448 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



care towards the improvement or preservation of his 

 soil in a country where new land can be purchased so 

 cheap as it can here, when that first cleared will no 

 longer produce his favorite crop. 



On the 7th of Feb., between Dresden and Jackson, 

 Tenn., I began to leave the tobacco and enter among the 

 cotton plantations, the soil becoming more sandy and 

 light, though not showing much more appearance of 

 wealth until within the precincts of the latter town, 

 which is beautifully situated upon a plain, and contains 

 some 1,500 inhabitants, and many handsome mansions; 

 a very fine court house and a college and a flourishing 

 female school. Leaving this place a short distance from 

 the town, we cross the "Forked Deer Creek," over a toll 

 bridge and high clay turnpike over a two mile wide bot- 

 tom, subject to overflows, and covered with beech timber, 

 which if cleared off and set with grass, I ven-[ture] to 

 say would prove more profitable land than some of the 

 upland. I notice generally that the bottoms are the last 

 to be cleared, but time will prove their value. Out of 

 this stream, the cotton from this region is sent in flat 

 boats to the Mississippi. Between this town and La- 

 grange, the last town in Tenn., the land grows more and 

 more sandy, and when badly cultivated, is very liable 

 to wash into gullies; some of which, particularly by the 

 road side, becomes perfectly unmanageable. Passed fine 

 cotton plantations, and some very good and some I think 

 very poor land, covered with small black oak timber, and 

 crossed the Hatchee river, which in high water is navi- 

 gable for steamboats, and like nearly all the streams in 

 this country, having a wide overflowable bottom. We are 

 now fairly entered upon the cotton region, that being the 

 all engrossing crop of this part of Tennessee, and of 

 which I expect hereafter to have much to see and say as 

 I proceed south. 



This, 9th of Feb., four miles south of Lagrange, upon 

 a very warm sunny day, I crossed the Mississippi line. 

 The grass to-day looks green and spring like, and plum 



