Part 17
In these two states they appreciate the fertility of the land by the different species of trees that grow there; thus when they announce the sale of an estate, they take care to specify the particular species of trees peculiar to its various parts, which is a sufficient index for the purchaser. This rule, however, suffers an exception to the Barrens, the soil of which, as I have remarked, is fertile enough, and where there are notwithstanding here and there Scroby oaks, or _quercus nigra_, shell-barked hickeries, or _juglans hickery_, which in forests characterise the worst of soil. In support of this mode of appreciating in America the fecundity of the soil by the nature of the trees it produces, I shall impart a remarkable observation that I made on my entering this state. In Kentucky and Cumberland,[49] independent of a few trees natives of this part of these countries, the mass of the forests, in estates of the first class, is composed of the same species which {166} are found, but very rarely, east of the mountains, in the most fertile soil; these species are the following, _cerasus Virginia_, or cherry-tree; _juglans oblonga_, or white walnut; _pavia lutea_, buck-eye; _fraxinus alba_, _nigra_, _cerulea_, or white, black, and blue ash; _celtis foliis villosis_, or ack berry; _ulmus viscosa_, or slippery elm; _quercus imbricaria_, or black-jack oak; _guilandina disica_, or coffee tree; _gleditsia triacanthos_, or honey locust; and the _annona triloba_, or papaw, which grows thirty feet in height. These three latter species denote the richest lands. In the cool and mountainous parts, and along the rivers where the banks are not very steep, we observed again the _quercus macrocarpa_, or over-cup white oak, the acorns of which are as large as a hen’s egg; the _acer sacharinum_, or sugar-maple; the _fagus sylvatica_, or beech; together with the _planus occidentalis_, or plane: the _liriodendrum tulipifera_, or white and yellow poplar; and the _magnolia acuminata_, or cucumber-tree, all three of which measure from eighteen to twenty feet in circumference; the plane, as I have before observed, attains a greater diameter. The two species of poplar, i.e. the white and yellow wood, have not the least external character, neither in their leaves nor flowers, by which they may be {167} distinguished from each other; and as the species of the yellow wood is of a much greater use, before they fell a tree they satisfy themselves by a notch that it is of that species.
In estates of the second class are the _fagus castanea_, or chestnut tree; _quercus rubra_, or red oak; _quercus tinctoria_, or black oak; _laurus sassafras_, or sassafras; _diospiros virginia_, or persimon; _liquidambar styraciflua_, or sweet gum; _nyssa villosa_, or gum tree, a tree which, in direct opposition to its name, affords neither gum nor resin. Those of the third class, which commonly are dry and mountainous, produce very little except black and red oaks, chestnut oaks of the mountains, _quercus prinus montana_, or rocky oak pines, and a few Virginia cedars.
The _juglans pacane_ is found beyond the _embouchure_ of the rivers Cumberland and Tennessea, whence they sometimes bring it to the markets at Lexinton. This tree does not grow east of the Alleghany Mountains. The _lobelia cardinalis_ grows abundantly in all the cool and marshy places, as well as the _lobelia sphilitica_. The latter is more common in Kentucky than in the other parts of the United States that I travelled over. The _laurus {168} bensoin_, or spice wood, is also very numerous there. The two kinds of _vaccinium_ and _andromeda_, which form a series of more than thirty species, all very abundant in the eastern states, seem in some measure excluded from those of the western and the chalky region, where we found none but the _andromeda arborea_.
In all the fertile parts covered by the forests the soil is completely barren; no kind of herbage is seen except a few plants, scattered here and there; and the trees are always far enough apart that a stag may be seen a hundred or a hundred and fifty fathoms off. Prior to the Europeans settling, the whole of this space, now bare, was covered with a species of the great articulated reed, called _arundinaria macrosperma_, or cane, which is in the woods from three to four inches diameter, and grows seven or eight feet high; but in the swamps and marshes that border the Mississippi it is upward of twenty feet. Although it often freezes in Kentucky, from five to six degrees, for several days together, its foliage keeps always green, and does not appear to suffer by the cold.
