Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/273

 I lodged had an excellent plantation, and his log-house was divided into two rooms, which is very uncommon in that part of the country. Around the house magnificent apple-trees were planted, which, although produced from pips, bore fruit of an extraordinary size and luxuriance in taste, which proves how well this country is adapted for the culture of fruit trees. Here, as well as in Kentucky, they give the preference to the peach, on account of their {226} making brandy with it. At the same house where I stopped there were two emigrant families, forming together ten or twelve persons, who were going to settle in Tennessea. Their ragged clothes, and the miserable appearance of their children, who were bare-footed and in their shirts, was a plain indication of their poverty, a circumstance by no means uncommon in the United States. At the same time it is not in the western country that the riches of the inhabitants consist in specie; for I am persuaded that not one in ten of them are in possession of a single dollar; still each enjoys himself at home with the produce of his estate, and the money arising from the sale of a horse or a few cows is always more than sufficient to procure him the secondary articles that come from England.

The following day I passed by the iron-works, situate about thirty miles from Knoxville, where I stopped some time to get a sample of the native ore. The iron that proceeds from it they say is of an excellent quality. The road at this place divides into {227} two branches, both of which lead to Jonesborough; but as I wanted to survey the banks of the river Nolachuky, so renowned in that part of the country for their fertility, I took the right, although it was rather longer, and not so much frequented.