Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 11).djvu/246

 prayed for all present, I visited Mr. {253} Hornbrook's, a respectable English family from Devonshire, on a good quantity of land, living in two or three log-cabins.

Amongst the inducements of the Flower family to emigrate, may be reckoned the probability of their wasting all their property by farming their own estate, about 500 or 600 acres at Marsden. It was badly farmed, and the Merino trade failed, which was Mr. Flower's hobby-horse; and seeing his favourite son was determined to live in America, emigration now ceased to be a matter of choice. They intended to settle in the east. G. Flower, who brought a letter from the celebrated Marquis de la Fayette to Mr. Jefferson, whom he visited, bought an estate of 500 acres at 10 dollars an acre, near Jefferson's, where they were to have lived; but, as Mr. Birkbeck could not approve it, on account of slavery, it was abandoned.[82]

15th.—The English settlement in Indiana, up to this time, contains 12,800 acres entered, and in possession of actual settlers, 53 families having capital to the amount of 80,000 dollars.

Dolls. Cents.

Expenses of clearing and inclosing an acre of land, ready for planting, 6-1/2 dollars; ditto of planting, with four ploughings and four hoeings, and harvesting, and stacking for market, at your own door, six dollars an acre; so making, the first year, an acre cost         12    50

{254} Second year, wheat 1-1/2 bushel seed                1    50

Ploughing once, 75 cents; clearing dead timber, breaking up stumps, and hoeing sprouts, one dollar 50 cents        2    25

Reaping 1-1/2 bushel an acre, or in cash                  1     0

Carting, threshing, &c                                    3    50 Cost of one acre, in two years                           20    75