290 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



Traveling Memoranda — No. 7. 



[Albany Cultivator, 9:35; Feb., 1842] 



[December 10 ?, 1841] 



Editors of Cultivator — On the 13th of November, I 

 brought my long agricultural tour to a close, in that most 

 pleasant of all other places, to the fond husband and 

 father, home. It will be gratifying to you, and a great 

 number of your readers, I am well assured by the kind 

 treatment I met with among them, to learn that I reached 

 my "home in the west" in safety, and found my family 

 in health and comfort. 



You are aware that it was my intention again to 

 leave home about this time, to attend the first meeting 

 of the National Agricultural Society at Washington, on 

 the 15th of this month. But circumstances beyond my 

 control, one of which is a severe cold, contracted during 

 my tempestuous voyage round the lakes, have induced 

 me reluctantly to forego this duty and pleasure — that is, 

 the pleasure of the hope of doing good, which would have 

 overbalanced all the fatigue of a winter journey, if my 

 health had been such that I had dared risk the under- 

 taking. 



My tour through the United States forms an era in 

 my life that I may reflect upon during the remainder of 

 my time, with more interest than I can upon any other 

 period of my life. It has given me the strongest assur- 

 ance that a spirit has been awakened throughout the 

 country, within a few years past, that is calculated to do 

 more good than all the political vagaries which have of 

 late agitated the world. 



The inquiry is in every man's mouth, "what shall be 

 done to improve the agricultural interest of the country?" 

 The extensive and increasing circulation of agricultural 

 papers, the increasing interest in attendance upon the 

 fairs of agricultural societies, all speak well for the cause 

 of the farming interest, the first and best interest of this 

 at present great, and to be greater, agricultural country. 

 I have been made aware that great good could be accom- 



