husbandry an inviting field. The soil is composed of a mixture of sand
and loam, with an impervious clay sub-soil. The climatic conditions are
equally auspicious. Abundance of rain, low humidity, cool nights,
temperate days, and equable seasons, contribute alike to the luxuriance
of plants and the health of animals. The headwater valleys of the three
rivers we have named, resemble each other in all essential particulars.
The uplands, which constitute the water-sheds, have in their soil a
larger percentage of clay, and are consequently less desirable than the
bottoms, yet with care and intelligent cultivation, grasses could be
grown with profit. The yield of corn, wheat, and oats, will compare
favorably with any other locality in the South. It is by no means
extravagant to say that soil of the more favored localities has, for
cereals, double its present capacity. Though the region has been settled
for a century, no attempt, except on the part of a few individuals, has
been made to reduce agriculture to the basis of an economic science. The
native population has been tardy in taking hold of tobacco culture, the
most remunerative of all crops. It was indeed left to immigrants to
experiment, and prove the adaptability of the soil and climate to the
plant. The experimental period is now passed, and but a few years remain
till the surplus lands are purchased by progressive planters. Prices
have already increased. Farms which five years ago begged purchasers at
three to five dollars per acre, now sell readily at from eight to
twenty. The only danger to a further increase is the disposition, common
to the human race, to kill the goose which lays the golden egg. A great
many localities in Western North Carolina are already suffering from
this ruinous policy. Immigration is needed, both for the good of the
country and the advancement of values, but people are not disposed to
leave all the associations and security of home, without some strong
inducement. The many tempting inducements which Western North Carolina
offers, in various fields of enterprise, will quickly and surely be
destroyed by a sudden and radical advance of prices. This remark applies
to the timber and mineral tracts, as well as agricultural lands.
The growth of the new town of Hickory furnishes an illustration of what
a little leaven of industry will do in one of these old and rather dead
communities. Prior to 1867 there had been nothing more than a country
tavern at the present site of the town. The completion to, and long rest
at, that point of the Western North Carolina railroad, brought into
existence a small hamlet, which was incorporated as “Hickory Tavern.”
But a little more than ten years ago, a new air began to blow, which set
things astir, and has been keeping them astir ever since. In 1870, the
township had a population of 1,591, the village existing only in a
scattered street and a name; in 1880, the enumeration showed a
population of 3,071, and the village, itself, has a population of not
less than 1,400. Its trade is larger than that of any town between
Salisbury and Asheville, commanding, by its location, several counties.
Tobacco, which can always be relied upon for a cash return, has been the
main instrument in stimulating general industry. Business being of a
productive character--that is, converting raw material into merchantable
goods--is upon a safe and substantial basis. There are two warehouses
for the sale of leaf tobacco, four tobacco factories, several saw-mills,
planing-and shingle-mills, etc., the Piedmont wagon factory, and an iron
foundry. The healthfulness of the climate attracts all the people during
summer which two hotels and a number of private boarding-houses can
accommodate. St. Joseph’s Academy of the Blue Ridge, a Catholic seminary
of some celebrity, is located in the village. There is also a
flourishing Protestant institution for women, known as Claremont
College; a third institution of learning, is Highland school; the three,
together with the public school, giving the place unusual educational
advantages. The railroad depot stands in the center of the spacious
public square, around which most of the mercantile business is done. The
railroad cannot be said to have been built through the town, the town
has been built around the railroad station. The business
[Illustration: SILVER SPRINGS.
Property of Hon. J. L. Henry.]
buildings are mostly of brick, and substantial, while the residences
show thrift and taste on the part of their owners.
Shelby is the second town in size in the piedmont belt, having a
population of 990 in 1880. It is pleasantly situated in the valley of
First Broad river, and is surrounded by good lands. An experienced
planter ranks Cleveland county, of which it is the capital town, first
in the belt in adaptation to the culture of tobacco. Shelby is likely to
be visited by all who review the historic field on Kings mountain. There
is near the town, one of the oldest health and pleasure resorts in the
state.
