No. 216.] 679 



The 22(1 of July was selected for the time, and the company put 

 on ane xtra train of cars, with a good engine, under gentlemanly con- 

 ductors, and the direction of Mr. Ives, the superintendent of the road, 

 at the service of the Club. 



The information obtained, and the interest awakened by this visit 

 was so great, that it was proposed on the 4th of August to be re- 

 peated 



The excursion was proposed to occupy a day. The members, with 

 invited friends of the good object from New-York, were to meet at 

 the South Ferry, at a quarter to nine, A. M., at Brooklyn, and be 

 augmented by the delegates from that city, and to receive additions 

 at Jamaica and other places, as they advanced. The day proved one 

 of the most lovely of summer's glorious daughters, a goodly compa- 

 ny answered to the call, and two large cars of excellent style were 

 furnished for the excursion. Being suitably supplied with both spade 

 and pen, both agriculturists and editors having furnished a fair quota 

 from their departments, at the appointed hour the steam horse was 

 snorting through the tunnel of Brooklyn, proud to lead on this scien- 

 tific band. 



The highly cultivated region from Brooklyn to Jamaica, and Hemp- 

 stead, presented a great variety of the fruits of the earth in great 

 luxuriance and abundance. The richness of the fine fields of corn 

 was remarked with peculiar gratification. Here and there farms 

 were pointed out, now teeming with heavy growths of grass, corn, 

 oats, &c., that a few years ago, were barren wastes. Many anec- 

 dotes were circulated from personal knowledge, (for there were of the 

 old settlers along, as well as a goodly number of the men in the very 

 vigor of manhood,) of farms here and there, and of neghborhoods 

 now producing great crops, and worth $100 or more an acre, that 

 since the remembrance of the narrator, were almost unproductive^ 

 were bought for five, ten or twenty dollars an acre, and raised by 

 wise and right cultivation, to the first rank of profitable farms. 



That portion of the Island through which the railroad passes, east 

 of Jamaica, is mostly uncultivated, until reaching Riverhead. In the 

 towns of North Hempstead and Hempstead, there are some 17,000 

 acres, know as " Hempstead Plains," and which have been long con- 

 sidered by many, as of little value, not worth cultivating, but there 

 is something more than the qualities of the soil, something more than 

 its capabilities for agriculture, involved in this matter, and has not 



