The German settlers always contrive to have a
market, either by placing themselves near one, or
bestirring themselves to make one. They have no
idea of sitting down in a wilderness, and growing
wild in it. A great many of them are market-gar
deners near the towns^f

It is scarcely possible to foresee, with distinct
ness, the destination of the southern States, east of
the Alleghanies, when the curse of slavery shall be
removed. Up to that^period, continual deteriora-
ion is unavoidable. Efforts are being made to
compensate Jor the decline of agriculture by piisJi-
ing the interests of commerce. _This is well; for
the "opening of every new raiPro*ad, of every new
pier, is another blow given to slavery. The_agri-
culture of Virginia continues to decline; and her
revenue is chietiy derived from the rearing of slaves
as stock for the southern market. In the north and
west parts of this State, where there is more farming
than planting, it has long been found that slavery is

* I heard some interesting facts about the Germans in Pennsyl
vania from I\lr. Gallatin, who lived among t^m for some time.
A fact regarding this gentleman shows wlr.V the obscurity of
country life in the United States may be. His estate was origi
nally in Virginia. By a new division, it was thru-vn into the back
of Pennsylvania. He ceased to be heard of, for soi.i years, in the
interval of his engaging in public atfairs. During t ,is time, an
advertisement appeared in a newspaper, asking for tidings of
" one Albert Gallatin; and adding that if he were btill living,
he might, on making a certain application, hear of something to
his advantage.



300 AGRICULTURE.

ruinous; and when I passed through, in the sum
mer of 1835, I saw scarcely any but whites, for some
hundreds of miles along the road, except where a
slave trader was carrying down to the south tne
remains that he had bought up. Unless some new
r resource is introduced, Virginia will be almost im-
Vpoverished when the traffic in slaves comes to an
jend ; which, I have a strong persuasion, will be the
(case before very long. The Virginians themselves
are, it seems, aware of their case. I saw a factory at
Richmond, worked by black labour, which was
found, to the surprise of those who tried the expe
riment, to be of very good quality. J

The shores of the south, low and shoaly, are
unfavourable to foreign commerce. The want of a
sufficiency of good harbours will probably impel the
inhabitants of the southern States to renew their
agricultural pursuits, and merely confine themselves
to internal commerce. The depression of agricul- "
ture is only temporary, I believe. It began from
slavery, and is aggravated by the opening of the*
rich virgin soils of the south-west. But the time
will come when improved methods of tillage, with
the advantage of free labour, will renew the pros
perity of Virginia, and North and South Carolina.
No mismanagement short of employing slaves
will account for the deterioration of the agricultural
wealth of these States. When the traveller ob
serves the quality of some of the land now under
cultivation, he wonders how other estates could
have been rendered so unprofitable as they are.
The rich Congaree bottoms, in South Carolina, look
inexhaustible; but some estates, once as fine, now
lie barren and deserted. I went over a plantation,
near Columbia, South Carolina, where there were
four thousand acres within one fence, each acre
worth fifteen hundred dollars. This land has been
cropped yearly with cotton since 1794, and is now



AGRICULTURE. 301

becoming less productive ; but it is still very fine.
The cotton seed is occasionally returned to the soil ;
and this is the only means of renovation used. Four
hundred negroes work this estate. We saw the
field trenched, ready for sowing. The sowing is
done by hand, thick, and afterwards thinned. I saw
the cotton elsewhere, growing like twigs. I saw
also some in pod. There are three or four pick
ings of pods in a season ; af which the first gather
ing is the best. Each estate has its cotton press.
In the gin, the seed is separated from the cotton ;
and the latter is pressed and packed for sale.

Therg seems nothing to prevent the continuance
or renovation of the growth of this product, under
more favourable circumstances. Whether the rice
swamps will have to be given up, or whether they
may be tilled by free black labour, remains to be
seen. The Chinese grow rice ; and so do the Ita
lians, without the advantage of free black labour.
If, in the worst case, the rice swamps should have
to be relinquished, the loss would be more than com
pensated by the improvement which would take
place in the farming districts; land too high for
planting. The western, mountainous parts of these
States would thus become the most valuable.

