traveler with astonishment at their magnitude. Thickly set upon the soil, in company with massive white oaks, their trunks rise to the height of fifty feet or more without a limb. Remote from market, this valuable timber is scarcely used except for fence rails. The Cincinnati Southern Railroad will probably bring all of this excellent timber into market and make it a source of profit to the owners.

Stumps and crotches of the walnut when worked up into veneering slabs were once very valuable on account of the beautiful curlings of the grain, though not so much in demand at present. Common walnut lumber, seasoned, is worth from $25 to $40 per thousand, and every year shows a marked advance in the price. It is no overestimate to say that the walnut lumber that could be made on the line of the Cincinnati Southern Railroad would pay a large portion of the debt of the State of Tennessee. The exquisite and rich brown color of the wood will always make it sought after by the cabinet maker. It is extensively used in making door-shutters and frames, window-blinds and sash, railing, newel-posts, counters, and other finishing work about dwelling-houses and places of business. For gunstocks, picture frames and the ornamental work it is largely used. It is a favorite wood for the manufacture of coffins, and is well adapted to certain uses in naval architecture. Tennessee has great reason to rejoice in the abundance and excellence of its walnut timber.

The bark of the Black Walnut is much used as a domestic dye, imparting to woolen goods a color much resembling that of the wood itself. "Brown jeans," from the first settlement of the State, has constituted the chief winter clothing for the men and boys of country homes.

BUTTERNUT OR WHITE WALNUT. (Juglans Cinerea.)

This tree grows upon the margin of streams, and is sometimes found on rich northern slopes. It is diffused over almost as great an extent of territory as the black walnut. Resembling the latter when young in its foliage, it assumes a form clearly distinguishable at maturity. The wood is much lighter in color than the black walnut, and has a reddish tinge. It is durable but not strong, and is sometimes used in ornamental work for giving variety and contrast. The doors of elegant houses in Nashville are often made of it. It is sometimes shipped to New York for similar purposes.

The trees we have mentioned constitute the bulk of our timber, but there are many other kinds which have a special interest. Among them the Yellow Wood, the Cucumber tree, the Laurel, the Holly, the Hornbeam, the Box Elder, the Chinquapin tree, the Crab Apple, the Hackberry, the Willow and the Persimmon deserve mention. Though not valuable as timber, many of these last enumerated are highly ornamental, especially the Box Elder and Crab Apple. The blossoms of the latter are the sweetest and most fragrant found in our forests, and the graceful form of the Box Elder, with its wide-spreading top and pea-green foliage, makes it a favorite for yards and lawns.

It may not be improper in this place to observe that, though the State of Tennessee has as yet an abundant supply of timber, it is every year becoming more apparent that some legislation is demanded for its preservation and reproduction. In the neighborhood of our furnaces, especially, the consumption of timber is enormous, and many of our finest iron fields will soon be deprived of half their value unless some legislative protection is given to the young timber. The annual conflagrations that sweep like a devouring fury through the old coaling lands, destroying the young sprouts and rendering barren a large scope of country, should be checked. But for these fires the timber would soon reproduce itself in sufficient quantities to supply all the demands of the charcoal furnaces. Old fields are lying idle and unfenced in every portion of the State that could be reclaimed by being planted in trees. They are now unsightly and hideous pictures in the landscape, worthless to the owners and to the State. Werethose places broken up and sown with acorns or hickory nuts, or planted with locust trees, the effect would, in every particular, be salutary. Not only would the land be reclaimed, but the timber would in two score years be valuable, the beauty of the country would be heightened, a spot for the retention of moisture would be assured, and the owner would in time reap directly a rich reward for his labors.

The Legislature should exempt from taxation for a term of years all these old fields that are planted in trees, and one hundred dollars worth of property should also be exempted for every mile of shade or fruit trees planted along the highways. A law to this effect has been in operation in some of the states of the Union with the best results. By adopting this line of policy the taxable property in the State would be increased in the next ten or twelve years many millions of dollars. The wealth of a state depends primarily upon its soil and its timber, and it is the solemn duty of the lawmakers to look beyond the pres

ent, and to enact such laws and to dictate such a policy as will, in the end, conduce to the wealth, greatness and glory of the State; and in no way can this be more effectually done than by taking steps for the reclamation of the soil and the preservation of the timber. Had this been done twenty years ago, Tennessee would not be dotted all over with repulsive and haggard old fields, that constitute the shame and mark the shiftlessness of her farmers. A new departure is called for in this particular, and he who shall be instrumental in restoring the lost fertility of those worn places and making them things of beauty and profit, may well be numbered among the benefactors of the State.

The press in the various parts of the State should take up this subject, discuss it in detail, encourage the enactment of such a law, and press the matter before the people until pride, taste, interest, ambition and an enlightened public sentiment shall all unite in building up these waste places. Enough of such spots there are, if reclaimed, to build a railroad through every county in the State.

