GERMAN FLATS AND SETTLEMENTS. 145 



top, SO as to break the stem and arrest the flow of the 

 sap. This upper part is then left a few days to dry, 

 when it is cut off with a knife, leaving a high stubble 

 of one or two feet, which is afterwards ploughed in. 

 The seed is beat out of the tops, which are trimmed and 

 sorted, and are then ready for sale or for manufacture 

 into brooms on the spot. Brooms of this material are 

 of almost universal use in North America, and in favour- 

 able localities it generally proves a profitable crop. 



Above Little Falls, where thriving w^oollen mills are 

 moved by the w^ater power, Indian corn alone, ripe, cut, 

 and standing in sheaves, covered the cultivated fields. 

 Such fields, along with extensive meadows, on which 

 large droves of milk-cows cropped the aftermath, filled 

 the entire bottom of the valley. About Herkimer, which 

 is eighty miles from Albany, the flat lands expand into 

 a beautiful broad valley, called the German Flats, on 

 which the quantity of Indian corn raised appeared quite 

 immense. 



The name German Flats indicates the native home of 

 the settlers who first colonised this part of the Mohawk 

 Valley. Indeed, places with German names abound in 

 this quarter. Along the river lie the townships of Min- 

 den, Oppenheim, Manheim, Danube, and Frankfort; 

 and the mixed English and German sign-boards in the 

 villages, show that there are numbers of the inhabitants 

 to whom German is still the more familiar tongue. 



The city of Utica, fifteen miles farther, stands on the 

 right bank of the river, in the midst of a broad expan- 

 sion of the valley, resembling the bed of a great lake. 

 It is a clean thriving place, of about fifteen thousand 

 inhabitants, has a striking main street — is the seat of 

 flourishing manufactories — is distinguished especially for 

 its woollen mills, but is adding rapidly also to the number 

 of its cotton factories. It is admirably situated for the 



VOL. I. • K 



