ty of the Annapolians form
a strong and pleasing contrast to the behaviour of the stiff, gloomy and
unsocial bigots I was lately surrounded with in the Jerseys. Next to
Virginia, this state was the most famous for tobacco-plantations; but the
people now find the culture of wheat more profitable, as well as less
injurious to the soil. No plant impoverishes the earth so much by it's
growth as tobacco; many plantations, owing to successive crops of this
_weed_, are what is here called _worn out_; formerly, when their land was
in this state, instead of endeavouring to bring it round by a few fallow
years and manure, as in England, they immediately cleared a fresh tract.
They now begin to use manure, and have discovered a very extraordinary
kind; viz. antediluvian oyster-shells, large beds of which are found
a few feet beneath the surface of the earth in several parts of the
state[Footnote: See Bartram's Account of a similar Bed in Georgia,
page 213.]: these being laid on the land, are, by the effect of the
air, crumbled into dust in a few days, and fertilize the earth in an
astonishing degree.--Farewell.--Conclude me

Yours very sincerely, &c.

_Philadelphia, 27th February, 1794._

DEAR FRIEND,

On the fourth instant I left Annapolis on my way to this city. After
travelling eight miles, we passed through a long and dreary wood; here we
met two negroes conveying a coffin on a sort of sledge. On inquiry, one of
them informed us, the coffin contained the corpse of his mother; that on
the death of his old master, his parents were sold to different planters,
which his father took so much to heart, that he died soon after; his
mother only survived him about five months; and they were now complying
with her last request, which was, to be carried to a plantation about
eight miles thence, and there buried with her husband. There seemed a
great degree of dejection in the poor fellow's countenance; and I could
not help telling him, by way of consolation, that his father and mother
were gone to a better place, where there was no distinction of colour, and
where no white man would dare again to part them; but as _words_ are
_wind_, we agreed to administer some more _solid_ consolation, which the
black man received with a look of gratitude, then cast his eye towards his
mother's corpse, and shed a silent tear. Why was not _Sterne_ present at
this scene?

I slept at an inn, about twenty miles from Annapolis, where we supped in
the