THE FARMER'S WAR AGAINST MONOPOLIES. 517 



man, but the great "West was a field in which the 

 opportunities for advancement were without limit. 

 Westward his heart led him, and Westward he went. 

 "At the age of twenty-one," he writes, "I turned 

 my face West, and took up a piece of wild Government 

 land at Waukon, Iowa, of which I made a farm, and 

 on which I still reside." 



The young New Englander proved no drone in the 

 new community. He set to work with a will, and 

 from the first was recognized as one of the most ener- 

 getic and intelligent farmers of the county or State. 

 His neighbors testified their appreciation of him by 

 electing him President of the Allamakee County Agri- 

 cultural Society within a year after his settlement in 

 the county. He was only twenty-two years of age at 

 the time, and it was no small compliment to be chosen 

 over the heads of older and more experienced men. 

 He still refers to his election with pride. 



Under the intelligent and vigorous management of 

 Mr. Adams the " piece of wild Government land " 

 became one of the prettiest and most flourishing farms 

 in the State. Its owner was a reading and a thinking 

 man, and devoted his leisure to an intelligent and sys- 

 tematic course of reading and self-culture. 



In his own pursuit his attention was directed particu- 

 larly to Horticulture, and he did not confine his efforts 

 to his own farm. Recognizing the needs of the coun- 

 try, his labors embraced the whole Northwest. "My 

 principal energies," he says, in a letter to the writer, 

 " have been directed to the development of Horticul- 

 ture in the Northwest, and now I have perhaps the 

 finest orchard in that section, numbering over 4000 

 trees." In 1868 he was elected Secretary of the Iowa 



