A Year's Residence in the United States of America

Part I

Containing,— I. A Description of the Face of the Country, the Climate, the Seasons, and the Soil, the facts being taken from the Author's daily notes during a whole year II. An Account of the Author's agricultural experiments in the Cultivation of the Ruta Baga, or Russia, or Swedish Turnip, -which afford proof of what the climate and soil are. LONDON.- PRINTED FOR SHERWOOD, NEELY, AND JONES, PATEBNOSTER-ROW. 1818. [€ntmtj at Stationers' J. M"Creei**f, Printer, Mack-HorifrCout, London. CONTENTS OF

PART I.

General Preface to the Three Parts i Chap. i. Description of the Situation and Extent of Long Island, and also of the Face of the Country, and an Account of the Climate, Seasons, and Soil 9 Chap. ii. Ruta Baga. Culture, Mode of preserving, and Uses of the Ruta Baga, some times called the Russia, and sometimes the Swedish, Turnip GENERAL

Preface

TO THE THREE PARTS. 1. Throughout the whole of this work it is my intention to number the paragraphs, from one to the end of each Part. This renders the business of reference more easy than it can be rendered by any mode in my power to find out; and, easy reference saves a great deal of paper and print, and also, which ought to be more valuable, a great deal of time, of which an in dustrious man has never any to spare. To de sire the reader to look at paragraph such a number of such a part, will frequently, as he will find, save him both money and labour; for, without this power of reference, the paragraph, or the substance of it, would demand being repeated in the place, where the reference would be pointed out to him.

PART I.

u GENERAL

PREFACE.

. 2. Amongst all the publications, which I have yet seen, on the subject of the United States, as a country to live in, and especially to farm in, I have never yet observed one that conve3 r ed to Englishmen any thing like a correct notion of the matter. Some writers of Travels in these States have jolted along in the stages from place to place, have lounged away their time with the idle part of their own countrymen, and, taking every thing different from what they left at home for the effect of ignorance, and every thing not servile to be the effect of insolence, have described the country as unfit for a civilized being to reside in. Others, coming with a resolution to find every thing better than at home, and weakly deeming them selves pledged to find climate, soil, and all blessed by the effects of freedom, have painted the country as a perfect paradise; they have seen nothing but blooming orchards and smil ing faces. 3.

The account, which I shall give, shall be that of actual experience. I will say what I knoiv and what I have seen and what 1 have done. I mean to give an account of a Year* GENERAL

PREFACE.

. Residence, ten months in this Island and two months in Pennsylvania, in which I went back to the first ridge of mountains. In the course of the three parts, of which this work will consist, each part making a small volume, every thing which appears to me useful to persons intending to come to this country shall be com municated; but, more especially that which may be useful to farmers; because, as to such matters, I have ample experience. Indeed, this is the main thing; for this is really and truly a country of farmers. Here, Governors, Legis lators, Presidents, all are farmers. A farmer here is not the poor dependent wretch that a Yeoman-Cavalry man is, or that a Treason- Jury man is. A farmer here depends on nobody but himself and on his own proper means ; and, if he be not at his ease, and even rich, it must be his own fault. 4.

To make men clearly see what they may do in any situation of life, one of the best modes, if not the very best, is, to give them, in detail, an account of what one has done oneself in that same situation, and how and when and where one has done it. This, as far as relates to 3 GENERAL

PREFACE.

. farming and house-keeping in the country, is the mode that I shall pursue. I shaU give an account of what I have done ; ancs, while this will convince any good farmer, or any man of tolerable means, that he may, if he will, do the same, it will give him an idea of the climate, soil, crops, &c. a thousand times more neat and correct, than could be conveyed to his mind by any general description, unaccompanied with actual experimental accounts. 5. As the expressing of this intention may, perhaps, suggest to the reader to ask, how it is that much can be known on the subject of Farming by a man, who, for thirty-six out of fifiy-two years of his life has been a Soldier or a Political Writer, and who, of course, has spent so large a part of his time in garrisons and in great cities, I will beg leave to satisfy this natural curiosity before-hand. 6.

