590 



kept as one of the necessaries of life, the 

 same as a garden in England. 



Down on the Eastern shore, there is a 

 very large tract of land, already mentioned, 

 from which the inhabitants obtain all or 

 the chief part of their coffee, tea, sugar, 

 salt, &c, with their own and their negroes* 

 clothing. 



It was a general report that the people 

 of this tract experienced a failure in the 

 wheat-crops, owing, as is said, to the Hes- 

 sian fly ; but rather, in my opinion, to the 

 poverty of the soil : and how can it be 

 otherwise, since the greater part of the land 

 has borne wheat and other corn ever since 

 it was cleared, and was never dunged? 

 And it is not the fault of the farmer in lay- 

 ing the dung upon the land, but the light 

 produce which makes a dunghill sufficient 

 only to cover a very small space every year ; 

 fco that the land is continually in a declining 

 state. From this cause, those farmers were 

 regularly two years behind-hand in their 

 payments to the store-keepers : and it seemS 



