USA > Ohio > A history of the state of Ohio, natural and civil > Part 7
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We have three species of LILY. They first appear in July and Ang ist. The largest one, is red, its stem rises from three to five feet, in height and throws out, from five, to twenty blos-
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soms, in succession one after another, or two or three at a time. The second lily, is of a paler red, and grows three feet high, and throws out, in succession, eight or ten blossoms; whereas the third species of lily, is yellow, and grows only two feet high with three, and sometimes only two flowers. In their various shades of every color, imperceptibly running into each other, dotted with dark spots, these three species of lily, rival the rainbow in beauty, and truly was it said by our Saviour, of this flower, that " SOLOMON, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these." They grow in shady, retired places, and seem to avoid the public gaze; fit emblems of the few of our race, who love goodness, for its own sake, reserving their all, for those who best know their real, intrinsic value and worth.
MEDICINAL PLANTS, AND SUCH AS ARE USED IN THE ARTS.
The bark of the yellow oak, is not only used in tanning leather, but it affords a beautiful yellow color, which is perman- ent. It is used much by clothiers for that purpose. The bark of the butternut is used also by dyers, for coloring every shade of brown, to almost a black. An extract prepared from this bark, makes a physic, and its wood, is used by cabinet mak- ers. The bark from the roots of the box tree is a good tonic medicinc. The bark of the yellow poplar is used in the same way, and is equally useful and more pleasant to the taste. The bark of the æsculus flava, (buckeye) is said to be a valu- ble tonic, and its wood macerated fine and soaked in water, is used in the manufacture of paper. Formerly large quantities of ginseng roots were dug, dried, and sent to the eastern cities for sale, but it is so no longer. The roots are gone before the hand of cultivation. Seneca snake root, the puccoon, or blood root, and many other roots are still used in medicine, So of the wild ginger, wild ipecac, lobelia, pleurisy root, sweet flag, dodder, and many others. The crab apple is in high repute for a preserve or sweet meat. So of the cranberry, large quanti- ties of which are yearly gathered in the swamps, along the
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
summit level, in the northern part of the state, and carried all over it and offered for sale at high prices, which they readily bring. Many other useful, wild plants might be mentioned. such as the senna of two species, one large and tall, growing in rich grounds, the other low and small and which grows in our hilly country. They are both used in medicine. As as- tringents some persons use the bark of the red maple, the bark and unripe fruit of the persimmon (dios piros virginiana) craw- foot, beech bark, and beech drops, the bark of the wild cherry tree, and several other barks and roots. The leaves of hops are often used both externally, applied warm to the body, and internally in a tea to prevent putrefaction. This we know to be a most valuable remedy, in such cases, it having been the means of lengthening our life, ever since the summer of 1823, when appalling disease and death swept off great numbers of our people in all the Western States.
Besides these, we have a vast number of flowers from ear- ly spring to late autumn, appearing in succession, day after day, and month after month, ever new, and always beautiful. Some persons have naturalized many of these wild flowers. Mrs. Mary Douglas, and several other lovers of botany in Chillicothe have introduced these wild flowers into their gar- dens.
PLANTS NATURALIZED AT CINCINNATI.
SCIENTIFIC NAMES.
COMMON NAMES.
Eriginia bulbosa,
Turkey pea.
Anemone thalictroides,
Rue anemone.
Anemone Virginiana,
Thimble weed.
Erytheonium albidum,
Dogstooth violet, white.
Erytheonium Americanum,
Trillium sesile,
Dogstooth violet, yellow. Wake robin, purple.
Trillium pendalum,
Wake robin, white.
Trillium grandiflorum,
Wake robin, white.
Corydalus cucullaria,
Colick weed.
Corydalus glauca,
Colick weed.
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BOTANY.
Delphinium tricolored, Delphinium exaltatum, Viola Cucullaria. Viola pubescens, Viola striata, Viola canadensis,
Eneneion biternata,
Leptandra Virginica, Monarda didyma,
Monarda oblongata,
Bergamotte.
