The whole of his operations had been directed hitherto (and wisely in my opinion) to building, fencing, and other important preparations. He had done nothing in the cultivating way but make a good garden, which supplies him with the only things that he cannot purchase, and, at present, perhaps, with more economy than he could grow them. He is within twenty miles of Harmony;[22] in Indiana, where he gets his flour and all other necessaries (the produce of the country) and therefore employs himself much better in making barns and houses and mills for the reception and disposal of { 282} his crops, and fences to preserve them while growing, _before he grows them_, than to _get the crops first_. I have heard it observed that _any_ American settler, even without a dollar in his pocket, would have _had something growing by this time_. Very true! I do not question that at all; for, the very first care of a settler without a dollar in his pocket is to get something to eat, and, he would consequently set to work scratching up the earth, fully confident that after a long summering upon wild flesh (without salt, perhaps) his own belly would stand him for barn, if his jaws would not for mill. But the case is very different with Mr. Birkbeck, and at present he has need for no other provision for winter but about a three hundredth part of his fine grass turned into hay, which will keep his necessary horses and cows: besides which he has nothing that eats but such pigs as live upon the waste, and a couple of fine young deer (which would weigh, they say, when full grown, 200 lb. dead weight) that his youngest son is rearing up as pets.
[22] Harmony (or Harmonie as it was first known) was the famous settlement of the German Lutherans led by George Rapp. In 1813 Rapp purchased thirty thousand acres along the Wabash, on a part of which New Harmony was built. "Contrary to the general idea, Rapp's colony was a great success, so far as the accumulation of property was concerned, and when Rapp sold out, in 1825, it was said the wealth per capita was ten times greater than the average wealth throughout the United States."--E. B. Washburne, editorial note to Flower's _English Settlement in Edwards County, Illinois_, p. 61. The town was purchased by Robert Owen, a manufacturer of New Lanark, Scotland, for the purpose of putting into practice his communistic ideas. After a few years the communistic plan was abandoned, and Owen returned to Scotland, leaving the property in charge of his two sons.--ED.