above dimenfions. To remove this languor, which is kept up alike by the increase of the price, and the divifion of farms, a migration of part of the community becomes abfolutely neceffary. And as this part of the community often confifts of the idle and extravagant, who eat without working, their removal, by increafing the facility of fubfiftence to the frugal and industrious who remain behind, naturally increases the number of people, just as the cutting off the fuckers of an apple-tree increases the fize of the tree, and the quantity of fruit.

I have only to add upon this subject, that the migrants from Pennsylvania always travel to the southward. The foil and climate of the western parts of Virginia, North and South-Carolina, and Georgia, afford a more easy support to lazy farmers, than the ftubborn but durable foil of Pennfylvania.-Here, our ground requires deep and repeated plowing to render it fruitful—there, fcratching the ground once or twice affords tolerable crops. Jn Pennsylvania, the length and coldness of the winter make it neceffary for the farmers to bestow a large share of their labour in providing for and feeding their cattle; but in the fouthern ftates, cattle find pasture during the greatest part of the winter, in the fields or woods. For these reasons, the greatest part of the western counties of the States, that have been mentioned, are settled by original inhabitants of Pennsylvania. During the late war, the

militia of Orange county, in North Carolina, were enrolled, and their number amounted to 3,500, every man of whom had migrated from Pennsylvania. From this you will fee, that our State is the great outport of the United States for Europeans; and that, after performing the office of a fieve by detaining all those people who poffefs the ftamina of industry and virtue, it allows a paffage to the reft, to those States which are accommodated to their habits of indolence.

I fhall conclude this letter by remarking, that in the mode of extending population and agriculture, which I have defcribed, we behold a new fpecies of war. The third fettler may be viewed as a conqueror. The weapons with which he atchieves his conquefts, are the implements of husbandry: and the virtues which direct them, are industry and œconomy. Idlenessextravagance and ignorance fly before him. Happy would it be for mankind, if the kings of Europe would adopt this mode of extending their territories: it would foon put an end to the dreadful connection, which has exifted in every age, between war and poverty, and between conqueft and desolation.

[AN ACCOUNT OF THE MANNERS OF THE GERMAN INHABITANTS OF PENNSYLVANIA.

THE

HE state of Pennsylvania is so much indebted for her profperity and reputation, to the German part of her citizens, that a fhort account of their manners may, perhaps, be useful and agreeable to their fellow citizens in every part of the United States.

The aged Germans, and the ancestors of those who are young, migrated chiefly from the Palatinate; from Alcace, Swabis, Saxony, and Switzerland: but natives of every principality and dukedom, in Germany, are to be found in different parts of the state. They brought but little property with them. A few pieces of gold or filver coin, a cheft filled with clothes, a bible, and a prayer or an hymn book conftituted the whole stock of most of them. Many of them bound themselves, or one or more of their children, to mafters after their arrival, for four, five, or seven years, in order to pay for their paffages across the ocean. A clergyman always accompanied them when they came in large bodies.

The principal part of them were farmers; but there were many mechanics. who brought with them a knowledge of thofe arts which are necef

AN ACCOUNT OF THE GERMAN INHABITANTS &C 227

These mechanics

fary and useful in all countries. were chiefly weavers, taylors, tanners, fhoemakers, comb-makers, fmiths of all kinds, butchers, papermakers, watch makers, and fugar bakers. I fhall begin this account of the German inhabitants of Pennsylvania, by defcribing the manners of the German farmers.

This body of citizens are not only industrious and frugal, but skilful cultivators of the earth. I shall enumerate a few particulars, in which they differ from most of the other farmers of Pennsylvania.

ift. In fettling a tract of land, they always provide large and fuitable accomodations for their horses and cattle, before they lay out much money in building a houfe for themselves, The barn and

the stables are generally under one roof, and contrived in fuch a manner as to enable them to feed their horfes and cattle, and to as little trouble as poffible.

remove their dung, with

The first dwelling house

upon this farm is fmall, and built of logs. It generally lafts the life time of the first settler of a tract of land; and hence they have a faying, that "a "fon fhould always begin his improvements where "his father left off,"-that is, by building a large and convenient stone house.

2d. They always prefer good land or that land on which there is a large quantity of meadow ground.

From an attention to the cultivation of grafs, they often double the value of an old farm in a few years, and grow rich on farms, on which their predeceffors of whom they purchased them, have nearly ftarved. They prefer purchasing farms with some improvements to fettling on a new tract of land.

3d. In clearing new land, they do not girdle the trees fimply, and leave them to perish in the ground, as is the custom of their English or Irish neighbours ; but they generally cut them down and burn them. In deftroying under-wood and bufhes, they generally grub them out of the ground; by which means a field is as fit for cultivation the fecond year after it is cleared, as it is in twenty years afterwards. The advantages of this mode of clearing, confift in the immediate product of the field, and in the greater facility with which it is ploughed, harrowed and reaped. The expenfe of repairing a plough, which is often broken two or three times in a year by small stumps concealed in the ground, is often greater than the extraordinary expense of grubbing the fame field completely, in clearing it.

4th. They feed their horfes and cows, of which they keep only a fmall number, in fuch a manner, that the former perform twice the labour of those horfes, and the latter yield twice the quantity of milk of those cows, that are lefs plentifully fed. There is great economy in this practice, efpecially