West Tennessee along the Mississippi River was a part of the Black Belt, and was more suitable for the production of cotton than either of the other two divisions of the state. There were 13,536 slaveholders in West Tennessee in 1856.[9] West Tennessee had larger slaveholders in proportion to the total number than either of the other divisions of the state. In East Tennessee those who owned one slave were one-fourth of the total number of slaveholders; in Middle Tennessee about the same proportion prevailed; and in West Tennessee this ratio was reduced to 1:5. In East Tennessee there was only one person owning more than one hundred slaves; in Middle Tennessee there were twenty-five; in West Tennessee there were eighty-five. The plantations in West Tennessee were larger and more numerous, in spite of the fact that West Tennessee was not settled before 1820. Fayette County had 74 plantations containing between 500 and 1000 acres each, and 15 containing more than 1000 acres each. Fayette County in 1860 contained 15,473 slaves, all of whom had been acquired since 1830.[10] Shelby had a slave population of 16,953, which had been acquired since 1830. Some of the most productive parts of the Black Belt in West Tennessee, such as Lake County, were not in cultivation by 1860. The counties along the divide between the Mississippi and Tennessee rivers were very poor, and therefore not suitable for the production of cotton in large quantities. Counties like Hardin, Henderson, McNairy, Chester, Decatur, Carroll, Weakley, and Gibson were cultivated by small farmers, many of whom owned no slaves at all, while others owned only one or two slaves. In these counties, farmers worked their crops by themselves, or by the side of their slaves. The leading crops of West Tennessee were cotton, corn, wheat, and tobacco. Cotton was the chief crop, and tobacco was raised in only the poorer counties, like Benton, Carroll, Weakley, Gibson, Haywood, and Lauderdale. Fayette and Shelby were the big cotton counties. West Tennessee produced in 1856 four times as much cotton as Middle Tennessee, and 3,144 hogsheads of tobacco against 4,511 produced by Middle Tennessee.[11] Taking the state as a whole, it was never more than a state of small farmers. The plantation system as it existed in Mississippi or South Carolina never prevailed in Tennessee. The soils of Tennessee were not sufficiently productive to make slavery profitable on a large scale. It was more profitable to own from one to half a dozen slaves and work with them than to have an overseer. Of the 33,864 slaveholders in the state in 1850, 26,512 owned less than ten slaves each, and 18,198 owned less than five each. There were only 22 persons in the state who owned more than one hundred slaves. By 1856 this number had increased to one hundred and six.