ed. A
railroad is now in progress, the prospectus for which was in circulation
during my visit, which is to connect North and South Alabama, commencing
in the valley of Tennessee, and running to some navigable point of the
harbour of Mobile. A glance at a map of the States will at once render
obvious the immense importance such a line of communication will be of
to this city, concentrating on this point the trade, not only of North
Alabama and the Tennessee valley, but some of the most fertile portions
of Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Mississippi.

By this railway the great obstacle in the way of the trade of the
Tennessee valley, the muscle shoals, will be avoided, whilst, at a fair
calculation, it is expected that the increase of cotton received into
Mobile will amount to one hundred thousand bales: besides a vast
quantity of pork, beef, bacon, flour, lard, whisky, &c. that now seeks a
market at New Orleans, through those great natural channels, the
Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers: to the navigation of the
first-named river the shoals have hitherto been a serious drawback,
detaining laden craft of all kinds for weeks, and even months, until,
late in winter or early in spring, a rise in the river enabled them to
float over into the highway of the Western world, the Mississippi.

The grounds on which the vast and seemingly extravagant increase of the
cotton crop of this State of Alabama may be justified, are to be found,
not only in the great fertility of the virgin soil yearly brought under
cultivation, but in the unprecedented increase of population. This very
year, it is calculated, not less than twenty-five thousand slaves have
been brought into this country from the older States on the Atlantic;
this amount will, in all probability, be exceeded by the increase of
next season, as there are many millions of acres of the most fertile
land in the Union yet in the hands of Government for sale, lately
conceded in exchange by the Indians of the Creek and Cherokee tribes.

The great cause of emigration from the Atlantic States is to be looked
for in the temptation offered the planter by a soil of vastly superior
fertility. In South Carolina and in most parts of Georgia, it will
appear that a good average crop will give one bale or bag of cotton,
weighing 310 lbs. for each working-hand employed on the plantation; now,
in Alabama, four or five bales, each weighing 430 lbs. is a fair average
for a