Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/241

 Though ever since the year 1525 our domestic turkies were naturalized {177} in Spain, whence they were introduced into Europe, it is probable that they are natives of some of the more southern parts of America, where there may be, I have no doubt, a different species from that found in the United States.

{178} CHAP. XIX

Different kinds of culture in Kentucky.—Exportation of colonial produce.—Peach trees.—Taxes

In the state of Kentucky, like those of the southern parts, nearly the whole of the inhabitants, isolated in the woods, cultivate their estates themselves, and particularly in harvest time they assist each other; while some, more independent, have their land cultivated by negro slaves.

They cultivate, in this state, tobacco, hemp, and different sorts of grain from Europe, principally wheat and Indian corn. The frosts, which begin very early, are unfavourable to the culture of cotton, which might be a profitable part of their commerce, provided the inhabitants had any hopes of success. It is by the culture of Indian corn that all those who form establishments commence; since for the few {179} years after the ground is cleared the soil is so fertile in estates of the first class, that the corn drops before it ears. Their process in husbandry is thus: after having opened, with the plough, furrows about three feet from each other, they cut them transversely by others at an equal distance, and set seven or eight grains in the points of intersection. When they have all come up, only two or three plants are left in the ground; a necessary precaution, in order to give free scope for the vegetation, and to insure a more abundant harvest. Toward the middle of the summer the leaves