Rutherford and Polk counties, drained by the Broad river, on the west
and northwest, are elevated to the summit of the Blue Ridge, and are cut
by its projecting spurs, and by the straggling chain of the South
mountains. Their southern portions are level, and contain many acres of
good land.
The valley of the Catawba, in Burke and McDowell, is unexcelled in the
piedmont region for corn, wheat, oats, and vegetables. The soil is a
clay loam, mixed with sand. The sub-soil is an impervious clay, which
prevents the filtration of applied fertilizers. Better improvements than
are found in most localities bespeak thrift. The trade of the upper
Catawba, and its tributaries, goes to Morganton and Marion. Alexander,
Caldwell, and Wilkes, are fast taking high rank as tobacco producing
counties, though it is probable Catawba will maintain the lead in this
industry.
A few words to the intending immigrant may not be amiss. It is not wise
to select “old field land,” with a view to raising it to a good state of
cultivation. Most of those footprints of desolation are beyond recovery.
Those which are not, it will not pay to attempt to recover as long as
soils less worn remain purchasable at reasonable figures. A Philadelphia
colony made the experiment, against which we warn, in Burke county,
near Morgantown, a few years since. Like most Northerners who come
south, they brought with them the ideas of northern farm life, and the
methods of northern agriculture. With characteristic egotism, they
never, for a moment, doubted their ability to build up what the native
had allowed to run down and abandon as worthless. They purchased, at a
round price, a large tract of old fields, built comfortable frame
houses, and furnished them expensively. But much use and abuse had
exhausted the clay of its substance, and, in spite of deep ploughing and
careful seeding, it yielded no harvest. Their furniture was sold at a
sacrifice, and they returned, to Pennsylvania, disheartened. If they had
selected the best lands, instead of the worst, and been content to live
economically, as poor people must live, the result might have been
different. The folly which has made old fields, makes trying to
resuscitate them none the less foolish, though buyers are frequently
made to believe the contrary. The question naturally comes up: why are
there so many of these ugly blots, marked by scrubby pines, upon the
face of an otherwise fair landscape? The answer is, indifferent farming,
resulting, in a great many cases, from the ownership of too much land.
There was no object in saving manures, and ploughing deep, when the next
tract lay in virgin soil, awaiting the axe, plough, and hoe. The writer
remarked to a farmer, in Burke county, that his corn looked yellow and
inquired the reason.
“Waal,” said he, “I gin hit up. I’ve worked that thar patch in corn now
nigh onto forty year, and hits gin worster and worster every year. I
reckon hits the seasons.”
To an intelligent planter in Catawba, I explained my inability to
understand how soil, originally good, could be made so absolutely
unproductive.
Evidently taking my question to imply some doubt as to the virginal
fertility of which he had been telling me, he pointed significantly to
an adjoining field, where a woman was plowing, or, more properly
speaking, stirring the weeds with a little bull-tongue plow, drawn by a
fresh cow, while the calf, following after, with difficulty, kept in the
half made furrow. “You see what kind of work that is,” said my friend,
“but in spite of it, they will harvest 15 bushels of wheat to the acre.”
When, a little further along, I saw a wooden-toothed harrow in the fence
corner, I was ready to give nature considerable credit.
During the same ride, while crossing a sand ridge, we came where some
men were making a clearing. The prevailing growth, standing close
together, was a species of pine, uniformly about one foot stumpage, and
reaching, mast-like, to the altitude of sixty feet. Between these were
scrub oaks four to six inches in diameter, making the thicket so dense
that to ride a horse through it would have been difficult.
“It strikes me,” said I, “as rather a strange fact, that those pines are
all the same size. What species are they?”
