A. D. Murphrey, a North Carolinian, travelling through West Tennessee in 1822, and writing to his friend, Thomas Ruffin, left the following account of the soil and the profits in farming in West Tennessee: “Since I wrote you last I have been through nearly one-half of the Chickashaw Purchase, and if I was disappointed as to old Tennessee, I was still more as to the Purchase; but my disappointment was of another kind. I have never seen such a beautiful country before, nor one where industry can be so well rewarded. It is very much like Mecklenburg and Cararrus were, I expect, a hundred years ago, in their appearance; but there is a fertility in its poorest soil that I have seen nowhere else. Except the swamp, there is really no poor land, if we are to judge from its production; for on the poorest ridges that I have seen, six and eight barrels of corn, or 1000 pounds of cotton is the ordinary crop. What is there called good land brings upon an average 10 barrels of corn or 1300 pounds of cotton to the acre; and one hand will tend more land than two in any part of North Carolina west of Raleigh. I have just left the house of a Mr. Morgan on Sandy River, who is now working his second crop and works four hands. He has prepared 80 acres of this ground since Xmas, 1821 (this was July, 1822), and his crop of corn, without severe disaster, will be 1000 barrels.... The soil is rich, black land, varying in depth from four to ten inches; then comes a good clay—not a stone or pebble to be seen.”[39] The Nashville Banner in 1833, in a discussion on the prosperity of Tennessee, boasted that “the profits alone” on the crop of cotton, in the present year, “will pay the whole aggregate debt of Tennessee and leave a large balance in favor of the country.”[40]