Identifier: newpopularpictor00sear (find matches)
Title: A new and popular Pictorial History of the United States
Year: 1848 (1840s)
Authors: Sears Robert, 1810-1892
Subjects:
Publisher: United States
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
of bushes—though here termed barrens—arereally only less fertile than the prairies.They produce abundantly when brokenup and planted. And now let us look at the other sideof the picture, and see what are the dis-advantages of settlement and life on theprairies. Deficiency of timber is ^ the first tostrike the eye of one familiar with ruralor pioneer life at the east. The den-izen of a log cabin in western New-York or Ohio may at times be short ofmeal qr of meat, but he has always goodfuel in abundance within a stones throwof his door, fencing stuff as near, ar)dbuildina: timber not much less so. Buthere he finds the accessible sections,embracing portions of timber and prai-rie, all clutched by speculators, or ap-propriated by earlier immigrants, andhe can obtain land at government priceonly by pitching his tent on the brond,treeless prairie, where not even an arm-ful of wotd can be picked up witliiti amile. Hither lie must haul his buildingmaterials ^,pine) from Chicago, his fuel
Text Appearing After Image:
548 DESUH-IPTION OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS and fencing from some adjacent groveor barren. after buying or stealingthem ; so that the time saved to him inhaving no timber nor stumps betweenhim and a crop, is nearly all required tocut or haul timber and fuel. As toelifibilitv and comfort, a little rudepioneers cabin looks better, and is morehabitable, in an opening of the forestthan in the glaring sunshine of an un-shaded prairie. tributed, and cultivation is graduallybeating back the annual prairie fires, andplanting groves and thickets. A littlecare and labor work wonders in this re-spect. A few acres ploughed and sowedto locust afford fuel and fencing afterfive or six years, and timber of slowero-rowth mav thus be as easily thousfhnot so quickly obtained. If speculationwould now undertake to buy up thecentres of the great praines and plant 111 health is another drawback on the ! them with trees, it would for once do acharms of prairie life. The settler has good thing, and abate somewh

Note About Images