SOUTHERN HIGHLAND DISTRICT. 5 



This region is of lmt little agricultural interest at present; is entirely clothed with forest, 

 a large proportion of which is spruce, fir, tamarack and pine, intermixed with poplar, 

 white hirch, red and black cherry, beech, maple, ash, black oak, and, in more favored 

 exposures, bass, butternut and hickory. Ascending the highest summits, we find an 

 alpine region, where reindeer-moss and other lichens abound, and snow remains until 

 midsummer, and where the small pools of water upon the rocks freeze every night during 

 the year. 



This region is at least one hundred miles long and seventy or eighty broad. The table 

 land from which the individual mountains spring, is from fifteen hundred to two thousand 

 feet above tide. The ascent is gradual from all sides, and in fact hardly perceptible, and 

 the traveller at the base of these peaks does not suspect that he has already overcome one- 

 third of their height. This highland district, in its present condition, sheds a succession 

 of powerful influences, partly beneficial and partly injurious, upon the vegetation of the 

 adjoining districts. The beneficial influences are derived from the abundance of water 

 which the district affords : it furnishes the head-springs which irrigate one-third of New- 

 York. The injurious influences come from the reduction of temperature, the cold snowy 

 winter, and the unseasonable frosts of the earlier and later parts of the summer. Testing 

 the capabilities of it as an agricultural district, it is found that oats, peas, barley, rye and 

 wheat may be raised. The two first may be regarded as constant crops ; the others thrive 

 best the two first years after clearing. Indian corn, of the varieties used as far south as the 

 metropolis of the State, is greatly endangered by frosts, and is rarely ripened. It is not 

 owing to any defects in composition of the soil that this district is comparatively unimpor- 

 tant, but to the low and variable temperature. The hills, however, will afford good pas 

 turage, and herds of cattle and flocks of sheep may one day give life and animation where 

 the silence of the day is broken only by the rustling of the wind through an unbroken 

 forest. 



2. The Southern highland district possesses many of the same characters as those 

 of the northern. Being, however, of less extent, and far inferior in height, it exerts com - 

 paratively little influence on the surrounding country. This district is known as the 

 Highlands of the Hudson, the Hudson river having found a passage through them. It 

 embraces parts of three counties, Rockland, Putnam and Westchester. The highest ele- 

 vations are unsusceptible of cultivation, from the rough broken state of the surface, and 

 the want of sufficient covering to the projecting rocks. At the base, however, the surface., 

 although yet frequently broken, is productive, and not subject to unseasonable frosts. 

 The mountains and hills can not be said to stand upon an elevated table land, but rise 

 immediately from a platform whose height is nearly upon the sea level. In this particular, 

 therefore, the southern highlands differ from the northern ; and in consequence of their 

 limited area, they require only a passing notice as an agricultural district. 



