New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1847-07-20

ia by thousands and loaned ~ so'''S'' ~
with good security 10 pay one and nan 70 TWO
noppds AZ Wool annually per head and return
eock eoua in all respects after term % years
and exorbitant is the usury, the settler unable
10 nav for Sheep may better take them on these
terms than do without them. Nearly every cabin
is surrounded with Hogs which run at large in
GUNNER, and convert the s0perabundant Corn INTO
Pork in the + all.
The pioneer who erects bis shsnty In the midst
Of forest must struggle long or very etciently De-
fore he let's in sunshine enough 10 give him sur
plus Of grain or Justify him IN keeping herd Of
cattle But here he cannot have too many cattle
even though bis cabin is not yet built hundred
head would enrich and could not embarsss him
while. give him but team enough he may grow his
own grain the first year and surplus OF thousand
bushels the next And the wet lands ltefmeu
sloos or sloughs at first unavailable. are nches'
Of all and need but little drainage to render them
the most productive Even the higher hmoered
lands thnly covered with patrisrcha oaks over
lookipg thick underground OF bushes, though
here termed barreus are really only less fertile
than the prairies They produce abundsntly when
broken up and planted.
And now let US look at the other side ofthe PIC
ture and see what are the Disadvantages OF settle
ment and life on the Prairies.
Deficiency Of TiD1ber is the first TO strike the eye
Of one familiar with rural or pioneer life at the East
The denizen Of log cabin in Western New York
or Ohio NAV at times be short Of meal or OF meat,
but he has always good fuel in abundance within
stones throw Of his door, fencing stun as handy
and building timber not much less so. Bat mere
he finds the accessible sections embracing portions
Of timber and prairie all clutched by spectators or
snnropriated by earlier immigrants, and he can OBJ
tain land at Government price only by pitching his
tent ON the broad treeess prairie, where not even
nm arm-full Of wood be picked up within mile.
Hither he must haul his building materials lpinel
from Chicago his fencing and fuel from some ADA
cent grove or barren, alter buying or stealing It
so that the time saved to him in having no timber
nor stumps between him and crop, is nearly all
required 10 cut or haul timber and fuel As eligi'
bility and comfort a little rude pioneers cabin
looks better and is more hsbtsbe in an opening OF
the forest than in the garing sunshine Of an I'm
shaded prairie.
III Healfh is another drawback on the charms
of Prairie life The settler has hardly erected his
cabin aud begun to break up the earth around 1t
when the detested Ague jumps upon him Just
when his time is most precous-when his Winter
Wheat should be got in. His family one after an
other are taken down with Bilious disease, and a
hard season they have Of it, in a strange land,
with means and neghbors scanty and the near
est ply stefan perhaps miles away OF course all
are not thus visited-many escape, through pre-
vious accmatiOn, fortunate location or cOnstltu-
,ianal hsrdihood bat these are truly exceptions
and the settler from New England or any region
not cursed with the Ague should go expecting a
siege Of it aud thoroughly prepared with medicines
&c. for its proper treatment.
i do not esteem these discoursgements &c
Prairie settlement so formidable as they appear tC
many. III health must be braved almost anywhere
in settling new country; and though more genera
here than on more rugged and less fertile soil
believe, IL sessonsby aud properly treated It IA
not often fatal On the other hand, many diseases
common Mt thesE asst are said 10 be unknown here
aud even durable by timely removal bither In
Guiding that fatal blight Consumption. am conf
dent that, when the Praires shall have been tho.
roughly brought under cultivation, whereby the
'Sloughs will have been easily drained, especially
it good water shall be procured, Illinois will prove
as healthy as Western New York now is, and in
time as New Hampshire
So of the scarcity of Timber. There is enough
OF its kind Oak and Hickory now, if it were only
little better distributed and cultivation is gradu.
ally beating back the annual prairie fires and plant
ing groves and thickots. little care and labor
work wonders in this respect. A few acres plowed
aud sowed to Locust afford fuel and fencing after
FIVE or SIX years. and timber of slower growth may
thus be as easily though not as quickly obtained.
The Government as chief landlord. ought to have
pl anted timber Ia the midst of the largest prairie,
twenty years ago hundred dollars so expended
IN each instance would have been worth thousands
now, and would have been repaid in the prompt
sale Of lands which IN default Of timber, must re-
main long useless and uninhabited. If Speculation
would now undertake to buy up the centres of the
great prairies and plant them with trees, It would
for once do a good thing, and abste somewhat OF
the Just odium created by the purchase bf large
tracts to remain sheer waste and obstacles until
other mems hard labor has quadrupled their value.
-lut great iViAAuNoASf
on the eligibility OF the Prairie region for settle
ment is the DefcieReyef Waiey. do not see how
this is ever to be fully remeded. Though the face
of the country is by means a dead level. but un-
daatng the inequality is slight that springs are
very. very and running lsooks hardly less 50.
You may ride twenty miles across the country
without seeing water enough IN all 10 turn grist-
mill and what you do hnd well-bred horse will
Only drink in his last extremity OF thirst. whole
County, which in New England would give rise 10
half dozen good mill streams and be threaded all
over with sparkling, leaping trSutbrooks, viii here
send oft scarcely water enough IN Sumner TO run
a single pair OF burr-stones. This IN q region So
wonderfully adapted 10 the production OF Grain
and Cattle, is sore deficiency. Following down
the valley OF the Fox, some twenty miles, by the
thriving villages OF Elgin 5 / Charles Geneva and
Aurora each well supplied with mln-power by the
rlyer,) although the SCARE ~ OF running streams
" as here by no means SO absolute as In the Prsi-
hes on either hand Yet d 'aot whether the river
gains as much by tIoutsri, 1t loses by evspors
ION within that distance And. though wster is
generally obtained with ia :iiity by simply digging
tew feet through the Prs irie soil cannot in con.