Although the ginseng is not a plant peculiar to Kentucky, it is still very numerous there. This induces {169} me to speak of it here. The ginseng is found in America from Lower Canada as far as the state of Georgia, which comprises an extent of more than fifteen hundred miles. It grows chiefly in the mountainous regions of the Alleghanies, and is by far more abundant as the chain of these mountains incline south west. It is also found in the environs of New York and Philadelphia, as well as in that part of the northern states situated between the mountains and the sea. It grows upon the declivity of the hills, in the cool and shady places, where the soil is richest. A man cannot pull up above eight or nine pounds of fresh roots per day. These roots are always less than an inch diameter, even after fifteen years’ growth, if by any means we can judge of it with certitude by the number of impressions that are to be seen round the upper part of the neck of the root, produced by the stalks that succeed each other annually. The shape of these roots is generally elliptical; and whenever it is biforked, which is very rare, one of the divisions is always thicker and longer than the other. The seeds of the ginseng are of a brilliant red, and fastened to each other. Every foot seldom yields more than two or three. They are very similar in shape and size to the wild {170} honey suckle. When they are disencumbered of the substance that envelopes them they are flat and semicircular. Their taste is more spicy, and not so bitter as the root. A month or two after they are gathered they grow oily; and it is probable to the rancidity which in course of time the seed attains we must attribute the difficulty there is in rearing them when they are kept too long. They are full ripe from the 15th of September to the 1st of October. I gathered about half an ounce of them, which was a great deal, considering the difficulty there is in procuring them.
It was a French missionary who first discovered the ginseng in Canada. When it was verified that this plant was the same as that which grows in Tartary, the root of which has such valuable qualities in the eyes of the Chinese, it became an article of trade with China. For some time after its discovery the root was sold for its weight in gold; but this lucrative trade was but of short duration. The ginseng exported from America was so badly prepared, that it fell very low in price, and the trade almost entirely ceased. However, for some time past it has been rather better. Though the Americans have been so long deprived of this beneficial trade, it can {171} only be attributed to the want of precaution that they used either in the gathering or preparation of the ginseng. In Chinese Tartary this gathering belongs exclusively to the emperor; it is done only by his orders, and they proceed in it with the greatest care. It commences in autumn, and continues all the winter, the epoch when the root has acquired its full degree of maturity and perfection; and by the means of a very simple process they render it almost transparent.
In the United States, on the contrary, they begin gathering of ginseng in the spring, and end at the decline of autumn. Its root, then soft and watery, wrinkles in drying, terminates in being extremely hard, and loses thus a third of its bulk, and nearly half its weight. These causes have contributed in lowering its value. It is only gathered in America by the inhabitants whose usual occupations afford them leisure, and by the sportsmen, who, with their carabine, provide themselves, for this purpose, with a bag and a pickaxe. The merchants settled in the interior of the country purchase dried ginseng at the rate of ten pence per pound, and sell it again from eighteen pence to two shillings, at the seaports. I have never heard particularly what quantity {172} of it was exported annually to China, but I think it must exceed twenty-five to thirty thousand pounds weight. Within these four or five years this trade has been very brisk. Several persons begin even to employ the means made use of by the Chinese to make the root transparent. This process, long since described in several works, is still a secret which is sold for four hundred dollars in Kentucky. The ginseng thus prepared is purchased at six or seven dollars per pound, by the merchants at Philadelphia, and is, they say, sold again at Canton for fifty or a hundred, according to the quality of the roots. Again, the profits must be very considerable, since there are people who export it themselves from Kentucky to China.
They have again, in Kentucky, and the western country, the same animals that inhabit those parts east of the mountains, and even Canada: but a short time after the settling of the Europeans several species of them wholly disappeared, particularly the elks and bisons. The latter, notwithstanding, were more common there than in any other part of North America. The non-occupation of the country, the quantity of rushes and wild peas, which supplied them abundantly with food the whole year round; and {173} the licks (places impregnated with salt, as I have before mentioned) are the causes that kept them there. Their number was at that time so considerable, that they were met in flocks of a hundred and fifty to two hundred. They were so far from being ferocious, that they did not fear the approach of the huntsmen, who sometimes shot them solely for the sake of having their tongue, which they looked upon as a delicious morsel. At four years old they weigh from twelve to fourteen hundred weight; and their flesh, it is said, is preferable to that of the ox. At present there are scarcely any from Ohio to the river Illinois. They have nearly deserted these parts, and strayed to the right bank of the Mississippi.
The only species of animals that are still common in the country are the following, viz. the deer, bear, wolf, red and grey fox, wild cat, racoon, opossum, and three or four kinds of squirrels.
The animals to which the Americans give the name of wild cat is the Canadian lynx, or simply a different species; and it is through mistake that several authors have advanced that the true wild cat, as they look upon to be the original of the domestic species, either existed in the United States, or more northerly.
