to America, because Europe has it not to spare. We, therefore, have not
learned the use of it. But cover the southern States with it, and every
man will become a consumer of oil, within whose reach it can be brought
in point of price. If the memory of those persons is held in great
respect in South Carolina who introduced there the culture of rice, a
plant which sows life and death with almost equal hand, what
obligations would be due to him who should introduce the olive tree,
and set the example of its culture! Were the owner of slaves to view it
only as the means of bettering their condition, how much would he
better that by planting one of those trees for every slave he
possessed! Having been myself an eye witness to the blessings which
this tree sheds on the poor, I never had my wishes so kindled for the
introduction of any article of new culture into our own country. South
Carolina and Georgia appear to me to be the States, wherein its
success, in favorable positions at least, could not be doubted, and I
flattered myself it would come within the views of the society for
agriculture to begin the experiments which are to prove its
practicability. Carcassonne is the place from which the plants may be
most certainly and cheaply obtained. They can be sent from thence by
water to Bordeaux, where they may be embarked on vessels bound for
Charleston. There is too little intercourse between Charleston and
Marseilles to propose this as the port of exportation. I offer my
services to the society for the obtaining and forwarding any number of
plants which may be desired.

Before I quit the subject of climates, and the plants adapted to them,
I will add, as a matter of curiosity, and of some utility, too, that my
journey through the southern parts of France, and the territory of
Genoa, but still more the crossing of the Alps, enabled me to form a
scale of the tenderer plants, and to arrange them according to their
different powers of resisting cold. In passing the Alps at the Col de
Tende, we cross three very high mountains successively. In ascending,
we lose these plants, one after another, as we rise, and find them
again in the contrary order as we descend on the other side; and this
is repeated three times. Their order, proceeding from the tenderest to
the hardiest, is as follows: caper, orange, palm, aloe, olive,
pomegranate, walnut, fig, almond. But this must be understood of the
plant only; for as to the fruit, the order