364 INDIANA HISTORICAL COLLECTIONS 



coadjutors in the non-enclosure system, upset with a cart 

 load of pigs and tea, into a sea of crocodile tears, and our 

 fine fabric which we had raised for the benefit of un- 

 born millions, and for the purpose of enriching us poor, 

 miserable, half-acre farmers and naked prairie specula- 

 tors, all stove to smash, by one blow of the big fist of 

 brother Churchill. 1 



Then again in the same paper, Mr. West has knocked 

 me down with my own gauntlet, though certainly in a 

 much more gentle, (I might say genteel) manner than 

 the Avon farmer. 2 Again in the March number I have 

 the power of Socrates against me. 3 Really, Doctor, in- 

 stead of asking help from me, you should gallantly come 

 to my aid. And those other gentlemen who are so anxious 

 to take a tilt with me, must give me time to mount. All 

 in due time. If you or they knew half the business actu- 

 ally pressing upon me, you would only wonder how I am 

 able to answer half of my correspondents in any reason- 

 able time. 4 



And now to your third question. I do certainly think 

 that the plan of holding Fairs upon the camp-meeting 

 system is worthy a trial. I have no doubt it would at- 

 tract many merely for the novelty as well as the economy 



1 Alfred Churchill, Avon, Kane County, Illinois. Contributor to 

 Prairie Farmer. Patented a harvesting machine, March 16, 1841. 

 He characterized the no-fence system as a no-sense system. Prairie 

 Farmer, 3:43. 



2 F. West wrote from Du Page County, Illinois, on December 12, 

 1842, chiding Robinson for his delay in "reducing the subject" of 

 nonenclosure to a tangible form. Ibid., 3:25-26. 



'Socrates Rand, of Cook County. Ibid., 3:60-61. 



4 The discussion of the nonenclosure system continued to receive 

 a considerable amount of space. See the articles of M. L. Dun- 

 lap, J. I. Crandall, and D. C. Underbill in the Prairie Farmer, 

 3:118-20 (May, 1843). Robinson was prevented from answering 

 by the illness of his children and the death of one. Ibid., 118. 



5 The editor deleted part of Robinson's letter dealing with the 

 assumption of state debts by the general government, holding dis- 

 cussions of such questions undesirable in an agricultural periodical. 



