Land and Crops, Wilkinson
County, GA. 1880
Wilkinson
Population: 12,061. - White 6,550; colored
5,511.
Area: 440 square miles-Woodland, all; sand
hills, 101 square miles; oak, hickory, and pine uplands 339 square miles.
Tilled lands: 701,049 acres - Area planted
in cotton, 25,423 acres; in corn, 32,394 acres; in wheat, 4,872; in oats,
4,967 acres, in rye, 1,404 acres.
Cotton production: 7,966 bales;
average cotton product per acre, 0.31 bale, 447 pounds seed-cotton or 149
pounds cotton lint.
Wilkinson county is separated from
Washington on the east by the Oconee river, into which all the streams
of the county flow. A belt of red hills passes centrally through it, presenting
a rough and broken section. The ridges between the creeks are very narrow
and high, and are capped with red clays and sands. The features of the
red hills are found here, viz.: red clays 25 to 50 feet thick, and siliceous
fossiliferous rocks underlying white limestone.
The southern and easter slopes of
the hills are unusually abrupt and high, with ted loam and a growth of
oak and hickory, etc. while the northern and western slopes are more gentle,
and have a sandy pine land. The northern limit of this belt is 5 miles
north of Toombsboro, thence southwest to 3 or 4 miles north of Jeffersonville,
in Twiggs county. The belt is narrow, and southward to Cedar creek the
country becomes more sandy and level and the red lands appear less frequently.
Pine forms a more prominent growth. On the south of the creek the country
is again hilly and broken, with some red loam on the hills, associated
with siliceous fossils and shell-rock. Outcropping in the hills are marls
and clays, the former with beds of greensand, and the whole underlaid by
white limestone. Along the bank of the creek the rock is also found. The
growth of the hills is oak, hickory, beach, dogwood, black and sweet gum,
maple, etc. On the southwest, near Cool Spring, is a small "flatwoods"
area of clayey soil.
In the red hills section
or belt small bodies of black prairie land occur occasionally, but are
hardly worth further mention. The country north of the red belt is level
and sandy, with a pine and scrub-oak growth, and belongs to the pine-hills
belt of the central region, with its underlying white pipe-clays.
The lowlands and flats along
the river are extensive, and in the area include Black lake, on the northeast.
The width of the swamp lands is 3 miles or more in many places.
Tilled lands embrace 35.9 per cent
of the county area, while 2.5 per cent. is of irreclaimable swamp, but
the largest acreage, that of cotton being next, with and average of 57.8
acres per square mile, or 25.2 per cent of tilled lands
Abstract From the Report of T. N. Beall,
of Irwinton
The lands of the county are light
sand and red clayey, slightly mixed with sand, and extend across the county
from east to west. The soil has a depth of 12 to 18 inches, with
a subsoil of red clay under red soils and yellow sand under gray lands.
The red clays are impervious to water. The lands are early, warm, and well
drained, and easy to till in all seasons. The chief crops are cotton, corn,
wheat, oats, rye, potatoes, and field-pease. Cotton comprises one-third
the crops, grows from 2 to 3½ feet high, and runs to weed with too
much ran, to prevent which topping and fertilizers are resorted to. The
yield on fresh lands is 600 pounds of seed-cotton per acre, the lint rating
as middling staple. Land ten years in cultivation yields from 300 to 400
pounds per acre, and 1,545 pounds are required for a bale of lint, the
staple of which is shorter. Crab-grass alone is troublesome. One-fourth
of the lands once under cultivation now lies out, but produce very well
for a few years when again taken in. The lands wash readily, doing serious
damage to the uplands and slightly injuring the valleys. Hillside ditching
alone is depended on the check the damage, and with but little success;
consequently very little effort is made in that direction.
In October and November cotton is
sold and shipped, by railroad, to Savannah at $2 per bale.
Source: Report on the Cotton
Production In The United States. Census Reports Tenth Census. June 1, 1880.
By By Francis Amasa Walker, Charles Williams Seaton, Henry Gannett. Published
1884. Govt. print. off.

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