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countrymen best, I had not discernment enough to dis 

 cover it. The Connecticut people certainly do not carry 

 their hearts in their hands, yet I foolishly mistook for 

 genuine kindness what may only have been traps laid for 

 my simplicity ; and long bills may be entered in the books 

 of my soi-disant friends, which I may yet be called upon to 

 discharge ! It is cruel in Cooper thus to snap asunder the 

 cord that, across broad waters and through the memories 

 of the past, unite the grateful guest to the hospitable 

 host, and for the elastic tie of friendship to substitute the 

 vulgar connection of ordinary money-traffic. 



It is the custom in this State of New York, as it still 

 is to a great extent in Scotland, for the gentlemen to 

 visit all the ladies of their acquaintance on New-Year s 

 day. Only, on the west side of the Atlantic, the visiting is 

 done in the day-time, and without the accompaniment of 

 the Scottish bottle. In New York and Albany, every 

 gentleman is in the streets on this day. In Newhaven, 

 and other places towards the east, the custom is only 

 beginning to become general, and there is a disposition 

 to encourage it. 



Albany, Jan. 4, 1850. I came here by railway 

 through a snowy country, with the intention of spending 

 four wrecks, and of delivering a short course of lectures 

 during the sitting of the State Legislature, which I had 

 been invited to give before I left home. They were 

 delivered in the hall of the Assembly, and were pro 

 fessedly addressed to the members of the Assembly and 

 of the State Agricultural Society, but were, I believe, 

 open to all who were interested in the subject. The 

 course was on &quot; The general relations of science to agri 

 culture,&quot; and was intended to bear on the subject of a bill 

 then before the House for the establishment of an affricul- 



o 



tural college. The lectures were well attended, and have 

 not been uninfluential, I am informed, in giving a further 

 impulse to the progress of scientific agriculture in this 



