PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 255 



good farming in New England or New York is not to be met with. This 

 circumstance, together with a prevailing indifference to rural taste and 

 •public improvement, gives a bad iuipression to the visitor from the North- 

 East, and has a tendency to draw his attention from the intrinsic merits of 

 the country. The land, when cleared, is kept constantly under the plow. 

 Verj- little meadow and less pasture are to be seen, and manure is rarely 

 applied. The black bottom lands bear this barbarous system verj' well ; 

 but many of the old stumpless upland farms are badly exhausted, and should 

 be avoided by the emigrant. Many of the roads are narrow, crooked and 

 poorly worked. The farm buildings are commonly cheap structures of logs, 

 many of the dwellings being without glass windows. Large families of 

 the pofjrer class often have but one room in v,hich to cook, eat and sleep. 



Southern Illinois would be greatly benefitted by a liberal intermixture of 

 northeastern farmers among its present population^ and many a Yankee 

 who is toiling to repair and renovate the timberless worn oat homestead of 

 his* ancestors miglit find it to his advantage, and especially to the advan- 

 tage of his posterity, to emigrate to this snowless region, where can be 

 procured at a very cheap rate all the facilities for successful farming. It 

 requires some philosophy to forsake the scenes of our childhood and the 

 graves of our ancestors; but it is according to the immutable order of 

 things that men, like bees, must sometimes swa,rm. Nor in doing so can 

 they always preserve their latitude. 



We are greatly in need of establishments for converting wool and cotton 

 into cloth, and hides into leather. Mills for cleaning clover seed are 

 unknown; a wheel is never seen attached to a plow, and a plow suitable 

 for turning Uurf is not to be found. All that is wanting to make this por- 

 tion of Illinois as attractive to the farmer of moderate means as any locality 

 upon the continent, is Yankee enterprise, industry and intelligence. 



Bitter E,ot in Apples. 



In answer to the question of the Chair as to whether the bitter rot men- 

 tioned in Mr. Griffin's letter, prevails in this section of the country, Mr. Wm. 

 S. Carpenter stated that it had been known here, for a long time. It 

 affects particular varieties much ■mf)re than it does, others. The Pennock 

 pippin is very subject to bitter rot. The Baldwin is sometimes affected. 

 So are Yirgalieu pears. The worst bitter rot that prevails in Egypt, men- 

 tioned in the excellent letter we. have just heard read, I think is likely to 

 be soon cured V>y the infusion into that country of such men as the writer 

 of that letter. 



Mr. George Bartlett. — I am well acquainted with the inhabitants of that 

 region; their prejudice against the negro is not any worse than we find it 

 right here. They are ignorant, prejudiced and unimproving. Their great- 

 est fault is improvidence. I never knew one of them to have a woodpile. 

 A family never has anything cooked in advance of its immediate wants. 

 They live literally from hand to mouth. They never in any respect pro- 

 vide for a rainy day. The y)eople are mostly emigrants from the slave 

 states, and a great many of them are of Irish origin. Though ignorant 

 themselves they generally manifest a strong desire to educate their chil- 



