CHAPTER XI.
_Journey from Geneva to Lewistown—Land offered for Sale—Canandaigua—Genesee Country—Variations of Temperature—Agricultural Notices—American and Scotch notions of Reverted Wheat—Genesee Flats—Mr Wadesworth—Avon—Wood Bridges—Girdling Trees—Falls of the Genesee—Rochester—Ridge Road—Face of the Country._
We left Geneva in the morning by a stage-coach, and after travelling through a country of clay soil, badly farmed, but bearing excellent wheat crops, arrived at Canandaigua. Having a letter to a Scotch gentleman residing there, I discovered him by his national appearance when riding on the street. I was gratified at visiting him, and in viewing his new house and fine garden, one of the rarest sights in America. The necessity of proceeding with the object of my tour, prevented me sharing his sincere hospitality, and I returned to Blossom’s Hotel, and dined in an excellent room of large dimensions. In the afternoon we walked four miles in the direction of Mills, to view some lands for sale, and found the soil and wheat crops on the road generally good. For fine cleared land $25 per acre was asked; and a person accosted me on the road and offered his farm of 100 acres, and his father’s of the same extent, with suitable offices, at $28 per acre. Almost every farmer in the eastern States who has a family, or is in straitened circumstances, is willing to sell his land and move to the western States, where he can obtain soil of equal quality, and in a finer climate, at a twentieth part of the price; and foreigners, who are easily known, and supposed to be in search of land, are constantly asked to purchase farms.
Canandaigua is situated near the outlet of the Lake of the same name, which is navigated by a steam-boat. The principal street extends back on rising ground nearly two miles, and consists of separate villas, as white and clean as paint can make them, with green Venetian blinds, situated at some distance from the street, and surrounded with umbrageous vegetation, which at this warm season imparted an appearance of coolness and luxury. Besides a garden in front, crowded with rose bushes bearing a profusion of flowers, many villas have a considerable extent of ground behind, capable of maintaining animals, and affording every family convenience. The buildings and beauty of Canandaigua surpass any place I have seen out of New England; and the wealth and comfort of its inhabitants may be owing to its early erection and situation in the Genesee country, the most celebrated wheat district in America.
The Genesee country was sold by the State of Massachusetts to Messrs Gorham and Phelps, who obtained 6,000,000 acres, at about eightpence sterling per acre; but finding difficulty in fulfiling their bargain, the land passed into other hands, and part of the country now belongs to the Pulteney family of England.
We left Canandaigua by a stage-coach at three o’clock in the morning, and suffered considerably from cold. When day dawned, a little after four o’clock, my thermometer, exposed on the outside of the stage, indicated 43°, and at Allanshill, on the outside of the hotel window, 45°. On different occasions I experienced inconvenience from variations of temperature in America, which are greater and as frequent as those of Britain. We reached the village of Genesee early in the forenoon, and from the courts being then sitting, could not be received where the stages stopped. The landlord and driver were not accommodating, but we soon found a very attentive hotel-keeper in a different part of the village.
The surface of the country, from Canandaigua to Genesee, is undulating and picturesque, but ill cultivated. The wheat crops generally good, and a considerable extent of ground preparing for fallow, by breaking up grass land which had been depastured. In some cases, four oxen and a horse were dragging a plough, a boy riding the horse in front, and a driver to the oxen. In every case, a driver was employed with oxen, and horses generally ridden by boys when in the plough, which, I supposed, was owing to their being little accustomed to this kind of labour.
I had observed the wheat crops of America abounding with a species of grass passing by the name of chess, which I imagine to be the _Bromus secalinus_ of botanists, and which I have seen in the wheat crops of Surrey, England, and south of Ireland. A passenger between Canandaigua and Genesee, stated, that chess was reverted wheat, and originated from an inclement season, or bad seed, an opinion which I found pretty general in the States and Canada. This doctrine was made known to me by letters in the Genesee Farmers’ newspaper, published at Rochester, numbers of which I received in Scotland, but it is so different to my observation and reflection, that I told the passenger, I would as soon expect a horse to become a pig, as wheat chess. From extensive observation in remote parts of America, I have not a doubt of chess being indigenous to the soil, and hence its growth amongst wheat crops, where the farmer did not sow its seeds.
