2()2 - 
information furnished by residents whom I met along my journey. Arkansas 
is in much the condition of Mississippi, by reason of the flood, and the remarks 
in regard to that State would apply to it. By the census it appears there were 
made 367,393 bales of cotton and 17,823,588 bushels of corn. Both of these 
crops may be larger in the aggregate than last year, but will be small as com- 
pared with those reported by the census. 
Texas has suffered less than any other southern State from the war, and last 
year was a productive one in her agricultural products. The planters have 
made preparations for a large crop of cotton this year. The census crop was 
reported at 431,463 bales, and it is expected that half of that number may be 
reached this year. I shall not be surprised, from present appearances, if the 
crop reach even more than that, while the corn crop will probably exceed that 
made before the war. The agriculture of Texas is ina highly prosperous con- 
dition. . 
The “Ramie.”’—While in New Orleans my attention was called to specimens 
of the Boehmeria tenacissima, introduced from Java via Mexico by Don Benito 
Roezl. It is a valuable plant, and may be destined to have an important 
bearing upon the agricultural interests of the South and the nation. I saw it 
growing in the propagating garden of the Agricultural Fair Association. These 
will be on exhibition at their fair in November, with fabric and fibre. 
MISSISSIPPI FLOOD. 
My attention was called to the deplorable condition of the country which had 
been devastated by the overflow of the Mississippiriver. ‘The flood had become 
serious in its magnitude at a much earlier period of the spring than usual. Its 
volume was expanded by the early breaking up of the Missouri and its mountain 
tributaries, and the annual overflow of the Ohio and its tributaries was thus met 
by the unseasonable flood of the Missouri, which, together with the unusual 
overflow of the rivers below the Ohio, combined to make the flood of this spring 
one of the most memorable in regard to its magnitude and its destructive conse- 
quences. 
For over a thousand miles from Cairo to Fort St. Francis the country on each 
side of the river was submerged for the average distance of thirty miles, making 
an ageregate of full sixty miles wide by one thousand miles in length, that was 
covered by a depth of water varying from many feet to a few inches. 
Large preparations had been made to try and repair the losses which had been 
incurred the last year by the partial failure of the crops from various reasons. 
In innumerable instances that came to my knowledge they had reached from 
five thousand to even twenty thousand dollars, and returning prosperity or total 
ruin was involved in the results of this year’s crops. Perhaps in no section of 
the South have more desperate efforts been made than on the bottom lands of the 
rivers which have been so sadly affected by this great flood. Hundreds of 
planters have risked their all, the result must be a serious loss. The levees 
have been destroyed by war and by the flood Always expensive, and in the 
most prosperous times requiring constant supervision, and heavy annual re- 
pairs, they have been so long abandoned that where five years ago there were 
open and well cleared lands, the cottonwood has grown up in a thick jungle 
from twenty to sixty feet high, and the clearing for a crop would involve greater 
labor than was required to clear off the original forest, though that involved the 
clearing of cottonwood trees of enormous size. 
I am satisfied that upon all the lands which have been inundated not half a 
crop will be raised. A very large breadth that had been prepared and partially 
planted has been abandoned entirely, owing to the loss and dispersion of labor 
in the freedmen and the mules, and the lands thus abandoned would under fa- 
vorable circumstances have produced at least a bale of cotton tothe acre. The 
