174 COTTOX CULTURE. 



water, except that which descends from the clouds, never 

 good; the air often loaded with feverish miasms and 

 swarming with nmsquitoes. He who seeks a suitable 

 place where he may build him a home, in an air that is free 

 and wholesome ; where the water is pure and abundant ; 

 the scenery not without some picturesque attractions, and 

 the social surroundings agreeable, will not select an allu- 

 vial tract. By reference to the cotton map in the early 

 part of this Treatise, a large breadth of country will ap- 

 pear tinted yellow ; this indicates hill lands where, in gen- 

 eral, the soil, without special treatment, does not yield a 

 bale to the acre, but where the other conditions of com- 

 fort and w^ll-being are much more easily supplied. These 

 are the sections that should be visited by the man who 

 proposes to buy a hundred or two acres, and to raise, 

 among other crops, twenty or thirty bales of cotton. 

 Perhaps the first locality that will attract a man with 

 views and plans of this character, will be the country south 

 of Nashville, bounded on the east by the Cumberland 

 Mountains, and on the west by the valley of the Lower Ten- 

 nessee. There is no first class cotton land here except, per- 

 haps, a few narrow strips along the river bank in North 

 Alabama. The seasons here are too short for the produc- 

 tion of full crops, but in a great number of minds this cir- 

 cumstance would be considered as more than offset by the 

 extreme beauty of Middle Tennessee, the lovely slopes of 

 emerald, the noble wealth of oaken forests, the clear run- 

 ning streams, the perfect healthiness of the climate, and 

 the high tone of social refinement and morality that per- 

 vades the community. 



Another redeeming feature by all means deserves men- 

 tion. With the Tennessee farmer, cotton is only one of sev- 

 eral crops which he can successfully cultivate ; the land 

 produces excellent tobacco. A few years ago Tennessee 

 was the leading State in the growth of corn. The apple, 

 pear, and peach tree, flourish ; hemp is a profitable crop, 



