emigrate. And in another portion of the work
the author states that it will afford him
infinite pleasure if the publication of these
sheets should have the desired effect—that of
preventing his countryman from running
headlong into misery, as he and many others
have done.

When Mr. Parkinson was printing his
Experienced Farmer, in London, he had the
honour of becoming acquainted with Sir John
Sinclair, then President of the Board of
Agriculture. General Washington had at that time
sent over to Sir John, proposals for letting his
Mount Vernon Estate to English or Scotch
farmers. Whereupon Mr. Parkinson thought
himself possessed of a real fortune in the
prospect, as he naïvely says, of an introduction
both to so great a man as General
Washington and to the rich soils of America.
As the liberating general had sent over a
plan of Mount Vernon divided into distinct
farms, Mr, Parkinson pitched upon one of
twelve hundred acres; the rent twenty-two
shillings per acre. Moreover, he got upwards
of five hundred subscribers to his book, of
the first gentlemen in England, as a
recommendation to the gentlemen in America; and
with these encouragements, speculated to
make a rapid fortune. Sanguine, though
experienced Mr. Parkinson!

The genuine Britisher went to Liverpool,
and employed brokers to charter a ship,
which cost him eight hundred and fifty
pounds. He then bought the famous
racehorses Phenomenon and Cardinal Puff; ten
blood mares and ten more blood stallions; a
bull and a cow of the Roolright breed; a
bull and a cow of the North Devon; a bull
and a cow of the no-horned Yorkshire kind;
a cow and calf of the Holderness breed; five
boar and seven sow pigs of four different
kinds. These things being put on board, our
friend went on board with his family, which
consisted of seven, besides two servants to
take care of the cattle. A little Noah's ark,
Mr. Parkinson!

Biit there was no dove in the ark and little
peace. The cargo was improperly stowed, and
the ship wanted ballast, and the captain spent
fourteen days in getting it. One attendant was
sick, and had to be sent back. No sooner had
they got to sea than the king's boats boarded
them and pressed their other servant. Mr.
Parkinson was twelve weeks on his passage (the
Red Jacket makes the voyage to Melbourne
in less time now), and in that time lost eleven
horses, in which number was the famous
racehorse Phenomenon.

When Mr. Parkinson arrived at the land
of promise—the Mount Vernon Estate—the
wonderful disappointment he met with in the
barrenness of the land was beyond description.
Would General Washington have given
him the twelve hundred acres he would not
have accepted them, and to convince the
General of the cause of his determination, he
was compelled to treat him with a great deal
of frankness. Did the daring Britisher presume
to "cheek" the father of his country?
If Colonel Grunpeck had been there, a bowie-
knife—a revolver—ha! but to our tale.

Mr. Parkinson is very hard upon the hero.
He supposed himself to have fine sheep and a
great quantity of them. On the General's
five farms of three thousand acres he had but
one hundred sheep, and those in very poor
condition; whereas in Old England, on Mr.
Parkinson's father's farm, which was less
than six hundred acres, the paternal
Parkinson clipped eleven hundred sheep. Again,
the average weight of the Parkinson wool
was ten pounds per fleece; the Washington
wool scarcely reached an average of three
pounds and a half. Finally, and with which
we may consider General Washington as
disposed of as an agriculturist, the General's
crops were from two to three bushels of wheat
per acre; while on that genuine British farm
the land, though poor clayey soil, gave from
twenty to thirty bushels per acre.

Colonel Lear, General Washington's aide-
de-camp, did Mr. Parkinson the honour to
say that he was the only man he ever knew
to treat the General with frankness. But
Mrs. Washington, the General's wife, treated
Mr. Parkinson with even more frankness
than he had treated her husband; for the
British farmer being invited to dinner at
Mount Vernon, she said to him: "I am
afraid, Mr. Parkinson, that you have brought
your fine horses and pigs to a bad market."
Which observation vexed Mr. Parkinson
much, for he was by this time beginning to
be afraid himself that he had brought his
pigs to a very bad market indeed.

No land whatsoever, or wherever situated,
would suit our traveller. General Stone
offered him one thousand acres as a gift, to be
chosen out of three thousand four hundred
acres of the General's own in Aleganey
county, but the Britisher would have none of
it. Many of his friends advised him to try
Kentucky and the backwoods. This he
indignantly refused to do. He soon found those
countries worse than the parts nearer the
cities; for as money was his object, and he
found it scarce in the cities, he concluded
that it must be scarcer in the backwoods.
Naïve this, but logical, and more logical the
proof, "for," says Mr. Parkinson, "the
Kentuckians are a sharp, roguish, enterprising
people, and if anything valuable was to be
had in that country, they would be sure to
secure it for themselves."

Mr. Parkinson was told of two gentlemen,
brothers, named Ricketts, who had large flour-
mills near Alexandria, and had realised a
fortune by them. "How," he moodily asks,
"had they made that fortune? How did
they live while they were making it?" One
of the young Parkinsons boarded and lodged
with the Ricketts' for some time, and he should
describe their way of living. They had
coffee and salt-herrings for breakfast, and