Kansas weekly herald., 1854-12-22
Pioneer. NSM!

How few from the east understand any
thing of pioneer Life. They come out here
with soft hands. and too often soft heads,
expecting to find country, in which they
| can i've without work, but then alas how
sadly they are deceived! Kansas Isl good
country, with good climate, but it is yet
in state of nature, and what it needs, is
able and stout harts to develope its bound
less resources of wealth. Persons must not
come here expecting to find bed of roses,
but come with determination to share the
privations and encounter the difficulties of
settling new country, of helping to build
it up, ready and willing to turn their hands
to any and all kinds of work, and they will
be enabled to realise their brightest antici-
pations.
The following remarks by G. S. Park,
who has made an extensive tour through the
country, is very applicable.
$50 far as our observation has extended,
the Eastern emigrants do not understand
pioneer life; they have squandered their
time in organizing Leagues for settlement
and defence, and in forming Constitutions,
&c. Their chief defence is their honor
and religious principle the Constitu
ton of our Country extends its @gis
over them wherever they go. Until they
provide sufficient shelter for themselves,
what more do they want +? Specious plans,
drawn with precision on paper, are not
worth straw on the ground. An actual
settler needs team that he may bring with
him his provisions and necessary utensils;
then he can go on, to his claims, make
camp, and commence cutting logs, notching
and laying them up, and covering over his
cabin with 3 or feet boards rived out of
some good oak tree near by. The outside
has to be chinked and daubed with mud !;
the inside may be boarded up: while for a
floor, some puneheons can be split up and
laid down,-after which the family can
"move in." The next movement is to split
rails, or lay up stone walls for fences, &c.
1t is useless to go away out from the settle
ments as many have done, without provis-
ions and implements to work with, especi-
ally at this late season; all who are not pre-
pared to do as we have indicated should stay
on the frontier till spring. Soft hands and
soft heads are of no use, at present, in the
country; money can't purchase comfort and
convenience.
Government gives helping hand to the
Indian tribes, pays them annuIties, and
otherwise cares for them; but the pioneer
must force his way over every obstacle un-
aided and uncheered. He must pay the
Government for his land, put up his own
houses, make his farm build school-houses
and churches, and dig his fortune from moth
er earth, or hew it out of masses of unsha-
pen rock. Kansas, to many minds, appears
to be poetical myth-a kind of Western
Elysium to which it is fashionable to emf
CRATE; but there is stern reality in improv-
ing and building up a new country little
drcamt of by the citizens of the older States,
whose ancestors did all the hard work for
them. At first many of the newcomers will
be severely tested-those who persevere
through all difficulties and discouragements,
will form the strong sub-stratum on which
Kansas society will be erected. Our SYM
pathies were always with the enterprising
self-reliant pioneer who goes forth to subdue
the wilderness. God never made better,
nobler men. They love the Union, and
are the bulwarks Of religion, liberty, and
law"
PErR1FIED WHEAT.-Mr. Park, of the
Luminary, says he picked up on the Blue,
in Kansas Territory some curious specimens
of petrified wheat, and further says:-
''The resemblance is distinct, perfect
An interesting inquiry comes up-who rails
ed that wheat?-who cultivated the teem-
ing earth in that region, in ages long gone
by? Can geologists tell US? Perhaps this
was the region of the globe referred to by
Calanius. who once, i'll conversation with
Onesectius, remarked that, 'anciently the
earth was covered with barley and wheat,
as it then was with dust"
E5 The Nebraska Palladium says: -
| ssTho T,,1StoaS of tho A SSnciatior, lcr,n,1:,,