A year's residence, in the United States of America; treating of the face of the country, the climate, the soil, the products, the mode of cultivating the land, the prices of land, of labour, of food, of raiment; of the expenses of house-keeping, and of the usual manner of living; of the manners and customs of the people; and of the institutions of the country, civil, political, and religious. In three parts

Front matter

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►^ •l.ilr

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Part 1

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.— IL An Account of the Author's agricultural experiments in the Cultivation of the Uuta Baga, or Russia, or Swedish Turnip, which afford proof of what the climate and soil are.

LONDON: N

PRINTED FOR SHERWOOD, NEELY, AND JONES, PATEKNOSTER-ROW.

[CntereU at g^tattoners' ^alL]

John M'Creery, Printer, Black-IIorbe-Coui't, Londoit.

CONTENTS OF PART I.

Page 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, sometimes called the Russia, and sometimes the Swedish, Turnip 98

GENERAL PREFACE

TO THB

THREE PARTS.

1. Throughout the whole of this work it is. my intention to number the paragraphs, from one end to the other 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 timey of which an industrious man has never any to spare. To desire 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.

B ii 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 conveyed to Englishmen any thing like a correct notion of the matter. Some writers of Ti'avels 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 tbe country as unfit for a civilized being to reside in. Others, coming with a resolution to find everi^ thing better than at home, and weakly deeming themselves 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 smiling faces.

3. The account, which I shall give, shall be that of actual experience. I will say what I know and what I have seen and what I have done. I mean to give an account of a YEAR'S

GENERAL PREFACE. iii

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 communicated; but, more especially 'that which may be useful to farmers j because, as to such matters, I have ample experience. Indeed, this is the main tlwig ; for this is really and truly a country of farmers. Here, Governors, Legislators, Presidents, all are farmers. A farmer here is not the poor dependent wretch that a Yeomanry- Cavalry man is, or that a Treason- Jury man is. A farmer here depends on nobody but himself ?t.\\di 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

B 2

IV GENERAL PREFACE.

farming and house-keeping in the country, is the i)K)de that I shall pursue. I shall give an account of what I have done 5 and, 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 anj' 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

fjly-lwo 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 tliis 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 iields, with regard to wiiich he was famed for his skill and his exemplary neatness. From my very infancy.

GENERAL PREFACE. V

from the age of six years, when I climhed up the side of a steep sand-rock, 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 everyday presents 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 difficulties where the heart and mind are bent on the thing to be obtained I

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 I8O6, 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

VI GENERAL PREFACE.

not performed with my own hands. And, as to it, I owe very little to books, except that of TULL3 for I never read a good one in my life, except a French book, called the Manuel dii Jardinier.

8. As to farmings I was bred at the ploughtail, and 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 become fainter and fainter as you go from it in every direction. I have had, besides, great experience in farming for several years of late; for, one man will gain more knowledge in a year than another will in a life. It is the tasfe for the thing that really gives the knowledge.

9. To this taste, produced in me by a desire to imitate a father whom I 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 iew men ever

GENERAL PREFACE. Vll

had to be grateful to God. These pursuits, innocent in themselves, instructive in their very nature, and always tending to preserve health, have a constant, a never-failing source, of recreation to me J 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 Englishmei\ 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 added 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 I owe more than to all my other reading and all my experience, and of which principles I hope to find time to give a sketch, at least, in some future Part of this work.

VI 11 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 induce 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 myself am bound to England for life. My notions of allegiance to country J 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 especially 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 themselves.

Wm. cobbett.

North Hempsted, Long Island, 2\st April, 181S.