526 



clay can only be counteracted by maintain- 

 ing counterbalancing supplies of other parts., 

 as vegetable matter and sand. The latter 

 material can not be available in many cases, 

 or to much extent. But where poor sandy 

 land borders on the calcareous, as occurs in 

 numerous cases, it would be highly benefi- 

 cial to both, to cart the earth from each of 

 these different soils, to be placed as the most 

 needed manure on the other. And even 

 where, instead of sandy soil, there are only 

 the ordinary patches of clay " post oak" 

 and non-calcareous soil, interspersed among 

 the calcareous, the exchange of calcareous 

 and non calcareous earth between these, 

 would generally be both cheaply effected, 

 and highly profitab'e. Where the bottoms 

 or remains of old brick kilns, or any useless 

 half-burned bricks, or their fragments, are to 

 be had. this material would be good manure 

 for any of this land. Clay, by being burnt, 

 is converted to artificial stone, gravel, or 

 sand, and will serve as well to improve the 

 texture of soils superabounding in clay. 



The original first growth still remaining 

 is beautiful, and of the same general appear- 

 ance as of forests on the rich limestone lands 

 of upper Virginia. On the soils designated 

 as " post oak lands," and the more as these 

 are the more fertile, that particular tree 

 (quercits abiusiloba) is the most abundant. 

 Red and other kinds of oaks are much more 

 common on the poorer lands of this kind 

 and name. On the black (or highly calca- 

 reous) land, the forest growth is more gene- 

 rally of black walnut, ash, cotton-wood, 

 shell-bark hickory, and other trees that indi- 

 cate the richest neutral or calcareous soils. 

 Very little of such land now remains un- 

 cleared. On all such forest land there is 

 usually very little under-wood, or "shrubbery 

 of any kind ; and the bodies of the trees 

 are straight, and bare of limbs to a consid- 

 erable height, so that even where the trees 

 stand thickly, the view extends very far be- 

 neath the close cover of the united mass of 

 branches and foliage. There the many kinds 

 of trees, each with a different yet vivid tint 

 of foliage, offer to the eye a variety of beau- 

 ty which I have not setm equalled except in 

 forests on some steep sides of lime- stone 

 mountains. The dwellings of the planters 

 are mostly on the highest, yet but slight el- 

 evations of the surface, or broad knolls. 

 There has generally been enough of good 

 taste to leave standing around, or near to the 

 mansions, a portion of the original forest, 



making groves more beautiful than any that 

 taste and art could subsequently produce, 

 and nurse to their greatest perfection. 



On every plantation that has been settled 

 for twenty years or more, there has already 

 'been as much land cleared for tillage as will 

 leave barely enough of forest for fuel and 

 fencing timber. And of the cleared land, 

 nearly all is under the two crops of cotton 

 and corn, in the usual proportions, of each 

 property, of about two acres of cotton to one 

 of corn. The small remainder is not at rest; 

 but is under various crops, usually of small 

 culture, sweet potatoes, oats, wheat, rye, bar- 

 ley—and, as yet, on but few plantations, red 

 clover. It is at all times presumptuous in a 

 stranger, to condemn the generally establish- 

 ed usages of a newly seen agricultural re- 

 gion. Still more, it would be deemed as 

 foolish as it would be a hopeless attempt to 

 recommend for any cultivators, the designed 

 diminution of their great product, and pres- 

 ent usual amount of crop, for sale and for 

 profit. Nevertheless I will dare to say that 

 the great extent of surface kept under cot- 

 ton, year after year, though it is the great 

 source of income, is the great evil, and sin, 

 of agriculture in this region, and also in all 

 the cotton-growing country. I would not 

 offer, witl} any hope of its being adopted, 

 such unpalatable advice (however good) as 

 to lessen the* general production of cotton on 

 each plantation — but only the space planted 

 and tilled in cotton, to diminish which would 

 sometimes increase the gross product — and 

 always serve to increase the acreabfe produc- 

 tion, and still more the net profit of each 

 acre. So precarious has become the produc- 

 tion of cotton, on lands long under this cul- 

 ture — so numerous have become the insect 

 depredators, and so many the diseases of 

 cotton, caused by those seen, or other unseen 

 causes — and, consequently, so few full crops 

 are obtained, (or such as the field can some- 

 times and rarely produce,) compared to the 

 greater number of short crops in any term 

 of years — that, if. alternation or rotation of 

 crops -would seT ve to remedy this general 

 evil, it may perhaps be more profitable to 

 omit one cotton crop of two, or at least one 

 of three, by substituting some very different 

 and improving crop -and so make as much 

 cotton, and more profit, from partial than by 

 the present general culture. If the insects 

 and diseases o! cotton were thus prevented, 

 or much lessened, and thereby more healthy 

 a ad productive crops were obtained, it might 