“Those,” replied my friend, “are what we call old field pine. You asked
me back there how land could be so completely worn out; here we have an
example. That piece of land was cleared, may be, 100 years ago. It was
then worked in corn, corn, nothing but corn, for may be twenty years, or
more; not a drop of anything put on. It was then completely worked out,
and turned public to grow up in timber again. Now it has been shaded and
catching leaves for many a year, and has got some nutriment on top. They
will work it in corn or wheat till there’s no substance left. The bottom
was all taken out by the first working, and there will be nothing left
to make a growth of trees a second time. When they get it worked out
this time, it’s gone forever; over here on this side is a specimen. That
field was cleared a second time ten years ago; now you see it won’t
hardly raise Japan clover, and never will.”
“Don’t you try to sell these old fields, and old field forests, to men
who come in here from abroad to make purchases?” I inquired.
“Well, it’s natural for us to get something out of this waste when we
get the chance. But you’ve traveled in these parts, and seen large
bodies of good land to be bought at low figures, and you may say that
anybody that comes here will be treated right.”
“Suppose,” said I, “that on these better tracts Yankee methods should be
adopted--after every few years of cultivation, seed the land down to
grass, which feed to stock in barns; feed your corn fodder steamed, and
use your wheat and oats straw for stable bedding. In that way almost all
the vegetation taken off the soil is returned in a decomposed and
enriched form.”
“Generally speaking,” said my companion, “I have little faith in Yankee
ways in the South. I used to have a plantation in the low country, and
have seen lots of those fellows come down with nickel-plated harness and
steel plows. Most of them would begin to cultivate our friendship by
telling us we didn’t know anything about our business. But we noticed
that they all had to come to our ways, or sell out. The idea of Northern
newspapers, that our plantations before the war were not worked
systemically, is a mistake. Still I think your idea of farming in this
elevated country is correct. You see here, with the exception of long,
rigid winters, the climate is essentially northern, owing to our
elevation. Every experiment at improved farming has been successful,
though very few have been made.”
We were reminded by this of a story told by General Clingman, of
Asheville, at the expense of an intelligent citizen of Buncombe county,
whose residence was on Beetree creek, a branch of the Swanannoa. “As the
surface of the stream was almost level with the surface of the ground,
my fellow-citizen,” says Clingman, “being of good intellect and general
reading, saw on reflection that he could with little trouble utilize
its waters. He constructed his stable just as near to it as possible,
and then cut a slight ditch to the stream, and with the aid of a hastily
made gate of boards, he could at will let the water into his stable.
When, therefore, his stable became rather full of manure, he had only to
turn his horses on the pasture for a day, raise his little gate, and in
a few minutes the stream of water was carrying everything away, and left
the stable much cleaner than it would have been had he used a mattock
and spade. His neighbors all admired his ingenuity in being able to
devise such a labor-saving operation.”
Watauga is the highest county of the Appalachians. Few of its valleys
dip below 3,000 feet above tide level, while a few peaks of its boundary
chains lift to about 6,000. The spurs projecting into this highland
basin are neither high nor abrupt, and the ascent from the interior to
the crest of the great chains of the Blue Ridge, the Yellow mountain and
the Stone and Iron, is at places so gradual as to be imperceptible. The
bottoms along the Watagua river and its many branches, and along the New
river and its branches in Watauga and Ashe counties, are well adapted to
almost all the cereals, to vegetable roots, and to the hardier varieties
of fruits. Ashe county bears a general resemblance to Watagua, but is
about 1,000 feet lower, and consequently warmer. The climate of both
counties is almost identical with the famous butter and cheese districts
of central and western New York. Indeed, few sections of the eastern
part of the United States are more inviting for stock raising and
dairying. All the heavy mountain ranges of the southern Alleghanies
furnish a large amount of wild vegetation nutritive for almost all kinds
of domestic animals. The lofty tops are heavily sodded. Being cool and
well watered, they are unsurpassed as pastures during at least seven
months in the year. Stock in some localities has been known to subsist
upon them during the entire year, but no prudent ranger will fail to
provide for his cattle and horses at least three months’ feed and two
months’ valley pasture. Sheep cannot with safety be turned out on the
distant mountain range, but in most localities they will find abundant
subsistance upon the nearer slopes. Almost anywhere on the luxurious
uplands a goat would think himself in a paradise. A gentleman of large
experience in the stock business in Ashe county informed the writer that
most failures result from an attempt to keep larger herds than the
valleys will sustain. Experience had taught him that it is never safe to
multiply the number of horses and cattle beyond the number of acres of
tillable valley land, while twice that number of sheep can be kept. The
mountain slopes, however, now almost a waste of woodland, are fertile,
and might be reduced, at small outlay, to valuable pastures, and thus
the capacity of the country increased tenfold. These slopes are not, as
in most mountain countries, rocky and broken by exposed ledges. To the
very top there is a heavy covering of earth, surfaced by a black
vegetable mold, which only needs the assistance of sunlight to bring
forth grass in profusion. By simply grubbing out the undergrowth and
deadening the large trees, the capacity for stock, of almost any
locality of the trans-Blue Ridge portion of North Carolina, could be
quadrupled. The price of valley land in Ashe, Alleghany and Watauga
counties ranges from ten to fifteen dollars per acre. The mountains are
purchasable at prices ranging from forty cents to three dollars per
acre, the average price for any large tract being about one dollar.
