106 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



live on a year or two, actilly shake themselves to death 

 with that everlasting cuss of all new countrys, the fever 

 and agur. It's a melancholly fact, 'Squire, tho' our peo- 

 ple don't seem to be sensible of it, and you nor I may 

 not live to see it, but if this awful robbin' of posterity 

 goes on for another hundred years, as it has for the last, 

 among the farmers, we'll be a nation of paupers. Talk 

 about the legislature doing something, I'll tell you what 

 I'd have them do. Paint a great parcel of guide boards, 

 and nail 'em up over every legislature, church, and school- 

 house door in America, with these words on em in great 

 letters. "The best land in America, by constant crop- 

 ping, without manure, will run out." And I'd have 

 'em, also, provide means to larn every child how to read 

 it, cause it's no use to try to larn the old ones — they're tu 

 sot in their ways. — They are on the constant stretch with 

 the land they have, and all the time trying to git more, 

 without improving any on't. Yes, yes, yes, too much 

 land is the ruin of us all. 



Although you will find a thousand more good things 

 among the writings of "The Clockmaker," I hope you will 

 not look for a literal copy of the foregoing. And if ever 

 this meets the eye of the writer of the "Sayings and 

 doings of Samuel Slick," I beg him to excuse me for the 

 liberty I have taken with his own language. I remain 



your agricultural friend, 



Solon Robinson. 



Lake C. H. la. Oct 12, 1838. 



The Season in Indiana. 



[Albany Cultivator, 5:191; Jan., 1839] 



Lake C. H. Ind. Nov. 25th, 1838. 

 It is worthy of note that the drouth still continues in 

 this section of the country to a distressing degree. The 

 old adage, that, "winter never with rigour sets in, till the 

 swamps with water are fill'd in," is completely falsified. 

 The general character of the weather eight months past 

 has been thus : — April cold and dry ; May warm, without 



