Georgia: Its History, Condition and Resources

by Samuel Adams Drake

The Savannah is formed of two small streams which rise near the North Carolina line, and unite on the boundary between S. Carolina and Georgia in Hart county. Flowing thence in a nearly S.S.E. direction for 450 miles, it enters the Atlantic near 32° N. lat. The Savannah is navigable from November to June. Ships ascend it 18 miles to the city of Savannah, steamboats to Augusta, 230 miles, and by means of a canal around the falls there, constructed in 1845, light draught vessels navigate it 150 miles higher. This canal, 9 miles long, furnishes the water-power of Augusta. The river is here about 300 yards wide. From Augusta the traveller descends the Savannah through the cotton-fields of the table-lands, and the long reaches of semi-tropical vegetation dominated by groves of live oak, to the rich rice plantations of the seaboard.

The Chattahoochee is one of the largest and most interesting rivers of Georgia. It rises on the declivity of the Blue Ridge, in Habersham county, in the N.E. of the State, pursues a devious S.W. course through the gold region of upper Georgia until it reaches West Point, on the Alabama frontier. It then flows nearly south to the Florida State line, where it is joined by the Flint, when the two streams flow on through Florida to the Gulf under the name of the Appalachicola. Large steamboats ascend the Chattahoochee in the season of navigation to Columbus, 350 miles from the Gulf. The whole estimated length of the river is 550 miles. The falls at Columbus create a valuable water-power, constituting that city one of the three important manufacturing centres of the State. Just above Columbus the Chattahoochee is broken in picturesque rapids, overlooked by a rocky cliff called the “Lover’s Leap,” which is the subject of an interesting legend. Besides Columbus, the towns of West Point and Fort Gaines are the most important on the Chattahoochee in Georgia; Appalachicola at its embouchure on the Gulf is its shipping and distributing port, but is decreasing in importance since the railway system of the State has assumed a large share of the traffic once confined to the navigable streams.

The Oconee and Ocmulgee rise near each other, in the N. of the State, flow through its centre to within 100 miles of the sea, when their united streams pass on S. E. to the Atlantic under the name of the Altamaha. Milledgeville, the former capital of Georgia, is on the Oconee, and Macon on the Ocmulgee. Darien on the Altamaha is reached by vessels drawing 11 to 14 feet of water. The Ogeechee, rising also in the north, is about 200 miles long. It drains the country between the Savannah and Altamaha, entering the Atlantic a few miles south of the Savannah. The Ogeechee is navigable for light vessels 30 or 40 miles, and for keel-boats to Louisville. The Santilla and St. Mary’s drain the south-eastern counties, and are each navigable 30 or 40 miles for sloops. The Flint, Ockloconee, and Suwanee drain the south-western counties; the Flint is navigable to Albany, 250 miles from the Gulf, for steamboats. The Tallapoosa and Coosa, head-waters of the Alabama, and the Hiawassee, one of the sources of the Tennessee, rise in the mountains of Georgia—the last, however, finding its way to the Gulf of Mexico by the Ohio and Mississippi valleys.

Georgia has about 128 miles of sea-coast, but has few good harbors, except within the rivers emptying upon it. St. Mary’s, Brunswick, Darien, and Savannah are the principal. The chain of islands lying off the mainland produces the celebrated Sea-island cotton, but owing to the changes brought about by the secession war it is now little cultivated. These islands are flat, and generally little elevated above the sea. Cumberland island, one of the most attractive, is nearly 30 miles long. It is covered with magnificent forests of oak, and its shores are skirted with palms, palmettos, and tropical shrubbery. Other islands from S. to N. are Jykill, St. Simon’s, Sapello, St. Catharine’s, Ossabaw, and Cabbage. The Sea Islands, with the main shore, constitute a coast of 480 miles. St. Andrew’s, St. Simon’s, Altamaha, Doboy, Sapello, St. Catharine’s, and Ossabaw are the principal sounds.

