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grees 55 minutes W. It has a decided advantage over all the other towns, on account of its being situated on a rock but little elevated above the high floods of the river, and immediately on its border. Such situations are rare, as the Mississippi is almost universally bounded either by high perpendicular rocks or loose alluvial soil, the latter of which is in continual danger of being washed away by the annual floods.

In the reclaiming of wild land, or the forming of a plantation from a state of nature, the trouble and labour here is much less than in the woody regions, as the trees in this quarter are not more abundant on the upland than would be necessary for fuel and for fences. They naturally stand at a sufficient distance from each other to admit a fine undergrowth of grass and herbage. This country, as well as the whole western territory, will reap incalculable benefit from the application of steam-boats on the Mississippi. Of these several are now building in the different ports of the Ohio, a mode of conveyance which will also be much facilitated by the abundance of coal so universally spread over these parts.

In an agricultural point of view, the westward may be divided into three regions, suitable for the culture of the great staple articles, sugar, cotton, and corn. The sugar region extends from the coast to latitude 31 degrees; the cultivation of this article is rapidly increasing, and many of the planters have already made large fortunes.

The region proper for the cultivation of cotton, and too cold for that of the sugar-cane, extends from 31 to about 36 degrees of latitude: the species cultivated is Gossypium annuum. It will grow many degrees north of 36; but will not yield a sufficient crop, nor is the cotton so good, for the following reasons:-of the pods containing the cotton, the terminal pods of the principal branches are the first ripe: the next in succession are those of the secondary branches, which are followed by those of the tertiary ones, &c. &c.; but in each successive generation, the number is increased in something like the ratio of a geometrical progression. In the northerly part of the cotton region, the winter comes on before the cotton in the pods on the lateral branches is ripe, and a great portion of the crop is destroyed, which a few degrees further south would have been ripened. But the avarice of some planters prompts them to continue the gathering of their crops too long, and the quality of their cotton is deteriorated thereby, as the sun is too feeble to give the last part of their crop sufficient strength. The culture of the cotton plant is not attended with much trouble. The seeds are planted from 3 to 3 feet asunder; and after the plants have acquired a little strength, they are weeded and earthed up: no further care is required until the gathering of the pods commences. The cotton is then separated from the seeds by a machine, called the saw gin.

From observation I am led to believe that the staple of cotton is sometimes injured in the gin; and as this machine is now universally used to separate the cotton from the seed, I shall describe it. The saws are circular, about six or eight inches in diameter, they are made of thin steel plate, and are toothed like those used for cutting wood.

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excepting that they make a more acute angle with the radii. Twentyfour, thirty, thirty-six, or more of these saws are placed on an iron shaft, at about one inch asunder. This shaft is fixed in a frame, three feet, or three feet six inches high, and parallel to it is placed a trough, not unlike a manger. One side of the trough is composed of thin plates of iron, exceeding in number that of the saws by one. This admits one of these plates betwixt each two saws, and they are so near each other as barely to admit the saw to pass between them. A fourth part of the saw works within the trough. Beneath the saws a cylindrical brush turns the same way, but with greater velocity. On the end of the shaft on which the saws are, there is a fast and a loose pully for driving the machine, with a belt for stopping it at pleasure. When the gin is intended to be set to work, a quantity of cotton, as taken from the pods, is thrown into the trough, and the belt is put on the fast pully. The saws, in passing through the troughs, continue to load their teeth with cotton, which is instantly thrown off by the brush, and in a few minutes nothing remains in the trough but bare seeds. The management of this gin is mostly committed to negroes, who, anxious to finish their task, drive the machine with too great velocity, by which, I conceive, not only the staple of the cotton is injured, but the green lumps, which are in fact the abortive seeds, are broken, and carried through along with the cotton. From this cause, in a great measure, arises the difference of quality of cotton from the same plantation.

'As there are public gins established in almost every part, to which a planter may take his cotton, and have it cleaned and packed on moderate terms, it is in the power of a poor man to turn cotton-planter; and if he has a numerous family, so much the better, as females, and even children, can be employed in gathering the pods, and in taking the cotton from them. If he settles on wild land, he can enter upon the culture of cotton with more facility than on any other crop, as the ground requires less preparation.

