Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/143

his getting money as fast as he could count it. I saw, however, nothing in the English style but whitethorn quicks, or fences in the English form; which, though old, were so thin and full of gaps that stock are not kept in without an inner fence of posts and rails. The climate is thought to be unpropitious to the growth of these beautiful and useful ornaments. This estate is the only one on which I have seen the experiment tried. Here is a low mean house and a garden in ruins, and a small barn, surrounded by little heaps, (not stacks); 60 acres of wheat, 30 of oats, 20 of rye, no sheep, about 15 cow-kine; wheat averages 10, oats 12 to 16, rye 10 to 12 bushels an acre. A large English barn would hold all the grain in the straw, although it is all mowed or cradled. The straw and hay all goes {129} to the city market for the horses of the President and Foreign Ambassador, who pay well for it, and therefore, as the straw is worth almost as much as the grain, little or no manure is made, and the land is of course starved. Turnips, except a patch, are never grown. Such a system wears out the land, and if introduced into England would soon cause famine, or make us dependent on other lands for bread. I saw here a fine Spring dairy; that is to say, a dairy of stone built over a spring of pure cold water continually flowing through, and round it, so that the milk and cream-vessels may stand in water to prevent the butter from turning to stinking oil, which it soon does when exposed to the common atmospheric air. These spring-dairies, and smoke-houses for drying bacon, are indispensable appendages to an American farm. In the evening I sat and smoked segars till bed-time, with this good, kind-hearted man, in a honeysuckle bower, about which were buzzing several humming birds. "You see," said my host, "several large farms around you, not able to maintain even their negroes from the produce, so