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THE ILLIISrOIS F^Il]V£ER. 



243 



yers, doctors and fools to supply the 

 globe. A child whose head is not right, 

 it only injures to crowd in dead langua- 

 ges. Common English education is the 

 best, unless their heads are right, and 

 they wish to study a profession. 



When you wake up do not roll over, 

 hut roll Old. It will give you time to 

 ditch all yeur sloughs, and break them 

 up, and harrow them, and sow them with 

 timothy, with a small portion of red clo- 

 ver seed with it. One bushel of clover 

 with ten bushels of timothy is sufficient. 

 March is a good time to sow; but August 

 is the best, if there are rains after that 

 time. I do not remember of ever failing 

 having a good stand, when I sowed my 

 seed in March, with nothing with it. If 

 you do not need your money until June 

 or July; feed a peck of good corn planted 

 in April, at two feeds. Feed in the 

 morning a few minutes after the sun rises 

 the other feed long enough before night, 

 so that they will get done eating before 

 night. Try to not vary feeding ten min- 

 utes in the time of feeding each day. — 

 Make your fence high, tight and strong, 

 so that it will keep your cattle in and 

 pigs out. Some of my neighbors who 

 bought cattle last fall, had such poor 

 fences that the cattle jumped into the 

 corn field and eat until they were foun- 

 dered so badly they will not get over it 

 this season, besides destroying much 

 more than they ate. If you have brush, 

 make your lots there, and be sure to 

 keep pigs and hogs from the cattle; for if 

 the corn is clean they will eat it much 

 better. Study your interests closely, 

 and do not spend one-twentieth part of 

 your time in electing Presidents, Sena- 

 tors, or other small officers, and talking 

 of hard times, while spending your time 

 in town setting on the store boxes and 

 whittling all the soft wood up, instead of 

 leaving it to kindle fires with, so they 

 can get to business. 



Be sure to get your hands to bed by 

 seven o'clock, and they will be compelled 

 to rise early by the force of circumstan- 

 ces. Pay a hand — if he is a poor hand 

 — all you promise him; if he is a good 

 hand pay him a little more; it will en- 

 courage him to do still better. When I 

 was younger, and employing a great 

 many hands, (I have worked over two 

 hundred a day,) I made it a universal 

 rule all the time — to pay good hands 

 more than I promised them. I thought 

 it brought me more interest than any 

 money I ever handled. Extra pay is 

 appreciated by a good young man much. 

 Always feed them as well as you feed 

 yourselves, for the laboring men are the 

 bone and sinew of the world, and ought 

 to be well treated. All our wealth and 

 fine clothes come by hard labor. Even 

 our pianos, and all our music which our 

 girls prize so highly come by hard labor. 

 Our best girls, if they would go to bed 



three hours earlier than their usual time, 

 and get up two hours sooner, which 

 would give them one hour more to sleep 

 than they now get, and when they did 

 get up, help get the breakfast, wash the 

 dishes, and sling the pots around — not so 

 as to over- strain themselves, they would 

 be much healthier, more handsome, and 

 get better husbands. 



I am satisfied that getting np early, 

 industry and regular habits, are the best 

 medicines ever prescribed for health, — 

 Look at our general surveyors, when first 

 running off the land in the West, wading 

 in water from the shoe-mouth to waist, 

 at night making calculations, keeping 

 their mind employed, were well and hear- 

 ty, while the hands employed in carrying 

 the chain, when they stopped, had noth- 

 ing to do, laid down, and died like rotten 

 sheep. When did you ever know of a 

 General in the army that was a man, but 

 what was at his post when duty called 

 for it, in good health ? Look at our 

 neighbors in the spring, about the time 

 their corn shonld be planted. They get 

 in a great hurry, getting harness, plows, 

 and almost everything belonging to their 

 business — ^bustling around, going to mill, 

 getting a part of a load of wood at a time 

 and not time enough to haul a full load 

 at a time, they are so extremely hurried 

 to get their corn planted. 