Early habits and affections seldom quit us while we have vigour of mind left. I was brought up under a father, whose talk was chiefly about his garden and his fields, with regard to which he was famed for his skill and his exemplary neatness. From my very infancy,. GENERAL

PREFACE.

. V from the age of six years, when 1 climbed up the side of a steep sandrock, and there scooped me out a plot four feet square to make me a garden, and the soil for which I carried up in the bosom of my little blue smock-frock (or hunting-shirt), I have never lost one particle of my passion for these healthy and rational and heart-cheering pursuits, in which every day pre sents something new, in which the spirits are never suffered to flag, and in which, industry, skill, and care are sure to meet with their due reward. I have never, for any eight months together, during my whole life, been without a garden. So sure are we to overcome difficul ties where the heart and mind are bent on the thing to be obtained ! 7. The beautiful plantation of American Trees round my house at Botley, the seeds of which were sent me, at my request, from Penn sylvania, in 1806, and some of which are now nearly forty feet high, all sown and planted by myself, will, I hope, long remain as a specimen of my perseverance in this way. During my whole life I have been a gardener. There is no part of the business, which, first or last, I have GENERAL

PREFACE.

. VI not performed with my own hands. And, as to g I owe very little to books, except that of Tull ; for I never read a good one in my life, except a French book, called the Manuel du Jardinier. 8. As to farming, I was bred at the plough tail, aud in the Hop-Gardens of Farnham in Surrey, my native place, and which spot, as it so happened, is the neatest in England, and^ I believe, in the whole world. All there is a garden. The neat culture of the hop extends its influence to the fields round about. Hedges cut with shears and every other mark of skill and care strike the eye at Farnham, and be come fainter and fainter as you go from it in every direction. I have had, besides, great ex perience in farming for several years of late; for, one man will gain more kuowledge in a year than another will in a life.

It is the taste for the thing that really gives the knowledge. 9. To this taste, produced in me by a desire to imitate a father whom 1 ardently loved, and to whose very word I listened with admiration, I owe no small part of my happiness, for a greater proportion of which very few men ever GENERAL

PREFACE.

. VII had to be grateful to God. These pursuits, in nocent in themselves, instructive in their very nature, and always tending to preserve health, have a constant, a never-failing source, of recre ation to me; and, which I count amongst the greatest of their benefits and blessings, they have always, in my house, supplied the place of the card-table, the dice-box, the chess-board and the lounging bottle. Time never hangs on the hands of him, who delights in these pursuits, and who has books on the subject to read. Even when shut up within the walls of a prison, for having complained that Englishmen had been flogged in the heart of England under a guard of German Bayonets and Sabres ; even then, I found in these pursuits a source of pleasure inexhaustible. To that of the whole of our English books on these matters, I then ad ded the reading of all the valuable French books ; and I then, for the first time, read that Book of all Books on husbandry, the work of Jethro Tull, to the principles of whom 1 owe more than to all my other reading and all my experience, and of which principles 1 hope to find time to give a sketch, at least, in some future Part of this work. GENERAL

PREFACE.

. 10. I wish it to be observed, that, in any thing which I may say, during the course of this work, though truth will compel me to state facts, which will, doubtless, tend to in duce farmers to leave England for America, I advise no one so to do. I shall set down in writing nothing but what is strictly true. I my self am bound to England for life. My no tions of allegiance to country ; my great and anxious desire to assist in the restoration of her freedom and happiness ; my opinion that I possess, in some small degree, at any rate, the power to render such assistance; and, above all the other considerations, my unchangeable attachment to the people of England, and es pecially those who have so bravely struggled for our rights: these bind me to England ; but, I shall leave others to judge and to act for them selves.

