Part III.] MoKRis Birkbeck, Esq. 317 



buildings, are to be " exceedingli/ convenient and com- 

 ^^ for table," for 1500 dollars, your house and buildings 

 must be on a scale, which, if not perfectly prbiceh/, 

 must savour a good deal of aristocratical distinction. 

 But, this i/ relieves us; for even your house, built of 

 pine timber and boards, and covered with cedar shingles, 

 and finished only as a f/nod plain farm-house ought to 

 be, will, if it be thirty-six feet front, thirty -fonr feet 

 deep, two rooms in front, kitchen, and wash-house be- 

 hind, four rooms above, and a cellar beneath ; yes, this 

 house alone, the bare empty house, with doors and win- 

 dows suitable, will x*08t vou more than six thousand 

 dollars. I state this upon good authority. I have taken 

 the estimate of a building carpenter. " What Car- 

 *' penter !" you will say. Why, a Long Island car- 

 penter, and the house to be built within a mile of 

 Brooklyn, or two miles of New York. And this is 

 giving you all the advantage, for here the |)ine is cheaper 

 than with you ; the shingles cheaper ; the lime and 

 stone and brick as cheap or cheaper ; the glass, iron, 

 lead, brass and tin, all at half or a quarter of (he Prairie 

 price : and, as to labour, if it he not cheaper here than 

 with you, men would do «ell not to go so far in search 

 of high wages! 



600. Let no simple Englishman imagine, that here, 

 at and near New York, in this dear place, we have to 

 pay for the boards and timber brought from a distance ; 

 and that you, the happy people of the land of daisies and 

 cowslips, can cut down your own good and noble oak 

 trees upon the spot, on your own estates, and turn them 

 into houses without any carting. Let no simple Eng- 

 lishman believe such i(lle stories as this. To dissipate 

 all such notions, I have only to tell him, that the Ame- 

 rican farmers on this island, when they have buildings 

 to make or repair, go and purchase the pine timber and 

 boards, at the xery same time that they cut down their 

 own oak trees and cleave up and burn them as fire- 

 wood ! This is the universal practice in all the parts of 

 America that I have ever seen. What is the cause ? 

 Pine woo<l is cheaper, though bought, than the oak is 

 without buying. This fact, which nobody can deny, is 

 a complete proof that you gain no advantage from being 



