Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 9).djvu/309

 had been a soldier in the revolutionary service. He is proprietor of a good farm, which is occupied by his son-in-law, who, last year, raised nine hundred bushels, including corn and wheat, by his individual exertions. I had previously heard of a negro from Kentucky, who, in the same year, settled on a prairie near Vincennes, and there raised a thousand bushels of corn. The last of these quantities may be assumed as a full maximum of the produce that may be raised by one man, even where great fertility of soil, industry, and health, conspire together. But as this quantity of grain would now sell for only two hundred and fifty dollars, without deducting the expense of carrying it to market, or allowing any thing for the provender of a horse, while the wages of a labourer may be {277} now fairly stated at three hundred and fifty dollars for a year, it is evident that farmers, from such a small return, cannot hire the labour of other people.

On the 30th I crossed the Great Sciota, a river that is great indeed in times of wet weather; but the ford, which is at the head of a stream, was not then more than eight or nine inches deep. The river, notwithstanding, retains a grandeur that is not unbecoming its name. The stream is broad, covering nearly the whole of its capacious bed. The water is limpid, and the banks are covered with a growth of stupendous sycamores and other large trees.

Pickaway Plains consist of flat land.[151] The clear part is a prairie, entirely destitute of trees, and is about seven miles long and five broad. To a European, who has been upwards of two years immersed in the woods, such a clear space is truly exhilarating. It was while proceeding along a fine smooth road, at a brisk trot, that I suddenly dis-*