482 



THE SO IT THE 



RN PLANTER. [August 



would be as much improved in healtliiness, 

 as in fertility. Such change to greater 

 healthiness has been most marked in my 

 own country, in the extensively marled 

 neighbourhoods, even where there has been 

 no considerable draining operations executed 

 or required. This improvement of health, 

 is ascribed by all who have experienced the 

 beneficial change, mainly to the sanitary in- 

 fluence of the now calcareous soil. 



Your extensive and rich river swamp 

 lands offer another great object for improve- 

 ment, and increase of agricultural profit and 

 wealth. Even " sandy pine barrens,^^ now 

 unfit for tillage, or for any useful production, 

 other than the magnificent pine forests which 

 cover them, if made calcareous and put un- 

 der Bermuda grass, (the curse of tillage 

 lands so infested) would be made as valua- 

 ble land for pasturage, as the equally barren 

 chalk downs of England. 



Your high lands are mostly level, or of 

 gently undulating surface, and easy to till, 

 and the soils generally well suited to your 

 great staple crops, corn and cotton. The 

 navigable rivers which pervade Lower South 

 Carolina, in thfir number and character, 

 present a remarkable geographical feature, 

 as singular as it is valuable. The main ca- 

 nals required for extensive drainage of the 

 inland swamps, would be so many additions 

 to the existing navigable highways. So low 

 are the intervening swamp lands, that nearly 

 all the deep navigable rivers, might be con- 

 nected by canals of level or nearly level 

 water ; and in that respect. Lower South- 

 Carolina might possess the peculiar facilities 

 of Holland for extensive inland navigation. 

 These connecting canals, by diverting some 

 of the superfluous supply of fresh waters of 

 some rivers, to others where it is deficient, 

 might perhaps serve to extend greatly the 

 present area of tide covered land, capable of 

 being flooded for rice culture. If such ca- 

 nals, mainly for drainage, but serving also 

 for navigation, were made to connect the 

 Edisto with the Ashley, the Cooper and the 

 Santee, there would be another incidental 

 advantage as remarkable as it would be val- 

 uable. The excavation of the canals through 

 the great swamps, (and certainly between 

 those stretching from the Ashley nearly to 

 the Santee,) would generally penetrate into 

 marl of the richest quality, lying a few feet 

 below the surface of the swamps. If duly 

 appreciated, this rich calcarious earth, to be 

 used as manure, would go far to reimburse 



the costs of the excavation ; and if used for 

 lime-burning, would furnish good lime, and 

 at one-third of the price of that for which 

 South-Carolina has paid and continues to 

 pay millions of dollars to the lime-burners of 

 New-England. This voluntary tribute, at 

 least, which is one of so many unnecessari- 

 ly paid by the South to the North, might be 

 ended to the immediate and great profit of 

 both the sellers and the buyers of the sub- 

 stituted lime, made of the abundant, cheap 

 and excellent native material. The buying 

 of Northern lime by South-Carolina and 

 Georgia, is as unprofitable and as absurd a 

 procedure as the usage of importing Nor- 

 thern hay. But of these and of many sim- 

 ilar things, we of the South have no right 

 to blame any but ourselves. All the com- 

 modities which we import from the Northern 

 States, and which n}ight be more cheaply 

 provided at home, serve indeed to make up 

 an enormous amount of annual tribute. But 

 this part of our general burden is fairly and 

 properly levied by northern enterprise and 

 industry upon southern listlessness and indo- 

 lence. Very diff"erent, however, is the case 

 as to the far greater proportion of the gene- 

 ral amount of tribute paid by southern to 

 northern interests — from which we have no 

 defence, because government induces and 

 enforces the payment, by the legislative ma- 

 chinery of protecting duties and the indi- 

 rect bounty system. But I am straying from 

 my designed subject, the improvement of 

 southern agriculture to its governmental and 

 political oppression. 



Putting aside all speculative and untried 

 subjects and modes of improvement — and 

 counting upon nothing more than the pro- 

 per use of your calcareous manures and ju- 

 dicious tillage, and the early results of both 

 — and supposing that your country should 

 be so benefitted only in the same degree as 

 has been the small portion of mine already 

 marled or limed — the most moderate esti- 

 mate of the agricultural values so to be cre- 

 ated would now appear to you to be so great- 

 ly exaggerated as to be altogether incredi- 

 ble. But however much I would desire to 

 avoid the position of a discredited witness, 

 I will not be restrained by that fear from 

 stating general results, which are notorious 

 in Virginia, and to sustain the truth of 

 which, thousands of particular facts can be 

 adduced. These results, susceptible of clear 

 proof, or exhibited by official documents, 

 are that thousands of farms have been dou- 



