and Roads of Pennsylvania, 101 



without intermission, until the fertility of the ground 

 has been exhausted, which renders fresh soil and fur- 

 ther clearing necessary, and this new spot also under- 

 goes the same destructive process. Little attention is 

 given to grass, which is seldom seen, except in bottom 

 meadows, and then in but a small quantity, and to 

 those patches of grass all the scanty manure gathered 

 on the farm is hauled on sleds, when hands and leisure 

 will admit of this operation ; for it is only the compa- 

 rative opulent farmer that possesses either waggon or 

 cart, and distant excursions are performed on pack 

 horses, mounted with simple saddles, constructed for 

 the purpose. Here the pride of affluence may be led 

 to depreciate the capacity and ingenuity of those ap- 

 parently stupid cultivators, but recent serious misfor- 

 tunes heive taught me to feel for the miseries of others, 

 and to participate in the disadvantages under which 

 they labour. I do not observe that those men are 

 deficient in the talents or enterprise requisite for a bet- 

 ter mode of management ; but that they have been 

 driven, either by folly or unmerited misfortunes, to seek 

 refuge in the forests, without sufficient funds to meet 

 the expenditures^ actually necessary to accomplish a 

 better mode of management, and are doomed, by the 

 stern hand of adversity, to deprivations, hardships and 

 sufferings, which could have been readily avoided, had 

 they possessed a capital commensurate with their un- 

 dertaking. A very inconsiderable sum of money 

 would have rendered them entirely easy and indepen- 

 dent, when compared with the funds necessary to form 

 a comfortable and independent establishment, where 

 any considerable population has taken place ; for, in 



