neral, remains undetermined. Physicians and others have attempted
to ascertain the cause of this disease, but hitherto without success.

It infests only particular spots, or small districts, and these are soon
found out. There are places in Ohio, Indiana, and the southern states,
where it exists. Its effects are more frequent in autumn than any other
season; and to guard against it, the people either keep their cows in a
pasture, or refuse to use their milk. Some have supposed this disease to
be produced by the cattle feeding on the _cicuta virosa_, or water
hemlock; as a similar disease once infested the cattle in the north of
Europe, the cause of which was traced out by the great naturalist
Linnaeus; but it is not known that this species of plant exists amongst
the botanical productions of Missouri and Illinois.

Anxious to furnish all the information, on this very important subject,
to persons desirous of emigrating to the West, I will prolong this
chapter by inserting the following:

"ADVICE TO EMIGRANTS, RECENT SETTLERS, AND TO THOSE VISITING THE
SOUTHERN COUNTRY.

"The outlines which have already been given will afford some information
to emigrants from other sections of the Union, or from Europe. We will
now offer a few cautionary remarks, particularly intended for such as
are about to settle, or have recently settled in this section of the
United States.

"Of new comers, there are two tolerably distinct classes: the one
comprising farmers, mechanics, and indeed all those who calculate on
obtaining a subsistence by manual industry; the other is composed of
professional men, tradesmen, and adventurers of every description.
Towards the first class our attention is now directed, premising that
throughout a great portion of the western country, except in large
towns, almost every mechanic is almost necessarily a farmer; the
population being in but few places sufficiently dense to support that
designation of mechanical employments which is common in the eastern and
middle states.

"For the industrious and temperate of this class, our country holds
forth inducements which are not generally known or understood.

"The language of indiscriminate panegyric, which has been bestowed on
its climate and soil, has conveyed little information, and is the source
of many fears and suspicions in the minds of people at a distance. Other
accounts have described the western country as uniformly sickly; but the
habit of exagger