NOTICE BY THE PUBLISHERS, 



IN times past, the European emigrants, and even the 

 settlers from the Atlantic States who removed to the 

 West, were exposed to numberless trials and disadvan- 

 tages, chiefly arising from the dearth of essential informa- 

 tion concerning the various novel circumstances in which 

 the change of their abode and habits of life unavoidably 

 placed them. A luminous and ample Directory and 

 Guide, comprehensive and minute, the result of experi- 

 ence and observation, has long been desired by both of 

 the classes of persons referred to ; and also by those who 

 have been born and nurtured in the newly opened dis- 

 tricts. 



The Publishers are gratified that they are enabled 

 to satisfy the universal demand, by a volume which 

 comprises a mass of superior materials, partly derived 

 from the most authentic sources, and partly obtained by ex- 

 tensive and protracted research. Some of the most valua- 

 ble articles have been taken from the transactions of the 

 New York State Agricultural Society ; others have been 

 selected from the periodical miscellanies devoted to the 

 concerns of a farm and to the manner of life in the new 

 settlements. To a monthly work published at Chicago 

 entitled the " Prairie Farmer," the author has frequently 

 adverted, as a most useful and necessary instructor for 

 all those who would derive advantage from long-tried 

 skill and practical attention to the multiplied efforts of 

 those who have passed through all the gradations of a 

 settler's life ; from the primary chopping of trees and a 



