_14th._--Breakfasted at Bainbridge,[109] where is good bottom land, at twenty to thirty dollars an acre, with improvements. The old Virginian complains of want of labourers. A farmer must do all himself. Received of our landlady a lump of Ohio wild sugar, of which some families make from six to ten barrels a-year, sweet and good enough. Reached Chilicothé, on the Sciota river, to {339} sup and rest at the tavern of Mr. Madera, a sensible young man. Here I met Mr. Randolph, a gentleman of Philadelphia, from Missouri and Illinois, who thinks both sickly, and not to be preferred to the east, or others parts of the west. I saw three or four good houses, in the best street, abandoned, and the windows and doors rotting out for want of occupants. _15th._--I rode all day through a fine interesting country, abounding with every good thing, and full of springs and streams. Near Lancaster,[110] I passed a large high ridge of rocks, which nature has clothed in everlasting green, being beautified with the spruce, waving like feathers, on their bleak, barren tops. I reached Lancaster to rest; a handsome county seat, near which land is selling occasionally from sixteen dollars to twenty dollars. A fine farm of 170 acres, 100 being cleared, with all improvements, was sold lately by the sheriff, at sixteen dollars one cent an acre, much less than it cost. Labour is to be had at fifty cents and board, but as the produce is so low, it is thought farming, by hired hands, does not pay. Wheat, fifty cents; corn, 33-1/2 cents; potatoes, 33 cents a bushel; beef, four dollars per cwt.; pork, three dollars; mutton none; sheep being kept only for the wool, and bought in common at 2_s._ 8_d._ per head. Met Judge and General ----, who states that four millions of acres of land will this year {340} be offered to sale, bordering on the lakes. Why then should people go to the Missouri? It is not healthy near the lakes, on account of stagnant waters, made by sand bars, at the mouth of lake rivers. The regular periodical rising and falling of the lakes is not yet accounted for. There is no sensible diminution, or increase of the lake-waters. A grand canal is to be completed in five years, when boats will travel.[111] _Sunday, 16th._--I left Lancaster at peep of day, travelling through intense cold and icy roads to Somerset, eighteen miles, in five hours, to breakfast.[112] Warmed at an old quarter-section man, a Dutch American, from Pennsylvania. He came here eleven years since, cleared seventy acres, has eight children, likes his land, but says, produce is too low to make it worth raising. People comfortably settled in the east, on good farms, should stay, unless their children can come and work on the land. He and his young family do all the work. Has a fine stove below, warming the first, and all other floors, by a pipe passing through them.