The weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington, Iowa) 1858-1860, 1859-02-15
we st~varu Movement Of Popula,

we stWard Movement of Population.
We hear of considerable number Of our
well to do mechanics and artisans who are seri.
ously considering the ques ton of visit to the
Kansas gold fields, or emigration to tho West
Tor permanent settlement, this spring. As usual,
those who are doing well now, pecuniarily, are
the uneasy men who are anxious to do better.
Inc men who spend as they 60, and live but
one remove from the poor house are, generally
content where they are, and do not aspire to
anything better, either from a conviction that
they cannot escape what seem ms to be their des.
| tiny, or because Providence blesses with the
great solace OF cOntentment those to whom she
denies the gifts Of fortune. This will be found TO
| be the general fact. The man who prospers
above his fellows is always the first to seek new
enterprises in the hope of gaining money still
faster, and those who are now talking most
earnestly Of venture TO the gold diggings are
those who have good situations and good pay
at home.
But it seems to US after all that the induce
ments for emigration to the West for permanent
settlement are much the greatest. There is an
abundance Of the best land in the world in
Iowa, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska, and Mis-.
souri,, in healthy and delightful climate which
can be had at the merely nominal Government
price, or slight advance upon it in the more
settled places-er for nothing, if Mr.. Grows
Homestead bill, which has passed the House,
shall also pass the Senate. There are also thou
sands of good improved farms, almost any
where in the West, that can be had just at this
time for half what they would have brought
two years ago. Their owners are embarrassed
and want money. They will sell their places
very cheap for cash, pay their debts, and push
on farther towards the outer line of settlement.
There probably was never q time when i'm
proved farms, well situated, on lines OF eommu-
nication and in the vicinity of growing cities
and towns, could be bought SO cheap as ~ the
present moment, and it is not probable that an
other such general opportunity of this sort will
occur for many years. At least it is to be hoped
that no such prostration of business will again !,
embarrass the western farmers as now cheapens
their cultivated soil. Those, therefore, who |
have saved few hundred dollars can invest |
them in q farm ut the West, with as near GER |
tainty we can get in this world that it will |
speedily double in value on their hands. And |
it does not need practiced farmer to get liv- |
ing on western land. Here in sterile New Eng. |
land, the mechanic who should leave his shop |
and attempt to get his subsistence from the |
soil, would be very likely to find it hard work, |
and wish himself back in his shop again But |
agriculture at the West is comparatively a sim
pie business, and although skill and labor pay
there as well as here, they are not SO indispen-
sable to existence.
There is this co nsideration too that is not OF |
small consequence to the man who eats his bread |
in accordance with the original curse, that |
simpler and cheaper life is both comfortable and |
at the West. In our Eastern cities |
and towns it takes great many days Of hard
labor every year to maintain q certain style of |
living and Of dress that is indispensable to de-
cent "respectab,lity," and responsibility is quite
as exacting of all OF US as fashion 10 of its vOta-
ries. Living as every man who keeps house
must live in New England, and practicing the |
most rigid economies and self-denials, the ms
cAdnic here cannot sare enough to buy the cheap
est house to shelter his family in less than
dozen or fifteen gears. What this house will
cost him, it invested at the West will give him |
\ good farm, well stocked, and house just as
comfortable and just az respectable for that
regon-and the man who has . farm that
will yield a sufficient support 10 return for I
bis labor, Ia as indie pendent ~ IL he had
money enough in bank to live upon. We
presume that these conss derations felt at the
present moment, when business 10 recovering
rom its long stagnation, as they have not been
Felt before. and we should naturally expect an
turning towards the West-the
region Of cheap farms and great crops. There
IRE many indications that this - the case, and
hat there will be an unusual movement tocards
NE ssfting sUa AZ soon AZ spring opens We
hope it may be judicious NOV ement for those
hat make 1t, and that ~ far a. possible il may
DO an emigration in companies. Of families who
snow each other and have COMMON views and
md successful mode Of cultivation. Springfield
Ia Rar1r