I left Savannah for the West by the Macon road; the train started punctually to a second, at its advertised time: the speed was not great, but regular, and less time was lost unnecessarily at way-stations than there usually is on Northern roads.

I have traveled more than five hundred miles on the Georgia roads, and I am glad to say that all of them seemed to be exceedingly well managed—much better than any others at the South. The speed upon them is not generally more than from fifteen to twenty miles an hour, but it is made, as advertised, with considerable punctuality; the roads are admirably engineered and constructed, and their equipment will compare favorably with that of any other road on the continent. There are very nearly, if not quite one thousand miles of completed railroads in the State. The Savannah and Macon line was the first built, having been commenced in 1834. The most untiring energy only could have secured its completion, running, as it does, for the greater part of its course, through an almost absolute desert.

The first President of the company was William W. Gordon, a name that will be remembered with gratitude as a father of the prosperity of the State, by all Georgians. He died before success crowned his labors, but not before it was secured. The enterprise was perhaps equally indebted for its success to the judicious and economical management of the first Superintendent, Lorin G. Reynolds (a Connecticut man), who is now President of the Georgia Southwestern Railroad.

The increased commerce of the city of Savannah which followed the completion of this road stimulated many other railroad enterprises, not only within the State, but elsewhere at the South, particularly in South Carolina. Many of these were rashly pushed forward by men of no experience, and but little commercial judgment; the roads were injudiciously laid out, and have been badly managed, and, of course, have occasioned disastrous losses. The Savannah and Macon Road has, however, been very successful. The receipts [199] are now over $1,000,000 annually—the road is well stocked, is out of debt, and its business is constantly increasing; the stock is above par, and the stockholders are receiving eight per cent. dividends, with a handsome surplus on hand.

Georgia is by far the most prosperous of the Eastern Southern States, and I cannot see that this can be ascribed to anything else than the superior talent and enterprise, and better directed industry of her people. In the eastern and southern part of the State, above the recent alluvion of the coast (the “sea-island” and rice region) the soil, at the best, is thin and very rapidly exhausted of fertility under cultivation. The river bottoms are generally so liable to overflow that they cannot be settled upon, and the “pine-barrens,” which constitute a large portion of this region, are of not the slightest agricultural value, except for grazing. The only food for cattle is a wire-grass, which grows in tufts, very thinly, affords but very poor pasturage. To encourage a fresh shooting of it, it is burned over every Spring. The law fixes a day, previous to which it is an offense to fire the grass; but this law it is impossible to enforce, and unexpected fires frequently do a great deal of damage, first catching the dry pine wood of the fences, and running on these to stacks and buildings. The cattle are, so far as I observed, without exception, small and gaunt. The hides from them are considered superior to Western hides, and the business of tanning is somewhat extensive in the oak-land districts of the State; but little tallow is obtained from the carcass, and the beef is very poor. Wealthy people, and the best hotels in Savannah, procure their beef from New-York. The climate is generally thought to be unfavorable to neat-stock. I would suppose that sheep-grazing would be more profitable, but the land is almost worthless for any purpose.

In what is known as the Cherokee Country, in the northwestern part of the State, there is much land of excellent quality, but owing to its great elevation, the climate is unfavorable to the extensive culture of cotton. Corn, oats, and fruits, are largely and profitably cultivated. This region of the State, which has been in the hands of the Indians until within a comparatively recent period, is being very largely settled upon by working white farmers, with but a few or no slaves. I am very sorry that I cannot give a good account of their moral and educational condition. From what I saw and heard, I fear that they are very generally exceedingly ignorant and intemperate. In the southwestern part of the State, there is also much unimproved land, of considerable fertility, and suitable for cotton culture to which, so far as settled, its agriculture is wholly devoted. The soil is thin, however, and will be rapidly exhausted. There is a scarcity of wholesome drinking-water, and the climate is not very favorable to health.

In the central region of the State, on the southeastern slope of the Alleghanies, above the pine barrens, the soil is generally argillaceous, often with a very tenacious subsoil. It was originally of considerable fertility, bearing oak and hickory. The surface is exceedingly undulating, a continual succession of very steep-sided hills and dells.

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This has formerly been a very important cotton-producing district, but with the wretched and most un-husbandman-like agriculture—cotton being grown every year, without any cessation, until the profits of raising it would no longer pay for the labor expended upon it—the soil has been all washed from the hilltops, and, in years of low prices, a great many planters have been ruined and obligated to move to Alabama or Texas. The system of agriculture is lately improving, parallel open drains being now extensively made in the hill-sides to arrest the washing off of the soil, and although emigration still continues, I was glad to see, especially in the vicinity of the Railroads, many indications of increasing wealth in the community at large. The old plantations present a more desolate picture to the traveler, if possible, than those of Eastern Virginia, the hill-sides deeply gullied, with no vegetation but stunted pine shrubs to hide the barren red surface. As in Virginia, under the tobacco culture, whenever the old deciduous forests have been destroyed, and the soil deprived of its original fertility by an exhausting course of cotton, pines have sprung up, and now cover a large portion of the district.

