186 



HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. 



Tart I. 



being on the farm a pretty good orchard ; such a farm, if the land be in a good state, 

 and of an average quality, is worth sixty dollars an acre, or thirteen pounds sterling ; of 

 course, a farm of a hundred acres would cost 1300/. The rich lands on the necks and 

 bays, where there are meadows and surprisingly productive orchards, and where there is 

 water carriage, are worth, in some cases, three times this price. But what I have said 

 will be sufficient to enable the reader to form a pretty correct judgment on the subject. 

 In New Jersey, in Pennsylvania, every where the price differs with the circumstances of 

 water-carriage, quality of land, and distance from market When I say a good farm- 

 house, I mean a house a great deal better than the general run of farm-houses in Eng- 

 land j more neatly furnished on the inside ; more in, a parlour sort of style; though round 

 about the house, things do not look so neat and tight as in England." 



1163. The agriculture of the United Slates may be considered as entirely European, 

 and chiefly British. Not only is the climate better adapted for the British agriculture, 

 but the great majority of the inhabitants are of British origin. To enter into details of 

 the products and processes of North American agriculture would therefore be superfluous 

 in a work principally devoted to British agriculture. All we shall attempt is, to notice 

 some of the leading peculiarities of North American agriculture, as resulting from na- 

 tional, political and civil circumstances. 



1164. The natural circumstances of lands not under culture chiefly affect the com- 

 mencement of fanning operations. In general, the lands purchased by settlers are 

 underwood, which must be felled or burned, and the roots grubbed up ; a laborious 

 operation, which, however, leaves the soil in so rich a state, that it will bear heavy crops 

 of grain, potatoes, and tobacco, with very little culture and no manure, for several years. 

 Sometimes they are under grass, or partially covered with brushwood, in which the 

 operation of clearing is easier. In either case, the occupier has to drain where neces- 

 sary; to enclose with a ring fence, if he wishes to be compact j to lay out and make the farm 



157 



road ; and to build a house and farmery. The latter he constructs of timber, sometimes 

 plastered vrith neatness and taste, as in England (fig. 157.), but generally with logs and 

 mud, as in Poland and Russia (fig. 158.). With timber he generally forms also his 



fences, though thorn and other live hedges are planted in some of 

 the earlier -cultivated districts. 



158 



116.5. T/ie usual practice of settlers with capital may be very well exemplified in 

 the case of Birkbeck. This gentleman having purchased an estate of 1440 acres, 

 in the Illinois, and fixed on that part of it which he intended as his future 

 residence and farm, " the first act was building a cabin, about two hundred 

 yards from the spot where the house was to stand. This cabin is built of round 

 straight logs, about a foot in diameter, lying upon each other, and notched in at 

 the corners, forming a room eighteen feet long, by sixteen ; the intervals between 

 the logs ' chunked,' that is, filled in with slips of wood ; and ' mudded,' that is, daubed with a plaster 

 of mud : a spacious chimney, built also of logs, stands like a bastion at one end : the roof is well covered 

 with four hundred clap boards of cleft oak, very much like the pales used in England for fencing parks. 

 A hole is cut through the side, called, very properly, the ' door (the through),' for which there is a 

 shutter,' made also of cleft oak, and hung on wooden hinges. All this has been executed by contract, 

 and well executed, for twenty dollars. I have since added ten dollars to the cost, for the luxury of a floor 

 and ceiling of sawn boards, and it is now a comfortable habitation." 



1166. An example of a settler who began with capital only sufficient to pay the first instalment of eighty 

 dollars of the price of 160 acres of land is given by the same author, who had the information from the 

 settler himself. Fourteen years ago, he " unloaded his family under a tree," on his present estate ; 

 where he has now two hundred acres of excellent land, cleared and in good cultivation, capable of pro- 

 ducing from eighty to one hundred bushels of Indian corn per acre. The poor emigrant, having collected 

 the eighty dollars, repaired to the land-office, and entered his quarter section, then worked his way, with- 

 out another cent in his pocket, to the solitary spot which was to be his future abode, in a two-horse 

 waggon, containing his family and his little all, consisting of a few blankets, a skillet, his rifle, and his axe. 

 Arrived in the spring, after putting up a little log cabin, he proceeded to clear, with intense labour, a plot 

 of ground for Indian corn, which was to be their next year's support; but for the present, being without 

 means of obtaining a supply of floin-, he depended on his gun tor subsistence. In pursuit of the game, he 



