340 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



200 acres in oats, 200 acres miscellaneous. The average yield of 

 cotton is about 800 pounds per acre, and of corn about 25 bushels, 

 though some of the land will average 50 bushels, and some haa 

 made 80 bushels per acre in favorable seasons with manure. 

 Corn stalks are plowed under ; formerly it was the practice to 

 burn them, and everything else that would burn on the land. 



April 26, cotton was planting, and corn had been up and killed 

 down by frost and snow the 15th of April. 



Mr. Boykin's plantation, adjoining Col. Chesnut's, down the 

 Wateree, has 140 slaves, and not over 45 of them field hands, and 

 has about 2,000 acres in cultivation on the river bottom and 

 adjoining upland, and is worked on the system of use and rest; 

 has 300 acres in cotton, which yields 800 pounds per acre and 

 about six bales per hand ; he plants about 150 acres of corn, 

 which averages 20 bushels per acre ; sows plenty of oats and 

 some wheat, and made last year 24,000 pounds of pork. The 

 allotment per hand is ten acres of cotton and corn. Plants cot- 

 ton in beds 3| feet apart upon high land, and 5 feet upon bottom 

 land. Corn is planted on high land 3^ by 5 feet apart, one stalk 

 in a hill, and in drills 5 feet apart on low land. The corn land 

 is manured with yard manure, made by cattle droppings and pine 

 leaves. The soil of the low land is clayey loam, and some of the 

 upland is stiff clay, running into sand as it recedes from the river. 

 Cotton land that ordinarily produced 500 pounds per acre was 

 made to produce 2,400 to 2,650 pounds per acre in a series of 

 eight years by the use of manure, and 100 bushels of corn and 

 15 bushels of peas per acre have been made by manuring upon 

 land that ordinarily made but 20 bushels of corn without manure. 



The rations on this plantation are 3^ pounds of bacon per 

 week, and all the corn meal the hands will eat, with occasional 

 fresh meat and vegetables extra. 



On Col. Nettle's plantation, on the journey eastward from the 

 one above, his overseer told me that, by an improved system of 

 cultivation, he had raised the production of cotton from 40 bales 

 in 1846 to 91 bales in 184Y, and 184 bales in 1848, working 35 

 field hands, and had made all the corn and meat needed on the 

 place. Part of the land is quite stifi" and part of it sandy, and 

 will not average over 400 pounds per acre of cotton in the seed, 

 or 5 bushels of corn without manure. Corn with manure averages 

 12 bushels, planted 4^ by 4^ feet, one stalk in a hill. Cotton is 

 planted in beds 3^ feet apart, and stalks left 4 or 5 inches apart 



