440 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



This is a reading age. The young farmers of West- 

 chester are beginning to take cheap facilities of obtain- 

 ing practical and scientific agricultural information. 

 Many of them will obtain and read this journal the pres- 

 ent year. I hope we may have many a pleasant evening 

 together. Solon Robinson. 



New York, November, 1860. 



Carts, Drays, and Other Things. 



[New York American Agriculturist, 9:370; Dec, 1850] 



[November ?, 1850] 



In almost every town, there is some peculiarity about 

 the vehicles to distinguish them from any other place. 

 In New Orleans and New York, the drays are similar — 

 with stout shafts, broadboarded beds and projecting tail 

 pieces and low strong wheels — a very convenient vehicle 

 for the purpose it is used. In contrast with these, are 

 the drays of IMontreal and Quebec. Fancy a high pair 

 of wheels, not stout, upon which is mounted a long nar- 

 row ladder with a very diminutive specimen of a horse 

 attached to one end, no matter which, and the whole con- 

 cern the most inconvenient, uncouth, unappropriate af- 

 fair for the purpose that could be designed, and you have 

 a Canadian dray. 



In Louisiana, you may see many carts drawn by three 

 mules a-breast, having wheels six or seven feet high, 

 with enormous great boxes containing a travelling dry- 

 goods store. Similar ones are used upon plantations. 

 To load any heavy article into one, requires a good deal 

 of strength and engineering. They are as unfit for a 

 farm cart as a Canadian dray. 



Contrast with these a Canada cart ; such as I first saw 

 at Coburg, upon lake Ontario. The wheels are about 

 four feet or four and a half high, with a crooked iron 

 axle, so that the bed is hung within six inches of the 

 ground. The shafts are attached to the cross bar of the 

 forward end. The hind end is moveable. The conven- 



