The numbers that have been induced by these temptations, not to be met with elsewhere in the States, to settle in the Genesee County, is astonishing; and numbers are still flocking to it every year, as not one third of the lands are yet disposed of. It was currently reported in the county, as I passed through it, that this gentleman, of whom I have been speaking, had, in the notes of the people to whom he had sold land payable at the end of three, or four, or five years, the immense sum of two millions of dollars. The original cost of the land was not more than a few pence per acre; what therefore must be the profits! It may readily be imagined, that the granting of land on such very easy terms could not fail to draw crowds of speculators (a sort of gentry with which America abounds in every quarter) to this part of the country; and indeed we found, as we passed along, that every little town and village throughout the country abounded with them, and each place, in consequence, exhibited a picture of idleness and dissipation. The following letter, supposed to come from a farmer, though somewhat ludicrous, does not give an inaccurate description of one of these young speculators, and of what is going on in this neighbourhood. It appeared in a news-paper published at Wilkes-barré, on the Susquehannah, and I give it to you verbatim, because, being written by an American, it will perhaps carry more weight with it than any thing I could say on the same subject. [Sidenote: METHOD OF IMPROVING PROPERTY.] “To the Printers of the Wilkes-barré Gazette. “Gentlemen, “It is painful to reflect, that speculation has raged to such a degree of late, that honest industry, and all the humble virtues that walk in her train, are discouraged and rendered unfashionable. “It is to be lamented too, that dissipation is sooner introduced in new settlements than industry and economy. “I have been led to these reflections by conversing with my son, who has just returned from the Lakes or Genesee, though he has neither been to the one or the other;—in short, he has been to Bath, the celebrated Bath, and has returned both a speculator and a gentleman; having spent his money, swopped away my horse, caught the fever and ague, and, what is infinitely worse, that horrid disorder which some call the terra-phobia[18].” Footnote 18: Our farmer does not seem to have well understood the import of this word, but we may readily guess at his meaning.