Year: 1859

and harvest and get nearly or quite two acres
broken next month for every faithful weeks
work he chooses to give at that busy season.
The poorest man ought thus to be able to get
ten acres broken, fenced and into CROP each
year. For poor men gradually hew farms out
of heavy timber, where every fenced and cult
vated acre has cost twice to thrice the work 1t
does here.


And it is sad to note that hardly half the
settlers make any sort of provision for winter
ing their cattle, even by cutting stalk Of prairie
hay, when every good days work will put up
tun Of it. If he has a cOrn-feld, the squatter's
cattle nre welcome to pick at that all Winter;
If he has none, they must go into the bottoms
and browse through as best they can. OF course,
his calves are miserable affairs; his cows unfit
to make butter from till the best of the season
is over his oxen, should he have q pair, must
be recruiting from their Winters famine Just
when he most urgently needs their work. And
this exposing cattle all Winter TO these fierce
prairie winds is alike inhuman and wasteful. /
asked a settler the other day how he could do
it. had no time to make shelter for them"
"But had you no Sundays 2--did you not have
these at yout disposalf" 20, yes don't work
Sundays" "Wel you should have worked ev
cry one Of them, rather than let your cattle
shyer in the cold blasts all Winter--it would





cut and haul logs, get up a cattle-stall, 4 cover
it with prairie-hay, which will warrant to be
more religious than anything you did on those
Sundays" But the squatter was of q different
opinion.


How a man located in little squalid cabin
90 one OF these rich sclaims' can sleep moonlt
nights under the average circumstances Of his
class, passes my comprehension / should want
to work moderately but resoutely at least four
teen hours Of each secular day until had made
myself comfortable with fence around at least
eighty acres, quarter of this partitioned off
for my working cattle, decent, warm shelter
to cover them in cold or stormy weather, tol-
erable habitation for my family, at least forty
acres in crop, and young orchard growing
For one commencing with next to nothing
estimate this as the work of five years; after
which, he might take things more easily await
ing the fruit from his orchard and the coming
up of his boys to help him. But for the first
four or FIVE years, the poor pioneer should work
every hour that he discs not absolutely need for
rest. Every hours work then will save him
many hours in after life


For the farmer who comes in with liberal
means, the task is of course much easier. Let
US suppose one to be worth $4,000 the day be
lands on the Kansas shore of the Missouri, and
see how quickly he can make farm and home
He arrives, we will say, in August when he car
see just what the country produces, whether il
a state of nature or under cultivation. He buy
a quarter section (which is land enough for an,
mani in choice locality, including thirty or for
ty acres of timbered river or creek bottom, say
for $40 per acre. charges $1,000 of the s 60'
thus called for to the account of the Pro-Slav
cry Democracy for defeating the Free Lane
bill, and sets to work, with two good hired men
| JIa Hva oIya Of for oL,in fnon m
q span of good wagon horses, a cow in frest
milk, and three hefers which will be cows nex
Spring, puts up cabin that will just do, and i
ready to commence breaking by the lst of Sep
tember. AS his men break, he follows with thu
horses, sowing and narrowing in wheat so Ions
as that will answer but does not stop breaking
till the ground is frozen. Now he begins Il
cut and draw timber for filter habitation tC
welcome his family in the Spring. Having done
this, he gets good mechanics to finish it, while
he and and his men go to work at fencing b,
cutting sawlogs for light, narrow boards, if ther
be sawmill convenient; if not, then by cutting
for and splitting rails. So soon as the dryes
land will answer for it, he begins to put ii
Spring Wheat; then Oats; then Corn; and putt
ing up fence whenever the soil is too wet 70
plowing; let him not forget to have a few acre
seasonably set in fruit trees, some of then





not have been exhausted by the ensuing Fall
when he will have crops coming in and NOR
than hundred acres of his land broken ant
subdued for future cultivation l see no reG
son why resolute, good manager should no
be comfortable after his first year or two, ant
thenceforth take the world as easily as need be
He who comes in with but $4,000, 81, 1000, o
$500 must of course be much longer in work
ing his way to position of comfort and indie
pendence; but if he will work right ahead, vast
ing neither days nor dollars, and keeping clea
of speculation and oficeseeking, he can hard
fail to succeed.


AS to the Internal spirit of Land Speculation
: and Monopoly, think no State ever suffere,
: from it more severely than this. The specula
tors in broadcloth are not one whit more rapa
cious or pernicious than the spectators in rags
while the latter are forty times the more nuueI
Gus. Land speculation hero is about the onl
! business in which a man can embark with n
other capital than an easy conscince. For ex
ample l rode up the bluffs back of AtchsoT
and out three or four miles on the high rollin
prairie, so as to have some fifteen to tweHt
! square miles in view at one glance. On all thi
inviting area here were perhaps half doze
. poor or middling habitatiens, while not on
5 acre in each hundred was fenced or broken. M


friend informed me that every rood l saw wa
"preempted," and held at thirty up to hundre
dollars or more per acre. "Preempted!' l e!
J claimed; show preemptedi by living or lying ?
"Well," he responded "they live little and
q little" l could see abundant evidence of Il
q lying, none at all of the living, To obtain pr
] empton, the squatter must swear that he a
: tually resides on the quarter section he apple
for, has built habitation and made other in
provements there, and wants the land for b
own use and that of INSTANTLY. The squatte
who took possession of these lands must ever


one have committed gross perjury in obtainin
preemption-and so Il is all over the TerritoF.
4 wherever lot is supposed likely to sell fo
more than the minimum price. 1 heard OF on
case in which squatteF carried marnn-bo
y on to a quarter section, and, on the strengt
y of that martin.box, swore that he had hou:
}, there eighteen by twenty'-he left the oiic'


to presume the feet So it is all over: u
= wretched little Sab shanty which has suffice
d 10 swear by on one "claim," is now moved 0
N and serves to swear by on another when III
'e first swearing is done. / am confident there
y not at this hour any kind Of house or Otht
o sign of Improvement on one fourth Of the qua
o ter-sections throughout Kansas which have bee
a secured by preemption. The squatter who thu
S establishes "claim" sells it out so soon {
& practicable to some sDeculator who follows