A Book of the United States. Various
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in the valley of the Connecticut. Here also are found tracts, from which the diluvium and tertiary have been swept away, and which exhibit the reddish aspect that characterises the red sand-stone formation. This soil is of a superior quality, and peculiarly well adapted for fruit.
The soil of Rhode Island is various, and a great part of it good; though better adapted for grazing than for grain. The north-western parts of the state are rocky and barren; but the tract in the neighborhood of Narraganset Bay is excellent pasture land, and is inhabited by wealthy farmers, who raise some of the finest neat cattle in America. The ground is well cultivated, and produces Indian corn, rye, barley, oats, wheat, (though not enough for home consumption,) fruits and vegetables, in great abundance. The soil of Connecticut is generally rich and well watered, and the whole state resembles a cultivated garden. In the central valley of the Connecticut river, and in the valleys of its tributary streams, large accumulations of alluvial deposit have formed extensive plains and meadows. The soil is adapted to Indian corn, rye, wheat, and flax; orchards are numerous, and of late years, tobacco has also been raised in not inconsiderable quantities. Much of the land, however, is better for grazing than tillage; and the beef, pork, butter and cheese, of Connecticut, are equal to any in the world. The meadows on the banks of the river are uncommonly rich.
The soil of the southern and eastern parts of New York, is dry and gravelly, intermixed with loam; the mountainous districts are well adapted for grazing, and there are many rich valleys on the rivers. The northern and western parts are generally rich and fertile. In the valley of the Gennessee35 is some of the best wheat country in the world; and the alluvial flats of the valley of the Mohawk are highly fertile. Around Lake Champlain is an extensive district of clayey soil, extending to the hills that skirt the Peruvian Mountains. West of Albany are extensive sandy plains interspersed with marshes. A large part of New York is under excellent cultivation; particularly the western end of Long Island, and the counties of Westchester and Duchess.
The soil of Pennsylvania is of many various kinds. To the east of the mountains it is generally good, and a considerable part of it is bedded on limestone. Among the mountains, the land is rough, and much of it poor, in some parts quite barren; but there are a great many rich and fertile valleys. In the neighborhood of York and Lancaster, the soil consists of rich, brown, loamy earth; and proceeding in a south-westerly course, parallel to the Blue Mountains, the same kind of soil is met with as far as Fredericktown, in Maryland. West of the mountains the country improves, and about the head-waters of the Ohio it is generally fertile. Pennsylvania has a soil much better adapted to grazing than tillage.
The southern parts of New Jersey are sandy and flat, sometimes marshy, almost perfectly sterile, though occasionally producing shrub oaks, and pines: the northern half of the state is well adapted either for grazing or tillage. A part of Delaware abounds with swamps and stagnant waters, which render it alike unfit for the purposes of agriculture, and injurious to the health of the inhabitants. At the southern extremity of the state is the Cypress Swamp, a morass twelve miles in length and six in breadth, including an area of nearly fifty thousand acres of land; the whole of which is a high and level basin, very wet, though undoubtedly the highest land between the sea and the bay. The swamp contains a great variety of trees, plants, wild beasts, birds, and reptiles. In the northern parts, along the Delaware river and bay, and from eight to ten miles into the interior, the soil is generally a rich clay, in which a great variety of the most useful productions can be conveniently and plentifully reared; from thence to the swamps before noticed, the soil is light, sandy, and of an inferior quality. In the central parts of the state, there is a considerable mixture of sand; and in the southern part it, renders the soil almost totally unproductive.
In the western part of Maryland, the soil is somewhat strong, and in other parts are tracts of thin, unproductive land. It is generally, however, a red clay or loam; much of it is excellent, and producing large crops. Wheat and tobacco are the staple commodities, but on the uplands of the interior, hemp and flax are raised in considerable quantities.
The soil in the low part of Virginia is sandy or marshy, except on the banks of the rivers, where it is very rich. This territory is alluvial, and under its surface every where exhibits bones and marine shells. Between the head of tide-waters and the mountains, it exhibits a great variety, and a considerable portion is good. Among the mountains there is a great deal of poor land, but it is interspersed with rich valleys. In the valley between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany, we come to a country lying upon a bed of limestone. Here the soil is a deep clayey earth, well suited to the culture of small grain and clover, and produces abundant crops. Beyond the mountains the surface is broken, with occasional fertile tracts, but the soil is generally lean.
North Carolina, from the seacoast to sixty miles inward, is a level tract, of a lean and sandy soil, interspersed with swamps, and covered with pine forests. In the mountainous parts, and to the west of the mountains, the soil is moist and fertile. On the banks of some of the rivers, particularly the Roanoke, it is remarkably rich. It has been estimated that there are two millions five hundred thousand acres of swampy land within the state, capable of being drained at a trifling cost, and adapted to the purposes of agriculture. They have a clayey bottom, overlaid with a vegetable compost, and when drained have proved exceedingly fertile. One of these tracts is known by the name of the Dismal Swamp; it is thirty miles long and ten broad, overgrown with pine, juniper, and cypress trees. In the midst of it is a lake seven miles in length. The Alligator, or Little Dismal Swamp, lies to the south of Albemarle Sound, and incloses a lake eleven miles long and seven broad. This swamp has been partly drained by means of a canal, and many productive rice plantations occupy the reclaimed lands.
The soil of South Carolina may be divided into five classes: first, the pine barren, which is valuable only for its timber; interspersed among these barrens, are tracts destitute of every kind of growth except grass, called savannas, and forming a second kind of soil, good for grazing. The third, is that of the swamps and low grounds on the rivers, which is a mixture of black loam and rich clay, producing naturally canes in great plenty, cypress, and bays. In these swamps rice is cultivated. The high lands, commonly known by the name of oak and hickory lands, constitute the fourth kind of soil; this tract is comparatively small, and is situated in the north-western extremity of the state. The fifth class is that of the salt marsh, which borders on the seacoast and has been much neglected.
The greater part of the soil of Georgia is alluvial. On the islands which line its coast the soil is very fertile, and produces cotton of a superior quality. The soil of the main land, adjoining the marshes and creeks, is similarly fertile. This is succeeded by the pine barrens, which abound with swampy tracts. On the banks of the rivers are the valuable rice plantations. The soil between the rivers, after leaving the borders of the swamps, at the distance of twenty or thirty miles, changes from a gray to a red color, and is covered with oak, hickory, and pine. In some places it is gravelly, but fertile, and so continues for a number of miles, gradually deepening the reddish color of the earth, till it changes into what is called the mulatto soil, which is composed of black and red earth. These mulatto lands are generally strong, and yield large crops. To this kind of land succeeds by turns a soil nearly black and very rich. This succession of the different soils continues uniform and regular, though there are some large veins of all the different soils intermixed.
The soil of East Florida is generally poor, and circumstances have prevented the settlement and cultivation of the small proportion of really good lands. The parts on the western seashore are barren and sandy, abounding with marshes and lagoons. In the northern districts, gentle elevations of fertile land, supporting a vigorous growth of oaks and hickories, are found in the midst of marshes and pine barrens. Sugar cane is raised here with great facility, and a superior quality of long and short staple cotton.
In the lower parts of Alabama are extensive swamps, cypress land, and cane brakes. The central region is covered with gentle elevations, having a thin soil with a substratum of clay that cultivation will render productive. At present these hills are covered with pine, and, while there are tracts of rich land, will be held in little estimation; they include more than one half the surface of the state. On the banks of the Alabama and Tombeckbee there are wide and fertile alluvions, and the region between these rivers is the richest and best in Alabama. The French emigrants represent the soil of the slopes and hammoc lands of this state to be suitable for the vine.