Iris versicolor, Commelina Virginica, Houstonia cerulea,
Houstonia purpurea,
Pulmonaria Virginica, Batschia canescens,
Lysamachia ciliata, Lysamachia quadrifolia, Lysamachia hybrida,
Dodecatheon integrifolium, Sabbatica angularis, Hydrophyllum Virginicum,
Phacelia fimbriata,
Spigelia Marylandica,
Phlox divaricata,
Phlox aristata, Phlox paniculata, Phlox pyramidalis, Phlox maculata, Phlox reptans, Polemonium reptans,
Campanula Americana, Lobelia cardinalis, Claytonia Virginica, Ceaonothus Americana, Gentiana saponaria, Gentiana ochrolenea,
Larkspur, early flowering. Larkspur, tall late flowering. Blue violet.
Yellow violet.
White violet.
Changeable colored.
Wind flower.
Culver's physic.
Bergamotte.
Blue flag.
Day flower. Dwarf pink.
Dwarf pink. Blue bells.
False buglos.
Money wirt.
Money wirt.
Money wirt.
False cowslip. Centaury plant.
Burr flower.
Miami mist. Pink root.
Early sweet william. Early prairie sweet willam.
Tall meadow sweet william.
Tall meadow sweet william. Spotted stem sweet william.
Creeping sweet william. Greek valerian. Bell flower.
Cardinal flower, scarlet. Spring beauty. New Jersey tea.
Blue gentian. Marsh gentian.
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
Gentiana quinqueflora,
Gentiana crinita,
Eryngium aquaticum
Button snake root.
Spider wort.
Pontederia cordata,
Pickerel weed.
Phalangium esculentum,
Wild hyacynth.
Lilium canadensis,
Meadow lily.
Lılium superbum,
Superb lily.
Lilium catesbei,
Catesby's lily.
Convallaria racemosa,
Solomon's seal.
Convallaria grandiflora,
Large flowering.
Melanthium hybridum,
Black flower.
Helonias dubia,
Black flower.
Saururus ceruleum,
Oenothera grandiflora,
Oenothera biennis,
Evening rose.
Guara biennis,
Virginia loose strife.
Cassia Marylandica,
Senna.
Cassia chamachrista,
Senna.
Baptisia cerulea,
Indigo weed, blue.
Silene Virginica,
Catch fly scarlet color.
Silene regia,
Catch fly meadow pink.
Sedum ternatum,
Stone crop.
Pride of the meadow.
Pride of the meadow.
Indian physic.
Gillenia trifoliata, Rosa parviflora,
Indian physic.
Small rose.
Rosa rubifolia,
Small rose.
Many species.
Rose flowering raspberry.
Celandine. Blood root.
Side saddle plant. White pond lily.
Meconopsis diphylla,
Sanguinaria canadensis, Saracenia purpurea, Nymphae odorata,
Marsh gentian. Fringed gentian.
Tradescantia Virginica, Allium canadensis,
Meadow garlic.
Lizard's tail.
Large prim rose.
Spirea lobata,
Spirea aruncus,
Gillenia stipulacea,
Rosa lucida, Rubus odoratus,
BOTANY.
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Naphar advena, Aquilegia canadensis, Clematis Virginica, Clematis viorna, Caltha palustris, Hepatica acutiloba,
Lynandra grandiflora,
Dracocephalum Virginianum, Scutellaria cordifolia,
Euchroma cocinea,
Dragon head. Scullcap. Painted cup.
Painted cup.
Snap dragon.
Snap dragon. Snake head.
Chelone glabra,
Pentstemon levigata,
Beard tongue.
Unicorn plant.
Tooth root.
Crowfoot.
Swamp hibiscus.
Blazing star. Gay feather.
Blue eupatorium.
Various species.
N. England aster many spe. Star wort.
Star wort.
