GENERAL PREFACE 



In the course of the THREE PARTS, of which this work will consist, 

 each part making a small volume, every thing which appears to 

 me useful to persons intending to come to this country shall be 

 communicated ; but, more especially that which may be useful 

 to farmers / because, as to such matters, I have ample experience. 

 Indeed, this is the main thing ; for this is really and truly a country 

 of farmers. Here, Governors, Legislators, Presidents, all are 

 farmers. A farmer here is not the poor dependent wretch that a 

 Yeomanry- Cavalry man is, or that a Treason-Jury man is. A 

 farmer here depends on nobody but himself and on his own proper 

 means ; and, if he be not at his ease, and even rich, it must be 

 his own fault. 



4. To make men clearly see what they may do in any situation 

 of life, one of the best modes, if not the ,very best, is to give them, 

 in detail, an account of what one has done oneself in that same 

 situation, and how and when and where one has done it. This, 

 as far as relates to farming and house-keeping in the country, is 

 the mode that I shall pursue. I shall give an account of what I 

 have done ; and, while this will convince any good farmer, or 

 any man of tolerable means, that he may, if he will, do the same, 

 it will give him an idea of the climate, soil, crops, &c., a thousand 

 times more neat and correct, than could be conveyed to his mind 

 by any general description, unaccompanied with actual experi 

 mental accounts. 



5. As the expressing of this intention may, perhaps, suggest to 

 the reader to ask, how it is that much can be known on the subject 

 of Farming by a man, who, for thirty-six out of fifty-two years of 

 his life has been a Soldier or a Political Writer, and who, of course, 

 has spent so large a part of his time in garrisons and in great 

 cities, I will beg leave to satisfy this natural curiosity before-hand. 



6. Early habits and affections seldom quit us while we have 

 vigour of mind left. I was brought up under a father, whose 

 talk was chiefly about his garden and his fields, with regard to 

 which he was famed for his skill and his exemplary neatness. 

 From my very infancy, from the age of six years, when I climbed 

 up the side of a steep sand-rock, and there scooped me out a plot 

 four feet square to make me a garden, and the soil for which I 

 carried up in the bosom of my little blue smock-frock (or hunting- 

 shirt), I have never lost one particle of my passion for these healthy 

 and rational and heart-cheering pursuits, in which every day 

 presents something new, in which the spirits are never suffered 

 to flag, and in which industry, skill, and care are sure to meet 

 with their due reward. I have never, for any eight months 

 together, during my whole life, been without a garden. So sure 

 are we to overcome difficulties where the heart and mind are 

 bent on the thing to be obtained ! 



7. The beautiful plantation of American Trees round my house 

 at Botley, the seeds of which were sent me, at my request, from 

 Pennsylvania, in 1806, and some of which are now nearly forty 