More is involved in this question than mere money. The very existence of the human race is jeopardized by this neglect. Happiness, contentment, progress, refinement and the civilization of humanity depend, in a measure, upon the preservation of our forests, which so greatly affect climate, and the preservation of our soils, which so greatly affect production and population.

CHAPTER VII.

FARM PRODUCTS.

ONE of the most munificent gifts ever bestowed by a monarch upon his adherents was that of Charles II, to eight of his obsequious and rapacious statesmen. This gift was no less than 144,500 square miles of the present territory of the United States and Mexico, and comprised all that belt included between 29° and 36° 30′ north latitude, and extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. Considered in reference to its capabilities of supplying those vegetable products most coveted by civilized nations, this belt may be regarded as the fairest domain of christendom. It includes nearly all the cotton, sugar and rice, and much of the tobacco-growing lands of the continent. All of North and South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico, Arizona, a large part of Missouri and Florida, nearly all of Texas, and a considerable portion of California and Mexico lie within the boundaries of the original grant. But the visions of a magnificent empire in which the proprietors indulged were rudely dispelled by the genius of liberty and self-government which thrived upon the soil of the western continent. Despite the grand model of a constitution drafted by Locke, and which was to "endure forever," less than three quarters of a century convinced the grantees that the gift, so imposing in appearance, was in reality of but small value under their form of government, and with the exception of Lord Carteret* they surrendered, in 1729, their titles to the crown upon receiving 2,500 pounds each, with a small sum for quitrents.

It may be interesting to the general reader to learn that the descendant of Lord Carteret, who had become the Earl of Granville before the revolutionary war, brought suit a short time before the war of 1812, in the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of North Carolina, for the recovery of his possessions. The case, as we learn from the Hon. W. H. BATTLE, formerly one of the Judges of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, was tried before C. J. MARSHALL and Judge POTTER, who was then the District Judge, and resulted in a verdict and judgment against the plaintiff, whereupon he appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. Before this case could be heard in that court the war of 1812 came on, which put a stop to it, and it was never revived.

WILLIAM GASTON, (afterwards Judge GASTON) then a young man, appeared in the suit for the plaintiff, and Messrs. CAMERON (afterwards Judge CAMERON), BAKER (afterwards Judge BAKER), and WOODS appeared for the defendants. The question was whether Lord GRANVILLE's rights, which had been confiscated by the State of North Carolina during the Revolutionary War, had been restored by the treaty of peace between the United States and Great Britain. The case was never reported. Thas passed away the last vestige of the most munificent gift of which history makes mention.

Of all this vast territory no portion can grow such a great variety of products as that included within the present limits of Tennessee. Nor is this to be wondered at. The many varieties of soil and the difference of elevation give to Tennessee a very wide range in its agricultural products. Assuming that an elevation of 333 feet is equivalent, so far as temperature is concerned, to one degree of latitude, it will be seen that the highest domes of the Unakas, in the east, differ from the low lands of the Mississippi by nearly fifteen degrees of latitudethe one having a semi-tropical climate, the other that of Canada. We have seen, also, that the soils do not differ less than the climate. Upon them can be grown the sweet potato of the south, and the Irish potato of the north-both in remunerative quantities, and of excellent quality. Peaches, that attain their luscious sweetness in a sunny climate, find in the State a congenial home, where they are brought to their highest perfection. Apples, upon the elevated lands, bear as profusely and ripen as deliciously as in the great apple-growing region of Ohio. Grapes of many varieties bear in unsurpassed luxuriance upon the sunny slopes and rich hills in every part of the State. Vineyards of all sizes, from one acre to forty acres, are being planted in every division of the State, and the certainty with which they bear and ripen assures for Tennessee, in the near future, a high pre-eminence as a grape-growing State. (The reader is referred to the chapter on grape culture for details.) Plums and apricots, pears, nectarineand cherries flourish and yield in profusion. Even the fig, in sheltered places, may be brought to maturity in the open air. Nor must that much-used but greatly abused fruit, the blackberry, and its congeners, the raspberry and dewberry, be passed by without mention. Everywhere throughout the State the bushes are indigenous. In the woods and in the fields, on poor soils and on rich, covering the mountain tops and flourishing in the alluvial bottoms, the blackberry bush supplies a rich, healthy and delicious fruit, and in quantities sufficient to supply ten times the present population. So numerous and so excellent are the berries that pickers are sent out from Cincinnati, and from other towns north, to gather and ship the fruit. The raspberry and the dewberry grow wild and yield abundantly. The cranberry grows wild in the elevated swampy places of Johnson county, and but for want of facilities for transportation, could be made a source of great profit. These berries, covering in the aggregate an area of 10,000 square acres, are equal in all respectto the best to be found in the north.