Picturesque America; or, The land we live in. A delineation by pen and pencil of the mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, water-falls, shores, cañons, valleys, cities, and other picturesque features of (14761448934)

Identifier: picturesqueameri01brya (find matches)
Title: Picturesque America; or, The land we live in. A delineation by pen and pencil of the mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, water-falls, shores, cañons, valleys, cities, and other picturesque features of our country
Year: 1872 (1870s)
Authors: Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878, editor Bunce, Oliver Bell, 1828-1890
Subjects:
Publisher: New York, D. Appleton
Contributing Library: University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Digitizing Sponsor: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill



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nt with the spring-tide, they need no architectural adornments, noquality of beauty, nothing but the virtue of strength. To keep them off the snagsand sawyers, they are furnished with four immense sweeps, which are sometimes, inmoments of danger, worked with a power by the flat-boatmen that shows somewhat ofthe spirit of the mighty men they so imperfectly represent. The flat having reached itsplace of destination, and been safely discharged of its valuable cargo, its mission as anargosy is ended. Now, by transmutation, to meet the further demands of commerce, itis consigned to the tender mercies of the saw and axe, and converted into cord-wood. A favorably-situated series of plantations, with land more than ordinarily high, and therefore comparatively free from overflow, in the course of long years of cultivation becomes the centre of charming landscape scenery, which combines the novelty of many exotics growing side by side with the best-preserved specimens of the original forest. 35
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THE LOWER MISSISSIPPI. - 275 On these old plantations, modified by climate, are developed in the greatest perfectionsome of the choicest tropical plants. Orange-trees may be met with which are three-quarters of a century old, with great, gnarled trunks and strong arms, still bearing inperfection their delicious fruit. The sugar-cane, usually a tender, sensitive plant, has be-come acclimated, and, though still a biennial, repays most liberally for its cultivation.The magnificent banana, with its great, sweeping leaves of emerald green waving in thebreeze with the dignity of a banner, has within a comparatively few years almost over-come its susceptibility to cold, and is now successfully cultivated. In the rear of the garden you find the elm-shaped pecan, of immense height andbeautiful proportions, bearing abundantly an oval-shaped, thin-shelled fruit, possessing allthe sweetness of the hickory-nut and almond combined. As you go farther south, belowthe Louisiana coast, these trees form