Population, ^c. in Penfyhania. 195 



While the degrees of induftry and knowledge in 

 agriculture, in our country, are proportioned to 

 farms of, from feventy-five to three hundred acres, 

 there will be a langour in population as foon as 

 farmers multiply beyond the number of farms of 

 the above dimenfions. To remove this languor, 

 which is kept up alike by the increafe of the 

 price, and the divilion of farms, a migration 

 of part of the community becomes abfolutely 

 neceflary. And as this part of the community 

 often confifts of the idle and extravagant 

 who eat without working, their removal, by 

 increafing the facility of fubfiftence to the frugal 

 and induftrious who remain behind, naturally 

 increafes the number of people j juft as the 

 cutting off the fuckers of an apple tree increafes 

 ' the fize of the tree, and the quantity of fruit. 

 I have only to add upon this fubjeft, that 

 the migrants from Penfylvania always travel to 

 the fouthward. The foil and climate of the 

 weftern parts of Virginia, North and South 

 Carolina and Georgia afford a more eafy fupport 

 to lazy farmers, than the ftubborn, but durable 

 foil of Penfylvania. — Here our ground requires 

 deep and repeated ploughing to render it fruit- 

 ful, ^here fcratchins the E^round once or twice 

 affords tolerable crops. In Penfylvania the 

 length and coldnefs of the winter make it necef- 

 fary for the farmers to beftow a large fliare of 

 their labour in providing for, and feeding their 

 O 2 cattle J 



