240 AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



depending on their labor for three, five, or seven years to gain 

 them a sum sufficient for taking a plantation, which is the 

 common case of the foreign emigrants of all sorts. It is common 

 to see men demand, and have, grants of land, who have no 

 substance to fix themselves further than cash for the fees of 

 taking up the land ; a gun, some powder and shot, a few tools, 

 and a plow. They maintain themselves the first year like the 

 Indians, with their guns and nets; and afterwards by the 

 same means with the assistance of their lands ; the labor of their 

 farms, they perform themselves, even to being their own car- 

 penters and smiths; by this means, people who may be said 

 to have no fortunes are enabled to live, and in a few years to 

 maintain themselves and families comfortably. But such 

 people are not to be supposed to make a profit in cash for many 

 years, nor do they want or think of it." 1 



" The new settlers [in New England] . . . enter at once into 

 the class of freeholders, but from poverty in the beginning of 

 their undertakings fall naturally into a class below [the older 

 landowning farmers] unless they begin with a considerable 

 sum of money that raises them in the consideration of their 

 neighbors. There are many of these who begin with such small 

 possessions, that they are some years before they can gain the 

 least exemption from a diligence and active industry that equals 

 any of the [tenant] farmers of Great Britain. Such men, 

 although they may be in the road of gaining as comfortable a 

 living as any of the old freeholders, yet rather fall into an 

 inferiority to them; not from the manners or constitution of 

 the colony, but from modesty and the natural exertions of a 

 domestic industry." 2 



" The new settlers upon the uncultivated parts of Pennsyl- 

 vania fixed upon the spot where they intend to build the house, 

 and before they begin it, get ready a field for an orchard, plant- 

 ing it immediately with apples chiefly, and some pears, cherries, 

 and peaches. This they secure by an enclosure, then they plant 

 a piece for a garden; and as soon as these works are done 

 they begin their house ; some are built by the countrymen with- 



1 "American Husbandry," Vol. I, p. 122. *Ibid., Vol. I, p. 70. 



