The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1878-07-17
From Gen. Vests Centennial Address.
The Pine Districts of Mississippi
West Point, Mss.

LETTER FROM HON. j. F. H. CLAIBORNE, TO
GENERAL A. NJ. WEST.
MY DEAR GENERAL-When we speak of
the Z" Pine Woods. :" or the "Sea Coast, -
people associate with it poverty, and an
interminable waste of sand and barren
I lands. This impression is certainly errone-
ous. know of no country that holds out
more H. .Icements for capital, industry,
and Intelligent husbandry; that combines
SO much health and comfort with so many
avenues to competence and opulence.
THE SEA COAST,
The sea coast of Mississippi is not low
and swampy, buc a high, bold bluff, mar
gined at its base by a beach of pure white
sand, and supporting on its brow a forest of
stately pine, live-oak and magnolia. The
soil is light, sandy, vegetable loan, by no
means unproductive easily cultivated, and,
by proper treatment, yielding for long
series of years, abundant crops of vegeta-
bles and fruit, remarkable for their flavor.
Pure and cool water is here everywhere
obtained at the depth of from ten to twenty
feet. The country tor two or three miles
back is much the same but then it begins
to unduate there is more clay in the soil I;
the timber becomes almost exclusively
pine, and is of heavier aud larger growth.
Twenty miles back, the country is higher !;
in some localities quite billy, but with
broad surfaces of table lands OF good arabic
lls
ing streams affording fine water power !;
and the great forest of yellow pine stretches,
northward and eastward, from Pearl river
to the Leaf and the Chickasahay, and
thence TO Alabama.
THIS GREAT FOREST,
is drained by Pearl and Pascagoula rivers,
and their numerous tributaries, furnish ng
navigation and facilities for rafting timber
from the rem ote interior. On these streams
may be seen heavy growth of white oak,
hickory, poplar, ash, beech, water oak f,
maple, hack berry, elm, dog wood, sasatras,
cherry, mulberry, chestnut. box-elder, white
bay, red bay, cedar, juniper and cypress OF
colossal growth. The lands are classed as
first and second bottoms, with natural
drains, and usually covered with rich
growth of cane, and grape vines. With
proper treatment they yield from twenty
five to fifty bushels of corn, and from one
thousand to fifteen hundred pouIds OF seed
cotton to the acre. Rice, potatoes, sugar
cane and tobacco, are, on such lands, all re-
munerative crops.
THE GREAT WANT
of this country is railroad, with proper
feeders, to lift this mighty forest, and brin g
| it, as it were, to the lap OF the ocean. For
hundred miles at stretch, at any point
of the com pass, one may ride. through these
ancient woods, and See them, as they have
| stood for ages. untouched by the hand OF
Hdn' a auIoau Ooulu OO ShSaPJ SOh-
structed. For 100 miles or more, the coun-
try may be described as an inclined plane,
| sloping TO the sea; the rivers and streams
all flowing in that direction. No mountain
| to tunnel. no rocks to eXcsvate or blast.
| for CONSERVATION at hand. and the yery best.
| Consider the wealth coined out of the pine
| forests of North Carolina. with her stormy
cane. forbidding euress from her ports and
| the labor and capital expended in the frozen
| nfn IF Mafn and oil fha still
khiesker shores IF The Northwestern Lakes
| Hare we have field for enterDrise far more
| extensive virgin forest-a beniga eli :
mate coast exemnt from stormsecaDa-
eious harbors-With access to all the mar
! veIon these great resources. and build mn an
| inn portant com mereial entrepot on our beau