The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1878-11-14
tFor the Farmer aud Mechanic.
Notes Of Travel.

than the average Of the counties west
of the Blue Ridge. It's seat of Just &c
is at Franklin, 70 miles west, a little
south, from Asheville. From Bun
combe it Is separated by the Newfound,
the Balsam and the Cowee ranges of
mountains and the intervening valleys
of Pigeon river, Haywood county
and Tuckasege river jackson county,
Franklin is beautifully situated ON the
hills overlooking the fine valley of
Tennessee and 100 feet above the
river, being almost on the same level
with Asheville. To the west rises the
massive regular chain of Nantehaleh.
whose principal SUBMITS are above
300 feet high on the east and at a
like distance, (of 6 to s miles) stands
the knobby chain of the Cowee, which
is nearly as high the quadrangular
inclosure is completed by the Blue
Ridge on the south, and the Great
Smoky, north. The course of the
Tennessee river through Macon is
nearly due north, parallel to the trend
of the two bounding chains first
named. The county is in fact a deep
basin or trough, watered Cor more pro-
perly speaking, drained) by n of the
chief tributaries of the great Tennes-
see, which is navigable for a thousand
miles beyond our borders to the Mis-
sissippi. This river, like all the
streams of the mountains proper,
rises along the TANKS of the Blue Ridge
and flows northward, until it impinges
directly against the Smoky Mountains,
which here attain their greatest mass
and elevation, lacking in fact but the
height of an ordinary tree of reaching
the altitude of the Hottest summit of
the Black. Unable to effect a passage
here, it wanders and thunders along
its base, in a westerly course until it
has gathered the waters of four other
large rivers, the Tuckase5e, Mantle
haleh, Cheowah and O~conaluftee, be
sides numerous lesser affluents, half of
these great waters being in fact drawn
from the huge and furrowed TANKS of
the Smoky itself, until a. last, with a
mighty rush and % and foam, it
plunges through the bowels of the
mountains, in a huge and rugged can
on four thousand feet below the neigh
boring SUBMITS of the chain. There
is no wilder. grander scene this side
the great Colorado canon of the Rocky
Mountains.
But the upper valley of the Tennes-
see, which is Macon county, is one of
the finest OF all the beautiful valleys of
this picturesque and lovely region. l
know of nothing finer than the drive,
in an open buggy, on a bright autumn
day, up the great Dad leading from
Franklin southwark toward the Blue
Ridge, winding over the hills and
benches and across the bright clear
tributaries which come down from
the neighboring mountains, every
turn in the road and every ascent of a
hill bringing to view a new panorama
of mountain SUBMITS shouldering
down to the plain through an endless
succession of lesser spurs and knobs
and ridges, with their intervening
streams and stretches of level bottoms.
The agricultural wealth of the coun-
ty is its great extent Of bottoms. Most
of the corn made is grown on these
river aud creek lowlands and corn,
as nearly everywhere else in North
Carolina, is the main crops. There is
a large area of such lands along the
Tennessee, much of it of the greatest
fertility but one of the finest features
of the landscape in every part of the
county is the numerous winding rib
bons and rows of creek bottoms, run
ming back between the foothills and
spurs, quite under the bases of the
great mountain chains. Among these
may be mentioned as the finest and
most extensive, those of the Sugar
Fork and its tributary. the Elleiay.
of the Catoogajay, the lola, Burning
ngtown and Cowee. These bottoms
are still for the most part very pro-
ductive although they have been IN
der an exhaustive and injudicious sys-
ten of cultivation for several genera
tons. The uplands, hill sides and
mountain slopes, of which an area
much greater than that of the bottoms
has been cleared, although originally
of fair to good quality. have been, as
in all other billy regions of the State,
rapidly exhausted and reduced to old