The greater part of the State is abundantly provided with running water, frequently affording excellent milling power. The mineral wealth of the State is said by geologists to be very great, but at present almost entirely underdeveloped. More attention has been given to manufacturing, thus far with but indifferent success, I fear; but I cannot doubt that if the same judgment, skill, and close scrutiny of details, were given to cotton manufacturing that is now evidently applied to the management of railroads in Georgia, it would be well rewarded. The cost of the raw material must be from ten to twenty per cent. less than in Massachusetts, yet I found Lowell cottons, both fine and coarse, for sale almost under the roof of Georgia factories. I learned also, a curious illustration of the tendency of commerce to centralization: Georgia cottons are sent to New-York for sale, and are there sold by New-York jobbers to Georgia retailers, who retransport them to the vicinity in which the cotton was grown, spun and manufactured, to be sold by the yard or piece to the planter. A Georgia merchant returning from New-York, informed me of this.

Land-rent, water-power, timber, fuel and raw material for cotton manufacturing are all much cheaper in Georgia than in New-England. Provisions are somewhat higher: slave-labor can only be profitably applied to cotton culture and corn—breadstuffs and meat are heavily imported—but free labor in the Cherokee district will soon change this. The only other item of importance in estimating the cost of manufacturing must be the cost of labor; which includes, of course, the efficiency of the laborers. By the census, it appears that the average wages of the female operatives in the Georgia cotton factories was, in 1850, $7.39 a month; in Massachusetts, $14.57 a month. Negroes were worth $180 a year, and found in clothes, food and medical attendance by the hirer, to work on Railroads, where I was in Georgia. This summer a Georgia planter sent to New-York for Irish laborers to work on his plantation (being able to hire them, at $10 a month, and found in food only, losing their own time [201] when ill)—a very significant fact. New-England factory girls have been induced to go to Georgia to work in newly-established cotton factories, by the offer of higher wages, but have found their position so unpleasant, owing to the general degradation of the laboring class produced by Slavery, as very soon to force them to return.

I spent several days at Columbus, the most extensive manufacturing town, not only of Georgia, but of the South, below Virginia. The information I received with regard to the prosperity of the manufacturers was so contradictory, that I shall not repeat any of it. The city is at the falls, and head of steamboat navigation at high water of the Chattahoochee; the water-power is sufficient to drive 200,000 spindles, with a proportionate number of looms. There are probably at present from fifteen to twenty thousand spindles running. The operatives in the cotton-mills are said to be mainly “cracker girls” (poor whites from the country) who earn from $8 to $12 a month. There are, besides the cotton-mills, one woolen-mill, one paper-mill, a foundry, a cotton-gin factory, a machine-shop, &c. The laborers are mainly whites, and they are in such a condition that if temporarily thrown out of employment (as they were altogther, at the time of my visit, by a freshet of the river) they are at once reduced to a state almost of destitution, and are dependent very extensively upon credit or charity for their daily food.

I have seen in no place since I left Washington so much gambling, intoxication, and cruel treatment of servants in public as in Columbus. This, possibly, was accidental; but I must caution persons traveling for health or pleasure to avoid stopping in the town. The inn in which I lodged was disgustingly dirty, the table revolting, the waiters stupid, inattentive, and annoying. It was the stagehouse; and fellow-travelers who went to the other principal public house declared that it was, if possible, worse. There are very good hotels at Macon and at Montgomery, Alabama; and it will be best in proceeding from Savannah westward, if possible, not to spend. a night between these towns. Let me add that nowhere have I found more genuine courtesy, or met with so unostentatious and hearty hospitality in private, from strangers, as in Western Georgia and Eastern Alabama, in the vicinity of Columbus. Fortunately for the State of Georgia, a very large class of her population is composed of moral, intelligent, and industrious men, of moderate means; her Constitution is much more democratic, and her legislation has been of a much more democratic, liberal, and progressive character, than that of her rival, South Carolina.

A much more rapid material advance, and a much higher position in the respect of the country is the consequence, not withstanding the embarrassments and inconvenience occasioned by the want of capital, of her merchants and men of business—a difficulty which still gives Charleston a commanding advantage over Savannah, even within the natural back country of the latter. There are two very great drawbacks upon the progress of the State. One is the want of a deep, safe, and easily accessible commercial port. The expense, delays and dangers attending the shipment of cotton at Savannah are very great, [202] owing to loss and obstructions in the river below the town. Every means should be resorted to to remove these. The Government appropriations for the purpose are insignificant, in view of the extent of the interests affected. The other point to which I refer, is the dead weight of a numerous unproductive class of exceedingly ignorant, unambitious, indolent people. Increased attention to mining and manufactures, and to all branches of industry, which, by stimulating labor with the hope of immediate reward, encouraging undissipating social association, and demanding activity of mind and body, will infuse new life and spirit among the poor; a greater respect for the profession of teaching in its humblest sphere; a better compensation and a higher standard of capacity for teachers, and a much more liberal expenditure and greater extension of the facilities for general popular instruction by the State, in loco parentis to the innumerable white-headed children, that themselves will soon be a part of the State (“L’Etat c’est moi”), will have a very strong tendency to remove the latter and most strung impediment. This the intelligence of the State is beginning to appreciate.