394 Transactions of the American Institute. 



there may be enough of wool and wheat and flesh and fuel. Rent 

 day has no terrors ; a landlord is not a lion in the way. With thrift 

 and good management a farmer's condition is equal to that of the 

 average tradesman, artisan or professional man. He is superior to 

 the hot rivalries of cities ; there are hours in every week, there are 

 whole weeks in midwinter, when he has all the time he needs for 

 filling his memory with important facts, and lifting up his spirit by 

 high views of truth and nature. 



If in time past, as a Club, we have urged the claims of the country, 

 and begged the young men who earn more than enough to pay their 

 board to be sure and buy land with their surplus, that advice was 

 never more pertinent than now. A wave of migration rolls steadily 

 westward, settling the country at the rate of fifty miles a year, and 

 will very soon cover every desirable quarter section in the Missouri 

 Yalley and the no less fertile land upon its tributaries. While we 

 hesitate, each acre becomes, on an average, a dollar higher in price a 

 year. The land you could buy for five dollars last year, will com- 

 mand seven dollars before 1873^ Those that are now young will 

 live to see a state of society in which one class will be counted above 

 all others fortunate, secure in their rights, and strong in their posi- 

 tion ; namely, those who had the forecast and the thrift to put four 

 score or more acres of this free, fertile American soil in fee simple 

 under their feet. 



Adjourned. 



January 2, 1872. 



Nathan C. Ely, Esq., in the chair ; Mr. John W. Chambers, Secretary. 

 Death of Mr. Joseph W. Gregory. 

 The Chairman announced to the Club that our associate, Joseph 

 W. Gregory, was dead. His earthly labors were terminated ; a short 

 time since he was stricken with paralysis. He has already joined 

 that great, silent procession ; and on the first day of the year, he had/ 

 as it would almost seem, been selected to head this silent column, 

 whose numbers are being hourly increased by sickness, disease, casu- 

 alty, and even the cowardly hand of the assassin. It is due to our 

 departed friend that we should acknowledge, here and now, that we 

 have received much at his hands, and are laid under lasting obligations 

 to him for many things. He had traveled extensively, and gathered 

 up useful information wherever he went, which .he was ready to give 

 to others. He was of a firm temperament and plainly expressed his 



