THE TRAVELLER.—NO. 8. 
335 
answer turneth away wrath; ” so does a soft 
word to a dumb brute. 
Boys make a sad mistake , when they think a city 
life is so much happier and more pleasant than 
theirs upon their father’s farm, where they have 
so many of the real substantial comforts of life, 
that boys in the city never enjoy. 
THE TRAVELLER.—No. 8. 
We approach Athens, literally, by railroad, 
as mentioned in my last from Union Point; we 
do nothing more, for the terminus of the road is 
upon one hill and the town upon another, half a 
mile off, a, deep valley and mill-stream inter¬ 
vening. Upon this stream are cotton and paper 
mills. This part of Georgia was designed by 
nature for a manufacturing district, and in the 
hands of a New England population, would be 
made so in a very short time. The country is a 
high, granite, hilly region, with numerous rapid, 
rocky streams, with a salubrious climate; while 
the soil, generally, is not the kind to delight a 
southern planter, for the reason it requires a 
different mode of tillage from that which they 
have long practiced, to the destruction of some of 
the most fertile spots in the state. 
The whole soil of this part of the state seems to 
be rocks turned to dust—doomed to decay—for it 
is made up of decomposed granite—the color 
and strata of the rock and the veins of gneiss, are 
seen in the clay in the same position as when all 
was solid rock. Wherever granite rocks are 
found in place, there may be seen the decay still 
progressing. 
Every body condemns the soil around Athens 
as poor. I grant that it is not as rich as the bot¬ 
tom lands of the Chattahoochee, yet it is far better 
than some portions of Massachusetts, which are 
worth a hundred dollars per acre for farming 
purposes. The surface of the country is very 
uneven, and liable to wash,and has been greatly 
injured in that way, and will be greatly more 
injured unless the system of side-hill ditching is 
adopted: not the little miserable affairs which 
have been attempted upon some farms I visited, 
but a most thorough and complete work, of large 
and strong ditches, so as completely to prevent 
the water from coursing down the cultivated hill¬ 
sides, as it has done ever since the country was 
settled by the whites. 
There is a spot within the town ycleped, a 
botanical garden. I believe it belongs to the 
college—an institution of some notoriety here— 
and a more romantic, beautiful spot to improve 
is rarely seen. An expenditure of three or four 
thousand dollars, instead of the scanty pittance 
doled out to the gardener, who seems to be a 
man of taste, would make this garden a place 
for the Athenians to be proud of. There is an 
unfortunate lack of this kind of public spirit of 
improvement and beautifying towns, in nearly 
all of them at the south. It is not for want of 
individual spirit, for that abounds and shows it¬ 
self in the adornment of a great many private 
mansions, of which, and of a high-bred, refined 
population, Athens may proudly boast. 
Much as the soil is decried, I found wherever 
it is treated to a deep cultivation, with manure, 
it always pays for such attention. It is the very 
home of peaches and most kinds of fruit. This 
has been demonstrated pretty well by Dr. Ward, 
who is a scientific gentleman, devoted to horti¬ 
culture and the cultivation of fine fruits. 
The natural growth of timber, which always 
affords some indication of the quality of soil, 
upon the hill land, is oak, hickory, and short 
leaf pine: on the bottoms, poplar, ash, gum, 
&c.—the whole once covered with cane. I 
generally make it a point in visiting places, to 
enter as much as possible into conversation 
with those who cultivate the soil, upon the best 
manner of improving it, and increasing their 
crops, with a view to obtain and impart infor¬ 
mation. I found here, one man of a class I have 
often met before, who insists that cast iron 
plows are the ruin of the land; that they turn 
the earth over and bury all the fertile portion 
so deep, nothing will grow afterwards. He fully 
believes the soil never should be stirred over two 
inches deep, and that the little, old fashioned 
shovel plow is the best ever invented. However, 
there are some of his neighbors who believe in 
using better tools, and it is to be hoped, that ex¬ 
ample may produce a good effect upon the next 
generation, if it does not upon the present one. 
Cherokee Rose Hedge —The name of this rose 
conveys the idea to many persons that here, in the 
country once occupied by that people, is its 
native home, and that it will flourish in all 
places of parallel latitude. It does grow and 
form a good fence, but is not to be depended 
upon. Dr. Camac told me that his father’s hedge 
was killed to the ground in the winter of 1834, 
and ’35, but grew again from the roots. In lati¬ 
tude 32°, in Mississippi, it was killed the same 
year so it never sprouted, except here and there 
a stalk. Although it forms one of the most 
impenetrable hedges, when in vigorous growth, 
it would never answer to depend upon a plant 
for general farming purposes, which is liable to 
be destroyed in one night of hard frost. 
In mentioning the name of the late Dr. Ca~ 
