inches, and well pulverized. This is highly important, and should be carefully performed to insure a rapid accumulation of roots.

In propagating, level cultivation is preferable; root-cuttings should always be used for first planting.

After the ground has been thoroughly prepared, as above directed, the roots should be planted about six feet apart each way, three inches deep, and slantingly, with about one inch exposed above the surface; care should be taken to keep the ground moist around the roots when first planted. No further attention, with the exception of weeding, is required until the sprouts are about two feet high, when they should be gradually and gently inclined toward the earth. When they have attained a hight of three or four feet, it will be noticed that they become of a brownish color near the root; they are then ready for propagation; incisions should then be made with a thin, sharp-pointed knife at each eye of the stem, which should then be bent gently down, and covered with about three or four inches of loose earth, care being taken to avoid detaching the stem from the parent root. About six inches of the leafy end should be left uncovered. In the course of three or four weeks these layers will have taken root, and may then be separated from the main root, divided in pieces, and re-planted. In planting in the field, layers may be laid down without being divided.

After the ground has been plowed deep and thoroughly broken up, it should be laid off in beds running the length of the field; these should be made about six inches high and four feet wide, with a flat surface; passages three feet wide should be left on each side, and cartways at intervals through the field. A shallow furrow might be run down the center of each bed; if roots are to be planted, they should be put in the ground slantingly, three inches deep and two feet apart, with end projecting above the ground; if layers are to be planted, they should be laid in a furrow, about three inches deep, horizontally, with the ends lapping, as in cane planting. After the first year's growth has been cut, new sprouts will issue from all parts of the bed; the growth will become very dense, and choke out all other vegetation.

When the stems have attained a hight of six or eight feet, they are then ready to be harvested; but should it be inconvenient for the farmer to commence cutting at the time, the fibre will not be seriously injured if left in the field for a week or two longer. In cutting the stems, an ordinary cane-knife may be used, care being taken to cut the stem a little below the ground. It will also be advisable to extract the fibre when the stems are not too dry.

Ramie may be planted at any growing season of the year; the fall

and early in the spring being the best times for starting. It can not be injured by cold, unless the ground freezes to a depth greater than six inches, and continues frozen for several days. It is propagated only from root-cuttings. In preparing the fibre for market it will be to the advantage of the producer to ship it in its crude raw state, as very little expense will be incurred in so preparing it. In this condition it is worth ten cents per pound, in specie. In preparing it for the spinner a chemical process and costly machinery would be required. No doubt the increasing production of this new staple of the Cotton States will induce the erection of factories, and thus enable the planter to find a ready market at all times for the crude fibre

RIVER SYSTEM OF ALABAMA.

Navigable streams—The streams susceptible of navigation—Opening of valuable water courses-Message of Gov. Smith-Remarks of Professor Tuomey-The Coosa-The Warrior-The Cahaba, etc.

BEFORE describing the manufacturing and mineral regions of Alabama, it is necessary to glance at her system of natural and artificial water communications. Rivers nre necessary to drive machinery, and both rivers and canals are necessary to transport heavy and bulky wares. The question of facility for cheap transportation and intercommunication, very properly follows a description of Alabama's agricultural resources, and anticipates a description of her unlocked treasures of the hills and mountains.

The navigable rivers of the State are the Tennessee, bordered by eight counties, and the best portion of whose valley lies in this State; the Alabama and its tributaries; the Tombigby, Black Warrior, and the Coosa. The Alabama is navigable for four hundred and eighty miles to Montgomery, and in high water to Wetumpka, at the mouth of the Coosa River, twenty miles higher. It passes through and bounds eleven counties. The Tombigby is navigable to Columbus, Mississippi, and passes through and bounds eight counties. The Black Warrior is navigable to Tuscaloosa, and waters two counties. The lower part of the Coosa is navigable from its mouth to Wetumpka, and the upper part from Greensport to Rome, Georgia. One hundred and eighty miles of its course between Wetumpka and Greensport, as its bed passes over the strike of the rocks, are not navigable-being a river navigable at

both ends and not in the center. Its navigable waters bound and water five counties. The Chattahoochee is the dividing line between Georgia and Alabama. This river is navigable as high up as Columbus, Georgia, and bounds three counties in Alabama. The heads of the Choctawhatchie and Escambia rivers of Florida give navigation to three counties. Thus it appears that thirty-two out of the fifty-three counties of the State are either bounded or intersected by navigable rivers, regarding the Mobile and Tensaw rivers as really a part of the Alabama. If we take into consideration the counties that nearly, but do not actually touch her navigable streams, it will appear that two-thirds of the State enjoy the benefit of navigable rivers.

The Tennessee River, which waters a most fertile section of North Alabama, from one side of the State to the other, flows northward after reaching the western boundary, and empties its water, with the Ohio, into the great highway of Western commerce. At present the shoals near Florence present an obstacle to the continuous navigation of this river. But, a few years will remove this obstacle, and by the assistance of the United States Government, the States of Tennessee and Alabama will soon see the Tennessee River opened to navigation from Knoxville to the Ohio. The curve which is made by the Tennessee brings it within thirty or forty miles at the nearest point (Gunter's Landing) to a point upon the Coosa River-Gadsden.

