stony; but the stones lie almost entirely on the surface, are easily removed, and will be very useful for buildings and walls. I have taken particular notice where trees have been taken out by the root, and at the sides of the turnpike roads where the ditches are dug, that it is rare to find any stones beneath the surface. I am told that some of the settlers from the eastern states, who have been accustomed to stone walls round their fields, say that there are not stones enough; I should be satisfied with less. Of the fertility of the soil, the usual crops offer a strong evidence ; for if a farmer in England was to put his grain into the ground, in the manner it is generally done here, I should calculate upon his having a very diminutive harvest. In this county there is little or no alluvial soil deposited by the overflowing of the rivers or brooks. It is a common remark, and it accords with my own observations, that the soil is deeper on the tops of the hills than in the vallies. As it does not wash off, the hills retain all their native fertility. You see no traces, or furrows, worn by the waters. In the western part of the United States, where extensive flats of alluvial soil are formed on the rivers, the hills are proportionably poor, being robbed of the soil, which is deposited on the flat, or bottom. In most of the waters of the western states, during floods or freshets, there is a reflux, or eddy, formed at the margin of the usual water courses, and the soil brought down from the hills is deposited in the greatest abundance on the bank, which usual

ly confines the current; consequently, the bank is higher than the land back from the river, where the bottom joins the hill. The result is, that when the river retires within its banks, an extensive, but narrow, pond is left along the base of the hill; and as the hot weather gradually dries it up, a pestilential miasma is formed, which produces bilious and intermittent fevers, and all their train of horrors. In Susquehanna county nothing of that kind is found. I cannot learn of a single instance of fever and ague having occurred within it. I see no sallow, sickly looking complexions. Every log hut abounds with children, whose brown faces indicate health and hardihood. This is a bad place you will say for my profession. I am very happy that it is so. I came to seek for land; and shall be more pleased to practice farming than phlebotomy. I do not, however, intend to give up my profession till one of my sons shall be able to take it off my hands; for physicians are necessary evils in all countries.

I have measured many of the forest trees, in order to be exact as to their height. It is, in general, about eighty feet. Many are much higher; but that is the common altitude. The white, or silver pine overtops all the other timber, and grows to the height of one hundred and fifty feet, and from six to twelve feet in circumference. The hemlock spruce also grows to a large size; but not so high as the pine. The diameter of the beech is from one to two feet; the birch, larger. Chesnut is found

nearly twenty feet in circumference, very straight, and sixty feet to the lowest limbs. White oak, nearly as large. The wild cherry grows large, and furniture is made from it resembling mahogany. The curled maple affords also a beautiful wood for furniture, of the fine and silky appearance of satin wood. I have observed the following kinds of timber, viz. beech of two or three varieties; sugar maple (acer saccharinum) and several other species (as the acer Pennsylvanicum, rubrum, &c.); hemlock spruce (pinus-abies Americana); chesnut, different from the English, the nuts small, but very good; cherry of two kinds (prunus cerasus Virginiana et montana); white and black ash; oak; white pine; linden (tilia); elm; button wood (platanus occidentalis); cucumber tree (magnolia acuminata); crab apple; dog wood (cornus Florida); hickory (juglans alba ovata); black walnut (juglans nigra); butternut (juglans oblonga alba); hornbeam (caprinus ostrya); locust (robinia); wild plum; poplar; tulip tree (liriodendron); sassafras; and service tree (sorbus Americana). Among the bushes are blackberries of several kinds, currants, gooseberries, raspberries, elder, hawthorn, laurel, leather wood, (dirca palustris); hazlenut, sumach of two kinds, and the rose. You will observe that the currants, gooseberries, and raspberries all grow wild in the woods. There is also a small grape which ripens late, and is acid: perhaps those of a more generous kind would flourish if they were cultivated.

The hills in this county are all covered with timber. You see none bare. Along the Susquehanna river, there is a belt of oak timber which extends back from it for three or four miles; you then pass into what are called the beech woods, which are composed of various kinds of timber, but take their name from that which predominates. In the latter the soil is much superior to the former, both as to depth and quality; the oak lands having a thin and gravelly soil, while the beech timber grows in a deep loam. From the ashes formed by burning the timber in their clearings, the new settlers might derive a handsome profit, by the manufacture of pot and pearl ashes; but this is neglected, and the ashes are suffered to be blown away by the winds, or washed off by the rains. Great profit might also be made by the manufacture of sugar, from the sap of the sugar maple ;* and it is now made to an extent equal to the wants of the country; but it might be manufactured for exportation. There is a great abundance of the sugar maple in this county, and in Howell's large map of Pennsylvania, this part is designated as abounding in that valuable tree. It is one of the most beautiful of the forest. But notwithstanding its great usefulness, it is cut down indiscriminately with the others. A proof of the advantage that may be derived from it, was exemplified by one of our countrymen whom we found set

* See the process in Evelyn's "Sylva," vol. 1. p. 188.

tled here. He purchased of Mr. Rose a lot of eightyfour acres, and before he began his work of clearing, he tapped a number of the sugar maple trees on the lot; and the price of the sugar which he made in three weeks, amounted to two thirds of the price he was to pay for the whole lot. This you will observe was done before a tree had been cut down on the lot, except what was necessary to boil the sugar. Maple sugar is much like that produced from the cane; but for many purposes I think it pleasanter; and the person who uses it has the satisfaction of knowing that it is clean, which, it is probable, is frequently far from being the case with that which is made by the slaves of the West Indies; or indeed, by slaves any where. The usual time of making it is at the breaking up of winter, when cold nights are succeeded by warm days; a season when there is but little to occupy the farmer. It is not unusual for a family to make half a ton in two or three weeks. The sugar making season seldom lasts longer than that time. One of the first things a settler should do is to plant an orchard, and in a very short time he may eat his own fruit, and drink his own cider.

In all the old settled parts of the United States, fruit is in such great abundance that the traveller is permitted to take, without ceremony, whatever he pleases.

Beer is seldom made or used in the country parts of the United States. We shall, doubtless, intro

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