Southern Agriculture* 
tot 
world; still it has nothing upon it approaching 
the wild mountain scenery of the Hudson, nor 
the clearness and purity of water, general width, 
nr beauty and variety of shore and islands of 
the St Lawrence. 
Where we entered it at the mouth of the Ohio, 
it is a mile wide, and this when in full bank, is 
about the average width to its embouchure in 
the Gulf of Mexico. In some places it is not 
more than half a mile wide at high water, at 
others, including islands, it may be five miles ; 
the greatest width without islands, as near as 
we could judge, is at Cat Fish Bend, where its 
probable spread is two and a half miles. These dis¬ 
tances of course, do not extend to the great over¬ 
flowing, as these are sometimes 40 miles in 
width. But as the banks are covered with a 
thick growth of forest trees, through which 
there is no view, and when cut away, a levee is 
thrown up to guard the land, these are ever 
the boundaries to the eye, on this mighty stream. 
At low water where shallows and sand bars 
exist, it becomes very narrow, occasionally not 
over 40 rods wide. When we passed down, 
the water was at full bank, and exceedingly 
thick and turbid from the wash of its alluvial 
borders, and bore itself in an immense volume, 
boiling and wheeling majestically along, buoy¬ 
ing on its surface large masses of drift wood, 
and enormous trees washed away from the 
banks, and driven high in the overwhelming 
current, till planted in mid stream as some 
dreaded sawyer, or lodged in shallows, forming 
the nucleus of a new shore or island. 
There are a few bluffs, as at Memphis, the 
Walnut Hills, Natchez, Baton Rouge, arid some¬ 
times places jutting out on the river like bold 
headlands, but the banks generally are low and 
fiat of a width of one mile to forty, composed 
of an alluvial of unsurpassed richness, and of 
almost unfathomable depth. 
From the mouth of the Mississippi to that of 
the Missouri, a distance by water of about 1300 
miles, these deep alluvial bottoms exist of a 
supposed average width of 20 miles, nearly all 
of which will be susceptible of a high state 
of cultivation for corn, cotton, rice and sugar, 
when the forest shall come to be cut off] and 
the rays of the sun let in upon the land, and 
embankments raised to keep out the high water. 
This is but one small portion of this vast coun¬ 
try, judge then of its almost incalculable agri¬ 
cultural resources. 
Southern staples at present are very low, su¬ 
gar especially, which hardly pays the expenses 
of cultivation, and with the threatened increase 
on the part of the British government of grow¬ 
ing cotton in the East Indies, and an over-pro¬ 
duction of the article in our own country, the 
South has determined to partially revolutionise 
its system of agriculture, and instead of pur- 
chasing largely as heretofore of their northern 
neighbors, the planters have now commenced 
raising their own horses, mules, cattle, hogs, 
sheep, com, and the small grains, and are de¬ 
termined to tan their leather, and manufacture 
all their common cotton and woollen clothing, 
hats, boots and shoes; and put the excess of 
their labor only into cotton, sugar and rice. 
In this way, they say that they can live inde¬ 
pendently within themselves, but the change 
will be a great blow to the industry of the wes¬ 
tern farmers; the South has hitherto been one 
of their best customers, and now it is likely to 
become a competitor, and under these circum¬ 
stances we see no hope for the North and West, 
but to rouse at once and manufacture every 
thing that is profitable to consume, and thus 
make a home market for their agricultural 
products among themselves. 
Let us now consider the advantages of the 
South for the proposed change. On the prairie 
districts, like the Opelousas, wild grass grows 
the whole year round, and vast herds of cattle 
are supported upon it; on the river bottoms, the 
forest is full of cane and other succulent food, 
on which they thrive remarkably. Then as 
to the cultivated resources, rye, barley and 
oats do well every where, wheat is a fair crop 
upon the uplands, and we dont know why the 
Egyptian variety from the valley of the Nile, 
would not be equally productive on the low 
lands. Corn may be planted from the 15th 
February, to 1st July, and be sure of a crop 
at the latest season, if the summer do not prove, 
too dry. As to the grasses, we never saw any 
thing like such thick, rank white clover as we 
found springing up naturally on the bottoms of 
the Mississippi: red clover grows remarkably 
and herds grass, orchard grass and red top 
no doubt would do equally well, especially the 
latter. Then there is a fine natural grass, very 
much in appearance like the blue grass of 
Kentucky, (poa praterisis) the Herba Hispania, 
the Cuba and Bermuda grass, (these two last 
are probably the same variety,) that grow from 
September till June quite abundantly; we pre¬ 
sume they would flourish nearly as well in 
the summer, under the shade of the trees, in 
parks, or if the meadows were moderately irri¬ 
gated, in the same manner as the rice fields 
are on the river; but even if grass fails, plenty 
of corn sown broadcast, may be ready for soil¬ 
ing by the 1st of June, or earlier, and it would 
be much easier to feed stock here under the 
shade of the trees, for three months in the sum¬ 
mer, than five or six, as at the north in the 
winter. 
Except a few varieties of the apple, which 
we have no doubt, may be acclimated, all sorts 
