166 



wishes -for as I hadjpublished a Treatise on 

 Agriculture, the lower class of people seem- 

 ed to have a desire that nothing I did 

 should succeed ; and from my opinion of 

 the land I was much afraid their wishes 

 would be gratified. And having never 

 cultivated such poor land before, nor raised 

 Indian corn, I had little idea what the soil 

 would do. I had thus only one encourage- 

 ment ; which was, that other people's land 

 was as bad as mine, and some a great deal 

 worse. 



We still remained, during all this time, 

 without any one to assist us, except the 

 hiring for the ploughing. We had the corn 

 to plant, and the cows to mind, and every 

 thing to do: and to put us in spirits, now 

 and then an Englishman would come and 

 tell us a most lamentable story of what suf- 

 ferings he had undergone, that he had been 

 cheated out of his money, and how poor 

 the land was, with all sorts of murmurings ; 

 constantly ending by asking my wife and 

 family how they liked America ? to which 



