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The abruptness and sudden rise of the hills for the most part permit the
vegetable earth to be washed down into the vallies as fast as it is
formed. Some of the more gradual slopes retain a sufficiency of it to
produce a thick coat of tolerably succulent grass; but the soil partakes
too much of the stony quality of the higher parts to be capable of
cultivation.
The dark luxuriant foliage of the valleys points out the advantages which
they had received from the impoverished hills. Their soil is rich and
deep, but their extent is narrow and limited. Some three or four hundred
acres of excellent soil might be found upon the edges of the ponds, and
by the sides of the occasional drains that supply them with the fresh
part of their water.
Both hill and valley produce large timber and brush-wood of various
heights; upon the hills, the brush grows in small clumps; while in the
valleys it not only covers the whole surface, but is also bound together
by creeping vines, of every size between small twine and a seven inch
hawser.


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