Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1859-09-07

Sugar is another necessary of life which
they have had bad luck with. They can grow
the beet very well, but it is said to yield little
or no sugar-because, it is supposed, of an ex
cess of alkali in the soil. The sorghum has
not yet been turned to much account, but it is
to be. Common brown sugar sells here at 65
cents per pound coffee about the same in
the newer settlements, they are of course
still higher. All sorts of imported goods cost
twice to six or eight times their prices in the
states; even quack medicines $50 called) and
yellow-covered novels are sold at double the
prices borne on their labels or covers Con-
slider that the people came hither over a thou.
sand miles, mainly of desert, after reaching
the Missouri, which was many hundreds if
not thousands of miles from their former
homes-that they generally reached these val
leys III the fall, which afforded them excellent
chances of starvation before they could raise
crop-that they have been constantly
infested and begged or stolen from by
the Indians whose game they killed or
scared away, and who feel that they have a
right to live here so long as there are cattle or
crops to live on-that these valleys are lofty,
narrow, and parched by intense drouth from
May to Ncvember-that IMPLEMENTS and seeds
are scarcely to be obtained short of a three
months journey, and then at an enormous
cost-that they have had one year of virtual
and costly hostilites with the federal govern
ment, in which very little could be done, and
Improvement was out of the question-and
am amazed that so much has been well done
here in the way of building, tiIling, fencing
planting trees, &c. OF course this city is far
ahead of any rival, being the spiritual metro
polls and the earliest settled but am assured
that the valley of Utah Lake is better cultivat
ed than this, though Provo, its county seat, is
far behind this city, which, with its broad, re-
gular streets, refreshed by rivulets of bright
sparkling, dancing water, and shaded by rows
OF young but thrifty trees, mainly locust and
bitter cottonwood, is already more attractive
to the eye than an average city of like size in
the states. The houses (of adobe or merely
sun-dried brick) are uniformly low and gener-
ally too small but there is seldom more than
one family to dwelling, and rarely but one
dwelling on a lot of an acre and quarter
The gardens are well filled with peach, apple
and other fruit trees, whereof the peach bears
profusely, and the others begin to follow the
example. Aprcots and grapes are grown,
though not yet abundant; so of Strawberries.
Plums are in profusion and the mountain cur
rants are large, abundant and very good.
Many OF the lots are fenced with cobble-stones
laid i'll clay mortar, which seems to stand very
well. That of Brigham Young's garden and
grounds is nine or ten feet high, three feet
thick at the base, and cost some $50 per rod.
ChhoupteNly eHlS people are SlGdully lHCredS-
ing in wealth and comfort.
Still, the average life in Utah is hard one.
Many more days faithful labor are required
to support family here than in Kansas, or
any of the states. The climate is severe and
capricious-now intensely hot and dry; in
winter cold and stormy; and though cat
tie are usually allowed to shirk for them
selves in the valleys, they are apt to resent the
insult by dying. Crickets and grasshoppers
swarm in myriads, and often devour all before
them. Wood is scarce and poor. Irrigation
is laborious and expensive as yet, it has not
been found practicable to irrigate one-fourth of
the arabic land at all. Ultimately, the valleys
will be generally irrigated but this will re-
quire very costly dams and canals. Frost is
very destructive here; Indian corn rarely es-
capes it wholly, and wheat often suffers from
it. Wheat, oats, corn, barley, rye, are grown
at about equal cost per bushels may be
taken as their average price wheat is usually
heavy, though this year it threatens to be COM
paratively light | estimate that one hundred
and fifty days faithful labor in Kansas will
produce as large an aggregate of the necessa-
ries Of lite-food, clothing, flel-as three hun
dred just such days work in Utah. Hence,
the adults here generally weaI a toil-worn.
anxious look, and many of them are older in
frame than in years l ardenty hope it may
not always be thus.