states mentioned the Negroes cultivate the rich bottom land while the white farmers are found in the hills. The alluvial land easily raises twice the cotton, and that of a better quality, commanding about a cent a pound more in the market. There may possibly be similar conditions in other states; certainly in Alabama the black prairie tilled by the Negroes is esteemed better than the other land. Since this was first written I have chanced upon the report of the Geological Survey of Alabama for 1881 and 1882, in which Mr. E. A. Smith sums up this same problem as follows: