspathic and quartzose gneisses and 

 slates, as in the eastern part of Granville, the northwestern corner of Person, the southeastern corner of Caswell, 

 the northwestern part of Alamance, and much of the northern half of Guilford, the middle of Kockiugham, 

 about Eeidville, eastward and westward, for example, and the section of Pittsylvania, in Virginia, lying north of 

 Danville for several miles wherever this geological condition is observed, we have exceptionally good bright-tobacco 

 soils. The mineralogical elements are wanting (or present in small percentage) in these rocks, which give rise by 

 their oxidation and decomposition, to the rich, red-clay soils, on which are the large oak forests, the black and red 

 oaks and hickories. 



These latter soils are found overlying gray or dark-colored granites, syenites, greenstones, hornblende, and 

 chlorite schists, and the like, and to their lithological constitution the derived soils owe their distinctive characters. 

 Again, the bright-tobacco soils are found prevalent on the ridges, benches, and higher levels, as already stated, and 

 for two reasons : first, the feldspathic (and quartzose) granites and slates are less readily decomposed and abraded 

 than the more complex hornblende and chloritic rocks of the red soils, and hence the valleys are chiefly hewn out 

 of these ; second, on account of their situation and open texture, they are subjected to a continual leaching process 

 by meteoric waters charged with. organic acids, which dissolve and wash out, and thus continually diminish the 

 percentage of clay mecli!inir;illy, and of iron chemically. In addition, owing to their situation, they are older, 

 that is, have been subjected to this leaching, improving process longer, than the soils on the slopes and hillsides, 

 which are sifbjected to a greater amount of abrasion, and the consequent continual exposure of new surfaces. 



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