43

"chemical transformations and reactions by which this has
been done, would be out of place in a work of this kind.

These soils are justly celebrated for their great fertility and
productiveness—for the ease with which they can be cultiva-
ted, for the great diversity of the main staples which can be
grown on them—viz., tobacco, wheat, indian corn, rye, oats,
and clover, as well as fruits and vegetables in very great
perfection. They require but little extraneous manure but
Plaster of Paris, and with this, the manure resources of the
farm and good tillage, produce from thirty to forty bushels
of wheat, ten to twenty barrels of Indian corn, equal to fifty
or one hundred bushels, and eight hundred to twelve hundred
pounds of tobacco per acre in the usual rotations.

From its abundant production of grass and excellent cli-
mate, of course live stock of all kinds can be, and is raised
on them in the highest degree of perfection and at very cheap
rates. It is an alluvial soil formed by the degradation of
those rocks which form the richest soils, and in which all the
nutrient particles already exist in a form capable of ready
assimilation by plants. Its physical character and mechani-
cal texture is that which is found in the very best clay loams,
in the surface is gently rolling, nowhere presenting any seri-
ous obstacles to cultivation. They are located very conveni-
ently to navigable waters, have a healthy atmosphere, and
possess all the social advantages conferred by a well educa-
ted, well-bred, courteous and moral population. The price
at which this land can be purchased at present is from thirty
to one hundred dollars, and with the best improvements at
one hundred and twenty-five dollars per acre,—a price which
was cheap when gold bore no premium and produce was from
fifty to one hundred per cent, lower than at present. How
oheap these lands now are at their present prices, those inte-
rested may judge from the facts which I have given above,
and which can most readily be verified. I have visited, and
in many cases have specially examined the finest lands in the
United States, such as those of the Cumberland and Shenan-
doah Vallies in Virginia and Pennsylvania, the Gennesee
Lands in New York, the famous Blue Grass Lands in Ken-
tucky, and many of the much boasted prairie lands of the
West. But few of these equal none exceed the lands under
consideration in their prime essentials of fertility, whilst in
local advantages, climate and variety of production, the
adaptativeness to our great staples with the cheap and easy
raising of live stock, fruit and vegetables, they all are very
interior to them.

All that a genial climate and a most fertile soil very easy
of cultivation can produce can be reared here in the greatest
perfection, and then cheaply transported a short distance to
the great commercial emporiums of the country.