LETTERS FROM THE SOUTH.-NO. 3. 
61 
effects imperceptible at the other extremity ? It must 
be candidly answered, that it is no fault of the road, 
but of the citizens. The principle is still as good 
as ever, but the practice destroys most of its bene¬ 
ficial effects. Augusta fails to arrest the legitimate 
benefits of the road, and allows them to accumulate 
in Charleston; while Savannah, and the latter 
place, from the same neglect, allow Baltimore, 
Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, to become 
the real termini of the roads, by rendering them¬ 
selves the head-quarters of supply and demand. 
The corrective of this evidently rests in measura¬ 
bly changing the habits and employment of the 
people. There are comparatively few producers 
there as mechanics and manufacturers ; and the raw 
materials pass on and on, till arrested by consumers, 
who return a full equivalent in the various manu¬ 
factured articles, which are the result of this con¬ 
sumption. It is only when the circling eddies 
meet that the fertile deposites are formed, while the 
rushing turbid stream leaves no traces of its enriching 
qualities. Mechanics and manufacturers are indis¬ 
pensable to give growth, stability, and wealth to any 
place or country, and this, be it known, is of vastly 
more consequence to the agriculturist, the tiller of 
the soil, than to the artisan. The latter may move 
his capital, his labor, and his work-shop, wherever 
they can most advantageously be employed ; while 
the former must cultivate his acres where they lie, 
or abandon them. If there is a dense and flourish¬ 
ing population near him, otherwise profitably em¬ 
ployed, to consume his products, the latter will re¬ 
turn him large and satisfactory prices, if sur¬ 
rounded only with competitors, or idle non-pro¬ 
ducers, who have not the wherewithal to purchase 
his harvests, they can yield him only a lean com- 
ensation. Neither Augusta nor Savannah ever 
ad many surplus mechanics, and comparatively 
no manufacturers; and from Charleston some 300 
or 400 have within a few years emigrated to the 
north and west, where they can follow their 
legitimate pursuits, under those advantages which 
are elsewhere afforded. It is not necessary to 
specify what these are—every intelligent man can 
perceive them at a glance. 
What has built up the four principal cities before 
enumerated, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, Louisville, and 
others, and with so much benefit to the farmers 
scattered far and near ? Commerce has done much, 
it is true, for their growth and support; but com¬ 
merce has indicated where mechanics and manu¬ 
facturers should concentrate their operations, and 
aided them by her presence, rather than accumulated 
this large population and wealth by her unassisted 
efforts. Egypt had commerce, wealth, and popula¬ 
tion, but she had agriculture and manufactures too, 
and in the highest state of perfection. Tyre and 
Sidon, once eminent for wealth, employed no 
small part of their densely crowded populace in the 
fabrication of linen, silk, wool, and the metals. 
Their descendants, the Carthaginians, though they 
enjoyed almost a monopoly of commerce and 
piracy (for the two were nearly synonymous terms 
among the ancients), brought crude tin, and cop¬ 
per, from the mines of England, and the latter 
metal and other raw materials, from various 
countries, to employ her artisans, and sustain the 
various arts they derived from their ancestors. 
Rome, her proud rival and conqueror, -while plun¬ 
dering the globe of its accumulated wealth, plundered 
it of its mechanic arts, too, or she must have re¬ 
lapsed into impotency or barbarism in half a cen¬ 
tury after her successful robbery. 
New Orleans and St. Louis are the only excep¬ 
tions on this continent, to the union of trade and 
commerce with the mechanic arts, where growth 
and wealth have been rapidly accumulated ; and 
they are a thousand miles apart, and without rivals 
in the trade of an agricultural region, to which, 
both for extent and fertility, the world has no 
parallel. It has been often said, that the “Old 
Thirteen” is but the list, the mere selvage, to the 
broad rich fabric that lies west of the mountains; 
yet scanty and penurious as is the soil, what an 
augmentation of wealth, population, and resources, 
has the union of the mechanic arts with their well 
suited agricultural labors, given to the middle and 
northern portion of them ; and -what has been 
realized there, the adoption of the same policy will 
measurably achieve for the south-west. These 
remarks are intended exclusively for the advance¬ 
ment of agricultural interests, and as indicating the 
true policy for the farmer to adopt to secure the 
highest reward for his labor. 
The road from Augusta westwardly was in the 
rolling country, and for the first hundred miles did 
not come under observation, as we passed it in the 
night, but I was told it did not vary materially from 
our subsequent route. Daylight found us passing 
through interminable woods, principally oak, with 
some chestnuts, hickory, and now and then patches 
of pine. At Notasulga, a new place of a dozen 
houses, and three or four stores, 136 miles from 
Augusta, we left the cars for stages, which took us 
130 miles to Atlanta, a place of equal size and im¬ 
portance, where we again took the cars for Mont¬ 
gomery, 50 miles. This is the principal head of 
steamboat navigation on the Alabama, and recently 
made the capital of the state. The town is regu¬ 
larly laid out, on the left bank of the river, and 
elevated some sixty feet above it; and enjoys a 
large trade with the surrounding planters, who 
make this the depot for shipping their cotton. It 
contains some 3,000 inhabitants. Wetumpka, 50 
miles higher up, by the river, but only 16 or 18 by 
land, contains about 2,000 people, and is the ex¬ 
treme head of navigation for boats of the lightest 
draught. 
The whole country through which we passed 
from Augusta to this place, is as dull and deficient 
in interest as the most misanthropic could desire. 
It was sufficiently rolling, sometimes stony, and had 
numerous clear rivulets meandering on it. But the 
improvements were mostly a sad blotch on nature. 
It is bad enough to find log shanties, slip-shod 
fences, etceteras, in a decidedly fresh, and untamed 
country; but to see these, so old as to be already in 
their dotage, and comparatively little to redeem the 
eneral forbiddingness of the scene, is, to say the 
est, the reverse of gratification to a traveller. The 
log houses on their best estates, consist of a room at 
either end, with a passage between (but seldom 
enclosed with doors), through which a loaded team 
could be driven, and the enclosed rooms would 