Golden rod.
Yarrow.
Wild sunflower.
Wild sunflower.
Wild sunflower. Sick weed.
Several species. Ragged cap. Ragged cap.
Ragged cap. Campion.
H
Liatris scariosa,
Liatris spicata,
Eupatorium coelestinum,
Eupatorium,
Aster nova anglica, Aster shortii,
Aster, various species of Solidago, various species, Achillea millefolium, Helianthus, twenty species,
Rudbeckia purpureum,
Rudbeckia, various species, Coreopsis tinctoria, · Coreopsis, Silphium perfoliatum, Habenaria psychoides, Habenaria incisa, Cacabatus stellatus,
Yellow water lily. Wild columbine. Virgin's flower. Leather flower. American cowslip. Liver leaf. Liver leaf.
Ruellie strepens, Antirrhinum linaruia, Collinsia verna,
Martynia proboscidea,
Dentaria laciniata,
Geranium maculatum, Hibiscus militaris,
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
Orchis spectabilis, Aplectrium hyemale, Cypripedium spectabile,
Gay orchis.
Putty root. Mocasin flower,
Cypripedium pubescens, Cypripedium Candidum,
Mocasin yellow flower.
Small white.
Asclepias tuberosa,
Swallow wort.
Asclepias quadrifolia,
Swallow wort.
Asclepias verticilata, Apoeinema canabinum,
Swallow wort.
Indian hemp.
Amoonia salixifolia,
Indian hemp.
Asarum canadensis,
Wild ginger.
The foregoing list of native plants of Ohio, was furnished me by R. Buchanan of Cincinnati. The most of them have been cultivated in his own garden. Many of them are found in the gardens of Mr. Joseph Clark, and of Mrs. G. Lea, and all of them in the beautiful grounds of N. Longworth, Esquire. This gentleman's taste for the collection of the elegant and curious plants of our own region, is deserving of all praise. Why should we be indebted to other climes, for sickly exotics, whilst the woods and prairies of our own state, furnish the most beautiful variety of flowering plants, throughout the sea- son? They are all perfectly hardy and are cultivated with but little trouble.
The misletoe grows on the banks of the Ohio, and near them. By procuring its seeds in September, it might be transplanted into the trees of our woods, where it would grow well, any where almost, in this state.
We see all along the bottoms of the Scioto and the Great Miami rivers, all the plants that we do along the bottoms of the Cumberland and Tennessee, excepting the reed cane, growing still, near these latter rivers, where protected from cattle.
Such plants as require a very poor soil are rare in Ohio, be- cause, we have little such soil; so of those that grow in very high latitudes, or in elevated grounds. Such is the arbor vi- tae; it is found near the Yellow springs, in Greene county,
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BOTANY.
though with the hamamelis, or witchhazel, the alder, and Ca- nadian yew. The red cedar is found in several places on the high cliffs, along the larger tributaries of the Scioto near their heads, in Delaware county. The white cedar or cypress is found on some few cliffs near the head of the Scioto. It once grew along the wet, old beds of the Scioto, but that was long since, and while the mastodon frequented our swamps, which were then almost impenetrable thickets.
Most of our timber trees, will soon be gone, and no means are yet resorted to, to restore the forests which we are de- stroving. In many places even now, woodlands are more valuable than cleared fields. It is true, that in the northwest part of the state, we have vast forests yet, but it is equally true, that their majesty is bowing before the wood chopper's axe, and will soon be gone. We do not regret the disappear- ance of the native forests, because by that means, more hu- man beings can be supported in the State, but in the older parts of Ohio, means should even now begin to be used to re- store trees enough for fences, fuel and timber, for the house builder and joiner. In our forests we are by far better off than Illinois state, Wisconsin, or Iowa Territories, where wood is scarce, even now, and coal is equally so, at this early date of their settlement.
