ave any one burn, or clear off in any way. Cannot
some Yankee contrive a method of concentrating some of the
valuable properties of this old field pine, so that they may
be profitably brought into use in more cultivated regions?
Charcoal is now brought from Virginia; but when made from
pine it is not very valuable, and will only bear
transportation from the banks of the navigable rivers whence
it can be shipped, at one movement to New York. Turpentine
does not flow in sufficient quantity from this variety of
the pine to be profitably collected, and for lumber it is of
very small value.

[Illustration: The planter's home.]

"Mr. W.'s house was an old family mansion, which he had
himself remodeled in the Grecian style, and furnished with a
large wooden portico. An oak forest had originally occupied
the ground where it stood; but this having been cleared and
the soil worn out in cultivation by the previous
proprietors, pine woods now surrounded it in every
direction; a square of a few acres only being kept clear
immediately about it. A number of the old oaks still stood
in the rear of the house, and, until Mr. W. commenced his
improvements, there had been some in its front. These,
however, he had cut away, as interfering with the symmetry
of his grounds, and in place of them had ailanthus trees in
parallel rows.

"On three sides of the outer part of the cleared square
there was a row of large and comfortable-looking negro
quarters, stables, tobacco-houses, and other offices, built
of logs. Mr. W. was one of the few large planters, of his
vicinity, who still made the culture of tobacco their
principal business. He said there was a general prejudice
against tobacco, in all the tide water regions of the State,
because it was through the culture of tobacco that the once
fertile soil had been impoverished; but he did not believe
that, at the present value of negroes, their labor could be
applied to the culture of grain with any profit, except
under peculiarly favorable circumstances. Possibly the use
of guano might make wheat a paying crop, but he still
doubted. He had not used it, himself. Tobacco required fresh
land, and was rapidly exhausting, but it returned more
money, for the labor used upon it, than anything else;
eno