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stantial and solid, but display no architectural taste. The Grand- 

 Wood place has a fine drawbridge, or rather swinging bridge, which 

 connects the southern with the northern bank, and from this point 

 up to Franklin nearly every plantation has its drawbridge and 

 landing, and the river front of the south bank seems to be entirely 

 fenced in. The immediate banks of the Teche are composed of a 

 sandy, red loam ridge, which I have classed with the upper series of 

 the orange sand soil, and which is but moderately productive, and if 

 not manured becomes exhausted in four or five years. This ridge 

 is not more than four or five hundred yards wide on each bank of 

 the river. The sugar lands on the south bank have been redeemed 

 from the sea marshes, and this soil when wet is as black as coal. 

 The humus accumulated in it for ages renders it almost inexhausti- 

 ble. The land beyond the immediate north bank is composed of 

 Mississippi alluvion, and although as fertile as the soil of the oppo- 

 site side in the production of sugar and corn, the plantations are 

 more frequently interrupted by tracts of woodland, because the 

 backwaters of the Mississippi frequently inundate these regions 

 through the Atchafalaya and Grand Lake; while the high and reced- 

 ing waters of the Gulf never reach the narrow strip of land, not 

 more than three or four miles wide, extending from the south bank 

 of the Teche to the impassable marshes of the Gulf. The lowest 

 swamp lands, which are not susceptible of cultivation and are over- 

 grown with the finest cypress this continent produces, are made 

 available by the proprietors of plantations 'on the south bank for 

 lumber, for they had the good sense of constructing fine sawmills 

 on their plantations. The alluvial land on the north bank is also 

 confined to a narrow strip from three to five miles wide, being 

 bounded on the one side by the Teche and on the other by Grand 

 Lake and other small lakes connected with it, which of itself forms 

 an inland sea, from thirty to forty miles long. 



The characteristic timber trees of the Teche country, are the live 

 oak, the water oak, locust and hickory. The Bitter-weed (Helenium 

 Tenuifolium) covers the red sandy loam ridge of the Teche, and 

 appears only on the sugar lands a* a stray straggler, whom accident 

 has transplanted upon uncongenial soil. The edge of the sea marsh, 

 near Bayou Portage, which is timberless, is rank with sedges and a 

 new species of Hydrolea, which I have named Hydrolea Ludovi- 

 ciana. 



