172 COTTON CULTURE. 



perfect adnptation to the growth of cotton. These lands 

 extend eastward to the waters of the Mississippi, a dis- 

 tance of some sixty miles. Here, at Vicksburg, we may 

 pass over into the State of Mississippi, and on the right 

 bank of the river, as we ascend, there is a similar body of 

 land from twenty-five to forty miles in width, and extend- 

 ing all the way from Vicksburg to Memphis. The first, 

 and we may say almost the only question which the capi- 

 talist will ask with reference to this entire tract of land is : 

 What parts of this unequaled soil are exempt from annual 

 inundation ? The facilities for transportation are almost 

 unparalleled; on thousands and tens of thousands of 

 plantations there would be no practical difficulty in build- 

 ing the gin-house or the factory in such a way that the 

 bales of cotton might be allowed to slide directly from the 

 press-room to the deck of a steamboat. The soil here is 

 quite uniform in the degree of its fertility, as may be seen 

 by the uniform growth with which it is covered. It may 

 be remarked, also, that the disasters of the late war have 

 fallen heavy upon this region, deranging titles, divesting 

 estates, and placing immense bodies of these lands within 

 easy reach of capital. The plantations which lie directly 

 upon the Mississippi have this advantage, that they are in 

 easy and immediate communication with the great cities 

 of the Northwest, so that the produce of these lands could 

 be taken at once either up or down the river, and discharg- 

 ed at St. Louis, at New Orleans, at Memphis, at Louisville, 

 or Cincinnati, according to the drift of commerce and the 

 facilities for manufacture. An establishment such as is 

 described in Chapter V, Part II, of this Treatise, might 

 be located in Missouri, in Southern Illinois, in Western 

 Tennessee, or on the Ohio River, and receive its supplies 

 of cotton in the seed from plantations five hundred miles 

 distant, and the freight be so moderate as to be more than 

 offset by the cheapness of labor and the abundance of 

 breadstuff's in the more northern situations. There is no 



