nut, cherry, and buckeye in the lowlands of some of the counties. The proportion of hickory is much larger, and that of pine much less, than on gray sandy land. Black-jack is occasionally interspersed with these. The red lands are usually sandy for a depth of several inches, and hence are rather easily cultivated, especially in dry weather. Decayed vegetation frequently gives to them a dark "black" surface, but the subsoils and underclays are very red. The latter being "in place" and derived from the disintegrated and decomposed rocks, are variegated, showing different colored strata. On these red lands cotton grows very well if the soil is loose and sandy. They are in general difficult to till in wet weather, being sticky, and in dry seasons are very hard and compact.

Except, perhaps, in southern counties, these red clay lands are considered best for small grain (especially oats), as they are cold and their cotton crops are late in maturing. A large portion, probably one-third, of these lands under cultivation is devoted to cotton.

GRAY SANDY AND GRAVELLY LANDS.

The disintegration of the quartz, feldspar, and mica of the gray gneiss rocks produces a loose, sandy, gray soil, more or less clayey, and covered or mixed with gravel and loose quartz-rock. The subsoil is usually a yellowish clay.

The mica schists, which also are found in large areas, are more or less garnetiferous, and are penetrated by quartz seams and veins of every size. By the disintegration of these schists gray sandy, gravelly land is produced unless there is present much iron or biotite mica, as in the southern part of the region. By the subsequent denudation of the surface of the country the quartz fragments are either left on the surface or transported as gravel and sand to the low country. They are often accompanied by narrow decomposed strata of other rocks of the series, but no material change is perceptible in the lands.

Topography and character of the land.-The surface of country covered by gray lands is always more or less rolling and hilly, but has broad level areas either on the ridges or in the valleys. The slopes of the ridges are so gradual as not to interfere with their successful cultivation, excepting, of course, in the more mountainous districts. Their light sandy nature makes them very liable, when opened up to cultivation, to wash into gullies and flood the lowlands with sands, but the methods of hillside ditching and hori

zontalizing practiced are successful in preventing such damage. There is comparatively little of the gray lands too broken for cultivation outside of the Blue Ridge mountain region. The growth is generally short leaf pine, post, Spanish (red), and white oaks, hickory, dogwood, and persimmon, with some ash, black and sweet gums, poplar, walnut, and cherry on the lowlands. Pine has not as large a growth as on granite lands, and only the short leaf variety is found.

The soils are coarse, gray, and sandy, frequently colored dark for an inch or two with decayed vegetation, are more or less gravelly, from 3 to 12 inches deep, and have a yellow clayey subsoil. From this intermixture of the soil and subsoil cultivation a yellow mulatto soil is obtained. Loose quartz-rocks or stones are often so abundant on the surface as to require removing before the ground can be broken up.

Though these lands are said to produce late crops of cotton, they are preferred to the red clays, as being more productive, and because they enable the stalks to stand the drought better. They are also easy to till, and a larger area can be cultivated than of the red lands with the same labor. Of the gray lands under cultivation, from one-half to two-thirds is devoted to the culture of cotton. Fresh lands yield from 500 to 700 pounds of seed-cotton per acre, as do also old lands by the aid of fertilizers; but without fertilizers the latter yield only 250 or 300 pounds per acre, or about 100 pounds of lint.

Granitic Lands.*-Large and small areas of gray sandy soils having outcropping underlying granite rocks are found in many counties of the metamorphic region, but chiefly in its southern half and cover about 2,600 square miles. The rocks often graduate into the gray gneisses in such a manner that the line of separation cannot easily be determined.

Topography and soils.—The surface of the country is generally rolling and broken, with sharply defined and rounded hills in localities which have the granite boulders or rounded masses, and broad level areas when only the flat rock underlies the land. A little hornblende occasionally accompanies the granite, and black tour* The principal localities of granite lands are shown by the granite areas on the Mineral Map of the State.

maline crystals are also often found in the quartz-rock near its outcrop.

The almost universal timber growth on all these lands is pine (either long or short leaf) with oak, chestnut, hickory, and some blackjack.

The soil is often a coarse gray or gravelly sand from three to six inches deep, with a subsoil of yellow or red clay more or less sandy, or sometimes a whitish, impervious clay, the result of feldspar decomposition. The soils are reported by some as cold, but are easily tilled and well adapted to cotton culture. About two per cent. of the entire granite lands of the State are reported to be untillable, either from their broken character or because of the exposure of the granite or its near approach to the surface. In Columbia county one of these exposures is said to cover 125 acres, there being nothing but flat and bare rock, having a low scrub growth only in its seams and crevices.

The yield per acre on these lands is about 800 pounds of seedcotton when fresh and unmanured, equal to 270 pounds of lint. Cultivation rapidly reduces this product to 350 pounds of seedcotton. Cotton is planted only on the uplands, it being liable to rust on the lowlands.

