SOLON ROBINSON, 1851 475 



short time. The country is a high, granite, hilly region, 

 with numerous rapid, rocky streams, with a salubrious 

 climate; while the soil, generally, is not the kind to de- 

 light a southern planter, for the reason it requires a dif- 

 ferent mode of tillage from that which they have long 

 practiced, to the destruction of some of the most fertile 

 spots in the state. 



The whole soil of this part of the state seems to be 

 rocks turned to dust — doomed to decay — for it is made 

 up of decomposed granite — the color and strata of the 

 rock and the veins of gneiss, are seen in the clay in the 

 same position as when all was solid rock. Wherever gran- 

 ite rocks are found in place, there may be seen the decay 

 still progressing. 



Every body condemns the soil around Athens as poor. 

 I grant that it is not as rich as the bottom lands of the 

 Chattahoochee, yet it is far better than some portions of 

 Massachusetts, which are worth a hundred dollars per 

 acre for farming purposes. The surface of the country 

 is very uneven, and liable to wash, and has been greatly 

 injured in that way, and will be greatly more injured 

 unless the system of side-hill ditching is adopted : not the 

 little miserable affairs which have been attempted upon 

 some farms I visited, but a most thorough and complete 

 work, of large and strong ditches, so as completely to 

 prevent the water from coursing down the cultivated 

 hill-sides, as it has done ever since the country was set- 

 tled by the whites. 



There is a spot within the town ycleped, a botanical 

 garden. I believe it belongs to the college — an institu- 

 tion of some notoriety here — and a more romantic, beau- 

 tiful spot to improve is rarely seen. An expenditure of 

 three or four thousand dollars, instead of the scanty pit- 

 tance doled out to the gardener, who seems to be a man 

 of taste, would make this garden a place for the Athen- 

 ians to be proud of. There is an unfortunate lack of this 

 kind of public spirit of improvement and beautifying 

 towns, in nearly all of them at the south. It is not for 



