468 ILLINOIS AND BRITAIN. 



Suppose a farmer to have rented 300 acres for a period of 

 thirty years, during which he has maintained and educated a 

 family, and to die worth five thousand pounds. This sumjwill 

 do little more than place two sons in a situation similar to what 

 he occupied, that is to say, it will purchase twice the farming 

 apparatus he himself possessed. A farmer occupying the like 

 extent and for the same period in Illinois, might educate and 

 maintain a family in the fullest abundance, and would find no 

 difficulty during his lifetime in placing a dozen of sons in a 

 similar position with himself by the means of things, whatever 

 might be the state of prices. If a son, on attaining his fifteenth 

 year, were to work for hire, or to be industrious on his father s 

 farm until reaching the age of twenty-one, the results of his 

 own labour would enable him to purchase and stock a farm 

 without assistance from the father. But in a case where the 

 son may not have been industrious, the farmer could have 

 little difficulty in providing him with a farm, when the fleece 

 of a sheep purchases an acre and a half of land. A farm is 

 almost as easily stocked as it is purchased, one ploughing and 

 harrowing being sufficient to procure a crop of Indian corn and 

 one of wheat; while the produce of an acre of the former will 

 furnish seed for 320 acres, and an acre of the latter seed for 

 forty-five acres. 



Hitherto the case of farmers and their sons has only been 

 alluded to. It is unnecessary, however, to notice the situations 

 of widows, daughters, and infant-children, after what has been 

 stated at pages 336-7 and 344-5. When a British tenant, who 

 has farmed on lease, is descending the vale of years, with local 

 attachments for the spot where he was born deeply-seated in his 

 heart, the caprice of land-holder, agent, or factor may up 

 root the best feelings of his nature, and set him aside to 

 make room for another. But the farmer of Illinois has 

 the assurance of terminating his days on the spot which has 

 been the scene of his operations in manhood, unmolested Jjy 

 any one. 



The farmer may change the scene of his operations from 

 Britain to Illinois, and benefit by the transition, but the like 

 prospect cannot be held out to the Illinois farmer. The follow 

 ing is an extract from a letter lately received from my brother 



