SOLON ROBINSON, 1838 97 



Novel Premiums. 



[Albany Cultivator, 5:141-42; Oct., 1838] 



Lake C. H. la. Aug. 27, 1838. 



J. Buel, Esq. — Dear Sir — Not being blest with an 

 overplus of gold and silver, I propose to offer a "barter 

 trade," to any one desirous of obtaining a premium, upon 

 the following proposition: I am the owner of sixteen 

 lots, in one of the numerous new towns of the west. It 

 was laid out in 1836, about three miles from the head 

 of Lake Michigan, on the great western thoroughfare 

 which passes the head of the lake, between Chicago and 

 Michigan city. — 1 About $20,000 worth of lots were sold 

 at the first sale, at prices higher than they now are 

 worth. — Yet I find from the assessment roll of 1838, 

 now on file in my office, that the average assessed value 

 of my lots, is $55 each. The Buffalo and Mississippi 

 rail-road, and a branch from the Lake Erie and Michigan 

 canal to the Illinois canal, have been surveyed through 

 the place, so that property is more likely to rise than 

 fall. However, such as it is, I freely give, and if worthily 

 won, I hope it may rise in value as fast as similar prop- 

 erty has done all over the great west. 



So, then, to the offer. I appreciate your remarks in 

 the Cultivator, No. 6, on the great want of "Agricultural 

 School Books." 2 Now to induce some one to begin a 

 series of such elementary works, that will have a ten- 

 dency to learn American youth such things as are the 

 most important of all things for them to learn, that is, 

 how to support themselves and families by the labor of 

 their own hands, I offer, as a premium, five of the above 



1 Liverpool. From the spring of 1839 to the summer of 1840 

 Liverpool was the county seat of Lake County. See Robinson's 

 note on "The 'Robinson Fund,'" in the Cultivator, 6:88 (July, 

 1839) ; Ball, Lake County, from 1834- to 1872, 155-56. 



2 See Buel's editorial on "Common School Libraries," in the Cul- 

 tivator, 5:101. Robinson's suggestions here anticipated the wide- 

 spread demand for such books which developed in the fifties and 

 grew more pronounced following the creation of state agricultural 

 colleges in the sixties. 



