AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
227 
penetrated by persons desirous of a secluded 
and quiet life. As an instance, the exile 
Mitchell is now living in one of the coves of 
the beautiful Chilhovvee, though at present 
he is on a visit to this city, and, it is under¬ 
stood, intends soon to take up his residence 
here. The mountain air has evidently great¬ 
ly improved him in health, and he looks ro¬ 
bust, and animated with new vigor. If your 
correspondent desires to live in a manner as 
free as the air he breathes,—to have no pub¬ 
lic opinion to consult, no conventionalities 
to comply with, let him go to the mountain 
counties on either side of Knoxville and the 
Valley of the Holston—he may live there as 
independent as a woodsayer—“ wear shoes 
or go barefoot,” as best suits his taste or in¬ 
clination, and his neighbors will never trou¬ 
ble him with inquiries about his affairs or 
intentions. Should he, however, be an ac¬ 
tive, enterprising farmer,—say with a capi¬ 
tal of eight or ten thousand dollars,—he 
should by all means locate himself in the 
valleys. The Sequatchee Valley, in the 
southern portion of East Tennessee, is re¬ 
markable for its fine lands and its salubrity. 
It is a little removed from the line of rail¬ 
roads, and consequently farms can be bought 
at cheaper rates. Powell’s Valley, lying 
between the town of Jacksboro’ and Cum¬ 
berland Gap, in the counties of Campbell and 
Claiborne, rivals the Sequatchee in all these 
particulars, and will at no distant day be pe¬ 
netrated by railroads. The mountains near 
these valleys, it should be borne in mind are 
masses of coal and iron, quieily slumbering 
in a Rip Van Winkle sleep, waiting for the 
blast of the steam-engine to wake them into 
life. 
If, however, your correspondent desires to 
buy a good farm by paying a fair price for 
it, and to enjoy the advantagss of proximity 
to rail-roads, markets, schools, churches, 
&c., he should locate himself along the line 
of the East Tennessee and Virginia and East 
Tennessee and Georgia Railroads. This line 
commences at a village called Bristol, (too 
young to be on the map,) at the State line 
between Blountville, Tenn., and Abingdon, 
Va., thence by way of Jonesboro’, Russell¬ 
ville, Newmarket to Knoxville, thence via 
London, Athens and Cleveland to Chatta¬ 
nooga. A greater spirit of improvement both 
in town and country is visible in the county 
of Knox than in any other locality on this 
route. The county is watered by the Hols¬ 
ton, Trenchbroad and Clinch rivers, and a 
host of minor streams with us called creeks. 
The bottom lands afforded by these water¬ 
courses are unsurpassed in fertility. 
Knoxville, the county seat, is a place of 
some eight thousand inhabitants,—is the 
principal town in East Tennessee, and is in 
a very growing and flourishing condition— 
possesses six Banks, seven churches, a num¬ 
ber of steam mills and machine-shops, is the 
seat of the East Tennessee University, Ten¬ 
nessee Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, 
and East Tennessee Female Institute,—all 
institutions endowed by the State, beside 
other common and high schools. It is light¬ 
ed with gas, and water-works are about to 
be constructed. 
The produce raised in East Tennessee, 
corn, wheat, bacon, flour, &c., finds a ready 
market at remunerating prices in the cotton 
growing States to the south of us—the means 
of transportation being the East Tennessee 
and Georgia Railroad, in connection with 
the great network of railways extending all 
over Georgia and a portion of Alabama. 
“ As to what pays best in that locality,”— 
for quick returns and fair profits, live stock 
of all descriptions, horses, hogs, sheep, cat¬ 
tle and mules, &c. * * * 
As to the best and cheapest route at this 
season from New York to any portion of 
East Tennessee—is by the Philadelphia, 
Washington City, Lynchburg, Virginia and 
Tennessee Railroad to Abingdon, Va., then 
stage sixty miles to East Tennessee and 
Virginia railroad ; this gap of sixty miles is 
lessening every week, as tracklaying is be¬ 
ing vigorously prosecuted at both ends. As 
soon as it is entirely closed a person may 
travel by the cars from Boston to Knoxville 
in three days. 10 A. C. 
Knoxville, Tenn., June 7tli, 1856. 
DOES FARMING PAY ? 
SOIL PRODUCTS OE TH E U. S. FOR 1855. 
D. J. Brown, Esq'., Superintendent of the 
Agricultural division of the Patent Office, 
furnishes the following estimate of the Ag¬ 
ricultural product of the United States for 1 
the year 1855 : 
VEGETABLE PRODUCTS. 
