354 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. [H774, 775, 776, 77T 



prevalently with Post Oak and Bottom Pine (P. taeda), with some 

 Spanish (•' Red"), Scarlet ("Spanish"), Black, and (true) Red Oaks, 

 and Hickory. Its soil is generally light, gray, with pale yellow 

 subsoil ; it is peculiarly well adapted to sweet potatoes, but also 

 yielding good average crops of cotton and corn. 



The luxuriant growth of wet-meadow plants (Xyris, Eryngium, Hydrocotyle) 

 in some of the fields of this flat shows a want of drainage, owing doutbless to 

 the heavy gray clays ("Soap-stone"), which underlie, and crop out in the bank 

 of the river near Westville and elsewhere (H240). The soil of Strong River 

 Hommock seems to improve as we approach Pearl River, the fertility of whose 

 hommock near Georgetown, Talley's Ferry, and Rockport, has been mentioned 

 (f»i«2). 



774. On the Copiah side especially, the high hommock, timbered chiefly with 

 upland Oaks, Bottom and Short-leaf Pine, Hickory, and Sweet Gum, often 

 possesses a line yellow loam subsoil, and has given rise to large plantations ; 

 its entire width, on both sides of the river, being from three and a half to four 

 miles. 



775. In the interior of the county, patches of Short-leaf Pine sometimes 

 occur on the ridges (1J761 2 ); in its eastern portion, as near Old Hickory, P. 0.,, 

 on the headwaters of Bowie, the Oaks and Hickory sometimes become quite 

 prevalent among the Long-leaf Pine, forming moderately productive upland soils ; 

 while the bottoms are very fine, though at times (as on the Okachicama Chitto, 

 and 0. Iscatina, or "Big" and "Little Guodwater"), there are heavy silicious 

 soils (1f404), requiring drainage, and destitute of vegetable matter. 



776. Lower down on the Bowie, however, cultivation is again 

 restiicted almost entirely to the bottoms and hommock, which are 

 of moderate extent, but very fertile ; the residences being very 

 generally in the hills adjoining. Mt. Carmel is surrounded by 

 Long leaf Pine Woods ; southward of the same, however, on the 

 waters of White Sand Creek, in W. half T. 7, R. 19 W., we meet 

 rather unexpectedly a tract of uplands several miles in extent, 

 timbered to a considerable extent with Oaks, and possessing a 

 subsoil of a deep orange red, sandy hardpan, which i3 several feet 

 in thickness; the soil produces good cotton and very fine corn, and 

 lasts well. How far this land extends to the westward, I am not 

 aware ; the dividing ridge between the Bowie White Sand posseses 

 a very sandy soil. Lower down towards Pearl River, again, the 

 creek bottoms only are cultivated, the uplands being Pine Hills 

 possessing, in part, a good loam subsoil at a depth of eight to 

 tw< lve inches. 



777. In passing from Westville to Monticello, we find, on the ridges dividing 

 Silver Creek from Crooked Creek (which otherwise bear the " Pine Hill " char- 

 acter), some "bald hilltops" covered with a growth of long grass and stunted 

 Long-leat Pine, whose soil can hardly be termed any thing else than a potter's 

 clay, formed out of the materials of the Grand Gulf Group (H230, tf.); and 

 higher up still there appear ledges of whitish sandstone (H 238). As we advance 

 southward, this clay stratum seems to descend from the top of the ridge, around 

 which it forms a level terrace, to which we come down by rather an abrupt 

 descent from the sandy hills, on the Monticello road. From this terrace, which 

 bears the same stunted vegetation as the hilltops above mentioned, a gradual 

 slope brings us down into the hommock of Pearl River (lf<562), which opposite 

 Monticello is about two miles wide, timbered with Bottom Pine, Sweet and Black 

 Gum, Water and Willow Oak, Elm, etc. Its soil is productive, of a pale graj 