Climate, Soil, and Productions.—The central and southern portions of Georgia, including the seaboard, are subject to excessive heats in summer. At Savannah, observations show the mean temperature for July to have sometimes reached 99° Fahr. In the northern district of the State the same season is cooler and less enervating. Indeed, the mountain region is becoming noted for its genial and healthful climate, and is attracting invalids and pleasure-seekers from all parts of the Union. In the low marshy lands lying contiguous to or upon the coast, malarious fevers prevail in spring and summer. The belt of country stretching from Augusta across the State to Columbus, having a width of from 30 to 60 miles, is pronounced a very healthy district. At Augusta the mean summer temperature is about 79°, the winter 47°. At Atlanta careful observations give the average of summer heat as 75°, and winter 45°. Diseases of the respiratory organs are rare among natives of northern and central Georgia. The interior is comparatively free from the dreaded epidemics cholera and yellow fever, but Savannah and the coast are periodically scourged by them.

There is in Georgia as great diversity of soil as of climate. Beginning with the Sea Islands, which are composed of a sandy alluvium, intermixed with decomposed coral, we pass from the rich alluvions near the coast, in which the great rice plantations are, to the thinner soil of the Pine Belt, sometimes inaptly denominated Pine Barrens. These are at present valuable for their timber and naval stores, but are susceptible of cultivation. The middle region consists of a red loam, once productive, but from long cultivation impoverished. With the aid of fertilizers it produces cotton, tobacco, and the cereals. We now reach the so-called Cherokee country of the north, containing lands among the most fertile in the State, lands which, notwithstanding their tillage from an unknown period by the aboriginal inhabitants, grow wheat, corn, Irish potatoes, peas, beans, etc., abundantly. Cotton may also be successfully cultivated, but with less advantage than in other districts of the State. This fibre is chiefly produced along the fertile bottom lands or contiguous uplands of the rivers. The same lands yield rice, Indian corn, and sugar. Middle and southwest Georgia are the most productive cotton areas. In the south-west the soil, though light and sandy, produces cotton. In southern Georgia there are millions of acres of magnificent yellow pine forests of great value for house or ship-building, and in these forests turpentine plantations have been opened. The live-oak, also valuable for ship-building purposes, abounds in the south-east of the State. The swamps afford cedar and cypress, the central region oak and hickory. Walnut, chestnut, ash, gum, magnolia, poplar, sycamore, beech, elm, maple, fir, and spruce trees are found in different localities; but in the older settled districts the original forests have disappeared.

It is frequently said that there is nothing grown in any of the States except Florida that Georgia cannot profitably produce. A few of the tropical fruits of Florida cannot be raised in Georgia, but all those of the temperate zone succeed well. Tobacco may be grown in any part of the State, although it is not extensively cultivated for export. Cotton is the great crop of Georgia. She ranks third among the eight cotton States, having exported or consumed in her own manufactures, for the year ending September, 1878, 604,676 bales, worth at the point of export $30,000,000. Of this crop 3,608 bales is classed as Sea-island. Her crop for 1877 was 491,800 bales. The counties of Burke, Dougherty, Lee, Monroe, Stewart, Sumter, and Washington yield 25 per cent. of the whole product of the State.

The emancipation of the slaves in the Southern States has naturally produced great and important changes in the labor system of that section. The planter must now purchase the labor he formerly owned. The black is free to dispose of his labor to the best advantage. The contracts for labor are of three kinds,—for money wages by the month or year, for a share of the crop, or for specific rent in money or products. The first has been practised to a limited extent by the best and most prosperous planters. The share system has been the one generally adopted, because the blacks greatly affected quasi-proprietorship of the soil, and because the owners were inexperienced in the management of free labor, and not inclined to come personally in contact with it. The share varies in different localities, but usually one-third to half the crop goes to the laborers, the landlords furnishing the necessary tools. The readjustment of labor in the South is watched with the keenest interest in other sections of the Union as one of the difficult problems growing out of the suddenly changed relation between white and black; and though some traces of his original servitude remain a cause of irritation between North and South, the agreement between the enfranchised black and his late master is likely to be harmonious, where each is so dependent on the other as is the case in the cotton-growing States of the Union.