It must be nearly thirty years since I first wrote to you over this signature, but never before except in long vacations, and from outlandish parts. Why not keep to a good rule? you may ask, at this crowded time of year. Well, the fact is I really want to say something as to this “Westward Ho!” gadfly, which seems to have bitten young England with a vengeance in these last months. I am startled, not to say alarmed, at the number of letters I get from the parents and guardians—generally professional men—of youngsters eagerly bent on cattle-ranches, horse-ranches, orange-groves in Florida, vineyards, peach and strawberry-raising, and I know not what other golden dreams of wealth quickly acquired in the open air, generally with plenty of wild sport thrown in. I suppose they write from some fancy that I know a good deal about such matters. That is not so; but I do know a very little about them, and may possibly do some good by publishing that little just now in your columns.

First, then, as to cattle and horse-raising on ranches. This is practically a closed business on any but a small scale, and as part of farm work. All the best ranche-grounds are in the hands of large and rich companies, or millionaires, with whom no newcomer can compete. It will, no doubt, be a valuable experience for any young man to work for a year or two on a big ranch as a cowboy; but he must be thoroughly able to trust his temper, and to rough it in many ways, or he should not try it. At the end, if prudent, he will only have been able to save a few hundred dollars. But this is not the kind of thing, so far as I see, that our youngsters at all expect or want. Orange-groves are excellent and profitable things, no doubt, and there are parts in Florida and elsewhere where there is still plenty of land fit for this purpose, though the choice spots are probably occupied. But an orange-grove will not give any return till the sixth year, cautious people say the seventh.

Vineyards may, with good luck, be giving some return in the third or fourth year; but the amount of hard work which must be put into the soil in breaking up, clearing out stumps, and ploughing, even if there is no timber to fell, is very serious; and the same may be said of peach-orchards and early, fruit and vegetable-rearing. Moreover, the choice places for such industry, such as Lookout Mountain, are for the most part occupied. In a word, though it is quite possible to do well in other industries, and in ordinary farming, nothing beyond a decent living can be earned, without at any rate as free an expenditure of brain and muscle as high farming requires at home. On the other hand, sport, except for rich ranche-men who can command waggons, horses, and men, and travel long distances for it, is not to be had generally, and apt to disappoint where it can be had.

So much for the working side of the problem. The playing side—outside whisky-shops, which I will assume the young Englishman means to keep clear of—ought also to be looked fairly in the face before the experiment is tried. Perhaps the most direct way to bring it home to inquirers will be to quote from the letter of a young English public-school boy who has lately finished his first year as a cowboy on the cattle-ranche of one of the big companies:—

Friday night we had quite a time. We went to an exhibition of the home talent of——, and really of all shows this was the worst I ever saw. One man, the town barber, and our greatest “society man,” played a nigger, and played it so well that one could not help fancying he has at one time been a “profesh.” The rest were so dull and such sticks that it made him shine more than ever. After the home talent, there was a “social hop,” at which Jerry and I shone as being the “bored young men.” You can, of course, see why I was bored; and Jerry, he is from Ohio, and of course——— cannot compete with Ohio. However, as Jerry was somewhat of a great man, the quadrilles being all called by him—i.e. he stood on the stage and shouted, “balance all,” “swing your partners,” “lady’s chain,” at the right time—we had to stay, and more or less to dance. Jerry took great pains to find me partners worthy of a man who had danced in a dress-coat. He did not succeed but once, when he introduced me to a very lively little school-lady, “marm,” I should say; the rest were very wooden in movement and conversation. The school-marm amused me very much. She had not long returned from the————- University, where all the young ladies, though they met the other sex at school, were not allowed to speak to them at other times. The girls were allowed to give dances, but she and three or four others thought that a “hen-pie” dance was too much of a fraud, so they contrived a plan by which they could get three or four dancing men in without going to the door. They fastened a pulley on to the beam where the bell hung, and with the aid of a clothes-basket and a rope they spoiled the “hen-pie” with two or three young men. This plan worked well several times, till one night three or four of them were exerting themselves to get a very heavy boy up, when instead of a boy they perceived the bearded face of the head-master. In horror they turned loose the rope and fled, leaving him twelve feet from the ground, hanging on by his fingers to the window-sill, from which, as no one would respond to his call for help, he finally dropped. The young lady told it much better than I have. Jerry was very popular as a “caller.” I noticed he understood his audience well, and whenever they got a figure they didn’t know, he came in with “grand chain,” which they all knew and performed very nicely; so you would see a whole set lost in the intricate feat of “visiting” (say) and all muddled up, when you would hear the grand voice of Jerry, “grand chain,” and all the dancers would smile and go to it, and Jerry was quite the boss. We however lost our reputation as good young men, as towards midnight we were overcome with a great thirst; so wicked I, a hardened sinner, persuaded the social barber to let me have half-a-pint of whisky; and J——— and I were caught in the barber’s shop, eating tinned oysters with our pocket-knives, and biscuits, and indulging in whisky-and-water. We were caught by three young men who had “got religion” last fall, and who were, of course, highly shocked; but I think they would have overcome all their scruples but for the stern mothers in the background, and they not only envied us our whisky-and-water, but also our mothers. Half the fight in drinking, I think, is to have been “raised” to look upon it as an every-day luxury, and not as a thing to be had as a great treat on the sly. Well, good-bye! I have written a lot of rubbish, but beyond that am fatter than I have ever been in America.

This will probably give readers a pretty clear notion of the social life available in the West. It is, as they will see at a glance, utterly unlike anything they have been used to. If this kind of social life (and there is something to be said for it) is what they want, in the interludes of really hard manual labour and rough board and lodging, let them start by all means, and they may do very well out West. Otherwise they had better look the thing round twice or thrice before starting. In any case, no young man ought to take more ready money with him than will just keep him from starving for about a month.

If he cannot make his hands keep him by that time, he has no business, and will do no good, in the West.