It was amusing to hear the praises of corn (In
dian corn) in the mio^t of the richest cotton, rice,
and tobacco districtsjf The Indian looks with silent
wonder upon the seuler, who becomes visibly a
capitalist in nine months, on the same spot where
the red man has remained equally poor, all his life.
In February, both are alike bare of all but land,
and a few utensils. By the end of the next No
vember, the white settler has his harvest of corn ;
more valuable to him than gold and silver. It will
procure him many things which they could not. A
man who has corn, may have everything. He can
sow his land with it ; and, for the rest, everything



302 AGRICULTURE.

eats corn, from slave to chick. Yet, in the midst
of so much praise of corn, I found that it cost a
dollar a bushel; that every one was complaining
of the expenses of living ; that, so far from mutton
being despised, as we have been told, it was much
desired, but not to be had ; and that milk was a
great rarity. Two of us, in travelling, asked for a
draught of milk. We had each a very small tum
bler-full, and were charged a quarter-dollar. The
cultivation of land is as exclusively for exportable
products, as in the West Indies, in the worst days
of their slavery ; when food, and even bricks for
building, were imported from England. The total
absence of wise rural economy, under the present
system, opens great hope of future improvement.
The forsaken plantations are not so exhausted of
their resources as it is supposed, from their pro
ducing little cotton, that they must be. The de
serted fields may yet be seen, some day, again
fruitful in cotton, with corn-fields, pasturage, and
stock, (not human,) flourishing in appropriate
spots.

Adversity is the best teacher of economy here, as
elsewhere. In the first flush of prosperity, when a
proprietor sits down on a rich virgin soil, and the
price of cotton is rising, lie bays bacon and corn
for his negroes, and other provisions for his family,
and devotes every rod of his land to cotton-growing.
I knew of one in Alabama,* who, like his neigh
bours, paid for his land and the maintenance of
his slaves with the first crop, and had a large sum
over, wherewith to buy more slaves and more land.
He paid eight thousand dollars for his land, and
all the expenses of the establishment, and had, at
the end of the season, eleven thousand dollars in
the bank. It was thought, by a wise friend of this
gentleman s, that it was a great injury, instead of
benefit to his fortune, that his labourers were not



AGRICULTURE. 803

free. To use this wise man s expression, " it takes
two white men to make a black man work ;" and
he was confident that it was not necessary, on any
pretence whatever, to have a single slave in Alabama,
Where all the other elements of prosperity exist,
as they do in that rich new State, any quality and
amount of labour might be obtained, and the per
manent prosperity of the country might be secured.
If matters go on as they are, Alabama will in time
follow the course of the south-eastern States, and
find her production of cotton declining; and she
will have to learn a wiser husbandry by vicissitude,
But matters will not go on as they are to that
point. -^Cotton-growing is advancing rapidly in
other parts of the world where there is the advan
tage of cheap, free labour ; and the southern States
of America will find themselves unable to withstand
the competition of rivals whom they now despise,
but bv the use of free labour, and of the improved
management which will accompany it. ""I^There is
already a great importation of mules for field work
from the bigher western States. Who knows but
that in time there may be cattle-shows, (like those
of the more prosperous rural districts of the north,)
where there are now slave markets; or at least
agricultural societies, whereby the inhabitants may
be put in the w^ay of obtaining tender " sheep s
meat, 3 while cotton may be grown more plentifully
than even at present ?

I saw at Charleston the first great overt act of
improvement that I am aware of in South Carolina.
One step has been taken upwards; and when I saw
it, I could only wish that the slaves in the neigh
bourhood could see, as clearly as a stranger could,
the good it portended to them. It is nothing more
than that an enterprising gentleman has set up a
rice-mill, and that he avails himself to the utmost
of its capabilities ; but this is made much of in that



304 AGRICULTURE.

land of small improvement; as it ought to be.
The chaff is used to enrich the soil : and the pro
prietor has made lot after lot of bad land very pro
fitable for sale with it, and is thus growing rapidly
rich. The sweet flour, which lies between the
husk and the grain, is used for fattening cattle.
The broken rice is sold cheap ; and the rest finds a
good market. There are nine persons employed in
the mill, some white and some black; and many
more are busy in preparing the lots of land, and in
building on them. Clusters of houses have risen
up around the mill.

Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, present the
extreme case of the fertility of the soil, the prosperity
of proprietors, and the woes of slaves. I found
the Virginians spoke with sorrow and contempt of
the treatment of slaves in North and South Caro
lina : South Carolina and Georgia, of the treatment
of slaves in the richer States to the west : and, in
these last, I found the case too bad to admit of ag
gravation. It was in these last that the most
heart-rending disclosures were made to me by the
ladies, heads of families, of the state of society, and
of their own intolerable sufferings in it. As I went
further north again, I found an improvement.
There was less wealth in the hands of individuals,
a better economy, more intelligent slaves, and more
discussion how to get rid of slavery. Tennessee
is, in some sort, naturally divided on the question.
The eastern part of the State is hilly, and fit for
farming ; for which slave labour does not answer.
The western part is used for cotton-planting ; and
the planters will not yet hear of free labour. . The
magnificent State of J^iitucky-has-jio other draw-
back to its prosperity than slavery ^.and its ir!Ha-~*
bitants are so far convinced of this that they will,
no doubt, soon free themselves from it. They can
not look across the river, and witness the pros-



AGRICULTURE. 305

perity of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, without being
aware that, with their own unequalled natural ad
vantages, they could not be so backward as they
are, from any other cause.

Kentucky is equally adapted for agriculture and
.commerce. ^ She may have ports on the rivers,
along her whole northern and western boundary;
and she has already roads superior to almost any
in the United States. Shg is, rich, in stone, and
many other minerals.-^ in minpral w^fe^ ana in a__
soil of unsurpassed fertility,^* The State is more
thickly settled than is evident to the passing tra
veller ; and the effect will appear when more mar
kets, or roads to existing markets, are opened. In
one small county which I visited, my host and his
brother had farms of fifteen hundred acres each;
and there were two hundred and fifty, other farms
in the county. Sometimes these farms are divided
among the children. More commonly, all the
sons but one go elsewhere to settle. In this case,
the homestead is usually left to the youngest son,
who is supposed likely to be the most attached to
the surviving parent.

The estates of tne two brothers, mentioned
above, comprising three thousand acres, were
bought of the Indians for a rifle. We passed
a morning in surveying the one which is a grazing
farm. There is a good red-brick house for the
family: and the slave-quarter is large. Nothing
can be more beautiful than the aspect of the estate,
from the richness of its vegetation, and the droves
of fine cattle that were to be seen everywhere. I
never saw finer cattle. The owner had just refused
sixty dollars apiece for fourteen of them. Fifteen
acres of the forest are left for shade; and there,
and under single oaks in the cleared pasture, were
herds of horses and mules, and three donkeys ; the
only ones I saw in the United States.



306 AGRICULTURE.

We passed an unshaded meadow, where the grass
had caught fire every day at eleven o clock, the
preceding summer. This demonstrates the neces
sity of shade.

We passed " a spontaneous rye-field." I asked
what " spontaneous" meant here; and found that a
fine crop of rye had been cut the year before ; and
that the nearly equally fine one now before us
had grown up from the dropped seed.

We enjoyed the thought of the abundance of
milk here, after the- dearth we had suffered in the
South. Forty cows are milked for the use of the
family and the negroes, and are under the care of
seven women. ^The proprietor declared to me that 1
he believed his slaves would drive him mad.
Planters, who grow but one product, suffer much
less from th incapacity and perverse will of their
negroes : the care of stock is quite another matter ;
and for any responsible service, slaves are totally
unfit. \

Instead of living being cheaper on country
estates, from the necessaries of life being raised on
them, it appears to be much more expensive.
This is partly owing to the prevailing pride of hav
ing negroes to show. One family, of four persons,
of my acquaintance, in South Carolina, whose style
of living might be called homely, cannot manage
to live for less than three thousand dollars a year.
They have a carnage and eleven negroes. It is
cheaper in Kentucky. In the towns, a family may
live m good style for two thousand five hundred
dollars a year ; and for no great deal more in the
country. A family entered upon a good house,
near a town, with one hundred and twenty acres of
land, a few years ago, at a rent of three hundred
dollars. They bought house and land, and brought
their slaves, and now live, exclusive of rent and
hire of servants, for two thousand dollars a year, in



AGRICULTURE. 307

greater numbers and much higher style than the
South Carolina family.



