Maple sugar constitutes a considerable article of manufacture and traffic, in Western Virginia; a " sugar orchard" is still a valued possession, and the beautiful tree assumes hereaway its most beautiful form. The product of a single one is estimated from three to ten pounds, and even more, where the limbs are abundant and th9 age sufficient. What a provision for man in his earlier stages of civilisation is the " sugar tree!" A bushel of sap makes a pound of sugar ; that the withdrawal of ten or more bushels every spring does no injury to the tree, shows emphatically, that it was placed there for a wise purpose - an extra to be employed for man's benefit.

* At one of the Springs, there was not a corkscrew on the premises. The mode of liberating a liquid was to here through the cork with an old rusty gimlet, and pouring out as you do your ink. Other deficiencies were still more striking and inconvenlent.

Our inspection of the " Sweet Springs," the " Bed Sweet," and " Hot," was brief, bat sufficient to satisfy us that the first two possessed great attractions for visitors ; the baths named are very great curiosities, and delightful for use. The " Hot" is less attractive, and being occupied nearly exclusively by invalids, fashion frequents it not, and they do say there are extra modes of squeezing your pockets ; but unquestionably great cores have been effected. On this subject, as we progress, all learn a curious feature of the " Virginia Springs ;" at each one they have a celebrated case ready to inflict upon every willing hearer. At each, a man arrived once upon a time, who was so ill that he was carried on a bed from the stage and deposited in the hotel ; this remarkable man (sometimes he is a woman), weighed, on arrival, exactly eighty-four pounds, most probably bed clothes and all, as he was too ill to be separated from them. For a time he was worse (which is a universal symptom), but in two weeks walked ; in three ate everything he came across, and in four weeks exactly, had a bloom on one cheek ; in five this symptom extended to the other, and in six he sold his cratches and started on a pedestrian excursion after the deer, that are abundant all through the mountains.

This case is patent to the landlord, his bookkeeper, and the " resident physician," at all the Springs, and before we got to the " Rockbridge Alum" we felt quite interested in him, hoping sometime to catch up with the individual. Probably we did so, for we saw numbers of lazy-looking fellows, whose sole occupation was hunting. The sick man must greatly prefer deer-stalking to being par-boiled and starved by Dr. Goode, at the " Hot," or drenched with sulphur and alum every where he went. He weighed, when he started for the mountains, one hundred and thirty-nine pounds, a great increase for six weeks ; beyond doubt he is destined for immortality, and his story will be repeated at every Spring to every open-mouthed visitor; he richly deserves the epithet of " the old man of the mountain." The Doctor here began to tell me of this remarkable cure, but I requested him to desist, as I had seen the scales in which he was weighed on every piazza where we stopped, forming one of the daily amusements of young and old, thick and thin.

One of the great charms of a mountain summer residence is the absence of insects; we have not seen a single caterpillar's nest or spider's web in this part of Virginia ; flies and mosquitoes, etc., are of the rarest; probably the nights are too cold, for very often in August we have had fires.

Venison is an abundant article on the tables ; but so thoroughly are the deer now harried by dogs everywhere, that it is by no means what it used to be ; an old resident declares, that the deer are kept so constantly on the alarm that they have not time to get fat. Much more attention to the vegetable garden would be useful and profitable to the proprietors of most of the Springs.

Various as are the virtues of the different Springs, their properties are well established, and a knowledge of their peculiarities is widely spread throughout the Southern States, while Northern people know comparatively little of them. Even our physicians give them too often the cold shoulder, probably because they know not their value ; Northern visitors are among the rarest exhibitions at all these important places. This should not be ; we may hope that when the rail roads have brought Boston and New Orleans into closer contact, the inhabitants of our wide republic will here meet and cast off their sectional prejudices. We have had a romantic history, sufficiently so to unite us ; we sneak (wonderfully alike under the circumstances), the same language ; we have the same good intentions to benefit the condition of man ; a separation for a crotchet would throw back the destinies of our race for centuries ; despots would exult ; the hopeful would despair; the history of the world would all hare to be gone over again, and the elysium in which we have been brought up would be followed by wars and rumours of wars; military despotisms would result, and the white man, no less than the colored, would be enslaved.

Avert it, heaven! avert it, man, for if it should result, your own arm and your own tongue will have done the desperate deed.

At the " Warm Springs" you will find everything to your mind, and the bathing the most delightful imaginable.

The Rockbridge Alum water, where we leave six hundred guests, is among the most reliable of these wonderful Springs ; its value is well understood as an alterative of the system, curing, with perseverence, as it really does, the scrofula, and various intestinal diseases. So much is it esteemed, that the water and its residuum, and the rock itself, from which it trickles, is annually sold for a sum exceeding ten thousand dollars. The proprietors are gentlemen, and they contemplate great improvements, horticultural and ornamental, for the ensuing season. The rail road, next summer, will land you within five miles of the spot ; comfortable carriages will then be in readiness.

I have left myself no space to descant upon the romantic ride to Alexandria ; by a miracle of engineering you are carried over the Blue-ridge without a tunnel, and enjoy from the "mountain-top,' a scene which it is worth a voyage to see.

There must be an end to all things; I bring this with me to be in readiness to provide for the wants, my dear H., of your October number ; will you, mean time, look out for a better proof-reader, for I am obliged to conclude my letter with a quotation from one of Sydney Smith's; - " I assure you, that little Jeffery sometimes, leaves the printing in such a state of absolute nonsense as throws me into the coldest of sweats." This you must see to, or I shall be chilled;

If you or your readers desire further accurate information, read "The Virginia Springs; by John J. Moorman, M. D." It is an admirable and reliable guide.