Richmond Palladium

For the Palladium.

CRAWFORDSVILLE, MARCH 23, 1839.

Messrs. Editors:—Five miles west of Greenfield we cross Sugar-creek, quite a handsome stream, affording some good water power, and bordered by some very excellent land. The good land along this stream, however, is quite a narrow strip. On the east side of this stream they have another embryo city, called New Philadelphia. I am very much in the notion, that in a few years the people will see the folly of this great rage for new towns. About one half the little villages of the west are absolutely curses to the country. They are too frequently filled up with idle loafers, too lazy to work, and who depend on living off the industrious part of community by means of trickery, knavery, and impudence, till the neighborhood becomes too hot to hold them, and then they are off, between two days, to depredate on some other community in the same way.

Between Sugar-creek and Indianapolis the country maintains almost an uninterrupted level, and appears to be rather wet for profitable cultivation.

This whole country presents the appearance of having at one time formed the bed of a great lake. In some places I noticed a peculiarity in the growth of the timber, that I never noticed elsewhere. There are black walnut, hickory, lynn, red oak, white oak, buckeye, beech, poplar, sycamore, grey ash, and hickory elm, all growing together. These trees are generally found in very different soils, and occupying very different situations. How they came to be all jumbled up together, a sycamore by the side of a swelled-butt white oak, a black walnut by a scrubby beech, &c., is, to me, rather unaccountable.

To see trees that are indigenous to the very best of soils, interspersed with those which almost universally, in the west, denote an opposite quality of land, has something the appearance of a freak of nature.

The village of Cumberland is situated 10 miles east of Indianapolis, in a neighborhood described as having some fine farms in this vicinity, but the country generally does not appear susceptible of a very high state of cultivation.

Indianapolis, the capital of this Hoosier nation, is situated immediately on the east bank of White river, and surrounded with as good land as is in the State. The Central canal runs through Indianapolis, and creates a very large amount of water power.

A number of factories of different kinds are to be erected the coming season.

This will give a spur to business of every description, not only in town, but in the surrounding country for a great many miles. This place has heretofore been rather deficient in the item of water power, but the canal will furnish a sufficiency for almost every purpose required by the country for half a century to come. The truth is, the water power at this one point, is worth more to the country than the whole cost of the canal from this place to the feeder. Looking to the situation of Indianapolis, being very near the centre of the State, having a large extent of first rate land surrounding it, being the seat of the State government, with the great National Road running through it from east to west, and the central canal from north to south, connecting the lakes with the Ohio river, and also a rail road to Madison, to all human foresight nothing can prevent its being, in a few years, the best inland town in the west. I want to say something about our state house. What shall it be? I cannot describe it scientifically, for want of a knowledge of the technical terms necessary. But I must say that it is really an object well worthy the admiration and pride of us Hoosiers. It is situated in the western part of the town immediately on the north side of the National Road, standing on a considerable eminence. it rears its majestic dome far above every object around it.

The square is surrounded by a neat and substantial fence, and is filled with young scions of every forest tree native of the state, set out without any regard to order, but scattered about in most beautiful irregularity, just as they are found in their primeval forests.
Leaving Indianapolis, I pursued a N. W. course to this place, Crawfordsville, which is the seat of justice of Montgomery county. Its north-western suburb is washed by Sugar river, a most beautiful and valuable stream, affording an abundance of water power, stone, &c. The land between Indianapolis and this place is rather inclined to be wet, but is generally good land, well timbered, and is settling very rapidly. On Whitelick 14 miles from Indianapolis are some very fine farms, in the neighborhood of Brownsburg.—

Jamestown in the corner of Boone county, will one of these days be a village not to be sneezed at. There is some very excellent land in its vicinity, and improvement seem to be on the Davy Crockett plan—"going ahead."

Montgomery county, one thing taken with another, is perhaps as good a county as any in the State. Sugar river bisects it from N. E. to S. W. affording an ample supply of water power throughout its entire length. On this stream are a great many extensive quarries of the best kind of stone, both lime and freestone; and it is said that a very excellent bed of stone-coal has recently been found in south west corner of the county, about 12 miles from Crawfordsville. The land generally, throughout the whole county, is of the very best quality—high, gently undulating except immediately on the water courses, and remarkably productive, yielding the farmer a rich reward for his labor. This county sixteen years ago was, throughout its length and breadth, an unbroken wilderness.

Now it contains a population of some twenty thousand souls, sending three representatives and a senator to our state Legislature.

More of this town and county in my next.

PEREGRINE.