INTRODUCTION. 13 



Most of the counties in Alabama are now covered by 

 government soil survey reports, which give information 

 about agricultural conditions that is usually impartial and 

 reasonably accurate, but the earlier surveys (published 15- 

 or more years ago) are naturally less satisfactory than the 

 later ones, -and furthermore even if one had access to a 

 complete set of them it would be too much of a task for 

 most persons to wade through them all and weigh the advan- 

 tages and disadvantages of each county. 



Government census reports contain a vast amount of 

 valuable information about every county, arranged in such 

 a way that comparisons between any two counties in any 

 one particular can be quickly made, but comparatively few 

 persons have the patience to read statistical tables or the 

 skill to digest and interpret them properly, and the absolute 

 figures of the census returns mean little until they are re- 

 duced to ratios or percentages (such as inhabitants per 

 square mile, percentage of whites, value of land per acre, 

 percentage of owners and tenants, etc.). 



The previous publications of this office give pretty full 

 information about the soils, mineral resources, underground 

 waters, etc., of all parts of the State, but most of them spe- 

 cialize on one topic, such as stratigraphy, gold, marble, iron, 

 coal, or road materials, and thus do not give a good picture 

 of any region or locality. One exception to this rule is Dr. 

 Smith's agricultural report of 1883, prepared in connection 

 with the Tenth Census of the United States. This, however, 

 has long been out of print, and some of the economic condi- 

 tions have of course changed considerably in four decades. 

 Our present statistical information is not only more up-to- 

 date but also more complete than that of 1883, for each suc- 

 cessive census has given more details than its predecessors. 

 And the invention of the half-tone process, about 1885, has 

 made it possible to illustrate descriptive works much more 

 satisfactorily than could be done at the time of the Tenth 

 Census. 



The present publication is a sort of sequel to Dr. Smith's 

 1883 report, for a portion of the State, and at the same time 

 an experiment in geographical description on a scale per- 

 haps never before attempted. It seeks to answer as many 

 as possible of the questions that a prospective settler might 

 ask, with impartial information based on personal observa- 

 tion in every county and much reading of current newspa- 



