From the O]ilo ColtlTator. 



Mrs. Qage in Illinois. 



New Towns in the West — Enterprise, Thrift 

 and Fertility. 



I am in Lincoln, Illinois, the county seat 

 of Logan, for the purpose of lecturing to 

 the people on education and kindred .sub- 

 jects. Lincoln ia on the line of the St, 

 Louis, Alton and Chicago Railroad. The 

 land hereabout is a dead level, stretching off 

 to the horizon, with scarce shrub or tree to 

 relieve the weary eye. Three years ago 

 last September, I passed here, and not a 

 permanent house, if I remember rightly, 

 graced the waving green, A few shanties, 

 built for the railroad operators, gave all the 

 sign of home life that could be seen. Here 

 we took stage for Bloomington, Now 

 there is a "right smart" village, and it gave 

 mc a larger audience than I could dare to 

 expect to gather together in Columbnu, 

 Ohio. Five really neat churches, one in 

 process of erection — churches, some of them 

 with a style of architecture that would do 

 credit to any town or village— gothic win- 

 dows, heavy cornice stately belfries, and 

 every indication of taste and refinement. 

 Beautiful cottages, too, are growing up like 

 magic, with observatories on the tops, and 

 a kind of eity air that would throw some of 

 our old towns quite into the shade. The 

 court house is a large substantial brick 

 columned and corniced building, in genuine 

 modern style, and all this in three years. 



Such a soil! Pure lampblack and oil, 

 in a state of liquid solution about the con- 

 sistency of batter cakes, little less than a 

 foot deep. But like the old lady's eels that 

 were skinned alive, it don't trouble the 

 people much, they've got used to it. Pave- 

 ments, green trees and shrubbery, will come 

 one of these days, and Lincoln will be a 

 beautiful prairie town. These prairie towns 

 grow up like mushrooms, upon the line of 

 the railroads; not like new places in a tim- 

 bered country, cr&wling along at a snail's 

 pace for years, but here you find them with 

 all the appliances of wealth and prosperity, 

 as if by magic, with lecture halls, school 

 houses and churches at the starting point, 

 to induce settlers to coae among them; 

 and you can hear the thrummings of the 

 piano and the soft strains of the melodeon, 

 from many a house that has hardly had 

 time to settle quietly in its new place. 

 These villages Fill never be large towns, 

 but they will help to stay the monstrous 

 growth of cities, and diffuse more elevated 

 and progressive feelings among the people. 

 There it a roughness and freshness, a deter- 



mined go-ahead hopefulness, that is to me 

 delightfnl. 



I have found here in the country a half 

 score of old Ohioans, who left Morgan coun- 

 ty a few years ago, poor boys and girls, 

 seeking their fortunes, as the story books 

 say. They seem to have found them on the 

 rich prairies, and are substantial farmers, 

 raising hogs and cattle, corn and wheat, 

 with (as they aver) one half the toil that 

 was required to cultivate a farm among the 

 hills of Morgan. The west is the place for 

 young beginners ; but those who are esta- 

 blished, let them stay where they are, for 

 the old tree pulled up by the roots will never 

 fasten itself fully in a new soil. 



April, 1857. , F. D. GAGE. 



The Horse and his Ifflprovement. 



It is not possible for a^y one to describe 

 in advance, the size, form, or particular con- 

 formation of parts in the horse, best suited 

 to the fine development of the foal, unless 

 those peculiarities of the mare are carefully 

 considered; and hence the absolute neces- 

 sity of attention and study on the part of 

 every individual who attempts to breed an- 

 imals. The experience, suggestions, and 

 practices of the most successful, are not 

 sufficient guides to insure success to those 

 who rely on them alone. "What man has 

 done, man may do," and more ; but although 

 in dealing with inorganic matters — chemis- 

 try, for instance — any given experiment 

 may be described, and repeated by others, 

 with almost infinitessimal exactness, there 

 are such a multitude of ever-varying influx 

 ences modifying all the operations of animal 

 life, that it becomes a necessity to study 

 those influences and their relations, and then 

 to manage them as they occur. And now 

 that the curse of the agricultural commun- 

 ity, the prejudice against "book-farming," 

 as it has been contemptuously styled, is 

 rapidly dying out, and those who do not pay 

 for and read at least one periodical, devoted 

 to agricultural improvement, and the dis- 

 semination of that knowledge most useful 

 to the farmer, are beginning to wince under 

 the conviction that their reading, and, con- 

 sequently, more intelligent brethren are 

 leaving them to hug the phantom of their 

 delusion in the dark shades of old fogyism, 

 there are encouraging indications of general 

 improvement of both master and horse- It 

 does not pay to be in the rear of the battle 

 while those in front are gathering both the 

 laurels and the spoils ; neither does it pay to 

 be ignorant of facts, of scientific truths, 

 which, when understood, put money in the 



