Geneseo

It is a lovely bright autumn morning, with a pure blue sky, and a pearly atmosphere through which scarce a zephyr is stealing; the boughs of the trees hang motionless; my window is open; but, how strange the perfect stillness! No warbling note comes from the feathered tribe to greet the rising sun, and sing, with untaught voice, their Maker’s praise; even the ubiquitous house-sparrow is neither seen nor heard. How strange this comparative absence of animal life in a country which, having been so recently intruded upon by the destroyer man one would expect to find superabundantly populated with those animals, against which he does not make war either for his use or amusement. Nevertheless, so it is; and I have often strolled about for hours in the woods, in perfect solitude, with no sound to meet the ear no life to catch the eye. But I am wandering from the house too soon; a jolly scream in the nursery reminds me that, at all events, there is animal life within, and that the possessor thereof has no disease of the lungs.

Let us now speed to breakfast; for folk are early in the New World, and do not lie a-bed all the forenoon, thinking how to waste the afternoon, and then, when the afternoon comes, try and relieve the tedium thereof by cooking up some project to get over the ennui of the evening. Whatever else you may deny the American, this one virtue you must allow him. He is, emphatically, an early riser; as much so as our own most gracious Sovereign, whose example, if followed by her subjects especially some in the metropolis would do more to destroy London hells, and improve London health, than the Legislature, or Sir B. Hall, and all the College of Surgeons, can ever hope to effect among the post-meridian drones.

Breakfast was speedily despatched, and Senor Cabanos y Carvajal followed as a matter of course. While reducing him to ashes, and luxuriating in the clouds which proclaim his certain though lingering death, we went out upon the terrace before the house to wish good speed to my two companions who were just starting, and to enjoy a view of the far-famed vale of Genesee. Far as the eye could see, with no bounds save the power of its vision, was one wide expanse of varied beauty. The dark forest hues were relieved by the rich tints of the waving corn; neat little cottages peeped out in every direction. Here and there, a village, with its taper steeples, recalled the bounteous Hand “that giveth us all things richly to enjoy.” Below my feet was beautifully undulating park ground, magnificently timbered, through which peeped the river, bright as silver beneath the rays of an unclouded sun, whose beams, streaming at the same time on a field of the rich-coloured pumpkin, burnished each like a ball of molten gold. All around was richness, beauty, and abundance.

The descendant of a Wellington or a Washington, while contemplating the glorious deeds of an illustrious ancestor, and recalling the adoration of a grateful country, may justly feel his breast swelling with pride and emulation; but while I was enjoying this scene, there stood one at my side within whom also such emotions might be as fully and justly stirred for there are great men to be found in less conspicuous, though not less useful spheres of life. A son who knew its history enjoyed with me this goodly scene. His father was the first bold pioneer. The rut made by the wheel of his rude cart, drawn by two oxen, was the first impress made by civilization in the whole of this rich and far-famed valley. A brother shared with him his early toils and privations; their own hands raised the log-hut their new home in the wilderness. Ere they broke ground, the boundless forest howled around a stray party of Indians, come to hunt, or to pasture their flocks on the few open plots skirting the river: all else was waste and solitude. One brother died comparatively early; but the father of mine host lived long to enjoy the fruit of his labours. He lived to see industry and self-denial metamorphose that forest and its straggling Indian band into a land bursting with the rich fruits of the soil, and buzzing with a busy hive of human energy and intelligence. Yes; and he lived to see temple after temple, raised for the pure worship of the True God, supplant the ignorance and idolatry which reigned undisturbed at his first coming. Say, then, reader, has not the son of such a father just cause for pride a solemn call to emulation? The patriarchal founder of his family and their fortunes has left an imperishable monument of his greatness in the prosperity of this rich vale; and Providence has blessed his individual energies and forethought with an unusual amount of this world’s good things. “Honour and fame industry and wealth,” are inscribed on the banner of his life, and the son is worthily fighting under the paternal standard. The park grounds below the house bear evidence of his appreciation of the beauties of scenery, in the taste with which he has performed that difficult task of selecting the groups of trees requisite for landscape, while cutting down a forest; and the most cursory view of his library can leave no doubt that his was a highly-cultivated mind. I will add no more, lest I be led insensibly to trench upon the privacy of domestic life.

I now propose to give a slight sketch of his farm, so as to convey, to those interested, an idea of the general system of agriculture adopted in the Northern States; and if the reader think the subject dull, a turn of the leaf will prove a simple remedy.

The extent farmed is 2000 acres, of which 400 are in wood, 400 in meadow, 400 under plough, and 800 in pasture. On the wheat lands, summer fallow, wheat, and clover pasture, form the three years’ rotation. In summer fallow, the clover is sometimes ploughed in, and sometimes fed off, according to the wants of the soil and the farm. Alluvial lands are cultivated in Indian corn from five to ten years successively, and then laid down in grass indeterminately from three to forty years. Wheat sometimes broadcast, sometimes drilled is put in as near as possible the 1st of September, and cut from the 10th to the 20th of July. Clover-seed is sown during March in wheat, and left till the following year. Wheat stubble is pastured slightly; the clover, if mowed, is cut in the middle of June; if pastured, the cattle are turned in about the 1st of May.

