AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
XQG 
soliloquises Mr. Bunker, “ this business pays, 
and if folks will buy the strawberries at that 
price, I may as well raise them.” The straw¬ 
berry patch was realized last year and a 
handsome sum of money with it. One of the 
coldest days last week Tim drove up to our 
door, after a long ride, which must have 
been tedious even with the excitement of 
fine sleighing and the music of the bells. 
Now thought we. Bunker has certainly come 
to invest a dollar in book-farming. Not a 
bit of it. He had heard of our Lawton black¬ 
berries through the deacon, and had come 
down to take a winter view of the brambles, 
and to find out where they could be pur¬ 
chased. We were of course glad to see Mr. 
Bunker, and gave him a dissertation on this 
fruit, relating our experience and mode of 
culture, and giving him the necessary direc¬ 
tions for procuring the plants. Had he taken 
the American Agriculturist, he would have 
found in it much more information than we 
had time to give him, and in the last num¬ 
ber no less than four parties advertising the 
plants for sale. Mr. Bunker’s account then, 
stand thus with himself. 
Timothy Bunker, Dr. 
To time amt use of horse.«2 00 
_ . , Cr. 
By information in February Agriculturist. 10 
Balance. $1 90 
This is what we call a bold stroke of econ¬ 
omy. Yet this account, foolish as it looks, 
is a good illustration of what is going on in 
many of the farming districts. Intelligent 
men will give two dollars to save ten cents 
in paper and type. We think they will do 
better to take the papers, and buy their in¬ 
formation at wholesale price. Our time how¬ 
ever was not lost with Mr. Bunker; for this 
article came of his visit, and we trust it will 
touch some of our readers in the right spot. 
—Ed. 
WHITE CAKE-PLAIN DOUGH-NUTS. 
To the Editor of the American Agriculturist: 
At your request, I send the recipes for two 
kinds of cake which you were pleased to 
compliment at our table. I do not know that 
they are new to your readers, perhaps they 
may be to some, and I cheerfully offer them 
in return for many similar favors received 
from my lady friends through your admira¬ 
ble journal: 
White Cake. —Three cups of sifted flour; 
lp cups of sugar ; 1 cup of sweet milk; 1 
egg; 2 table-spoonfuls of butter; 2 tea¬ 
spoonfuls of cream tartar; 1 tea-spoonful of 
soda ; and 1 tea-spoonful of essence of lem¬ 
on. Beat the sugar and butter to a cream, 
then add the milk, (in which the soda should 
be dissolved,) the egg—well beaten—and the 
essence. Mix with the above two cups of 
the flour and, lastly, add the third cup, in 
which the cream tartar has been stirred. 
Then bake in pans or basins in a quick oven. 
Plain Dough-Nuts. —Two quarts of flour ; 
2 table-spoonfuls of butter ; 2 cups of sugar; 
I egg; 4 tea-spoonfuls of cream tartar; 2 
tea-spoonfuls of soda ; 1 pint of sweet milk, 
and half a nutmeg. Sift the flour, and rub 
the butter, sugar and cream tartar well 
through it; then add the egg, well beaten, 
and grate in the nutmeg. Dissolve the soda 
in the milk, and add it to the above ingre¬ 
dients. Mix them well together. Then roll 
thin, and cut in any form desired. 
Sarah. 
DO OUR EASTERN FARMERS BETTER THEIR 
CONDITION BY REMOVING TO THE WEST ? 
The reflections which passed through our 
mind in making a late trip to the Mississippi 
have been of a mixed character as to the 
permanent advantages of-^so great a number 
of our farmers changing their homes in the 
Eastern States, and migrating to the West. 
By the term Eastern, we shall comprehend 
the States of New-York and Pennsylvania, 
as well as the Eastern States proper, and 
by West, all west of these. It is a common 
supposition among Eastern farmers who 
have not traveled in the W’est, and by some 
who have, that the Western States are, so 
far as soil is concerned, a perfect El Dorado; 
that crops can be grown almost without 
culture ; that a fine climate stimulates early 
planting and late harvesting; that cattle can 
be wintered out of doors or on the pastures 
without fodder ; that abundance and plenty 
abound everywhere, and as a consequence 
the dissatisfied ones at the East have but to 
inventory and sell off their traps, gather 
their substance together, and “ go out West” 
to enjoy, for all their natural lives, an 
earthly paradise. Those who journey there 
either by a fixed determination to see every 
thing in its most favorable light, comes to 
this conclusion,^because they see but one 
side of the picture, or pass by the railroads 
only through the most inviting sections of 
the country, without giving themselves the 
time and opportunity to examine what lies 
before them with mature deliberation. We 
propose to look at the subject impartially. 
