. Not a few travelers
in this early period gave expression to their belief in the future
greatness of New York City. These prophecies, taken in connection with
the investment of eight millions of dollars which New Yorkers made in
toll-roads in the first seven years of this new century, incline one
to believe that the influence of the Erie Canal as a factor in the
development of the city may have been unduly emphasized, great though it
was.

From New York Baily returned to Baltimore and went on to Washington.
The records of all travelers to the site of the new national capital
give much the same picture of the countryside. It was a land worn out by
tobacco culture and variously described as "dried up," "run down," and
"hung out to dry." Even George Washington, at Mount Vernon, was giving
up tobacco culture and was attempting new crops by a system of rotation.
Cotton was being grown in Maryland, but little care was given to its
culture and manufacture. Tobacco was graded in Virginia in accordance
with the rigidity of its inspection at Hanover Court House, Pittsburgh,
Richmond, and Cabin-Point: leaf worth sixteen shillings at Richmond
was worth twenty-one at Hanover Court House; if it was refused at all
places, it was smuggled to the West Indies or consumed in the country.
Meadows were rapidly taking the place of tobacco-fields, for the
planters preferred to clear new land rather than to enrich the old.

At Washington Baily found that lots to the value of $278,000 had been
sold, although only one-half of the proposed city had been "cleared." It
was to be forty years ere travelers could speak respectfully of what is
now the beautiful city of Washington. In these earlier days, the streets
were mudholes divided by vacant fields and "beautified by trees, swamps,
and cows."

Departing for the West by way of Frederick, Baily, like all travelers,
was intensely interested upon entering the rich limestone region which
stretched from Pennsylvania far down into Virginia. It was occupied in
part by the Pennsylvania Dutch and was so famous for its rich milk
that it was called by many travelers the "Bonnyclabber Country." Most
Englishmen were delighted with this region because they found here the
good old English breed of horses, that is, the English hunter developed
into a stout coach-horse. Of native breeds, Baily found animals of all
degrees of strength and size down to hackneys of fourteen hands, as well
as the "vile dog-horses,"