Pumpkins are raised with the Indian corn, and hogs fattened on them; during the summer they are turned into clover pasture. Indian corn and pumpkins are planted in May, and harvested in October; the leaf and stalk of the Indian corn are cut up for fodder, and very much liked. Oats and barley are not extensively cultivated.

The average crop of Indian corn is from fifty to sixty bushels, and of wheat, from twenty-five to thirty per acre. The pasture land supports one head to one and one-third acre. Grass-fattened cattle go to market from September to November, fetching 2-1/4d. per lb. live weight, or 4-1/2d. per lb. for beef alone. Cattle are kept upon hay and straw from the middle of November to 1st of May, if intended for fattening upon grass; but, if intended for spring market, they are fed on Indian corn-meal in addition. Sheep are kept on hay exclusively, from the middle of November to the 1st of April. A good specimen of Durham ox, three and a half years old, weighs 1500 lbs. live weight. The farm is provided with large scales for weighing hay, cattle, &c., and so arranged, that one hundred head can easily be weighed in two hours.

No manure is used, except farm-pen and gypsum; the former is generally applied to Indian corn and meadow land. The gypsum is thrown, a bushel to the acre, on each crop of wheat and clover cost of gypsum, ten shillings for twenty bushels. A mowing machine, with two or three horses and one man, can cut, in one day, twelve acres of heavy meadow land, if it stand up; but if laid at all, from six to ten. The number of men employed on the farm is, six for six months, twelve for three months, and twenty-five for three months. Ten horses and five yoke of oxen are kept for farm purposes. The common waggon used weighs eight hundredweight, and holds fifty bushels. Sometimes they are ten hundredweight, and hold one hundred and five bushels.

The wages of the farm servants are: For those engaged by the year, 2s. a month; for six months, 2d. a month; for three months, 3s. a month besides board and lodging, on the former of which they are not likely to find their bones peeping through their skin. They have meat three times a day pork five days, and mutton two days in the week a capital pie at dinner; tea and sugar twice a day; milk ad libitum; vegetables twice a day; butter usually three times a day; no spirits nor beer are allowed. The meals are all cooked at the farm, and the overseer eats with the men, and receives from 75l. to 125l. a year, besides board and lodging for his family, who keep the farm-house. When every expense is paid, mine host netts a clear six per cent. on his farm, and I think you will allow that he may go to bed at night with little fear of the nightmare of a starving labourer disturbing his slumbers. Not that he troubles sleep much, for he is the nearest thing to perpetual motion I ever saw, not excepting even the armadillo at the Zoological Gardens, and he has more “irons in the fire” than there were bayonet-points before Sevastopol.

The village contains a population of two thousand inhabitants, and consists of a few streets, the principal of which runs along a terrace, which, being a continuation of the one on which we were lately standing, commands the same lovely view. But, small as is the village, it has four churches, an academy, two banks, two newspaper offices, and a telegraph office. What a slow coach you are, John Bull!

One day I was taking a drive with an amiable couple, who, having been married sixteen or seventeen years, had got well over the mysterious influences of honeymoonism. The husband was acting Jarvey, and I was inside with madame. The roads being in some places very bad, and neither the lady nor myself being feather-weight, the springs were frequently brought down upon one another with a very disagreeable jerk. The lady remonstrated:

“John, I declare these springs are worn out, and the carriage itself is little better.”

“Now, Susan, what’s the good of your talking that way; you know they are perfectly good, my dear.”

“Oh, John! you know what I say is true, and that the carriage has never been touched since we married.”

“My dear, if I prove to you one of your assertions is wrong, I suppose you will be ready to grant the others may be equally incorrect.”

“Well, what then?” said the unsuspecting wife.

“Why, my dear, I’ll prove to you the springs are in perfectly good order,” said the malicious husband, who descried a most abominable bit of road ready for his purpose; and, suiting the action to the word, he put his spicy nags into a hand-canter. Bang went the springs together; and, despite of all the laws of gravitation, madame and I kept bobbing up and down, and into one another’s laps.

“Oh, John, stop! stop!”

“No, no, my dear, I shall go on till you’re perfectly satisfied with the goodness of the springs and the soundness of the carriage.”

Resistance was useless; John was determined, and the horses would not have tired in a week; so the victim had nothing for it but to cry peccavi, upon which John moderated his pace gradually, and our elastic bounds ceased correspondingly, until we settled once more firmly on our respective cushions; then John turned round, and, with a mixed expression of malice and generosity, said, “Well, my dear, I do think the carriage wants a new lining, but you must admit they are really good springs.” And the curtain fell on this little scene in the drama of “Sixteen Years after Marriage.” May the happy couple live to re-enact the same sixty years after marriage!

