lots, and either sell or rent to tenants-an investment, at present prices of land, of the most profitable nature, but requiring heavy capital.

Georgia land owners may divide their own tracts, and put up cabins and lease for a term of years, say from ten to twenty, with a stipulation as to rotation of crops and manure, according to the English practice. If a planter is willing to sell his land for ten dollars per acre, he can afford to lease at one dollar per acre annual rent, which would be ten per cent. on the price of his land. The latter would be the best arrangement for him, if practicable. The second, as soon as public affairs are settled, will probably be the most feasible. But in either event we must go back (possibly forward) from large farms to small; our present labor demands this. Afterwards, under a new system of labor, there may be a return to large plantations, with increased results.

GRAIN.

The product of corn in Georgia is in proportion to the labor bestowed upon it. The highest known yield of corn was that produced by Dr. Parker, of Columbia, South Carolina, who made two hundred and twelve bushels and some quarts from an acre of land. The ground from which this immense return was received was scarcely an average sample of the soils in South Carolina and Georgia. It shows what is possible in our climate under high culture. The danger to the crops is from drought, the effects of which can be measurably obviated by deep ploughing, early planting, and early varieties of socd. Fair crops even last year were made by those persons who planted early and used northern seed corn. The present product ranges from seven to fifty or sixty bushels per acre, according to soil, seasons, and culture. With the cultivation and manuring common to good farmers at the north, an average of fifty bushels of corn to the acre can be produced one year with another. Heretofore the land has been rarely manured. The ground is broken generally with a one-horse coulter plough (both plough and stock generally made on the farm) to an average depth of three to four inches. Is it a wonder that lands so treated should suffer from drought, and produce small crops? The pea crop planted in between the rows of corn, it is estimated, will, of a fair year, cover the expense of cultivation of both crops.

Wheat is usually sowed on stalk land after the corn is gathered, and without previous ploughing. Almost the only manure applied to this crop is cotton seed, and this is done in comparatively rare instances, but always with beneficial effects. The only instance in the State, in the knowledge of the writer, in which wheat was sowed on an inverted clover sod, was in Barton county. The yield was forty bushels to the acre. In another instanco, in Hancock county, in middle Georgia, wheat sowed on a well turned Bermuda grass sod produced thirty bushels to the acre. The chief casualties to which wheat is subject are smut and rust. The former can be effectually prevented by soaking the seed in a solution of bluestone; the latter, to a good degree, by sowing early varieties of bearded wheat, as it is only late wheat which is affected by rust. Good bottom land in middle and upper Georgia has frequently produced twenty to thirty bushels to the acre. But at present, from imperfect culture, the absence of manure, and the prominence given to cotton, the average yield is very small, not more than six or seven bushels per acre. The carliness at which the wheat crops mature in Georgia always secures the best prices. New flour can be shipped from this State some time before the northern wheat harvest begins.

THE GRASSES.

On all lands in Georgia, with a good dry subsoil, clover will grow well, if the soil be naturally or artificially rich enough. In northwestern Georgia, on fresh land, clover does admirably. In middle and lower Georgia a heavy manuring

is generally necessary, the cost of which may be repaid by its application to wheat with which the clover is sowed.. It must be lightly grazed during the heat of summer, but grazing may be commenced in April, interrupted in July and August, and resumed in September, continuing until January. The stubble fields will carry the stock well during the interruption. Herdsgrass and timothy thrive well on rich bottom lands of a close texture throughout the State. The most valuable of all forage plants is lucerne. This grows as well in Georgia as in France, and in the quantity and quality of the hay produced is unrivalled. On lands inade very rich it may be cut five times during the summer, yielding a ton at each cutting, commencing in April. The price of hay in Georgia is never less than twenty dollars per ton; now it is more than twice that amount.

