from the coast, is covered with extensive forests of pitch-pine,
that furnish large quantities of lumber, tar, turpentine, and resin,
for export to Northern cities. When cleared and cultivated, this
region proves quite fertile, but Southern energy has thus far been
content to give it very little improvement. Much of the land in the
interior is very rich and productive. With the exception of Missouri,
North Carolina is foremost, since the close of the war, in
encouraging immigration. As soon as the first steps were taken
toward reconstruction, the "North Carolina Land Agency" was opened at
Raleigh, under the recommendation of the Governor of the State. This
agency is under the management of Messrs. Heck, Battle & Co., citizens
of Raleigh, and is now (August, 1865) establishing offices in the
Northern cities for the purpose of representing the advantages that
North Carolina possesses.

The auriferous region of North Carolina extends into South Carolina
and Georgia. In South Carolina the agricultural facilities are
extensive. According to Ruffin and Tuomey (the agricultural surveyors
of the State), there are six varieties of soil: 1. Tide swamp, devoted
to the culture of rice. 2. Inland swamp, devoted to rice, cotton,
corn, wheat, etc. 3. Salt marsh, devoted to long cotton. 4. Oak and
pine regions, devoted to long cotton, corn, and wheat. 5. Oak and
hickory regions, where cotton and corn flourish. 6. Pine barrens,
adapted to fruit and vegetables.

The famous "sea-island cotton" comes from the islands along the coast,
where large numbers of the freed negroes of South Carolina have been
recently located. South Carolina can produce, side by side, the corn,
wheat, and tobacco of the North, and the cotton, rice, and sugar-cane
of the South, though the latter article is not profitably cultivated.

Notwithstanding the prophecies of the South Carolinians to the
contrary, the free-labor scheme along the Atlantic coast has proved
successful. The following paragraph is from a letter written by a
prominent journalist at Savannah:--

The condition of the islands along this coast is now of the greatest
interest to the world at large, and to the people of the South in
particular. Upon careful inquiry, I find that there are over two
hundred thousand acres of land under cultivation by free labor. The
enterprises are mostly by Northern men, although there are natives
working their negroes under the new system, and negroes who are
wor