the most, if not the most, successful among sea island planters, Mr. J. J Mikell, of Edisto, says the cost is 15 cents per pound there. Before considering the rational cost, a word should be said as to the amount of production. The highest yield on record to one acre is 566 pounds of lint, on a single acre on Mr. Schaffer's place, on Wadmalaw island. A planter on John's island made an average of 290 pounds of lint per acre, on a tract of 20 acres, while small farmers in the same locality produced only 50 pounds to 75 pounds lint per acre. The members of the Farmers' Club on James' island recorded, for 1870, an average yield on their fields of 280 pounds of lint. On Edisto island, there is a tract of 100 acres, producing, in that year, 210 pounds of lint per acre, and conservative farmers there consider 200 pounds of lint an average on the larger farms, year in and year out, a fair yield of fine staple. In Mills' Statistics of South Carolina, published in 1825, it is stated that a farmer on Edisto island produced, on an extensive scale, an average of 270 pounds of clean cotton to the acre. He also states that there were lots of land that had produced 435 pounds of lint to the acre. From which it would appear that the soil, climate, and old methods of culture had a capacity not very far inferior to that with which the invention of fertilizers, and of improved implements and methods, at the present time, endows this locality. The following table presents the rational cost, giving an itemized account of all expenditures, as reported by intelligent sea island planters. The first three columns are from Edisto, the yield being placed at 200 pounds of lint cotton to the acre. Number four is from James' island, the yield taken at 280 pounds of lint per acre. Number five represents the average expenditures of the better class of small farmers on John's island: It would be a still more difficult problem to arrive at a satisfactory estimate of the profit per acre to the farmer. This would vary, in the first place, according to the grade of cotton produced, the prices fluctuating, with the fineness of the staple, from 30 cents all the way up to $1.10 per lb. The value of the cotton, too, would depend greatly on the handling of the crop, whether it was picked in time, properly stored, sunned, dried, ginned, and moted-in all of which operations the skill, care, and forethought of the farmer would count for a great deal. But if we place the price of the cotton at 40 cents per pound, we may offer the following estimates as coming somewhere near the correct deductions to be made from the data furnished by the foregoing figures. Profit per cultivated acre $45 20 $38 20 $41 40 $69 72 $78 25 These figures can, of course, only be approximately correct, but the wide difference that prevails between large farms and high culture, and the small farms and insufficient culture, is a hopeful indication that the efforts at improvement have met with success, a success that would be much enhanced if we estimate the improved value of soil itself, where high culture has been practiced. CHAPTER III. THE LOWER PINE BELT, OR SAVANNA REGION. LOCATION AND BOUNDARIES. Contiguous to and immediately inland from the coast region lies the Lower Pine Belt, or Savanna region, of South Carolina. Northward it may be bounded by a line dividing Hampton county nearly in half, leaving the Savannah river in Lawton township, running east across the county and through Broxton and Warren townships, in the northwest corner of Colleton county, to Orangeburg county, including the townships of Branchville and Cow Castle. Thence along the northern boundary of Charleston county to the Santee river. Leaving the Santee river about Wright's Bluff, this line traverses Clarendon county to its northeast corner, crosses Lynches river, descends that river to a point opposite where Catfish creek empties into the Great Pee Dee; follows that stream to Barker's creek, passes up it to Reedy creek, down it to the Little Pee Dee, and up that river to the North Carolina line. The section thus bounded includes the half of Hampton county, nearly all of Colleton, two townships in Orangeburg, all but the northwest corner of Clarendon, the southwest portion of Marion, the whole of Williamsburg, and all Charleston, Georgetown and Horry counties not lying on the coast, and comprises nearly one-third of the entire State. THE PHYSICAL FEATURES of the Lower Pine Belt bear a striking analogy to those of the coast region. The uplands, the so-called "pine barrens," represent the sea islands. Numerous large fresh water rivers replace the great salt water rivers and arms of the sea along the coast, and the interminable net-work of extensive swamps and bays recall the salt marshes of the coast. Eight large rivers receiving all the water that falls in South Carolina, and a large proportion from the watershed of North Carolina, besides several smaller rivers and innumerable lesser streams, traverse this region and furnish more than 1,000 miles of navigable waters. The general appearance of the country is low and flat. The uniform level of the surface is scarcely broken anywhere, except here and there on the banks of the streams by the occurrence of slightly rolling lands. Lime sinks are found and there is a notable chain of them south of Eutawville, between the great bend of the Santee river and the head waters of Cooper river. In a depression of the surface a miniature lake, never exceeding fifty yards in length by a dozen in width, and sometimes only a few feet in diameter, is found. The water is of crystalline clearness, with a visible depth of twelve to fifteen feet, and is contained in a funnel-shaped hollow of the blue limestone rock, that underlies the soil at the depth of a few inches. These lakelets or springs have no outlet, but at their bottom fissures in the limestone rock, leading to unknown depths, are observed. Through these fissures numbers of all the varieties of fresh water fish common to this locality, including eels and alewives, some of them of considerable size are seen to pass. So numerous are these fish that if all these open basins were put together into one, it would not afford food or breeding space for one-hundredth part of the fish found in any one of them. The inference seems warranted that there is here, in the caverns of the limestone rock, a subterranean stream or lake many miles in extent. The maximum elevation of this region above tide-water is reached at the village of Branchville on the South Carolina railway, and is 134 feet. From the data furnished by the surveys of the railroads traversing this region, the Port Royal, South Carolina and Wilmington roads (the Charleston and Savannah road runs near to and parallel with the coast, and the surveys of the Northeastern road have been destroyed), it appears that the average slope is about 3 feet per mile. This slope, however, seems to be much more rapid in the western and narrower part than it is in the eastern and broader portion of the belt. Altmans, on the Port Royal railroad, is 105 feet above mean high tide at the head of Broad river, 18 miles distant in a direct line, giving a fall of 5.8 ft. per mile. Branchville is 134 ft. above the sea, which at North Edisto inlet, near Jehossee island, is 48 miles distant, making the fall 2.8 feet per mile. In the east the railroad bridge of the Great Pee Dee is 52 miles from the sea and has an elevation above it of only about 59 feet, or but little more than one foot to the mile. This fall would, with skillful engineering, be sufficient for thorough drainage. Left as it is, however, wholly to the operations of nature, this desirable object is far from being accomplished, |