On manured uplands blue grass, meadow oat grass, orchard grass, vernal grass, grow during the winter. If these are kept shut up from June until December, and stock is then turned upon them, horses, mules, cattle, and sheep will need no other food, and will keep fat. They thus do their own mowing and hay raising. What a diminution of expense in stock raising. What a saving in costly barns. What a singular advantage of climate. The writer exhibited at the State fair five three-year old Ayrshire heifers from parents brought from Scotland by himself, which never had been fed beyond what they had obtained by grazing, and never had been under a shelter. They were well fat, and quite equal to heifers of the same age in Scotland.

grown, perfectly

If it will pay to manure a meadow on which the expense of cutting and curing hay is to be incurred, and also of barn to store it in, much more will it pay to manure land for winter pasture, on which an equal amount of stock is kept, without after expense. When land is made rich and sowed down to winter grass it is quite possible to raise good cattle, colts, and sheep, without any other expense than interest on land, salt, and occasional attention. If these winter pastures are laid down in thinned woodland, the additional advantage is derived of doing away with dead capital in woodland, besides feeding a number of hogs, as the acorn and chestnut rarely fail in thinned and pastured woodlands. Bermuda grass will be spoken of in connection with sheep-raising.

FRUIT.

The peach tree in Georgia is long lived and subject to very few diseases, and the fruit is largely used in fattening logs. Shipping early peaches to the northern markets must become an important business near the lines of railroads on the coast.

It is to be regretted that the experiments in vineyards have not been more successful. These experiments were extensive, spirited, and expensive, but they have generally been abandoned. The Catawba has been almost exclusively used, and possibly some other grape may be found better suited to the soil and climate.

It was at one time supposed that good winter apples and pears could not be grown in Georgia, but since attention has been paid to native seedlings, fine and good keeping varieties of the fruits have been raised. The writer has seen together upon the table pears and apples of different years' growth. It is a surprising result that the best region for producing good winter apples is the poor and sandy belt just above the fall of the rivers in middle Georgia, a section so poor that, in the vernacular, it "will not sprout peas."

Really good cherries of northern origin and gooseberries do not thrive in Georgia, except in the mountain region.

The fruit business in melons, apples, pears, peaches, and market vegetables in Georgia offers an inviting field for enterprise. Atlanta being the railroad centre, and therefore most distant in point of time from New York by the two diverging lines, is fifty-six hours distant from that city. The freight on a bag of cotton from Atlanta to New York is seven dollars per bale, a fraction over one cent per

pound. Both freight and time are small, but the difference in season and price, according to season, is great. Let the market gardeners, who understand the importance of extra carly fruits and vegetables, consider well the suggestion.

LIVE STOCK.

In 1860 there were in Georgia 130,771 horses, and 101,069 asses and mules. The number was greatly diminished by the war. If there was any money in Georgia to pay for them they would rule high. Prices, except in the cities, are almost nominal. Great attention was formerly bestowed upon blooded horses for the saddle and turf. Of late years the Morgan horse has been introduced, and found great favor as a horse "of all work." It must be many years before the stock of fine horses is replaced. Mules for the plough are in chief demand, and are mostly brought from the west, although with a proper attention to winter grass pastures a mule can be raised at less expense in Georgia than in Kentucky. In southern and southwestern Georgia all that is necessary is to enclose a canebrake, the young mule desiring no better food during the winter, and the range feeding him in summer.

In 1860 there were in Georgia 299,688 milch cows, 74,487 oxen, and 631,707 other cattle-in all 1,005,$82. This was a large proportion to the 99,000 white polls in the State, being somewhat more than ten to the poll. The Durham, Devon, Ayrshire, and Bremen cattle have all been introduced. The pure Durham are too large for our climate and pastures; the others thrive as well as elsewhere under similar treatment.

In lower Georgia, in what is called the wire-grass region, cattle are raised largely, herds ranging from 100 to 5,000. These are neither fed nor even salted, no care being bestowed except marking and occasional penning.

