* The personal recollections of members of our own family, extending further back than our own, afford ample authority for this statement.

3 " Even in Towns every one has a plott of at least ten acres, which

short, as was said in the beginning, there were few, among the residents of that portion of the country, during the later Colonial period, who were not either actual cultivators of the soil or in some way connected with or dependent on those who were thus employed.

-fcWith a more than usually productive Soil, not yet exhausted by a vicious system of cultivation ; with a temperate Climate, which was not only conducive to healthfulness, in the inhabitants, but promotive of the best interests of the farmers, in the ripening and harvesting of their crops ; with moderate Rentals for the properties held by those of them who were not Freeholders ; and with Taxes which were only nominal in amount; too far removed from the frontier to be harassed by the inroads of hostile Savages ; and near enough to the not distant City to enjoy the great advantages which it afforded, in a constant Market, at the highest prices, for all the surplus products of their farms which they should desire to sell, and, at the lowest prices, for whatever, of necessities or of luxuries, the products of this or of other countries, which they should desire to buy -- in the enjoyment of all these, the farmers of Westchester-county, especially during the later Colonial period, were favored as few other purely agriculturists have been favored, then or since, in any part of the world. _*'