10 COTTON CULTURE. 



entirely cut away by a damp and chilly April, and a frosty 

 October. The superiority of the lands of the Southern 

 States of North America is due less to soil than to climate. 

 In the relations of the mountains to the sea and of the 

 Great Valley to the Gulf, into which its waters pour, is 

 to be found the true secret of the rapid ascent of cotton 

 to a great commercial and political power. This was very 

 aptly stated by a recent lecturer before the American 

 Geographical Society in terms substantially as follows : 



" The peculiar climate of the Cotton States I understand 

 to be produced by the chain of mountains which intersects 

 our country, the lower spurs of the Alleghany range 

 passing off westward in the hills of northern Georgia, Ala- 

 bama, and Mississippi. 



" On these the moisture brought inland by the sea- 

 breezes from the Gulf and Gulf-stream is condensed, and 

 falls in many showers, but not often in long storms ; these 

 showers occur frequently in spring, but rarely in midsum- 

 mer and autumn, thus giving dry seasons for gathering the 

 crop. After it has attained a vigorous growth, the cotton 

 plant may defy the drouth, for by means of a long tap- 

 root it lives upon the moisture accumulated beneath the 

 surface during the winter and spring rains." 



A line drawn from Raleigh westward through Nashville, 

 and continued into the northern part of Arkansas has, 

 until of late, been regarded as the true northern limit of 

 the cotton belt, south of which it is, even at ten cents a 

 pound, the most valuable crop that can be produced. 



There are some good cotton lands in North Carolina, 

 but that State has never been a large producer of the staple. 

 Many of its river bottoms are too wet and heavy, and most 

 of its uplands are too poor. 



West of the mountains very little has ever been grown 

 in the valleys of the upper Tennessee. But descending that 

 tortuous stream, and passing west of Chattanooga into 

 northern Alabama and western Tennessee, we come into 



