COTTON CULTURE. ITS 



difficulty at all with regard to fuel in all this region ; the 

 entire valley is covered by a dense forest growth, the re- 

 moval of which, for purposes of fuel, will probably be 

 found quite too slow to meet the demand for more open 

 land ; and when all the forests near the front are cut away, 

 a flat boat, loaded with several hundred tons of coal, can 

 be floated down from the upper Ohio and landed at any 

 point along the great river for a few cents more per bush- 

 el than would be its cost at Cincinnati. 



Everything in the situation and in the natural sur- 

 roundings and facilities afforded by this region, seems to 

 point to operations to be conducted on a large scale, 

 with command of ample capital ; all the imjflrovements 

 of modern ingenuity and business enterprise being 

 made to contribute to magnificent results, where the 

 inexhaustible fertility of the soil, taken in connection 

 with the constant and cheap access to all other parts 

 of the country, shall present a combination of agri- 

 cultural and manufacturing skill which has never yet been 

 equalled on this continent. Here is a soil and climate 

 perfectly adapted to the growth of cotton, in connection 

 with the sources of a motive power inexhaustible as the 

 coal beds of the West, and all washed by the waters of a 

 mighty inland ocean so deep that the Great Eastern might 

 be floated a thousand miles inland, and then steam direct 

 from the gin-houses that will dot the bank of the mighty 

 stream to the Liverpool docks. 



But these rank and wide alluvions, teeming with luxuri- 

 ant vegetable growth, are not the only cotton lands of the 

 South. There are sections which are as attractive to the 

 farmer of moderate means, who desires to establish a 

 Southern home, as the former to the capitalist hunting for 

 a lucrative investment. The grand objection to the great- 

 er part of the very fertile lands above described, is that 

 they are unsuitable for homes and as locations for family 

 residences. The surface is commonly a dead level ; the 