The writer knows of only two large ventures having been made in sheep
raising; one in Haywood county, and the other in Graham. They both
resulted in total failure, due, however, wholly to the inexperience of
the operators, or ignorance of the shepherds employed by them. In the
first instance, inadequate valley pasturage had been provided, upon
which to support a flock of about 500 sheep during the few cold months
of the winter. The flock, through exposure and scanty feed, became so
reduced in number, before the opening of an early spring, that its owner
abandoned his project.
In Graham county, a northern gentleman having purchased the largest and
one of the finest farms in that locality, discovering that the
surrounding range was admirably adapted for sheep raising, on a large
scale, shipped in a flock of 800 merino sheep. They were ill attended by
ignorant shepherds, and all of them soon died.
Through care in the purchase of a valley farm, adjacent to fair upland,
and bald, mountain-summit pastures, and in the matter of selecting
competent hands, together with some personal attention to the business
on the part of the operator, there is no reason why large profits might
not flow from a venture in this line.
The remarks upon stock-raising in Watauga and Ashe counties, will apply
in general to every other county of the intermontane division of the
state, though, of course, some counties are more favored than others,
and the natural conditions vary in detail in each. Yancey and Mitchell
have large tracts adapted to this industry. The experiment of raising
tobacco has been found successful in the lower and more sandy portions
of Mitchell. This remunerative crop is no longer an experiment in
Yancey, the soil and climate in the western part being well adapted to
it.
The French Broad valley, from an agricultural point of view, is
deserving of special attention. The territory embraced is divided into
four counties--Madison, Buncombe, Henderson, and Transylvania.
I was riding with a friend one afternoon in September, through the cañon
of the French Broad. We were occupying the steps to the back platform of
the last car, feasting, for the twentieth
[Illustration: THE FRENCH BROAD CAÑON.]
time, upon the ever-changing display of beauty. “This,” said my friend,
interrupting the silence, “is all very impressive. No one, whose
feelings have any communion with nature, can escape the charm of these
bold precipices, robed with vines, and crowned with golden forest. These
curves are the materialization of beauty. That surging, dashing,
foaming, torrent, gradually eroding its channel deeper into the
adamantine granite, is a grand demonstration of the superiority of force
over matter. The great drawback to this valley is its poverty of useful
productions. Western North Carolina, it strikes me, may be compared to a
great picture or poem; we never fail to derive pleasure from it, yet
there is nothing in it to make money out of, or even to furnish a
respectable living. While the scenery here is all that can possibly be
desired, and the climate is almost perfect, this country can never be
anything more than it is now, except, perhaps, in the number and size of
its summer hotels. It hasn’t the resources.”
“What is the extent of your knowledge of this country?” I inquired.
“Oh, merely what I’ve seen from the railroad line, but I suppose it’s
pretty much all alike.”