Though fifty years have passed by, since this state began to be settled by us, yet we have vast forests unfelled in our hilly region, and in the northwestern corner of the state. Even along the Ohio river, an European, as he passed along the stream, would naturally suppose from what he saw of it, that our interior was occupied by one unbroken forest, tenant- ed only by wild beasts and wild men.
Mankind in all ages, even before the fall of man, and in all communities, have first settled along the rivers, and, their banks are even now, most densely populated. Paris, London, Vienna, and all the great citics of Europe, rear their tall and glittering spires on the margins of rivers. This remark holds good in every region of our globe where a dense population " do congregate." Canals are
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
but artificial rivers, and attract to them a dense population. Good roads come in competition next, after rivers, either natu- ral or artificial, in attraction. We are multiplying them, and thereby, increasing our numbers, our wealth, and our moral power.
But we return to travel in our narrow path, out of which, we have taken two or three steps. From the wild woods, we come back to continue our botanical journey. We next treat of such plants as have been long cultivated. This we do un- der the head of
NATURALIZED PLANTS.
The cultivation of the yellow leafed tobacco has been attended with signal success, in our hilly region. This kind of tobacco, sells higher than any other, in several European countries, such as Holland and Germany. It has sold even in Ohio, sometimes as high as ten dollars a hundred, in the leaf. It is cured in a particular man- ner, and grows only on rather a thin soil, such as exists in our hilly region. It grows on new lands, just cleared of their woods. A crop of wheat does well on the ground where the tobacco had grown in the preceding season. Instances like the following have often been known. With one hundred dol- lars, a farmer has purchased eighty acres of hilly land, in the woods, which he, and his family, cleared off, or deadened what timber he and they did not clear off. He then planted the whole in yellow leaf tobacco, the first year, except such land as he reserved, for corn and vegetables. He erected his hous- es of logs, in which he dried his tobacco, by the aid of fire. In the winter following, he sold tobacco enough to enable him to purchase six hundred and forty acres of the most fertile land, in some other part of the state. In the meantime, he had a crop of wheat coming forward on the same land where the to- bacco had grown. The latter crop, which when arrived at maturity, he sold for money enough to enable him to remove to his large farm, and to go forward with his improvements there. In a few years he became a wealthy and independent farmer.
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BOTANY.
This yellow leaf tobacco, is cultivated in Fairfield, Hocking, Perry, Licking, Guernsey, Belmont, Starke, Muskingum, and many other counties in our hilly region. In the Miami valley the cultivation of the palma christi has been attended with great success, and the manufacture of castor oil from it, cold pressed. It has been found quite profitable to those who made it. The annual value of this oil, thus made, we do not know, but we do know, that it is considerable.
The cultivation of the sweet potatoe, along the Ohio river, and all its tributaries, as high as latitude 40° north, has suc- ceeded extremely well. They are a very profitable crop. Its value sometimes is worth three hundred dollars, on an acre.
In Lawrence county, cotton has always been raised, for family use. We raise the green seed, mostly, such as grows in Kentucky, below latitude 37º north. This plant is more cul- tivated on the Wabash as high as Vincennes, but, in so high a latitude it is not a certain crop, and it has to be topped in Au- gust to check its further growth. The largest field which we ever saw, along the Wabash, contained only twenty acres.
Hemp is cultivated in places, and produces very well, but our people, as well as many others, do not like to handle it. Our Irish people prefer to it, the potatoe, just as our yankees do the pumpkin.
Flax seems to be going out of use, and our people cultivate less of it every year. They prefer cotton to flax, and they prefer too, the cotton cloths of Rhode Island and Massachu- setts to their own manufactured cloths. The spinning wheel, the reel, and the loom are not much used in Ohio, especially the two former. Our people prefer buying their cloths from the east, to making them here, and they are right. The production of the articles of food-meat and bread, for the hungry labor- ers of the east, best suits our present condition.
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
NATURALIZED TREES, ETC.
