te of Missouri say one word in relation to the country. We traveled
about one hundred and eighty miles through the north-west part of the
State which is mostly unsettled. We found the country the best I had
ever seen in the great Mississippi Valley, and I had seen a great share
of it. It is a perfect paradise for the agriculturist, the manufacturer
and the hunter. The soil is warm and fertile, the wild prairie grass
growing as high as a man's waist on the uplands. An abundance of good
timber skirts the streams. The land is rolling, approaching the hilly,
and well watered by rivers, brooks, and springs of pure clear water,
running over gravelly or rocky beds in clear banks, free from sloughs
or marshes. The streams furnish an abundance of the best water power
suitable for driving all kinds of machinery. The prairies and woods are
filled with abundance of deer, wild turkeys and other game, and of wild
honey. The river bottoms are covered with endless quantities of plums,
sweet grapes, and various other wild fruits in the greatest abundance.
Nature has seemed to lavish her best gifts on this country in the
greatest profusion; yet with all it remains a wilderness, only
inhabited by a few straggling squatters whose whole aim is to raise
what corn and bacon they can consume, and kill a sufficiency of game to
supply their daily wants. Why is it so? Is it because it is one or 200
miles back from the Mississippi? This cannot be the reason, for
thousands are now emigrating farther back into the wilds of Minesota.
Is it not owing to, and one of the fruits of, the blighting curse of
slavery?--the driving of free men of the northern states to emigrate to
more uncongenial soil and climate, rather than settle in a slave state.
This is a question which all Missourians who love their State should
investigate. The west, and north-west part of Missouri is capable of
supporting a population larger than the whole present population of the
State. It is a country superior in soil, climate, water, timber and
other natural advantages, to any portion of the great Mississippi
Valley, yet it is unsettled, and apparently will be for a long time,
the current of emigration being turned into Iowa, Minesota and
Wisconsin, simply because men raised in free states do not like the
idea of settling in slave states. Would it not be better for Missouri
to abolish slavery, and thereby cause her millions of acres of rich
lands to be settled by intelligent farmer