at work on the Philadelphia road, who will not suffer any person to proceed until plundered.
3rd.—Lord Selkirk, while here, always deemed it expedient and politic to travel in the disguise of a poor man, to prevent his becoming a daily prey to tavern imposition and wild outlawed thieves. This mode is wise in any man moving in and through a wild country. His Lordship's settlement, so very near his heart, is said to be in ruins, and a constant prey to the Indians, excited against it by the north-west company, although he honourably paid the barbarians for their land.[30] Murder, and acts amounting to civil war, have been committed on both sides and by all parties.
Sunday, 5th.—I left this city on an agricultural tour into the states of Maryland and Virginia. I {139} was accompanied by Mr. Dunn, the friendly serjeant-at-arms to Congress, who felt kindly anxious that I should see and know his list of friends. We travelled on horseback, resting the first night at Squire Simpson's. We visited Mr. Webb, who 26 years since came here a London mechanic, and bought 500 acres of poor land, which he has but little improved, getting only from six to ten bushels of wheat per acre. He thinks plaster of Paris, without manure, of no real service on poor, worn-out land. Plaster is found to operate on land by attracting dew. More dew is always seen in plants and grain growing on plastered fields. The dew palpably shews where the plaster has been used, and the land is cooled by it. Mr. Webb, the father of a family, feels well satisfied that America is the country for a poor and industrious man.
Farming.—A gentleman of considerable property plas-*
