274 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



of agricultural improvement around the capital of our 

 country, I cannot speak encouragingly. In fact, to me, 

 the quality of the soil presents a very forbidding aspect. 

 By far the greatest portion of it looks to me as though 

 it would cost more than it would come to, to put it into 

 a good state of cultivation. The "skinning system" seems 

 to have been thoroughly practiced here, where originally 

 there was but little to skin, until the fertility has been so 

 completely skinned from the soil, that I should think the 

 present cultivators would find some difficulty in raising 

 enough to keep their own skins full. 



But there are some noble and spirited friends of agri- 

 cultural improvement in and around Washington, among 

 whom Mr. Ellsworth stands foremost. While I was there, 

 he was engaged in an experiment of making a cheap 

 machine for making a ditch and bank fence, of which 

 the public will hereafter hear something. He is constant 

 and unceasing in his efforts to promote the agricultural 

 interest of the United States, and has partially suc- 

 ceeded in converting the Patent office into an agricultural 

 bureau. He has purchased a few acres of the "vacant 

 lots," which abound upon the original great plat of this 

 to be great city, for the purpose of trying different kinds 

 of seeds, and making experiments and illustrations in 

 farming, for the benefit of the community. His plan of 

 distributing seeds throughout the country has been of 

 great advantage to the country, at small cost to the gov- 

 ernment. Every friend of the measure should feel it a 

 duty to forward to him for distribution, a small quantity 

 of every rare seed that he may possess. And I hope that 

 every friend who attends the first meeting of the Na- 

 tional Agricultural Society on the 15th Dec. next, will 

 at least take his pockets full of such seeds as he may 

 happen to possess, for the purpose of exchange. 



Washington city, like a great many other great things 

 in this great country, was begun on too great a scale. I 

 judge from appearances, that the citizens are not strong 



