Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/148

 wheat, tobacco, indigo, hemp, and wine, together with the finest fruits of moderate climates, without the aid of artificial soils or manures, all sufficiently contiguous to a market, are important inducements to industry and enterprize. The peach of Persia is already naturalized through the forests of Arkansa, and the spontaneous mulberry points out the convenience of raising silk. Pasturage at all seasons of the year is so abundant, that some of our domestic animals might become naturalized, as in Paraguay and Mexico; indeed several wild horses were seen and taken in these forests during the preceding year.

The territory watered by the Arkansa is scarcely less fertile than Kentucky, and it owes its luxuriance to the same source of alluvial deposition. Many places will admit of a condensed population. The climate is no less healthy, and at the same time favourable to productions more valuable and saleable. The privations of an infant settlement are already beginning to disappear, grist and saw-mills, now commenced, only wait for support; and the want of good roads is scarcely felt in a level country meandered by rivers. Those who have large and growing families can always find lucrative employment in a country which produces cotton. The wages of labourers were from 12 to 15 dollars per month and boarding, which could not then be considered as extravagant, while cotton produced from five to six dollars per hundred weight in the seed, and each acre from 1000 to 1500 pounds.

16th.] At sunrise the thermometer was down to 28°, and the wind at north-west. This sudden transition, after such a long continuance of mild weather, {102} felt extremely disagreeable, and foreboded the destruction of all the fruit in the territory. This morning we passed the