Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/309

 I shall abstain from any reflexion concerning this, as the opinion of many people is fixed.

The climate of Lower Carolina and Georgia is too warm in summer to be favourable to European fruit-trees, and too cold in winter to suit those of the Carribbees. The fig is the only tree that succeeds tolerably well; again, the figs turn sour a few days after {292} they have acquired the last degree of maturity, which must doubtless be attributed to the constant dampness of the atmosphere.

In the environs of Charleston, and in the isles that border the coast, the orange-trees stand the winter in the open fields, and are seldom damaged by the frosts; but at ten miles distance, in the interior, they freeze every year even with the ground, although those parts of the country are situate under a more southerly latitude than Malta and Tunis. The oranges that they gather in Carolina are not good to eat. Those consumed there come from the island of St. Anastasia, situate opposite St. Augustin, the capital of East Florida; they are sweet, very large, fine skinned, and more esteemed than those brought from the Carribbees. About fifty years ago the seeds were brought from India, and given to an inhabitant of this island, who has so increased them that he has got an orchard of forty acres. I had an opportunity of seeing this beautiful plantation when I was at Florida in 1788.

{293} In the general verification of the United States, published in 1800, the population of North Carolina, comprising negro slaves, amounted to four hundred and seventy-eight thousand inhabitants, that of Georgia to one hundred and sixty-three thousand, and that of South Carolina to three hundred and forty-six thousand. Not having been able to see the private extracts of the two former states, I am unacquainted with the proportion