Distinction of Estates.—Species of Trees peculiar to each of them.—Ginseng.—Animals in Kentucky.
In Kentucky, as well as in Pennsylvania, Virginia and Carolina, the estates are divided into three classes, for the better assessment of the taxes. This division with respect to the fertility of the land is relative to each of these states; thus in Kentucky, for example, they would put in the second class estates, which, east of the mountains, would be ranked in the first, and in the third, those which in Georgia and Low Carolina would be the second. I do not mean, however, to say by this that there are not some possessions in the eastern states as fertile as in the western; but they are seldom found except along the rivers and in the vallies, and do not embrace so considerable a tract of country as in {165} Kentucky, and that part of Tennessea situate west of the Cumberland Mountains.
In these two states they appreciate the fertility of the land by the different species of trees that grow there; thus when they announce the sale of an estate, they take care to specify the particular species of trees peculiar to its various parts, which is a sufficient index for the purchaser. This rule, however, suffers an exception to the Barrens, the soil of which, as I have remarked, is fertile enough, and where there are notwithstanding here and there Scroby oaks, or quercus nigra, shell-barked hickeries, or juglans hickery, which in forests characterise the worst of soil. In support of this mode of appreciating in America the fecundity of the soil by the nature of the trees it produces, I shall impart a remarkable observation that I made on my entering this state. In Kentucky and Cumberland,[49] independent of a few trees natives of this part of these countries, the mass of the forests, in estates of the first class, is composed of the same species which {166} are found, but very rarely, east of the mountains, in the most fertile soil; these species are the following, cerasus Virginia, or cherry-tree; juglans oblonga, or white walnut; pavia lutea, buck-eye; fraxinus alba, nigra, cerulea, or white, black, and blue ash; celtis foliis villosis, or ack berry; ulmus viscosa, or slippery elm; quercus imbricaria, or black-jack oak; guilandina disica, or coffee tree; gleditsia triacanthos, or honey locust; and the annona triloba, or papaw, which grows thirty feet in height. These three latter species denote the richest lands. In the cool and mountainous parts, and along the rivers where the banks are not very steep, we observed again the quercus macrocarpa, or over-cup white oak, the acorns of which are as large as a hen’s egg; the acer sacharinum, or sugar-maple; the fagus sylvatica, or beech; together with the planus occidentalis, or plane: the liriodendrum tulipifera, or white and yellow poplar; and the magnolia acuminata, or cucumber-tree, all three of which measure from eighteen to twenty feet in circumference; the plane, as I have before observed, attains a greater diameter. The two species of poplar, i.e. the white and yellow wood, have not the least external character, neither in their leaves nor flowers, by which they may be {167} distinguished from each other; and as the species of the yellow wood is of a much greater use, before they fell a tree they satisfy themselves by a notch that it is of that species.
In estates of the second class are the fagus castanea, or chestnut tree; quercus rubra, or red oak; quercus tinctoria, or black oak; laurus sassafras, or sassafras; diospiros virginia, or persimon; liquidambar styraciflua, or sweet gum; nyssa villosa, or gum tree, a tree which, in direct opposition to its name, affords neither gum nor resin. Those of the third class, which commonly are dry and mountainous, produce very little except black and red oaks, chestnut oaks of the mountains, quercus prinus montana, or rocky oak pines, and a few Virginia cedars.
The juglans pacane is found beyond the embouchure of the rivers Cumberland and Tennessea, whence they sometimes bring it to the markets at Lexinton. This tree does not grow east of the Alleghany Mountains. The lobelia cardinalis grows abundantly in all the cool and marshy places, as well as the lobelia sphilitica. The latter is more common in Kentucky than in the other parts of the United States that I travelled over. The laurus {168} bensoin, or spice wood, is also very numerous there. The two kinds of vaccinium and andromeda, which form a series of more than thirty species, all very abundant in the eastern states, seem in some measure excluded from those of the western and the chalky region, where we found none but the andromeda arborea.