My friend was mistaken, in supposing that the wealth of the Southern
Alleghanies consists wholly in scenery and climate. He was also mistaken
in supposing that railroad views had afforded him any considerable
knowledge of the country.
Madison county, back of the river bluffs, is almost wholly a succession
of hills, coves and narrow valleys, nine-tenths of it timbered with a
heavy growth of hard and soft woods. The slopes are remarkable for
fertility, there being small particles of lime percolated through the
soil. The cultivated grasses grow rank, and the cereals yield
satisfactory harvests. But owing to the limited area of the valleys, and
the almost entire absence of level land, ordinary farming can never be
carried on in Madison with remunerative results. Too much labor is
required to cultivate an acre of the slopes for the ordinary return in
wheat or corn. It is in tobacco that the Madison county farmer has found
his Eldorado. I know of no industry which offers so much inducement to
the poor laborer as the cultivation of this crop. There is no staple
product which derives its value so exclusively from labor, or yields to
that labor a larger return. A few figures will serve to illustrate.
Uncleared land can be purchased at an average price of $3 per acre, in
small tracts. About one-third of the purchase will be found adapted to
tobacco, making the cost of tillable land $9 an acre. Basing our
estimates upon the production of the last three years, a yield of $200
from each acre planted may be expected. In addition to such other small
crops as are needed to yield food for his family, an industrious man and
two small boys can clear, prepare the soil, and cultivate four and
one-half acres a year, which, if properly cured, will bring in the
market $900--money enough to pay for three hundred acres of land.
The sunny slopes are considered by planters best adapted to the crop.
Sand and gravel is the needed composition of soil, and a forest growth
of white pine indicates auspicious conditions. The east side of the
French Broad has been found to have more good tobacco land than the
west, but the ratio we have given is not too great for either side. The
crop leaves the soil in excellent condition for wheat and grass after
four years’ cultivation, though at the present prices of land, planters
would find it economical to sow in wheat and seed to grass after two
years’ cultivation in tobacco. The gross aggregate of the crop of 1882
in Madison county will probably be $250,000. W. W. Rollins, of Marshall,
is extensively engaged in the business, the number of his tenant
families being about sixty.
Up the river, into Buncombe county, the valleys widen, and the acreage
of comparatively level land increases; the settlement becomes denser,
and the proportion of cleared land to native forest, is greater than in
any county west of the Blue Ridge.
The valleys of Hominy creek, Swannanoa, and Upper French Broad, contain
several thousand acres which could be cultivated with improved
machinery. The soil is of average fertility--well adapted to the
cereals, grasses and tobacco--but in many localities its capacity has
been lowered by use and abuse. Some valleys, naturally fertile, are
almost wholly exhausted. There has been, however, marked improvement,
both in farming methods and farming machinery, within the last five
years.
Above Buncombe, in the French Broad valley, are Henderson and
Transylvania counties, embraced within high mountain chains, and formed
of a basin-like territory, which bears some evidence of having once been
a lake. It is a surprise, to most people, to find, within a few miles
of the crest of the Blue Ridge, a marsh of such extent as exists in
Henderson county.
The French Broad changes its character at Asheville, below which place
it is a torrent, and above a placid, almost immobile stream, rising to
the slightly higher altitude of the upper valley, in terraces, rather
than by gradual ascent. Its shallow channel is bordered by alluvial
bottoms--deposits carried from the mountain slopes--varying in width
from a few rods to five miles, making, with a background of mountains
rising massively in the distance, a landscape of surpassing beauty. A
conservative estimate places the number of acres of first bottom land
along the upper valley of the French Broad and its tributaries at
20,000, and twice that number of acres could be cultivated with sulky
plows and harvested with self-binding reapers. Cane creek, followed by
the Henderson and Buncombe county line, drains considerable low land--at
places near its mouth almost marshy. On the opposite side of the French
Broad there is a wide expanse of alluvial land, cut by Mill’s river, and
extending for a distance of two miles up that stream, where the valley
becomes second bottom and slope.