Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 8).djvu/152

 *ments to be made. This topic is important, interesting, and exhaustless; but I must dismiss it, after making a very few additional remarks. As to our orchards, and the grazing of our mowing fields in the spring, I trust that we shall speedily abandon practices which are so disgraceful and so injurious. The most vigorous roots of grass shoot first. Those our cattle crop. The future growth is feeble; and grass, which springs after the season for it, is always puny. With respect to our orchards, we seem to think that they require no cultivation; that we have only to set down the trees, and all will be well: but the nature of things should convince us of the irrationality of our views upon this point. Trees require manuring and cultivating as much as any other plant.

I return to the comparison between the east and the west. However high may be the reputation of {50} the western lands, they are decidedly inferior to ours, as a grazing country. Another advantage which we possess over the west is, the superiority of our market. There is a much greater disproportion between the prices, than between the crops of the two sections of the country. Our crops are something less; but the prices which we obtain for our produce are much higher than those of the west. As to the prices too, of many articles, such as clothing and groceries, the advantage is with us; the people of the west being obliged to pay for the expense of transportation, and also the profits of the western retailer.

In point of health, the air of the west is not so salubrious as that of the east. The country being still covered with forests, its streams are noxious; and being too, a level country, its evaporations are great. These circumstances produce diseases of a peculiar and fatal nature. Our mountains are entirely free from them.

With respect to religious privileges, morals, means of