SOLON ROBINSON, 1848 123 



I saw very few sheep along the road, and all of them 

 of the common kind, yet looking remarkably well. There 

 is one difficulty in growing wool, in the great quantity of 

 burrs and "stick tights;" but yet these are not insuper- 

 able, and it is wondrous that no wool of any account is 

 grown in this part of the state for exportation. It is an 

 article that will bear hauling. 



Corn and hogs, hogs and corn, are the almost universal 

 rotation. And yet in the whole distance (160 miles), I 

 saw but one good lot — that is, of good, improved breeds. 

 I saw droves going to St. Louis, for pork, nearly 100 miles 

 distance, which as a matter of course could only be in 

 good working order, averaging, perhaps, 175 lbs., and 

 some of them showing tushes three or four inches long. 

 Bah! What pork! 



In that whole distance, I saw but one threshing ma- 

 chine. How curiously this contrasts with a trip through 

 the northern counties, where a traveller will often see 

 twenty in a single day's ride. 



At St. Louis, I had intended to make some acquaintance 

 with those who should feel an interest in agricultural im- 

 provements ; but I soon found that I had fallen upon the 

 wrong time. 



I found the news of the presidential election that had 

 taken place the day before, in New York, and other east- 

 ern states, a thousand miles away, here in every man's 

 mouth, and so engrossing all attention, that it would be 

 an idle waste of time to offer to talk upon any other sub- 

 ject. Ah, me ! How can the minds of a people be brought 

 to think upon the importance of judicious cultivation of 

 the earth, who never think or read of any other subject 

 than party politics? The manufacturer of plows, to them 

 is a far less important person than the manufacturer of 

 political opinion. 



Speaking of plows. I saw at St. Louis, one of those 

 great, unwieldy, iron, Scotch plows, just imported for the 

 use of some prairie farmer, at a cost probably sufficient 

 to have kept him in a neat, light article, suited to his 



