Texas Or Michigan, Which?

About this lime oí year a good deal is said and more written by interested parties about Texas as tiie farmer's , paradise, and some restless Micliigan farmers as usual thlnk of selling out and trying their fortune in tlnit happy State. It iswell to think twiee before taking any such step. ïlie next best thing to seeing for one's self is to get the testimony of an intelligent and disinterested witness, and such a person, we believe, is Mr. Perry Joslin. for many years an editor in the Saginaw Valley, for the last few years a successful farmer near Fenton, and a man whose word is as good as his bond with all who know him. A.s a pioneer in Michigan and a careful explorer of Texas with a view we believe, of removing there himself, be is as capable of judging bet ween the relative advantages of the two States for farming purposes, as any witness who could be put upon the stand. From a very candid letter of his on the subject in the Fenton Independent we give his conclusions : But what of the advantages of Texas farming? Well, they have short, mild winters, cheap land, good soil, generally a good supply of timber, can raise good crops of oats, about average crops of wheat, light crops of corn. They can raise potatoes in the spring and early summer - they can be planted in March - but they cannot keep them through the summer, and those for winter use and for planting must be brought in from the North. About the same with most garden vegetables. The latter part of the season is usually so dry that a late erop for winter cannot be raised. Peaches, pears, grapes, cherries, and it is said apples, do well - so the small fruits and berries, and are of ten f ound growing wild in the gulches and along the water courses. Stock can be kept easily through the winter, but cattle have to eat 12 months in a year, whether summer or winter ; and when the prairies are all fenced in, in any section, unless the farmer has saved a piece of prairie for pasture. I do not see how he can keep cattle to advantage, scarcely his team and milch cows. X rom tne oest ïniormauon x could obtain, it is very doubtf ui whether clover or the tame grasses can be made to succeecl there. The long, dry season of the late summer months uses it up. In the stock growing regions of Western Texas tliey have the mesquit grass, which stands drouth better and makes good f eed when dry. But in the f arming región the grass does not prevail. Without some substitute for tame grasses, it is evident that Texas farmers cannot succeed with stock or sneep af ter the prairies give out. The climate is delightful and all residents there from the North agree that they suffer very little more from the heat during the summer than at the North, as cool breezes usually prevail and nearly always the nights are cool. And I think it is generally healthy. Still, am undble to see how, with the same number of acres, a northern farmer can make more money or do better than he can in Michigan. It will be noticed that Mr. Joslin adjusts the balances solely on the question of money-making, and he flnda that with equal capital and labor the chances are no better in Texas than in Michigan. But even if the chances were decidedly in favor of making more money there than here, what sane man would dream of making nis choiee depend on that alone ? There are hundreds of considerations to be thrown into the scale, and unless counterbalanced by advantages to be enjoyed in the Lone Star and not in the Peninsular State, then a man is a loser who makes the exchange. To take his pocketbook to Texas is comparatively easy, but when he comes to tako along his store, postoffice, blacksmithshop, grange, school, church, faetones, railroadsand all the etceteras which inake life in Michigan desirable, he will probably conclude to stay where he is and