DRAINAGE. 153 



There is one circumstance which renders 

 cultivation in America an agreeable task, when 

 we look to the obstacles to it which often oc- 

 cur in Britain, and that is the absence of land- 

 springs. I did not observe in the States a 

 single field in which a drain had been formed 

 or was required, nor, with exceptions not worth 

 mentioning, any land in the smallest degree 

 infested with boulder stones. There is thus 

 in the soil of an American farm no super- 

 abundant moisture to be got rid of, and after 

 the land has been cleared of timber, nothing 

 to impede the plough. 



It may not be deemed foreign to my pur- 

 pose, in recommending a preference for the 

 States to my emigrating countrymen, to de- 

 vote a few words to the condition of Ameri- 

 can society. 



I had long heard much of the impertinent 

 curiosity, rudeness, vulgarity, and selfishness 

 of the people of the States, but instead of any 



the House of Commons that in five years, from 1834 to 

 1839, the average price of wheat was at New York L. 2, 

 9s. JOd. per quarter, and in England L. 2, 11s. 



