Letter from Missouri
Dublin Core
Title
Letter from Missouri
Subject
travel, advice
Creator
C.A.B
Source
http://addison.vt.edu/record=b1775388~S1
Publisher
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Date
July 1877
Contributor
Kristin Colonna, Lee Mathias
Rights
Permission to publish images from The Gray Jacket must be obtained from Special Collections, Virginia Tech.
Format
text
Language
English
Type
letter
Identifier
LD5655.V8 L4, ser.1, v2, no.9 (July 1877), p.8
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
Clapper, Mo., May 11, 1877.
Editors Gray Jacket: Thinking it possible that some of your readers would like to read a letter from the "Great West," I have determined to accept your invitation, extended in the April number, and write you a letter stating a few facts concerning this country.
While I would advise no man to come west on my say so, yet I can safely say that this country, for life, is far a head of old Virginia. This is probably owing to the fact that we have people here from every part of the world. The soil being different from that of Virginia, the mode of farming also differs.
The west is certainly the country for small capitalist. The same amount invested in land here will pay a far better profit than in Virginia. The price of land varies from eight dollars per acre to fifteen. Open Prairie land averages twelve and a half dollars per acre, and a man can cultivate double as much of it as he can of Virginia land, unmolested by grasshoppers or chinchbugs as we have none in this section. We have sometimes long rainy spells, and sometimes a late spring; but a late spring is generally followed by a late fall. Corn planted the tenth of June ripens before frost. Hay being abundant, corn is not cut up but left standing and the ear gathered from it. This country is remarkably good for the growing of cattle. Persons having no money may either rent land or work as a farm hand at from fifteen to eighteen dollars per month.
A young man of business habits is soon known here and he can have the use of a span of donkeys for the breaking of them. He can also buy his impliments [sic] on time by paying ten per cent interest and rent for 20 of crop.
If any of the boys from the V.A. and M.C. should come out here I would advise that they leave their gray suit as they will be taken by the majority of the people for a federal in blue uniform.
Editors Gray Jacket: Thinking it possible that some of your readers would like to read a letter from the "Great West," I have determined to accept your invitation, extended in the April number, and write you a letter stating a few facts concerning this country.
While I would advise no man to come west on my say so, yet I can safely say that this country, for life, is far a head of old Virginia. This is probably owing to the fact that we have people here from every part of the world. The soil being different from that of Virginia, the mode of farming also differs.
The west is certainly the country for small capitalist. The same amount invested in land here will pay a far better profit than in Virginia. The price of land varies from eight dollars per acre to fifteen. Open Prairie land averages twelve and a half dollars per acre, and a man can cultivate double as much of it as he can of Virginia land, unmolested by grasshoppers or chinchbugs as we have none in this section. We have sometimes long rainy spells, and sometimes a late spring; but a late spring is generally followed by a late fall. Corn planted the tenth of June ripens before frost. Hay being abundant, corn is not cut up but left standing and the ear gathered from it. This country is remarkably good for the growing of cattle. Persons having no money may either rent land or work as a farm hand at from fifteen to eighteen dollars per month.
A young man of business habits is soon known here and he can have the use of a span of donkeys for the breaking of them. He can also buy his impliments [sic] on time by paying ten per cent interest and rent for 20 of crop.
If any of the boys from the V.A. and M.C. should come out here I would advise that they leave their gray suit as they will be taken by the majority of the people for a federal in blue uniform.