26 PINNATED GROUS. 



" The country selected by these exquisite birds requires a 

 more particular description. You already understand it to be 

 the midland and interior district of the island. The soil of this 

 island is, generally speaking, a sandy or gravelly loam. In the 

 parts less adapted to tillage, it is more of an unmixed sand. 

 This is so much the case, that the shore of the beaches beaten 

 by the ocean, affords a material from which glass has been pre- 

 pared. Siliceous grains and particles predominate in the region 

 chosen by the Heath-hens or Grouse. Here there are no rocks, 

 and very few stones of any kind. This sandy tract appears to 

 be a dereliction of the ocean, but is nevertheless not doomed to 

 total sterility. Many thousand acres have been reclaimed from 

 the wild state, and rendered very productive to man. And 

 within the towns frequented by these birds, there are numer- 

 ous inhabitants, and among them some of our most wealthy 

 farmers. 



"But within the same limits, there are also tracts of great 

 extent where men have no settlements, and others where the 

 population is spare and scanty. These are however, by no 

 means, naked desarts. They are, on the contrary, covered with 

 trees, shrubs and smaller plants. The trees are mostly pitch- 

 pines of inferior size, and white oaks of a small growth. They 

 are of a quality very fit for burning. Thousands of cords of both 

 sorts of fire-wood are annually exported from these barrens. 

 Vast quantities are occasionally destroyed by the fires which 

 through carelessness or accident spread far and wide through 

 the woods. The city of New York will probably for ages de- 

 rive fuel from the grouse-grounds. The land after Iftiving been 

 cleared, yields to the cultivator poor crops. Unless therefore 



that occurred at the passing of this law; and which was, not long ago, related 

 to me by my friend Mr. Gardiner, of Gardiner's island, Long island. The bill 

 was entitled " An Act for the preservation of Heath-hen and other Game." The 

 honest chairman of the assembly, no .-ports-man I suppose, read the title " An 

 Act for the preservation of HEATHEN and other Game !" which seemed to aston- 

 ish the north members, who could not see the propriety of preserving Indians, 

 or any other Heathen. 



