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and rational neighbors, some of them well informed and men of reading, 

 all superintending their farms, hospitable and friendly, and speak- 

 ing nothing but English. The manners of every nation are the standard 

 of orthodoxy within itself. But these standards being arbitrary, 

 reasonable people in all allow free toleration for the manners, as 

 for the religion of others. Our culture is of wheat for market, and 

 of maize, oats, peas, and clover, for the support of the farm. We 

 reckon it a good distribution to divide a farm into three fields, 

 putting one into wheat, half a one into maize, the other half into 

 oats or peas, and the third into clover, and to tend the fields suc- 

 cessively in this rotation. Some woodland in addition, is always 

 necessary to furnish fuel, fences, and timber for constructions. Our 

 best farmers (such as Mr. Randolph, my son-in-law) get from ten to 

 twenty bushels of wheat to the acre; our worst (such as myself) from 

 six to eighteen, with little or more manuring. The bushel of wheat 

 is worth in common times about one dollar. The common produce of 

 maize is from ten to twenty bushels, worth half a dollar the bushel, 

 which is of a cubic foot and a quarter, or, more exactly, of two 

 thousand one hundred and seventy-eight cubic inches. From these data 

 you may judge best for yourself of the size of the farm which would 

 suit your family; bearing in mind, that while you can be furnished 

 by the farm itself for consumption, with every article it is adapted 

 to produce, the sale of your wheat at market is to furnish the fund 

 for all other necessary articles. I will add that both soil and 

 climate are admirably adapted to the vine, which is the abundant 

 natural production of our forests, and that you cannot bring a more 

 valuable laborer than one acquainted with both its culture and manipu- 

 lation into wine. 



Your only inquiry now unanswered is, the price of these lands. 

 To answer this with precision, would require details too long for a 

 letter; the fact being, that we have no metallic measure of values 

 at present, while we are overwhelmed with bank paper. The deprecia- 

 tion of this swells nominal prices, without furnishing any stable 

 index of real value. . . . You may judge that, in this state of things, 

 the holders of bank notes will give free prices for lands, and that 

 were I to tell you simply the present prices of lands in this medium, 

 it would give you no idea on which you could calculate. But I will 

 state to you the progressive prices which have been paid for particular 

 parcels of land for some years back, which may enable you to dis- 

 tinguish between the real increase of value regularly produced by our 

 advancement in population, wealth, and skill, and the bloated value 

 arising from the present disordered and dropsical state of our medium. 

 There are two tracts of land adjoining me, and another not far off, 

 all of excellent quality, which happen to have been sold at differ- 

 ent epochs as follows: 