Besides our native trees, shrubs, plants, flowers, vegetables, and grasses, we have imported nearly all those, which are cul- tivated, in the eastern states. When introduced, from places lying in our parrallels of latitude, they even improve by the change, of soil and longitude.
The apple, pear, cherry, peach, quince, &c. do well here, and produce now varieties, sometimes, which it would be well to give back, to our eastern friends, as a restored loan, and as the interest on the principal which we have borrowed from them. Our western fruits, are delicious, and they are emi- grating, like their owners, to the far west, where we hope their fortunes will be made better, by their removal. The peach, pear and plum tree, are often destroyed, in old grounds, by a white worm existing in vast numbers about its roots. A thorough washing of the tree, with hot water, and by digging away the earth from the roots, early in the spring, and as often as necessary, pouring on the ground and on the very roots of the tree, boiling hot water, will certainly kill the worms and preserve the trees. In Tennessee the same worm, we be- lieve, destroys the apple tree.
The peach, originally brought from Persia, perhaps, flour- ishes most, in a southern climate. It does better in west Ten- nessce, and in Alabama, than in Ohio. The tree grows larger, lasts longer, and the fruit is larger and better, there also; whereas our apple tree, and its fruit do best here. We can exchange with those neighbors, by means of our steamers. We can carry them, our apples, and bring back their dried peaches and their cottons.
The potatoe, (which we believe, was found in latitude 40° south, in South America, which in temperature, is equal to 45° north latitude,) does not always succeed here as well as it does farther north, either in quantity or quality. Our summers are too long for its growth. It is quite disposed to grow awhile, stop, start again and grow, and start again, producing a rotten inside; an unpleasant and unhealthy plant. This depends on
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BOTANY.
the season; some years it does better, but, on the whole, our Irish potatoe is unequal to those raised in a colder region, in Western New York, or Canada.
Our Indian corn is unsurpassed, by all the other corn in the world. We raise the gourd-seed corn, with twenty four, or or even with thirty rows on the cob. One bushel and a half of ears, produce one bushel of shelled corn. It excels all other corn, in sweetness, and produces two quarts more Whis- key to the bushel, than the New York corn. This plant grows only in the richest land, and requires so long a summer, as rarely to come to perfection, above 41° 30' north latitude. This corn was originally cultivated in this region, by the Indi- ans, from whom we derived it. It grows on the most fertile lands, from lake Erie, to the Mexican gulph. It grows, along the Mississippi, from Rock Island, downwards, and indeed, in the whole valley of the Mississippi, below 41º 30' north. It produces, sometimes in favorable seasons, ninety bushels of corn to the acre, in the Miami and Scioto vallies; but fifty bushels are perhaps a common crop. The ground is plowed, but the corn is never hoed. Four boys, and four good horses, can cultivate one hundred acres of this corn, after it is planted. If hoed, as in the east, this grain would be better in quality, and the product would be one third greater, for the botter culture.
WHEAT succeeds well within one half of our territorial limits. Our country produces from twenty to forty bushels to the acre, on all good lands well cultivated. It is now, April 1837, worth one dollar a bushel, it sells even higher. Let us calculate, a farmer's profits, in the Scioto and Miami valleys : if he raises corn, or wheat, it does not cost him, more than ten dollars an acre to cultivate, get out and carry his crop to a market. If a crop of corn, at fifty bushels to the acre, at fifty cents a bushel, is twenty-five dollars; deduct ten dollars, leaves fifteen dollars an acre, clear profit. Suppose, that he raises three hundred acres of corn annually, which amounts to four thousand five hundred dollars. If he raises wheat, say one hundred acres, at forty dollars an acre, deducting ten dollars for expenses, leaves thirty dollars an acre, three thousand dol-
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
lars more, in all seven thousand five hundred dollars a year, besides all his pork, beef &c. say, two thousand five hundred dollars besides supporting his family. So that, a farmer, who owns a thousand acres of land in the Scioto or Miami valleys, can lay up, they generally each lay up, or rather lay out, near- ly or quite ten thousand dollars a year, in buying congress lands, in Illinois, for their children. These are our wealthiest farmers who own large farms.
