24 



from field to field for the purpose indicated in your paper. In the 

 Piedmont region of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, 

 where cotton by the aid of phosphates is grown to the very foot of 

 the mountains, it cannot be expected that, alone, it will be able to 

 compete with the rich bottom of Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi, 

 Alabama, or the rich lands of Texas." 



u But the Piedmont region is the seat of future coarse cotton and 

 yarn manufacturers, and the cotton grown there will all be wanted, 

 as will the wool, to render useful the enormous water-power now 

 running to waste. People are moving into this region, and dotting 

 the great waste with farms. A moderate flock on each one of these 

 is more practicable than large flocks in unappropriated lands where 

 the absence of * dog ' and ' fence ' laws render the business preca- 

 rious." 



1 'On all these subjects it would be very presumptuous for me to 

 offer any criticism to what you have written other than to say that it 

 commends itself to my common sense, and the rotation advocated has 

 found within the field of my inquiries on the spot no obstacles but lazi- 

 ness and want of capital." 



In the original draft of this address I had ventured on some 

 statements in regard to the climatic condition of the section of land 

 now under special consideration, in which I had named the so-called 

 " thermal belt," of which I have heard many accounts. Capt. Fox's 

 account of this section is so much more complete and authoritative 

 than my own, that I have ventured to substitute it. Capt. Fox says, 

 "There are, however, on the first page of } r our paper some remarks 

 upon meteorology and the ' thermal belt ' which are not of your in- 

 vestigation, and do not conform to my stud} T of the subject. I 

 should not criticise.it had I not spent years at sea where meteorology 

 is part of the daily life, and on land it is a great pleasure to continue 

 an interest in the subject. There is no portion of the United States 

 where freezing weather does not occur, excepting Key West and the 

 southern parts of Florida. I was at St. Augustine in December, 

 1878, and walked on ice ; the thermometer being 27. At Key 

 West it was 51 at the same time. There is probably no winter 

 where the record will not show freezing weather everywhere in the 

 United States but in Southern Florida." 



"There are among the Appalachian Mountains, from Virginia to 

 Georgia inclusive, belts of land thermal they might be called 

 where frost does not appear ; but the transition is from fall to freezing 

 weather, without that intermediate state where the frosts destroy 

 fruits, cotton, and tobacco. One of the most notorious of these 

 tracts is near Tryon Mountain, coming down from Asheville to 

 Spartanburg. It is some two thousand feet above the sea, and 

 perhaps thirty by fifteen miles. I saw a planter who was growing 

 cotton there. Fruits have, of course, a great advantage in such a 

 region. The cause is said to be due to the fact that the parallel 

 ridges of mountains retain the stratum of air, which, being heated 

 during the day, ascends to a height where its equilibrium is main- 