We admit, to start with, that large portions 
of the New-England States, compared with 
the land west of them, are not worth culti¬ 
vation. Indeed, cultivation would never have 
been attempted on such land except under 
just such circumstances as they were sub¬ 
dued ; and since the western lands have 
been discovered, their cultivation would not 
have been continued but for the ready mar¬ 
kets and high prices for their products in 
the great commercial and manufacturing 
towns built up among them. It is now a 
question with us whether large tracts of 
land in the Eastern States now under culti¬ 
vation, would not be more profitably aban¬ 
doned to the growth of timber, than to be 
cultivated for the scanty returns they make 
to the husbandman ; or if cultivated, wheth¬ 
er they should be devoted to any thing but 
pasturage ? Our internal commerce has 
introduced a distribution of agricultural pro¬ 
duction to the soil best suited to particular 
products. Farmers are beginning to inquire 
what articles of growth are best suited to 
their own soils, and ascertaining that fact, 
to turn their chief attention to them. The 
facilities of interchanging the different com¬ 
modities of distant sections of 1 the country 
are now so widely diffused, that they cannot 
afford as formerly, when such facilities did 
not exist, to produce on their farms all the 
wastes of their families, which grow from 
the soil even in their own localities. They 
can now better afford to buy what they can 
with difficulty raise on their own farms, and 
grow such products as they can profitably 
raise and find a ready market for. This is 
right. A profitable division of labor is thus 
introduced, involving a system of mutual 
dependence, to be sure, but better in the 
long run for their several welfare. Thus 
we see that many crops, which years ago 
were extensively cultivated in some sec¬ 
tions, are almost abandoned, and other 
crops have taken their places ; while the 
farmers can devote their attention exclu¬ 
sively to crops that pay better, and enable 
them to buy their supplies of such articles 
as they do not grow, of the more distant pro¬ 
ducers, who in turn purchase a share of the 
productions of the others for their own con¬ 
sumption. It is unnecessary to enumerate 
these different articles, as the observation of 
every intelligent mind will readily see them. 
Thus the spirit of inquiry is stimulated, and 
a decided advance in our agricultural im¬ 
provement is made; and so long as we are 
one people, connected by the great interests 
of agriculture, commerce, and manufacture, 
with our great arteries of transportation and 
travel kept open and increasing, so long will 
our agriculture continue in a healthy and 
progressive condition. Our different sec¬ 
tions of country become equalized in value, 
population, commerce, and all the advan¬ 
tages which make up a wealthy and pros¬ 
perous people. 
But it is as individuals that we have to do 
with these advantages. No single man can 
measure his own best course by that of the 
aggregate. He must survey his own imme¬ 
diate field of action, and to this his own 
physical ability and means, the condition of 
his family, if he have one, and his own tastes 
and feelings, as well as theirs, must be con¬ 
sulted. As a general rule, no man well off 
in worldly goods, settled among good neigh¬ 
bors and society, and a fair prospect of add¬ 
ing to his wealth .and enjoyment, and the 
welfare of his family, improves his condition 
or happiness by abandoning an old home for 
a new one. To those not so favored, differ¬ 
ent considerations apply. They are justified 
in changing their position, emigrating to 
newer land, and founding homes for them¬ 
selves and their families in broader fields of 
action. The Americans, as a people, are dis¬ 
contented and unsatisfied with their present 
condition, whatever it may be. If poor, the y 
want to be “comfortable;” if comfortable, 
they want to be rich ; if rich, they want to 
be richer; and if richer, they still strive on 
to become the richest of all. Such is frail 
humanity; and perhaps, for the accomplish¬ 
ment of worldly grandeur, it is best that it 
should be so. But it is questionable wheth¬ 
er individual happiness is thus advanced. 
Being of the North, our observations on 
the subject are chiefly applicable to Northern 
territory. We are old enough to recollect 
in boyhood the rage for emigration from 
New-England to the new and fertile lands of 
the “ Genesee Country” of Western New- 
York. Many are the times that we have 
