THE NEW AGRICULTURE. 31 



white, and all this nonsense about white men taking more to work 

 than black ones, is only an excuse for enslavement. Let me tell you 

 that white people do very little work south. John M. Botts under- 

 stands it, as also does Cassius M. Clay. Everybody who knows 

 enough to keep out of the fire, North and South alike, under- 

 stands it, but people are not generally honest enough to confess 



it 



" I have been out among all sorts of folks who work, and if I 



except the Indians, people of any and all nations will work, only 

 give them freedom, free soil, and an opportunity to secure free 

 homes. Possibly the Indians will work also, should any be left at 

 the close of the present century, which I very much doubt, since 

 whiskey and the vices of mean white men are rapidly making an 

 end of our aboriginal tribes, and I think sometimes that the 

 sooner the thing is done and the last Indian's grave is dug the better. 

 I believe in God and his providence ; you know I do, Cole, but 

 what is providence so far as Indians go, God only knows. Come 

 down to the city and see me, dear Cole, and give me a chance to tell 

 you about my over land journey." 



Such was the tenor of what Mr. Greeley said at Hornellsville. 

 A month later found us in New York for three or four days, a con- 

 siderable portion of the time being spent in the company of Ameri- 

 ca's greatest journalist. How to reclaim the desert by irrigation, 

 was the burden of Mr. Greeley's every discourse. Artesian wells, 

 windmills, current-wheels and other methods of lifting the waters 

 from levels below to inclines and planes above, was a subject he 

 continually dwelt upon. Mr. Stewart, in his admirable book on 

 page 23 says : 



" The late Horace Greeley, who, although an enthusiast on the 

 subject of irrigation, was nearly correct in his estimate, when he 

 concluded that one artesian well would serve to irrigate no more 



