126               THE WISCONSIN FARMER.

culture of the post of this new State, as an fiercely around, and with a
voice whose tone
earnest of what it is to become? There is no- gave evidence of the most vehement
anger, he
thing, or almost nothing to be told. With but pronounced again the word -Sugar!"
three
small olsihm * atnathing that pould pNoperly be tine, find  haVinV thus brought
Pte house to
1                                           4.titude In Thiah re was to traceof
little outside of this. save these three staples mirth, or want of the most
appreciative atten-
of necessity, fire, light, and salt. Apropos of tion, he turned round disdainfully
and asked,
this, may not one be pardoned for balancing  " Who will laugh at sugar
now ? "
these almost vitalizing products against the  This Kanahwa salt, of which
such immense
figs and Don Quixote, which are so nearly the quantities are made in the
valley of that name,
all that one of the so called Great Powers has or salt, wherever made, is
not a thing to be
given to the world ?-also for quoting from the laughed at. Several circumstances
that came
ohild's story of, "d How big was Alexander, under my notice during the
summer assured
Pa?" these lines:                           me of this; that one which
made the deepest
      r'Tw  not his stature made him great,  impression being the sight of
men, some of
      Bat greatneas of his name              them flushed with the hot blood
of youth and
Western Virginia can scarcely be said to have war, others in the silver-gray
of age, but all
a name yet, either small or great, and while it so persistent in their disloyalty
that they had
has the audacity to have in contemplation the stood the test of every other
want, coming at
working out of one, coal is abundant and is last to the headquarters of a
Federal officer
extensively shipped by the N. W. V. R. R. to and volunteering the oath of
allegiance to the
the Ohio. In the " to be or not to be " of va- Government they
had contemned, because that
rious other highways of transportation, for like was the only way of getting
possession of a
uses, lies the question of how much this single barrel of salt.
commodity has to do with the material great-  Tie primitive character of
the people and
ness of the coming State.  For, thanks to the civilization of the country
is evidence that
unfolding science of the age, coal no longer there has been very little effort
to develop its
stands simply, versus cold, as at first, nor ver- resources beyond the demand
for actual use.
sus inertia, as in its second grand iwujlse in The mineral wealth of those
deep-ribbed hills
the progress of the world: but now, as ton lies untouched of shaft or the
miner's pick;
after ton is exhumed from the darkness where the water-fall of almost the
entire country, is
it has bided its time, every square foot seems tumbling about pretty mitch
as God left it, ap-
to look up with the enquiry,.  What will you plied to no uscful purpose,
and the fertility of
have? ' If the oil manufactured so largely those valleyS tha' wind so gracefully
away
in its western counties, and1 by which nameless wherever rivers flow or hills
lean, has never
thousands are to-night reading the news of the been tested.  But on the face
of the country
day, may go for a prophecy of its future, en- lies evidence of wealth that
waits but the hand
cyclopoedias 4f prospective generations will not of intelligent industry.
 In a journey either
fail to give it honorable mention.          by public highway of railroad
or pike, or
   Salt: For the benefit of tho-c who do not rc- through the rural districts
iorth or sotth of
 member the story, and because it illustrates these, you would srarcely find,
froul Parkers-
 the emphasis with which I wrote the above burg to Stanton, a farm which
at the North
 word, I will relate that ot ote occasion, that would pass for respectable:
rind yet, nowhere
 eloquent champion of the cause of the Atmeri- in this land of all-bountifuht~ass.
have I seen a
 can Revolution, Lord Chathami, commenced a greater variety of things desirable
for man and
 speech in the House of Comnmons with the beast.
 words,  Sugar, MIr. Speaker." t)bserving a   Nor is this much. less
so as you approach the
 smile through the audience, he paused, looked more mountainous regions where
both Union