Virginia presents many varieties of soil, and, with a better system of cultivation, her productions can be greatly increased. (The same may be said of all the Southern States, from the Atlantic to the Rio Grande.) Her soil is favorable to all the products of the Northern States.  The wheat and corn of Virginia have a high reputation.  In the culture of tobacco she has always surpassed every other State of the Union, and was also the first State in which it was practiced by civilized man to any extent.  Washington pronounced the central counties of Virginia the finest agricultural district in the United States, as he knew them.  Daniel Webster declared, in a public speech in the Shenandoah Valley, that he had seen no finer farming land in his European travel than in that valley.

Until 1860, the people of Virginia paid considerable attention to the raising of negroes for the Southern market.  For some reason this trade has greatly declined within the past five years, the stock becoming unsalable, and its production being interrupted.  I would advise no person to contemplate moving to Virginia with a view to raising negroes for sale.  The business was formerly conducted by the “First Families,” and if it should be revived, they will doubtless claim an exclusive privilege.

North Carolina abounds in minerals, especially in gold, copper, iron, and coal.  The fields of the latter are very extensive.  The gold mines of North Carolina have been profitably worked for many years.  A correspondent of The World, in a recent letter from Charlotte, North Carolina, says: 

In these times of mining excitement it should he more widely known that North Carolina is a competitor with California, Idaho, and Nebraska.  Gold is found in paying quantities in the State, and in the northern parts of South Carolina and Georgia.  For a hundred miles west and southwest of Charlotte, all the streams contain more or less gold-dust.  Nuggets of a few ounces have been frequently found, and there is one well-authenticated case of a solid nugget weighing twenty-eight pounds, which was purchased from its ignorant owner for three dollars, and afterward sold at the Mint.  Report says a still larger lump was found and cut up by the guard at one of the mines.  Both at Greensboro, Salisbury, and here, the most reliable residents concur in pointing to certain farms where the owners procure large sums of gold.  One German is said to have taken more than a million of dollars from his farm, and refuses to sell his land for any price.  Negroes are and have been accustomed to go out to the creeks and wash on Saturdays, frequently bringing in two or three dollars’ worth, and not unfrequently negroes come to town with little nuggets of the pure ore to trade.

The iron and copper mines were developed only to a limited extent before the war.  The necessities of the case led the Southern authorities, however, after the outbreak, to turn their attention to them, and considerable quantities of the ore were secured.  This was more especially true of iron.