The prospects of agrin i ^- Tirfl ^ n *h ft Statpg north
f



west ofthft Qfrin arfhrillifliTi. The stranger who
looks upon the fertile prairies of Illinois and In
diana, and the rich alluvions of Ohio, feels the
iniquity of the English corn laws as strongly as in
the alleys of Sheffield and Manchester. The in
human perverseness of taxing food is there evident
in all its enormity. The world ought never to hear
of a want of food, no one of the inhabitants of its
civilised portions ought ever to be without the
means of obtaining his fill, while the mighty west
ern valley smiles in its fertility. If the aristocracy
of England, for whom those laws were made, and
by whom they are sustained, could be transported
to travel, in open wagons, the boundless prairies,
and the shores of the great rivers which would
bring down the produce, they would groan to see
from what their petty, selfish interests had shut out
the thousands of half-starved labourers at home.
If they could not be convinced of the very plain
truth, of how their own fortunes would be benefited
by allowing the supply and demand of food to take
their natural course, they would, for the moment,
wish their rent-rolls at the ^ bottom of the sea,
rather than that they should stand between the
crowd of labourers and the supply of food which
God has offered them. ("The landlords of England N
do not go and see the great western valley ; but,
happily, some of the labourers of England do.
Far off as that valley is, those labourers will make
themselves heard from thence, by those who have
driven them there; and will teach the brethren
whom they have left behind where the blame of
their hunger lies. Every British settler who
ploughs a furrow in the prairie, helps to plough up
the Jmindatiojia of the British Corn Laws.



308 AGRICULTURE.

There is a prospect, not very uncertain or re
mote, of these prairie lands bringing relief to a yev
more suffering class than either English labourers or
landlords; the sugar-growing slaves of the south.
Rumours of the progress of sugar-making from beet
in France have, for some time past, been interesting
many persons in the United States ; especially capi
talists inclined to speculate, and the vigilant friends
of the slave. Information has been obtained, and
some trials made. Individuals have sown ten
acres and upwards each, and manufactured sugar
with a small apparatus. The result has been en
couraging ; and a large manufactory was to be
opened in Philadelphia on the 1st of November
last. Two large joint-stock companies have been
founded, one in New Jersey and the other in Illi
nois. Their proceedings have been quickened by
the frosts of several successive seasons, which have
so cut off the canes in the south, as that it cannot
supply one quarter of the domestic consumption :
whereas it had previously supplied half. Some of
the southern newspapers have recommended the
substitution of beet for canes. However soon this
may be done, (the northern sugar planters, with
their free labour, will surely overpower the south
in the competition. \ This is on the supposition
that beet will answer as well as canes ; a supposi-
tioh which will have" been granted whenever the
south begins to grow beet in preference to canes.
* A heavy blow would be inflicted on slavery by
the success of the beet companies. The condition
of the cane- growing slaves cannot be made worse
than it is. I believe that even in the West Indies
it has never been so dreadful as at present in some
parts of Louisiana. A planter stated to a sugar-
refiner in New York, that it was found the best
economy to work off the stock of negroes once in
seven years.



AGRICULTURE. 309

The interest excited by this subject of beet-
growing is very strong throughout the United
States. Some result must ensue which will be an
instigation to further action. The most important
would be the inducing in the south either the use
of free labour in sugar-growing, or the surrender
of an object so fatal to decent humanity.

The prettiest amateur farm I saw was that of
the late Dr. Hosack, at Hyde Park, on the Hud
son. Dr. Hosack had spared no pains to improve
his stock, and .his methods of farming, as well as
the beauty of his pleasure-grounds. His merits in
the former departments the agricultural societies
in England are much better qualified to appreciate
than I ; and they seem to have valued his exertions ;
to judge by the medals and other honourable testi
monials from them which he showed to me. As
for his pleasure-grounds, little was left for the hand
of art to do. The natural terrace above the
river, green, sweeping, and undulating, is surpass
ingly beautiful. Dr. Hosack s good taste led him
to leave it alone, and to spend his pains on the
gardens and conservatory behind. Of all the
beautiful country-seats on the Hudson, none can,
I think, equal Hyde Park ; though many bear a
more imposing appearance from the river.

