• It is found that the price of lumber, fat cattle, butter and cheese, is at least fifty per cent hif^her in Baltimore than in Albany; a circumstance much in favor of Steuben county, when compared with the counties North of Albany. VOL. TT. 73

1154 PAPERS RELATING TO

Their corn, the common food of the inhabitants, is sometimes 62^ cents per bushel and sometimes 12^, and everything else in proportion* The distance from any large city is too far to drive fat cattle, and the climate too warm for the dairy, or to allow salting or barrelling beef, could salt be procured. That country seems also to have a different interest from the A.tbntic States. With the Genesee Country these objections do not hold good: droves ' of fat cattle can be sent at any time to Philadelphia, New-York, Albany, or Baltimore. The distance is not so great as the best grazing countries in Massachusetts, from whence they have, for many years past, drove their fat cattle to Philadelphia, From the south part of the Genesee Country, cattle, as well as every kind of produce, can, in the spring, be sent down the Susquehannah, either for the Philadelphia or Baltimore market. The Onondaga saltworks being in the immediate vicinity of the Genesee Country, afford salt at an easy rate for curing beef and pork, either for home use or for exportation ; and no country is better suited for the dairy. These are advantages to a new country, which are incalculable, and afford the means of bringing thousands of acres into cultivation. For my own part, after having seen great part of the United States, and resided six years in the Genesee Country ; seen it a dreary wilderness, and seeing it now possess every comfort man can desire, who divests himself of the foibles and follies of large cities, I must decidedly give this country the preference.