The Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1837-1867, 1846-09-05
More of the West.

duces we to say one word for the benefit OF
my farming friends, J, p, + unlike many
travellers, seems to see that all Is not gold
that glitters, but he does not tell the whole
story about Wisconsin. "You have only to
fenceyour prairie, &c" but he has not told
us that the farmer must go from two to ten
miles for the timber TO build his fence have
travelled some five hundred miles in Wiscon-
sin, and never yet saw in the territory a
pine, spruce, hemlock or fir tree. From this
you can Judge of the facilities for building
II takes from five to six yoke of heavy oxen to
break up a prairie. Now any one at all nc-
quninted with clearing land will see that the diff
ference between breaking g. fencing prairie,
&. clearing our hard wood land is not much, a.
il costs about one fourth more to clear their
timber land than it does ours, Their best
prairie will produce from 90 to 30 bushels of
wheat to the acre worth from 81 l-2 TO 30 cts.
a bushel From our hard wood land we can
raise about the same number of bushels worth
at least twice as much The land in Wiscon-
sin will produce gOod crop of wheat, then one
of corn, then one of oats, then one of grass,
then middling crop of grass, and the next
crop of grass is not worth the harvesting, then
the land must be MANFRED or lie common, but
as many will have so or 100 acres under cul-
tivation at a time they not manure it, and
see way but that they will soon have to a
dept the plan of summer tillng and lose the
of their land every other year or run it
out they did in Virginia. The time was
when il was thought that Vermont land would
never want manure. The same story is told
about Wisconsin, and is Just as true in one
case as it is in the other There are cnscs in
which farmers make more money in Wiscon-
sin than in Vermont. And WHY Because in .
Vermont the farmer has his horse and buggy
and silver plated harness, in the winter his
sleigh which cost 30 or 40 dollars, his buffalo
robes, his wife is dressed warm and comfort
able, hs house well and comfortably furnished,
his wood shed well filled with dry wood and
every thing around himis arranged with an
eye to comfort and good taste Now for the
difference. In Wisconsin the buggy is an OK
cart or Yorkshire wagon-a yoke of oxen do
the work of the horse, and the silver plated
harness is an OK yoke. lfthe wife goes to
Church at ull, it is in log school house, and
by four beautiful oxen, as two cannot in all
seasons of the year get the cart through the
mud, and by having two yoke there is this ad-
vantage, when the rear ones with the cart are
in the mud-or as they call it slough, the for
ward ones will stand some chance of foot
ing on dry land and then they can help the
rear ones out. The wife has a cotton hand
kerchef tied over her head, the children are
all barefoot, and in most cases the wife also
They are destitute of all Injuries and of very
many ofthe comforts of life. When nquir-
cd of one how they could bear to live so, the
answer was, that all the ncighbors lived in the
same way. The houses are not half built in
ofthe scarcity of suitable lumber.
You will seldom ever wood shed but you
may often see the women through cold and
wet with wood on their backs Nineteen out
ofevery twenty ofall the women in the terri
tory are home-sck and hcart-sick, and wish
themselves back from whence they came I
Il mean all who live back from the lake towns } |
The men as n general thing have spent their
al to get out there and buy their land, and
some have committed crime or run away for :
debt from their old homes, so they are obliged :
% stay l conversed with very many and {
hey would acknowledge that they never c
should have gone out there ifthey had known
what they should have TO encounter They
hnk if they could get some of their old ,
leighbors or friends out there they should be a
'etter contented, so they write home flaming /
etters and point out reality all they ever !
rpect to realize. My advice to those who |
nave the western fever is, not to stay here and =
suffer, nor sell out all they have, but TO leave G
heir homes and privileges just as they are and
70 QUITE Wisconsin, and then not to stop at
Racine or Southport and believe 9
I'll the romantic stories that they hear but to a
70 back and look for themselves-go up Rock
River TO Green Bay, Great Lake, Fox Lake,
NC. These are the crack places of the terri /
DRY for farming and as they travel sometimes i
en- or fifteen miles without seeing a drop of s
water except what is procured by digging il
rom 30 to 60 feet, then think of their own ]
pleasant homes with the bubbling brooks run a
ling through their lands and the beautiful Z
od springs near the house, or of their never
ailing wells of water, only six or eight feet
lecp, close to the house, then think of the q
chools and society you have left behind, with y
he good roads and ten thousand blessings Won :,
an never enjoy in Wisconsin. Who would .
want a farm in Lyndon st. Johnsbury, if
here was not drop of water in the town on
y what had to be drawn from the bowels of
he earth say from 30 to 60 feet? Well, this is u
ften the case in the west, the rolling prairie
about miles square, and not bubble of d
II