64 AGRICULTUKAL REPORT. 



Tlir KAXAWHA VALLEY. 



There are few localities promising more attractions to industrial enterprise, 

 or higher rewards to free labor, than the Kanawha valley of "West Virginia. 

 Climate, soil, timber, fuel, (wood above and coal below,) minerals in variety, 

 water power, navigation two thousand miles to the Gulf of Mexico, and to all 

 tiie tributaries of the Mississippi, conspire to render this valley, even now ani 

 mated with the earlier sights and sounds of developing industries, the future 

 home of mechanic skill and intelligent labor, and consequent refinement, 

 wealth, contentment, virtue, and happiness. 



its climate is mild and agreeable, with heat less intense in summer than at 

 Washington or Baltimore, and a winter temperature comparing favorably in 

 mildness with that of Louisville and St. Louis. 



The distribution of rain through the different seasons is remarkably uniform, 

 being not far from eight inches rain-fall in each of the seasons — spring, sum- 

 mer, and autumn — and scarcely more than ten during the winter, or about thirty- 

 six inches for the year. 



The centre of the lower valley, or basin of the Great Kanawha, is in lati- 

 tude 38°. The extreme length of the river is about four hundred miles. It 

 rises in Ashe county, in North Carolina, and traverses or forms the boundary 

 of six counties in Virginia and eight counties in West Virginia, viz : Mercer, 

 Monroe, Greenbrier, Raleigh, Fayette, Kanawha, Putnam, and Mason. It 

 first flows between the Blue Ridge and Iron Mountain, and in the northern 

 part of Grayson county, Virginia, it bursts the bamers of the Iron Mountain 

 and continues in a northeastern direction through CaiToll, Wythe, and Pu- 

 laski counties, where it turns abruptly to the northwest, winding through sev- 

 eral ridges of the Alleghanies, as if instinctively seeking association with the 

 future of "la belle riviere," Ohio, and the great "Father of Waters." After 

 crossing the Greenbrier range, and passing through Fayette county, West 

 Virginia, it receives the Gauley river from the right, spreads into a broad ex- 

 panse of five hundred yards, and assumes the dignity of the Great Kanawha. 

 Right here, two miles below the junction, and more than a hundred miles from 

 the Ohio, the stream is precipitated twenty -tAvo feet over a ledge of rocks, with 

 a total descent of fifty feet, including rapids and perpendicular falls, placing a 

 limit to steamboat navigation, and also furnishing one of the best water powers 

 in the world. 



The area drained by this noble river is stated to be more than ten thousand 

 square miles — a teiTitory a little larger than the State of Massachusetts. 



Kanawha, the first of the three counties below the falls, has an area of 1,176 

 square miles, beautifully diversified with mountains, hills, and fertile valleys, 

 the highlands inexhaustible with coal, and the valleys salt, with abundant 

 saline springs. This area is intersected by the Elk, Coal, and Pocotalico 

 rivers, which afford enlarged facilities for manufacturing and transportation 

 of the mineral treasures beneath the soil, the products of its cultivation, and 

 the timber which towers above it. Its population was nearly 16,150 in 1860, 

 and its assessed valuation about three and a half millions. 



The i-iver empties into the Ohio at Point Pleasant, above Gallipolis, Ohio. 

 The four lower counties of the valley, immediately connected with the I'iver, 

 have a population of nearly forty thousand, of whom little more than three 

 thousand were slaves in 1860. 



The counties of the Kanawha valley exhibited a population, in 1860. as 

 follows : 



