Land and Crops, Wilkinson County, GA 1880

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.