Muscatine weekly journal. [volume] (Muscatine, Iowa) 185?-1890, 1859-02-11
From the Pittsburg Dispatch. |

1 " Y iido UCSll llluuCSu W tIllHk, IOul Ill
| glowing accounts of the letter writers, tina
few sections of our widely extended territor,
could surpass it in beauty Of scenery location
climate, fruitfulness of soil, and the genera
and abiding prosperity of its people. Bu
once in a while letter from some homes
farmer Or mechanic, who has been induced by
these seductive representations to pull uI
stakes in the old States and migrate to Iowa
turns up, and the fact comes out that we have
after all, been looking at that region through
the delightful kalaidescopes ingeniously pre-
pared by men interested in corner lots and
quarter sections. Such letter we have
received from Columbus City, I-apisa county
Iowa, under date of Jan. 10, from Isaac NJ
Wilson, formerly of Burrell, Westmoreland
county, Pa. and as it puts different face
ON matters ''out Yves" from that which our
people arc accustomed to see, we give the
material portion of it. He says:
| moved from Burrell township, Westmore-
land county, one year ago last October, to
make a fortune in the flr-famcd West
ploughed our ground in the fall for wheat,
and sowed one hundred bushels 1t came up,
looking beautiful when the rain set in. 1t
rained day and night for weeks, till the whole
country was one vast sheet of water. Our
prairies our beautiful praires, the wonder
and delight Of all who behold thcm-were
deluged with water, until everything, with the
exception Of prairie grass, was ruined. The
consequence was, there was not as much
wheat cut as had been sown. Oats were not
cut at all ; corn not one-fifth of crop pota-
toes never came up.
One-half the wheat which was harvested
cannot be eaten, and the corn is soft and
unwholesomc. Yet there are hundreds of
families with nothing else to eat, and that, too,
without coffee, tea, sugar, butter, molasSes or
meat Fancy man sitting down in the
morning to breakfast on what he cannot call
bread nor cake, but an indescribable soft pone,
which he washes down with substitute for
coffee made Of burned wheat, and you have a
picture which is seen daily at many an Iowa
breakfaS6 table.
Iowa. the land we have all heard "tel
about where everything grows of its own
accord, and the pigs run about ready roasted,
with the knife and fork sticking in their crisp
sides, squealing 'eat eat ~ - and where
shirts, pants, boots and overcoats grow ready
made, on the fences. TO a man who had a
nice snug farm, but who obtained his
living only by Juggling the soul out Of himself
by holding the plow on the side hills Of Penn
sylvania, what seductive picture to be seen,
when he was assured that, if he
would only sell out and move to the West
10 Iowa, if you please-;nd sit down on a
hickory stump and do nothing, he would, in
he course of two or three years, find himself
rich.
Humbug, of a verify as many poor men
nd -bn h,x,n trial tbn
lave found to their sorrow Many moved out
lere and ''pitched into' speculation, buying
On time and living on their money till it was
I'll gone, and then borrowing money at from
twenty to thirty, forty, and even sixty per
cent, and mortgaging their farms for more
money to speculate on--the fever ran 50 high
Then came the fall of 1857, with its partial
allure of crops, and last year an almost total
allure of everything. Many fell from an
anticipated aiiiuencc to a present absolute
poverty They expected q "reverson and got
| reverse | have known horses worth one
hundred dollars to be taken to satisfy judg-
nent for twenty or fifty dollars, and sold for
,en and twenty dollars; oxen worth one hun
lred dollars sold for ten, and cows for three
md four dollars--leaving the debts still to pay.
twas shameful on the part Of the Legislature
20 refuse our petition for a relief law, under
which we asked the appointment of appraisers
IN our property, that it mi ght not be sacrificed
or less than two-thirds its value. Did we
ret it? Never bit, but in its stead a school
aw-well enough at the proper time-to add
% the burdens now almos. too heavy to be
oorne. A man coming here, hoping to escape
axation, will miss it badly.
TS if n wonder thpra ara many families who
would move back to the good old hills of
Pennsylvania, if they had the means? No
vork-no money to pay for work--and young
t at that Here you will find men begging
I'D boots and tying them on their feet with
and children bareheaded and
refooted-without shoes or stockings, wear
ng ragged dresses, and without a change of
women saying, 81 have patched
md patched till | have no patches what
shall we do 2" l am sure it is more than
,an predict.
l have spent three hundred dollars in farm
ng utensils and living during the past year,
md have received but one dollar in money,
ind that was for one deer skin and four prai-
rie chickens Flour is from six to ten dollars
per barrel; oats one dollar per bushel; pota-
toes one dollar corn sixty cents. The pros
pect for Iowa is not flattering.
| would adyise any person contemplating
to the West in the spring to stay
where he is at least one year. Should we
have another such failure Of crops as last year,
Iowa will be deserted; for the people, if they
have the strength so to do, will literally take
up their beds and walk.
We wonder that paper of the respecta-
bility and intelligence of the Dispatch would
publish, with such unqualified endorsement
a letter so ridiculously absurd, aAd so mani
testify false in many particulars, as the above.
What the writer says concerning his own
at farming may be true. The past
season was an unfortunate one for the agri-
cultural interests of the State. But the oldest
settlers will affirm that they never before
experienced as bad a season, and only one
which even approximated the past for wetness
that of '5l How, then, the writer can,
with unblushing effrontery, take his expert
ence as the rule, and not the exception, to
fagning in Iowa, and publish to the world
such a pitiable and hopeless condition Of
affairs here, is past our comprehension.
We cannot imagine how any one could be
disappointed witt the productiveness of the
soil in this country, unless he had been SO
credulous before coming here as to believe the
funny stories about pigs running around
roasted, ready made clothing growing on
fences, &C., to which the writer refers. No
sensible person will contend that man can
obtain an honest livelihood in Iowa without
work. He must labor here as elsewhere !;
thoueh we do contend that his labor is much
better remunerated here than in Pennsylvania
or any other eastern State. The lazy man,
who comes here expecting t9 grow rich in his
idleness, will soon find himself in want of
many of the comforts of life, and his wife and