86 



AMERICA. 



some resemblance to the game coniferae on the Lap- 

 land mountains ; and we find them accompanied by 

 the same under-growth of reindeer moss and other 

 lichens, which, if not precisely the same, are so much 

 alike that they impart similar characters to the coun- 

 tries. 



Nor is it in the forest alone that we have this 

 correspondence of vegetation, with considerable 

 difference of latitude, for the swamp and the marsh 

 present nearly the same characters. Cranberries and 

 other hardy plants cover the surface, and give a polar 

 character to the marshy flats south, even lo the very 

 margin of the great Jakes, or to a latitude answer- 

 ing to that of the finest vine countries in France. 

 When this polar character begins to give place to 

 something more promising, the vegetation gradually 

 changes ; and although the trees and plants are often 

 of the same genera with those of the eastern conti- 

 nent, they are generally of different species, of spe- 

 cies, for the most part though not always, more rapid 

 in their growth, more remarkable for the variety of 

 their tints when they fade in the autumn ; and, gene- 

 rally speaking, much more spongy and less durable in 

 their timber. 



In these respects there seems to be a sort of cor- 

 respondence between the timber and the soil on 

 which it is produced. There are not in the northern 

 parts of America any of those specimens of a firm 

 green sod composed of soft, kindly, and matted 

 grasses which are so well known, and so much and 

 justly admired in this country. The few grasses 

 which do appear are dry and wiry, or they are hard, 

 and belong only to the marsh or the margin of the 

 pool. The dry land is raw and bare a pool at 

 one season of the year, and blowing with black pow- 

 dery dust at another, or if there is any intermediate 

 state, it is that of a land covered with different spe- 

 cies of composites, which, when the land is cleared, 

 often multiply in such numbers that they not only 

 become pests to the farmer, but absolutely choke and 

 keep down all other vegetation ; and that too upon 

 land which, but for them, would be among the best 

 in that part of the continent. 



When Upper Canada is arrived at, there we find the 

 very extremes of temperature in the course of the 

 year a polar winter and a tropical summer. In the 

 former, the whole land, or at all events the water 

 in it, is consolidated like iron, and in the latter, the 

 melon, the tobacco plant, the rice plant, in situations 

 which suit it, and probably also many of the other 

 natives of hot climates, can be cultivated with suc- 

 cess. But the extremes of heat and cold are severe 

 tests of the soil ; and when the primeval forests are 

 cleared off, it is doubtful whether the evil may not be 

 increased by the want of trees, even of those species 

 which, at the time of its first settlement, are ac- 

 counted the pests of the country. 



When the summit level of the great lakes is 

 passed, the vegetation of the country assumes a new 

 character ; and though many species of pines still 

 occur on those soils which are favourable for them, 

 and the American cedars muster thickly on the 

 swamps, and the rhododendrons, azelias, kalmias, and 

 other plants, which we consider as the ornaments of 

 our shrubberies, abound upon the peaty slopes and 

 hillocks; yet the more compact soils by the side of the 

 streams are overshadowed with deciduous trees of 

 great dimensions and the most graceful foliage. 



As the Gulf of Mexico is approached, the elements 



of vegetable action become in a wonderful degree 

 energetic. The Mississippi and its tributaries roll 

 toward the Mexican Gulf, probably the largest volume 

 of running water which is to be met with any where 

 upon the face of the earth, not excepting the Ama/.on 

 itself. Estimating from the remotest source of the 

 Missouri in the Stony Mountains, the length of those 

 giant streams is not less than four thousand miles ; 

 and much of the valley through which the nuiin 

 branch flows is humid. Besides, wliat with rains, 

 what with the melting of snows, and what with the 

 rapid descent of the western waters into the valley, 

 there is a great deal of flooding ; and the flooding is 

 not confined to the Mississippi, but belongs in part 

 to many of the other rivers in the southern states of 

 the American, union. In summer there is not much 

 direct rain in these parts, as the wind is comparatively 

 steady toward the dry grounds, increasing in tem- 

 perature and capacity for moisture as it proceeds. 

 Accordingly, while the marshes and swamps are 

 recking with pestilence, in a heat which is all but 

 intolerable, the cultivation of vegetables, even those 

 of a tropical character, goes on with great rapidity 

 and success ; and the crops of tobacco in Virginia 

 and Maryland, of rice in Carolina, and of cotton in 

 Georgia, or of all these and others alternated, are 

 most abundant, and carried on with much success 

 and at great profit, though if the cultivation were 

 wholly managed by Europeans, it would be at no 

 small sacrifice of health and life. 



As the country is traversed in longitude the cha- 

 racter of its vegetation changes very materially, even 

 in the corresponding latitudes. On the Atlantic, side 

 the action is between that ocean and the land, and 

 the Gulf-stream rolls northward along the American 

 shore a volume of water from the tropical regions, 

 which, even in comparatively high latitudes, is se- 

 veral degrees warmer than the still waters and eddies 

 of the same places ; that of course carries with it a 

 current of air equally warm in proportion ; and thus 

 then is borne to the northward as far as about Nova 

 Scotia, where the current of the stream turns, before 

 it lingers and deposits its load on the great banks of 

 Newfoundland; a climate warmer than that which 

 would otherwise belong to the country. But that 

 climate barely passes within the average line of the 

 Appalachian ridge which runs parallel to the coast ; 

 and the centre of the country is within the range of 

 that climate which plays along the valley between 

 the Gulf of Mexico and the north, along the current 

 of a v;ast flood of water which is continually descend- 

 ing toward the former. On the right bank, too, 

 though the mountains are not bold in their outlines, 

 or apparently gigantic in their altitudes, they rise, by 

 one dull and bleak ridge over another, to a consider- 

 able height, and upon them vegetation is but scanty, 

 and trees are comparatively few. The surface there 

 is consequently much under the influence of the 

 season, heated in summer and proportionally cooled 

 in winter, so that even the lower parts abound more 

 in savannahs or prairies, or even in dry and barren 

 plains, than on the opposite bank of the Mississippi. 

 As the latitude diminishes the character improves ; 

 but through the greater part of Louisiana, and into 

 the country of Texas, adjoining the northern part of 

 Mexico, much of the surface is of the character wl>ich 

 has been described. Near the courses of the river?!, 

 where there is much depth of alluvial soil, and abun- 

 dance of humidity, the trees grow to large sizes, and 



