The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-03-17
A Letter from Alabama.

THE following interesting letter was
written by a Vermonter in Alabama, with
permission to be used in the WATCHMAN.
We gladly give place to it.
Most northern people have an erroneous
idea of the extreme Southern States as to
temperature agricultural products, mineral
and manufacturing resources. AS to tenn
perature, we never have as hot a day in
summer, or so cold day in winter, as in
the New England States. The highest tenn
perature on my record of three years is
ninety-six degrees and the lowest one de-
gree above zero. Our summers are longer
than in the North, and our winters ara
usually warmer than the fall months there
There is not often day, if the farmer di-
versifes his crop, but there is plenty to-
do at all seasons of the year, when it is not
raining We seldom have any snow, and
the ground is usually frozen but a few
weeks. There has not been month this
winter that have not seen men blowing.
1t costs but little to raise or winter stock.
Not one farmer in a hundred cuts a load of
hay. He pulls the blades from his corn
stalks, and this, with the shucks " from
! his corn, is all the fodder he has for stock.
Therefore northern people who pass the
winter here think we cannot raise grass for
! hay. / have not been in any section where
almost any kind of grass does better. Glover
can be cut three times in one season On
| lands from which a crop of wheat or oats
is taken off the crab-grass will grow suf-
| ticiently, on good SOIL to yield in the fall
from one to two tons per acre. This makes
| the finest and most nutritious hay of any
| of the grasses.
Labor is mostly performed by the whites,
the negroes having gone to the low sections,
villages and cities There is but one planta-
! ton in this neighborhood where negro is
employed. But few landowners here.
| They rent. When the renter furnishes his
team to cultivate the land he gets three
fourths of the cotton and two-thirds of
whatever else he raises If the landowner
| furnishes stock, and feed for it, he gets one
half. Most of the renters are poor and both
women and children work in the field and
do most of the hoeing and picking of cotton.
Lands are low. Very good places are offered
for from five to ten dollars per acre Six
miles below us is a furnace for the manufac-
ture of iron. The company pays five cents
per bushel for charcoal and fifty cents per
ton for iron ore delivered at the furnace;
or ten cents per ton for the ore and raise
it " themselves. | have been in a rolling
mill three years where we worked up a part
of the iron for railroad cars bridges, bolts,
nails, etc, and work was done at land, in
many instances belong Pittsburgh prices,
and as many tons per hand were turned
out as in northern mills. In Cleburn county
are gold mines that were worked long be-
| fore the Indians We're removed, and are still
being worked. Farther east in the same
county are some fine copper mines. This
part of the state (Etowah county, is noun
famous, rolling and broken, with many fine
valleys and river-bottoms. Yet the lands
lie much better for cultivation than in most
parts of New England Almost invariably
the mountains contain coal and the knobs
some mineral. We have a great variety of
timber-oak, walnut chestnut, the long
leafed pine, cherry, elm, gum, and many
other kinds, with occasionally maple.
AS TO healthfulness, if one keeps away
| from swamps and river-bottoms it is as
healthful here as in any section have
lived in since leaving New England. The
mountain range, extending from Virginia to
middle Alabama, is, think, better adapted
| to New Englanders than any other section
of the South The development of our min
erals will make a home market for all our
| farm products. As 10 manufacturing, we
| have ON the river below us water-power
enough to run all the cotton mills in the
Eastern States. | can put "A bale of cotton
! into cloth for less than is now paid for bag
! ging, freight, storage, commissions, etc., be-
fore it gets TO the northern manufacturer
For dairy purposes the lands tempera-
ture, water and market are far preferable to
| those in Northern localities. Butter can be
put on the market at all times with much
less trouble than in the North. | have for
three years carried, every Saturday during
the summer, six miles 10 town, butter in
balls and stamped, and have never used a
particle of ice. Water is abundant from
small springs to those that make good
sized brook. In locating, one can have
sandstone water, lime or hard water, sui
phur and chalybeate. Water is also easily
obtained from wells.
In this part of the state there is fine
range for stock, sheep and hogs, great deal
of land yet being unoccupied' This is fine
fruit section. Apples and peaches mature
from the last of May till frost in the fall
our late. or winter apples, however, will
not keep as long or as well as in the North
We go to the garden every week of the year
for Vegetables, as we leave our cabbages
tnrnins. narsnips and oyster-plants in the
ground, and get them when wanted Al
most the entire country between us and the
Tennessee river is underlaid with bitumin-
Gus coal. In the valleys or ravines are
knobs of the finest kind or iron ore, thrown
up, evidently, by volcanic action. 49,