house in many cases were an office and a lodge, containing between them the administrative headquarters, the schoolroom, and the apartments for any bachelor overflow whether tutor, sons or guests.  Behind the house and at a distance of a rod or two for the sake of isolating its noise and odors, was the kitchen.  Near this, unless a spring were available, stood the well with its two buckets dangling from the pulley; and near this in turn the dairy and the group of pots and tubs which constituted the open air laundry.  Bounding the back yard there were the smoke-house where bacon and hams were cured, the sweet potato pit, the ice pit except in the southernmost latitudes where no ice of local origin was to be had, the carriage house, the poultry house, the pigeon cote, and the lodgings of the domestic servants.  On plantations of small or medium scale the cabins of the field hands generally stood at the border of the master’s own premises; but on great estates, particularly in the lowlands, they were likely to be somewhat removed, with the overseer’s house, the smithy, and the stables, corn cribs and wagon sheds nearby.  At other convenient spots were the buildings for working up the crops—­the tobacco house, the threshing and pounding mills, the gin and press, or the sugar house as the respective staples required.  The climate conduced so strongly to out of door life that as a rule each roof covered but a single unit of residence, industry or storage.

The fields as well as the buildings commonly radiated from the planter’s house.  Close at hand were the garden, the orchards and the horse lot; and behind them the sweet potato field, the watermelon patch and the forage plots of millet, sorghum and the like.  Thence there stretched the fields of the main crops in a more or less solid expanse according to the local conditions.  Where ditches or embankments were necessary, as for sugar and rice fields, the high cost of reclamation promoted compactness; elsewhere the prevailing cheapness of land promoted dispersion.  Throughout the uplands, accordingly, the area in crops was likely to be broken by wood lots and long-term fallows.  The scale of tillage might range from a few score acres to a thousand or two; the expanse of unused land need have no limit but those of the proprietor’s purse and his speculative proclivity.

The scale of the orchards was in some degree a measure of the domesticity prevailing.  On the rice coast the unfavorable character of the soil and the absenteeism of the planter’s families in summer conspired to keep the fruit trees few.  In the sugar district oranges and figs were fairly plentiful.  But as to both quantity and variety in fruits the Piedmont was unequaled.  Figs, plums, apples, pears and quinces were abundant, but the peaches excelled all the rest.  The many varieties of these were in two main groups, those of clear stones and soft, luscious flesh for eating raw, and those of clinging stones and firm flesh for drying, preserving, and making pies.