As the next oldest of three brothers, I did not have the right of primogeniture to my father’s farm which, according to law, and custom, would go to the oldest son. My ambition was to become a farmer, and I hoped some day to be able to buy a farm in my own neighborhood. Then my brother entered the military school in Christiania and I was to manage the farm during his absence. I entered upon my task cheerfully, worked with all my might and kept a careful account of income and disbursements. To my great surprise, I soon found that in spite of all my toil and prudence, I did not make much headway. When the year was ended, I had little or nothing left as a reward for my labor and it was clear to me that it would not do to buy an expensive farm and run in debt for it. Farming did not pay in the locality where I was born. I then tried the occupation of an itinerant merchant. I could earn a living in this way, but the laws were against me and I did not like to carry on a business of such a nature that it was necessary to keep my affairs secret from the _lensmand_ [undersheriff]. Then I worked awhile as a blacksmith. This furnished me enough to do, but it was difficult to collect the money I earned. The law did not permit me to work at my trade in the city. Then [in 1836] my younger brother, Ansten, and I went across the mountains to the western part of Norway to buy sheep which we intended to sell again. While we were stopping in the vicinity of Stavanger, we heard much talk about a country which was called America. This was the first time we heard this word. We saw letters written by Norwegians who were living in America and we were told that Knud Slogvig, who, many years before that had emigrated in a sloop [_Restaurationen_] from Stavanger, had lately visited his native land and had given so favorable a report about America that about 150 [should be 200] emigrants from Stavanger Amt and from Hardanger had gone back with him and had sailed that very summer [1836] in two brigs from Stavanger across the ocean. They had gone in spite of all sorts of threats and warnings about slavery, death, and disease. This was the first large exodus after the emigration of the sloop party in 1825. All that we here saw was so new and came to us so unexpectedly that we were not at once able to arrange all the reports into a systematic whole and thus get a correct idea of conditions in the new world. But when I spent the following Christmas with Even Nubbru who was a member of the Storthing from Sigdal we discussed the hard times in my native valley and I suggested that I might have better luck in some other part of the country. In replying Even Nubbru remarked that wherever I went in the world, I would nowhere find a people