PKOCEEDINGS OF THE FAKMERS' CLUB. 331 



Judge Mitchell, 30 miles below Columbus, says his cotton crops 

 average 2,100 pounds to the acre, on creek bottom lands, work- 

 ing 44 to 50 hands, and makes all his corn and pork, and says 

 this is a full average for this section of the country. 



The following entry is under date Madison, Ga., March 12 : 

 Corn is now planting ; the distance is usually three and a half 

 by four feet, one stalk in a hill, or two stalks four by five feet 

 apart. Cotton is planted three by four feet the first of April, 

 and the average yield 600 pounds per acre. This is an upland 

 granitic region. 



At Greensboro, Ga., on similar soil. Dr. Poulain, an intelligent 

 planter, says, the average yield of corn per acre, in this county, 

 is about 12 bushels, and cotton 500 lbs. per acre, and 3 bales per 

 hand, with all the provisions made upon the plantation. A good 

 set of hands will cultivate eight acres of cotton and eight acres 

 of corn each. In 1849, the Doctor made on the Oconee bottom 

 1,300 lbs., per acre to all that was planted, and averaged six 

 bales per hand, and all the provisions. His land averaged thirty 

 bushels of corn per acre. A neighbor made eight bales and forty 

 lbs. per hand in one year, but had to hire extra hands to pick the 

 crop. Corn is planted from the 1st to the 15th of March, and cot- 

 ton from the 1st to the 15th of April, and nearly all the plowing 

 in the county is done with a small one horse plow. Some of the 

 old abandoned fields recently taken up and manured produced 

 1,000 pounds of cotton per acre. A planter says three to four 

 bales per hand is a good average, and fifteen acres per hand, half 

 corn and half cotton, is a fair allowance ; and that the average 

 corn crop is less than fifteen bushels per acre, and the average 

 cotton crop 500 pounds. 



The natural growth of upland timber in this region appears to 

 be oak, hickory, and short-leaf pine. On the bottom lands there 

 are poplars, lynn, &c. The soil is generally, a granitic clay. 



At Athens, I met with a planter who insists that what is work- 

 ing the ruin of that country, and will entirely ruin it if persisted 

 in, is cast iron plows. The reason is, they work too deep. 



In the vicinity of Athens, the average upland crop of cotton is 

 given as 800 pounds, upon a well managed plantation, for a series 

 of ten years. The average of the county at 400 pounds per acre 

 of all the cotton land cultivated. Corn averages ten bushels an 

 acre ; oats about five bushels, or 500 pounds, straw and all. 



On the South Carolina side of the Savannah river, fifteen miles 

 [Am. Inst.] V 



