Year: 1871

~AA@A~sS ssS &ASCeAsAS AShSNUstssAC Cs
No. ".


We come now In the progress of our
treatise to consider the effects of our cli-
mate upon agriculture. In this paper we
shall use the word agriculture in an en-
larged sense, treating 1t as embracing all
classes of farm products.


GENERAL PRODUCTS.
One marked feature of the agriculture of
East Tennessee is its resemblance In the
main to the agriculture of the Northern
States. We raise here very few of the pro-
duets generally recognized as peculiar tc
the South. Cotton and tobacco, while pro-
duced here to very limited extent, are
not part of our products. We raise on the
other hand about everything produced in
the Northern States. Wheat, corn, oats,
barley, hay. and fruits found In every
Northern State are our staple farm pro-
ducts. What has been said of our climate
and its resemblance to that of more North
ern States easily explains this peeuliarity:
East Tennessee is a portion OF the North
transplanted in Southern cline. This
resemblance is marked not only in our
farm products, but in some of the customs
and traits of character Of our people. AS
a general rule, lands are divided here in
small tracts as in the North. We have
but Few of the large plantations peculiar
20 cotton growing States. We had before
the war but few slaves and the people
were therefore, less dependent upon slave
labor-workei more themselves and had
more of the habits of the farmers North
than of the planters South. This differ
encein interests made them different from
the South in other respects. They had
but little sympathy with the institution of
slavery. They did not agree with other
portions of the South in their pro-slavery
politics. When the war was begun, as a
body. their sympathy was with the Gov
ernment as their heroic acts SO familiar to
patriots the land over attest.


These peculiarities have always made
East Tennessee place of great interest to
Northerners. If they think of immigrat-
ing South, their first choice is this section.
In coming here they can carry on farming
as they did North with the benefits of
milder climate as great advantage and
help. We do not know of any leading
farm product which does not do better
here than in the North, as we shall show
at the proper time. It is only of the gen.
erai features of agriculture as effected by
clirnufe we propose to treat now.


In coming to East Tennessee he not
only is not called to change his system of
farming, but does not come among peo-
pie differing from him radically in their
habits of living, their system of laws, or
their general political, religious and social
sentiments. tawg eF +


FARM WORK.


The main work of the farmer is out of
doors. He deals with nature, and it is
where nature most favors his labors that
he wants to go. Nature not only gives
him more favorable advantages here, but
is likewise partial to the animal creation,
which Is the chief help he relies on. AS q,
general proposition, it is safe to say that
for general outdoor farm work, he can
here have ZEN out of the twelve months.
He may not and will not have ten entire
months for work, but deducting all the
days of the winter. either too wet or too
cold for such work, and they will not ex-
ceed sixty. During this present month of
January, now well nigh spent, there have
been at least two weeks fitted for any kind
of outdoor work.


We have no heavy, deep SHOWS which
lay for thirty or sixty days, covering up
everything from his reach. We have no
severe protracted freezing spells, which
make it necessary to build expensive, warm
stables for protecting stock, or spend half
Their worth in feeding them grain and hay
during the months they can not get graz
ing. These are facts which greatly reduce
the expenses of farming and go to recon-
pense for the difference In the actual rich
ness o the soil and consequent diminished
yield.


Upon farm products the advantages of an
early spring are not SO great as upon the
products OF gardening or upon the yield OF
fruits. Tt Ia not, the efore, necessary just
now to refer in detail to the influence of
this season upon the quality of the grains
raised, as We shall have occasion to treat
of that fully in more appropriate place.


FROSTS.


The following table, taken from Prof.
Safford's Geology of Tennessee" shows
the value of this climate for gardening
and fruit growing:


TABULAR STATEMENT OF THE OCCUR


RENEE OF FROST DURING THE PERIOD


PROM 1861 TO 1868, INCLUSIVE.