34 Fruit Trees. — Original Patent. — Sulphate of Lime. 



dry for all the purposes of agriculture, and the roads which were 

 once all mire are now firm and hard. 



Fruit Trees. — Fruit trees flourish luxuriantly, and are rarely 

 rendered barren by untimely frosts. Almost every farm is pro- 

 vided with an orchard, it being a prime object with the first set- 

 tlers to plant out fruit trees as early as possible ; and in my journey 

 to-day, at every new opening, I observed a small collection of apple 

 and other fruit trees, on the first half acre cleared near the house. 

 This rich region has lately become still more valuable from the con- 

 templated canal down the valley of the Mahoning to Beaver. The 

 inhabitants are generally from the State of Connecticut, and display 

 all that neatness in their buildings and in the cultivation of the soil, 

 which distinguish that enterprizing people. 



Original Patent. — Under the patent of the Saybrook Colony, 

 granted by Charles the First, in the year 1631, the territory of 

 Connecticut extended westerly across the continent to the South 

 Sea or Pacific Ocean. The patents of Virginia and the Carolinas 

 had also the same westerly extension. On the strength of these 

 patents, when the general compact of all the States was formed, the 

 right of Connecticut was acknowledged with the rest ; and that right 

 was commuted by the grant of a certain tract, bounded east by Penn- 

 sylvania, on the south and north by the Ohio River and Lake Erie, 

 and extending west on the forty first degree of north latitude one 

 hundred and twenty miles ; embracing about three millions, eight 

 hundred thousand acres,* and at present divided into eight counties, 

 with a population of 150,000 : after setting off half a million of acres 

 from the west end of this tract, for the benefit of the sufferers by fire 

 in New London and other places, the State of Connecticut sold the 

 remainder to individuals on a credit of years : the proceeds are ap- 

 propriated to the perpetual support of common schools in that State.f 



Sulphate of Lime. — About noon I visited an interesting locality 

 of the sulphate of lime. It is found crystallized, and diffused 

 through a deposit of calcareous earth. The crystals are tabular, and 

 are sometimes large and very fine. It is on Meander Creek, a 

 branch of the Mahoning, near the western border of the town of 

 Canfield. Below this deposit, is a stratum of bituminous shale, con- 

 taining the imbedded rehcs, and casts of many fossil plants and 

 shells. Some of the plants resemble long feathers, and are probably 



* This iract, being reserved, was called The Reserve, and is so named in this diary. 

 i Now constituting a productive fund of nearly 2,000,000 of dollars for a popular 

 tion of 300,000. 



