482 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



of this place, who takes an interest in agricultural mat- 

 ters, says the average value of farming land in Ogle- 

 thorpe county, is about $8 an acre. The common selling 

 price is $10 — the soil generally, sandy loam — rocks, gran- 

 ite and quartz — timber, principally oak, with hickory, 

 pine, &c. The surface is not so uneven as it is around 

 Athens, but still, is quite rolling. 



Governor Gilmer is satisfied by the experiments which 

 he has made, that clover and grass can be successfully 

 cultivated in this part of the state, if it were not that 

 cotton absorbs everything else. There is not sufficient 

 corn and meat made for the consumption of the county. 

 Pork and flour are both imported. Wheat is grown to 

 a small extent, and yields, sometimes, fifteen to twenty 

 bushels to the acre ; though on an average, not more than 

 five or six. Governor Gilmer's method of saving seed 

 wheat, is to let a portion of the field stand until so fully 

 ripe there is no immature seed, and then by lightly 

 threshing, the very best is obtained. 



Appropriate Border for Garden Walks. — Governor 

 Gilmer has made use of specimens of native quartz rock, 

 and it has only to be seen, to be appreciated above the 

 long rows of dull-colored brick usually appropriated to 

 that purpose. 



The Cradle Rock. — Upon the Governor's farm there is 

 a rock of perhaps a hundred tons, so nicely poised that 

 it can be cradled by the hand of a child. 



March 23d, upon which I left Lexington, was a lovely 

 spring day, and on my way down the railroad, with such 

 vast tracts of old worn and wasted fields on each side, I 

 was forcibly struck with a remark made by a stranger — 

 "What a country this would now be if it had not been de- 

 stroyed by bad cultivation." 



Washington, Ga. — Having a desire to visit this place, 

 I went down by the midnight train, 20 miles from Union 

 Point, to Gumming Station, and spent the balance of the 

 night in just such a tavern as unfortunately abounds all 

 over the country, and then proceeded by stage 18 miles, 