Wm. cobbett. North Hempsted, Long Island, 2\st April, 1818, A YEAR'S RESIDENCE, fc. CHAP. I. Description of the Situation and Extent of Long Island, and also of the Face of the Country, and an account of the Climate, Seasons, and Soil. Long Island is situated in what may be called the middle climate of that part of the United States, which, coastwise, extends from Boston to the Bay of Chesapeake. Farther to the South, the cultivation is chiefly by negroes, and farther to the North than Boston is too cold and arid to be worth much notice, though, doubtless, there are to be found in those parts good spots of land and good farmers. Boston is about 200 miles to the North of me, and the Bay of Chesapeake about the same distance to the South. In speaking of the climate and seasons, therefore, an allowance must be made, of hotter or colder, earlier or later, in a degree proportioned to those distances ; because I can speak positively only of the very spot, at which I have resided.

But this is a matter of very little consequence ; seeing that every part has its seasons first or last. All the difference is, that, in some parts of the immense space of which I have spoken, there is a little more summer than in other parts. The same crops will, I believe, grow in them all. 12. The situation of Long Island is this : It is about 130 miles long, and, on an average, about 8 miles broad. It extends in length from the Bay of the City of New York to within a short distance of the State of Rhode Island. One side of it is against the sea, the other side looks across an arm of the sea into a part of the State of New York (to which Long Island belongs) and into a part of the State of Connecticut. At the end nearest the city of New York it is separated from the scite of that city, by a channel so narrow as to be crossed by a Steam-Boat in a few minutes ; and this boat, with another near it, impelled by a team of horses, which work in the boat, form the mode of conveyance from the Island to the city, for horses, waggons, and every thing else. 13.

The Island is divided into three counties, King's county, Queen's county, and the county of Suffolk. King's county takes off the end next New York city, for about 13 miles up the Island ; Queen's county cuts off another slice about thirty miles further up ; and all the rest is the county of Suffolk. These counties are chap, l] climate, SEASONS, &c. 11 divided into townships. And, the municipal government of Justices of the Peace, Sheriffs, Constables, &c. is in nearly the English way, with such differences as I shall notice in the second part of this work. 14. There is a ridge of hills, which runs from one end of the Island to the other. The two sides are flats, or, rather, very easy and imper ceptible slopes towards the sea. There are no rivers, or rivulets, except here and there a little run into a bottom which lets in the sea-water for a mile or two as it were to meet the springs.

Dryness is, therefore, a great characteristic of this Island. At the place where I live, which is in Queen's county, and very nearly the middle of the Island, crosswise, we have no water, except in a well seventy feet deep, and from the clouds ; yet, we never experience a want of water. A large rain-water cistern to take the run from the house, and a duck-pond to take that from the barn, afford an ample supply ; and I can truly say, that as to the arti cle of water, I never was situated to please me so well in my life before. The rains come about once in fifteen days; they come in abundance for about twenty-four hours ; and then all is fait and all is dry again immediately : yet here and there, especially on the kills, there are ponds, as they call them here ; but, in England, they would be called lakes, from their extent as well as from their depth.

These, with the various trees which surround them, are very beautiful indeed. 15. The farms are so many plots originally scooped out of woods ; though in King's and Queen's counties the land is generally pretty much deprived of the woods, which, as in every other part of America that I have seen, are beautiful beyond all description. The Walnut of two or three sorts, the Plane, the Hickory, Chesnut, Tulip Tree, Cedar, Sassafras, Wild Cherry (sometimes 60 feet high) ; more than fifty sorts of Oaks ; and many other trees, but especially the Flowering Locust, or Acacia, which, in my opinion, surpasses all other trees, and some of which, in this Island, are of a very great height and girt. The Orchards constitute a feature of great beauty. Every farm has its orchard, and, in general, of cherries as well as of apples and pears.

