1S46.J 



Stand by Your Own. 317 



always known, and seek new homes and new society in distant 

 and only partially known quarters of the land. 

 " With too many of us it is too true that 



' Distance lends enchantment to the view — ' 



with too many, the farthest territory is ever thought to be the 

 best. First, Ohio, then Michigan, then Wisconsin and Iowa are 

 held up as the promised land, till already the cry is, " For Ore- 

 gon !" and the Pacific ocean itself scarcely confines our restless 

 spirit. 



" It is true that there are among us many exceptions to this ob- 

 servation, many who hold and cultivate the farms on which they 

 have lived for twenty or thirty years. Such men are the main 

 strength of our country, and their general comfort and prosperity 

 form a striking contrast to the fate of hundreds who have pursued 

 a different course. But there are far too few of them, and too 

 many of a contrary disposition. 



" There is no doubt, that though some may find comforts and 

 fortune in the far west, very many find that they might as well 

 have chased a rainbow, and when they have at last, alter repeated 

 changes and removals, reached the farthest verge of civilization — 

 then the same attractive haze of distance seems to hang over the 

 place they first left, and they remember its hundred comforts and 

 privileges they never sufficiently realized or valued when they 

 possessed them. Then it is that they look back to their early 

 home among the hills of New York or New England, with its 

 fine forests, convenient quarries, plentiful streams and pure springs, 

 a soil neither drowned in spring nor parched in summer, with 

 canals and railroads which brought it within twenty-four hours 

 of the sea-board, with its mills and mechanics in every valley, 

 good roads in every direction, its society settled and established, 

 churches near at hand to all, schools established and improved, 

 and all the other fruits of half a century of labor in a land of fine 

 natural capabilities — and if their new home on some remote and 

 boundless prairie, with its single and only advantage of a cheap 

 and fertile soil, does not suffer in the comparison, it is strange 

 indeed. 



" Let us endeavor not to be deceived by every story of the 

 W^est, of lands that need no clearing and soils that can never 

 wear out — nor believe that there exists, either in W^isconsin, Illi- 

 nois or any where else except in imagination, a land where all 

 may be rich and live without labor. Let us remember that some 

 counterbalancing portions of evil are found mingled with the good 

 of every situation, and instead of looking only at the fancied 

 advantages of other sections of country, let us dwell more upon 

 the real blessings of our own. Let us discourage that propen- 



