Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/133

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northern states of America to France, and those which I brought with me in the spring of 1803, were some of the black oak, which have come up very abundantly in the nursery at Trianon. Mr. Cels has upwards of a hundred young plants of them in his garden.

The species and variety of nut trees natural to the United States are also extremely numerous, and might be the subject of a useful and interesting monography; but that work would never be precisely accurate provided the different qualities of those trees are not studied in the country itself. I have {19} seen some of those nut trees which, by the leaves and blossom, appeared of the same species, when the shells and nuts seemed to class them differently. I have, on the contrary, seen others where the leaves and blossoms were absolutely different, and the fruit perfectly analogous. It is true there are some, where the fruit and blossom are systematically regular at the same time, but very few. This numerous species of nut trees is not confined to the United States; it is remarked in every part of North America from the northern extremity of the United States as far as Mississipi; that is to say, an extent of more than eight hundred leagues from north to south, and five hundred from east to west. I brought over with me some new nuts of six different species, which have come up exceedingly well, and which appear not to have been yet described.

I left New York the 8th of June 1802, to go to Philadelphia; the distance is about a hundred miles. The stages make this journey some in a day, others in a day and a half; the fare is five piastres each person. At the taverns where the stages stop they pay one piaster for dinner, half one for supper or breakfast, and the same for a bed. The space of ground that separates the two cities is com-