No. 193.) 187 



I ha%-e not seen or heard even by tradillon, of the mode of clearing 

 land, as praclkcd by the early scUlers of Long Island, and so much 

 time has elapsed since the settlements and clearings ^vere made, that 

 all knowledge of the early modes of clearing is lost, it being more 

 than 200 years since most of the settlements were maile, and no 

 alterations or changes of any importance have taken place in the old 

 land marks, for there is probably very little more land cleared and 

 cultivated now in Suffolk county than there was at the time of the 

 Revolution. If this be so, it is certainly a most extraordinary fact ; 

 it may not be so, yet I have made inquiry of several aged and respect- 

 able men in the country, as to the fact in their respective neighbor- 

 hoods, and the result has been to sustain this opinion, for the remark- 

 able circumstance was there presented of a tract of land of more than 

 300,000 acres, surrounded on all sides, by old settled villages, and 

 many highly cultivated farms, which have been occupied by many 

 families of wealth and intelligence for five or six generations, and 

 having remained entirely unbroken by the hand of cultivation, and as 

 wild as it was when the Indians roamed over it in chase of game, or 

 in pursuit of their foes, and almost within sight of the City Hall of 

 New-York. No part of this great forest is more than 6 or S miles 

 from sloop-landing and navigable waters, where various craft plied 

 between the island and the markets of the city of New- York for eight 

 months in the year j and that such an extent of the island's surface 

 should thus uiive remained so long, when it possessed all the attri- 

 butes, all the ekmcnts of soil; all ilie condilioijs requisite for culti- 

 vation, settlement, and for the habitations of men, that any other paii 

 of the island possesses, will, I doubt not, appear to many others as it 

 did to me, perfectly inexplicable. Yet such was the fact, and so 

 firmly had the belief become fixed in the public mind of tl.e utter 

 worthlessness of these lands for agricultural or horticultural purposes, 

 that their barrenness had become a proverb, and any one who ad- 

 vanced an opinion that there might be a mistake in all this, that it 

 was really soil, earth, ground : real terra finna^ such as would pro- 

 duce, if cultivated, was looked upon as a mad-man or a fool ! 



In conclusion, I desiit- to say, that I feel under great obligation to 

 you and to the members of the Aiuerican Institute, for the kind man- 

 ner in which you received and have encouraged my humble efforts in 



