to be a city of several thousand inhabitants. The story of the sudden fortunes made there, excited at first wonder and amazement, next a gambling spirit of adventure, and lastly, an all-absorbing desire for sudden and splendid wealth. Chicago had been for some time only one great town market. The plats of towns, for a hundred miles around, were carried there to be disposed of at auction. The eastern people had caught the mania. Every vessel coming west was loaded with them, their money and means, bound for Chicago, the great fairy land of fortunes. But as enough did not come to satisfy the insatiable greediness of the Chicago sharpers and speculators, they frequently consigned their wares to eastern markets. Thus, a vessel would be freighted with land and town lots, for the New York and Boston markets, at less cost than a barrel of flour. In fact, lands and town lots were the staple of the country, and were the only articles of export.

The example of Chicago was contagious. It spread to all the towns and villages of the State. New towns were laid out in every direction. The number of towns multiplied so rapidly, that it was waggishly remarked by many people, that the whole country was likely to be laid out into towns; and that no land would be left for farming purposes. The judgments of all our business men were unsettled, and their minds occupied only by the one idea, the allabsorbing desire of jumping into a fortune. As all had bought more town lots and lands than many of them could pay for, and more than any of them could sell, it was supposed that if the country could be rapidly settled, its resources developed, and wealth invited from abroad, that all the towns then of any note would soon become cities, and that the other towns, laid out only for speculation, and then without inhabitants, would immediately become thriving and populous villages, the wealth of all would be increased, and the town lot market would be rendered stable and secure.

In no other part of the west was speculation in land carried on more industriously than in Chicago. Not only were the lots of that city and the adjoining farm lands objects of speculation, but Chicago became also a center where speculation in the lots of hundreds of prospective towns was carried on. Miss Martineau describes the activities there as follows:

Chicago looks raw and bare, standing on the high prairie above the lake-shore. The houses appeared all insignificant, and run up

1 Society in America. By Harriet Martineau (London, 1837), I, 349-53.

in various directions, without any principle at all. A friend of mine who resides there had told me that we should find the inns intolerable, at the period of the great land sales, which bring a concourse of speculators to the place. It was even so. The very sight of them was intolerable; and there was not room for our party among them all. I do not know what we should have done, (unless to betake ourselves to the vessels in the harbour,) if our coming had not been foreknown, and most kindly provided for. We were divided between three families, who had the art of removing all our scruples about intruding on perfect strangers. None of us will lose the lively and pleasant associations with the place, which were caused by the hospitalities of its inhabitants.

I never saw a busier place than Chicago was at the time of our arrival. The streets were crowded with land speculators, hurrying from one sale to another. A negro, dressed up in scarlet, bearing a scarlet flag, and riding a white horse with housings of scarlet, announced the times of sale. At every street-corner where he stopped, the crowd flocked round him; and it seemed as if some prevalent mania infected the whole people. The rage for speculation might fairly be so regarded. As the gentlemen of our party walked the streets, store-keepers hailed them from their doors, with offers of farms, and all manner of land-lots, advising them to speculate before the price of land rose higher. A young lawyer, of my acquaintance there, had realised five hundred dollars per day, the five preceding days, by merely making out titles to land. Another friend had realised in two years, ten times as much money as he had before fixed upon as a competence for life. Of course, this rapid money-making is a merely temporary evil. A bursting of the bubble must come soon. The absurdity of the speculation is so striking, that the wonder is that the fever should have attained such a height as I witnessed. The immediate occasion of the bustle which prevailed, the week we were at Chicago, was the sale of lots, to the value of two millions of dollars, along the course of a projected canal; and of another set, immediately behind these. Persons not intending to game, and not infected with mania, would endeavor to form some reasonable conjecture as to the ultimate value of the lots, by calculating the cost of the canal, the risks from accident, from the possible competition from other places, &c., and, finally, the possible profits, under the most favorable circumstances, within so many years' purchase. Such a calculation would serve as some sort of guide as to the amount of purchase-money to be risked. Whereas, wild land on the banks

of a canal, not yet even marked out, was selling at Chicago for more than rich land, well improved, in the finest part of the valley of the Mohawk, on the banks of a canal which is already the medium of an almost inestimable amount of traffic. If sharpers and gamblers were to be the sufferers by the impending crash at Chicago, no one would feel much concerned: but they, unfortunately, are the people who encourage the delusion, in order to profit by it. Many a high-spirited, but inexperienced young man; many a simple settler, will be ruined for the advantage of knaves.

Others, besides lawyers and speculators by trade, make a fortune in such extraordinary times. A poor man at Chicago had a pre-emption right to some land, for which he paid in the morning one hundred and fifty dollars. In the afternoon, he sold it to a friend of mine for five thousand dollars. A poor Frenchman, married to a squaw, had a suit pending, when I was there, which he was likely to gain, for the right of purchasing some land by the lake for one hundred dollars, which would immediately become worth one million dollars.

