THE GENESEE VALLEY. 205 



mixed with fragments of the Niagara and Clinton lime- 

 stones. A very comfortable race of farmers is located 

 in this valley. The richest bottom or intervale land, 

 cut for hay or kept for grazing, is worth 120 dollars, or 

 £26 an acre. The upland, the mixed clay and lime- 

 stone gravel land, of which I have already spoken, when 

 sold in farms of 100 to 150 acres — the usual size on this 

 river — brings from 35 to 70 dollars, according to the 

 value of the buildings that are upon it. The bottoms, 

 when ploughed up and sown to wheat, are liable to rust; 

 but the uplands yield very certain crops of 15 to 20 

 bushels an acre. On crops of 15 bushels the farmers of 

 all this wheat-region can live very well. 



Land, of which a man with a good team w^ill plough 

 IJ to IJ acres a-day, costs six dollars an acre to culti- 

 vate, including seed, and 3^ more to harvest and thrash. 

 Fifteen bushels, at 1 to IJ dollars, (4s. 4d. to 4s. lOd.,) 

 give a return of 15 to 17 dollars, leaving a profit of 

 about six dollars, or 26s. an acre, for landlord and 

 tenant's remuneration, and for interest of capital invested 

 in farming stock. That this calculation is near the 

 truth, is shown by the rate at which the average land, 

 producing 16 to 18 bushels, is occasionally let, where it 

 suits parties to make such an arrangement. In these 

 cases, 7 to 7^ bushels of wheat an acre are paid for the 

 use of the land. In taking a farm at such a rent as this 

 — half the produce — the tenant makes a sacrifice for the 

 purpose of obtaining an outlet for superfluous home 

 labour. Our small farmers of 50 or 100 acres, who 

 cultivate with their own families, do the same when they 

 consent to pay rents which leave them, out of the pro- 

 duce of their farm, at the end of the year, less than the 

 usual wages of the labour expended upon it, for the 

 accommodation and comfort of being their own masters, 

 and of living and working together. 



But all through this wheat-district much land is let 



