The new dominion. [volume] (Morgantown, W. Va.) 1876-1904, 1885-06-13
A WEST VIRGlNIAN,
who Went West, But Was
Glad 10 Get Back.

olaS ClltO1HCLe as fOllOWS- II
is pretty good and as truthful as
good. Here is what he says:
Editor Chronicle II was very
glad indeed to notice your repro
duction of an excellent article from
the Greenbrier hdebendfzt, on the
Western Fever. | should like to
add my mite, upon the same sub
ject.
/ have been West at least six
times, and, the more | see of it,
the more | don't like it. The more
l see of West Virginia and its Ca
liabilities, the more like them.
This talk of getting rich out
West is an absurdity. Just as if
there were hardly any poor men
therel Why, the country is dot
ted with them, just as hard up as
the poor are here. And, if you
take a county in Illinois or Iowa,
and compare it with any county in
West Virginia, where the land av-
erages the same in value, how many
more rich men will you find in the
Prairie county than in our mountain
one2
There is one solid advantage in
going West, and only one as far as
| can see, for us of West Viz
ginia, and that is apt to help the
man who goes, as man. 1t is
apt to teach him to work harder
and better, to have more true in
dependence and self-reliance. But
these virtues can be acquired here,
as fully as there, if parents will but
teach them, and boys will but prae-
tice them. There is no patent-right
for them out West nor any sole
agency for distributing them, as
far as | know.
Again. Before our people move
out West, | think they had better
reckon up a little on the score OF
comforts. how much does the
shade around your house cost you
You will have to pay for it out
West, and wait years to get it too.
The same too in regard to fruit
here, it is everywhere there it is
nowhere. And if you go to the
Northwest, it is a chance if you
can raise any at ALL The climate
is too severe.
What would you take to do with
out your spring and your creek
If you move West, you will have
no spring-your creek will be pois-
onous during the summer-and,
when you have dug a well, the
water will be apt to be very infer
ior to what you have been used to.
What are you going to do about
wood to burn, wood for fences,
posts, and rails, and boards for
fencing and building? | will tell
you. Out West, you will proba-
bly, have to go town and pay money
for coal, which is SO miserably
dirty that you would not burn it
here. You will have to buy every
board and every fence post you use.
There may be some scrub in the
neighborhood where you can cut
pea-sticks, but if you want sled,
or a wagon pole, you will have to
60 to the undergrad and buy it.
Money is very powerful, very
useful, very delightful am will
ing to admit all that. l am also
willing to admit that good deal
more of it passes through an aver
age mans hands out West than in
West Virginia. But how much
more of it sticks to them? That
is another and very different ques-
ton. Yes, after buying all the
store goods that man has to buy
whether, he lives East or West,
and then after meeting all the ex-
ira calls that he has on him out
there, certainly should like to know
how much more money sticks to
the fingers out West than in West
Virginia:
And then, the long long winters,
when a man can do nothing but
feed.
And the tremendous wind storms,
which we know nothing about
here
And the grasshoppers.
And the risk of the prices of
corn and wheat being below the
cost of raising them, as they were
last year.
And the roads are no better.
And the frosts are just as bad.
And the taxes are a good deal
higher!
And the chills are laying in wait
down by the creek. And Con
sumption stands ready to wind mp
a cold for you, if you are not care
full. No sir, there is no Western
Fever about me. I've been inocu-
lated for it six times over. And l
am not going to change country
where man can raise anything he
likes, and have the healthiest and
pleasantest climate l know of, for
any part of that over-praised Great
West that | have yet seen or heard
of.
The watch-word for West Vir-
ginians should not be go West; but
learn to farm. When our young
men have mastered this, the Western
Fever will be cured; for our whole
country will be so prosperous and
SO healthy that the poor Western
ague victims will come to us in hun
dreds as they have before now
come in tens.
And then, the Duke of McMil-
lions creek and others like him,
who are not farmers at all, but gra
ziers, for they won't farm and say
it doesn't pay, will be able to buy
Nicholas county flour, of better