two guineas an acre, all fine land, which averages from 20 to 25 bushels of wheat per acre: one dollar a bushel is a fair price if mechanics were reasonable in their charges. Some of them soon get fortunes:—"On my farm of 300 acres," says he, "I give to my steward one sixth of the produce raised, which to him is from 500 to 600 dollars annually, besides land for hemp and flax, a cow, and all the poultry he likes to raise. I think farming a slow way of getting money, except where the family are all workers, and live economically on bacon, potatoes, and sour skim milk, as do many farmers of Dutch extraction. But the children so raised, when they get the property into their own hands, generally spend it faster than {149} it was gotten. I feel myself but little richer by the boasted increased value of land while I keep it. It maintained me at first, it only does so now: housekeeping expenses for a genteel family have increased in proportion, and, indeed, more than either land or produce. I however prefer farming, because it is a certain independence. I think highly of plaster of Paris and management, and plough my land more than once for wheat."
The colonel has relatives in Illinois doing well, and well pleased, and who took good capitals, and workmen, and mechanics, and implements for building first-rate houses. He thinks the west the best country; the land there increases so fast in value. "My store-bill," says he, "is here 6,000 dollars a year."
I bade farewell to the colonel, who desired that I would visit his western friends, and report of them, and re-visit him on my return.
10th.—Supped and slept at New Town[33] with Mr.