Of the cultivation and crops of these, I shall speak in another Part of the work. 16. There is one great draw-back to all these beauties, namely, the fences; and, indeed, there is another with us South of England people ; namely, the general (for there are many exceptions) slovenliness about the homesteads, and particularly about the dwellings of labourers. Mr. Birkbeck complains of this; and, indeed, What a contrast with the homesteads and cot- I'd tages, which he left behind him near that exemplary spot, Guildford in Surrey ! Both blots are, however, easily accounted for. 17. The fences are of post and rail. This arose, in the first place, from the abundance of timber that men knew not how to dispose of. It is now become an affair of great expense in the populous parts of the country ; and, that it might, with great advantage and perfect ease, be got rid of, I shall clearly show in another part of my work. 18.

The dwellings and gardens, and little out houses of labourers, which form so striking a feature of beauty in England, and especially iu Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and Hampshire, and which constitute a sort of fairy-land, when com pared with those of the labourers in France, are what I, for my part, most feel the want of seeing upon Long Island. Instead of the neat and warm little cottage, the yard, cow-stable, pig-sty, hen-house, all in miniature, and the garden, nicely laid out and the paths bordered with flowers, while the cottage door is crowned with a garland of roses or honey-suckle ; in stead of these, we here see the labourer content with a shell of boards, while all around him is as barren as the sea-beach ; though the natural earth would send melons, the finest in the world, creeping round his door, and though there is no English shrub, or flower, which will not [

PART I.

14 CLIMATE, SEASONS, &C. grow and flourish here. This want of attention in such cases is hereditary from the first settlers. They found land so plenty, that they treated small spots with contempt. Besides, the example of neatness was wanting. There were no gentlemen's gardens, kept as clean as drawing rooms, with grass as even as a carpet. From endeavouring to imitate perfection men arrive at mediocrity ; and, those who never have seen, or heard of perfection, in these matters, will natu rally be slovens. 19. Yet, notwithstanding these blots, as I deem thera, the face of the country, in summer, is very fine. From December to May, there is not a speck of green. No green-grass and turnips, and wheat, and rye, and rape, as in Eng land. The frost comes and sweeps all vegeta tion and verdant existence from the face of the earth.

The wheat and rye live ; but, they lose all their verdure. Yet the state of things in June, is, as to crops, and fruits, much about what it is in England ; for, when things do begin to grow, they grow indeed ; and the general harvest for grain (what we call corn) is a full month earlier than in the South of Eng land! 20. Having now given a sketch of the face of the country, it only remains for me to speak in this place of the Climate and Seasons, because I shall sufficiently describe the Soil, when I come to treat of my own actual experience of it. 1 do not like, in these cases, general descrip. tions. Indeed, they must be very imperfect ; and, therefore, I will just give a copy ofa Journal, kept by myself, from the 5th of May, 1817, to the 20th of April, 1818. This, it appears to me, is the best way of proceeding ; for, then, there can be no deception ; and, therefore, 1 insert it as follows. 1817.

May 5. Landed at New York. 6. Went over to Long Island. Very fine day, warm as May in England. The Peach-trees going out of bloom- Plain trees in full bloom. 7. Cold, sharp, East wind, just like that which makes the old debauchees in London shiver and shake. 8. A little frost in the night, and a warm dayis). Cold in the shade and hot in the sun, 10. The weather has been dry for some time. Tbe grass is only beginning to grow a little 11. Heavy thunder and rain in the night, and all this day. 12. Rain till noon. Then warm and beautiful. CL1MATE, SEASONS. &C [

PART I.

16 1817. May 13. Warm, fine day. Saw, in the garden, lettuces, onions, carrots, and parsnips, just come up out of the ground. 14. Sharp, drying wind. People travel Avith great coats, to be guarded against the morning and evening air. 15. Warm and fair. The farmers are beginning to plant their Indian Corn. 16. Dry wind, warm in the sun. Cherry trees begin to come out in bloom. The Oaks show no green yet. The Sassafras in flower ; or whatever else it is called. It resembles the Elder flower a good deal. 17. Dry wind. Warmer than yesterday. An English April morning, that is to say, a sharp April morning, and a June day. 18. Warm and fine. Grass pushes on. Saw some Lucerne in a warm spot, 8 inches high. 19. Rain all day. Grass grows apace. People plant potatoes. 20. Fine and warm. A good cow sells, with a calf by her side, for 45 dollars.

