308 
tile and well adapted to most kinds 
of produce. Tobacco is much cul- 
tivated in Maryland and Virginia; coé- 
ton in North Carolina; cotton and rice 
in South Carolina and Georgia; sugar 
and cotton in the banks of the Missis- 
sippi. Cotton grows as far north as 
latitude 37°; but sugar not higher than 
33°, and does not succeed well beyond 
314. This is par excellence the hot 
climate of the United States. The heat 
in Maryland and Virginia little exceeds 
that of Pennsylvania; but in all the 
states south of the Potomac winter is 
almost unknown; and the summer heat 
is equal to that of the coasts of Syria 
and Egypt. Florida and Louisiana par- 
ticipate in the plagues, as they do in 
the productions, of a tropical climate. 
Except in Louisiana, the free inhabitants 
are almost entirely of English descent. 
They are wealthy, well educated, prond, 
indolent, hospitable, fond of amuse- 
ment and gaming, and have all the pe- 
culiarities of slave-owners. It is only 
in the Southern States ‘that we meet 
with landholders, resembling in wealth 
and influence the landed aristocracy of 
Europe. Some of the planters have 
80,000 dollars a year; many from twelve 
to 20;000, but the greater part from 
four to 6,000 dollars. The most im- 
portant class in the Eastern and Middle 
States is that of the merchants; the 
agricultural interest prevails in the wes- 
tern country, and the planters are the 
lords of the south. 
We now come to the Western Coun- 
try, which is separated from the At- 
lantic States by a ridge of mountains, 
called the Alleghanies: these traverse 
the United States in a north-east 
and south-west direction, from the 
42d to the 34th degree of latitude. 
They preserve an average distance of 
about 250 miles from the sea coast, a 
medium breadth of 110 miles, and a 
height of 3,000 feet. Roads traverse 
them in all directions, connecting the new 
with the old states; and two of these 
roads, one:from Philadelphia to Pitts- 
burgh (300 miles), andthe National Road, 
from Washington to Wheeling in the 
Ohio, are equal to the finest turnpikes 
in Europe. The angle of ascent is not 
more than three degrees and a half, and 
the road*is exceedingly smooth and 
pleasant. Round some of thé ridges 
the road winds ‘seven miles before it 
reaches the top, and from the rocks cut 
through, and ‘other difficulties, must 
have cost enormous sums. These 
Letters from America.—No. I. 
[Nov. I, 
mountains long. presented an almost 
insurmountable barrier to the progress 
of emigration; and till the end of 
the revolutionary war, they were con- 
sidered as the limits of the Indian 
tribes. But the restless natives of New 
England cut a path through the woods, 
and, with all their baggage on pack- 
horses, descended the western slope of 
the mountains to found settlements on 
the Monongahela. The western parts 
of Pennsylvania and Virginia became 
settled as far as the Ohio about thirty 
years ago; once. the banks of that ma- 
jestic river were laid open to enterprize, 
the tide of emigration rolled, down to 
the Muskingum, the Scioto, and the 
Miami; in less than twenty years three 
new states (with a million of inhabitants) 
have been formed on the western bank 
alone; and the pioneers of civilization 
have already made “ clearings,’ and 
founded towns in the vast. wilderness 
beyond the Missouri. Such is the asto- 
nishing rapidity of change in taese new 
settlements, that the accounts of four” 
or five years’ antiquity give no adequate 
idea of their present state. The soil of 
such an extensive region (more than 
a thousand miles long) must possess 
considerable variety, but it is only a va- 
riety of excellence. The level (or bottom) 
lands on the banks of streams, are for 
some years too rich to produce wheat 
till reduced by repeated croppings. of 
maize, which annually produce from 
eighty to a hundred bushels per acre. 
The richness of the soil is evident to 
the merest stranger from the, luxuriance 
of vegetation, particularly from jthe 
height and diameter of the trees. along 
the banks of rivers. From the Muskin- 
gum to the mouth of the Ohio, the tra- 
veller will constantly see white pine, 
plane, tulip, and sycamore trees from 
100 to 130 feet high, and from seven to 
fifteen feet in diameter! The strength 
of vegetation is, if possible, _ still 
greater on the banks of the. Missis- 
sippi. The inconvenience of remoteness 
from the coast is greatly lessened by 
the innumerable streams that fall into 
the northern lakes, or into: the Ohio 
and Mississippi. An almost level port- 
age, of two or three hundred yards, 
connects the waters of Lake Michegan 
and the Illinois River; and in rainy 
seasons this interval is overflowed, 
allowing the Canadian to descend with 
his bark to New Orleans. or the Laui- 
sianian, to enter the lakes, and proceed 
2,000 miles to Quebec. The great 
Western 
