n GENERAL PREFACE. 



2. Amongst all the publications, which I 

 have yet seen, on the subject of the United 

 States, as a country to live in, and especially 

 to farm in, I have never yet observed one that 

 conveyed to Englishmen any thing like a cor 

 rect notion of the matter. Some writers of 

 Travels in these States have jolted along in the 

 stages from place to place, have lounged away 

 their time with the idle part of their own 

 countrymen, and, taking every thing different 

 from what they left at home for the effect of 

 ignorance, and every thing not servile to be the 

 effect of insolence, have described the country 

 as unfit for a civilized being to reside in. Others, 

 coming with a resolution to find every thing 

 better than at home, and weakly deeming them 

 selves pledged to find climate, soil, and all 

 blessed by the effects of freedom, have painted 

 the country as a perfect paradise; they have 

 seen nothing but blooming orchards and smil 

 ing faces. 



3. The account, which I shall give, shall be 

 that of actual experience. I will say what I 

 know and what I have seen and what 1 have 

 done. I mean to give an account of a YEAR'S T 



