SOLON ROBINSON, 1841 217 



wildness into cultivated fields of golden grain, and to 

 cover nature's great pasture with lowing herds, and con- 

 sequently filling up this great space of wild waste, with a 

 population of happy human souls? 



This is what we now want. We want to transplant 

 thousands of our hard-toiling brethren, who are sweating 

 away their lives upon the old worn out hills of New Eng- 

 land and Europe, and plant them in our great Western 

 garden. And it should be one great object of this So- 

 ciety, to encourage emigration. Not in words alone, but 

 our acts should tend to shew the great benefits to be de- 

 rived. Plain true statements of the present condition 

 of the country should be published. Show them the thou- 

 sands of acres of land as rich as heart could wish, lying 

 waste all over our country. It is true that the "first 

 choice" is occupied, but what of that. Let industry and 

 economy, such as may be seen upon the plains of 

 Flanders, or among the bogs of Ireland, and cliffs of 

 England, old or New, be devoted to the worst land in our 

 country, and its occupants would soon become independ- 

 ent — or comparatively so; for absolute independence is 

 neither attainable or desirable — all classes must live by 

 and for each other. But there is a degree of comparative 

 independence that the cultivators of a rich soil always 

 may possess, and which is within the reach of every citi- 

 zen of this Republic, who is of sound body and mind, 

 and who has a disposition to claim it, particularly in a 

 region where nature has made such ample provision for 

 the new beginner. But there has, in my opinion, been 

 a fatal error committed by many of the first emigrants to 

 this country, in an over anxiety to accumulate too much 

 of a good thing. 



It is evident that no man can cultivate such large 

 tracts as many have been anxious to possess, of such a 

 soil as ours. It were better by far that our uncultivated 

 lands were occupied by hardy and industrious laborers, 

 whose every stroke of plough, hoe or spade, would add 

 intrinsic value to it, than to lie dormant, waiting some 



