Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/240

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  • plus produce, he will give it to pigs and cattle, which will

walk to market. He always, and every where, had a market at the door, and he always expects it, because of the number of idle people who do not, or cannot raise produce. He says, that as Mr. Ingle was no judge of the quality of land here, he has chosen that which is not lasting, namely black oak land. It is kind and useful, but after three crops, he will see and believe, though he does not now, that his old American neighbours know and have got the best land. He thinks that a slave state, with negroes, well chosen, is the best for capitalists, who need not, or cannot work themselves. He still thinks that hiring when you can, in a free state in the west, may sometimes pay, but as nearly all feel themselves masters instead of labourers, it is impossible to be regularly supplied {246} with hands. Kindness, equality, persuasion, and good pay will sometimes effect it. He says, that a man is seldom more than paid for improvements.

Supped with a Mr. Maidlow,[81] a most intelligent and respectable Hampshire farmer, a neighbour of Cobbett's, who left England and his large farm, at about 16s. an acre, because, from a fair trial, he found it impossible to farm without losing money, although his wheat-land averaged six quarters an acre, and his landlord, —— Jervis, Esq., had lowered the rent 20 per cent. He brought a considerable capital and English habits and feelings, the best in the world, into the neatest and cleanest log-cabin that I have seen, and is building already a second, larger and better, for the preservation of all that is comfortable and respectable in the English character,