252 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



of the high state of improvements in New England. And 

 in all the villages and manufacturing towns, and upon a 

 great many farms, there is an air of thrift, neatness, and 

 a sort of gentility of appearance, that gives character to 

 the whole country. Then, again, among those who con- 

 tinue generation after generation, to pole out the old 

 bog-meadow hay, and scratch over the bare surface of 

 the gravel hills, or mow over the old fields, '1;hree clips to 

 a handful," there is an unceasing, never-tiring industry ; 

 and that, upon any soil, will make a show of thrift. If 

 well directed into an improving channel that would con- 

 stantly fertilize the soil, what a result would be pro- 

 duced ! 



I hope my Connecticut friends will not think that I use 

 the lash too freely.^ I think they need it. They are, as a 

 body, behind the age in agricultural improvements. Their 

 children are all taught to read. But can there be found 



^ The answer of A Connecticut Farmer, of Farmington, to this 

 "unwarranted attack" appeared in the Americayi Agriculturist, 

 9:19 (January, 1850). He said in part: "I have delayed this com- 

 munication to collect statistics of this season's crops ... in proof 

 . . . that Mr. Robinson has done us injustice. Ours is an agricul- 

 tural town, and we have had as large a proportion of exhausted 

 land ... as any section of the State. This, where it has been sold 

 at all, has been sold as low as $3 per acre within the last twenty 

 years, and there are portions . . . now . . . worth to cultivate 

 from $40 to $50 per acre; and . . . still improving. Our grass lands 

 . . . produce on the average four tons to the acre, both crops, (we 

 always cut two crops per year,) one field that was actually weighed, 

 produced over five tons to the acre. . . . There were three acres of 

 oats, averaged 86 bushels per acre, one acre of which being limed 

 produced 92 bushels; of corn. . . . One single acre produced 136 

 bushels; one piece of three acres produced 116% bushels per acre. 

 . . . Another piece of six acres, one acre of which was measured, 

 produced 102 bushels, a fair average of the whole. In the same 

 field were three acres of potatoes, which produced something over 

 600 bushels sound tubers 



". . . . Our matched cattle sell at from three to four years of 

 age, from 125 to 150 dollars per yoke; we can show native cows 

 (which if Mr. Robinson were to see, he would probably cite as ex- 

 amples of slovenly breeding,) from whose milk at grass alone, 2 lbs. 

 butter per day are made." 



