Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 3).djvu/174

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being susceptible of entering into trade. Nobody has ever yet thought of constructing windmills, although there are on the top of several of the hills places sufficiently cleared, that offer favourable situations.

On the 16th of July we arrived at Wheeling, very much fatigued. We were on foot, and the heat was extreme. Our journey was rendered more difficult from the nature of the country, which is covered with hills very close together, to some of which we were almost half an hour before we could reach the summit. About six miles from Patterson's we found the line of demarkation that separates Pennsylvania from Virginia, and cuts the road at right angles. This line is traced by the rubbish that is piled up on lofty eminences, consisting of all the large trees, in a breadth of forty feet. Twelve miles before our arrival at Wheeling we passed by Liberty Town, a small town consisting of about a hundred houses, built upon a hill.[31] The plantations are numerous in the environs, and the soil, although even, is extremely fertile. The produce of the lands vary: they produce from fifteen to twenty bushels of corn {79} per acre, when they are entirely cleared, and only twelve to fifteen when the clearing away is not complete, that is to say, when there are many stumps remaining; for in clearing they begin by cutting the trees within two feet of the ground, and after that dig up the stumps. It is proper to observe that the inhabitants give only one tillage, use no manure,