There was much gaiety going on at Chicago, as well as business. On the evening of our arrival a fancy fair took place. As I was too much fatigued to go, the ladies sent me a bouquet of prairie flowers. There is some allowable pride in the place about its society. It is a remarkable thing to meet such an assemblage of educated, refined, and wealthy persons as may be found there, living in small, inconvenient houses on the edge of a wild prairie. There is a mixture, of course. I heard of a family of half-breeds setting up a carriage, and wearing fine jewellery. When the present intoxication of prosperity passes away, some of the inhabitants will go back to the eastward; there will be an accession of settlers from the mechanic classes; good houses will have been built for the richer families, and the singularity of the place will subside. It will be like all the other new and thriving lake and river ports of America. Meantime, I am glad to have seen it in its strange early days.

IV. ENGLISH AND AMERICAN AGRICULTURE COMPARED

Superiority of American Agriculture, 18331

A good view of American agriculture may be had by comparing it with that of England. Each had its advantages and disadvantages, and they are stated by an observant English agriculturist as follows:

1 A Tour through North America. By Patrick Shirreff (Edinburgh, 1835), 340-1, 345, 348-9.

In North America, extensive landholders are not common in any of the districts which I visited; and where they do exist, a great part of their possessions are unproductive. The soil is chiefly cultivated by its owners, who, in sundry respects, resemble the tenants of Scotland; and they often perform a great portion of the manual labour of the farm. In many parts of the country, which has been long settled, the farmers are opulent, participating in all the conveniences of life; and, without passing their time in absolute idleness, hire a good deal of labour. In the more recently settled parts, farmers have few of the elegancies and conveniences of life, with an ample share of its necessaries. They do not labour hard after the first three or four years of settlement, and seem to live without much care. Land does not invest its owner with any privilege or status in society.

Renters of land, or tenants, are common in many parts, and in all respects rank as landholders. The terms of rent are variable. Near towns, and in thickly-peopled districts, a small rent is paid in money, and a lease of several years taken. In remote situations, land is commonly let on shares from year to year. If the owner of the soil furnishes seed and labouring animals, he gets two-thirds of the produce, when on the field, and removed from the earth. If the tenant supplies animals and seed, the landowner gets one-third. But terms may vary according to situation, soil, and crop.

Farm-hired men, or by whatever other name they may be distinguished, are to be had in all old settled districts, and also in many of the new ones. In most cases their reward is ample, and their treatment good, living on the same kind of fare and often associating with their employers. A great deal of farm labour is performed by piece-work.

The agriculture of a country is affected by local circumstances, and farming in Britain and in the remote parts of America may be considered the extremes of the art. In the one country the farmer aims to assist, and in the other to rob nature. When the results of capital and labour are low, compared with the hire of them, they are sparingly applied to the cultivation of the soil, in which case nature is oppressed and neglected, if I may be allowed to use such terms; and when they are high, compared with their hire, she is aided and caressed. Both systems are proper in the respective countries; and, by assuming a fixed result for nature, they admit of arithmetical demonstration. Along the eastern shores of America, manures and a considerable portion of hired labour are applied to the cultivation

of the soil; but in remote districts manures are not used, and the smallest indispensable quantity of labour bestowed. In the eastern parts, the results of capital and labour enter into the productions of the soil; in remote districts the aid of capital can scarcely be said to have been called into action, and in both situations nature is the chief agent. . . .

In the eastern parts of America land may be purchased and stocked for nearly the sum an East Lothian farmer expends in stocking and improving a farm, namely, £7 per acre. But if the land has great local advantages, the price will be considerably higher. In the western parts of the United States, prairie land of the best quality, without the least obstacle to cultivation, and to any extent, may be had. For the sum of three hundred pounds sterling a farm of 200 acres could be bought and stocked in the prairies of western America. In East Lothian farming is a hazardous calling; in America there is no risk attending it. In East Lothian £2000 is required to stock a farm; in the Western States £300 will purchase and stock one nearly of equal size. In East Lothian a farmer has mental annoyance with bodily ease; in America he has mental ease with personal labour. In East Lothian a young farmer commences his career in affluence, and at middle age finds himself in poverty; in America he begins with toil, and is in easy circumstances by middle age.

In judging then of the step of becoming an American agriculturist, all may lay their account to undergo considerable privations at first settlement, and lead a different life from the farmers of East Lothian. The bountiful reward which industry receives soon enables good men to purchase land; and it is therefore often the unsteady and idle which hire themselves to farmers. On this account, it will be necessary to work personally, by way of example and active superintendence. Right thinking people consider it no disgrace to labour in any part of the world, and it is thought quite disreputable to be idle in America. East Lothian farmers often toil mentally without remuneration; and the assurance that, while in America, all the fruits of a person's own labour, assisted by generous nature, accrues to himself, will nerve his arm and sweeten his toil. The division of labour so beautifully effected in some of the operations of East Lothian agriculture, and which I may be permitted to call professional luxuries, cannot be practised at present in America. The wooden dwelling-house and barns will at first perhaps appear revolting, and may induce some people to think, that, with the same privations and sacrifices, they