A noticeable feature in the soils in the granitic region is the increase of both potash and lime over that of other metamorphic soils, both doubtless derived from the feldspars of the granite. The general average percentage of lime in the granitic lands, as shown by analysis, is 0.102, an amount sufficient to make these lands thrifty and more durable than others.

Cultivated lands of the metamorphic region.-In the high and mountainous district of the Blue Ridge region, especially in Towns and Rabun counties, there is a comparatively small amount of land suitable for tillage. The farms are small, and are found principally along the water-courses. In the entire group of ten counties, but 12.3 per cent. of their area (or an average of 79 acres per square mile) is under cultivation.

The lands of the region have a dark or red loam soil, very rich and durable, those of the Little Tennessee valley, in Rabun county, being especially noted for their fertility and excellence; but in

those counties which lie chiefly outside or south and west of the mountains the lands are gray, sandy, and gravelly, with a yellow or red clay subsoil. But little attention is given to the culture of cotton, because of (1) the distance from market and the absence of transportation facilities, and (2) the severe climate of the region and short seasons suitable to the growth of cotton.

Passing southward from the Blue Ridge counties, we find at first a small increase in acreage under cultivation, the average proportion in the counties of Franklin, Hart, Madison, Banks, Hall, Forsyth, Cherokee, and Pickens, being about 38 per cent.; but beyond these, to the pine hills of the central cotton region, the general average of lands that have been or are now under cultivation is about 54 per cent. of the entire area.

The lands north of the Chattahoochee river, on the northeast, have almost entirely gray sandy soils, with but a few strips of red clay. The subsoils are almost universally clays. This section has been designated the "northeast division" by the State Department of Agriculture, and the yield per acre with fair cultivation is reported as follows: Corn, 20 bushels; wheat, 15 bushels; oats, 25 bushels; rye, 8 bushels; barley, 25 bushels; hay, from 2 to 3 tons; sorghum syrup, 75 gallons. Tobacco, buckwheat and German millet can also be grown with great success. The fruits adapted to the section are the apple, cherry, pear, grape, plum in all its varie ties, peach, gooseberry, raspberry, and strawberry.

In the rest of the metamorphic or "Middle Georgia" region the products are

Cotton, corn, oats, wheat, and all the grains and grasses, and even tobacco may be grown successfully. After the coast country, this division was the first settled, and has continued to be the most populous in the State. A large proportion of the land has suffered temporary exhaustion by injudicious culture, which claimed everything from the soil and returned nothing; but this ruinons practice is fast giving way to a more enlightened and economical system. The abandoned fields grown up in stunted pines, and for from twenty to forty years considered useful only as pasturage, have been restored to cultivation, and are now among the most productive lands of the State.

The fruits to which this section is best adapted are the peach, fig, apple, pear, strawberry, and raspberry. The yield per acre of the common crops under ordinary culture is: Corn, 12 bushels; wheat, 8 bushels; oats, 25 bushels; barley, 30 bushels; rye, 8 bushels; sweet potatoes, 100 bushels.

The acreage devoted to cotton is naturally small in the northern counties near the Blue Ridge, and averages no more than 1 per cent. of the entire area under cultivation in a belt of a few miles in width. Southward, the acreage increases rapidly, until in the southern half we find that the percentage of the total area occupied by this crop is 10 to 15 on the east and 15 to 20 on the west, with three counties whose average is above 20 per cent., viz.: Troup, Pike, and Clayton.

LANDS OF SOUTHERN GEORGIA.*

THE CENTRAL COTTON BELT.

Within this central cotton region there are three distinct belts, differing very widely from each other. These are: First, the sandhills and pine belt on the north, and bordering the metamorphic region of the State, its sands also often extending northward and covering some of its rocks; second, the red hills, adjoining the first belt on the south; third, the oak, hickory, and pine, sandy loam uplands, with clay subsoils, forming, as it were, a transition belt from the red hills to the sandy wire-grass region of the south, and gradually falling in elevation from the hills to the level lands of the latter.

The sand and pine hills.-The records of the State Geological Survey place the northern limit of this belt from a few miles north of Augusta and Thomson, a few miles south of Warrenton and Sparta, to Milledgeville, Macon, Knoxville, Geneva, and Columbus, at which point the metamorphic rocks are found outcropping in the beds of the streams, while the sand-hills extend northward a short distance along the uplands. The southern limit is easily defined by the somewhat abrupt red clay hills along its border. Its

The lands of this division of the State, as represented on the Agricultural Map of the State, are: 1. Red clay lands. 2. Sandy lands. 3. Savannah and Palmetto flats. The different regions described, with the exception of the coast region and red clay lands, are included in the second-class.