Akin to the notion of wheat reverting to chess, is that of the same grain changing to darnel (_Lolium temuluctum_), lately advanced in Scotland, where the plant is provincially called sleepies. Botanists assign original types for cultivated plants, but farmers seem not to be agreed about that of wheat. Americans may arrange themselves on the side of chess, Scotchmen that of darnel, without throwing light on the subject. A plant cannot change from one species to another, or the vegetable kingdom would pass into confusion. Wheat, chess, and darnel, are distinct species.
Having heard much of the Genesee flats, I proceeded to call on their owner, on arriving at Genesee. Mr Wadesworth had gone to a distant part of the country, one of his sons being the only member of the family at home, and who had rode out after breakfast. On calling a second time, the young gentleman pointed out the way to the flats, where he said he would join us in an hour afterwards.
The Genesee flats belonging to Mr Wadesworth, are rich alluvial soil, ornamented with aged trees, deposited in groups and at intervals; and perhaps no gentleman’s park in Britain equals them in fertility and beauty. They differ from the rest of the surface in this part of the country, by having been cleared by nature, and are chiefly in grass, affording the richest pasturage I ever saw, with exception of some fields in the neighbourhood of Boston, Lincolnshire, England. On examining some parts which had never been subjected to the plough, red and white clovers were particularly abundant, also timothy grass (_Phleum pratense_), and several kinds of poea. Cocksfoot was less common, and a few spikes of tall oat-like grass (_Holcus avenaceus_). Rye-grass or yellow-flowering clovers were not visible. A field was pointed out which had been mown for hay thirty-five successive years, without top-dressing, and the grasses were still in vigour of growth, interspersed with red clover nearly thirty inches high.
The young gentleman joined us on the flats, and pointed out every thing deserving of notice. The sheep were a mixture of Merino and Saxon breeds, and not fat looking. There was a fine short-horn bull, intended to improve the dairy stock, which I did not see. This contemplated improvement originated from perusing the writings of the Rev. Henry Berry of England; and I took the liberty of advising the cross to be tried on a small scale, believing the short-horns the worst milking breed in Britain. This opinion was new to the gentleman, who said he would keep it in view, and proceed cautiously in intermixing the breeds. The grazing cattle were extremely numerous—four-year-olds, which had been bought in spring, and kept on hay till the arrival of grass, on which they are to be fatted. Mr Wadesworth intends to cultivate wheat extensively; and one enclosure, as a beginning, was bearing an indifferent crop. I have often observed wheat not succeed well on very rich ground, and that, in Britain, the United States, and Canada, soils which have been long under cultivation, yield the best crops of this grain when properly managed. There was a variety of implements which brought to recollection those at Holkham, Norfolk, England. Amongst others, a mowing machine was exhibited and descanted on. We were shown a fine oak-tree growing on the banks of the river, and said to be twenty-four feet in circumference.
We passed the evening at the house of Mr Wadesworth, in agreeable and instructive conversation with the young gentleman, whose acquirements and intelligence were of a superior description. He expressed regret at the necessity of leaving home next day, but offered to place at my disposal his father’s carriage, horses, and driver, with introductory letters to his friends in the neighbourhood, and said he himself would show us the country on the day following. Time would not admit of embracing the kind offer, and I notice this attention as creditable to a person of the highest influence and station, on whose good offices I had no claim. It has been my fortune to experience attention from eminent agriculturists in all ranks of life in Britain, and while the heart must be held as the seat of kindness, I can bear testimony to having found true agricultural knowledge, distinguished from what is empirical, connected with expansion of mind and liberality of sentiment.[1]
Footnote 1:
The following extract is from a letter addressed to me, and dated 26th June, 1834.—“I called on Mr Wadesworth, Genesee. The eldest of the brothers died last year, leaving landed property to the amount of about a million and a half of dollars. The remaining brother, a man about seventy, inherits it all. His family consists of two sons and a daughter, the eldest of the sons was on his marriage jaunt. Immediately after introduction I was placed on a good horse, and directed down to the farm, of about 1200 acres, where I found your friend amongst the cattle, without his coat, and I could not help smiling as I contrasted him with our frivolous game-preserving lairds at home. With a mind infinitely superior to most of them, and the most unexceptionable manners, he considered it no disgrace to be actively engaged in business. I found him agreeable and communicative.”
