134 WORCESTER COUNTY HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. [1898. 



and the same fine for killing a turkey-buzzard anywhere in the 

 South. 



Athens, East Tennesse, is a city of four thousand inhabitants. 

 It is located between Chattanooga and Knoxville. The country 

 is mountainous and hilly, and numerous springs of water flow 

 from the hills. The waste water from some of the springs 

 would fill a six-inch pipe. The climate is mild and very 

 healthy. There is a jean factory, a thread factory and chair 

 factory In the place. The State abounds in timber, marble, 

 coal and iron. All that is wanting is capital and brains to 

 utilize it. 



The Grant University is located here and is in a flourishing 

 condition. The jean-clad, log-cabin mountaineers are a sight 

 to behold. There are so many patches on their clothes that it is 

 hard to tell what the original was. Some of them hardly ever 

 get out of sight of their cabin. They are a very ignorant class 

 of people. 



I went out to Mouse creek to see some of the old slave plan- 

 tations and found the proprietor of one of them living. He was 

 very willing to talk, said he was eighty-four years old, and that 

 slavery was a curse to the South from the fact that slaveholders' 

 children were not brought up to work, and when the slaves were 

 liberated he owned fifty and was glad when they were gone. 

 Said he could hire a nigger cheaper than he could own one. 

 His son was carrying on the plantation and raising fine crops. 

 Other plantations near him equally as good as his had not been 

 cultivated since the war. The land had grown up to sage grass 

 and they were hunting rabbits in it. 



I found some very nice dairy farms. I went to one farm 

 where the waste water from the spring was utilized to do the 

 churning. He had a silo, but he let the air get to it and it was 

 spoilt, you could smell it a long distance from the barn. 



Court week is a great week in Athens, everyone comes to town 

 on horseback, some on law business and some to trade horses. 

 The county owns some four or five acres of land that is used for 

 a trading ground. It is all covered with hitching-posts free for 

 everyone. The cry is, "How will you swap?" or "How will 



