A New Guide for Emigrants to the West. John Mason Peck

Colleges, Academies and Universities in the new States and Territories, 508,009;—for education, being the thirty-sixth part of the public lands appropriated to common schools, 7,952,538 acres;—and for seats of government to some of the new States and Territories, 21,589 acres. Up to January, 1826, there had been sold, from the commencement of the land system, only 19,239,412 acres. Since that period to the close of 1835, there have been sold, about 33 millions of acres, making in all sold, a little more than 52 millions. This statement includes Alabama and Florida, which we have not considered as strictly within the Valley. After a hasty and somewhat imperfect estimate of the public lands that are now in market, or will be brought into market within a few years, within the limits of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, Michigan, and the Territory of Wisconsin, the amount may be put at 130 millions of acres. This amount admits of immediate settlement and cultivation, and much of it may be put under cultivation without the immense labor of clearing and subduing forest lands.

      The comparison between the amount of sales of public lands within the last ten years, and the preceding forty years, shows that emigration to the West is increasing at a ratio beyond what is ordinarily supposed, and that the next ten years will find a majority of the population of the United States within this Great Valley.

      Sales of land from 1786 to 1826, (40 years) 19,239,412 acres.

       Sales of land from 1826 to 1835, (10 years) 33,000,000 acres.

      Three millions of families may find farms in the West.

      The extensive prairie lands of Illinois and Missouri present no obstacle to the settlement of the country. Already, prairies for many miles in extent have been turned into farms.

      6. A sixth reason why the increase of the future population of the Valley will greatly exceed the past, is derived from the increased confidence of the community in the general health of the country. The most unreasonable notions have prevailed abroad relative to the health of the western states. All new settlements are more or less unfavorable to health, which, when cultivated and settled become healthy. As a separate chapter will be devoted to this subject, I only advert to the fact now of the increased confidence of the people in the Atlantic States, in the salubrity of our western climate, which already has tended to increase emigration; but which, from facts becoming more generally known, will operate to a much greater extent in future.

      7. I will only add that there is already a great amount of intelligence, and of excellent society in all the settled portions of the Western Valley.

      "The idea is no longer entertained by Eastern people, that going to the West, or the 'Backwoods,' as it was formerly called, is to remove to a heathen land, to a land of ignorance and barbarism, where the people do nothing but rob, and fight, and gouge! Some parts of the West have obtained this character, but most undeservedly, from the Fearons, the [Basil] Halls, the Trollopes, and other ignorant and insolent travellers from England, who, because they were not allowed to insult and outrage as they pleased, with Parthian spirit, hurled back upon us their poisoned javelins and darts as they left us. There is indeed much destitution of moral influence and means of instruction in many, very many, neighborhoods of the West. But there is in all the principal towns a state of society, with which the most refined, I was going to say the most fastidious, of the eastern cities need not be ashamed to mingle."—Baird.

      The eastern emigrant will find, that wholesome legislation, and much of the influence of religion are enjoyed in the Valley of the Mississippi, extending to him all he can ask in the enjoyment of his rights, and the protection of his property.

      Common School systems have been commenced in some of the states—others are following their example, and the subject of general education is receiving increasing attention every year. Colleges and other literary institutions are planted, and religious institutions and means of religious instruction are rapidly increasing. Noble and successful efforts are making by the Bible, Missionary, Tract, Sabbath School, Temperance, and other Societies in the West. Great and rapid changes are taking place, if not to the extent we desire, yet corresponding in a degree with the gigantic march of emigration and population. Many other reasons might be urged to show that its prospective increase of population will vastly exceed the ratio of its retrospective increase, but these are sufficient.

      FOOTNOTES:

      [3] La Salle appears to have discovered the Bay of St. Bernard, and formed a settlement on the western side of the Colorado, in 1685.—See J. Q. Adams's Correspondence with Don Onis. Pub. Doc. first session 15th Congress, 1818.

[4] Baird.

[5] See Mr. Clay's Report on the Public Lands, April 26, 1832, U. S. Papers.

CHAPTER III.

       Table of Contents

CLIMATE.

       Table of Contents

      Comparative view of the Climate with the Atlantic States. Diseases.—Means of preserving health.

      Climate, &c. In a country of such vast extent, through 15° of latitude, the climate must necessarily be various. Louisiana, Mississippi and the lower half of Arkansas, lie between the latitudes of 30° and 35°, and correspond with Georgia and South Carolina. Their difference of climate is not material. The northern half of Arkansas, Tennessee and Kentucky, lie west from North Carolina and the southern portion of Virginia. The climate varies from those states only as they are less elevated than the mountainous parts of Virginia and Carolina. Hence, the emigrant from the southern Atlantic states, unless he comes from a mountainous region, will experience no great change of climate, by emigrating to the Lower Mississippi Valley. Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, lie parallel with the northern half of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and so much of New York and New England as lies south of the 42° of north latitude. But several circumstances combine to produce variations in the climate.

      1. Much of those Atlantic states are hilly, and in many parts mountainous, some of which are 2 and 3000 feet above the level of the ocean. The parallel western states have no mountains, and are not proportionably hilly.

      2. The Atlantic states border on the ocean on the east, and feel the influence of the cold, damp winds from the northeast and east. Their rains are more copious and their snows deeper. The northern portions of the West, equally with New York and Vermont, are affected with the influence of the lakes, though not to the same extent.

      5. "The courses of rivers, by changing in some degree the direction of the winds, exert an influence on the climate. In the Atlantic states, from New England to North Carolina, the rivers run more or less to the southeast, and increase the winds which blow from the northwest, while the great bed of the Mississippi exerts an equal influence in augmenting the number and steadiness of the winds which blow over it from the southwest; and there is another cause of difference in climate, chiefly perceptible, first, in the temperature, which, if no counteracting cause existed, they would raise in the west considerably above that of corresponding latitudes in the east; and, secondly, in the moisture of the two regions, which is generally greater west than east of the mountains, when the southwest wind prevails; as, much of the water with which it comes charged from the Gulf of Mexico, is deposited before it reaches the country east of the Alleghanies."—Dr. Drake.

      It is an error that our climate is more variable, or the summers materially hotter, than in a correspondent latitude in the Atlantic states. "The New Englander and New Yorker north