269 



formed of what England is, than if he had 

 never heard of it. It is understood by all 

 the American gentlemen, that England 

 was formerly a continued wood, as Ame~ 

 rica is and has been, and that the 

 land the sea has left, was covered with 

 rushes and flags, and all the land in 

 England has been improved by the 

 plough and dunghill. When I told them 

 that we had thousands of acres which 

 never had been tilled or dunged, nor did 

 the ingenuity of man know what to do to 

 a great part of it to make it more useful 

 than it is, rny account staggered them much, 

 as the English authors on agriculture have 

 chiefly written some great improvements 

 on certain waste lands in England, which 

 has filled the American's ideas that no 

 English farmer has more than forty acres 

 in his farm, and he ploughs the land him- 

 self, he and his family reaping the produce. 

 They have no more idea of the comforts 

 which the farmer in England enjoys, than 

 as if he was not a man ; and when I 



