THE GULF STATES BELT From South Carolina in the Eastern Belt the Upper Coastal Plain swings through southern Alabama into central Mississippi. These two states comprise the Gulf section, the second oldest division of the Cotton Belt. It contains several varieties of soils that give rise to sub regions. The Upper Coastal Plains reach almost to the coast where the sandy soil and excessive autumn rains prevent cotton culture. The rows often run straight across the field since the land is usually flat. The area consists of about twenty-eight million acres with rolling contour and soils of grayish to reddish sandy loam. The characteristic vegetation is pine, oak, and hickory. The farms average over forty acres, over 13 per cent of all the land is cultivated in cotton, and 28 per cent of the farms are run by the plantation system. The average cotton acre has produced 190 pounds, and the whole area produces on the average over a million bales." Just above is the bow-shaped region of clay hills, a continuation of the red hills of western Georgia through Alabama and Mississippi. The area is rather small, has hilly clay land with some "white rock" land, and produces about 320,000 bales on 8,000 acres of upland cotton.
A well-known subregion is the "Alabama Black Belt," so called from both its Negro workers and the crescent shaped Black Prairies which curve upward from south eastern Alabama into northern Mississippi. The "black
lands," moisty brown silt loams with post oak vegeta tion, grow a strong staple, 1 inch to inches in length. The humid climate and heavy soil have produced a type of cotton much sought after. Over one-half of the im proved land area is in cotton, and 78 per cent of the farms are operated by Negro tenants, 61 per cent of the cultivated land being in plantations. The average hold ing is above thirty-five acres. The average "yield per acre is less than 150 pounds owing to continuous cropping and shallow plowing" mainly by unskilled Negro labor.' A fairly productive small cotton area is the fertile Tennessee River Valley regions of northern Alabama with its brown and red hill soils. The Mississippi Bluffs extend from Louisiana into Kentucky. The Silt Loam Uplands are level and undulating and have suffered erosion, with the vegetation principally oak, sweet gum, and poplar. The cotton acre produces about two hundred pounds and the area produces about a half-million bales. The Gulf states have been hard hit by the weevil, and cotton acre age has not increased since 1912. The problem of weevil control is complicated by the wooded tracts which ex tend along the cotton fields and furnish places of hiberna tion for the insects."