This part of Louisiana as yet contains but very few white settlers, although, for the most part, the soil is excellent, and the climate charming. Two very large rivers, Red River and the Arkansas, enter the Mississippi in this region, and run their whole course through it: they are both navigable to the confines of the internal provinces of New Mexico, and furnish to those parts the best means of communication with the ocean. Of these means, when Mexico shall break its chain, it will avail itself, and this will become one of the richest and most valuable parts of the United States.'

"I must pronounce the soil to be excellent, and in almost every part where I saw it in a state of nature, it was covered with the finest verdure imaginable. The stratum immediately below the vegetable soil is almost universally a very tenacious clay, and extremely well calculated to form a material for brick.

"The lands belonging to the United States Government are sold at one uniform price: viz. two dollars per acre at five year's credit, or one dollar sixty-four cents for cash. Opportunities frequently offer for purchasing from the back-wood's-man what he calls his improvement, which consists perhaps of a log-house, a peach, and perhaps an apple orchard, together with from ten to thirty or forty acres of land inclosed and mostly cleared."

The following remarks are worthy of particular notice.

"It is necessary to recollect that in the early part of the settlement of a country like this, a great number of things occur necessary to be done, which require the united strength of numbers to effect." p. 318.

"A great number of farmers have more land inclosed in fence than they can well manage: ask one of these the reason, he replies I want help.' Emigrants are urgently required, and if there can be any doubt of the wants of the country in this respect, its solution is to be here found.

"There are many objects, such as roads, bridges, &c. all of which are much sooner effected by persons having an union of interest, and of course an union of action.

"A combination of labour in numbers for the benefit of one individual is not confined to the new comer only, it occurs frequently among the old settlers, with whom it is a continued bond of amity and social intercourse, and in no part of the world is good neighbourship found in greater perfection than in the western territory, or in America generally." Additional testimony of this kind in favour of the disposition of the inhabitants will be read with pleasure. We cannot refrain from introducing some equally creditable to the impartiality of the narrator and the character of our country.

Page 305. "I have travelled near 10,000 miles in the United States, and never met with the least incivility or affront. I feel myself bound by gratitude and regard to truth to speak of their hospitality. In my travels through the inhabited parts of the United States, not less than 2000 miles was through parts where there were no taverns, and where a traveller is under the necessity of appealing to the hospitality of the inhabitants. In no one instance has my appeal been fruitless, although in many cases the furnishing of a bed has been evidently attended with inconvenience, and in many instances, no remuneration would be received. Other European travellers have experienced this liberal spirit, and some have repaid it by calumny. In respect to their moral character, my experience reaches chiefly to the western, middle, and some of the southern states. In the western states, I noticed that very few of the houses in which I slept, had either locks or bolts on the doors, and that the jails were in general without a single tenant.

"It has already been observed that no people discharge the social duties, as respects the character of neighbours, better, and I believe no country, having a population equal to the United States, can exhibit the records of their courts containing fewer instances of crimes committed against the laws."

Mr. Birkbeck, an English farmer, whose notes on a journey to the Illinois territory we had occasion to remark upon in our last number, fully seconds this opinion of his countryman in every respect. He says, " but, what is most at variance with English notions of the American people, is the urbanity and civilization that prevail in situations remote from large cities. In our journey from Norfolk on the coast of Virginia, to this place, in the heart

of the Alleghany mountains, we have not for a moment lost sight of the manners of polished life. Refinement is unquestionably far more rare than in our mature and highly cultivated state of society, but so is vulgarity. In every department of common life, we here see employed persons superior in habits and education to the same class in England."

Again:

"of all the unfavourable imputations on the American character, jealousy of strangers is surely the most absurd and groundless. The Americans are sufficiently alive to their own interest, but they wish well to strangers; and are not always satisfied with wishing, if they can promote their welfare by active services."

