Mississippi—its Products, Climate and Topography. 
915 
this climate than any other kind of plant. Our cotton 
plant, you probably know, has a long forked fusiform 
root, penetrating the earth to the depth of two feet. 
After it gets a month old, dry weather never hurts the 
cotton plant. The growing crop will be short from 
too much wet weather, as a large portion of the 
“forms” or young bowls have fallen off. 
On Ship Island, opposite Biloxi, a bank of sand, I 
found all the indigenous vegetation had either long 
tap roots, thick fleshy leaves, or were creepers and re¬ 
pents, Some of the repents were a hundred yards long, 
running on the ground, and at short intervals, taking 
root like a strawberry vine on a large scale. Observ¬ 
ing the natural growth of any country , and noting its 
peculiarities, is a good method of interrogating Nature. 
Interrogated in this way, Nature responds that the 
Herba Spagna, by virtue of its long fusiform root, is 
well adapted to southern agriculture. These observa¬ 
tions apply to perennials and not to annuals. Many 
of >1 the latter, as Indian corn, come to maturity before 
the dry, hot season of the year has fully commenced. 
But all annuals, which do not mature early, must have 
long tap roots, or be repents or creepers, to do well in 
this country. The fibrous rooted plants, as Indian 
corn, as the dry season approaches, require to be hill¬ 
ed up, that is, for the earth to be drawn up around 
them, giving them more depth of root and making them 
approximate the long tap rooted plants. The latter, 
as cotton for instance, is injured by much or even any 
hilling; maize, however, has to be hilled in dry, hot 
weather, or it will fire and perish. 
There is a repent plant called the coco, in Louisiana 
and Mississippi, which, instead of running on the sur¬ 
face of the earth, runs down into it to the depth of 
four or five feet, and horizontally a little under the 
surface, mole fashion, and at short intervals throwing 
up a bunch of thick, coarse grass. A better idea of 
this plant can be formed by calling it a subterraneous 
strawberry. It bears nuts under ground the size of 
strawberries. Their bitter taste distinguishes them 
from the nut grass, called sweet coco. The bitter coco 
grows so fast, that double the number of laborers are 
required to cultivate the lands infected by it. All 
those who, ignorant of this pernicious repent, have 
purchased coco lands, have paid dearly for the want of 
a little practical information, as they are nearly all 
bankrupt. Many have wisely abandoned their coco 
plantations. No means have been discovered of extir¬ 
pating this pernicious repent when it once gets fixed 
in the soil. This unconquered enemy of southern ag¬ 
riculture, nevertheless proves the natural adaptation 
of the soil to the repent family of plants; while the 
successful cultivation of cotton, asparagus, okra, the egg 
plant, and tomato, which have long fusiform roots, with 
many lateral branches, prove that the long tap rooted 
plants are particularly adapted to our agriculture. 
If the long tap rooted Herba Spagna succeed in the 
south, the sea coast counties of Mississippi, now al¬ 
most uninhabited, will form the most desirable resi¬ 
dences imaginable for all that portion of our northern 
brethren who are predisposed to pulmonary consump¬ 
tion. The flaxen-haired, blue-eyed, narrow-chested 
inhabitants of our northern states, who mostly die be¬ 
fore they are one score and ten, would stand a good 
chance of living to be three score and ten in the sea 
coast counties of Mississippi. I do not include those 
whose lungs are already ulcerated. Such persons die 
sooner in the south than in the north. Those, how¬ 
ever, who are predisposed to pulmonary diseases, or 
have only a beginning inflammation, may have the 
best hopes of health and long life, by an immediate 
emigration to the south. I mean the right places in the 
south . Unfortunately for such emigrants, they nearly 
all direct their steps to the malarious districts of the 
south. A severe acclimation awaits them therein,- 
which greatly thins their numbers. The richest lands 
and most wealth, are found in the malarious districts 
of the south. But if emigrants were content to settle 
on poor lands, which although considered of little value 
here, where labor is dear and population sparse, would 
be esteemed as highly valuable if they lay in New 
England or New York, they would be entirely out of 
the malarious region, and in a country equally as 
healthy as the northern states, and not subject to pul¬ 
monary diseases. The emigrants might embark at 
New York or Boston with all their effects, household 
furniture, farming utensils and provisions, in vessels 
not drawing more than eight or ten feet water, and in 
a few weeks find themselves, vessels and cargoes, far 
up in the interior healthy pine region of Mississippi. 
They could step out of the vessels which brought them 
from New England or New York, upon Congress land 
in Mississippi, subject to entry at a dollar and a quar¬ 
ter per acre. The practicability of penetrating the 
pine woods of Mississippi in steamboats and schooners 
not drawing more than eight feet water, is a fact but 
little known. It was not until I had spent the second 
summer on the sea coast of Mississippi, that I was ap¬ 
prised of the fact myself. While residing at Biloxi,- 
I was sent for, to see a patient about fifteen miles 
in the interior pine woods. After travelling on horse¬ 
back in a blind path for a considerable distance through 
the pine wilderness, I was amazed at beholding through 
the pine trees, a two masted vessel with sails spread, 
majestically gliding through the tall pines, no water 
being visible. On approaching the schooner, I found 
it was sailing in a narrow natural canal, having per¬ 
pendicular clay banks and a depth of water of thirty 
feet. The schooner carried an hundred tons. The 
captain told me he could go some twenty miles further 
up into the interior of the pine woods. He informed 
me that the bayou his vessel was in, was the Tunica 
BufFa, which was only one of three long natural 
canals called bayous in this country, leading from the 
bay, at the back of Biloxi, called Back Bay, into the 
interior pine woods some twenty miles or more, where 
the tide water ceased and the bayous receive large run¬ 
ning streams of fresh water from the pine wood hills. 
He assured me that the bayous were nowhere less than 
thirty feet deep, until they extend back some twenty 
or twenty-five miles. Biloxi is on a peninsula as wide 
and as long as the peninsular tract of land between the 
Battery and King’s Bridge, the Hudson and East rivers. 
Back Bay lies immediately behind Biloxi, and is from 
one to two miles wide and longer than the East river. 
Instead of expanding, like the East river, into Long 
Island Sound, it contracts itself into the above-mention¬ 
ed natural canals. The bay is deep enough for the 
heaviest ships of war to float. But an oyster bank and 
sand bar lie at its entrance, preventing any vessel from 
getting into the bay from the Gulf of Mexico, which 
draws more than eight or ten feet of water. The bar 
of oyster beds and sand is about two miles wide. It is 
of recent formation. The oyster beds, no doubt, made 
the bar. It did not exist when the French, in 1699, 
discovered this part of Louisiana. The French vessels 
came into Back Bay, which, it is said, they mistook for 
the mouth of the Mississippi river. It looks very much 
like the mouth of a great river. They built a fort at 
its entrance. You will see the location of the fort by 
turning to a map of Mississippi, (marked old French 
fort,) but you will look in vain on the maps for a cor¬ 
rect delineation oF Back Bay or its arms, the natural 
canals above-mentioned. 
The fact is singular, that two miles in the interior, 
from the very spot of earth first settled upon by Euro- 
