DOMESTIC NOTICES. 



ard to the Invaluable mineral substance re- 

 cently discovered in New-Jersey. It will work 

 iniracles,mixed with ashes,cn our unfertile land. 

 You may have had means of knowing at what 

 expense it might be obtained in Newark or 

 New- York? [Know nothing of it, and will be 

 glad to learn what it is.] 



AVith sorrow at troubling you with so many 

 queries, mixed with joy at being allowed to seek 

 all this information at the fountain he.id, I re- 

 main your friend, A. J. R. New-Bedford, 

 Mass., Feb. 6, 1851. 



HORTICDLTURE IN THE INTERIOR OF GEOR- 

 GIA. — Although but a recent subscriber to your 

 valuable periodical, I have been an interested 

 reader of it for some two years past, and I 

 venture to offer an article for publication in it, 

 if you think it will prove acceptable to your 

 subscribers. 



I am a native of the valley of the Mohawk, 

 and have spent some thirty years of my life in 

 it ; but for the last twelve years have been a re- 

 sident of Habersham county, Ga., a section of 

 country comparatively little known at the north. 

 My cliief intention is to give your readers a 

 short history of its location, geological forma- 

 tion, its native fruits, flowers, &c. Habersham 

 county lies in the northwest corner of the State, 

 and mostly on the first steppe of the Allegany 

 range of mountains, some 3000 feet above the 

 ocean level ; its climate is unequaled for salu- 

 brity in the United States, the thermometer 

 rarely rising in midsummer to 90° during the 

 day, and at night usually about 60°, while our 

 winters are mild, with but little frost and snow; 

 and now, while writing this, I am sitting in my 

 room with the sashes up and the door open. 

 Our summer nights are delightful and cool, so 

 that one always needs a blanket wlien sleeping, 

 for covering. Billions fever, that scourge of the 

 south, never intrudes here, nor the insinuating 

 consumption of the north ; consequently Haber- 

 sham is a place of i-csort for the rice and cotton 

 planters of the lower portion of the state. The 

 soil is poor upon the hills and upland, and in the 

 vallies and bottoms, rich and productive, and 

 composed of the elements of granite, the pri- 

 mitive formation of the mountains here. No 

 cotton is raised here, it being too cold for it to 

 mature well; corn, wheat, rye, oats, and all 

 the grasses succeed as well as at the north. 



Farming is conducted very rudely, but 

 proving, owing to the influence of agricultural 

 papers and societies. I wish you could see a 

 southern plough, such as are used here in the 

 mountains. It would be a great curiosity to a 

 New-York farmer, were he to find one in the 

 road. I am sure he could not tell for what use 

 it was intended, or to what nation of people it 

 belonged. 



In this county is situated the far-famed falls 

 of Tallulah, and the beautiful fall of Toccoa, 

 both worth a trip across the Atlantic to be seen 

 in the month of June, when thousands of Rho- 

 dodendrons, Kalmias and other flowers and 

 shrubs wliich surround, are in bloom ; and were 

 some of your exi)erienced manufacturers, only 

 to see the number of splendid water-falls here, 

 wasting their power in obscurity, and as it were, 

 inviting and tempting them to come and use 

 them, almost for the using alone, they would, 

 I think, forthwith be off to Georgia, notwith- 

 standing the great bug-bear to northerners, 

 Negro slaver}'. 



The forests are almost unlimited in extent, 

 as the country has been settled but about 35 

 years, with a present population of 8000 whites. 

 The forests are composed of say 8 or 10 kinds 

 of Oaks, the same of Firs, Chestnut, Hickory, 

 Walnut, Poplar, Gum, Birch, Holly, &c. Wild 

 grapes abound here; Fox grapes and Mus- 

 cadines without number, in this and the ad- 

 joining counties of Rabun and Union ; and by 

 the way, we have three varieties of native 

 grapes that possibly may prove valuable for 

 cultivation. One of them is a large white 

 grape, about the size of the Isabella, but sweet- 

 er. Another, a red grape about the same size, 

 a little more acid, and the other a small white 

 grape about the size of Herbemont's Madeira. 

 None of them are known, except in the neigh- 

 borhood, where they are still growing wild in 

 the coves of the mountains. I am unable to 

 give tlie botanical character, as I have never 

 seen them when in flower. I have them all in 

 process of domestication, and will if desirable 

 give you the results. 



Foreign grapes thus far do well. We have the 

 white Burgundy jWhite Muscat and some others, 

 all which grow in the open air ; the rot occa- 

 sionally attacks them, but judicious manuring 

 is a remedy for it. The rascally curculio 

 all of our nothern plums, nectarines, chcrr 