The Coosa River is navigable from Rome, Ga., to Greensport, Alabama, a distance of 160 miles. Below Greensport it is interrupted by shoals, which prevent a continuous navigation, just as the Tennessee is obstructed by the Muscle Shoals. The removal of obstructions in the Coosa River, or rather the surmounting of obstructions, by slack-water navigation, was brought to the attention of the country by President John Quincy Adams. Since then it has failed to elicit public consideration, until within the last ten years. Just before the war a survey was made which demonstrated the entire feasibility of rendering the Coosa navigable, and of connecting it with the waters of the Tennessee by a short railroad of thirty or forty miles (possibly by a canal), thereby giving, with that exception, and with the removal of Muscle Shoals, a continuous and short water line of communication from the hills and valleys of East Tennessee on the one side, and from the Ohio on the other, to the waters of the Gulf at Mobile. At the session of the Alabama Legislature of 1866, another survey of the Coosa was ordered, and was carried out by Mr. Thos. Pearsall, with most satisfactory results. At the session of the Legislature of 1868, after the reconstruction of the State, Gov. Wm. H. Smith considered the question of opening the Coosa

and Cahaba rivers, which flow into the Alabama, and the Warrior River, which flows into the Tombigby, of such vital importance as affecting the mineral interests of the State, that he brought the matter before the Assembly in a special message, and advised appropriations to be made for special and thorough surveys. The Governor said:

"It is gratifying to know that capitalists abroad are anxiously seeking information respecting the latent resources of Alabama, with a view of determining the question of making investments to develop them.

"Special inquiry is now being made in reference to the practicability of improving some of our rivers, so as to increase their navigable facilities. Some of the richest iron mines and coal fields of the State are situated on and near the upper Coosa, which is but partially navigable, and the Cahaba and upper Warrior, which are not navigable at all.

"Capitalists who are inclined to invest in these mines and fields, very naturally take into consideration the means of transporting their products to market.

"Hence the interest that is manifested in regard to the feasibility of rendering those streams navigable.

"In making such surveys, much valuable information might be incidentally collected, in regard to the mineral and other resources of the regions through which those streams flow. Our State abounds in rich iron beds, and coal fields; they are already attracting the notice of capitalists, although the facts as to their real value are but imperfectly known.

"With correct information properly disseminated, there is every reason to believe that the requisite capital would be brought into the State to open up communication with our mineral regions, either by improving rivers or by railways.

"In any event we should do everything that is practicable to invite capital among us. Much might be accomplished in this way by circulating reliable information respecting our material resources.

"For these general reasons I respectfully recommend an appropriation of such amount as the General Assembly may deem proper, to be applied to a survey of the rivers named, and the mineral regions contiguous to them. Capitalists abroad are frequently applying for information in reference to those rivers and mines; and the object desired is to collect it in an authentic form at as early a day as practicable."

In accordance with this recommendation, the Legislature provided for proper surveys. When the surveys shall have been completed, and the results made known, there will be every reason to believe that capi tal will be found ready to open up such valuable highways.

Professor Tuomey, late geologist of the State, and Professor of Geology and Natural History in the University of Alabama, in his imperfect sketch of the geological formations of Alabama, gives us an account of her rivers, which, although brief, is worthy of notice as substantiating what has been already said in this connection. After alluding to the anomalous course of the Tennessee River, and to the fact that its complete navigation is interrupted by a fall of 85 feet over 15 miles of shoals, the Professor proceeds to speak of the two arms of the great rivers which flow from the mineral regions of North Alabama, through the cotton region of South Alabama, and at last to the Gulf:

"The rivers that form the Coosa rise in the basin between the southern extremities of the Blue Ridge and Alleghenies, in Georgia. The Blue Ridge, as if determined not to sink down at once into obscurity, has left a noble monument in that remarkable knob, the Stone Mountain. Coosa, from its rise to Greensport, in Cherokee county, flows along the strike of the rocks, and in a valley between the strata; it meets with scarcely any obstruction, and hence the remarkable phenomenon which it presents of a river navigable for steamboats at both extremities, with the intermediate part an impracticable rapid. It will be seen that between the places just named, the course of the river is northeast and southwest; at Greensport it turns directly south, and consequently crosses the edge of the strata, so that where these are hard and indestructible, rapids occur; but where limestone strata are crossed, a level reach is found. This state of things continues for a distance of 180 miles to Wetumpka, where the mica slates of the metamorphic rocks form the first obstruction and head of navigation.

"The navigation of a river 180 miles in length, passing through such a country as that through which the Coosa passes, appears to me so important a matter in connection with the prosperity of the State, that its improvement should enter into any scheme of internal improvement devised for its best interests. There are no formidable obstructions, but such as arise from sudden bends and accumulations of gravel, that a judicious expenditure of a few thousand dollars would not readily obviate.

"Between Wetumpka and the mouth of the Tallapoosa, the Coosa is a beautiful river, with high banks and deep water. At the junction, an accumulation of gravel takes place, which is the result of the lessening suddenly of the transporting force of the two rivers, by which the materials rolled onward by the streams are arrested in their progress, producing a bar and serious obstruction to navigation, which can only be remedied by the removal of the cause—that is, by making the streams to come together at a more favorable angle. The obstructions below this are