PART III.] MORRIS BIRKBECK, ESQ. 549 



within a mile of Brooklyn, or two miles of New 

 York. And this is giving you all the advantage, 

 for here the pine is cheaper than with you ; the 

 shingles cheaper ; the lime and stone and brick 

 as cheap or cheaper ; the glass, iron, lead, brass 

 and tin, all at half or a quarter of the Prairie 

 price: and, as to labour, if it be not cheaper 

 here than with you, men would do well not to 

 go so far in search of high wages! 



1000. Let no simple Englishman imagine, that 

 here, at and near New York, in this dear place, 

 we have to pay for the boards and timber 

 brought from a distance ; and that you, the 

 happy people of the land of daisies and cow 

 slips, can cut down your own good and noble 

 oak trees upon the spot, on your own estates, and 

 turn them into houses without any carting. Let 

 no simple Englishman believe such idle stories 

 as this. To dissipate all such notions, I have 

 only to tell him, that the American farmers on 

 this island, when they have buildings to make 

 or repair, go and purchase the pine timber and 

 boards, at the very same time that they cut 

 down their own oak trees and cleave up and burn 

 them as fire-wood! This is the universal prac 

 tice in all the parts of America that I have ever 

 seen. What is the cause? Pine wood is cheaper, 

 though bought, than the oak is without buying. 

 This fact, which nobody can deny, is a complete 



