io In the Back Country

The nigger was peaceable and submissive till they got
along onto that yer ridge place. When they got thar,
all of a sudden he gin a whop like, and over he went
twenty foot plum down the side of the ridge. 'Fore
Allen could stop his hoss he'd tumbled and rolled him-
self ' way out of sight. He started right away arter him,
but he never cotched a sight on him again."
HILL-SLDB COTTON CULTURE
Not far north of the ridge, plantations are found
again, though the character of the surface changes but
little. The hill-sides are so plowed that each furrow
. forms a narrow terrace. After the first plowing, thus
scientifically directed, the hues are followed in subse-
quent cultivation, year in and year out, so long as
enough soil remains to grow cotton with profit. On the
hills recently brought into cultivation, broad, serpen-
tine ditches, having a fall of from two to four inches in
a rod, have been frequently constructed : these are in-
tended to prevent the formation of more direct gullies,
during heavy rains. Of course, these precautions are
not perfectly successful, the cultivated hills in spite of
them losing soil every year in a melancholy manner.
ABANDONED PLANTATIONS

I passed during the day four or five large plantations,
the hill-sides gullied like icebergs, stables and negro
quarters all abandoned, and given up to decay.
The virgin soil is in its natural state as rich as pos-
sible. At first it is expected to bear a bale and a half
of cotton to the acre, making eight or ten bales for each



Valley of the Lower Mississippi n

able field-hand. But from the cause described its pro-
ductiveness rapidly decreases.
