Farming in Lower Macungie, 1820s

The text that follows is a description of farming in the early nineteenth century, written by Anne Royall, who was traveling from Mauch Chunk to Allentown in 1828 as part of a much longer trip through Pennsylvania.
Mrs. Royall was an early newspaper woman who recorded her visits to places around the country. This section describes what she found as she approached the area from the north, where she had seen the anthracite mines and the construction of the Lehigh Navigation. The "road from Allentown to Reading" is today's Hamilton Boulevard through Lower Macungie and on to "Koutztown."
The land becomes richer and less uneven as we approach Allentown; the heights are covered with chestnut, and the valleys with large black walnut, large farms and fine orchards; the largest apple trees I ever saw, fine barns and houses, sleek cattle, few sheep and horses in sight, but a number of fine hogs running at large in the woods. …
The road from Allentown to Reading passes over some of the finest farming land in Pennsylvania. It must be understood that from the care and skill of the Pennsylvania farmer the land is never suffered to lose in point of fertility. They have made farming a perfect science and pursue a regular routine in changing their crops from one thing to another, by which means land originally rich is still the same and produces as much as at first, and land originally poor has become fertilized. I have seen nothing in any of the Atlantic states, in the farming line, that has any resemblance to the farming in Pennsylvania. Father and son, grandfather and so on, have become rich on the same tract of land, I see nothing like poverty in the country, whatever there may be in the towns. The great, massy barns, with elegant sash and glass windows, their overgrown horses and cattle, their smooth ploughed furrows, their haystacks and snug, warm houses, their thick, serviceable cloths, the ease and contentment, and above all, that noble independence which marks their steady looks and movements, prove them to be a wealthy and happy people.
Mrs. Royall was an early newspaper woman who recorded her visits to places around the country. This section describes what she found as she approached the area from the north, where she had seen the anthracite mines and the construction of the Lehigh Navigation. The "road from Allentown to Reading" is today's Hamilton Boulevard through Lower Macungie and on to "Koutztown."
The land becomes richer and less uneven as we approach Allentown; the heights are covered with chestnut, and the valleys with large black walnut, large farms and fine orchards; the largest apple trees I ever saw, fine barns and houses, sleek cattle, few sheep and horses in sight, but a number of fine hogs running at large in the woods. …
The road from Allentown to Reading passes over some of the finest farming land in Pennsylvania. It must be understood that from the care and skill of the Pennsylvania farmer the land is never suffered to lose in point of fertility. They have made farming a perfect science and pursue a regular routine in changing their crops from one thing to another, by which means land originally rich is still the same and produces as much as at first, and land originally poor has become fertilized. I have seen nothing in any of the Atlantic states, in the farming line, that has any resemblance to the farming in Pennsylvania. Father and son, grandfather and so on, have become rich on the same tract of land, I see nothing like poverty in the country, whatever there may be in the towns. The great, massy barns, with elegant sash and glass windows, their overgrown horses and cattle, their smooth ploughed furrows, their haystacks and snug, warm houses, their thick, serviceable cloths, the ease and contentment, and above all, that noble independence which marks their steady looks and movements, prove them to be a wealthy and happy people.