Alexandria Gazette & Daily Advertiser

EDITORS' CORRESPONDENCE.

Mobile, Oct. 11, 1817.

I see a number of strange things along the Alabama Territory running the editorial gauntlet, but all very quietly: not a lash is drawn. The bare-faced culprits run on, and because they have the words terrestrial paradise painted on their foreheads, not a soul has the heart to give a single stroke. I do not mean to deny that it is a good country, but I have such a dread of the disappointments produced by extravagant encomiums, and of the consequences of those disappointments on the prominent character of our country and the happiness of the people, that I really do wish that persons who write letters to their distant friends, would lower their tone a little. The country now called the Alabama Territory combines two advantages not to be found in any other part of the federal dominions. It has cheap lands, and they are convenient to trade. Kentucky, Ohio, & Indiana, have better lands, but they are too distant from market. On the other hand, the lands of West Florida are near to market; but they are good for nothing. There are good lands in the Alabama Territory, not generally indeed, but in sufficient quantities; and there have heretofore been cheap. Your own paper has raised the nominal value, and if that nominal value could be kept up, one of the great advantages of the country, cheap lands, would disappear. The wonderful productiveness of the best lands, viz. 100 bushels of corn to the acre, which is mentioned in the newspapers, is quite a novel circumstance to those who have lived here many years. I believe that 20 barrels to the acre is considered as a good average crop, but as these 20 barrels contain only a bushel and a half each, the amount is only 30 bushels. There may be lands which will produce 100 bushels, but I believe they are unknown to the old settlers.

Ibid.