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except in very low places, where the waters collect and are trans- 

 formed into prairie lakes. The wire grass, which is in seed during 

 the summer months, covers with its half-withered stems the whole 

 surface of the prairie level. Cattle and other stock are scattered all 

 over the open pasture grounds where the lands are not fenced in for 

 cultivation. During the winter these prairies do not afford sufficient 

 subsistence for a large number of cattle, as the grass dies out, and 

 stock raisers are compelled to drive their stock during that season to 

 the neighboring cane brakes. But if these prairies were planted or 

 sown in the Texas musquit grass, which is evergreen, these lands 

 would became invaluable as stock farms. The land on Bayou Bceuf 

 is altogether different from the prairie soil and the red sandy loam 

 soil. It is alluvial in its composition, and contains a considerable 

 quantity of vegetable mold, but in some localities its loamy 

 higredients, being nearly destitute of sand, are so stiff and unyield- 

 ing that, during a long continued drought, they bake, become hard 

 and cloddy, so that the plow and harrow can only pulverize them 

 with the greatest difficulty. 



About six miles from Chicotvilje there is a quarry of bluish lime- 

 stone, which was formerly worked, but is now abandoned. There 

 are also mineral springs within ten miles of it. But as circum- 

 stances prevented me from visiting these localities, I can give no 

 account of them, or the soil and vegetation in the vicinity, from 

 personal observation. The land between Washington and Opelousas,. 

 as well as on the Courtableau, beyond its immediate banks, is of the 

 same character as that on the banks of the Teche. It is a cotinua- 

 tion of that ridge, and produces very heavy timber, such as oak, 

 hickory, tuliptree, sycamore, locust and catalpa, all of great size. 

 Cotton and corn grow here very luxuriantly, and the crops had as 

 fine an appearance as in any part of the State I had visited. On 

 the banks of the Courtableau, at the edge of the town of Washing- 

 ton, there is a chalybeate spring, which pours forth a large stream 

 of water, and deposits the iron it contains in solution, which, on 

 exposure to the air, becomes the insoluble yellow hydroxide of iron. 

 I was also told that on digging wells here a deposit of iron is 

 reached within fifty feet of the surface. Here I saw, for the first 

 time, the fig tree which bears what is called the perpetual fig. This 

 fruit is as large as a pomegranate, and quite sweet and agreeabie to 



