202 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



[No. 4. 



cows included, does not net more than two per 

 cent. 



No person here will rent land. 



About Dudley, land sells at £6 per acre, and 

 upwards. 



Abour Har tford, i: will nol produce mon 

 three and a half per^nt., and i 

 at that rate. A gentleman th 

 since, gave £4 10s. per acr 

 and has si ice ; en offered £9 per acre for the 

 wood only; timber and wood having doubled in 

 price, in every part of New England, within ten 

 years. 



Very good land about the town of Springfield, 

 will let, so as to produce five per cent. About 

 Northampton, land, on the banks of the Connecti- 

 cut, of most excellent qualify, fit for every pur- 

 pose of pasturage or cultivation, would sell for 

 £5 5s. or £6 per acre; in favorable years this 

 land would produce as high as twenty bushels of 

 wheat, per acre, but more commonly produces til- 

 teen or sixteen. About Chesterfield, land will sell 

 according to situation, from £2 5s. to £4 10s. per 

 acre. Here I saw a farm of one hundred and 

 eighty acres, which three years since cost £ 135 

 in a very roclty, -steep, and wet situation, but very 

 abundant in grass. 



Here, therefore, the average price is £4 per 

 acre, and pretty uniformly declines as it is situated 

 more inland, except in the instance of the range 

 along the coast, the price of which may probably 

 be lessened by its exposure to the sea; and the 

 land appears "to pay about three and a half per 

 cent, interest. 



NEW YORK. 



This being the state in which the greatest land 

 epeculations take place, and to which the emi- 

 grants from Europe, who have any property, 

 chiefly turn their attention, which from climate, 

 the cheapness and plenty of land, the conve- 

 nience of transport, the nature of the government, 

 and laws and manners of the people, seems to 

 hold out the most favorable circumstances for set- 

 tlement, it will require to be particularly examined. 

 In the immense range of country in the west part 

 of this state, land may be got on very low terms; 

 much of it is yet bareiy known, and much of it is 

 either yet unhealed, or if located, only by those 

 land jobbers who have purchased from the govern- 

 ment of the state, vast tracts at very low prices, 

 with a view to sell them again as soon as popula- 

 tion should approach their districts. 



The lower part of this state much resembles 

 the country last described, being rocky arid uneven, 

 but in most places admitting of cultivation. About 

 fifty miles from the coast, the country is traversed 

 by the before mentioned range of hills, called, pro- 

 perly enough, the Highlands of New York; they 

 are of considerable but unascertained height, pro- 

 bably about one thousand, or one thousand two 

 hundred feet, and in many parts are entirely co- 

 vered with woods, and apparently never will ad- 

 mit of cultivation, and may extend in breadth 

 about fifty miles; beyond them is a fertile, beauti- 

 ful, irregular country, extending to Albany, and 

 thence back many miles to the country now only 

 beginning to be settled. The soil much resembles 

 that of New England, and has nothing of a cal- 

 careous quality known in it. This is the granary 



of North America; and a great quantity of wheat 

 is now brought to Albany, from at least an hun- 

 dred miles beyond it, grown on the banks and 

 branches of the river Mohawk. 



From the s'a'e of New York, many parts of 

 Lhe con inei are supplied with grain; and from 



e city of New York, and the pons on ih^ riser 

 ; «. dson, more grain and flour are exported, than 

 from any other port in the union, except perhaps 

 lelphia. Here also grain is cheaper on an 

 avei ige than elsewhere, according to the present 

 ! . ■ . by at leasl sixpence per bushel. 



Fields within two miles of New York will let 

 for from £2 14s. to £3 7s. 6d. per acre, to gar- 

 deners, «kc; in some instances 1 am told at still 

 higher prices. An estate within and joining to 

 New York, bought five years since for £1575, 

 was sold in the summer of 1794 for £7312 10s. 

 and was (in September, 1794) again selling in 

 lots for building upon, and the purchaser expected 

 to clear a very large sum. Another estate near 

 New York, confiscated during the war, was pur- 

 chased about seventy years since (or £956 and 

 sold lately for £112,500. 



Phillips's Manor, which was likewise confis- 

 cated, was sold by the state for various prices, 

 from lis. 3d. to £5 12s. 6d. per acre; no average 

 for the whole can be drawn, some of it being in- 

 capable of cultivation. Near Mount Pleasant, 

 £393 15s. was asked for ninety-six acres, of 

 which thirty were wood, with a good new house 

 upon it worth £56 5s. or per acre £3 10s. Near 

 Peckskill. a farm of four hundred and forty acres, 

 one hundred of which were cleared land on a 

 stream in a valley, the rest wood on mountains, 

 not much of which was capable of cultivation, 

 but in the woods sixty head of cattle might be 

 maintained, would let for £ 14 per annum, and 

 (he price asked fork was £393 15s. or per acre 

 17s. lOd. ' 



A farm near Kings Ferry, of two hundred and 

 forty acres highly cultivated, well planted with 

 fruit trees, in their prime, a good house upon it, 

 with every thing in good condition, lately sold for 

 £3375 or per acre £14 2s.; but then a conve- 

 nient situation for trade added greatly to th» 

 price. 



At Fishkill, a farm of one hundred and forty 

 acres cost £223 15s. or per acre £2 6s. 3d. Closa 

 to the town of Poughkepsie, land sold at £28 2s. 

 6d. per acre, in small quantities. 



Near Clermont, an English gentleman pur- 

 chased five hundred acres for £2S12 with a good 

 house upon it, which was reckoned in the pur- 

 chase at £562 10s. every thing in excellent condi- 

 tion, one hundred and fifty acres of it containing 

 very fine timber, and the whole lying on the Hud- 

 son, or per acre £4 14s. This was reckoned a 

 good purchase. 



At Stephen-town, about twenty miles from Al- 

 bany, and as many from water carriage, land sells 

 at from £2 5s. to £2 16s. per acre. A gentle- 

 man in Albany bought a farm near that place, in 

 1789, for £22 10s. which he has since sold for 

 £393 15s. and supposes it now worth double that ' 

 sum. 



Many tracts in all this country to the westward, 

 bought within these few years, have since been 

 sold for ten-fold profit; and in small tracts for much 

 more. 



