and Effingham counties. Here the prevailing soils are grey and sandy with a subsoil of loam, but they are less fertile than those of the Lime Sink or Cotton Belts. The coast counties of the S.E. and generally those on the Florida frontier are not suitable for cultivation, on account of the numerous marshes and swamps, Okefinokee Swamp being 45 m. long and approximately 30 m. wide; but the southern portions of Decatur, Grady, Thomas and Brooks counties are sufficiently elevated for agriculture, and the islands off the coast are exceedingly productive.
Minerals.—The mineral resources of Georgia are as varied as its climate and soils, a total of thirty-nine different mineral products being found within its borders. The most important is stone: in 1905 the value of the granite quarried in the state was $971,207 (Georgia ranking fifth in the United States), of the marble $774,550 (Georgia ranking third in the United States, Vermont and New York being first and second); in 1908 the granite was valued at $970,832 (Georgia ranking fifth in the United States), and the marble at $916,281 (Georgia ranking second in the United States, Vermont being first). Generally more than one-fourth of the granite is used for paving; curb, building and monument stone are next in importance in the order named. Stone Mountain (1686 ft.) in De Kalb county near Atlanta is a remarkable mass of light-coloured muscovite granite, having a circumference at its base of 7 m. Stone Mountain granite was first quarried about 1850; it is extensively used as building material in Georgia and other southern states. A laminated granite, otherwise like the Stone Mountain granite, is found in De Kalb, Rockdale and Gwinnett counties, and is used for curbing and building. Biotite granites, which take a good polish and are used for monuments and for decoration, are quarried in Oglethorpe and Elbert counties. Georgia marble was first quarried on a large scale in Pickens county in 1884; the pure white marble of this county had been worked for tombstones near Tate, the centre of the marble belt, in 1840; after its commercial exploitation it was used in the capitol buildings of Georgia, Rhode Island, Mississippi and Minnesota, in the Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington, D.C., and in St Luke’s Hospital, New York City. It is sometimes used for the entire building, and sometimes only for decoration. Other colours than the snowy white are found in the main marble belt of the state, which runs from Canton, Cherokee county, 60 m. generally N. to the northern boundary of the state. Other deposits, less well known, are the dark brown and light grey marbles of Whitfield county, which resemble the stone quarried in eastern Tennessee. Limestone and slate are quarried at Rock Mart, Polk county, and there are cement quarries at Cement, near Kingston, Bartow county. Iron deposits occur in Bartow, Polk and Floyd counties, where are the more important brown ores, and (red ores) in Walker and Chattooga counties. The quantity of iron ore mined in Georgia declined from 1890 to 1900; it was 200,842 long tons in 1905 and 321,060 long tons in 1908, when 319,812 tons were brown haematite and 1248 tons were red haematite. Before the discovery of gold in California the Georgia “placers” were very profitable, the earliest mining being in 1829 by placer miners from the fields of Burke county, North Carolina, who began work in what is now White county, and went thence to Habersham and Lumpkin counties. Dahlonega and Auraria, the latter named by John C. Calhoun, who owned a mine there, were the centres of this early gold mining. Work was summarily stopped by Federal troops enforcing the governor’s proclamation in 1831, because of the disorder in the mining region; but it was soon renewed and a mint was established at Dahlonega in 1838. After the discovery of gold in California, mining in Georgia was not renewed on anything but the smallest scale until the early ’eighties. In 1908 the gold product was valued at $56,207 (it was $96,910 in 1905) and the silver product at $106. Up to 1909 the gold product of Georgia (see State Geol. Survey Bulletin 19) was about $17,500,000. Extensive clay deposits occur in all parts of the state, and are remarkable for their comparative freedom from impurities and for their high fusion point; the most valuable are sedimentary, and form a belt several miles wide across the middle of the state from Augusta to Columbus. In 1908 the clay products of the state were valued at $1,928,611. More asbestos has been found in Georgia than in any other state of the Union; it occurs in the amphibole form throughout the N. part of the state, and most of the country’s domestic supply comes from the Sall Mountain mine in White county. Manganese ores, found in Bartow, Polk and Floyd counties, were formerly important; in 1896 4096 long tons were mined, in 1905 only 150 tons, and in 1908 none. Bauxite was found in Georgia first of the United States, near Rome, in 1887; the output, principally from Floyd, Bartow and Polk counties, was the entire product of the United States until 1891, and in 1902 was more than half the country’s product, but in 1908, even when combined with the Alabama output, was less than the amount mined in Arkansas. Coal is not extensively found, but the mine on Sand Mountain, in Walker county, was one of the first opened S. of the Ohio river; in 1908 the value of the coal mined in the state was $364,279 (264,822 short tons), the value of coke at the ovens was $137,524 (39,422 short tons), and the value of ammonium sulphate, coal tar, illuminating gas and gas coke was more than $800,000. Copper was mined in Fannin and Cherokee counties before the Civil War. In 1906 the copper mined was valued at $5057. Corundum was discovered on Laurel Creek in Rabun county in 1871, and was worked there and at Trackrock, Union county, especially between 1880 and 1893, but in later years low prices closed most of the mines. The limestone formations furnished most of the lime for domestic use. Sandstone, ochre, slate, soapstone, graphite are also mined, and lead, zinc, barytes, gypsum and even diamonds have been discovered but not exploited.
