of tautology to encumber, or convey away, that of his neighbour.  Hubbard’s farm, and Kelly’s also, deserve regard, from being better managed than most of the others.  The people here complain sadly of a destructive grub which destroys the young plants of maize.  Many of the settlers have been obliged to plant twice, nay thrice, on the same land, from the depredations of these reptiles.  There is the same guard here as at the other settlements.

Nothing now remains for inspection but the farms on the river side.

December 7th.  Went to Scheffer’s farm.  I found him at home, conversed with him, and walked with him over all his cultivated ground.  He had 140 acres granted to him, fourteen of which are in cultivation, twelve in maize, one in wheat and one in vines and tobacco.  He has besides twenty-three acres on which the trees are cut down but not burnt off the land.  He resigned his appointment and began his farm last May, and had at first five convicts to assist him; he has now four.  All his maize, except three acres, is mean.  This he thinks may be attributed to three causes:  a middling soil; too dry a spring; and from the ground not being sufficiently pulverized before the seed was put into it.  The wheat is thin and poor:  he does not reckon its produce at more than eight or nine bushels.  His vines, 900 in number, are flourishing, and will, he supposes, bear fruit next year.  His tobacco plants are not very luxuriant:  to these two last articles he means principally to direct his exertions.  He says (and truly) that they will always be saleable and profitable.  On one of the boundaries of his land is plenty of water.  A very good brick house is nearly completed for his use, by the governor; and in the meantime he lives in a very decent one, which was built for him on his settling here.  He is to be supplied with provisions from the public store, and with medical assistance for eighteen months, reckoning from last May.  At the expiration of this period he is bound to support himself and the four convicts are to be withdrawn.  But if he shall then, or at any future period, declare himself able to maintain a moderate number of these people for their labour, they will be assigned to him.

Mr. Scheffer is a man of industry and respectable character.  He came out to this country as superintendant of convicts, at a salary of forty pounds per annum, and brought with him a daughter of twelve years old.  He is by birth a Hessian, and served in America, in a corps of Yaghers, with the rank of lieutenant.  He never was professionally, in any part of life, a farmer, but he told me, that his father owned a small estate on the banks of the Rhine, on which he resided, and that he had always been fond of looking at and assisting in his labours, particularly in the vineyard.  In walking along, he more than once shook his head and made some mortifying observations on the soil of his present domain, compared with the banks of his