Proceedings of the Farmers' Club. 693 



turned to grass raising and to dairy farming. The tree growth is 

 oak, cliestnut, sugar maple, bhick and white wahiut, ash, hickory, 

 hemlock, spruce pine, balsam, a species of wild cherry, the Magnolia 

 acuminata or encumber tree, etc. Except where there are thickets of 

 the rhododendron, there is but little undergrowth, and one may ride 

 on horseback up or along the mountain sides without caring for path 

 or road. The ground is almost everywhere covered with the wild 

 pea vine or clover, and a natural grass, resembling the blue grass of 

 Kentucky. The yield of various crops under the farming that has 

 existed there, is not a criterion of wl^at can and will be done in the 

 future. The speaker said he had seen 149 bushels of corn gathered 

 from one acre of land on the French Broad, but the average crop by 

 the ordinary farmer was forty to seventy bushels per acre. Wheat 

 was but little raised there before the war, and there were in 1860 but 

 two or three first class flour mills in all the thirteen counties west of 

 the Blue Eidge. It had as good returns as corn, but as there was no 

 outlet to market, it paid better to raise the corn and put into pork. 

 In the valleys of all the streams the lands are astonishingly fertile. 

 On the Pigeon river there are farms which have been cultivated for 

 over fifty years and yet produced 100 bushels of corn to the acre* 

 The same may be said of the valleys of the Tennessee, Tuckasaga 

 Yalley river, Kiowee, and Hiawasses. The three last have been in 

 cultivation hundreds of years. Buckwheat, flax, hemp, all grow and 

 give large returns. In fact any plant which grows in the valley of 

 the Mohawk will flourish there. Irish potatoes give a larger yield 

 from the native soil than in the north ; the usual crop is 250 to 300 

 bushels per acre, and we have known 600 bushels gathered from first 

 year's laud, oflf which the trees had not been cut, simply girdled. 

 This, too, was mountain side, perhaps 3,000 feet above the sea level. 

 The mountain sides grow all the grains with good 3-ields, but are 

 more profitably for grass. Timothy has been known to grow over 

 six feet high on a mountain that is 4,000 feet above tlie sea level. 

 That it must become a great dairy-farming and stock-raising region is 

 evident, and will be the conviction of all who visit it. All varieties of 

 apples, pears, plums, cherries and grapes, grow and ripen. It is the 

 native home of the famous catawba grape. The climate of Asheville 

 is aijout the same as that of Dijon, France, where the best Burgundy 

 wines are made. The peach seldom ripens in this State east of the 

 Blue Ridge, yet there are valleys which, from peculiar location, are 

 free from frost till much later than the surrounding country. Of all 



