336 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



Several other gentlemen thought the wheat crop was in no 

 danger of failing. 



STATISTICS OF COTTON GROWING THE PRODUCT PER ACRE AND 



PER HAND. 



Solon Robinson. — About ten years ago, I traveled extensively 

 in the cotton-groAviug States, and made memorandums, from 

 statements of planters, of the products of their plantations. To 

 show how much cotton, of the common or upland variety, is made 

 per acre and per hand, I have copied the following items, which 

 will show the product in several sections and upon various kinds 

 of soil, in Georgia and South Carolina. 



J. E. Hurt's plantation is on the Alabama side of the Chatta- 

 hoochie river, 27 miles below Columbus. He works forty to fifty 

 hands, and averages five bales of 500 pounds each to the hand, 

 and makes 30,000 pounds of bacon a year more than is wanted 

 on the plantation, and all the corn he requires for plantation use. 



Neighboring planters make more cotton, but have to buy corn 

 and meat. Some who don't make much corn make seven or eight 

 bales to the hand. 



John Wolfolk's plantation is eight miles below Columbus. He 

 owns 8,000 acres — some of it the richest kind of bottom land, 

 such as will produce 1,000 to 1,500 pounds of cotton per acre. 

 He has made 3,000 pounds per acre, and 30 to 50 bushels of corn 

 on similar land. His land is valued at $30 an acre. The bottom 

 land is overflowed by high floods. He plows his ground with one 

 mule. Land in the vicinity not as good as this rents for $2.50 an 

 acre. These bottoms are known as " isinglass land," and are con- 

 sidered the best of any, as the soil is never too wet, and seldom 

 suffers from drouth. 



Gen. Abercrombie, on the opposite side of "the river from Col. 

 Wolfolk, has frequently made 50 bushels of corn per acre, and on 

 same sort of land 2,500 pounds of cotton. He uses a subsoil 

 plow, and plants corn in beds four feet apart, reversing the beds 

 for the next year. Cotton is planted in beds five to six feet 

 apart. His average yield is 1,000 pounds per acre, and four bags 

 per hand, and average price six cents a pound. Usually plants 

 300 acres of cotton, and 250 acres- of corn per annum. Keeps a 

 large stock of cattle, but doubts the profitableness of it, and 

 thinks his meat costs him more than it would to grow and sell 

 cotton and buy meat. He works 40 hands, all told, equal to 30 

 full hands, and averages 15 or 16 acres to the hand. 