Agriculture.—The principal occupation in Georgia is agriculture, which in 1900 engaged seven-tenths of the land surface of the state and the labour of three-fifths of the population, ten years old and over, who are employed in profitable occupations. The products are so diversified that, with the exception of some tropical fruits of California and Florida, almost everything cultivated in the United States can be produced. The chief staple is cotton, of which a valuable hybrid called the Floradora, a cross of long and short staple, has been singularly successful. Cotton is raised in all counties of the state except Rabun, Towns and Fannin in the extreme north, and about one-third of the total cultivated land of the state was devoted to it in 1900–1907. In 1899–1904 the crop exceeded that of the other cotton-producing states except Texas, and in 1899, 1900 and 1903 Mississippi, averaging 1,467,121 commercial bales per annum; the crop in 1904 was 1,991,719 bales, and in 1907–1908 the crop was 1,815,834 bales, second only to the crop of Texas. The cause of this extensive cultivation of cotton is not a high average yield per acre, but the fact that before 1860 “Cotton was King,” and that the market value of the staple when the Civil War closed was so high that farmers began to cultivate it to the exclusion of the cereals, whose production, Indian corn excepted, showed a decline during each decade from 1879 to 1899. But in the ’nineties the price of the cotton fell below the cost of production, owing to the enormous supply, and this was accompanied by economic depression. These conditions have caused some diversification of crops, and successful experiments in cattle-raising, movements encouraged by the Department of Agriculture and the leading newspapers.
The principal cereals cultivated are Indian corn (product, 53,750,000 bushels in 1908) and wheat; the cultivation of the latter, formerly remunerative, declined on account of the competition of the Western States, but revived after 1899, largely owing to the efforts of the Georgia Wheat Growers’ Association (organized in 1897), and in 1908 the yield was 2,208,000 bushels. The sugar-cane crop declined in value after 1890, and each year more of it was made into syrup. In 1908 the tobacco crop was 2,705,625 ℔, and the average farm price was 35 cents, being nearly as high as that of the Florida crop; Sumatra leaf for wrappers is grown successfully. The acreage and product of tobacco and peanuts increased from 1890 to 1900 respectively 188% and 319.2%, and 92.6% and 129.9%, and in the production of sweet potatoes Georgia was in 1899 surpassed only by North Carolina. Alfalfa and grasses grow well. Truck farming and the cultivation of orchard and small fruits have long been remunerative occupations; the acreage devoted to peaches doubled between 1890 and 1900. Pecan nuts are an increasingly important crop.
Agriculture in Georgia was in a state of transition at the beginning of the 20th century. Owing to the abundance of land and to negro slavery, exploitative methods of cultivation were employed before the Civil War, and such methods, by which lands after being worked to exhaustion are deserted for new fields, had not yet been altogether abandoned. One reason for this was that, according to the census of 1900, 36.9% of the farms were operated by negroes, of whom 86% were tenants who desired to secure the greatest possible product without regard to the care of the soil. Consequently there were large tracts of untilled “waste” land; but these rapidly responded to fertilization and rotation of crops, often yielding 800 to 1200 ℔ of cotton per acre, and Georgia in 1899 used more fertilizers than any other state in the Union. Another feature of agriculture in Georgia was the great increase in the number of farms, the average size of plantations having declined from 440 acres in 1860 to 117.5 in 1900, or almost 75%, while the area in cultivation increased only 15.6% between 1850 and 1900. The tenantry system was also undergoing a change—the share system which developed in the years succeeding the Civil War being replaced by a system of cash rental.
Manufactures.—Although excelled by Alabama in the