With all the facilities for cattle raising in Georgia there is not a dairy farm in the State, except some small milch dairies near the cities. All the butter and cheese bought is from the north. There was one cheese dairy in the full tide of successful experiment, which was terminated by the death of the adventurous experimenter; yet the manufacture of a pound of butter or cheese does not cost more than one-half as much in Georgia as in Ohio or New York. In 1860 the butter crop of New York sold for twice as much as the cotton crop of Georgia, although that year the latter was more than 700,000 bales.

There were in Georgia, in 1860, 2,036,116 hogs, within a small fraction of as many as there were in Kentucky, and about four times as many as there were sheep in the State, yet the one requires grain, and the other does not. The one requires labor, and the other lives in the range. There were 33,512,867 hogs in the United States; about one-fifteenth of the whole number were raised in Georgia. According to the present system, which does not include grazing upon clover and grass, the hog is the most costly and least profitable stock raised in

the State.

The census returns for 1860 show 512,618 sheep in Georgia. Of this number 25,432 were killed by dogs in 1866, yet the number of sheep is but little diminished since 1860.

Really good sheep, properly cared for and protected, are the most profitable stock which can be raised in Georgia. Under the ordinary system they are the least profitable, except in those portions of the State in which wool growing is a business. Ordinarily the farmer has not enough of poor sheep (yielding one to two pounds of wool) to deserve his attention, yet quite enough to make him lose his temper when the dogs kill them. It would be cheaper to buy both wool and mutton than to raise them in this way.

The Merino, Cotswold, Southdown, and Tunis sheep have been fairly tried in Georgia and at very considerable expense. The best blooded sheep of the north have been reserved for trial. Intelligent breeders have united in the selection

of the Spanish, not French Merino. The Merino cannot thrive better elsewhere than in Georgia. The wool is rather improved both in quantity and quality.

The three different belts in Georgia require in each a different system of sheep raising. In northwestern Georgia the summer and fall range is ample. Wethers will live in the range all winter, but owes and lambs require food for two or three months. The winter grasses, if sown, are amply sufficient for them, and rye pasture also answers well.

In middle Georgia Bermuda grass makes the best pasture. Probably no grass in the world gives an equal amount of grazing, winter and summer, as the Bermuda on good land, and if shut up during the summer it will keep sheep and cattle fat during the winter. It is the dread of the cotton planter, however, from the rapidity with which it spreads and the difficulty of extirpating it, and there are entire plantations in middle Georgia overrun with it. These have been abandoned by the cotton planters and can be bought as low as one dollar per acre in some cases. Many of these plantations have comfortable dwellings and out buildings upon them, are healthy and within easy reach of railroads. On land well manured or otherwise rich, Bermuda grass grows tall enough to mow and makes an abundant and nutritious hay.

Sheep raising is conducted on quite a large scale in southern Georgia, in the pine woods range. The flocks in some instances reach as high as 5,000 head. These sheep are never fed, summer or winter, living entirely in the range. They receive no attention except at marking and shearing times. The statistics of some of these grass counties show singular results in this connection. In 1866 Appling county had 8,210 sheep, 4,027 children between six and eighteen years of age, and 59 hands from 12 to 65 employed in all works. Coffee county had 12,390 sheep, 706 children, and 99 hands employed. Emanuel county had 15,249 sheep, 1,049 children, and 472 hands employed in all work. The number of acres of land in Emanuel county is 539,278, the average value of which is 98 cents per acre. The lowest average value of any county in the State is Telfair, containing 483,044 acres; average value 51 cents per acre.

In these counties, perfectly healthy situations can be selected. It is necessary to buy only a small number of acres for a settlement, the unfenced range being in common. Sheep can be bought at $1.50 per head. They are very inferior, but can be rapidly improved by a cross with the Merino.

