302 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



Some of the most valuable land opposite Philadelphia is 

 that upon the "reclaimed meadows," from which the tide 

 has been dyked out at great expense, and which requires 

 great care and sometimes great expense to keep in repair. 

 Mr. Benjamin Cooper, at Camden, informed me, that one 

 break in his embankment, cost $500 to repair. I hope if 

 there are any who may envy those who live in situations 

 that seem better adapted than their own to make farm- 

 ing profitable, that they will bear in mind that the most 

 favored locations are not always the most profitable, for 

 there are a great many out-goes, that the small farmer 

 of the interior would not only find burdensome, but ruin- 

 ous. For instance, the cost of the fence and dykes on 

 Mr. Cooper's farm, would buy an equal number of acres 

 where I live, of better soil, and fence, plow and sow the 

 whole to wheat, and put up comfortable farm buildings. 

 If we could see and know more of one another, we should 

 learn to be more contented and happy in our humble situ- 

 ations. 



It was lamentable to witness the waste of land and 

 wreck of fortunes around Philadelphia, which the Morus 

 multicaulus mania produced. Patches of the trees are 

 yet to be seen on many farms, but little that looks as 

 though the owners ever intended to convert them into 

 their only proper use, the feeding of silk worms. 



Fifteen miles above Philadelphia, on the banks of the 

 beautiful Delaware, I saw another great waste of wealth, 

 in Mr. Biddle's 1 "great forcing house," [not the bank] 

 where he boasts that he can produce grapes every month 

 in the year. Such vast outlays of money upon such ob- 

 jects, are not so creditable to the owner as many of the 

 small and almost unknown improvements in farming and 

 farming implements that we find in every neighborhood. 

 For instance, at Camden, I saw a new drill barrow, lately 



1 Nicholas Biddle, born January 8, 1786, at Philadelphia; died 

 February 27, 1844. Litterateur, scholar, statesman, financier, and 

 agriculturist. Had a fine estate called "Andalusia" on the Dela- 

 ware. See Dictionary of American Biography, 2:243-45. 



