THE ALABAMA OPPORTUNITY. 1G7 



funeral of a native in such sections attract wide spread at- 

 tention. A physician who resided near Pettusville in the North 

 east corner of Limestone county, a few miles south of the Ten- 

 nessee line, said, he had practiced medicine in that country 

 thirty years, and never lost a patient under eighty years of 

 age. In this remarkable scope of country which we admire 

 for manv reasons other than its fertility, there are many 

 springs of wonderful medicinal c|uality. Springs' which have 

 produced cures, which would have rendered a less obscure 

 country famous, still this section is in eighteen miles at most re- 

 mote point from the L. & N. R. R. on the west, and perhaps 

 twenty from the Southern on the South. So the reader must 

 be persuaded that we have man}- kinds of soil and country in 

 this Northern tier of Alabama Counties. 



THE MOUNTAIN TOP. 



We would do violence to Marshall, Alorgan and Lawrence 

 were we to omit that now famous section known as the top 

 of sand Mountain, a section lying south of the Tennessee and 

 back beyond the valley, perhaps a distance ranging from five 

 to twenty miles from the river, the width of the fertile valley 

 being goverened by the windings of the river or Mountain. 

 Before the war a man was regarded as' a mere sciuatter who 

 built his cabin and who himted bear, deer and turkey on Sand 

 Mountain. The soil while producing tall pines and other Sand 

 Mountain growth, was regarded by comparison as too poor 

 for cultivation, this is not so to-day. The fact has been re- 

 vealed that this sandy soil with a little fertilizer, produces the 

 finest staple- of cotton grown in this' section. From a wilder- 

 ness at a cost of from one to two dollars an acre, it has become 

 the site of many beautiful and prosperous farms. A new and 

 industrious class have settled here, some of the best of Geor- 

 gia's enterprising farmers making it their home. This section 

 now has railroad conveniences and those who want to reside 

 on a mountain top can find here soil which will produce the 

 finest of potatoes, anything in the line of truck gardening, 

 beautiful grapes, peaches, apples and pears, and the best water 

 melons on earth. There is considerable acreage here unoc- 

 cupied. We, however, do not insist that the conveniences of 

 life abound back on the Mountain as they do in the beautiful 



