10 ROADS. 



of horse, chiefly used in buggies, which I was 

 told is reared in New England, and fetches 

 a price as high as forty or fifty guineas. I 

 was assured the proprietor of a farm of the size 

 I have noticed, lives in a comfortable style, 

 equal to that of a Scotch laird of from L. 500 

 to L. 1000 a-year, and, from the appearance of 

 the dwellings, I had no doubt of it. 



No attention is paid to the roads, which are 

 full of holes sufficient to shake any sort of car 

 riage to pieces. There are no turnpikes nor 

 any fund for maintaining the roads. This, it 

 is obvious, must operate as a great drag in the 

 business of agriculture, and one is surprised to 

 find an enlightened people like that of Massa 

 chusetts, not more alive to the fact that the 

 value of land is incalculably enhanced by good 

 roads of internal communication.* 



* It should not, however, be forgotten, that, fifty 

 years ago, the roads in Scotland were generally not in a 

 much better condition than those in Massachusetts. 

 Within that period the rent of land has greatly increased, 

 being now, in most instances, more than three times the 

 former amount. This is due, in a great measure, to the 

 improvement of the land, consequent on the opening of 