In all the fertile parts covered by the forests the soil is completely barren; no kind of herbage is seen except a few plants, scattered here and there; and the trees are always far enough apart that a stag may be seen a hundred or a hundred and fifty fathoms off. Prior to the Europeans settling, the whole of this space, now bare, was covered with a species of the great articulated reed, called arundinaria macrosperma, or cane, which is in the woods from three to four inches diameter, and grows seven or eight feet high; but in the swamps and marshes that border the Mississippi it is upward of twenty feet. Although it often freezes in Kentucky, from five to six degrees, for several days together, its foliage keeps always green, and does not appear to suffer by the cold.
Although the ginseng is not a plant peculiar to Kentucky, it is still very numerous there. This induces {169} me to speak of it here. The ginseng is found in America from Lower Canada as far as the state of Georgia, which comprises an extent of more than fifteen hundred miles. It grows chiefly in the mountainous regions of the Alleghanies, and is by far more abundant as the chain of these mountains incline south west. It is also found in the environs of New York and Philadelphia, as well as in that part of the northern states situated between the mountains and the sea. It grows upon the declivity of the hills, in the cool and shady places, where the soil is richest. A man cannot pull up above eight or nine pounds of fresh roots per day. These roots are always less than an inch diameter, even after fifteen years’ growth, if by any means we can judge of it with certitude by the number of impressions that are to be seen round the upper part of the neck of the root, produced by the stalks that succeed each other annually. The shape of these roots is generally elliptical; and whenever it is biforked, which is very rare, one of the divisions is always thicker and longer than the other. The seeds of the ginseng are of a brilliant red, and fastened to each other. Every foot seldom yields more than two or three. They are very similar in shape and size to the wild {170} honey suckle. When they are disencumbered of the substance that envelopes them they are flat and semicircular. Their taste is more spicy, and not so bitter as the root. A month or two after they are gathered they grow oily; and it is probable to the rancidity which in course of time the seed attains we must attribute the difficulty there is in rearing them when they are kept too long. They are full ripe from the 15th of September to the 1st of October. I gathered about half an ounce of them, which was a great deal, considering the difficulty there is in procuring them.
It was a French missionary who first discovered the ginseng in Canada. When it was verified that this plant was the same as that which grows in Tartary, the root of which has such valuable qualities in the eyes of the Chinese, it became an article of trade with China. For some time after its discovery the root was sold for its weight in gold; but this lucrative trade was but of short duration. The ginseng exported from America was so badly prepared, that it fell very low in price, and the trade almost entirely ceased. However, for some time past it has been rather better. Though the Americans have been so long deprived of this beneficial trade, it can {171} only be attributed to the want of precaution that they used either in the gathering or preparation of the ginseng. In Chinese Tartary this gathering belongs exclusively to the emperor; it is done only by his orders, and they proceed in it with the greatest care. It commences in autumn, and continues all the winter, the epoch when the root has acquired its full degree of maturity and perfection; and by the means of a very simple process they render it almost transparent.
In the United States, on the contrary, they begin gathering of ginseng in the spring, and end at the decline of autumn. Its root, then soft and watery, wrinkles in drying, terminates in being extremely hard, and loses thus a third of its bulk, and nearly half its weight. These causes have contributed in lowering its value. It is only gathered in America by the inhabitants whose usual occupations afford them leisure, and by the sportsmen, who, with their carabine, provide themselves, for this purpose, with a bag and a pickaxe. The merchants settled in the interior of the country purchase dried ginseng at the rate of ten pence per pound, and sell it again from eighteen pence to two shillings, at the seaports. I have never heard particularly what quantity {172} of it was exported annually to China, but I think it must exceed twenty-five to thirty thousand pounds weight. Within these four or five years this trade has been very brisk. Several persons begin even to employ the means made use of by the Chinese to make the root transparent. This process, long since described in several works, is still a secret which is sold for four hundred dollars in Kentucky. The ginseng thus prepared is purchased at six or seven dollars per pound, by the merchants at Philadelphia, and is, they say, sold again at Canton for fifty or a hundred, according to the quality of the roots. Again, the profits must be very considerable, since there are people who export it themselves from Kentucky to China.
