The following dialogue passed at an out-settlement, where I lately paid a visit: 

Well, friend, how do you do now; I am come fifty odd miles on purpose to see you; how do you go on with your new cutting and slashing?  Very well, good Sir, we learn the use of the axe bravely, we shall make it out; we have a belly full of victuals every day, our cows run about, and come home full of milk, our hogs get fat of themselves in the woods:  Oh, this is a good country!  God bless the king, and William Penn; we shall do very well by and by, if we keep our healths.  Your loghouse looks neat and light, where did you get these shingles?  One of our neighbours is a New-England man, and he showed us how to split them out of chestnut-trees.  Now for a barn, but all in good time, here are fine trees to build with.  Who is to frame it, sure you don’t understand that work yet?  A countryman of ours who has been in America these ten years, offers to wait for his money until the second crop is lodged in it.  What did you give for your land?  Thirty-five shillings per acre, payable in seven years.  How many acres have you got?  An hundred and fifty.  That is enough to begin with; is not your land pretty hard to clear?  Yes, Sir, hard enough, but it would be harder still if it were ready cleared, for then we should have no timber, and I love the woods much; the land is nothing without them.  Have not you found out any bees yet?  No, Sir; and if we had we should not know what to do with them.  I will tell you by and by.  You are very kind.  Farewell, honest man, God prosper you; whenever you travel toward——­, inquire for J.S.  He will entertain you kindly, provided you bring him good tidings from your family and farm.  In this manner I often visit them, and carefully examine their houses, their modes of ingenuity, their different ways; and make them all relate all they know, and describe all they feel.  These are scenes which I believe you would willingly share with me.  I well remember your philanthropic turn of mind.  Is it not better to contemplate under these humble roofs, the rudiments of future wealth and population, than to behold the accumulated bundles of litigious papers in the office of a lawyer?  To examine how the world is gradually settled, how the howling swamp is converted into a pleasing meadow, the rough ridge into a fine field; and to hear the cheerful whistling, the rural song, where there was no sound heard before, save the yell of the savage, the screech of the owl or the hissing of the snake?  Here an European, fatigued with luxury, riches, and pleasures, may find a sweet relaxation in a series of interesting scenes, as affecting as they are new.  England, which now contains so many domes, so many castles, was once like this; a place woody and marshy; its inhabitants, now the favourite nation for arts and commerce, were once painted like our neighbours.  The country will nourish in its turn, and the same observations will be made which I have just delineated.  Posterity will look back with avidity and pleasure, to trace, if possible, the era of this or that particular settlement.