healthful.  And, again, great districts, occupying a half of a State, are so detrimental to sound health that half their population are whelmed with fevers—­bilious, intermittent, and typhoid—­from year’s end to year’s end.  Such a locality is the valley of the Wabash River, in Indiana.  In passing through that country, after a season of prolonged wet summer weather, we have seen more of the inhabitants prostrate from disease, incidental to the climate, than there were well ones to care for them.

It is seen that the selection of a home for ourselves and families is a matter of the very highest moment to all who desire to prolong life and enjoy the full possession of all their powers.  Very trifling attention has been given this question, as a rule, since we see on all hands multitudes crowding into unhealthy precincts, to say nothing of those more pestilential-breeding apartments which are everywhere inhabited by the poorer class, as well as by thousands of the well-to-do and intelligent people of both town and country.  It is noteworthy, however, to observe the increasing interest manifested of late in all things pertaining to the laws of hygiene; and yet the alphabet of the subject remains a profound mystery to the greater masses of men.  Much praise should be awarded the daily press for its dissemination of valuable hints and arguments upon all the vital questions of health; and, but for newspapers, indeed, there would be no practical means of reaching the millions who, more than all others, so much need to be taught these invaluable, first lessons of life.

The tide of emigration from the seaboard to the West has usually followed parallel lines; so that we find the State of Texas settled, for the most part, by people from the States lying upon the Gulf, while in Missouri they hail largely from the Carolinas, and from what were once known as the border slave States.  Going farther north, to Minnesota, a preponderance of the New England element is found; though people from all the various States of the Union are encountered to a greater extent than in any of the others lying in the Northwest; and this fact is important as one of the circumstantial evidences of the great repute this State bears, par excellence, in the matter of her climate.  We cannot suppose that this minor and miscellaneous population were attracted hither from any special attachment either to the people or the institutions of the commonwealth, but rather in quest of that health and vigor lost within their own warm, enervating, or miasmatic homes, which so abound in all the central and southern portions of the Union.  Finding their healths measurably benefited by a residence here, they have brought their families, engaged in their various callings, and may now be found settled permanently in their new homes throughout all the towns and villages of the State.

Minnesota is known as the New England of the West, this appellation growing out of the fact that the great preponderance of her citizens, as before stated, are either of New England birth or origin; and this well-merited sobriquet has, likewise, an additional application, since the general face of the country is diversified and quite in contrast with the endless stretch and roll of the shrubless prairies of some of the other great western and adjoining States.