From the Brazos, the road skirts small affluents of that stream and the Colorado for two hundred miles. The soil upon this section is principally a red argillaceous loam, similar to that in the Red River bottoms, which is so highly productive.

As this route is included within the thirty-second and thirty-fourth parallels of latitude, it would never be obstructed with snow. The whole surface of the country is covered with a dense coating of the most nutritious grass, which remains green for nine months in the year, and enables cattle to subsist the entire winter without any other forage.

The line of this road east from Fort Smith would intersect the Mississippi in the vicinity of Memphis, Tenn., and would pass through the country bordering the Arkansas River, which can not be surpassed for fertility.—Marcy's Red River Exploration.

The route thus described lies through the following counties, and attention is specially directed to their several products in 1858:—

Acres
CountyWhiteSlaveCornWheatCottonSug.Misc'lTotal.
Bowie2,0772,32110,3921,4218,240233,23223,308
Cass6,1124,81628,4745,55220,168364,36858,508
Titus6,0251,89118,9872,2729,872926,22736,450
Upshur5,9992,80122,5153,09216,692453,12246,065
Wood3,2547338,3361,0903,194311,84114,501
Van Zandt2,5482426,5048371,21385968,160
Henderson2,7588278,4708454,7687090815,061
Navarro2,8851,57910,5312,7854,6781272,60920,730
Hill1,8585085,1613,1891812017619,493
Bosque8871822,70287222445834,026
34,40315,800121,07222,56469,33067822,748236,392

Let us allow the usual proportion of field hands to the whole number of slaves, viz., one-third, and we have a force of 5297; if whites do not labor in the field, each field hand must cultivate 44 64/100 acres of land. The customary allotment is ten cotton and five corn, or, where corn and wheat are the principal products, from twenty to twenty-five acres.

July 15, 1852. We were in motion at two o'clock in the morning, and, taking a north-east course towards the base of the mountain chain, passed through mezquite groves, intersected by brooks of pure water flowing into the south branch of Cache Creek, upon one of which we are encamped.

We find the soil good at all places near the mountains, and the country well wooded and watered. The grass, consisting of several varieties of the grama, is of a superior quality, and grows luxuriantly. The climate is salubrious, and the almost constant cool and bracing breezes of the summer months, with the entire absence of anything like marshes or stagnant water, remove all sources of noxious malaria, with its attendant evils of autumnal fevers.—Marcy's Exploration of the Red River, p. 11.

Our camp is upon the creek last occupied by the Witchitas before they left the mountains. The soil, in point of fertility, surpasses anything we have before seen, and the vegetation in the old corn-fields is so dense that it was with great difficulty I could force my horse through it. It consisted of rank weeds growing to the height of twelve feet. Soil of this character must have produced an enormous yield of corn. The timber is sufficiently abundant for all purposes of the agriculturist, and of a superior quality.

We have now reached the eastern extremity of the Witchita chain of mountains, and shall to-morrow strike our course for Fort Asbuekl.