50 FAEMING IN SHARES. 



of uncommon magnitude : one vast sweep of 2,200 acres was 

 all in new-sown wheat, a sparkling sheet of verdure in the 

 morning sun. The towns, most of which are not four years old, 

 are growing rapidly. I met a carpenter from Lanarkshire, who 

 had been settled in the country for twelve years. Though he 

 had made money he could not keep it, but he blamed himself 

 for this, as every steady man, he said, who had come to this 

 part of the country from Scotland had thriven. Wages were 

 at present lower than he had ever known them, a journeyman 

 carpenter receiving only 4s. a day, with his board. He had 

 seen many instances of men getting themselves into difficulties 

 by buying more land than they had means to manage and pay 

 for. But there is a plan of going "shares," in which a prudent 

 Scotch farm labourer meets with great success. He has a farm 

 given him to cultivate, fenced and broken up, and seeded ; 

 he performs the rest of the labour and carries on the farm, and 

 pays his rent by delivering at the nearest station the half of 

 the crop. This is an arrangement by which a steady man is 

 sure to succeed, and the owner of the land is also well paid. 



The carpenter was at that time constructing a small farm- 

 house of timber by contract. The foundation was of mason 

 work, with large underground cellar, the inside dimensions of 

 the building being eighteen feet by twenty-four, divided into 

 two rooms and a kitchen, with side posts twelve feet high, 

 boarded, lathed, and plastered, and roofed with shingle, com- 

 plete for 40/. Last year the same house would have cost 60/. ; 

 but both lumber and wages have fallen since the money panic 

 about a third. 



Following the route southwards for some twenty miles, we 

 come to the Illinois Eiver at La Salle. This river discharges 

 itself into the Mississippi after a course of 500 miles, dur- 

 ing which it drains nearly all the centre of Illinois, increasing 

 its volume by the waters of many tributaries. It has been nav- 