The racoon, or _ursus lotor_, is about the size of a {174} fox, but not so tall and more robust. Taken young, it very soon grows tame, and stays in the house, where it catches mice similar to a cat. The name of _lotor_ is very appropriate, as the animal retires in preference in the hollow trees that grow by the side of creeks or small rivers that run through the swamp; and in these sorts of marshes it is most generally found. It is most common in the southern and western states, as well as in the remote parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia. It is very destructive in the corn fields. The usual method of catching this animal is with dogs, in the dead of the night, as it is very rarely to be seen in the day time. Its skin is very much esteemed, throughout the United States, by the hat manufacturers, who purchase them at the rate of two shillings each.
Nearer toward the houses the inhabitants are infested with squirrels, which do also considerable damage to the corn. This species _sciurus corolinianus_, is of a greyish colour, and rather larger than those in Europe. The number of them is so immense, that several times a day the children are sent round the fields to frighten them away. At the least noise they run out by dozens, and take shelter upon the trees, whence they come down the very moment after. {175} As well as the bears in North America, they are subject to emigrations. Toward the approach of winter they appear in so great a number, that the inhabitants are obliged to meet together in order to destroy them. An excursion for this purpose, every now and then, is looked upon as pleasure. They go generally two by two, and kill sometimes thirty or forty in a morning. A single man, on the contrary, could scarcely kill one, as the squirrel, springing upon the branch of a tree, keeps turning round successively to put himself in opposition to the gunner. I was at one of these sporting parties, where, for dinner, which is generally taken in some part of the wood appointed for the rendezvous, they had above sixty of them roasted. Their flesh is white and exceedingly tender, and this method of dressing them is preferable to any other.
Wild turkies, which begin to grow very scarce in the southern states, are still extremely numerous in the west. In the parts least inhabited they are so very tame, that they may be shot with a pistol. In the east, on the contrary, and more particularly in the environs of the seaports, it is very difficult to approach them. They are not alarmed at a noise, {176} but they have a very piercing sight, and as soon as they perceive the gunner they fly with such swiftness that it is impossible for a dog to overtake them for several minutes; and when they see themselves on the point of being taken, they escape by resuming their flight. Wild turkies usually frequent the swamps and the sides of creeks and rivers, whence they only go out morning and evening. They perch upon the tops of the loftiest trees, where, notwithstanding their size, it is not always easy to perceive them. When they are not frightened, they return upon the same trees for several weeks together.
For the space of eight hundred leagues east of Mississippi there is only this one species of the wild turkey. They are much larger than those that we have in our farm-yards. In autumn and winter they chiefly feed on chesnuts and acorns. At that time some are shot that weigh from thirty to forty pounds. The variety of domestic turkies proceeds originally from this species of wild turkies; and when it has not been crossed with the common species, it preserves the primitive colour of its plumage, and that of the feet, which are of a deep red. Though ever since the year 1525 our domestic turkies were naturalized {177} in Spain, whence they were introduced into Europe, it is probable that they are natives of some of the more southern parts of America, where there may be, I have no doubt, a different species from that found in the United States.
{178} CHAP. XIX
_Different kinds of culture in Kentucky.--Exportation of colonial produce.--Peach trees.--Taxes_
In the state of Kentucky, like those of the southern parts, nearly the whole of the inhabitants, isolated in the woods, cultivate their estates themselves, and particularly in harvest time they assist each other; while some, more independent, have their land cultivated by negro slaves.
They cultivate, in this state, tobacco, hemp, and different sorts of grain from Europe, principally wheat and Indian corn. The frosts, which begin very early, are unfavourable to the culture of cotton, which might be a profitable part of their commerce, provided the inhabitants had any hopes of success. It is by the culture of Indian corn that all those who form establishments commence; since for the few {179} years after the ground is cleared the soil is so fertile in estates of the first class, that the corn drops before it ears. Their process in husbandry is thus: after having opened, with the plough, furrows about three feet from each other, they cut them transversely by others at an equal distance, and set seven or eight grains in the points of intersection. When they have all come up, only two or three plants are left in the ground; a necessary precaution, in order to give free scope for the vegetation, and to insure a more abundant harvest. Toward the middle of the summer the leaves from the bottom of the stalk begin to wither, and successively those from the top. In proportion as they dry up they are carried away carefully, and reserved as a winter sustenance for horses, which prefer that kind of forage to the best hay.
In estates of the first class, that yield annually, Indian corn grows from ten to twelve feet high, and produces, in a common year, forty to fifty English bushels per acre, and sixty to seventy-five in abundant years. Some have been known, the second and third year after the land has been cleared, to yield a hundred. The bushel, weighing about fifty to fifty-five pounds, never sells for more than a {180} quarter of a dollar, and sometimes does not bring half the money.
