More than a half.

I saw it estimated some time ago, at least I will give it as a statement published in the _Planters' Journal_, published in Vicksburgh, that there are thirteen counties on the Mississippi River which, if all cleared up and put into cultivation, are capable of producing the entire cotton crop of the United States, and I have heard the question discussed.
Q.What prevents their being cleared up and put into cultivation?
-- A.

Simply the overflow.
Q.Have they ever been cleared as yet?
-- A.

A great portion of them; and now destroyed because the levee system is not complete.

On these lands all the negro labor which is not found profitable on the poorer lands in the older States, could be made extremely profitable, not only to the proprietors of the lands, but to the laborers themselves.
Q.Do you think it would be within limit to say that one half of the alluvial plantation lands, such as you have described in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, is now practically destroyed by reason of this overflow occasioned by the destruction of the levee system?
-- A.