Our drive brought us to the shore of Lake Canesus, and a lovely scene it was; the banks were in many places timbered to the water’s edge by the virgin forest, now radiant with the rich autumnal tints; the afternoon sun shone forth in all its glory from a cloudless sky, on a ripp’less lake, which, like a burnished mirror, reflected with all the truthfulness of nature the gorgeous scene above; and as you gazed on the azure abyss below, it kept receding and receding till the wearied sight of the creature was lost in the fathomless depths of the work of his Almighty Creator. Who has not for the moment imagined that he could realise the infinity of space, as, when gazing at some bright star, he strives to measure the distance of the blue curtain spread behind, which, ever receding, so mocks the efforts of the ambitious eye, that its powers become bewildered in the unfathomable depths of immensity; but I am not sure whether such feelings do not come home to one more powerfully when the eye gazes on the same object through the medium of reflection; for, as with the bounties of the Creator, so with the wonders of His creation man is too prone to undervalue them in proportion to the frequency with which they are spread before him; and thus the deep azure vault, so often seen in the firmament above, is less likely to attract his attention and engage his meditations, than when the same glorious scene lies mirrored beneath his feet.

This charming lake has comparatively little cultivation on its borders; two or three cottages, and a few cattle grazing, are the only signs that man is asserting his dominion over the wilderness. One of these cottages belongs to a member of the Wadsworth family, who owns some extent of land in the neighbourhood, and who has built a nice little boat for sailing about in the summer season. I may as well mention in this place, that the roofing generally used for cottages is a wooden tile called “shingle,” which is very cheap twelve-and-sixpence purchasing enough to cover a thousand feet.

While driving about in this neighbourhood, I saw, for the first time, what is termed a “plank-road,” a system which has been introduced into the United States from Canada. The method of construction is very simple, consisting of two stringers of oak two inches square, across which are laid three-inch planks eight feet long, and generally of hemlock or pine. No spiking of the planks into the stringers is required, and a thin layer of sand or soil being placed over all, the road is made; and, as the material for construction is carried along as the work progresses, the rapidity of execution is astonishing. When completed, it is as smooth as a bowling-green. The only objection I ever heard to these roads is, that the jarring sensation produced by them is very injurious to the horses’ legs; but it can hardly be thought that, if the cart were up to the axle and the horse up to the belly-band in a good clay soil, any advantage would be derived from such a primitive state of things. Taking an average, the roads may be said to last from eight to ten years, and cost about L330 a mile. Those in Canada are often made much broader, so as to enable two vehicles to pass abreast, and their cost is a little above L400 a mile. The toll here is about three-farthings a mile per horse. They have had the good sense to avoid the ridiculous wheel-tollage to which we adhere at home with a tenacity only equalled by its folly, as if a two-wheeled cart, with a ton weight of cargo, drawn by a Barclay and Perkinser, did not cut up a road much more than the little four-wheel carriage of the clergyman’s wife, drawn by a cob pony, and laden with a tin of soup or a piece of flannel for some suffering parishioner. But as our ancestors adopted this system “in the year dot, before one was invented,” I suppose we shall bequeath the precious legacy to our latest posterity, unless some “Rebecca League,” similar to Taffy’s a few years since, be got up on a grand national scale, in which case tolls may, perhaps, be included in the tariff of free-trade. Until that auspicious event take place, for I confess to an ever-increasing antipathy to paying any gate, we might profit in some of our bleak and dreary districts by copying the simple arrangement adopted at many American tolls, which consists of throwing a covered archway over the road; so that if you have to unbutton half-a-dozen coats in a snow-storm to find a sixpence, you are not necessitated to button-in a bucketful of snow, which, though it may cool the body, has a very opposite effect on the temper.

It is bad enough in England; but any one who wishes to enjoy it to perfection had better take a drive from Stirling, crossing the Forth, when, if he select his road happily, he may have the satisfaction of paying half-a-dozen tolls in nearly as many minutes, on the plea that this piece of ground, the size of a cocked-hat-box, and that piece, the size of a cabbage-garden, and so on, belong to different counties; and his amusement may derive additional zest if he be fortunate enough to find the same tollman there whom I met some years ago. When passing his toll in a driving snow-storm that penetrated even to the very marrow, I pulled up a few yards beyond the gate, upon which he came out very sulkily, took the half-crown I tendered him, and, walking deliberately back, placed the change on the post of the gate, and said, “If ye want ’ut, ye may take ‘ut; it’s no my place to walk half a mile o’ the road to gie folk their change;” after which courteous address he disappeared, banging his door to with a sound that fell on the ear very like “Put that in your pipe and smoke it.” Precious work I had, with a heavy dog-cart, no servant, and a hack whose mouth was case-hardened. I would willingly have given it up; but I knew the brute (the man, not the horse) would very soon have got drunk upon it; so I persevered until I succeeded, and then went on my road full of thoughts which are, I fear, totally unfit to be committed to paper.

Reader, I must ask you to forgive my wanderings on the banks of the Forth. I hasten back to Geneseo, and pack up ready for to-morrow’s start, for the days I had spent with my kind host and his merry family had slipped by so pleasantly I had quite lost count of them. There was but one cloud to our enjoyment one sad blank in the family group: my sister-in-law, in whose charming society I had fondly hoped to make my first visit to the scenes of her early youth, had been recently summoned to a better world; and the void her absence made in that family circle, of which she was both the radiating and the centring point of affection, was too deeply felt for aught but time ever to eradicate.