^^4 
THE TKOPICAL AQRieULTURlST. [September i, i8gi. 
But Ccirolina lioe, like Orleans cotton, had, daring I 
this period, foroed ita way to the top of the 
European market, was considered the choicest 
variety, and commanded the highest price. 
Tnen came war and the Federal gunboats and 
Monitors crawled up the creeks and shells sang over 
the deserted quarters. Lines of intrenchments 
bisected the fertile fields ; embankments and canals 
were demolished; barns, dweUings and mills 
destroyed ; the neglected squares soon choked with 
reeds and sedge and saplings ; and when peace 
finally came it found a desolated wilderness, 
tenanted only by the marsh-hen and the moccasin, 
while as overseer the alligator basked in undisturbed 
serenity. 
Add to this the then untried and still unsolved 
problem of free negro labor, a motor generated o£ 
indelirium and ending in paralysis, and it will be 
seen that the participle demoralised will but 
feebly desoribe the condition and prospects of the 
rice industry in 1865. The wonder is, not that 
it should have failed to make greater headway in 
the interval, but that it should have recovered at all. 
In order to fully appreciate the wrecked state 
of afEaira at this time it is necessary to under- 
stand the physical oonatruction of . a plantatior. 
Two modes ol irrigation are employed in America— 
the " tidal" and the reaeryoir of " baok-water" 
system— the former on the Atlantic seaboard, the 
latter in Louisiana. The process of cultivation in 
each case is similar, and they differ only in the means 
by which the flow is obtained. 
Of late years many of the old augar plantations 
of Louisiana have been adapted to the culture 
of rioe, aud it is possible, in almost any portion 
of that state of innumerable bayous, to irrigate 
more or less successfully by establishing a reservoir 
of back-water, to be arawn upon ai the proper 
intervals. But the supply must evidently be de- 
pendent upon the rainfall in the up-country, and 
this is capricious. Nevertheless, when the water 
is abundant, the Louisiana cultivaior has the 
advantage of liot baiiiij cojspelled to wait for spring 
tides, but can How his land at pleasure. The 
North Carolina planter, on the Cape Fear and 
Waocamaw rivers, where the tides were less and 
the land levels relatively lower than on the Savannah 
and the rivers south of it, also enjoys this privileg 
to some extent. 
The tica lands of the Atlantic seaboard oc- 
cupy the deltaa of the rivers from Pamlico Sound, 
in North Carolina, to the bt. Mary's river, in 
Oeorgia. They are confined in every instance to 
the Jreiih tide-water, the tidal flow being neoffssary 
for inundation, and the water, of course, mast be 
free from salt. 
These narrow river strips consequently extend 
from the extreme limit of brackish water to the 
extreme limit of available tide-water, a distance 
varying with the volume and location of the rivers. 
They are pure alluvium in formation, and all very 
similar in character. The soil, in many oases, is 
ten, twenty, or even thirty feet in depth to the 
underlying stratum of sand. Often the remains of 
prostrate forests, the result of ancient hurricanes, 
with layers of ashes and Indian remains, lie buried 
in this alluvium, the logs and stumps frequently 
so near the suriaoe as to present a serious ob- 
Btacie to the ditcher, and greatly enhancing the 
costof reolamutiou. This must have been excessive, 
and only under the thorough discipline and economy 
01 slave labor was at all possible. Aa a proof of 
tuia, on the whole Atlantic coast not one new rioe 
plantation has been eatablishea since the war; on 
\ati other band, many have been abandoned. 
Taking an illustrative plantation of six hundred 
And ion; aores or ow a^aue mile tor sae;^ 
calculation, it will be found that the exterior 
embankment is four miles in length, and the 
interior embankments, along the canals and those 
used for roadways, as seen in the chart, about 
six miles more. The plantation is subdivided by 
lesser embankments, called "check banks," into 
fields or '' squares," whose areas differ according 
to the character of the ground, (Generally, the 
more irregular the surface the smaller the squared, 
some containing as many as thirty-five or forty 
acres, others as few as five or six. Tney will 
average, however seventeen or eighteen acres each. 
This adds in cheek banks a farther length of 
eight miles, making the gross length of embankment 
eighteen miles, with gross solid contents of one 
hundred and eleven thousand and seventy-nine 
cubic yards, or one hundred and seventy-four cubic 
yards to the acre. 
But the original cost of the embankment is 
greatly exceeded by that of the necessary drainage. 
Colonel Screven, who is probably the best 
authority on rice in the south, says : " The drainage 
of the rice-fields and its annual maintenance is a 
servitude more burdensome than their embankments. 
It is, however, also true, that while thence plant 
of the tidai lands is aquatic, or perhaps, more 
correctly, amphibious, it is paradoxical in demanding 
the moat thorough drainage for its successful growth. 
* * The drains imperatively require to be not only 
thoroughly excavated in the origin, but to be con- 
stantly kept down to their original depth, aud, 
as the land settles, to be lowered to the same 
depth. 
" A properly arranged plantation of six hundred 
and forty acres, looking to the best control of flowing 
water and to thorough drainage, would require 
four parallel canals, each twenty feet in width 
and five feet in depth The total length of these 
would be three and one third miles. Each would 
require a fiood-gate at its extremity on the 
river, so arranged as to admit or bar the tide-water 
at pleasure. Along these canals, one on each side 
of each field or two to the field, are laid small 
flood-gates commonly called ' trunks,' by which 
the watering and drainage of each field is indepen- 
dently regulated. The main flood-gates of the 
canals are frequently true locks, so that the canal 
and river navigation may be united. The four 
canals mentioned call for the excavation of forty- 
eight thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine cubic 
yards, or seventy-six cubic yards per aoie. 
"In addition to these canals, which are the 
great arteries of the rice fields, each square or 
fieid must be surrounded by a mam or margin 
ditch cut six feet wide by four feet in depth"— 
generally about fifteen or twenty feet off from the 
check bank, leaving a cultivable margin between 
ditch and bank all around the square — " and paralled 
drains, called ' quarter drains,' must be sunk 
through the fields one and a half to two feet 
in width by three feet in depth, usually seventy- 
five feet apart, but, in some instances, still nearer. 
* * The lineal measurement of this drainage will 
be ninety-four miles and the excavation one hun- 
dred and fifty-seven thousand two hundred and 
twenty-six cubic yards, or two hundred and forty- 
six cubic yards per acre. 
Summing up, the combined embankment and 
drainage on this illustrative plantation of six 
hundred and forty acres amounts to one hundred 
and fifteen and a third miles, or eighteen miles 
to the acre, and demands an excavation of three 
hundred and seventeen thousand two hundred and 
ninety-four cubic yards of earth, or four hundred. 
Some oommenaurate idea may thus be obtained 
of the immense original cost of constructing a lioe 
plautatioa» or eveo renoyaiiog a damaged oae 
