118 
GEORGIA LANDS AND AGRICULTURE. 
great abundance. Only a few of the grapes grow 
well. The blue grass, I believe if planted in rich 
land, would do well. It is now green and flour¬ 
ishing in my yard, affording good grazing. The 
rich, low grounds, which are but little used, will 
grow it most luxuriantly. 
But what will be most interesting to your agri¬ 
cultural readers, is, that we have land in great 
abundance, and at very low prices. Our planters 
have had land so plenty, that they have usually 
found it most convenient to cut down the forest, 
cultivate the land, until too much exhausted to 
make heavy crops, and then desert it for a new 
county. The consequence is, that no attention 
has been turned to manuring, or any other im¬ 
provement. When one of these plantations has 
been “worn out,” as it is called, it is sold to an 
adjoining planter for a very low price, say from 
one to five dollars per acre; consequently, one 
man will often become the owner of thousands of 
acres, with one tenth or one twentieth in cultiva¬ 
tion. The old lands are suffered to remain uncul¬ 
tivated and unfenced, when they grow up in pines, 
briers, and finally the original forest growth of 
the country; these are again pleared and put un¬ 
der cultivation. This process has been repeated 
more than once, on the same piece of land, with 
success. It is interesting to perceive how rapidly, 
I might say sagaciously, nature will renovate the 
earth when turned over to her fostering care. On 
these deserted plantations are always to be found 
small lots, containing from 10 to 100, and some¬ 
times several hundred acres of woods. 
A small farmer may always buy an abundance 
of good land for cultivation by taking the old 
land for nothing. Several hundreds of acres are 
often sold for a dollar, or less per acre. The usual 
rule is to sell the wood land for what it may be 
thought to be worth, and give to the purchaser the 
old land and houses for nothing. 
Perhaps I could not give your readers a better 
idea of the state of real property, in the old part 
of Georgia, than by an account of a trade made 
a few weeks ago by a gentleman in this vicinity. 
He purchased a tract of land containing 1,000 or 
1,200 acres, very desirably located,having 320 acres 
in woods. He gave $10 per acre for the wood 
land, and nothing for the balance. 
On it there are 50 or 60 acres of low grounds 
that will bring 40 or 50 bushels of corn to the 
acre. The balance of the wood land will produce 
25 to 30 bushels of corn, and 1,000 to 1,200 lbs. of 
seed cotton to the acre. A favorable year it would 
average a light bag of cotton per acre, the bag 
weighing 300 to 350 lbs. The wood land is well 
timbered with oak, hickory, poplar, walnut, &c. 
The old land, most of it grown in pine, would pro¬ 
duce near half as much as the wood land. With 
manure, and the care given to land in countries 
where it is scarce, it might soon be made to dou¬ 
ble and treble the products above supposed. Our 
Soil has a fine retentive clay foundation ; some of 
it covered with a gray, and some with a strong 
mulatto loam. 
Our planters are beginning to bring their creek 
and. river-bottoms into cultivation, with great suc¬ 
cess. The soil from the upland has been washed 
on them, until they are as fertile, it would seem, 
as any soil in the world. Planters have so long 
had an abundance of fresh upland to cultivate, that 
they would not risk the destruction of their crops 
by inundation. But by proper draining, straighten¬ 
ing, and clearing the channels, this can often be 
prevented; and experience has shown that corn 
is seldom injured by an inundation. The streams 
being small, the water passes off in a few hours, 
or days at farthest. 
We are now beginning to learn that old land 3 
manured , is the surest soil for cotton. There is 
no end to the materials for manure. The swamp 
deposites, as rich as vegetable deposite can be, 
are inexhaustible. During summer the pasturage 
on old lands and woods, not under fence, will sup¬ 
port any number of cattle that one may choose to 
turn upon them. We usually stop feeding early 
in April. When our corn is gathered in the fall, 
it affords abundant pasturage until Christmas, and 
then we feed away the corn-shuc.ks, or husks, till 
April. In this way our planters keep 50 to 100 
head of cattle, less or more, according to their 
wealth. And yet, there are men who keep 100 
head of cattle, 20 horses, 200 to 300 hogs, sheep, 
&c., who do not make 50 wagon loads of manure 
during the year. A farmer who understands ma¬ 
king manure would be a blessing to any neighbor¬ 
hood in which he might settle. 
Though the old part of Georgia does not suit 
large planters accustomed to the old habit of de¬ 
stroying the finest soil in the world, yet for mod¬ 
erate, or small farmers, or even large ones, dispo¬ 
sed to improve, I believe it to be the most desira¬ 
ble portion of the globe. For $1,000 or $1,500, a 
comfortable house and out-houses, garden, &c., 
may be had, with several hundred acres of land, 
out of which might be selected 30, 40, 50, perhaps 
100, or even more, acres of good wood land. Be¬ 
sides, out of the old land lots could be found of all 
sizes, say from 5 to 20 acres, of good level land, 
wanting nothing but a fair chance to become as 
fertile as may be desired. 
No attention has been given to ditching until 
lately, and in a few instances, which is sufficient 
to show that a wonderful revolution will be effect¬ 
ed in our agriculture by this means. The rich 
loam from the hills is deposited on the banks of 
creeks and branches, entirely susceptible of culti¬ 
vation, in almost every instance by judicious drain¬ 
ing. In thousands of places, a few acres may be 
had fit for cultivation without draining; but our 
people having been in the habit of plowing fields, 
varying from 10 to 100 acres in size, overlook 
these rich little nooks and corners, and will con¬ 
tinue to do so as long as by removing to a new coun¬ 
try they can be indulged in their old ways. 
Where our land lies rolling, the soil is soon 
washed off by the heavy rains to which our cli¬ 
mate is much subject. Very little effort has been 
made to prevent this; and where land is cultiva¬ 
ted from year to year in corn or cotton, it is obvi¬ 
ous that the soil will soon be gone from the hill¬ 
sides. Indeed, the temptation to make cotton is 
so great,, that our planters have generally been 