Though I twice traversed the western part of the
State of New York, I did not see the celebrated
farm of Mr. Wadsworth ; the finest, by all accounts,
in the United States. The next best thing to see
ing it was hearing Mr. Wadsworth talk about it,
especially of its hospitable capabilities. This only
increased my regret at being unable to visit it.

The most remarkable order of land-owners that
I saw in the United States was that of the Shakers
and the Rappites ; both holding all their property
in common, and both enforcing celibacy. The in
terest which would be felt by the whole of society



310 AGRICULTURE.

in watching the results of a community of property
is utterly destroyed by the presence of the other
distinction ; or rather of the ignorance and super
stition of which it is the sign.

The moral and economical principles of these
societies ought to be most carefully distinguished
by the observer. This being done, I believe it
will be found that whatever they have peculiarly
good among them is owing to the soundness of
their economical principles ; whatever they have
that excites compassion, is owing to .the badness of
their moral arrangements.

I visited two Shaker communities in Massachu
setts. The first was at Hancock, consisting of
three hundred persons, in the neighbourhood of an
other at Lebanon, consisting of seven hundred per
sons. There are fifteen Shaker establishments or
" families" in the United States, and their total
number is between five and six thousand. ( There
fis no question of their entire success, as far as
wealth is concerned. A very moderate amount of
labour has secured to them in perfection all the
comforts of life that they know how to enjoy, and
as much wealth besides as would command the
intellectual luxuries of which they do not dream.
The earth does not show more flourishing fields,
gardens, and orchards, than theirs. The houses are
spacious, and in all respects unexceptionable. The
finish of every external thing testifies to their
wealth, both of material and leisure. } The floor of
their place of worship, (the scene of their pecu
liar exercises,) the roofs of their houses, their stair-
carpets, the feet of their chairs, the springs of their
gates, and their spitting-boxes, for even these
neat people have spitting-boxes show a nicety
which is rare in America. Their table fare is
of the very best quality. We had depended on
a luncheon among them, and were rather alarmed



AGRICULTURE. 311

at the refusal we met, when we pleaded our long
ride and the many hours that we should have to
wait for refreshment, if they would not furnish us
with some. They urged, reasonably enough,
that a steady rule was necessary, subject as the
community was to visits from the company at Le
banon Springs. They did not want to make
money by furnishing refreshments, and did not de
sire the trouble. For once, however, they kindly
gave way; and we were provided with delicious
bread, molasses, butter, cheese and wine; all home
made, of course. If happiness lay in bread and
butter, and such things, these people have attained
the summum bonum. Their store shows what
they can produce for sale. A great variety of
simples, of which they sell large quantities to Lon
don ; linen-drapery, knitted wares, sieves, baskets,
boxes, and confectionary ; palm and feather fans,
pin-cushions, and other such trifles ; all these may
be had in some variety, and of the best quality. If
such external provision, with a great amount of
accumulated wealth besides, is the result of co
operation and community of property among an
ignorant, conceited, inert society like this, what
might not the same principles of association achieve
among a more intelligent set of people, stimulated
by education, and exhilarated by the enjoyment of
all the blessings which Providence has placed
within the reach of man ?

The wealth of the Shakers is not to be attri
buted to their celibacy. They are receiving a
perpetual accession to their numbers from among
the " world s people," and these accessions are
usually of the most unprofitable kind. Widows
with large families of young children, are perpetu
ally joining the community, with the view of ob
taining a plentiful subsistence with very moderate
labour. The increase of their numbers does not



312 AGRICULTURE.

lead to the purchase of more land. They supply
their enlarged wants by the high cultivation of the
land they have long possessed ; and the superfluity
of capital is so great that it is difficult to conceive
what will be done with it by a people so nearly
dead to intellectual enjoyments. f\i there had been
no celibacy among them, they would probably have
been far more wealthy than they are ; the expenses