Documentary History of the State of New York, Vol. II
If we consider the vast body of rich flats on the Susquehannah, where its various branches pass the Genesee Country, and the ease v^ith which the produce of the Genesee River can be brought to the navigable part of the Canisteo, it will appear that the quanity of hemp which may be collected at Tioga Point, or the Painted Post will be incalculable. The flats on the Genesee River and Canascraga Creek alone, cannot be estimated at less than eighty miles in length, and about two in breadth, forming a body of about eighty thousand acres : and every acre is, I suppose, eighteen feet deep of black mould. In such land the Indians raise one hundred
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bushels of com on an acre, and they never have been known to make any change of the spot. Where such land under proper management, and turned to the cultivation of hemp and flax, the retuFns would be immense. To forward this object, it is intended, this season, to begin an establishment at the extremity of the navigation of the Canisteo ; and to rnduce the farmers on the Genesee River to cultivate hemp and flax, proper boats will be provided to carry those articles to market. To those who object that three hundred and fifty four miles* is too lengthy an inland navigation to carry such bulky acticles to market, I reply, that the United States are at present supplied with hemp from Russia, and that it there bears an inland navigation of one thousand two hundred miles before it reaches a sea-port.