Abbeville has two churches—Methodist and Baptist; Presbyterians also have service there. Schools generally are not as good as in most of Northern States, but are gradually improving; have some teachers from the North.
Heretofore the products from this section have been lumber, spirits turpentine, rosin, cotton, some beef cattle and wool.
A few years ago fortunes were made in a short time in lumber and turpentine business when properly managed, but most of the operators increased their business, bought large tracts of land, borrowed money, etc. Now the prices of those products have declined to or below cost of production, and for the past two years our banks have not been loaning money, so those parties are obliged to sacrifice their lands. Although this section has been settling up rapidly, lands can be bought for less than two years ago.
In past twenty years cotton has declined from twenty to seven cents per pound. When cotton brought from fifteen to twenty cents per pound the cotton planter had all the money he required and raised nothing else for market. As a class they spent their money freely; if more money were required before the crop was made they could readily get advances on cotton crop; now the staple is below cost of production, still many are obliged to grow cotton, as it is the only crop on which they can get advances. To change requires an expenditure for farming implements and machinery for putting in and harvesting the crop, stumps are to be gotten out of the way, etc. To grow fruit requires several years to realize. Most of the planters own large tracts of land, and are anxious to dispose of a part; some are hoping each year the acreage in cotton will be reduced (by many putting their lands in other crops), thereby enhancing the price of cotton and they be benefited. They prefer to grow cotton, having never done anything else. Some who tried hay failed on first trial, as they did not have proper implements, and they exposed it to dews and rain after it was cured or partly so.
The timber in this locality is long leaf pine, excepting along the river, where is abundance of hardwoods, viz: different varieties oak, hickory, ash, gum, cypress and some elm. The pines are not thick on the land; the principal roots go straight down; the surface soil is sandy, intermixed with dark pebbles and clay subsoil. The mode of clearing land is to deaden by girdling the trees, burn the logs and trash on the ground, fence and put in the plough. To one not accustomed to it, this looks very slovenly, but I believe it is the best plan, as in a few years the trees rot and fall to the ground. The trees are no more in the way than the stumps; the dead hearts can much more readily be split into rails or burned than when green. The heart rails will last fifteen years; it costs about $10.00 per thousand to put rails into fences; rails are ten feet long. I am building board fences; lumber costs me at mill $5.00 per thousand feet. There are plenty of mills. I have my posts split from dead hearts and faced with axe; they cost me about three cents each at fence. When the ground is wet a man can dig seventy holes in a day; when dry the clay subsoil becomes very hard and one half above number would be good work.
I have taken stumps from 200 acres land at a cost of about $2.00 per acre; generally would cost from $2.00 to $6.00 per acre, according to length of time land had been cleared. I have not tried dynamite; some have, but cannot state whether it gave satisfactory results; I believe it would, especially in new land. We plant our corn in rows, generally six feet apart and from two to three feet apart in a row, one stalk in a place. At last working of corn we put in one or two rows of peas to every row of corn; the peas and corn mature at same time. When corn is gathered we gather peas enough for seed, then put in the hogs and they fatten from the peas. Some varieties of those peas will remain on the ground all winter and grow the next summer. The pea crop is worth as much as the corn crop.
Corn grown here is worth seventy cents per bushel. From sixty acres I got over 1200 bushels of corn. I used on the sixty acres two tons of phosphate that cost here $16.00 per ton mixed with the manure from four mules and 200 bushels cottonseed worth fifteen cents per bushel. Some make more, some less, according to cultivation and amount of fertilizers used. One of my neighbors for several years past has been making forty bushels of corn to the acre.
From 100 acres in oats I got 2000 bushels; these are rust proof and always in demand for seed; I sold all for sixty cents per bushel. I used no fertilizers under the oats; I generally cut two crops of hay same season from same land after I cut my oats. I plough, harrow and roll the ground in June. I use under the hay guano worth about $6.00 to every acre and get two tons of hay per acre worth here $18.00 per ton. This grass comes spontaneously after the land is cultivated a few years and makes excellent hay. It does not grow North. This year one of my neighbors cut from twelve acres 600 bushels of oats; put no fertilizers under the oats, but had the year previous oats on same land, and after the oats were cut, in June, he planted it in peas; when the peas matured he turned his hogs in; by October the hogs had gathered the peas, then he ploughed under the pea vines and sowed in the oats. This is the most economical way of improving our lands. The crop of peas pays for all the expense. We feed but little corn to our hogs.
Wheat is grown but little in this section. When cotton was worth twenty cents per pound no one would raise wheat, so the mills were either torn or rotted down, but in a short time there will be a mill to grind wheat in the vicinity. There are plenty of mills to grind corn. Nearly all the vegetables grown North do well here, and come into the market much earlier, and many that do not grow there do well here. Cabbage and Irish potatoes do well here, but when planted in spring mature early in summer and do not keep longer than a couple of months; when planted in July they mature in fall and keep tolerably well, but sometimes it is difficult to get a stand of plants in July.
This is about 32° north latitude; peaches, pears, plums, grapes and some varieties of apples do well here, and all begin bearing at much younger age than North; perhaps are not as long-lived, but heretofore no care has been taken of them.