232 Ten Days in Ohio. 



PERRY COUNTY — productious. 



Not far from this spot is the eastern boundary of Perry County, 

 ten miles from Somerset, the seat of justice for the county. The 

 road passes over a most interesting and picturesque country. The 

 hills are rounded and broad, and under fine cultivation. The most 

 common forest trees are beech, sugar tree and white oak, with an 

 abundance of the Cornus florida, or dog-wood. The soil in this 

 county is a rich loam, of a light amber color, loose and friable, 

 made up of decomposed argillite, sandstone and limestone, in such 

 proportions as to. resist drought, or absorb wet, when too abundant; 

 and produces the finest crops of grain, clover, yellow leaf tobacco 

 and fruit trees. The valleys and hill sides, aflbrded many a deli- 

 cious treat to the eye, in far extended fields of blossomed clover and 

 verdant grain. The "yellow tobacco" is becoming a valuable arti- 

 cle of culture, and several hundred hogsheads are annually grown in 

 this country. Five or six years since, the Tobacco mania prevailed 

 among the farmers, in all the hilly portion of the state. Many of 

 them thought it the sure road to wealth, and neglected other crops 

 for that of the "yellow leaf." Almost every one entered, more or 

 less, into it, and the merchants encouraged the cultivation. The 

 consequence was, the overstocking of the market ; the reduction in 

 price from twenty dollars per hundred to two or three dollars, and 

 the ruin of many dealers in the article. But it is said, trade will 

 regulate itself. Tobacco is now in demand ; and while a limited 

 number only cultivate the "aromatic weed," it will continue to be a 

 profitable crop. Virgin soil, the natural growth of which is white 

 oak and dog-wood, is found to produce the finest tobacco. The 

 average crops of grain, are twenty or twenty five bushels of wheat, 

 forty to fifty of corn, thirty to forty of oats, and two hundred of po- 

 tatoes, to the acre. Less attention is paid to the improvement of the 

 soil in this county than in Muskingum, where the land is regularly 

 prepared for a crop of wheat, by plowing in a heavy growth of red 

 clover. This is found to afford the very best nutriment for the wheat 

 plant, producing the fairest and heaviest grain ; and accordingly, 

 Zanesville, where most of the wheat is manufactured, on all the 

 waters of the Mississippi, where the article is principally sold, is no- 

 ted for its superior flour.* The soil of Muskingum is naturally thin 



* Three years ago, seventy three thousand barrels of flour were made in Zanes- 

 ville ; the production of one season. 



