attached, upon the site of the Ordinary which had vexed him so
long. The others were all cleared away, and even the little opening
around the Ordinary was turned out to grow up in pines and black-jacks,
all but an acre or two of garden-plot behind the house. The sign
was removed, and the overseer of Colonel Walter Greer, the new
owner, was installed in the house, which thenceforth lost entirely
its character as an inn.

In the old days, before the use of artificial heat in the curing
of tobacco, the heavy, coarse fibre which grew upon rich, loamy
bottom lands or on dark clayey hillsides was chiefly prized by the
grower and purchaser of that staple. The light sandy uplands, thin
and gray, bearing only stunted pines or a light growth of chestnut
and clustering chinquapins, interspersed with sour-wood, while
here and there a dogwood or a white-coated, white-hearted hickory
grew, stubborn and lone, were not at all valued as tobacco lands.
The light silky variety of that staple was entirely unknown, and
even after its discovery was for a longtime unprized, and its habitat
and peculiar characteristics little understood. It is only since
the war of Rebellion that its excellence has been fully appreciated
and its superiority established. The timber on this land was of no
value except as wood and for house-logs. Of the standard timber
tree of the region, the oak, there was barely enough to fence it,
should that ever be thought desirable. Corn, the great staple of
the region next to tobacco, could hardly be "hired" to grow upon
the "droughty" soil of the ridge, and its yield of the smaller
grains, though much better, was not sufficient to tempt the owner
of the rich lands adjacent to undertake its cultivation. This land
itself, he thought, was only good "to hold the world together" or
make a "wet-weather road" between the rich tracts on either hand.