A trip down the Mississippi Valley is a revelation to one who has never passed over this route. This valley is the garden region of the old South, that is, those States east of the Mississippi. It is asserted, and truthfully, I think, that two and one-half bales of cotton are sometimes raised for every man, woman and child of the population of this valley. The land is a deep alluvial loam and produces crops of great variety. Cotton, corn, potatoes (sweet and Irish), wheat, oats, and sugar cane are some among the many products that grow luxuriously here. This region has been avoided by settlers in the past, because of its unhealthfulness. In the old slave days, planters lived in the highlands, back from the river, and worked their plantations by slave labor. The death of a slave was only unfortunate because of just so much lost live stock. God equalizes things in a strange way. Now, these very people who occupied these lands and tilled them for others are acclimated and can live here and gather the enormous wealth of this wonderful valley. The railroad company has offered unusual inducements to settlers of small capital to take lands here. Five thousand colored people have poured into this great garden spot during the past eighteen months and others are constantly coming. What an opportunity for A. M. A. work! Pleading invitations come to me from many places along the line of this valley, begging me to come and see their needs. Churches and schools and missions are demanded all through this region _immediately_. Tougaloo University was never so well fitted as to-day to meet the needs of these people. Its two new Ballard buildings greatly increase its accommodations and facilities. But other schools, less advanced and comprehensive, are needed, which shall meet the immediate wants of these new communities, and also be feeders to Tougaloo. * * * * * At one place a considerable colony has settled under the leadership of a former student of Fisk University. He is, of course, a Congregationalist, and desires the best educational advantages for this new and growing colony. What could not be accomplished here during the next few years if only the treasury warranted the outlay? At Greenville, in the heart of this fertile valley, a small Congregational Church, planted and nurtured by the A. M. A., is holding up the standard of intelligent preaching and decent forms of public worship. The Church has no meeting-house, but holds its services in a school building, the property of a colored citizen, who is the editor of the Greenville _Herald_, a sprightly local paper. * * * * *