ARKANSA TERRITORY.
101
right side of the river appeared universally high, and
rich cane land with occasional thickets and openings.
Throughout this country there certainly exists ex-
tensive bodies of fertile land, and favoured by a com-
paratively healthy climate. The cultivation of cotton,
rice, maize, wheat, tobacco, indigo, hemp, and wine,
together with the finest fruits of moderate climates, with-
out the aid of artificial soils ©r 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 conve-
nience of raising silk. Pasturage at all seasons of the
year is so abundant, that some of our domestic ani-
mals 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 fa-
vourable to productions more valuable and saleable.
The privations of an infant settlement are already be-
ginning to disappear, grist and saw-mills, now com-
menced, 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 wea-