John Milton Binckley, June 1859 Travel Diary, Page 47

[John Milton Binckley, June 1859 Travel Diary, page 47. Many thanks to William Myers, Mary Davy, Sally Young and Sue Davis for their ongoing research collaboration; specifically to William for providing scans of the original document, and in turn many thanks to Peter Johnston Binckley and Patricia D'Arcy "Trish" Binckley (1951-2007), at the source. This is my rough transcription. Extra paragraph breaks inserted for easier reading.]

. . . if the country worthy its credit as the garden of Ohio. Corn here quite advanced, certainly four inches high, stalk, still in a suburb, get a better view now of town. 

Dayton surpasses any city I ever saw for Elegance considering the population. Laborers making clover hay. Country grows finer and finer still, nature has made it such as Milton describes Eden.

Hawk or other large black bird, pursued and annoyed by a small gray bird. Country in a perfect glee of bloom, yet, by streams, etc. evidently long since rain. 

Farm homes, elegant.

"Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood
Stand dressed in living green:
So to the Jews old Canaan stood
While Jordan rolled between."

[Isaac Watts, "There Is a Land of Pure Delight," 1709.]

Farmers out in wheat (in head ...) carefully seeking out the [?], a, their women do . . . from the children's heads. 

With what care such cultivation is conducted, where labor so valuable is found profitable in spending days in culling a few handfuls of weeds from a plantation of grain! A negro would destroy a peck of wheat in trying to exclude a pint of [to be continued.]


[John Milton Binckley (1831-1878).
Mother = Charlotte Stocker Binckley (1788-1877).]