QOO 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST.'. 
climate least changeable, and any other cause 
or reason to make it a desirable place to live 
in. Its nearness to markets for sale of farm 
produce, eligibility for farming, and what 
would pay best to raise in that locality. 
What is the best and cheapest way to reach 
East Tennessee, say from New-York or 
Philadelphia 1 
If there are any readers of the Agricul¬ 
turist that can give the desired information, 
I, for one, should deem it a favor. 
Respectfully yours, 
Geo. Davis, New-York. 
DO OUR EASTERN FARMERS BETTER 
THEIR CONDITION Blf REMOVING TO 
THE WEST. ^ 
NUMBER THREE. 
The full answer to this question must 
greatly depend upon the condition of the far¬ 
mer as he is in the Eastern States. As a 
general rule, a man comfortably situated, on 
a good farm, in easy circumstances, thriving 
a little every year, in good society, and in 
the prime of life, seldom betters his condi¬ 
tion allround , by pulling up stakes and going 
into a new country, where he must, with his 
family, become inured to a new climate, dif¬ 
ferent modes of cultivation, new and strange 
society, associations, and all that sort of 
thing. It depends much also, on the family 
of the farmer, as to the policy or expediency 
of removing from an old home to a new one. 
If he have numerous children and a small 
farm, he may by its sale, and laying out its 
avails with judgment at the West, obtain 
much more land, and by the increased room 
for their labor, keep his sons about him, and 
so remain with, or near his children. This, 
indeed, is one of the great incentives for so 
many men with moderate means going to 
the West. They buy land cheap ; by culti¬ 
vation it rises in value, and they thus largely 
increase their possessions. Yet the increase 
of worldly goods is not, or should not be, the 
sole object of our toil and exertion in life. 
The enjoyments of life in a rational way as 
we go along is a thing to be considered. We 
have known families who had good homes 
in the old States, to sell out and go to the 
West, where they made good locations, so 
far as land and common advantages were 
concerned, but who, by sickness and death, 
became decimated, and amid new society and 
associations were literally strangers in a 
strange land ever afterwards. And yet we 
know many others, partly by their own good 
judgment, and partly by good luck—for there 
is some luck in the world—rapidly increased 
their fortunes by emigration. 
The family proposing to emigrate should, 
in the first place, take a deliberate, accurate 
survey of their present condition where they 
are. If they are on a poor farm—hopelessly 
poor—where they can but just bring the year 
about, better to sell off their odd traps and 
leave it altogether, than to toil on for noth¬ 
ing. We have known men to stay on an old 
worthless place for a long life, and die poor 
at last, because they could not sell it, when 
half the labor applied elsewhere would have 
made them rich—a poor farm, with a natu 
rally poor soil, not accessible to cheap ma¬ 
nures is dear at a gift. Yet poor lands, near 
good markets, with cheap manures, have 
made many a farmer’s fortune, and much 
quicker than by the purchase of new lands 
at the West. Large crops don’t always pay 
over small crops. The market, its distance 
more or less, and the costs of getting pro¬ 
ducts to them, govern the thing more surely. 
We know men who have bought the poor 
lands of New Jersey and Long Island—such 
lands as no one would take as a gift, if they 
lay in the Western States, and get rich on 
them. Their crops were not large, yet they 
brought high prices, and the results of their 
annual labors yielded good profits ; while 
the man who had migrated to the West and 
bought cheap, rich lands, toiled on for years, 
just .making both ends meet, with large crops, 
and barely living amid the greatest abun¬ 
dance, so far as agricultural produce was 
concerned. 
Another thing : men emigrating to a new 
place, should well know into what kind of a 
neighborhood, or people they go. They 
should select such localities as are peopled 
by those of their own modes of thought, edu¬ 
cation, and association. Then they find their 
society agreeable. For an educated, intelli¬ 
gent family, to go into a neighborhood of ig¬ 
norant, uneducated people, whose modes of 
life, habits, and thought, are widely different 
from their own, is a wretched sacrifice of 
all the mental and social enjoyments of life 
—a mistake hard to be rectified, and fre¬ 
quently fatal to all their future happiness. 
