embouchure of the Ohio, and about a thousand miles thence to New Orleans, which makes it, upon the whole, a passage of fourteen hundred and thirty-five miles; and these boats have to navigate upon the river a space of eight or nine hundred miles without meeting with any plantations. A part of the crew return to Lexinton by land, which is about eleven hundred miles, in forty or forty-five days. This journey is extremely unpleasant, and those who dread the fatigues of it return by sea. They embark at New Orleans for New York and Philadelphia, whence they return to Pittsburgh, and thence go down the Ohio as far as Kentucky.
An inspector belonging to the port of Louisville inserted in the Kentucky Gazette of the 6th of August {183} 1802, that 85,570 barrels of flour, from the 1st of January to the 30th of June following, went out of that port to Low Louisiana. More than two thirds of this quantity may be considered as coming from the state of Kentucky, and the rest from Ohio and the settlements situated upon the rivers Monongahela and Alleghany. The spring and autumn are principally the seasons in which this exportation is made. It is almost null in summer, an epoch at which almost all the mills are stopped for the want of water. Rye and oats come up also extremely well in Kentucky. The rye is nearly all made use of in the distilling of whiskey, and the oats as food for horses, to which they give it frequently in little bunches from two to three pounds, without being threshed.
The culture of tobacco has been greatly extended within these few years. The temperature of the climate, and the extraordinary fertility of the soil gives, in that respect, to this state, a very great advantage over that of Virginia; in consequence of which tobacco and corn form the principal branch of its commerce. It exports an-
