THE WISCONSIN FABR4ER.



and Confederate troops had, for the past eight-
een months, left the red trail of war. The ev-
ident ease and slack-hatdedness with which
these results were reached could not but lead the
thoughtful observer to indulge in some pietur-
ingp of the future of this portion of the old
Union that seemed opening to us with all the
freshness of a discovery. Many times, as such
thoughts were aroused in my own mind, by anew
prospect of the beauty and ungathered wealth
that swept before my eyes, I have heard exclam-
ations of delight from the lips of those who de-
clared that Western Virginia was the only coun-
try for which a man could afford to forego the
boundless blue, and broad acres of the West.
Indeed it was no uncommon thing to hear even
the New England soldier announce his inten-
tion, first to clear that fair laud of the foul
breath and footstep of treason, and then mbke
it the New England of his adoption, admitting
it to have every balance of advantage, save the
Yankee and Plymouth Rock.    If pressed to
know how he, being the legitimate heir of the
genius of the one and the prestige of the other,
could afford to abandon the land of his fath-
ers, I found no one so wanting in intelligent
forecast but that he was ready to affirm that
the Yankee wou'd be with him and, wherever
settled, by virtue of the principles he inherited,
if true to them, he laid for the world a new
Plymouth.
  If the natural products of the soil may be
taken as indicating its capabilities there is it
good reason for the generally accepted, but I
think mistaken idea, that it is not to be an ag-
rieultural State.  Through valley, plain, up-
land, and over the crests of those magnificent
ranges of hills that seem to say to the one side,
-we are here for defence," and to the oth-
er. fur defialice," the flora, fruits, grasses
and timbers that abound with such a pro-
digality of luxuritnce, are witness that no
pan sillh d in the science of hius andry would
here necd to bary his preference in other oc-
cupation.
  Thouth very little attention has been paid
to the cuLivation of garden or orchard fruits,
the native products of all small fruits are so



plentiful and so fine that the table of the hum-
blest mountaineer does not remind you of the
fact. As you approach what is now the soutn-
eastern boundary of the new State, and after
you are fairly out of sny valley thorough which
you find your way to the more elevated lands,
almost all traces of anything like small farms
disappear, and instead you will see forests of
deadened timber where the woodman's axe has
never cleared a bough or felled a tree, and
where the sod has never been broken or a seed
sown, grasses as fine as those that are usually
secured by years of expense and waiting.-
Here, with only the care of an occasional salt-
ing, are pastured immense herds of cattle, and
at intervals of miles you will find the shanty-
looking homes of these natives whom you would
not suspect of being called upon to pay taxes
upon thousands of these acres.  Find, did I
say? You will find but few of these native
Virginians or the homes of their former habit-
ations; only the blackened chimneys and
smouldering ruins that mark where they have
been. The chivalry of this region are mostly
engaged in the Quixotic enterprise of hunting
up their rights, far away from the scenes where
they had so long and so peaceably enioyed
them.
  In strange contrast to the desolations of war
spreads out the landscape which it has taken
generous nature out one season to bring up to
such surpassing freshness. Beneath the blue
arch of heaven, and standing in its golden air,
no country I have yet seen can compare in
scenery with Western Wirginia. Leaving the
bluffs of the beautiful Ohio, and progressing
through an extent of most picturesque and va-
ried, but comparatively level land, you will
find yourself so beguiled by the enchantments
of the way that, ere you are aware, you will
have loft days behind you, and with them left
pictures you will not soon forget; a maze of
loveliness and grace in the valleys and on the
rivers below, great swells of sloping sunlight,
thickets of evergreen, sudden brooks dashing
across your way, the flowers and leaves of all
woods that crown the summit of hills that with-



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