Prescott Journal

MISSOURI CORRESPONDENCE,

Cartron, Mo., Aug. 7. 1869.

My last letter left us a few miles north of Des Moines, spending a Sabbath among the friends as the Quakers call themselves.
We found about Des Moines the capital of Iowa a fine farming country. The undulated surface and rich soil, will make it a fine agricultural region when time shall have developed it. The city itself is a thriving place, and with the street car whirling by and the buzz of machinery in the shop and mill, one is reminded of the more eastern cities.
From Des Moines to the south line of the state, the surface is more rough—hills more abrupt, with plenty of timber called good for this country, and a very rich soil. Railroads seem to be their chief want here, and if one half is ever realized in this line that the people now gossip about, the country will be well supplied. Almost every farmer that we talked with, expected soon to have a railroad on his line or right across his land, and thus he be in or near town. A few years will reveal to them that railroad on the brain does not always mature into a road on old terra firma; and yet, there is but little doubt that soon from southward roads will open this large tract of country.
Near the south line of Iowa we found some good chances for the man of limited means, as well as for the capitalist. As good prairie lands as we ever saw can be bought for five dollars per acre, with timber near, for from ten to twenty-five dollars per acre. These chances however will not continue long, as the wave of emigration is rolling back somewhat from "out west," and men are seeking homes in these parts.
In this state and in southern Iowa the corn crop will be very poor, not enough for home consumption, caused from the extremely wet weather when the crop should have been worked. What is but little if any over a half crop, from the scab that made its appearance shortly before harvest. The wheat crop is now mostly thrashed and for a couple of weeks we have been eating bread from new wheat. Oats and all kinds of garden vegetables are in abundance:
At present we have moored our craft in Cameron, a brisk railroad station on the Hannibal and St. Joseph railroad. Two years ago this place was but a small village of some twenty houses, now it has become quite a city with a fine prospect for the future.
Here it is, more than in any other place that I have found that we have a compound of society made up of individuals from the different parts of the country, with their provincialisms of language, and peculiarities of custom. "Two bits," "six bits," &c., is the common way of reckoning monies less than a dollar. In other things too, as well in money reckoning, will you find the "bit." Such a one has a "right smart bit" of this, that, or the other, so that among all the bits one must look closely that he doesn't get bit himself.
Men are here to make money, and many are doing it fast. Property is changing hands very frequently, with price increasing. Hardly a man can be found with a piece of land but what he would sell it, at least for accommodation sake, if the person to be accommodated will give him four or five times what the property cost but a few months ago. It is somewhat amusing amid this squabble for earthly gain to observe the old pioneer Missourian look on, for by this time he has learned not to be too confiding at first. He knows what the Yank has come for, and already he can deal about as shrewdly as any of them, and will do so if needful to keep up. But let the stranger go to his home, talk with him in a plain and open way, listen a while to his narrative of early life, or adventures it may be of the last war; and he will soon find that he has met a friend to humanity, be his exterior what it may.

H. CHADBOURNE.