476 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



want of individual spirit, for that abounds and shows 

 itself in the adornment of a great many private man- 

 sions, of which, and of a high-bred, refined population, 

 Athens may proudly boast. 



Much as the soil is decried, I found wherever it is 

 treated to a deep cultivation, with manure, it always pays 

 for such attention. It is the very home of peaches and 

 most kinds of fruit. This has been demonstrated pretty 

 well by Dr. Ward,^ who is a scientific gentleman, devoted 

 to horticulture and the cultivation of fine fruits. 



The natural growth of timber, which always affords 

 some indication of the quality of soil, upon the hill land, 

 is oak, hickory, and short leaf pine : on the bottoms, pop- 

 lar, ash, gum, &c. — the whole once covered with cane. I 

 generally make it a point in visiting places, to enter as 

 much as possible into conversation with those who culti- 

 vate the soil, upon the best manner of improving it, and 

 increasing their crops, with a view to obtain and impart 

 information. I found here, one man of a class I have 

 often met before, who insists that cast iron plows are 

 the ruin of the land; that they turn the earth over and 

 bury all the fertile portion so deep, nothing will grow 

 afterwards. He fully believes the soil never should be 

 stirred over two inches deep, and that the little, old fash- 

 ioned shovel plow is the best ever invented. However, 

 there are some of his neighbors who believe in using 

 better tools, and it is to be hoped, that example may 

 produce a good effect upon the next generation, if it does 

 not upon the present one. 



Cherokee Rose Hedge. — The name of this rose con- 

 veys the idea to many persons that here, in the country 



' Malthus A. Ward went to Geor<?ia from Salem, Massachusetts, 

 and was elected professor of Natural History in the University of 

 Georg'ia in 1831. He served for eleven years. He was curator of 

 the botanical garden attached to the University and made it into a 

 remarkable show place, collecting there the plants from all parts 

 of the world. The trustees of the University gave up the garden 

 a few years before the outbreak of the Civil War and today only a 

 few remnants of Ward's fine work are to be seen. Letter of E. 

 Merton Coulter to Herbert A. Kellar, May 6, 1936. 



