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made apparent by a cursory examination of the different 

 natural divisions. The climate embraced within its limits 

 is peculiar in the fact that it is very greatly modified 

 by reason of the existence of mountain heights, rolling 

 plains, level surfaces, by water courses, trend of mountain 

 ranges, and great forests. The mountains which bound it 

 on the east rise in massive proportions from 3,000 to 6,500 

 feet above the surface of tide water, and the average annual 

 temperature does not exceed fifty- four degrees. These 

 mountains are usually steep, but not rugged, and where the 

 metamorphic soils prevail they are beautifully rounded, and 

 their sides are clothed with gigantic trees, suggestive of the 

 fertility of the soils. On the tops or crests of these moun- 

 tains treeless spots often occur, but the surface in such places 

 is matted with everlasting grasses of great variety, succu- 

 lence, and nutrition. I have seen timothy (Phleum pratense), 

 herd's- grass (Agrostis vulgaris), blue grass (Poa pratensis), 

 goose grass (Poa annuo), meadow fescue or evergreen 

 (Festucapratensis), white clover (Trifolium repens), and many 

 others growing side by side, and forming a turf unsurpassed 

 in the richest basin soils of Tennessee or Kentucky. These 

 grasses form a regular succession, and supply grazing 

 throughout the summer months. And by reason of 

 the frequent rains during the growing seasons, they 

 furnish far more grazing than they would in the valley 

 lands, where summer showers are more unfrequent. I es- 

 timate that two acres on the mountain top will supply as 

 much grazing as three in the valleys. It must be remem- 

 bered that the warm south winds, freighted with moisture 

 from the Gulf of Mexico, which blow almost constantly 

 during the summer months, are arrested in their northern 

 course up the valley of East Tennessee by their mountain 

 barriers, and the water is squeezed from them by the rapid 

 diminution in their temperature when they strike the cool 

 surface of the mountain tops. Scarcely a day passes in 

 summer without a shower. Many of the spurs of these 



