Q98 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, 
The pillars and mouldings around the front win¬ 
dows, appear proportionally too heavy. The large 
double windows at the right end of the library 
wing, with two others around the corner very 
similar, and especially the two smaller square 
ones on the same side, do not harmonize. In¬ 
deed, this is the case with the whole front. The 
commingling of arched and square windows arid 
entrances destroys the harmony. But we are 
not professed critics in matters of architecture, 
and therefore will not attempt further remarks, as 
we have no room for a discussion on the part of 
the architects. So all we will say is, that, individ¬ 
ually, we do not like this ■proposed new order of 
“American Architecture.” But if it harmonizes 
with the general feelings and tastes, it will come 
into vogue, notwithstanding. 
As a matter of practical utility, the great num¬ 
ber of angles, side roofs, and suh-roofs, is objec¬ 
tionable. They invite leaks, and involve con¬ 
stant repairs So many outside doors are also 
undesirable. One front entrance, one in the rear, 
and one side entrance, are enough for any ordi¬ 
nary house. Respecting the ground plan, the ar¬ 
chitects claim some advantages which are real, 
but are on the whole counterbalanced. The large 
parlor runs back “ into the dark,” it being lighted 
mainly at one end. The parlor in the center of the 
building is out of place ; it is the least used room, 
and yet is placed between those most used To 
reach the oft frequented dining-room from the sit¬ 
ting-room or library, without going directly 
across the parlor, requires a circuitous route and 
the passage of at least four doors. A “ sitting ” 
or family-room should be in the vicinity of the 
kitchen, that the mistress of the house may be 
able to, at least, keep an eye over the working de¬ 
partment. 
Blinks from a Lantern,.XII. 
BY DIOGENES IIEDIVIVUS. 
AN EMIGRANT FARMER. 
One is apt to suppose that nomadic life disap-- 
pears with tents, and the introduction of fixed 
abodes upon free homesteads. But so far as this 
continent is concerned, there never was a great¬ 
er mistake. The farmer of to-day, in the older 
States at least, is hardly more settled than the 
red man, who tilled his patches of maize, and 
hunted buffalo upon the same soil, three hundred 
years ago. The lodge of the Indian has disap¬ 
peared, and the light of his council fires has gone 
out, but a race quite as restless and nomadic has 
succeeded him. The wanderings of the aborigi¬ 
nal tiller of the soil were in some measure check¬ 
ed by the limits of his tribe, and by the fixed hab¬ 
its of the animals upon which he relied for food, 
as well as by the very narrow limits of the fields 
he cultivated. lie dreaded labor, and it was too 
much trouble to clear up new lands. The old 
fields devoted to corn were never suffered to re¬ 
lapse into forest. Every planting season brought 
them round to the same locality to put in the seed, 
and the necessities of the crop kept them in the 
neighborhood until it was harvested. The salmon 
and shad made their appearance at the falls of the 
rivers about the same time every year, and thith¬ 
er they flocke* to gorge themselves with fish, 
and to lay in Winter stores. The buffalo and 
deer were fat in Autumn, and this was the sea¬ 
son for the grand hunts that called all the tribe 
together for the yearly reunion. Thus the In¬ 
dian roamed within narrow limits, and though 
his tent was movable, his homestead was perma¬ 
nent, and he looked forward with confidence to a 
resting place among the graves of his fathers. 
But his successor puts up a permanent home, 
calculated to last for several generations, and 
often sells it before the putty has had time to dry 
and harden in the windows. He opens new fields 
in the forest, gathers bountiful harvests, grows 
discontented with plenty, and sells out before the 
stumps have had time to rot in the new clearing. 
Sometimes he moves into the next parish upon a 
farm not half as good as he sells ; and again, he 
starts for the shores of the Pacific, with unwav¬ 
ering faith in cabbages of a hundred pounds 
weight, individual beets measuring a bushel, and 
potatoes a dozen to the cart load. He has more 
curiosity to see the monster vegetables, than the 
nuggets of gold, though the latter are not to be 
despised if they come in his way. He quits old 
associations, the homestead, the familiar hills, 
the school, the church, with as little regret appa¬ 
rently as he leaves home on a journey of a week. 
This spirit of unrest, so characteristic of the 
farming population of this country, is as active 
now as ever, though the form of it is somewhat 
changed. Once it was a final venture, to plunge 
into the wilderness in search of a new home. It 
was a long toilsome journey of months, by the 
slow ox team, carrying all thegoodsand chattels, 
an exodus from Egypt from which there was no 
return. A thousand miles of forest, and bad roads 
and bridgpless rivers, constituted an impassable 
gulf that the emigrant never expected to recross. 
He went on in search of a dwelling place, until 
sheer exhaustion or some providential hindrance 
brought him to a stand. There he built his log 
cabin, and located. 
