i64 the tropical AGRICULTURIST. [Septemher i, iSgr. 
Bat Carolioa rice, like Orleans ootton, bad, during 
this period, loroed its way to the top ot the 
European market, was eonsidered the ehoioest 
variety, und commanded the highest prioe. 
Then oame war and the Federal gunboats and 
Monitors crawled up the creeks and shells sang over 
the deserted quarters. Lines of intrcnchinents 
hiseotod the fertile fields; embankments and oansls 
y,(ta demolished; barns, dwellings and mills 
destroyed ; the neglected sqnares soon ehokad with 
reeds and sedge and saplings ; and when peace 
finally came it found a desolated wilderness, 
tenanted only by the marsh-hen and the inooeasin, 
while as overseer tbs alligator basked in undisturbed 
serenity. 
Add to this the then untried and still unsolved 
problem of frte negro labor, a motor generated of 
indelirium and ending in paralysis, and it will be 
seen that the participle demoralised will but 
feebly describe the oondition and prospeots 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 wreaked state 
of affairs at this time it il necessary to under- 
stand the physical conetruotion of a plantntior. 
Two modes of irrigation are employed in America— 
the “ tidal" and the reservoir of " back-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 sugar plantations 
of Louisiana have been adapted to the onlture 
ot rioe, and it is poesible, in almost any portion 
of that state ot innumerable bayous, to irrigate 
more or less Bucoeesfully by establishing a reservoir 
of back-water, to be drawn upon at the proper 
intervals. But the supply must evidently be de- 
pendent upon the rainfall in the up-country, and 
this is tiaprioious. Mevortheless, w hen the water 
is abundant, the Louisiana cultivator baa the 
advantage of not being oowpelled to v ait for spring 
tides, but can flow bis land at pleasure. The 
North Oarolina planter, on the Oape Fear and 
Waccamaw 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 t os lands of the Atlantic seaboard oc- 
cupy the deltas of the rivers from Pamlico Sound , 
in North Carolina, to the St. Mary’s river, in 
Oeorgia. They are confined in every instance to 
the Jre«h tide-water, the tidal flow being necessary 
for inundation, and the water, of course, must be 
tree 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 cases, 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 aad stumps frequently 
so near the surface as to present a serious ob. 
Stacie to the ditcher, and greatly enhancing the 
cost of reclamation. This must have been excessive, 
and only under the thorough discipline and economy 
of slave labor was at all possible. As a proof of 
this, on the whole Atlantic coast not one new rice 
plantation has been established since the war ; on 
the other hand, many have been abandoned. 
Taking an illustrative plantation of six hundred 
and toity acres or one square mile for easy 
calculation, it will be found that the exterior 
embankment is four miles in length, and the 
interior embankments, along the canals and those 
ustd for roadways, as seen in the chart, about 
six miles more. The plantation is subdivided by 
lesser emhankments, 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 squares, 
some containing as many as thirty-five or forty 
acres, others as few as five or six- They will 
average, however seventeen or eighteen acres each. 
This adds in cheek banka a further 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. 
Colonei Screven, who is probably the best 
authority on rioe 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 the rice plant 
of the tidal lands is aquatic, or perhaps, more 
correctly, amphibious, it is paradoxical in demanding 
the most 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, and, 
as the land settles, to be lowered to the same 
depth. 
“ A properly arranged plantation of six hundred 
and forty acres, looking to the beat 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 flood-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, ate 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 looks, 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 
field nmat^ be snrrouDded b/ a toain or EDargin 
ditch cut BIX feet wide by four feet in depth** 
generally about fifteen or twenty feet off from the 
oheok bank, leaving a cultivable margin between 
ditch and bank all around the square—” and paralled 
drams, called ‘quarter drains,’ must be sunk 
through the fie.ds one and a hall to two feet 
m width by three feet in depth, usually seventy- 
mu IP®''*! Borne instanoes, still nearer. 
■ ‘">681 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 forlj- 
Bix cubic yards per acre. 
Summing up, the combined embankment and 
drainage on this illuetralive plantation of six 
hundred a» d forty acres amounts to one hundred 
and fifteen and a third miles, or eighteen miles 
to the und demands an excavation of throe 
hundred and seventeen thousand two hundred and 
ninety-four cubic yards of earth, or four hundred. 
Some commensurate idea may thus be obtained 
of the immenae original cost of constructing a rioe 
plantation) or even renovating a damaged one 
