The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1890-01-23

To the Editor Of the Meps and Courier !:
When the HugueDots fret settled in ST..
Stephens and St. Johns parishes they
located Oh the bluffs of the Santee, select.
ing for planting what is now called the
river swamp, in many cases building their
homes there. These lands, rich as the
banks ofthe Nile, soon made wealthy the
planters, than whom no more prosperous
and happy people lived on earth. At
that day these lands sometimes sold for
ten guineas Tor fifty dollars) per acre.
They were then free from freshets, which
now are 80 frequent as to render them
totally unfit for tillage. Where once
were numerous Misunderstanding
their owners bountiful harvests-now
there is only deserted waste. There
are about 100000 acres of such land
which, ifsafe from overflow, would easily
produce 35,000,OOO bushels of corn, or
three times as much as is produced in
the whole State.
Early writer's give glowing descriptions
fthe upper country of South Carolina,
with its verdant mills and long, sloping
valleys-the open forests covered with
wild pea vines and teeming with deer,
wild turkeys and other game. The
creeks and branches flowing between
high banks and furnished with a never
failing supply of pure water, nourished
myriads of fish and shad, which have
deserted our rivers, then sported in our
creeks. Now 100000 acres of hill
country in the State over 100000 acres,
which in their virgin condition would
yield 100000 bales of cotton or 40, 0,000,-
600 bushels of corn, are barren, bare and
SCARED with gullies or covered with old
field pines aud utterly worthless. Be-
sides, the condition of these lands perpet.
yates the desolation of the low country
river bottoms, as we'll as of the creek and
river bottoms of the p.country. Nor
do cities escape, for Hamburg, once a
prosperous cotton mart, has been destroy.
ed and the rich city of fAugusta is threat.
ened with ruin.
THE CAUSE OF THE TROUBLE.
This disastrous condition is the result
of the reckless clearing of the hi illsides
and their persistent cultivation in cotton
by the inhabitants of the country.
And this is not altogether the work of
our fathers; the present generation must
take it's share of the blame. One planta-
tion, for example, in Fairfield, which
has been cleared chiefly since the war,
and so we'll cleared that on 1900 acres
there now remains lhardly one original
tree, twenty years ago yielded about 100
bales of cotton as rent, now the owner
rarely receives six bales rent as for the
whole plantation. During the last ten
years the farmers of the up, country have
been driven by the increasing frequency
of freshets from the branch or creek
bottoms, where they made their corn
formerly, to the upland. Had all this
ruin of splendid land in the up country
been deliberately planned the work could
not have been more skillfully done.
Of tho water that fell in rain when
the up-country was new only about half
reached the low country directly, and
then only some weeks after the rain,
there being so many distractions to
check its flow. Probably half the rain
fall was absorbed by vegetation and
vegetable mould which covered the earth,
and was given out again by evaporation,
or sank into the earth and arose in
springs. Probably niue tenths of the
rainfall of the present day passes down
the bare hills and gullies like mountain
torrents to the sand covered bottoms, and
in few days reaches and floods the low
country bottoms. The surface of the
hills is 30 bare and hard that very little
of the water is absorbed and retained
and, therefore, twice as much is sent down
the country, and with three times the
velocity as formerly.
HOW CAN THE EVIL BE REMEDIED?
The question now is, "How can the rain.
water be held in the soil and held back
among the hills 80 as to save the bottoms
from ireshets, and at the same time pre-
serve moisture and mitigate the effects
of droughts." If all cuItivators Of the
soil could be induced to study this sub.
iect plans could certainly be devised to
bring about the results desired-of res.
toring to fertility and to valuable use
millions of acres which are now barren
or worthless. To this end few sugges-
tions are offered.
First, no crop like cotton, that requires
clean culture, should ever be planted on
steep hillsides, and never continuously
on long slopes. Large fields of sloping
land should be belted here and there with
grain or grass or corn or stubblo. Terra
cling renders this betting easily practica.
BILE. All rolling lands should be terraced
and terraces should never be changed
when properly located and should be
raised year by year until the fields become
series of level steps, as is the practice
in hill countries of Europe.
Steep hillsides should be made to grow
up in forests, and where hills are covered
with pines level belts should be laid off
around them in which the pines should be
cut down, the gullies filled and the whole
ground covered with the brush. If this
be done year after year there will be col.
lected on these belts such mass of yege
table growth as to form barrier to all
water from above and hold back and alb.
sorb much of it, The more level land
above and below these belts may be cul-
tivated, but the belts should never be
cleared. Ravines between hills, the nat
ural outlets for water, should be made to
grow up in bushes and briars and never
be cleared to tho brink of the gullies.
They should also be made receptacles
for all the stones from adjoining fields.
Thus the rayines could be made to retard
the radip precipitation of water and sand
upon the bottoms.
NO HILLSIDE bitches.
Hillside ditche0 should never be allow