They have again, in Kentucky, and the western country, the same animals that inhabit those parts east of the mountains, and even Canada: but a short time after the settling of the Europeans several species of them wholly disappeared, particularly the elks and bisons. The latter, notwithstanding, were more common there than in any other part of North America. The non-occupation of the country, the quantity of rushes and wild peas, which supplied them abundantly with food the whole year round; and {173} the licks (places impregnated with salt, as I have before mentioned) are the causes that kept them there. Their number was at that time so considerable, that they were met in flocks of a hundred and fifty to two hundred. They were so far from being ferocious, that they did not fear the approach of the huntsmen, who sometimes shot them solely for the sake of having their tongue, which they looked upon as a delicious morsel. At four years old they weigh from twelve to fourteen hundred weight; and their flesh, it is said, is preferable to that of the ox. At present there are scarcely any from Ohio to the river Illinois. They have nearly deserted these parts, and strayed to the right bank of the Mississippi.
The only species of animals that are still common in the country are the following, viz. the deer, bear, wolf, red and grey fox, wild cat, racoon, opossum, and three or four kinds of squirrels.
The animals to which the Americans give the name of wild cat is the Canadian lynx, or simply a different species; and it is through mistake that several authors have advanced that the true wild cat, as they look upon to be the original of the domestic species, either existed in the United States, or more northerly.
The racoon, or ursus lotor, is about the size of a {174} fox, but not so tall and more robust. Taken young, it very soon grows tame, and stays in the house, where it catches mice similar to a cat. The name of lotor is very appropriate, as the animal retires in preference in the hollow trees that grow by the side of creeks or small rivers that run through the swamp; and in these sorts of marshes it is most generally found. It is most common in the southern and western states, as well as in the remote parts of Pennsylvania and Virginia. It is very destructive in the corn fields. The usual method of catching this animal is with dogs, in the dead of the night, as it is very rarely to be seen in the day time. Its skin is very much esteemed, throughout the United States, by the hat manufacturers, who purchase them at the rate of two shillings each.
Nearer toward the houses the inhabitants are infested with squirrels, which do also considerable damage to the corn. This species sciurus corolinianus, is of a greyish colour, and rather larger than those in Europe. The number of them is so immense, that several times a day the children are sent round the fields to frighten them away. At the least noise they run out by dozens, and take shelter upon the trees, whence they come down the very moment after. {175} As well as the bears in North America, they are subject to emigrations. Toward the approach of winter they appear in so great a number, that the inhabitants are obliged to meet together in order to destroy them. An excursion for this purpose, every now and then, is looked upon as pleasure. They go generally two by two, and kill sometimes thirty or forty in a morning. A single man, on the contrary, could scarcely kill one, as the squirrel, springing upon the branch of a tree, keeps turning round successively to put himself in opposition to the gunner. I was at one of these sporting parties, where, for dinner, which is generally taken in some part of the wood appointed for the rendezvous, they had above sixty of them roasted. Their flesh is white and exceedingly tender, and this method of dressing them is preferable to any other.
Wild turkies, which begin to grow very scarce in the southern states, are still extremely numerous in the west. In the parts least inhabited they are so very tame, that they may be shot with a pistol. In the east, on the contrary, and more particularly in the environs of the seaports, it is very difficult to approach them. They are not alarmed at a noise, {176} but they have a very piercing sight, and as soon as they perceive the gunner they fly with such swiftness that it is impossible for a dog to overtake them for several minutes; and when they see themselves on the point of being taken, they escape by resuming their flight. Wild turkies usually frequent the swamps and the sides of creeks and rivers, whence they only go out morning and evening. They perch upon the tops of the loftiest trees, where, notwithstanding their size, it is not always easy to perceive them. When they are not frightened, they return upon the same trees for several weeks together.
For the space of eight hundred leagues east of Mississippi there is only this one species of the wild turkey. They are much larger than those that we have in our farm-yards. In autumn and winter they chiefly feed on chesnuts and acorns. At that time some are shot that weigh from thirty to forty pounds. The variety of domestic turkies proceeds originally from this species of wild turkies; and when it has not been crossed with the common species, it preserves the primitive colour of its plumage, and that of the feet, which are of a deep red. Though ever since the year 1525 our domestic turkies were naturalized {177} in Spain, whence they were introduced into Europe, it is probable that they are natives of some of the more southern parts of America, where there may be, I have no doubt, a different species from that found in the United States.