Proceedings of the Farmer^ Club. 4^3 



rivers of South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama take origin, while 

 on the east and northeast "we find the head waters of the Roanoke, 

 the James and the Shenandoah. 



This broken county is very extensive. It includes thirty thousand 

 square miles of Virginia, twelve thousand of Kentucky, fifteen 

 thousand of Tennessee, twelve thousand of North Cai'olina, twelve 

 thousand of Alabama, twelve thousand of Georgia and seven thou 

 sand of South Carolina, in all a hundred thousand square miles; 

 somewhat more than twice the whole area of the State of New 

 York, and more than twenty times the area of Connecticut. The 

 valley of the Tennessee may include a hundred thousand acres of 

 low, and to some extent, alluvial soil; but, with that exception, the 

 whole of this wide region is mountainous, wild, undeveloped, and 

 veiy sparsely populated. 



It consists of three sierras or ranges of mountains, the Alleghany 

 in the middle, the Blue Ridge on the left flank and the Cumberland 

 on the right. In this order the Appalachian range sweeps in a 

 southwesterly direction, from the head waters of tlie Hudson on 

 the North to the head waters of the Alabama, afar in the sunny 

 South. 



The tide of migration from the old settlements of the seaboard, 

 rolling westward, never paused among these mountains. The great 

 continental valley, with its deep soil and humid atmosphere, its 

 millions of acres, to be owned in fee simple for a dollar and a 

 quarter each, was too inviting. Beside, the slave-owner must have 

 a soil from which he could force returns by heavy and unskilled 

 labor. Pastoral and mountain races have ever loved personal free- 

 dom themselves, and respected the love of it in others. Moreover, 

 these mountain sides and high plateaus would produce neither 

 cotton, tobacco, hemp nor paying crops of Indian corn. For these 

 reasons, the emigrants regarded all this country as a wilderness 

 that separated the old home on the seaboard from the new planta- 

 tion in the valley of the IVIississippi. 



A few lingered by the way. Many a lovely landscape caught 

 the eye and won the heart of the westward bound. Noble springs 

 of pure water, and deer bounding up the oak and chestnut-covered 

 slopes, attracted hunters, but nine out of ten kept on, and settled 

 a hundred miles beyond these picturesque and salubrious pasture 

 lands of the South. 



A well-marked difference is obsei'ved in the general formation of 

 each of these ranges. The Alleghany mountains ai-e two or thi-ee 