If any farmers are prospering more than ours, then we know not where to look for them. Farms which produce such a pro- fit, could be purchased for forty dollars, an acre. It is easy to see, that they are now worth, twice the sum for which they might be bought.
GRASSES, NATIVE AND NATURALIZED.
When first settled, Ohio was a great grass country, especi- ally, along our rivers and in our prairies and barrens. Even in the woods, in many parts of our country, grasses grew every where. In prairies, there were grasses, intermingled with flowers, in endless numbers. There was a clover, called " buf- faloe clover," but, our native grasses have disappeared, mostly, and the naturalized, red top, blue grass, herds grass, red clover and white clover, have conquered and expelled the natives from our soil. Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri, and the farthest-west, are still covered with wild grasses; but the tame grasses will one day banish them along with the Indians, over the Rocky mountains. The decree has gone forth, and it is in the course of a speedy execution ;- "That all the west shall be covered by well cultivated farms," all this country was intended for cultivation, and all those rivers of the far west will be navigated by the steamer, and the largest cities in the world, will one day, be in the west, aud exert a vast influence on the destiny of this nation. This decree is registered and recorded.
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BIRDS, RESIDENT AND MIGRATING.
BIRDS, RESIDENT AND MIGRATING.
These are nearly the same as those of Pennsylvania and Maryland, in corresponding parallels of latitude.
OUR CONSTANT RESIDENTS,
Are the turkey; turkey buzzard; hawk, three species ; pheasant; partridge, or quail; blue jay; wood duck, seven species; sparrow ; redbird; wood-pecker, five species. Among these are the wood-cock and yellow-hammer. The eagle, large baldheaded; small eagle and grey eagle, raven and crow. King-fisher; sap-sucker; wren; snow-bird; owls, two species ; prairie hen or grouse, and turtle dove.
The blue-bird is seen in the southern parts of the state, every pleasant, warm day in the winter.
MIGRATING BIRDS.
The wild goose visits us on the Scioto, early in the autumn, and tarries with us until spring, living on the corn in the fields, and feeding on the green, newly sown wheat. Many of them are domesticated, though they have the air of a wild fowl, and sometimes join the wild ones, unless restrained by cropping their wings. This bird lives all winter about Sandusky bay, and from thence southwardly to Pickaway plains. Several species of duck appear among us in the spring, as they are passing northwardly, on their annual journey to the far-north. The wild pigeon comes in the spring, sometimes in March, or even earlier, on his journey north, and after paying us a visit, of about a month, passes on his journey. In September he' returns to see us again, spending six weeks with us, feasting on the pigeon berry, phytolacca decandra, the new acorns, and other nuts, and such food as the country produces for his use.
Formerly the pigeons tarried here all summer, building
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HISTORY OF OHIO.
their nests, and rearing their young; but the country is too well settled for them now; so, like the trapper for beaver, and the hunter, they are off into the distant forests, where their food is abundant, and where there is none to disturb them in their lawful pursuits.
Loons are seen along the Ohio river, but they are seldom killed. The heron and the crane visit us in the spring, and tarry here all summer, and rear their young. The sand- hill crane lives on the Scioto, and tarries there nearly all the year. The robbin-red-breast, black bird, and Baltimore oriole visit us early in the spring, and tarry here through the sum- mer.
Four species of swallow visit us: the barn swallow, the chimney swallow, the martin and the ground swallow. They spend the summer with us, until their young are reared, when they leave us abruptly. The magpie comes in April or May. We call him bob-of-lincoln. He is not much of a musician, though that is not his fault, as he labors hard to sing as well as he can.
We have the yellow bird, resembling the canary bird, ex- cept in his color. It is undoubtedly of the same family. We have several species of humming-birds and the goldfinch.
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