was the staple brought by this means, that the crops of some planters were sold, not by sample, but by the brand on the bale, as the finest wines are. During the war the cultivation of the finest varieties being abandoned on the islands, the seed removed to the interior greatly deteriorated in quality. So scarce, on this account, was good seed directly after the war, that J. T. Dill, a cotton merchant in Charleston, at one time had in an ordinary letter envelope the seed from which all the better qualities of long staple cultivated now was derived. Nor have the improvements made by careful selection of the seed ceased in later years. The staple has kept fully up to the best grades of former days, and the proportion of lint to seed cotton has been increased. Formerly one pound of lint cotton from five pounds of seed cotton of the fine varieties was considered satisfactory. Thanks to the efforts of Mr. E. M. Clark, a fine variety of cotton has been recently found, which yields one pound of lint to three and one-half pounds of seed cotton, preserving at the same time the strength, length and evenness of fibre characteristic of the best varieties.

APPEARANCE OF THE PLANT.

The sea island cotton plant is a larger and more vigorous grower than the upland plant. It withstands the vicissitudes of the heat and cold better, and it is less subject to disease; blight and rust do not affect it as readily as they do the upland cotton, nor does it shed its forms and bolls to anything like the same extent. These remarks as to rust apply also to those varieties of uplands in which the length of the staple has been improved by selection of the seed, and rows of this are often seen healthy and vigorous, while the short staple uplands around are withered with the rust. The early growth of the sea island is so vigorous, that it maintains itself in fields infested with Bermuda and nut grass, as the uplands could not do. The leaves are larger, smoother, and of a brighter green than uplands, and the flowers are larger, handsomer, and of a more golden yellow. But the bolls are smaller, and instead of being five-lobed are only three-lobed-these lobes being so sharp pointed as to prick the fingers, to the serious inconvenience of pickers not accustomed to gather it. Of course the small size of the bolls requiring so many to make a pound, adds much to the tediousness and expense of harvesting the crop. The fibre of the lint is much finer, stronger, smoother and silkier than uplands; and while the latter is only to inches in length, the sea island will measure 13 to 23 inches; the color, too, has a cast of creamy yellowness not observed in uplands.

LABOR AND SYSTEM OF PLANTING.

On the sea islands of Carolina, field labor is performed almost exclusively by negroes. Nearly all of them are engaged in farming on their own account; a large number own farms; a still larger number rent lands for cultivation, and even the laborers are paid most generally by granting them the use of so many acres of land for certain stipulated services. The total number of farms on the islands is stated to be fifty-four hundred and fifty-three, but the number probably exceeds six thousand, the enumerators having had the lands and crops cultivated by renters returned by the landowner, and consolidating them as being in some sort under one management, when they were, in reality, entirely independent-an error ever likely to occur, and sometimes quite difficult to avoid, and which has no doubt caused the number of farms to be underestimated and their size overestimated in many sections of the South. The largest number of acres of sea island cotton planted under one management nowhere exceeds one hundred acres. The white planters do not probably average more than thirty acres, and this necessitates that they should be landlords of considerable estate. For as the laborers are frequently given five to seven acres for two days' work in the week, and as this two days' work per week does not suffice for the cultivation of more than four acres, to cultivate thirty acres of cotton under this system requires seventy-five acres of land; add to this the amount usually planted in corn and other crops, and we will have one hundred and twenty acres. As under the best system the land lies fallow every other year, the planter of thirty acres of cotton will require two hundred and forty acres of open land; and as scarcely one-fifth of the land is under cultivation, such a planter will probably own some twelve hundred acres. Thus there is no proportion between the size of the farm actually cultivated and the land holdings-the first being quite small and the last large. This state of things is owing to absence of capital and the low price of land and labor. Lands which were worth $50 to $60 an acre more than half a century ago (Mill's Statistics S. C., pp. 372 and 472), and which had increased in value down to 1860, being until recently either wholly unsaleable or selling at $10 per acre or less.

WAGES.

On James island, which at this time is perhaps under a more progressive system of culture than the other sea islands, laborers are paid cash for their work, at the rate of fifty cents per diem and $10 per month, with

board-the latter being a ration of three pounds of bacon and one peck of grist a week, with shelter and fuel. The soil and the condition of the laborers is reported as improving, and cash wages are considered preferable to the share, or the land system of payment. Arable land rents here at $2 an acre per annum. The price of land is from $15 to $30 an acre. A few laborers own their houses, but very few own any farming land.

On John's island, cash wages are from $8 to $10 a month, with board. Most of the laborers, however, are engaged for two days' work a week by allowing them a house, fuel, and six to seven acres of land free of rent. The report is that the system is not satisfactory. The lands worked by the landlords are improving; that worked by the laborers on their own account is deteriorating rapidly. The labor is not so easily controlled as when cash wages are paid. The lands vary greatly in price-prices ranging from $2.50 to $20 per acre, with some lands valued recently still higher. Rent is higher than on James' Island, in consequence of a system that increases the demand by multiplying small farmers, and it is about $3 per acre per annum.

