

p^!.~ (IIJUI I _ i.J|lpl|9l)p|n|!qpB>!|l 



208 



THE ILLINOIS F J J 



July 



ELEVATION OF THE COUNTRY. 



On leaving the river we rise several hundred 

 feet, the country is broken into small hills of 

 one to two hundred feet, mostly covered with a 

 small growth of jack oaks, hickory, white 

 oak set. Farm houses made of logs nestle be- 

 tween the hills. The fences have been stripped 

 from the fielcs and most of the families have left. 

 The soil is a thin whitish clay, pretty fully in- 

 termixed with sand, which forms a mortar bed 

 when wet, and a solid brick like surface when 

 dry. The springs at the base of the hills are 

 abundant, and contain very soft water, charged 

 more or less with sulphate of soda. NearFarm- 

 ington, seventeen miles to the west, pitch pine 

 becomes quite abundant on the hills, while the 

 ewampy valleys are covered with a heavy growth 

 of the beech. If these swamps were cleared and 

 drained, they would make valuable cotton lands, 

 and also desirable for corn and herds grass. The 

 natural grasses are all annual and of little value. 

 At Farmington we must be not less than fifteen 

 hundren feet above the level of the sea. The 

 Trhole distance from Hamburgh has been skirm- 

 ishing ground, and the inhabitants have fled 

 We saw but one small field of corn in the whole 

 distance and that nearly half a mile from the 

 road. From that place we came about five miles 

 to Gen. Pope's headquarters, and for the past 

 •week have made our home with the 26th regi- 

 ment. Col. Loomis, which is now encamped at 



DANVILLE, MISS., 



About twenty-seven miles from Hamburgh and 

 eleven southwest of Corinth. Between here and 

 hea^^uajters is the swamps of the Tuscumbia, 

 vhioh, at this point, is a small stream. The land 

 of tkese bottoms is a sandy loam, and is covered 

 ■with, adflase growth of beech, interspersed with 

 poplar, linn and other soft wood. We have nev- 

 er seenrlhis beech timber rivalled even in North- 

 ern New. York; their straight trunk, short branch 

 sod delicate foliage, brought back the recollec- 

 tion of boy hood j., when by single blows we have 

 laidiow acres of the same beech wood forest. 

 The labor expanded in making roads through 

 these bottom lands for the heavy transportation 

 {^ithe army has been immense. In all cases there 

 aase two of these roads parallel, for no single road 

 w-OTild be Bu£B«ient -to accommodate the travel. 

 The swamp is two miles to the east. About here 

 the land is less broken, more sandy than the hill 

 land to the east, .and, the American chestnut 

 takes the plaee of the, pine, yet along all the 



borders of the small streams we find the white, 

 the red, and the water beech. Vegetation is but 

 little if any in advance of that at Paducah, the 

 elevation compensating for latitude. Blackber- 

 ries are yet abundant, the wild plums are near- 

 ly gone, and the Carolina red June apple begins 

 to show the first blushes of maturity. The horse 

 apple which is the great favorite for a summer 

 apple and for drying, is about half grown. 



THE WHEAT AND OAT CKOP 



Are both a dead failure by the rust, and in 

 most cases the farmers have turned in their 

 stock. This point having been held by the rebels 

 until the evacuation of Corinth, but few of the 

 farmers have been disturbed, and the fences, in 

 most cases, remain. But in the unsettled state 

 of the country, little planting has been done ; 

 add to this the want of energy of the farmers 

 and the heavy spring rains, and cne can have 

 some idea of the dilapidated state of the agricul- 

 tural interest. A few days since we went three 

 miles beyond the picket lines of the camp on one 

 of the country roads, to see a cotton plantation. 

 All of the farms were occupied, the country the 

 most level and fertile that we have met thus far 

 in the State, but there will not be enough pro- 

 duced to subsist the people. 



CULTURE OF COTTON. 



It requires about three hundred and fifty 

 pounds of seed cotton to make one hundred 

 pounds of seed cotton, and the average crop on 

 the uplands is two hundred pounds of clean cot- 

 ton, which, before the war, sold at ten cents the 

 pound. The soil here is a mixture of sand and 

 clay. A large part of the timber here is jack 

 oak, with post and white oak, hickory, both 

 sweet and sour gum, and other varieties indig< 

 enuous to this climate. After we pass half a 

 mile west of Danville the country is almost level. 

 While the squad of soldiers with us were busy 

 pioking the tempting blackberries, we strolled 

 into the farm houses. The first day out the only 

 white man we met was a white doctor with a 

 very black heart, attending some nigger patients. 

 The men, if not in the Southern army, are not 

 to be seen. We took dinner with a widow lady 

 and her two daughters. She had three sons, all 

 of whom had been drafted soon after the battle 

 of Shiloh. The old lady was stubborn, but the 

 daughters^ one of whom was a widow, were more 

 communicative. They very graciouply permitted 

 us to visit the fields and garden, but the old lady 

 would not allow them to go out with us into the 