Next morning we left Genesee and passed through Avon, frequented for its mineral springs, and beauty of situation. While the horses were changing, we found many people indulging in copious draughts of water, which I prevailed on my friend D—— to taste, when he amused the bystanders by making a wry face, and exclaiming in a serious tone of voice, “Do people really drink that for health?” We dined at a stage house, and were much annoyed by a tipsy person whose impertinence called for an exercise of patience. He was descended of Irish parents, said to possess property, and seemingly an excellent customer to the bar-room. On reaching Rochester, I remarked to the driver, that he seemed to be traversing the same street twice in setting down passengers, and learned that he was afraid to cross a certain bridge, through which one of his horses fell a few days before and broke a leg. Few things in America appear more striking to a Briton than the wretched state of the wooden bridges, a material which he does not associate with strength or durability. We took up our quarters at the Eagle tavern, the landlord of which was attentive and accommodating.
The soil from Genesee to Rochester is chiefly clay, bearing excellent wheat, and nineteen-twentieths of the land in crop was producing this grain. I observed a good wheat crop amongst girdled oak-trees, in a field of considerable extent. Girdling is effected by cutting a ring through the bark round the tree, which does not again put forth leaves, by which sun beams and air are admitted to plants on the surface of the earth. This mode of improvement is only followed amongst oaks, the roots of which strike perpendicularly into the earth, and consequently are favourable to the progress of the plough; but the trees become more obdurate, and girdling is only excusable in the first operations of a new settler.
We lost no time in viewing the sights of Rochester, the chief of which is the fall of the Genesee river, ninety-seven feet in height, and celebrated by the ill-fated leap of Sam Patch in 1829. We enjoyed a walk down the banks of the stream on a lovely evening, but the scenery in the neighbourhood of the fall has been injured by the erection of machinery propelled by the water. The flour mills are numerous, and on the most extensive scale, said to be capable of manufacturing 12,000 bushels of wheat in twenty-four hours. There is an arcade, extolled by the inhabitants, but possessing no attractions to individuals who have seen those of other countries. Rochester is one of the many places illustrative of the growing wealth and population of the United States, and which some English travellers ridicule for want of antiquity, on the principle a withered old beau affects to despise the freshness and elasticity of youth. The first settlement took place in 1812, and the population is now estimated at about 14,000. The situation of the town, communicating with Lake Erie, and the extensive waters to the west, by means of the Erie canal, which is carried over the river in the middle of the town by an aqueduct of free stone, 800 feet long—with Lake Ontario by a railroad—with Montreal by the St Lawrence, and with New York by the Hudson, together with its splendid water power, renders its increase of wealth and population almost without limits.
Next morning we set out for Lewistown by way of Lockport, travelling on what is termed the ridge-road, a natural formation extending round the south end of Lake Ontario, at a distance of eight or ten miles from the present waters, and nearly a hundred feet higher. It is from twenty-five to fifty feet wide, fifteen to twenty feet above the surrounding country, and composed of sand and gravel. The road is supposed to have formed the margin of the lake at some remote period of the world, but I had not sufficient opportunity to form an opinion on this point.
The country through which we travelled, after leaving Rochester, is more recently settled than any yet seen, the fields being thickly covered with black stumps overtopping the wheat crops; and the felling and burning of trees was going on in all directions. The houses were mere log-huts, and wanting in external comforts. The warm state of the weather induced the inhabitants to throw open the doors and windows, affording an opportunity of seeing the internal arrangements, and I can testify to their well-stored tables and general neatness. The crops were bad, and much of the soil so inferior as not likely to repay those engaged in clearing it of timber.
After a fatiguing ride, we reached Lewistown, a thriving village, at midnight, and found the bar-keeper and porter of the hotel intoxicated, which was the only instance of the kind I met during my transatlantic tour. By this time we had learned to take things as we found them, and in a few minutes our baggage and selves were in bedrooms without assistance.