In the two previous chapters, I have discussed Utah pretty thoroughly, touching most of the mooted questions there; and now, to sum up. Without doubt, it must be said of the people of Utah, that they are an industrious, frugal, and thrifty race. By their wonderful system of irrigation, they have converted the desert there into a garden, and literally made the wilderness, "bloom and blossom as the rose." Their statistics (1866) showed, that they had already constructed over a thousand miles of irrigating canals and ditches, watering 150,000 acres of land, at a cost of nearly $2,000,000. Each family has its own few acres, and these are cultivated so thoroughly, that the total annual product is surprising. In Salt Lake City many families almost live on their acre-and-a-quarter lots, and many of their farms elsewhere do not exceed forty or fifty acres, with many much smaller. With their system of careful culture and general double-cropping, one man cannot well manage over ten or twelve acres per year; nor is more necessary for an ordinary family, the land proves so bountiful. Fifty and sixty bushels of wheat per acre, we were told, was not an unusual yield. So, since leaving the Missouri, we had nowhere seen more comfortable and apparently well-to-do homes. We must say, they were much superior to the average homes of our people in Colorado. Evidently, these Utahans had come there to _stay_, and from the first had "governed themselves accordingly;" while the Coloradoans, it was plain, were too many of them, only "birds of passage," like so much of our population in the West generally. Their towns and villages are well laid out, and in the main neatly built. In the country, their little farms are well-fenced or walled, with comfortable adobe houses clustering with vines and flowers, or surrounded with fruit and shade trees, while a throng of hay and grain-stacks encircle their barns. So, too, the Mormons, whatever else may be said of them, are certainly a sober race of people. Many of them no doubt keep liquor about their premises, and drink when they choose to; but drunkenness as a vice, or habitual drinking as a practice, is unknown in Utah, comparatively speaking. So, too, they allow no gambling there, except "on the sly;" and no houses of prostitution, unless you regard every "much-married" Mormon's as such, which it seems hardly fair to do--the women considered. On the whole, it is safe to say, that the Mormons deserve marked commendation and praise for what they have accomplished in Utah, in redeeming a barren wilderness and building up a prosperous community there, and full credit should be awarded them accordingly. They brag constantly, and largely, about Great Salt Lake City, and surely they have a right to. In the essential points of beauty, comfort, cleanliness, and good order, it has few equals, and perhaps no superiors of its age and size anywhere, and all things considered is indeed a perfect miracle for Utah.