The species of corn that they cultivate is long and flat in point of shape, and generally of a deep yellow. The time of harvest is toward the end of September. A single individual may cultivate eight or ten acres of it. The culture of corn is one of the most important of the country; much more, however, with regard to exportation than as an object of consumption. The county of Fayette, of which Lexinton is the chief town, and the surrounding counties, are those that supply the most. Good estates produce from twenty-five to thirty bushels per acre, weighing about sixty pounds, although they never manure the ground, nor till it more than once.
The harvest is made in the commencement of July. The corn is cut with a sickle, and threshed the same as in other parts of Europe. The corn is of a beautiful colour, and I am convinced, through the excellence of the soil, that the flour will be of a superior quality to that of Philadelphia, which, as it is well known, surpasses in whiteness the best that grows in France.
The plough which they make use of is light, {181} without wheels, and drawn by horses. It is the same in all the southern states.
The blight, the blue flower, and the poppy, so common in our fields among the corn, have not shewn themselves in North America.
The harvest of 1802 was so plentiful in Kentucky, that in the month of August, the time that I was at Lexinton, corn did not bring more than eighteen pence per bushel, (about two shillings per hundred weight). It had never been known at so low a price. Still this fall was not only attributed to the abundance of the harvest, but also on account of the return of peace in Europe. They are convinced, in the country, that at this price the culture of corn cannot support itself as an object of commerce; and that in order for the inhabitants to cover their expense the barrel of flour ought not to be sold at New Orleans for less than four or five dollars.
In all the United States the flour that they export is put into slight barrels made of oak, and of an uniform size. In Kentucky the price of them is about three-eighths of a dollar, (fifteen pence). They ought to contain ninety-six pounds of flour, which takes five bushels of corn, including the expenses of grinding.
{182} The freightage of a boat to convey the flour to Low Louisiana costs about a hundred dollars. They contain from two hundred and fifty to three hundred barrels, and are navigated by five men, of whom the chief receives a hundred dollars for the voyage, and the others fifty each. They take, from Louisville, where nearly the whole embarkations are made, from thirty to thirty-five days to go to New Orleans. They reckon it four hundred and thirty-five miles from Louisville to the _embouchure_ of the Ohio, and about a thousand miles thence to New Orleans, which makes it, upon the whole, a passage of fourteen hundred and thirty-five miles; and these boats have to navigate upon the river a space of eight or nine hundred miles without meeting with any plantations. A part of the crew return to Lexinton by land, which is about eleven hundred miles, in forty or forty-five days. This journey is extremely unpleasant, and those who dread the fatigues of it return by sea. They embark at New Orleans for New York and Philadelphia, whence they return to Pittsburgh, and thence go down the Ohio as far as Kentucky.
An inspector belonging to the port of Louisville inserted in the Kentucky Gazette of the 6th of August {183} 1802, that 85,570 barrels of flour, from the 1st of January to the 30th of June following, went out of that port to Low Louisiana. More than two thirds of this quantity may be considered as coming from the state of Kentucky, and the rest from Ohio and the settlements situated upon the rivers Monongahela and Alleghany. The spring and autumn are principally the seasons in which this exportation is made. It is almost null in summer, an epoch at which almost all the mills are stopped for the want of water. Rye and oats come up also extremely well in Kentucky. The rye is nearly all made use of in the distilling of whiskey, and the oats as food for horses, to which they give it frequently in little bunches from two to three pounds, without being threshed.
The culture of tobacco has been greatly extended within these few years. The temperature of the climate, and the extraordinary fertility of the soil gives, in that respect, to this state, a very great advantage over that of Virginia; in consequence of which tobacco and corn form the principal branch of its commerce. It exports annually several thousand hogsheads, from a thousand to twelve hundred pounds each. The price of it is from two to three dollars per hundred weight.
{184} Hemp, both raw and manufactured, is also an article of exportation. In the same year, 1802, there has been sent out of the country, raw 42,048 pounds, and 2402 hundred weight, converted into cables and various sorts of cordage.
Many of the inhabitants cultivate flax. The women manufacture linen of it for their families, and exchange the surplus with the trades-people for articles imported from Europe. These linens, though coarse, are of a good quality; yet none but the inferior inhabitants use them, the others giving a preference to Irish linens, which comprise a considerable share of their commerce. Although whiter, they are not so good as our linens of Bretagne. The latter would have found a great sale in the western states, had it not been for yielding Louisiana; since it is now clearly demonstrated that the expense of conveying goods which go up the river again from New Orleans to Louisville is not so great as that from Philadelphia to Limestone.