It will be seen that Georgia affords great facilities for wool growing. In a large portion of the State sheep require no housing or feeding, and there are no "northers," as in Texas. The market for wool and mutton is within easy reach. Why, then, should the wool growers seek the west? With the subject of wool growing the writer is familiar from practice and observation at home and abroad. It is his conviction that considering the climate, price of land, markets and facilities for summer and winter grazing, middle and lower Georgia afford a prospect of more rapid fortune in wool growing than any other region within his knowledge. Cotton has heretofore blinded the eyes of planters to the value of their lands for this purpose. There is no reason why the wool crop of Georgia should not be larger than its cotton crop ever was. The drawback has been the number of dogs, of which there were 92,000 in the State. These, however, are diminishing with the diminution of the blacks, for every farm negro has his cur. The last legislature passed a law rendering it a penal offence for any one to enter with a dog in a field in which there are sheep, unless with the consent of the owner. There is reason to hope that this dog nuisance will soon be measurably abated.

METALS AND MINERALS.

It was the design of the writer to treat fully upon this branch of the subject, but the limits assigned him render this impossible, and it must be dismissed with a few general remarks. The white marble quarries of Cherokee county are of

great extent, a portion of them affording statuary marble. The slate quarries of Polk county are now attracting much attention. The slate is considered equal to the Welsh, and is now being shipped to New York. The quarry is of enormous extent. Hydraulic cement, nearly white in color and of excellent quality, is made near Kingston, Bartow county. The indications of petroleum in Floyd county are strong. That section has been thrown up in the wildest confusion. The formation is the lower Silurian, abounding in fossils, and both the limestone and shale are highly bituminous. Iron ore abounds in Bartow and other counties. Large investments of northern capital are now being made in digging gold and with fine results. If these mines were on the other side of the Rocky mountains; if there were hostile Indians between them and civilization; if it were necessary to transport provisions and tools on pack mules, there would probably be a great rush of adventurers to them. But they are in the "white settlements," 56 hours distant from New York, and are therefore not considered worthy of attention.

HOW NORTHERN MEN ARE TREATED.

This depends very much upon themselves; rude people will find rude people every where, as like begets like. There are two classes of northern men who cannot expect to be received with much courtesy. One is the class of correspondents of northern newspapers, who pass through the south misrepresenting the condition of things, thereby keeping open the wounds of our suffering country. The other is a class of men who provoke ill treatment by irritating and insulting remarks; but a northern man who comes here to live and minds his own business and identifies himself with the interests of the section which he has selected as his home, will be met and treated in his business relations with as much courtesy as any other good citizen. It is, however, proper to remark that families of refinement settling among us alone would hardly find their residence pleasant, however profitable it might be. They would not be disturbed, but they would be let alone. This is to be expected. We have passed through a terrible war. The superior numbers and resources of the North have overpowered us. It is human nature to be sore under such a result. It will be a work of time, the great healer, to remove this soreness. Our women, perhaps, feel this result more heavily than the men. While they would be guilty of no rudeness, for which they are generally too well bred, they would be averse, for the present at least, to intimate social relations with those who have been indirectly connected with the suffering which they have endured. These sufferings have in countless instances been terrible beyond expression. Every northern person of delicate sensibilities will readily understand and appreciate the condition of things referred to. It is due to them to express frankly the real state of facts to prevent a repetition of instances in which northern ladies have suffered keenly from a sense of isolation.

The money value of investments at the south now, in farming, machinery and mining, is indisputably great. To single men there is no drawback; for families these are the several disadvantages referred to. This can, however, be obviated by bringing their own accustomed associations with them, that is to say, moving in colonies. This was done in Dorchester, in South Carolina, and in Liberty county, in Georgia. The children of these emigrants are now among our most cherished and honored citizens. There might be several Lowells in Georgia. Colonists might purchase vast extents of cheap lands in a body The water power, with cotton growing beside it, and the mining interests, offer the material basis of many large towns, the proprietors of which would grow rich by the simple advance in property. We are prostrate. There is now nothing of the spirit of "the dog in the manger" in our people. Georgia needs capital and worthy labor. It will be welcomed from whatever source it may come.