in North- Eastern America. 



3 



ordered tliat all tlie land of this kind which was unclaimed after a 

 certain period should be sold at four cents an acre to whoever would 

 buy it. Large speculations were in consequence made by indi- 

 viduals and companies, chiefly with a view to cut down and sell 

 the timber. The lumber merchants from the north-eastern States 

 were conspicuous among these speculators ; and I had the fortune 

 to travel for some distance with a gentleman who, among other 

 information, told me he was one of a small party who had bought 

 no less than 190,000 acres of this Georgian barren in one locality, 

 with the confident expectation of making much money by the 

 sale of the lumber. 



The species of pine with which this barren is covered changes 

 as we proceed towards the south and west — probably from the 

 change of climate and exposure. In North Carolina it bears prin- 

 cipally the Pitch pine (^Pinus rigida\ which yields large supplies 

 of turpentine. This and the timber are shipped from the port 

 of Wilmington in that State. In Georgia, again, the prevailing 

 tree is the Yellow pine {Pinus mitis), which yields a harder and 

 more valuable timber than the Pitch pine. The chief difference, 

 as I was informed, is that the sap or soft heart-wood in the 

 Yellow pine is much less in diameter than in the Pitch pine, and 

 thus the proportion of hard resinous wood in trees of the same 

 size is much greater in the former than in the latter. 



Third. Farther inland the traveller ascends another terrace, 

 and at once escapes from the forest into the open treeless prairie, 

 where, far as the eye carries him over the flat, only natural grasses 

 wave in the wind, unless where settlements have been made, and 

 the arts of husbandry have introduced a new vegetation. The 

 thin soils of this attractive plain rest upon a rotten chalk or 

 chalky marl, and, like the soils of our chalk downs, are absorbent 

 of moisture and naturally dry. They produce a sweet herbage, 

 grateful to the cattle, and yield fair crops of wheat while still in 

 a virgin condition. The variety known in the market by the 

 name of Georgian wheat is grown on these chalky prairies. 

 They are attractive to the settler because they can be converted 

 into farms without cost. There is no forest to fell. As much 

 land as can be skimmed v/ith the plough may be sown v/ith grain 

 year after year by the first settler, and the aid of a reaping 

 machine makes him almost independent of labour when the time 

 of harvesting comes. It is upon plains like these — so easy to 

 till and so bare of trees — that m published accounts of some of 

 the States we read of single fields of wheat containing from 400 

 to 700 acres of waving grain,* and from which a crop of ten or 



* I have never myself seen any of these large fields, probably because I was 

 never upon any of these prairies T\-here they ^vere to be seen. I was told by a 



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