13 



RAPIDES PARISH. 



After I had finished my courso of instruction at the University, I 

 made a trip up Bed river, on the fifteenth of June, and visited the 

 neighborhood of the old Seminary, which offers the richest field in 

 the State for the collection of such plants as are generally found in 

 sandv soils and in pine wood regions. Nature seems to be lavish in 

 lk?r gifts of floral adornment where she has withheld fertility from the 

 soil. This is indeed one of the wise provisions of Divine Providence, 

 l>\- which the balance in the organic world is maintained, and its 

 existence and perpetuation secured. Were all lands equally pro- 

 ductive of such plants which contribute to the nourishment and the 

 economic use of man, every other plant would gradually be exter- 

 minated, and would cease to hold its place in the organic world, 

 which is composed of animals and pUnts, each of which is necessary 

 to accomplish the designs for which each species has been called 

 into existence. The disappearance of a single species, struck from 

 the aggregate of living organizations, might extinguish, for want of 

 proper food, many insects or birds and other inferior animals, which 

 in their turn are indispensable links in the indissoluble chain of 

 association, by which all the parts of the universe arc bound 

 together. 



The soil of Rapides, except where the hills of the pine barrens 

 are covered with the fossiliferous gravel or red loam of the drift 

 period, is that of the Red river alluvion. Although different in 

 some respects in its constituent elements from the Mississippi allu- 

 vion, it is equally productive of cotton, sugar and corn, and is as 

 inexhaustible in its materials of fertility. It is even more highly 

 valued by some planters, because the banks of Red river do not 

 cave much, and ihe land can therefore be more effectually protected 

 by levees. 



NEW ORLEANS. 



I cofected in Rapides during my lour days' sojourn there a con- 

 siderable number of plants which bloom in early summer; but as 

 my presence on commencement day was desirable, I returned to 

 Baton Rouge, witnessed the exercises of the last day of the scholastic 

 year, and a h-w days after the close of the session, I proceeded to 

 New Orleans, which I selected, on account of its facilities of com- 