Hence, the value of colonization in the new 
States. We can point to towns in the Wes¬ 
tern States, first settled in colonies, with 
people of a like range of thought, habits, 
and education, which are almost half a cen¬ 
tury in advance of an adjoining town, in the 
value of their real estate, and all that makes 
life desirable to the cultivated mind. Every 
western traveler can see these differences 
as plainly as he can see the land before 
him. 
There is, on the whole, no fixed rule to 
govern the expediency of leaving our old 
home for a new one. The man, or the fam¬ 
ily proposing it, should deliberately and in¬ 
telligently survey his and their own present 
condition, not only in regard to his landed 
estate, but all the social advantages or dis¬ 
advantages which surround them. If they 
resolve that they will remove, don’t do it at 
a venture. Coolly and deliberately examine 
the region where you propose to go ; look at 
its advantages, then weigh its disadvantages. 
Examine railroad routes, the market towns, 
the topographical situation of the country, 
its water, general health—everything in fact 
bearing upon human industry and its rewards, 
as well as the social condition, education of 
the people, and the institutions. Full half 
the misfortunes growing out of a new home, 
and a change of place, have arisen from a 
want of consideration, and examination in 
these particulars—a leap in the dark in fact. 
We would not discourage emigration under 
favorable circumstances. We know those 
who have in every way greatly increased 
their worldly fortunes and happiness in so 
doing ; but we earnestly advise all who con¬ 
template it to he in no haste , and well con¬ 
sider every subject connected with so mo¬ 
mentous a revolution in their affairs, as that 
of leaving a good home for an untried one. 
It may settle the question of a whole life 
time of contentment, or of misery. We 
will speak of some States and localities in 
our next.— [Ed. 
DOG-BREAKING. 
A work has just been published, which re¬ 
lates to dog-breaking. Our opinion is, that 
the best way to break a dog is to break his 
neck. 
So says an exchange, and pretty nearly 
so say we. ‘ There are exceptions to all 
general rules’ runs the adage, and so there 
are exceptions noted in our anti-dog-law 
creed—but not very many, as they go little 
farther than shepherd dogs, rat-terriers, and 
a very few of the Newfoundland and watch, 
dogs. As if to give emphasis if not venom 
to these lines, just now there are half-a-doz¬ 
en, more or less, of miserable worthless curs 
running at large in the street before our 
window. What they are good for, or were 
created for, it would puzzle the most acute 
investigator of natural history to determine, 
yet they are boarded and lodged by some¬ 
body—ten to one by those who can least af¬ 
ford it. We doubt not they are better cared 
for than their owners’ - children. Such is 
usually the case. 
Here it is again. Just as we finished the 
above sentence, a gentleman from 1 up the 
Hudson River’ called to say that if any body 
wants a pure bred Southdown Buck and Ewe, 
he can supply them at the cost in England. 
He would on no account part with these fine 
animals “ but for the dogs." He says “ he 
has to put them in a close room 365£ nights 
in a year, and watch them or keep them near 
the house by day, all on account of the dogs, 
which have put an end to sheep-raising in his 
neighborhood.” 
Just so it is over half the country, and 
this too, when sheep and lambs of fair qual¬ 
ity are selling at $5 to $10 per head, in this 
city to-day. We are not “ rabid” though 
we sometimes get slightly ‘ mad’ when we 
think only of the millions of curs, worthless 
curs, running at large in this country. Per¬ 
haps half a dozen scars left on our body by 
dog-teeth, have something to do with our 
" feelings.” Perhaps ever so many hun¬ 
dreds of dollars out of pocket by sheep-kil¬ 
lers slightly affect us. However that may 
be, we are dog-killers con amove. We keep 
on hand a bottle of strychnine, and pieces of 
meat to put it in. We have a capital shoot¬ 
ing-iron, that never fails when in our hands. 
The dog that visits ourpremises, “ muzzled 
or unmuzzled,” may want help to get away. 
A fair warning this, to dogs that can read. 
Those that can’t must depend upon their 
“owners,” if so be that any one of them 
knows how to read, and yet does not know 
better than to own a dog, or at least to let 
him run round the neighborhood. 
What we practice we preach to others.— 
[Ed. 
“ Youre doing a smashing business,” as 
the gardener said to the hailstones. 
