416 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



dug a reservoir and wing ditches to form underdrains 

 into it, and soon had the satisfaction to find the plan suc- 

 ceed which gave him a living fountain that runs summer 

 and winter in the cowyard without fail from the drouth 

 or frost. This is only one of the fruits of an intelligent 

 mind devoted to agricultural improvement, and possessed 

 by a self-made man. But he is a reading man as well as 

 a working one. SoLON Robinson. 



Further Notes on Jefferson County. 



[New York American Agriculturist, 9:372; Dec, 1850] 



[August ?, 1850] 



From Kingston, I took a run across the lake, 40 miles, 

 to Sackett's Harbor, upon that beautiful American boat, 

 the Bay State, making the trip in two and a half hours. 

 The American boats, like almost everything else under- 

 taken by Yankee enterprise, have much more of the go- 

 a-head-quality, than those of the British. 



Sackett's Harbor, is a town of some 1,200 inhabitants, 

 situated in what may be termed the southeast corner of 

 Ontario, once a flourishing military station, the glory of 

 which has departed. Like Kingston, it depended upon 

 the army and navy, instead of the soil, until the glory 

 of the tovra has also departed. The extensive barracks 

 are almost useless, and an enormous shiphouse and its in- 

 closed frigate, which has stood there more than thirty 

 years, is not only useless, but a monument of the foolish 

 waste of human labor. If the half million of dollars it 

 cost, had been spent in the endowment of an agricultural 

 school, how much the sum of human happiness might 

 have been increased, and how much better defence 

 against enemies, would have been the minds of enlight- 

 ened men, than is this wooden monument of folly. This 

 town is the principal port of the wealthy agricultural 

 county of Jefferson, a county rich in her enterprising 

 citizens, and rapidly growing more so through her dairy 

 products and manufactures. It contains two hotels. 