Page 103. "I have good authority for contradicting a supposition that I have met with respecting the inhabitants of Indiana, that they are a lawless, semi-barbarous people, dangerous to live among. On the contrary, the laws are respected, and effectual, and the manners of the people are kind and gentle to each other and to strangers."

Page 123. "We are at Princeton in Indiana, a town which will be soon three years old. The people belong to old America in dress and manners, and would not disgrace old England in the general decorum of their deportment. It can boast as many well informed genteel people, in proportion to the number of inhabitants, as any county town I am acquainted with, and there is not one decidedly vitious character, nor one that is not able and willing to maintain himself."

In passing from Mr. Birkbeck, we would express our anticipation of much solid benefit from his experience and conduct in the parts where he has settled. He is a man, we should judge, of vigorous and enlarged mind. His recommendation in favour of associations, as the surest means to prevent disappointment to emigrants and advance the interests of the whole, has our entire concurrence. On this point too he confirms the preceding remarks of Mr. Bradbury.

As emigration is now a theme of very general interest, publications tending to throw any light upon the subject, will be read with avidity, when they communicate information equivalent to the expense of their purchase. For the details we must refer to the works themselves. We collect, generally, that a settlement in the Missouri or the Illinois territory is preferable, cæteris paribus, in the ratio of its distance from that great mart of western produce, New Orleans-that, without some capital for the purchase of land, the emigrant unless he be a mechanic, or an associate with others, might repent the cost of his journey; and moreover that, if he look for present gain from agricultural pursuits only, he will infallibly be disappointed. He can only expect that the extent and period of his reward will be proportioned to the exertions of his industry, and the scale of his "improvements," together with the growth of population, and the demand for cleared lands. To bring wood land into a state of cultivation, he must expect to undergo many hardships and endure many privations, but the state of ease, secu

rity, and independence, which will assuredly attend the patient efforts of sober industry, must in due season arrive to compensate past toils.

That produce of every kind of the nature of provision will, for a very long time, remain low, must be calculated upon from the following considerations. First, the distance from a foreign market, causing a great expense in exportation. Secondly, the predominance of scattered population employed in farming over that which is condensed in towns; and thirdly, the vast quantities of land remaining west of the Alleghanies still unoccupied; yet, the accumulation of property by the regular and rapid advance in the value of land, forms more than an equivalent to the savings of the labourer or mechanic. Upon these terms, he may make up his mind, and look for the illustration of the truth in the testimony of every candid man acquainted with that country.

On the whole, we are disposed to look favourably upon Mr. Bradbury's labours, and to encourage him to pursue a path so happily chosen, as that of developing the resources of the highly promising region he describes.

His book compressed into half of its present size, would bear a reprint in this country-devested of common-place matter, and directed solely to purposes of superior utility. He has chosen a wide field, and his design is worthy of an active, enterprising, enlightened mind. If our countenance can cheer his laudable endeavours, he will carry with him its smiles, and if one ray of consolation be wanting to kindle zeal, he will find it in the increasing interest of the public in these inquiries, and, in connexion with his own immediate benefit, the growing magnitude and decided importance of the consequences involved in this subject.

ART III.-Outline of the Revolution in Spanish America; or an account of the origin, progress, and actual state of the war carried on between Spain and Spanish America, containing the principal facts which have marked the struggle. By a South American. Fata viam invenient. Æn. lib. 10.

THE

HE perusal of this "outline," has altered in a great measure our view of the contest in South America. Hitherto the unconnected, and, indeed, very limited information we possessed on the subject of the existing war in that country, prevented our forming as correct an idea as to the probable result as could be desired. Our wish has always been, to be able to predict with some degree of certainty, the termination in favour of the South Americans, of the second war in America, that has had independence for its object. We are, perhaps, more sanguine on the subject, than is consistent with the facts heretofore known to us; but we feel considerably more confident, since the perusal of this work, that our wishes may be gratified at no very distant day.

We feel a sensible pleasure in the view, and the imagination hardly knows where to stop, when the result of so many free establishments as are about to take place in South America, is taken into consideration: when we view the advancement that knowledge is likely

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