FARMS. 
113 
Gardens are very rare in the country parts of 
Pennsylvania, for the farmers think the labour 
which they require does not afford sufficient 
profit; in the neighbourhood of towns,, how¬ 
ever,, they are common, and the culinary ve¬ 
getables raised in them, are equal to any of 
their respective kinds in the world, potatoes 
excepted, which generally have an earthy un¬ 
pleasant taste. 
Though the south-east part of the state 
of Pennsylvania is better cultivated than any 
other part of America, yet the style of farm¬ 
ing is on the whole very slovenly. I venture^ 
indeed, to assert, that the farmers do not raise 
more on their two hundred acres than a skil¬ 
ful farmer in Norfolk, Suffolk, or Essex, or 
in any well cultivated part of England, would 
do on fifty acres of good land there. The far¬ 
mer also, who rents fifty acres of arable land 
in England, lives far more comfortably in 
every respect than the farmer in Pennsylvania, 
or in any other of the middle states, who owns 
two hundred acres of land ; his house will be 
found better furnished, and his table more 
plentifully covered. That the farmers do 
not live better in America, I hardly know 
whether to ascribe to their love of making 
money, or to their real indifference about bet¬ 
ter fare; perhaps it may be owing, in some 
VOL. i. 
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