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, pease, beans, &c., 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 south-west 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 baless, worth at the point of export $30,000,000. Of this crop 3608 baless is classed as Sea island. Her crop for 1877 was 491,800 baless. 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 labour system of that section. The planter must now purchase the labour he formerly owned. The black is free to dispose of his labour to the best advantage. The contracts for labour 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 labour, 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 labourers, the landlords furnishing the necessary tools. The readjustment of labour 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.
Statistics.—A carefully tabulated statement shows that, in addition to her cotton crop, Georgia produced, in 1876, 23,629,000 bush.ls of Indian corn, valued at 14,172,000; 2,840,000 bushels of wheat, worth $3,805,600; 5,700,000 bushels of oats, worth $3,876,000; and 23,600 tons of hay, worth $347,628. To these principal crops should be added the timber and naval stores exported from Atlantic outports. In January 1877 there were in Georgia 118,300 horses, 404,900 oxen and other cattle, 96,200 mules, 270,400 milch cows, 378,600 sheep, and 1,483,100 swine, having a total valuation of $30,815,117. The State is admirably adapted for stock-raising, but, as cotton culture offers the quickest returns, it has hitherto engrossed the attention of planters and farmers. The grain and root crops are largely cultivated for the support of the agricultural population.
The rice crop of Georgia in 1870 was 22,277,380 ℔; tobacco, 288,596 ℔; molasses, 553,192 gals.; wine, 21,927 gals.; sugar, 644 hhds; sweet potatoes, 2,621,562 bush.; Irish potatoes, 197,101 bush.; butter, 4,499,572 ℔; honey, 610,877 ℔; wool, 846,947 ℔, increased in 1878 to about 1,000,000 ℔. The latest official census shows that 6,831,856 acres, valued at $94,559,468, are improved in farms; value of farm implements and machinery, $4,614,701; estimated value of all farm products, $80,390,228; estimated value of manufactured products, $31,196,115. The total valuation of the State in 1870 was $268,169,207, against $645,895,237 in 1860. The decrease is owing to the emancipation of the slaves; but the State is steadily gaining ground in increased acreage cultivated, increased number and value of manufactories, and increased productive capacity everywhere.
Mineral products.—Georgia was perhaps the El Dorado of which the Spaniards who invaded Florida were in search. Before the gold discovery in California, the “placers” of northern Georgia were profitably worked for many years; but since 1852 their produce has almost wholly ceased. The gold-bearing region is comprised in the counties of Lumpkin, Habersham, Forsyth, and Hall,—the precious metal being found in the alluvial deposits of the streams, and also intermixed with the quartz rock of the hills. A branch mint was established by the Government at Dahlonega, the shire town of Lumpkin county. In 1853 it coined gold bullion of nearly half a million dollars’ value; but, as in California, the placers, or surface deposits, have become exhausted. Besides this precious metal, Georgia contains, mainly in N.E. or Cherokee Georgia, coal and fossiliferous iron ore distributed along the ridges between the Tennessee and Alabama border. The Cohutta mountains contain copper, and also silver and lead ores. Iron ore, manganese, slate, baryta, and brown hæmatite are found on the western declivity of this range. Between the Cohutta mountains and the Blue Ridge is a vein of marble, and adjacent to it are the gold-bearing schists, which reappear on the south side of the Blue Ridge. Other minerals are granite, gypsum, limestone, sienite, marl, burrstone, soapstone, asbestos, shales, tripoli, fluor-spar, kaolin, porcelain clay, arragonite, tourmaline, emerald, carnelian, ruby, opal, calcedony, agate, amethyst, jasper, garnets, schorl, zircon, rose-quartz, beryl, and even diamonds.
