AMERICAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL 



OF 



AGRICULTURE AND SCIENCE. 



No. VII. JULY, 1846. 



RUNNING NOTES, AGRICULTURAL AND GEOLOGI- 

 CAL, OF A TRIP TO CARBONDALE. 



BY HENKY S. RANDALL, OF CORTLAND. 



On the beautiful morning of the 8th of June, I turned my 

 horses' heads down the east bank of the Tioughnioga, " bound 

 for" Carbondale, — ninety miles distant. 



The valley of the Tioughnioga grows narrower, as you ad- 

 vance south from Cortland Village, the hills more elevated, the 

 soil poorer. At Marathon, fourteen miles from Cortland, it again 

 widens into a handsome valley, and extends thus for several 

 miles. 



A beautiful feature in this, as in many other valleys of the 

 grazing regions, is the profusion of shade trees, spared from the 

 axe. The " weeping elm," the finest solitary tree of our coun- 

 try, everywhere dots the landscape. The streams too, fringed 

 with dense belts of low willows, wuth now and then an opening 

 where the water sparkles and flashes through in the sun's light — 

 take away that impression of hot, scorching, monotonous arid- 

 ness, which so often oppresses us in traversing the fine wheat 

 lands of the western counties, where land is too often plowed, 

 and too valuable, to have trees spared merely for purposes of or- 

 nament or shade. 



No. vn. ' 1 