On Edisto island, the two days' system prevails. The laborer gives the landlord two days' work in every week during ten months of the year, and receives in return a house, fuel, and six acres of arable land, which, together with such other land as he may rent, he cultivates on his own account during the remainder of the week. When extra work is required on the farm, these laboring tenants are employed at fifty cents by the day. The system is reported as being quite unsatisfactory, these two days hands not cultivating more than two acres as an average for the proprietor, and burdening his estate with the support of a much larger population than necessary to its cultivation. By means of this, however, a large amount of resident labor is secured on the place, which is of prime importance during the cotton-picking season. The laborers themselves prefer this system, having four days out of the week for themselves, they are more independent, and can make any day they choose a holiday. As a rule, they are comfortably off, and about seven per cent. are reported as owning homes of their own and some land. The land for which they pay rent service generally deteriorates in value. The lands worked by the proprietors are among the very best on the sea-coast, and are improving. The average yield of cotton on the whole island is a bale to 2.6 acres; for the six largest planters it is a bale to 1.7 acres. Considering the quality of the staple produced, it may be safely said that the larger farms yielded between two and three times as much as the small ones. Lands here are worth from $10 to $25 per acre-formerly they were worth from $50 to $70 per acre. Small tracts rent for about $4 per acre

per annum, larger tracts for less. And there is a state of things which tends to reduce the saleable value of lands, while it increases the rental value of it.

West of St. Helena sound, land is almost without exception in the hands of small negro farmers, either as tenants or proprietors. Much of this land, valued formerly at $40 to $60 an acre, was confiscated, as a war measure, by the U. S. government. A good deal of it was purchased by negroes at the government sales, at $1.25 an acre, on credit, and is still owned by them. The size of the land-holdings is from one to twenty acres, and nowhere is more than fifteen acres of cotton cultivated under one management. Much of the land is uncultivated, and the remainder, in small patches, varying from one-eighth of an acre and less to three acres in size, is planted in corn, cotton and sweet potatoes, curiously intermingled. Nowhere in the State, not even among the gardens on Charleston Neck, is the system of small culture so strikingly illustrated. The farmers usually own a cow, a mule or horse, and the work stock is sufficiently numerous, though of a very inferior quality. Farm fixtures are of the simplest and cheapest description. There is seldom any shelter for the stock, the cabin of the proprietor being generally the only house. on the premises. The stock is fed on marsh grass, with a little corn, and is, in a large measure, subsisted by being picketed out, when not at work, to graze on such weeds as the fallow spontaneously furnishes. Plows are numerous enough, but the chief reliance is upon the hoe, which, for several generations, was the only implement known to agriculturists on this coast. These small negro farmers have enjoyed many advantages. They bought their lands on easy terms, at one-thirtieth to one-fiftieth of their value. They had the benefit of the famine prices of cotton during the war for their staple product. Since the war, the industries connected with the working of the phosphate rock in the rivers, and on the main lands adjacent to them, have furnished the men with employment at higher wages than could be obtained elsewhere in the State. The opening of the railway to Port Royal harbor has, also, made a demand for labor in loading and unloading vessels, at a better per diem than was elsewhere obtainable. Graded schools were early established here, and have been maintained on a large scale, uninterruptedly, for many years. Fish, oysters and game abound, and poultry, as chickens, ducks and turkeys, do particularly well. This adds largely to the ease with which these people subsist. They live comfortably, happily and peacefully. All the larger houses and buildings about the old farmsteads have rotted down or been burned down, and have been replaced by small cabins and a few country stores, where the traders, invariably white men, who take no part in the cultivation of the soil, collect and dispose of the crop and supply

the community with such articles of food and dress as are required. Most of the men are engaged at the phosphate works, or on the wharves at Port Royal, and the heft of the farm work is performed by the women and children. Land is worth $10 to $15 an acre. (See opposite table, showing relation of size of farms, number of work stock and production.)

CREDITS AND ADVANCES.

Purchasing supplies on a credit prevails to a considerable extent, especially among the small farmers. The exact rate at which these advances are made cannot be given, as it is not charged as interest, but is included in an increased price asked for supplies purchased on credit. It varies from twenty to one hundred per cent. above the market value of the goods, according to the amount of competition among the store-keepers, who here, as elsewhere in the State, are by far the most prosperous class of the community, in proportion to the skill and capital employed. The better class of farmers do not approve of this credit system. It furnishes facilities to small farmers, and encourages them to undertake operations they cannot make remunerative to themselves; it reduces the number of laborers, and precludes high culture. The rental value of land is thus increased, and land which could not be sold for $10 may be rented for $5. The thriftless culture resulting from the small farms, unduly multiplied by this unhealthy stimulus of credit, causes many acres to be thrown yearly out of cultivation. Thus the increasing demand to rent land, in consequence of the increasing facilities for credit. to small farmers, and the constantly diminishing area of arable land, resulting from the very imperfect system of culture their lack of means forces them to adopt, create high rents, injurious to the small farmer, and impoverishes the landlord by deteriorating the quality of his land, as well as by abstracting the labor he could employ in remunerative culture.

TILLAGE AND IMPROVEMENT.

The sea islands have, since 1866, enjoyed a law special to them, requiring the owners of live stock to enclose them. Owing to this and to the numerous creeks and marshes that intersect these islands, and which serve as natural divisions, when required, between the different fields, fences are not a burden on the agriculture of the coast lands, and there is comparatively little fencing.

Drainage, although said by Gov. Seabrook to be so little attended to on the sea islands as to be scarcely worthy of being considered a regular agricultural operation, has of necessity always been practised to some extent.