A steer, two years old, 20 dollars. A working ox, five years old, 40 dollars. 21. Fine and warm day - but the mornlr/ 1817. May 21. ing and evening coldish. The cherry-trees in full bloom, and the pear-trees nearly the same. Oats, sown in April, up, and look extremely fine. 22. Fine and warm. — Apple-trees fast coming into bloom. Oak buds breaking. 23. Fine and warm. — Things grow away. Saw kidney-beans up and looking pretty well. Saw some beets coming up. Not a sprig of parsley to be had for love or money. What improvidence ! Saw some cabbage plants up and in the fourth leaf. 24. Rain at night and all day to-day. Apple-trees in full bloom, and cherry-bloom falling ofF. 25. Fine and warm. 26. Dry coldish wind, but hot sun. The grass has pushed on most furiously. 27. Dry wind. Spaded up a corner of ground and sowed (in the natural earth) cucumbers and melons. Just the time they tell me. 28. Warm and fair. 29. Cold wind; but the sun warm.

PART I.

c CLIMATE, SEASONS, &c. [

PART I

1817. May 29. No fires in parlours now, except now-and-then in the mornings and evenings. 30. Fine and warm. — Apples have dropped their blossoms. And now the grass, the wheat, the rye, and every thing, which has stood the year, or winter through, appear to have overtaken their like in Old England. 31. Coldish morning aud evening. June 1. Fine warm day; but saw a man, in the evening, covering something in a garden. It was kidney-beans, and he feared & frost ! To be sure, they are very tender things. I have had them nearly killed in England, by June frosts. 2. Rain and warm. — The oaks and all the trees, except the Flowering Locusts, begin to look greenish.* 3. Fine and warm. — The Indian Corn is generally come up ; but looks yellow in consequence of the cold nights and little frosts. — N. B. I ought here to describe to my English readers what this same Indian Com is.

The Americans call it Corn, by way of eminence, and wheat, rye, barley aud oats, which we confound 1817. June 3. under the name of corn, they confound under the name of grain. The Indian Corn, in its ripe seed state, consists of an ear, which is in the shape of a spruce fir apple. The grains, each of which is about the bulk of the largest marrow-fat pea, are placed all round the stalk, which goes up the middle, and this little stalk, to which the seeds adhere, is called the Corn Cob. Some of these ears (of which from 1 to 4 grow upon a plant) are more than afoot long ; and 1 have seen many, each of which weighed more than eighteen ounces, avoirdupois weight. They are long or short, heavy or light, according to the land and the culture. I was at a Tavern, in the village of North Hempstead, last fall (of 181 7) when I had just read, in the Courier, English news-paper, of a Noble Lord who had been sent on his travels to France at ten years of age, and who, from his high-blooded ignorance of vulgar things, I suppose, had sivallowed a whole ear of corn, which, as the newspaper told us, had well nigh choaked the Noble Lord. The c2 [

PART I. CLIMATE, SEASONS,

&C. 20 1817. June 3. Landlord bad just been showing me some of his fine ears of Corn ; and 1 took the paper out of my pocket, and read the paragraph: " What !" said he, " swallow a whole " ear of com at once! No wonder " that they have swallowed up poor " Old John Bull's substance." After a hearty laugh, we explained to him, that it must have been wheat or barley. Then he said, and very justly, that the Lord must have been a much greater fool than a hog is. — The plant of the Indian corn grows, upon an average, to about 8 feet high, and sends forth the most beautiful leaves, resembling the broad leaf of the water-flag. It is planted in hills or rows, so that the plough can go between the standing crop. Its stalks and leaves are the best of fodder, if carefully stacked ; and its grain is good for every thing.

