| 420 near the streams, a few bold hills. The soil of the County is rich, and well adapted to the purposes of agriculture. As much has been said by superficial observers and thoughtless complainers, of the disproportion of prairie and wet land in Hancock, I shall be justified in attempting to set these in their true light. It is unfortunate for the interest of our County, in these respects, that two or three of our principal roads are located over those small glades, or strips of ground which are calculated to give to the unthinking an unfavorable impression of the character of the soil. Hence the frequent cries of "bogs, mud holes, ponds, crawfish-county, Atlantic ocean, out of sight of land &c-these last two are intended to give an idea of the great extent of our prairie. But, I think, a thorough, impartial examination of the subject will wholly remove or greatly diminish the ground of the complaints.
1st. As to the alledged [alleged] disproportion of prairie in Hancock. Bisect, the county in the centre [center], north and south, and examine the east half. Start from Pulaski and go through to La Harp; then travel from that place through Carthage to Chili, and while in nineteen out of twenty points of observation, you will see the most delightful and equal proportion of prairie and timber interspersed the one with the other; you will not discover a single point, where a settler could locate himself more than two or three miles from timber in your whole route. Nor is there any wet land in those parts of the county, to be complained of. Thus we can dispose of one-half of Hancock with satisfaction. Run a line due west from the centre [center] of the county to the Mississippi, and what complaint in relation to a deficiency of timber would you find south of the line? Three or four miles is the farthest you can locate from timber in that direction. And even as to the great bug-bear of "all prairie" north west of our centre [center]-it is questioned whether a single quarter section of land can be found five miles from timber there. Let then the settler take but a small capital only, and, when we considered how rapidly and easily timber can be grown, together with the richness and feasibility of the soil, with suitable exertion by economy in building, with the use of sod fence, and a cheap cook stove to save fuel-there can be nothing insurmountable or even formidable, in the difficulties to be overcome in such a location-even the most remote from timber. Then as to the alleged great quantity of wet land, in the County. Any one who shall make a careful estimate and examination by the acre and quarter section, will be greatly and agreeably surprised to find how few parcels of land, even large enough for a farm can be reckoned in the County, which are too wet for successful and advantageous cultivation. The truth is, people on long journies [journeys] , or with heavy loads, at unfavourable [unfavorable] season of the year-particularly in the spring-themselves and teams worn down by fatigue, when fast in the slough or a ravine, are but poor judges of the thousands of acres of land surrounding their position, and to which they are paying no attention. People in such and indeed more favourable [favorable] circumstance, will have traveled over miles upon miles of most delightful and valuable soil-enjoying perhaps the refreshing influences of "kind nature's sweet restorer, balmy sleep;" at all events insensible of their progress, and the objects that surround them-when they at length, are impeded by a few yards of marshy ground-or even by a single slough-their antipathies are aroused at once and lo! what a terrible road! what a wet worthless country they are traveling through! and having finished the toils of the day, very probably the little point at which they were perplexed, will occupy more space and importance in their memories, than the thirty of forty miles of delightful traveling, which they have measured since they put up for their last night's lodging and repose. Is this philosophical!-is it reasonable! Above all should the character of a county suffer from such childish folly and injustice? But I am not to be understood to deny, that there is some wet land-say enough for a half dozen farms of some thousand acres, in Hancock County. And yet, that man, who should deal out wholesale condemnations of the county for this reason, on the same principle, might denounce the whole American Union as sterile and valueless because of a few uninhabitable places in the Allegheny or Rocky Mountains, or the existence of an impassible [impassable] swamp in Florida. He might with the same propriety, discard the whole navigation of the Ohio or Mississippi because of a few sand-bars-or that of the Atlantic on account of a few shoals and reefs, occupying the millionth part of her ample bosom. The writer while traveling, last October, through the south and west portions of Warren county, and the North West portion of Hancock, made a somewhat careful comparison of the two counties in those sections, and was totolly [totally] unable to detect such a difference between them as many have assumed. Indeed it is believed, that nineteen twentieths of this County will chalenge [challenge] comparison with any of the contiguous counties. A word as to the cultivation of our wettest soil and I have done. Two years since I traveled in company with a gentleman of Morgan County across 8 miles of Prairie in this county. After sometime listening to the expression of admiration from that gentleman passed upon the face and soil of the section we had been traveling over, I remarked to the Morgan County friend, that we had some wet Prairie in Hancock. No matter for that, was the prompt reply. "It will all be equally valuable in the end. Indeed some of our wettest land proves to be the most valuable in the end-as it neither has 'seeps' nor washes way. In Morgan County, near my residence, some 15 years ago, there was quite a body of land, which was constantly covered with water, and no one expected then ever to see it good for anything. But it has been drained, ridged, and cultivated since, and is now valuable as any land in that county.' On this the reader is entitled to his reflections.
Historicus.
The above article is from the pen of a gentleman of high standing in this county, and we recommend it to our friends in the east, who may, from report, have imbibed wrong opinions respecting this county.
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