A neighbor relates that when he was a boy, needing some money, his father made him the offer that he might have all the corn that he would shell, take to mill, and market the meal in Cincinnati, forty miles distant. He went to work with a will, prepared a two-horse load, and reached Cincinnati with it safely, only to find the market glutted so that he could not get an offer on it. A part of it was finally sold at 10 cents per bushel, and the remainder was taken home. During the closing years of the fifth decade the prices of stock were at the lowest, good dairy cows bringing from $7 to $9 per head; yearling calves from $1 to $2; the very best horses, $40, and stock hogs selling for $1 or $2 each. At the same time many of the necessities of life were sold at exorbitant prices, and an examination of an old account book shows the following figures: Salt, $4 per barrel; nails, 6 to 8 cents per pound; calico, 12½ cents per yard; drilling, 25 cents per yard; clocks, $40 each (the value of the best horses!). Some other facts must be taken into consideration to understand why the farmers did not attempt improved methods. One was the condition of the currency. The United States Bank, which it would seem should have afforded security and stability to the currency, had been wrecked by the action of Andrew Jackson in vetoing its rechartering and withdrawing the United States funds (at that date about $43,000,000) from it; and private banks had been established over the entire west and south, a system of what was then known as “wild cat” banks supplying the people with currency. The man who was trading needed to carry in his pocket at all times a “bank detector,” to which he might refer to ascertain how many cents on the dollar the issue of each bank was worth. Looking back at the condition of affairs as described, remembering how few the markets, how easily glutted, how unstable the currency, and all the uncertainties connected with the disposal of the farmer’s products, what was there to stimulate him to improve his methods or increase his products? If, as was occasionally the case, the farmer determined to improve his stock, he must import from England or buy at high prices from an importer, and there being no express companies to deliver his stock, he must either go in person or trust to private individuals to drive them over the mountains or, if small stock, to bring them in wagons the entire distance. He could not afford to carry on a wide correspondence, for each individual letter cost twenty-five cents postage, if the distance was over three hundred miles. It was not until 1845 that postage was reduced to ten cents, and ten years later it was reduced to three cents for letters of half an ounce.