341 
AGRICULTURAL AFFAIRS 
such onerous rates should, be tolerated. Taey m iy 
probably find a mitigation of this excessive lay, in th • 
hands of a private company, which will ‘.probably 
soon succeed their own chosen task-masters in the 
ownership of the road, and whose sagacity will dic¬ 
tate an abatement of the present rates of freight, as 
vitally connected with the advancement of their own 
interests. Certain it is, that the generally prevalent, 
and decided hostility to corporate associations, which 
is one of the political Shibboleths of the present day, 
would not tolerate exactions from anybody of private 
citizens, which they suffer with impunity from their 
own legislature. 
From Toledo, which is destine 1 to be the commer¬ 
cial capital of northwestern Ohio, my route was by 
the Wabash canal, about 60 miles, to the junction, 
thence by the Miami extension to the south. The 
first is 60 feet wide, and 6 feet deep ; the latter 40 by 
about 4 feet. There is a grandeur about these fores! 
highways, which no cultivated regions can match 
From the junction, where a small hole has recently 
been scooped out of the forest, which is now occupied 
by some half dozen log-houses, three mighty prongs 
stretch their giant way through a vast and almost in¬ 
terminable wilderness; north-easterly, by the Mau¬ 
mee to Lake Eriewestwardly, to Fort Wayne and 
the Wabash ; and southerly, by the Auglaize and 
Miami, to the Ohio ; and as the eye courses over an 
unbroken level, through these lengthened vistas, as 
far as the unaided vision can reach: hemmed in on 
either side, by apparently dense walls of lofty trees, 
150 feet in height, reared amid their solitary and un¬ 
cultivated grandeur, as if directed by the exactest 
rules of mathematics ; we feel how puny are the 
works of man, even the aggregate of the temples and 
pyramids of Egypt, in comparison with the works of 
the Creator. For an entire day, our route lay 
'through this magnificent waste, unbroken in its 
unique splendor, except by an occasional log hut by 
the wayside, the nucleus of some future village or 
city. To a mind somewhat divested of the utilitarian, 
matter-of-fact notions of the present day, this stupen¬ 
dous, yet direct and facile pathway, through matted 
forests, which hitherto had barely yielded a footpath 
for the wild huntsman, might easily be deemed a pro¬ 
longed miracle, like the dividing of the Red sea for a 
passage to the Israelites, when “ the waters were a 
wall unto them, on their right hand and on their 
eft.” 
Already these routes, although so recently opened, 
have become busy and important channels of com¬ 
munication for the remote and extensive commerce 
of large and distant states, and the craft for its con¬ 
veyance can hardly be supplied with sufficient ra¬ 
pidity to meet its demands. To Buffalo and Lake 
Erie the Miami extension has unlocked the rich trea¬ 
sure house of the Ohio and Mississippi. It penetrates 
through the garden of Ohio, to Cincinnati, which is 
confessedly the emporium of the west; and through 
her, it will reach the commerce and business of nearly 
every state in the Union to the south and west. This 
new region, rude and uncultivated as it yet is, pos¬ 
sesses much of a semi-classic interest. It was the 
great theatre of strife which immediately succeeded to 
the Revolution, when the red man, aided by the more 
doubtful hostility of British policy, which still kept 
possession of Vhe frontier posts within the American 
IN MICHIGAN AND OHIO. 
territory, struggled against his encroaching foe, with 
the energy of despair, and vainly sought to arrest his 
onward progress to the dominion of the west. This 
was the scene of Harmar’s retreat, St. Clair’s defeat, 
and Wayne’s triumphs; which, at every point, are 
brought to mind, by the old military names, which 
yet indicate the stern contests of bye-gone days; and 
long may the names of Fort Recovery, Fort Defiance, 
and Fort Wayne, continue to remind the prosperous 
husband m m of the valor of those, to whose sufferings 
and exertions he is indebted for his security and suc¬ 
cess in his present peaceful occupations. 
The soil bordering the canal, for the first hundred 
miles from Lake Erie, is principally clay, and is evi¬ 
dently destined to be a grazing country. The isl¬ 
ands, a id some parts of the valley of the Maumee, 
yield large crops of corn, but it is not till we strike 
the valley of the Miami, that the corn region properly 
commences. From below Piqua and Troy, almost to 
the Ohio, seems one continuous, interminable field of 
corn, corn, corn ; and if the spirits of the ancient race 
delight in witnessing the luxuriance of their cherished 
maize, their enjoyment must almost counterbalance 
the misery of seeing their posterity driven from their 
former domains. 
The agricultural capabilities of southwestern Ohio 
may be equ illed by some favored parts of the same, 
and a few other states, but can nowhere be surpassed. 
In the commingling of the geological elements in their 
fluid state, and in their subsidence and constitution as 
soil, that just and happy combination seems to have 
been effected, which leaves scarcely anything to be 
supplied. And it is possessed in such profusion too, 
as to be apparently inexhaustible. Forty-seven suc¬ 
cessive and abundant crops of corn have been taken 
from a field, and this not renovated by a single load of 
manure, or the alluvium from any stream. Nice ob¬ 
servers would, however, I doubt not, detect some in¬ 
cipient decline in their productiveness, and if this se¬ 
vere courSe of cropping be persisted in, it needs no 
prophet to predict, that, at no remote period, their 
fields will share the fate of the once fertile tobacco 
plantations of Virginia, many of which have long 
since been turned out, to resuscitate by the slow, but 
certain operation of nature. 
The corn raised here, is universally the gourd 
seed, which, from long experience, has been found to 
be the best producer wherever warmth of climate and 
depth of soil are sufficient to develops and mature it. 
The yield, under ordinary cultivation, without ma¬ 
nure, varies from 40 to 60 bushels per acre, but with 
manure and good attention, it will sometimes average 
100 . It is usually planted about 4 feet apart each way, 
with three or four stalks left in a hill. Some plant 
nearer, and leave fewer stalks together. It appears 
much thinner in the field, than a luxuriant growth of 
northern corn. That planted on the uplands on a 
lighter soil, is still more scattered, and from its great 
height, appears thin and spindling. I doubt ifraaiiy 
of these fields, which met my eye, out of the Miami 
and Sciota valleys, would exceed 25 bushels per 
acre. This can hardly be profitable farming in a 
country, where corn sells from 15 to 25 cts. per 
bushel, unless so far as it contributes to make out a 
rotation, and the stalks can serve a valuable purpose 
for fodder. R L. Allen. 
Buffalo, October, 1845. 
