10 Letters fiom the United States of North America. [Jan. 



A township of land was put up for sale at a crowded auction, so the 

 story goes, in the City of New York, the title warranted. Charts, 

 maps, plans, &c. &c. were passed about, " beautifully executed in a 

 superior style," and about three-quarters of the whole " township" was 

 marked off into " house lots." No time was allowed for inquiry ; and 

 people, taking it for a hoax, contented themselves with bidding half-a- 

 dollar for a house lot ! one dollar for a house lot ! two dollars, &c. <S:c. 

 by way of a frolic — the title being re-assured between every two bids. 

 Matters proceeded very well in this way, and house lots enough were 

 knocked off, in the course of an hour, to produce nearly four hundred 

 dollars. A speculator observing this, and having assured himself anew 

 about the title, left the auctioneer at work, and hurried off a special agent 

 to the place where the land was reported to lie — intending, if it should 

 prove worth his while, to buy up the whole township, lot by lot, of the 

 frolicksome purchasers, who after all might have been speculating to 

 advantage, he thought, while he was permitting a great prize to slip 

 through his fingers. The territory in dispute lay somewhere about fifty 

 or sixty miles north of the city. The agent rode express, knowing how 

 much would necessarily depend upon his getting back before any body 

 else, if the township were worth having. He arrived«in safety. Mat- 

 ters looked well : he found every part of the representation true ; the 

 land was not only somewhere, but actually on the spot where it had 

 been reported to be : — yet more, the title was perfect in every possible 

 way; no formality had been overlooked by the proprietor, who was 

 himself a man of the law. But, on further inquiry, as if such a capital 

 bargain were too good for such hap-hazard people without some draw- 

 back — the house lots were found to be not exactly where a purchaser 

 would have sought for them, perhaps ; and the rest of the township not 

 exactly where he might have wished, perhaps, for his own particular use ; 

 the former being laid out on the steep side of a rocky mountain, which 

 overhung a sort of greenish lake, and the latter being undir water — a 

 sort of low territory. 



By the way, one word more of these proprietor people before I throw 

 aside my pen — the farmers of North America are chiefly ambitious of 

 being large proprietors. They would sooner double the quantity of 

 their land, whatever might be the quality, than double the quantity of 

 their produce. They go on, hitching acre to acre, generation after 

 generation, without caring much about increasing the fertility of a 

 single square foot which they possess. It is not more corn that a real 

 North American labours for, it is only more earth. Men with a hun- 

 dred, yea, with five hundred acres of soil here, may not have, and in 

 fact seldom do have, a single acre under a good state of cultivation. 



Farewell. When I have leisure, I shall give you a word or two more 

 on this or some other subject of the sort. 



Yours heartily, A. B. C. 



Boston, New Englaid, Oct. 1, 1825. 