I take the liberty of sending you the fol¬ 
lowing statement of the product of a field of 
mine the past season. It is not with the 
idea that it exceeds many others in the 
country, but my object is to demonstrate the 
fact that farming will pay , even on land at 
one hundred dollars per acre. The field con¬ 
tains 91 acres. There are 13 trees on it, 
which diminished the yield of corn some¬ 
what. The account stands as follows : 
Dr. 
To manuring...$50,00 
Six days plowing. 12,00 
Harrowing. 3,00 
Marking. 2,00 
Ten days planting. 10,00 
Twelve days cultivating. 18,00 
Ten days hoeing. 10,00 
Seed com. 2,00 
Digging potatoes. 3,00 
Picking apples. 3,00 
Cutting up corn. 8,00 
Husking corn. 32,00 
Repairs on fence. 8,00 
Plaster. 3,00 
Interest on land.66,50 
Total.$232,50 
Cr. 
By 1,050 bus. corn at 28cts. per bu.$294,00 
105 bushels potatoes. 32,00 
130 bushels apples. 20,00 
Four bushels turnips. 1,00 
Twenty-three loads stalks. 69,00 
Ten loads pumpkins... 10,00 
Two and a half bushels beans.... 4,00 
Eight bushels black walnuts. 2,00 
One bushel walnuts. 1,00 
Total.,.$433,05 
$232,50 
Indian Corn 
600,000,000 bus. 
Wheat 
165,000,000 “ 
Rye .... 
14,000,000 “ 
Barley 
6,600,000 “ 
Oats .... 
170,000,000 “ 
Buckwheat 
10,000,000 “ 
Potatoes (all sorts) 
110,000,000 “ 
Flaxseed 
. 58,000 “ 
Beans and Peas . 
. 9,500,000 “ 
Clover and grass seed 
1,000,000 “ 
Rice .... 
250,000,000 lbs. 
Sugar (cane) . 
. 505,000,000 “ 
Sugar (maple) 
34,000,000 “ 
Molasses 
14,000,000 gals 
Wine .... 
2,500,000 “ 
Hops 
3,500,000 lbs. 
Tobacco 
190,000,000 “ 
Cotton 
. 1,700,000,000 “ 
Hemp 
34,500 “ 
Flax 
800,000 “ 
Hay and Fodder . 
16,000,000 tons 
DOMESTIC ANIMALS AND ANIMAL PRODUCTS. 
$200,50 
From the above it will appear that I have 
a profit of $200,50, or more than 21 percent 
on the capital invested, which is rather bet¬ 
ter, I think, than some of our Railroad 
ocks. —G. W. Wood, Rural New-Yorker 
Horned cattle 
Horses, asses and mules 
Sheep .... 
Swine 
Butter and cheese 
Milk 
Wool . . . . 
Beeswax and Honey 
Silk cocoons . 
21,000,000 head 
. 5,100,000 “ 
23,500,000 “ 
. 32,000,000 “ 
500,000,000 lbs. 
1,000,000,000 gals 
60,000,000 lbs. 
. 16,000,000 “ 
5,000 “ 
Ingenuity of Birds. —Thrushes feed very 
much on snails, looking for them in mossy 
banks. Having frequently observed some 
broken snail-shells near two projecting peb¬ 
bles on a gravel walk, which had a hollow 
between them, I endeavored to discover the 
occasion of their being brought to that situ¬ 
ation. At last I saw a thrush fly to the spot 
with a snail-shell in his mouth, which he 
placed between the two stones, and hammer¬ 
ed at it with his beak till he had broken it, 
and was then able to feed on its contents. 
The bird must have discovered that he could 
not apply his beak with sufficient force to 
break the shell when it was rolling about, 
and he therefore found out and made use of 
a spot which would keep the shell in one po. 
sition. When the lapwing wants to procure 
food, it seeks for a worm’s cast, and stamps 
the ground by the side of it with its feet 
somewhat in the same manner as I have of¬ 
ten done when a boy, in order to procure 
worms for fishing. After doing this for a 
short time, the bird waits for the issue of the 
worm from its hole, who, alarmed at the sha¬ 
king of the ground, endeavors to make its 
escape, when it is immediately seized, and 
becomes the prey of the ingenious bird. The 
lapwing also frequents the haunts of moles. 
These animals, when in pursuit of worms, 
on which they feed, frighten them, and the 
worm, in attempting to escape, comes to the 
surface of the ground, where it is seized by 
the lapwing. The same mode of alarming 
his prey has been related of the gull. 