It is eaten by man and beast in all the various shapes of whole corn, meal, cracked, and every other way that can be imagined. It is tossed down to hogs, sheep, cattle, in the whole ear. The two former thresh for 1817. June 3. themselves, and the latter eat cob and all. It is eaten, and is a very delicious thing, in its half-ripe, or milky state ; and these were the ** ears of corn," which the Pharisees complained of the Disciples for plucking off to eat on the Sabbath Day; for, how were they to eat wheat ears, unless after the manner of the " Noble Lord" above mentioned ? Besides, the Indian Corn is a native of Palestine. The French, who, doubtless, brought it originally from the Levant, call it Turkish Corn. The Locusts, that John the Baptist lived on, were not (as I used to wonder at when a boy) the noxious vermin that devoured the land of Egypt ; but the bean, which comes in the long pods borne by the three-thorned Locust-tree, and of which I have an abundance here.

The wild honey was the honey of wild bees ; and the hollow trees here contain swarms of them. The trees are cut, sometimes, in winter, and the part containing the swarm, brought and placed near the house. I saw this lately in Pennsylvania. CLIMATE, SEASONS, &C [

PART I

22 1817. June 4. Fine rain. Began about ten o'clock. 5. Ea;n nearly all day. 6. Fine and warm. Things grow surprizingly. 7. Fine and warm. Rather cold at night. 8. Hot. .9. Rain all day. The wood green, and so beautiful! The leaves look so fresh and delicate ! But, the Flowering Locust only begins to show leaf. It will, by and by, make up, by its beauty, for its shyness at present. 10. Fine warm day. The cattle are up to their eyes in grass. 11. Fine warm day. Like the very, very finest in England in June. 12. Fine day. And, when I say fine, I mean really fine. Not a cloud in the sky. 13. Fine and hot. About as hot as the hottest of our English July weather in common years. Lucerne, 21 feet high. 14. Fine and hot; but, we have always a breeze when it is hot, which I did not formerly find in Pennsylvania.

This arises, I suppose, from our nearness to the sea. 1817. June 15. Rain all day. 16. Fine, beautiful day. Never saw such fine weather. Not a morsel oi dirt. The ground sucks up all. I walk about and work in the land in shoes made of deer-skin. They are dressed ivhite, like breechesleather. 1 began to leave off my coat to day, and do not expect to put it on again till October. My hat is a white chip, with broad brims. Never better health. 17. Fine day. The partridges (miscalled quails) begin to sit. The orchard full of birds' nests ; and, amongst others, a dove is sitting on her eggs in an apple tree. 18. Fine day. Green peas fit to gather in pretty early gardens, though only of the common hotspur sort. May-duke cherries begin to be ripe. 19. Fine day. But, now comes my alarm! The musquitoes, and, still worse, the common house-fly, which usedtoplague us so in Pennsylvania, and which were the only things I ever disliked belonging to the climate of America. Musquitoes are bred in stagnant wafer, of which here is none. [

PART I.

24 CLIMATE, SEASONS, &C. 1817. June 19. Flies are bred in filth, of which none shall be near me as long as I can use a shovel and a broom. They will follow fresh meat and fish. Have neither, or be very careful. I have this day put all these precautions in practice ; and, now let us see the result. 20. Fine day. Carrots and parsnips, sotvn on the 3d and 4th instant, all up, and in rough leafs Onions up. The whole garden green iu 18 days from the sowing. 21. Very hot. Thunder and heavy rain at night. 22. Fine day. May-duke cherries ripe. 23. Hot and close. Distant thunder. 24. Fine day. 25. Fine day. White-heart and blackheart cherries getting ripe. 26. Rain. Planted out cucumbers and melons. I find I am rather late. 27. Fine day. 28. Fine day. Gathered cherries for drying for winter use. 29.