ABSTRACT
In the states of the upper South the staples of commercial agriculture were com, wheat, tobacco, flax, and hemp. Corn, not cotton or tobacco, was the chief staple of the South, as is shown by the acreage planted to it, the amount produced, and the value of the product. The value of the South's wheat crop in 1855 was equal to the combined value of the tobacco, rice, and sugar crops. Tobacco had long been the problem staple in southern economy because of the difficulties in producing and marketing it and the effects of its cultivation on soil. Staple-crop production as practiced in the southern way on the large farms and plantations required numerous hands whose labor could be assured only by ownership and the whip. While tobacco was raised in the counties less abundantly endowed by nature, hemp, and to a somewhat less extent flax, were produced in the rich limestone counties of central Kentucky.
