Reminiscences

Home again. after an absence of four weeks spent in the Eastern pari of the State where I experienced the debilitating eflects of sick ness, the attention of kind friends, and was cheered by the prospect of the continued advancement of the Anti-Slavery cause. While in that rich portion of our fair Península State, my mind reverted to the time when.twenty-four years since, I trod the forests alone. The object, to so seek a farm n that wild.uncultivated región, where the Oak monarch of the forest stood unmolested, and the Black Walnut, the pride of the Michigan woods, raised its towering head, inviting the adventurer to the rich soil marked by its locality. In those days the bear roamed undisturbed save by the red hunter, and the wolf, howling a requium over his fallen prey, broke the stillness of the night, while the day was enlivened alone by the cheerful notes of the wood bird, and thebound of the nimblo deer ; for the pioneer had not at that time erected his log cabin, and the sound of the woodman's axe was not yet heard in the rich gladcs and beautiful uplands of PlvmoulhTwenty-one years since, I erected my log cottage, and cheered on by the assistance and smiles of my other self, we fixed our home in the illimitable wilds of the, then, far West. - Poor, yet contented and happy, we crowned our cottage with flowers, and ornamented our situation with choice trees from the forest, which now, after twenty years of luxuriant grovvth, stand the pride and beauty of ihe manor. Sucli was our first home in Michigan But the foresta have fallen, and extensive fields of waving grain manifest a high state of cultivatlon - log cabins have given place to elegant mansions, and treasures of Juxury are poured into the lap of industry - villages have sprung up in every part of the country, and the neighing of the stearn-horso is heard, as he bears over the iron track the rich treasures of the West towards the place of tlieir destination. In passing through many parts of the State, we observed that, allhough in many places there will be a failure of the wheat erop, in others it will richly pay the farmer for his toil. Other crops look well, and promise an.abundant harvest. The pioneers of the West are being rewarded for their enterprise, and Michigan, in her pi-ide and her beauty, stands unrivalled as a wheat growing district.