If they would keep at work all the 

 season, we would starve the lawyers and 

 whip the doctors. If you want to find 

 a treasure hidden of gold, haul your 

 wood the first cold weather, and be sure 

 to haul enough to last one year. When 

 it comes rainy, bad weather, so you can- 

 not plough, cut and split your wood. — 

 Make your tracks when it rains hard, 

 cleaning your stables or fixing something 

 which you would have to stop the plough 

 for, and fix in good weather. Make 

 your tracks fixing your fence or gate 

 that is off the hinges, or weather-boarding 

 your barn when the wind has blown away 

 siding, or patching the roof of your 

 house or barn after the plough. Some 

 years ago I was at an educated man's 

 house in Maconpin County, Illinois, 

 about six miles east of Carlinville. I 

 had bought of him at St. Louis a lot of 

 what he called fat cattle, just strong 

 enough to travel up to Morgan County. 

 He invited me to go home with him, say- 

 ing he had a better lot of cattle there. 

 If my memory serves me right, our 

 horses were put in what had been a frame 

 barn under a small quantity of hay and 

 likely some grain. Almost all the 

 weather-boarding was off his barn, >hich 

 made it I think, much colder in the barn 

 owing to the many crafts of air through 

 it, than it was out in the open air. My 

 horse had nothing to eat, and stood tremb- 

 ling like Balthazzar. I being a tender 

 hearted man, felt truly sorry for my 

 horse. With some difiiculty I got him 



plenty of feed, and then went back to 

 the house much encouraged. There 

 was a number of his neighbors there 

 when I went in. I learned he had been 

 building the season before, and had not 

 paid up his bills.f He was complaining 

 very bitterly of hard times. His boot 

 heels were up against his mantel piece, 

 which was full of small holes. I asked 

 him what made so many holes in his 

 mantel piece. He was then seated in 

 his chair with his heels against his man- 

 tel piece. He seemed to be diverted to 

 think I was no smarter, and told me it 

 was his boot-heels that made the holes. 

 I did not like to be accused of being fool- 

 ish or silly before so many people, and I 

 told him that I thought if those tracks 

 that were on his mantel piece were 

 weather-boarding his barn or after his 

 plough it would tell to better advantage, 

 and times would not be so exti*emely 

 hard. If I understood it aright all those 

 men were after money he owed them. It 

 made a hearty laugh, and he looked at 

 me as sour as sin. I expected to be or- 

 dered out of the house into the snow. — 

 He finally forced a smile, and I was glad 

 of it. I think a man is doing wrong to 

 place his heels higher than his head. It 

 looks to me as though it was unhealthy. 

 I think our heels were mad« to use under 

 us, not over us. 



I call the attention of every person in 

 Illinois of every sex, name and nation, 

 that we all ought to be assessed to work 

 on tne State and County roads in propor- 

 tion to our property, and let the poor 

 laboring class of men work if they see 

 fit. This winter past I heard of one of 

 our neighbors selling a cord of fire wood 

 for eight dollars (when the common price 

 was three dollars) because the road were 

 so bad ordinarily that teams could not 

 get in. This was in the town of Jack- 

 sonville. Our roads are a disgrace to 

 our State, put it on us one and all, town 

 and country, in proportion to our pro- 

 perty, and let us enhance the value of 

 our lands and fill our pockets, besides 

 having the satisfaction of traveling on 

 good roads. We have the soil, material 

 and tools to excel the world if we 

 w^ould use them and make our tracks to 

 advantage. 



When I came up to Springfield and 

 landed at the depot the news was that 

 they could not get to the hotel with a 

 team. I looked around me to see if there 

 were any strangers, and I felt glad that 

 I could not discover one. What a disgrace 

 it is to our State and County to have 

 such roads. I believe our Supervisors' 

 ought to have at least two and a half or 

 three dollars per day for warning the 

 hands when to work, and for working 

 with them and collecting the money from 

 every man of property who would not 

 work, and did not pay promptly ; and 

 appropriate the money so collected to 



