TOPOGRAPHY OF BRYAN FARM. 11 



the eastern and southern boundaries. The uncultivated part of the 

 farm consists of timber tracts, level except about the swamp, where 

 the land rises on two sides, the eastern rise forming a little wooded 

 hill more than 100 feet above the river (PI. VU, fig. 2). 



The cultivated area is a level, alluvial bench extending back from 

 the river a half mile to foothills (PI. Ill, fig. 2). It is divided into 

 five approximately equal lots, two along the southern or woodland 

 boundary and three along the northern or river boundary. A straight 

 line of fence parallel to the river separates the three river lots from 

 the two inland lots. The river tract is rectangular, about three times 

 as long as broad, and extends east — that is, up river- -several hundred 

 yards farther than the inland tract. A bushy draining ditch, which 

 will be designated throughout this paper by the local name Persimmon 

 Branch, stretches lengthwise through the middle of this area from the 

 calamus swamp to the lower or southwest coi^ner of the farm, where 

 it empties into the river by a swampy, timbered outlet. Persimmon 

 Branch is joined not far from its river mouth by a tributarj- — locallj- 

 known as Partridge Branch — that drains the western inland lot. The 

 other inland lot has no ditch, and part of it is often wet; the side 

 toward the swamp washes badly during heavy rains. It has been 

 found convenient to designate these lots by numbers, the three along 

 the river being numbered 1, 2, and 3 and the others i and 5 (see map, 

 PI. n). 



The farm meets the river in a pre.cipitous, tree-fx'inged bins' from 

 20 to 30 feet high, which at low tide has a strip of sandy shore (PI. IV, 

 fig. 1). All the buildings but one stand at intervals on a road running 

 along the brink of the bluff. In the middle of the river front of lot 1 

 are the house, surrounded by a yard with a paling fence and shaded by 

 great locusts, and a horse barn with its corn house (see PI. I, frontis- 

 piece, fig. 1). In lot 2, touching the line dividing it from lot 1, is a 

 cow barn, and at the middle of lot 2 is a negvo cabin. A storage barn 

 stands several hundred yards south of the cabin, at the northwest cor- 

 ner of lot 4 (see map, PL II). 



The staple products of the farm are corn, wheat, and tobacco in 

 irregular rotation with timothy, which furnishes the winter supply for 

 some half dozen cows and about as many horses. In recent years 

 market gardening has been attempted on a small scale, in the light, 

 sandy part of lot 3, between Persimmon Branch and the river. It is 

 seldom that even two-thirds of the five lots is under cultivation at once. 

 Of the remaining third or more, 5 to 10 acres is usually devoted to 

 timothy, and the rest is worn-out mowing lands and weedy old corn- 

 fields (]*1. V, fig. 1). Broom-sedge, which in spring makes good pas- 

 turage but later is refused by stock, comes into these cornfields after 

 the first year, and, in time, into the timothy fields (PI. XIV, fig. 3). 

 Of the cultivated area, as much as 30 acres is sometimes devoted to 

 corn. A smaller acreage is given to wheat, and still less to tobacco 



