112 TRAVELS THROUGH NORTH AMERICA t 
can reach. These houses are mostly built of 
stone, and are about as good as those usually 
met with on an arable farm of fifty acres in 
a well cultivated part of England. The 
farms attached to these houses contain about 
two hundred acres each, and are, with a few 
exceptions only, the property of the persons 
who cultivate them. In the cultivated parts 
of Pennsylvania the farms rarely exceed three 
hundred acres; towards the north, however, 
where the settlements are but few, large tracts 
of land are in the hands of individuals, who 
are speculators and land jobbers. Adjoining 
to the houses there is generally a peach or an 
apple orchard. With the fruit they make 
cyder and brandy; the people have a method 
also of drying the peaches and apples, after 
having sliced them, in the sun, and thus cured 
they last all the year round. They are used 
for pies and puddings, but they have a very 
acrid taste, and scarcely any of the original 
flavour of the fruit. The peaches in their best 
state are but indifferent, being small and dry ; 
I never eat any that were good, excepting such 
as were raised with care in gardens. It is said 
that the climate is so much altered, that they 
will not grow now as they formerly did. 
In April and May nightly frosts are very com¬ 
mon, which were totally unknown formerly, 
and frequently the peaches are entirely blighted. 
