SOLON ROBINSON, 1846 33 



agrarianish in thy principles. At all events, thou art not 

 well versed in true political economy. "Let us have no 

 national school," you say. Then let us have no national 

 monopoly of the public domain, which instead of convert- 

 ing the proceeds into schools, and roads, and harbors, for 

 the benefit of those who pay their money for them, have 

 diverted every dollar so wrung from the hard toil of the 

 poor pioneer in the forest, for the cut-throat purpose of 

 "glorious war," upon a defenceless people, to gain more 

 territory to devote again to the same purpose. But this 

 is not, I suppose, in your opinion, "beyond the proper 

 sphere" of government. 



Dr. Philips' Reply to Reviewer, is an interesting arti- 

 cle, and I feel pleased to think that I have been the cause 

 of drawing him out so fully. Still, he might have written 

 more lengthily upon the several inquiries made, with 

 equal interest. I am sorry to think from the closing para- 

 graph of the Doctor's letter, that perhaps he thought my 

 remarks were too much in a vein of ridicule, for an entire 

 stranger to indulge in. But the truth is, he is no stranger 

 to me, and I know he loves a joke and would laugh heart- 

 ily now if he could "ferret me out," and learn how I know 

 that peas "have a haulm." 



Gardening , No. 7, should never have been thus entitled ; 

 for, although an interesting article upon geological sci- 

 ence, it has not one word upon the science of gardening. 

 "In uncultivated grounds, soils occupy only a few inches 

 in depth of the surface," is an old theory that may be 

 true in Europe when it was first written, but it is not so 

 when applied to millions of acres of American soil ; which, 

 in some of the western states, is deeper than the plow 

 ever runs. I do not believe that "every gardener or 

 farmer who know the sorts of plants naturally produced 

 upon a soil," would be able to determine its value for cul- 

 tivation. I recollect being told many years ago in Michi- 

 gan, while "land hunting," that wherever I found the 

 burr oak, I should find warm, rich, sandy land; and yet, 

 in truth, I found it afterwards growing upon poor, cold, 

 hard, clayey land. So "these plants are not absolutely to 



