422 Transactions of the American Institute. 



Prof. Henry E. Colton — The quantity of land in Louisiana fit for 

 orange growing is very limited ; it is the narrow strip between the 

 river and lakes Pontchartrain and Borgne. It will not do to call that 

 section healthy, when it is notorious that the yellow fever exists in 

 New Orleans every year, and frequently extends to the country below. 

 At the price he states, the land would cost $25 to $37.50 per acre, as 

 we buy and sell land. It would be unwise for a man to buy that land 

 at such a price when he can get better near M ellonville, Fla., where 

 oranges are certain, at two to five dollars per acre. 



Land in Yieginia. 



Mr. H. C. Sherman, Chicopee, Mass., '-went south because the health 

 of his family requires a milder climate. He spent a couple of weeks 

 prospecting in Virginia, " examining her soil, climate, social and edu- 

 cational advantages, modes of doing business, and the manner in which 

 northern men are received there,." and sends back the following con- 

 clusions : 



" I find in the eastern part of the State wdiat is known as the tide- 

 water district, a region offering great advantages in its cheap and fer- 

 tile lands, with their nearness by water transportation to all of the 

 great markets of the world. I also find the settlers on most of that 

 district subject to chills and ague, which to one who regards health 

 more than money is enough to outweigh all of its pecuniary advan- 

 tages. There is the Piedmont district, extending through the State 

 from north-east to south-west on the east side of the Blue Ridge, which 

 has a red clay soil, well adapted to a mixed husbandry, to which it is 

 mostly devoted. The region lying between the tide-water and Pied- 

 mont districts is mostly known as the gray lands, which have been 

 long cultivated with wheat and corn in a most ruinous manner, seldom 

 or never being seeded to grass. The farmers in this district keep but 

 little stock, except the teams necessary to carry on the farms, and 

 take no pains to make or save the manure from the animals which they 

 do keep. The farming here is one continual system of exhaustion, 

 with nothing done to restore the fertility of the soil. The lands of 

 this district are not usually as highly prized as the red lands — upon 

 which a less exhausting system of culture usually prevails — the lands 

 there being kept in grass a portion of the time. It is a great wonder 

 that these gray lands continue to produce anything to repay the labor 

 of culture after so long a continued system of exhaustion. I find a 

 great many northern men have settled in the vicinity of Fredericks- 

 burg, and along the line of railroad from there to Richmond ; and all 



