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AGRICULTURE IS THE MOST HEALTHFUL, THE MOST USEFUL, AND THE MOST NOBLE EMPLOYMENT GF MAN— Washington. 
EDITED BY ) 
©12 ANCLE JUDffi, A. M. f 
PUBLISHED BY 
\ AULEN <& Co., SS» Water-si. 
VOL. XV.—No. 3.] 
NEW-YORK, DECEMBER, 1855. 
[NEW SERIES—No. 107. 
A TRIP TO THE MISSISSIPPI. 
Through the kind invitations of our old 
friend Doctor Kinnicutt, Corresponding Sec¬ 
retary of the Illinois State Agricultural So¬ 
ciety, and the Illinois Central Railroad Com¬ 
pany to pass over their roads through the 
heart of that great State, we left Buffalo on 
the evening of the 6th October in the steamer 
Empire State, one of the strong, spacious, 
noble boats of the Southern Michigan Rail¬ 
road, on our passage to Toledo. It is un¬ 
necessary to say more to the credit of this 
road than that, in the person of Mr. Ritchie, 
their agent at Buffalo, their fine line of boats, 
and the accommodating officers at each end 
of their railway route, who manage the road 
and its running apparatus in most excellent 
order, the traveling public are always well 
served and accommodated. Owing to a 
strong west wind and a tumbling, heavy sea 
in Lake Erie, we did not reach Toledo until 
late on Sunday night, where we found capi¬ 
tal quarters at the American Hotel. The 
next day, balmy and mild, we spent in ram¬ 
bling about that thriving young city. It is 
growing rapidly, has a broad, rich, and as 
yet, partially cultivated country about it; 
but being the terminus of several railroads, 
and the Toledo & Dayton and the Wabash 
and Erie canals, which extend south and 
southwest through the rich States of Ohio 
and Indiana, with the commodious harbor of 
Maumee Bay lying on its front, Toledo must 
become a place of great commercial import¬ 
ance. It has now some 15,000 population. 
Being obliged to take the night train for 
Chicago, we lost sight of the fine country 
and thriving towns through which the South¬ 
ern Michigan and Northern Indiana road 
passes, much to our regret, and morning 
rose upon near the head of Lake Michigan, 
which presented little but barren sand-hills, 
marshy prairies, and forbidding wastes to 
our view. Turning northward from the head 
of the Lake, and pursuing our course along 
its western shore, which is a low prairie in¬ 
terspersed with sandy oak ridges till within 
a few miles of Chicago, we coursed along 
the broad space of open prairie on which 
that wonder of modern towns is built, and at 
8 o’clock arrived at the terminus of the 
road. 
CHICAGO. 
Some twenty-five years ago we first heard 
of Chicago as a practicable place. It was at 
the breaking out of the “ Black Hawk war.” 
Gen. Scott, with a detatchment of the Amer¬ 
ican army, had been ordered out to quell the 
murderous onslaught which that desperate 
Chief with his more terrible “Prophet,” 
Keokuk, had excited. They spent some 
days at Buffalo on their passage, out from 
the seaboard, to collect supplies of various 
kinds, and some weeks after embarking, we 
well recollect the terrible visitation which 
his army had by the cholera, but recovering, 
how they dispersed the hordes of Indians 
and laid the country open to its peaceful oc¬ 
cupation by the emigrants who now flocked 
in to occupy the rich lands which lay around 
and about the western shores of Lake Mich¬ 
igan. Scarcely a steamboat then had visited 
Chicago. Low, flat, and marshy, with a 
dull, deep stream extending but a few miles 
into the prairies back, giving shelter to the 
occasional schooners that carried the blank¬ 
ets and provisions for the fur-traders located 
there, it was the point of overland transit to 
the batteau waters of the Illinois river lying 
a few miles in its rear. And now, Chicago 
is a bustling, commercial city of 80,000 peo¬ 
ple ! a wonder of modern times—exceeding 
by far, in the results of its voluntary enter¬ 
prise, what St. Petersburg, with all the en¬ 
ergy and despotism of Peter the Great, and 
his successors, with the whole Russian na¬ 
tion at their command, could accomplish in 
twice as many years. Here are immense 
warehouses and stores, and dwellings of a 
cost and durability, and in a style of archi¬ 
tecture, creditable to any of our Atlantic 
cities. Innumerable railways find here their 
termini, and radiate to all points of the com¬ 
pass. Fleets of water craft, both steam and 
sail, congregate in its waters, making Chi¬ 
cago for all future time one of the greatest 
of our seats of inland commerce. Here, 
quartered for a week in the charming society 
of a private family, hitherto strangers to us, 
we spent our days as agreeably as if we had 
made out a programme for ourselves, with 
the entire hospitality of Chicago for the field 
on which to spread it. 