Now he is able to spy out the land, and make 
choice of a home from actual observation before¬ 
hand. Four days take the traveler from almost 
any point on the seaboard to the plains and for¬ 
ests of Kansas and Nebraska, at less cost than 
half of the weary journey fifty years ago. It is 
not a last venture, now ; for should the qualms of 
homesickness overtake him, or his wife, the 
same iron steed that bears him into the, wilder¬ 
ness will bring bim back again, his fortunes little 
impaired, and his soul enriched with an experi¬ 
ence better than money. 
These facilities for traveling, and the ease with 
which a bad move may be retraced, are among 
the causes that bear our sea-board population 
westward. From Maine to Florida, there are 
hundreds of planters and farmers who are gath¬ 
ering their last harvest upon their present acres. 
With the falling leaves, the ties that bind them 
to their present fields of toil, will be dissolved, 
and the opening Spring will find them amid fresh 
clearings on the bottom lands of the Red River, 
and the Arkansas, or on the prairies in the val- 
Iies of the Missouri and the upper Mississippi. 
A chapter from the experience of an emigrant 
may not be unprofitable to some of the multitude 
whose faces are turned toward the setting sun. 
Jeduthan Sawyer was a regular born Yankee, 
dwelling upon the coast of Rhode Island. At the 
ave of thirty, he was in possession of a hundred 
acre farm somewhat worn down, but so near the 
sea, that he had the means of reclaiming it, and 
making the whole as rich as a garden, at small 
cost. He owned, at least, a half mile of beach, 
on which, every Autumn storm threw up great 
quantities of kelp, eel-grass, and other sea weeds. 
On the west side of his farm, a cove ran up for 
a long distance, and every low tide laid bare 
acres of mud several yards deep, the accumula¬ 
ted deposit of the sea, and of a fresh water 
stream. Fie had the best facilities for making 
manure, and a'good market for every thing his 
farm could produce, within three miles of home. 
Fie was doing pretty well, making a good living 
and saving something every year, yet Jeduthan 
grew uneasy, and wanted to do better. Some of 
his neighbors had gone up into Connecticut and 
settled, and sent back wonderful reports of the 
cheapness of land, the extent of the forests, and 
the chances for smart men to make their for¬ 
tunes. 
He sold out, and went into one of the border 
towns, where none but a farmer accustomed 
to the hardest of soils could see any good land. 
He bought a farm of three hundred acres, run¬ 
ning in debt for one half of it. It was better for 
the dairy, than for any tiling else, having rocky 
pastures well supplied with living streams. Three 
years of hard work got the pastures all cleared 
of brush, and the.buildings in good repair. His 
wife made excellent butter and eheese, and be 
could get two cents a pound more than any of 
his neighbors. But he soon discovered that he 
had not capital enough to carry on so large a 
farm, the interest money bothered him, and his 
faintly grew more rapidly than his substance. 
The filth year he sold out, and bought a small 
farm in one of the vallies of Vermont. He had 
around him some of his old friends and neigh¬ 
bors, the land was a good deal better than any 
thing be had ever worked before, and for a time, 
everything seemed to go smoothly. He could 
raise as much corn to the aere, and nearly twice 
as many potatoes, and oats, and wheat, of the 
best quality But Jeduthan missed the ready 
market for bis small truck, poultry, lambs, veal, 
apples, peaches, and pears, to which he had been 
accustomed in the manufacturing districts, near 
the shore. He could stand it only two years 
among the Green Mountains, sold out, and moved 
to the hills of Otsego, out west of Albany. This 
was a charming grazing country, all the hill sides 
luxuriant with white clover, abounding in springs 
and clear cold streams. This was a paradise for 
dairywomen, and such cheeses as Mrs. Sawyer 
turned out of her hoops, were an astonishment 
to the natives. They sold beyond the market 
price, but still much below what they would have 
brought in New-England. 
After considerable figuring, Jeduthan discov¬ 
ered, that lie had hardly so much ready money 
at the end of the year as he was wont to have in 
his first home by the shoie. Nothing hut money 
would pay up the interest due on his farm, and 
at the close of three years he pulled up stakes a 
fourth time and started for Ohio. 
Recently, I was out in Illinois, and had occa¬ 
sion to stop over night at one of the villages. In 
the edge of the evening an emigrant tram of three 
wagons drove up, and who should alight, but le- 
dutlian Sawyer, my old acquaintance of twenty 
years ago, with bis v.-ife and eight children, with 
ail their earthly substance bound for Kansas ! 
He bad owned and worked eleven different farms 
in twenty years, bad moved fifteen times, and, 
like other rolling stones, bad gaihered no moss. 
.Jeduthan was seedy, and his wife more so Tears 
stood in their eyes as they spoke of New-England. 
My lantern has not shone upon a sadder sight. 
Sir Joshua Reynolds being asked how lie would 
personate folly in a painting, replied that he 
would represent a man climbing over a wall at 
