branches of agriculture; but it very seldom comes up above seven or eight feet high, and a produce of thirty bushels per acre passes for an extraordinary harvest. The nature of the soil, somewhat gravelly, appears more adapted for the culture of wheat, rye, and oats; in consequence of which it is more adhered to than in Cumberland. That of cotton is little noticed, on account of the cold weather, which sets in very early. One may judge, according to this, that Holston is in every point inferior in fertility to Cumberland and Kentucky.
To consume the superfluity of their corn the inhabitants rear a great number of cattle, which they take four or five hundred miles to the seaports belonging to the southern states. They lose very few of these animals by the way, although they have to {248} cross several rivers, and travel through an uninterrupted forest, with this disadvantage, of the cattle being extremely wild.
This part of Tennessea began to be inhabited in 1775, and the population is so much increased, that there is now computed to be about seventy thousand inhabitants, including three or four thousand negro slaves. In 1787 they attempted to form themselves into an independent state, under the name of the Franklin State; but this project was abandoned.[58] It is still very probable, and has already been in question, that East and West Tennessea will ultimately form two distinct states, which will each enlarge itself by a new addition of part of the territory belonging to the Cherokee Indians. The natives, it is true, will not hear the least mention of a cession being made, objecting that their tract of country is barely
