Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/182

 *lars uncleared, and the best, he calls it, in Ohio. The first crop of wheat was 35 bushels per acre, but never so much after; it now averages 20 {176} to 25 bushels per acre, at 63 cents per bushel, about 2s. 10d. sterling; then, not half that price: 40 bushels of oats, per acre, at 20 cents, about 9d. sterling; but will be worth 60 cents, or 2s. 4d. per bushel. He gave, this year, three dollars for clearing land, 50 per cent. above the cost price of fee simple. Clearing, means simply grubbing up small surface-roots in the way of the plough, and cutting down a few large trees within about three feet of the ground, and deadening or girdling the rest, which is done by cutting out about three feet of bark all round the body of the hugest trunks, which then, root and branch, begin to die. What are cut down, together with the lop, are rolled by levers into heaps and burnt. He has lived on it, and can now sell his estate, with all improvements, at only ten dollars an acre. He always found a market for produce, at some price. He believes the land about Frederick and Hager's towns much better than this, because there it is limestone land, and therefore more enduring. "I would leave Ohio," says he, "if I could sell out well here, and return to the land of fish and good oysters, my dear native Pennsylvania. Plaster is never used here, but if the land were fallowed, as in some parts of the east, we could grow 40 bushels per acre."

16th.—At three this morning, I left Zainsville, so called in honour of Mr. Zain, of Wheeling, who has here a large estate given him by the state, for {177} cutting a road from Wheeling to this town.[49] On changing horses, I spoke to a potatoe farmer, who raises only 100 bushels per acre