THE PLACES ROUND ABOUT. 
Lying on the edge of a low prairie, spread¬ 
ing several miles north, west and south, with 
an elevation of only four feet above the 
Lake, aside from several fine villas and gar¬ 
dens in its immediate vicinity, the wealthy 
people of the city have begun to appropriate 
several neighborhoods of the high ground 
some miles distant for their country resi¬ 
dences, which are passed by the railroads. 
The most desirable of these lands lie along 
the Lake north toward Milwaukee. Several 
fine tracts of land, at an elevation of thirty 
to sixty feet above the water have been ap¬ 
propriated, either in farms, or to be cut up 
into villa plats by the Chicagans, and exten¬ 
sive improvements are now in progress. 
We visited some of these, and among the 
most desirable is that of Jared Gage, Esq., 
consisting of a fine farm of 130 acres over¬ 
looking the Lake, backed and flanked by 
beautiful woods. On this he has commenced 
building for a family residence, and has it 
stocked'with the germ of a beautiful herd of 
Devon and Short Horn cattle, and some 
Southdown sheep. His brother, Mr. John 
Gage, has a fine wooded tract adjoining, and 
both north and south are young villages just 
partitioned out into commodious lots for 
building, and on which extensive erections 
are commenced. They have the good taste, 
too, to give them the euphonious Indian 
names of their several localities. At the 
west, some fifteen miles distant from the 
city, at Summit, near the Illinois canal, John 
Wentworth, Esq., of Chicago, has com¬ 
menced a noble prairie farm of some 1,200 
acres, and already stocked it with a fine 
herd of Short Horn and Devon cattle, South- 
down sheep, choice poultry, &c., all under 
the charge of an accomplished English herds¬ 
man and farmer. As ihe furor of money¬ 
making becomes somewhat appeased, we 
may hope that many other of the good peo¬ 
ple of Chicago will follow the examples so 
tastefully set before them, and like many of 
our older cities its vicinity may be embel¬ 
lished by the homes of its retired citizens, 
surrounded by those delightful rural associa¬ 
tions which a cultivated taste and liberal 
wealth will draw around them. 
THE STATE CATTLE SHOW. 
This being the third only of the kind in 
the State of Illinois, and the first at Chicago, 
the efforts of its officers were generously 
seconded by the citizens, and the grounds 
were conveniently and tastefully got up and 
arranged, about three miles from the heart 
of the city, on the south branch of the river, 
with fine trees shading it, and an inlet or 
two from the stream inclosed, furnishing it 
with abundant water. It is scarcely worth 
while in these abounding days of cattle 
shows to go into a description in detail of 
the grounds, its erections, or of all the com¬ 
modities which lay, and stood, and were 
spread in such abundant profusion over 
them. Sufficient let it be to say, that the 
show in all its varieties was a grand one, its 
accommodations ample, and the hospitality 
and attentions of the officers unbounded. 
The brief notice in our last number indicated 
some of the interesting articles exhibited, 
and beyond these it was rich in the display 
