AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 43 



island — sweet potatoes for instance, grows there to a large size, 

 and obtains a fine flavor, as good as any brought to our markets 

 from the southern states, which persuades me, that the soils of this 

 island and those of portions of the south are similar. It seems to 

 me extraordinary that persons continue to travel to the distant 

 prairies of the far west, and pay more for that land than for our 

 island prairies ! We have this morning examined Mr. Wilson's 

 turnip crop, and his carrot crop, and I think that I have never 

 seen such fine crops. In Scotland I saw large fields of turnips, 

 but never one equal to the one before our eyes. The caiTots are 

 of an extraordinary size, on ground which in April last was 

 nothing but the wild scrub oaks. Tliis land is terra incognita^ 

 hitherto it must have been always overlooked. 



Solon Robinson — For the sake of argument, I for one am 

 willing to concede that this centre of Long Island is utterly 

 unproductive in its natm-al state; that it will produce nothing 

 that can be used for food; that it will bear nothing but scrub 

 oaks and acorns, for bears and deer to feed upon; and hence 

 contend that I will take it for a sand bank, and by cultivation 

 make it more profitable than the prairies of Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, 

 or Minnesota. Sir, it is capable of becoming the best market 

 garden in the State of New- York. I know that can be done. I 

 have raised wheat at the West, and carried it forty miles to market. 

 We now have railroads, and we cannot do without the produce 

 of the West; but that does not excuse us for leaving our mis- 

 named barrens untUled. What is the wheat soil of our Western 

 country? I say that it is an incontrovertible fact, that of all the 

 wheat ever sown in Oliio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa, 

 since the settlement of the Western territory, the general yield, 

 never averaged over ten bushels of wheat per acre. The land is 

 rich; but it grows the largest crop of straw of any land on earth. 

 If the grain on it was proportionally plenty, the crop ivould be 

 one hundred and fifty bushels an acre. They thresh the wheat on 

 the ground, and lose that way ten per cent of it. The straw is 

 a great burthen to handle, and it is cast aside and burned. It is 

 useless to the farmer, who does not want it lor manure, for the 

 whole soil is manure. It would not pay to haul it from my barn 

 across the road to my field. I kept forty to fifty head of cattle, 

 and gave all the manure they made to my neighbors, and lent my 

 team and man to get rid of it. No man can alford to haul his own 

 maniu-e a mile, much less can he afibrd to go to Rochester for 

 leached ashes for his land here. A man can brina; down here 



