62 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



In most of the valleys, large settlements of neighborhoods may still be made 

 in favorable locations, with the advantage of water power for all ordinary pur- 

 poses. The best situations for the rearing of sheep are along the border of the 

 limestone region, and continuing south-west along the whole course of the High- 

 town River. The valley of this river is bounded along a great distance on the 

 south by extensive forests of long-leafed pine, afibrding good grass, but little wa- 

 ter, and a dry soil. Many interior localities present also peculiar advantages for 

 sheep and other husbandry. AVe have great confidence in orchards in this coun- 

 try, but are not practically acquainted with its capacities m that respect to speak 

 with certainty. Potatoes succeed admirably. Our best bottoms, without manure 

 or extraordinary cultivation, will yield fifty bushels of corn per acre ; the best 

 valley lands give about forty. I have not put this down at the maximum which 

 a few acres under certain circumstances may have authorized. But Agriculture 

 here is far from being in an advanced state, nor is the capacity of our soils under 

 proper treatment yet ascertained. In the county of Cass, which has been (and 

 justly, I think) distinguished as the best county in Georgia, the first-rate lands — 

 a fair proportion improved and in cultivation — are worth from fifteen to twenty 

 dollars per acre for large settlements, which usually embrace some broken land. 

 The price graduates from this sum down to five dollars per acre for the thinner 

 Talley lands, which are still very productive and susceptible of a high state of 

 cultivation, the subsoil being usually composed of the very best elements. Wood 

 land of equal quality would range but little above half those prices for quality, 

 but is more expensive and difficult to procure, as the single lots are scattered in 

 the hands of individuals in different parts of the State, and frequently of other 

 States. Land bears a higher price in Cass than in any other county, yet not al- 

 ways higher in proportion to quality. The price in every part of the country is 

 frequently regulated by accidental or temporary circumstances. 



White hands for Agriculture can be had at from six to ten dollars per month, 

 clothing themselves. Negroes are worth from forty to seventy dollars per year. 



Our richer valleys have more often been afflicted with disease than we could 

 wish. Usually we have not been able to trace it to any cause that was perma- 

 nent in its character. The clearing of lands — small water-courses, although lim- 

 pid and pure of themselves, choked up with decaying timber, and mill-ponds in 

 a more criminal state of neglect — the very low stage of the rivers one season, and 

 the decay of the luxuriant water-mosses— have in general accounted sufliiciently for 

 our afflictions. But as to these causes, none of them are or should be permanent. 

 Our streams, up to the size of considerable rivers, are almost as pure as crystal, 

 and greatly exempt from stagnant waters, while they hold their courses over beds 

 pebbled with quartz, jasper, chalcedony, and agate, and not unfrequently of the 

 more solid limestone. Beyond all this, among the mountain coves and more con- 

 fined valleys, there seems to be some general tendency to inflammatory disorders, 

 not always to be referred to any of these causes. But the active and hardy char- 

 acter of our population, and their capability to bear long-continued fatigue, show 

 that we are exempt from those terrible inroads which disease makes upon the 

 human system in the valleys of the West. 



Our actual and prospective advantages of markets are found in the parallel 

 routes of the Savannah River and the Charleston and Hamburg Railroad, 136 

 miles, to Augusta ; the Georgia Railroad, 170 miles, to the eastern terminus of 

 the Western and Atlantic Railroad at Atlanta; in the Central Railroad, 190 

 miles, from Savannah to Macon ; the Macon and Western Railroad (formerly the 

 Monroe Railroad), 101 miles, from Macon to Atlanta ; and in the Western and 

 Atlantic Railroad (a State work), now in operation SO miles, to Dawsonville, with 

 an appropriation to extend it 22 miles farther to Cross Plains, which will be done 

 during the present year. The double lines on the map mark the route of the 

 Western and Atlantic Railroad, now in operation ; the continuous single line in- 

 dicates where it has been graded, except an unfinished tunnel. If this cannot be 

 successfully penetrated, a circuit of three or four miles will take the road on a 

 grade around that obstacle. The road will ultimately be completed to Chatta- 

 nooga, in the State of Tennessee, as marked on the map. From Kingston, in 

 Cass county, to Rome, 17 miles, a charter is granted for a railroad. One hundred 

 and fifty thousand dollars of stock are required to be taken before the company 

 commences operations. On the Coosa River, from Rome to the mouth of Wills 

 Creek in Alabama, a steamboat is now running, laden with the produce of a rich 



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