Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 V13.djvu/172

 are entitled to one or more quarter sections, as the lines of their improvements may happen to extend into the public lines when surveyed, of one or more such plots or fractional sections of land. These rights have been bought {116} up by speculators, at from 4 or 500 to 1000 dollars, or at the positive rate of from 3 to 10 dollars the acre, including the price of two dollars per acre to the United States; a certain proof of the growing importance of this country, where lands, previous to the existence of any positive title, have brought a price equal to that of the best lands on the banks of the Ohio, not immediately contiguous to any considerable town. The hilly lands, which have not been thought worthy of a survey, will afford an invaluable common range for all kinds of cattle, while the alluvial tracts are employed in producing maize, cotton, tobacco, or rice. I must, here, however, remark by the way, that there exists a considerable difference in the nature of these alluvial soils. They are all loamy, never cold or argillaceous, but often rather light and sandy; such lands, however, though inferior for maize, are still well adapted for cotton. The richest soils here produce 60 to 80 bushels of maize per acre. The inundated lands, when properly banked so as to exclude and introduce the water at pleasure by sluices, might be well employed for rice, but the experiment on this grain has not yet been made, on an extensive scale, by any individual in the territory, although its success, in a small way, has been satisfactorily ascertained. Indigo is occasionally raised for domestic use, but would require more skill in its preparation for the market. Indeed, as yet, the sum of industry calculated to afford any satisfactory experiment in agriculture or domestic economy, has not been exercised by the settlers of the Arkansa, who, with