nicer operation yet has been attempted: that is, to produce an intermediate temperature of heat between that which kills the egg, and that which produces putrefaction. The threshing the grain as soon as it is cut, and laying it in its chaff in large heaps, has been found very near to hit this temperature, though not perfectly, nor always. The heap generates heat fufficient to kill moft of the eggs, whilst the chaff commonly restrains it from rifing into putrefaction. But all these methods abridge too much the quantity which the farmer can manage, and enable other countries to underfell him which are not infefted with this infect. There is still a defideratum then to give with us decifive triumph to this branch of agriculture over that of tobacco. The culture of wheat, by enlarging our pasture, will render the Arabian horse an article of very confiderable profit. Experience has fhewn that ours is the particular climate of America where he may be raised without degeneracy. Southwardly the heat of the fun occafions a deficiency of pasture, and northwardly the winters are too cold for the fhort and fine hair, the particular fenfibility and constitution of that race. Animals transplanted into unfriendly climates, either change their nature and acquire new fences against the new difficulties in which they are placed, or they multiply poorly and become extinct. A good foundation is laid for their propagation here by our poffeffing already great numbers of horfes of that blood, and by a decided taste

and preference for them established among the people, Their patience of heat without injury, their fuperior wind, fit them better in this and the more fouthern climates even for the drudgeries of the plough and waggon. Northwardly they will become an object only to perfons of tafte and fortune, for the faddle and light carriages. To thofe, and for these uses, their fleetness and beauty will recommend them. Befides thefe there will be other valuable fubftitutes when the cultivation of tobacco fhall be difcontinued, fuch as cotton in the eastern parts of the ftate, and hemp and flax in the western.

It is not eafy to fay what are the articles either of neceffity, comfort, or luxury, which we cannot raise, and which we therefore fhall be under a neceffity of importing from abroad, as every thing hardier than the olive, and as hardy as the fig, may be raised here in the open air. Sugar, coffee and tea, indeed, are not between these limits; and habit having placed them among the neceffaries of life with the wealthy part of our citizens, as long as thefe habits remain we must go for them to those countries which are able to furnish them.

QUERY

QUERY XXI,

THE weights, meafures, and the currency of

the hard money? Some details relating to exchange with Europe?

Our weights and measures are the fame which are fixed by acts of parliament in England. How it has happened that in this as well as the other American ftates the nominal value of coin, was made to differ from what it was in the country we had left, and to differ among ourselves too, I am not able to fay with certainty, I find that in 1631 our houfe of burgeffes desired of the privy council in England, a coin debased to twenty-five per cent. that in 1645 they forbid dealing by barter for tobacco, and established the Spanish piece of eight at fix fhillings, as the ftandard of their currency that in 1655 they changed it to five fhillings sterling. In 1680 they fent an address to the king, in confequence of which, by proclamation in 1683, he fixed the value of French crowns, rix-dollars and pieces of eight at fix fhillings, and the coin of NewEngland at one fhilling. That in 1710, 1714, 1727, and 1762, other regulations were made, which will be better presented to the eye stated in the form of a table as follows:

Guineas

Guineas

The first symptom of the depreciation of our prefent paper-money, was that of filver dollars felling at fix fhillings, which had before been worth but five fhillings and nine-pence. The affembly thereupon raised them by law to fix fhillings. As the dollar is now likely to become the money unit of America, as it paffes at this rate in fome of our fifter ftates, and as it facilitates their computation in pounds and fhillings, & e converfo, this feems to be more convenient than its former denomination. But as this particular coin now stands higher than any other in the proportion of 1331 to 125, or 16 to 15, it will be neceffary to raise the others in proportion.

QUERY XXII.

THE public income and expenses ?

The nominal amount of these varying constantly and rapidly, with the conftant and rapid depreciation of our paper-money, it becomes impracticable to say what they are. We find ourselves cheated in every effay by the depreciation intervening between the declaration of the tax and its actual receipt. It will therefore be more fatisfactory to confider what our income may be when we shall find means of col

lecting