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great deal of land on the market, and reduced the price to very low figures, 
more than three-fourths of all the land in the county being for sale, and much 
of it must be disposed of at forced sale, it having been mortgaged for supplies, &c. 
The same may be said of many other counties, largely: engaged in cotton eul- 
ture. Along the central tier of counties, Kemper reports a decrease of 75 per 
cent.; Lauderdale, 70 to 80 ; Winston, 66 to 75; Attala, 66 ; Leake, 50; Wash- 
ington, 75; Yazoo, 66; Madison, 60 to 70; Hinds, 75—with few sales at any 
price. In Pike county, in the south, bordering on Louisiana, farming lands 
have fallen in value 50 per cent., except those adjacent to railroads, while in the 
adjoining county of Marion the decrease is set down at 75 per cent. The 
average depreciation throughout the State is 65 per cent. ; ; 
2. Half of the land of Mississippiis not included in farms, and only a third of 
the area in farms has ever been at one time under improvement. In the best cot- 
ton districts, cultivated lands have been comparatively high, but few were ever 
held at their intrinsic value, on account of the extent of the unoccupied area in the 
southwest. In the southeastern portion of the State, between the capital, Jack- 
son, and Mobile, in Alabama, the population is sparse, the land mostly is anen- 
tered, the soil sandy, with a small extent of rich creek bottoms, the price of 
unimproved tracts varying from twelve cents to one dollar per acre. ‘The 
growth is composed of oaks, hickory, gum, cypress, and long-leafed pine, the 
latter predominating, of great height and size, of industrial importance in con- 
nection with turpentine making and lumbering. ‘The soil, like other sandy 
loams, is easily worked and productive for a few years, becoming exhausted . 
witht constant cropping and no fertilizing. A bale of cotton per acre has been 
obtained upon such soil; sweet potatoes in unlimited quantities are easily pro- 
duced, and might prove a source of large revenue under the new mode of slicing 
and drying for distant markets ; the castor-oil bean grows finely here, and might 
be made a source of profit and improvement to the soil; peaches area sure and 
abundant crop, beginning to bear in three years from the séed; and wool- 
growing will prove remunerative and a valuable auxiliary to tillage farming, 
wild grasses everywhere abounding, succulent and rank in growth by the mid- 
dle of February. 
The water is excellent, and the climate healthy. All that is needed to start 
this region upon a career of prosperity is a railroad to the Gulf coast from some 
point on the Mississippi Central. With such a road, land now a drug at 124 
cents per acre would be greedily taken at $1, and eventually, with improvements, 
would be cheap at $20. Similar lands, though generally better, on the line of 
the New Orleans, Jackson and Great Northern road, west of Pearl river, are now 
attainable at $5 to $10; or $20 near stations, and are bargains at those prices. 
In the northern part of the State, unimproved tracts average about $1 per acre ; 
in Hinds: county, $2 50; in Madison, $2; in Washington, on the river, fine 
Mississippi bottoms, perhaps unsurpassed in the world, $5 per acre. On the 
line of the Mobile and Ohio railroad, $2 50 is a common price. ‘The Hinds and 
Madison county unimproved lands will yield 300 pounds ginned cotton, 25 
bushels of corn, or 200 bushels of sweet potatoes per- acre without manure. 
Productive tracts in Yazoo can be purchased for 50 cents per acre. In De Soto 
are some 60 sections of “ Mssissippi bottom” at $4 or less per acre. 
The following statement concerning wild lands in Pike county is made by 
Wm. H. Garland, correspondent for that county : 
The average value of wild or unimproved lands, within a circuit of three or four miles 
of a railroad depot, is about $5"per acre, but taking the whole county it is about 50 cents per 
acre. The*general surface of the county is undulating, marked by long leading ridges, 
which divide the water-courses. The bottom lands are hommock, and are very productive 
except where there is too much sand. The following analysis of pine upland, at Summit, 
Pike county, avill show the general character of the hill lands. This analysis is from as poor 
