59 



EXTEACTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE. 



A NEW aRAPE REGION. 



Webster^ Jackson County^ North Carolina. — Permit me to digress from 

 a report of my county to indicate a grape region not generally known. 

 The Blue Ridge at its great southern bend runs nearly east and west for 

 one hundred miles, nearly coinciding with the thirty-fifth parallel of 

 latitude. It here forms a huge mountain wall, in many places six thou- 

 sand feet high. This great wall is braced on the south side by many 

 lateral ranges, runniug down between the heads of the rivers, thirty or 

 forty miles in extent. Some of the knobs on these side ranges nearly 

 equal in height the parent mountain. The soil on the top and east side 

 of many of these mountains is a loose and fertile loam, abounding in 

 springs and rivulets of pure water, and clothed in forests of excellent 

 timber. The greater part of this country is yet in a state of nature, and 

 the lands are cheaper than the Government lands of the West. Rail- 

 roads already built and in process of construction run along the lower 

 spurs of these mountain slopes, sometimes tunneling through them, 

 giving easy access to the markets of the world. 



The climate is delightful ; the great mountain wall on the north 

 breaking the force of the cold storms of winter and spring, and its great 

 elevation exempting it from the burning heats of summer. Here is the 

 country for the man of weak lungs; and if he has a turn for vine-grow- 

 ing, sheep husbandry, or bee culture, he may obtain health and money 

 at the same time. I know of no country that can surpass it in climate, 

 unless it be the south of Spain, under the Sierra Nevada, or some parts 

 of Lombardy, in Italy. 



Among many desirable localities, from the Tryon Mountain, in North 

 Carolina, to the Yona, in Georgia, I would designate the Oconee Moun- 

 tain, in South Carolina, as possessing ijeculiar attractions. First, a 

 highway of easy and gentle grade to Walhalla, a German town on the 

 railroad. Second, an elevation of about eight Jiundred feet above the 

 valleys, and perhaps sixteen hundred feet above tide- water. Third, a 

 level and fertile mountain top of hundreds of acres, with springs and 

 rivulets everywhere. Fourth, a rich and steep mountain on the east 

 side with thousands of acres of sunny and shady slopes, giving every 

 kind of exposure except a western one, with magnificent forests of oak, 

 walnut, poplar, locust, pine, and bass wood. Fifth, the site is beautiful. 

 Looking north we behold a huge mountain for one hundred miles, in 

 winter covered with snow or sleet, and in summer in gorgeous green; 

 looking south the hill country of South Carolina lies spread out like the 

 billowy waves of the ocean far as the eye can reach ; a few miles above 

 the climate is too cold for Indian corn ; a few miles below grow the cot- 

 ton, fig, and rice. Sixth, the almost certainty of the grape being healthy 

 there. A mountaineer here and there has planted a few peach trees 

 about his house, and an Isabella or Herbemont vine. No frost has ever 

 killed his peaches, or rust or mildew destroyed his grapes.* 



[* A letter of Hon. G. Cannorr, of Spartanburg, South Carolina, directed to Senator 

 T. J. Robertson, in presenting the advantage^ of the Cincinnati and Charleston Rail- 

 road, refers to this subject as follows. — Ed. Rep:] 



"This line passes directly over the Tryon Mountain, where, in certain localities, 

 frosts have never been known by the oldest inhabitants. Fruits of all kinds never 

 failing, and the wild grapes have been gathered there in the month of January, fresh 

 and juicy as in October. This mountaiu region also affords wonderful grazing advant- 

 ages, besides producing all the cereals, common to this climate, in great abundance." 



