Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/175

 and never let the soil lie idle. The value of this land is according to its quality. The best, in the proportion of twenty to twenty-five acres cleared, for a lot of two or three hundred, is not worth more than three or four piastres per acre. The taxes are from a half-penny to a penny per acre. The hands being very scarce, labour is dear, and by no means in proportion with the price of produce; the result of which is, that in all the middle and southern states, within fifty miles of the sea, each proprietor clears very little more than what he can cultivate with his family, or with the reciprocal aid of some of his neighbours. This is applied more particularly to the western country, where every individual may easily procure land, and is excited to labour by its incomparable fertility.

Within a mile and a half of West Liberty Town the road passes through a narrow valley about four miles long, the borders of which, elevated in {80} many places from twenty-five to thirty feet, present several beds of coal from five to six feet thick, growing horizontally. This substance is extremely common in all that part of Pennsylvania and Virginia; but as the country is nothing but one continued forest, and its population scarce, these mines are of no account. On the other hand, were they situated in the eastern states, where they burn, in the great towns, coals imported from England, their value would be great.

The trees that grow in this valley are very close together, and of large diameter, and their species more varied than in any country I had seen before.

Wheeling, situated on one of the lofty banks of the Ohio, has not been above twelve years in existence: it consists of about seventy houses, built of wood, which, as in all the new towns of the United States, are separated