Clearings, plantings, and buildings.
1684. “A very good improvement for a mill.”—Speech of the Attorney-General in the Lady Ivy’s case, State Trials: quoted by Mr. Lowell in his Introduction to the ‘Biglow Papers.’
1783. The improvements of John Lower, lately deceased, offered for sale by his executor.—Maryland Journal, Jan. 28.
1784. Will be let, a small Peninsula, or Neck, of Land…. There are improvements on the place.—Advt. by Geo. Washington, id., July 20.
1786. The improvements are, three Negro-quarters and two tobacco-houses.—Advt., id., March 10.
1817. Land with some “improvements” (land cleared) is worth [in Ohio] from twenty to thirty dollars per acre.—M. Birkbeck, ‘Journey in America,’ p. 74 (Phila.).
1817. Fifty dollars per acre for improved land is spoken of familiarly; I have been asked thirty for a large tract, without improvements, on the great Miami.—Id., p. 93.
1817. They begin to talk already of selling their “improvements,” and getting still further back.—Id., p. 138.
1817. An elegant improvement, is a cabin of rude logs, and a few acres with the trees cut down to the height of three feet, and surrounded by a worm-fence or zig-zag railing.—Id., p. 152. (Italics in the original.)
1817. Opportunities are never wanting to purchase from the Backwoodsman what he calls his improvements.—John Bradbury, ‘Travels,’ p. 291. (Italics in the original.)
1829. About this period I began to learn that in America the word improvement, which, in England, means making things better, signifies, in that country, an augmentation in the number of houses and people, and, above all, in the amount of the acres of cleared land.—Basil Hall, ‘Travels in North America,’ i. 153.
1878. Neither did any man own his land in the Cherokee Nation; it was common, an’ we owned jist the improvements.—J. H. Beadle, ‘Western Wilds,’ p. 43.
