COKtf GUI/TUBE AT THE WEST. 293 



that, in his new quarters, exuberance of soil and 

 multitude of acres will lift him above the drudgery of 

 old methods, make him independent of received max- 

 ims, and yet remunerate a minimum of labor with a 

 maximum yield. 



If his first crop disappoints him, he is nothing 

 daunted, but plants a wider breadth the following 

 year, still sanguine of success, defiant of chemistry, 

 and superior to the laws of vegetation. He is bound 

 to realize his early dreams of mammoth granaries 

 densely filled ; and so long as that end is gained, he 

 cares not to inquire whether it results from quantity 

 of land, or perfection of culture. If when his crop is 

 harvested he can count the product by thousands 

 of bushels, his object is equally accomplished, whether 

 it is the yield of several hundred acres imperfectly 

 cultivated, or of fifty acres thoroughly tilled. 



But after all, this passion for doing things on a 

 large scale, at a rapid rate and therefore superficially, 

 is but the outcropping of a national infirmity, and 

 will in due season bring its own remedy. Let us, 

 then, give all due credit to the intrepid pioneer of the 

 prairie, who, though some of his ideas may be more 

 colossal than correct, is yet doing a grand work for 

 humanity, in extending the domain of civilization 

 over an unsubdued wilderness, and transforming the 

 wild pastures of the buffalo into fields of golden 

 grain. 



The prevalent notion that the agriculture of the 

 "Western States is essentially, and of necessity, a dif- 

 ferent thing from that of the East, calling for a differ- 



