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Eno family letters, October 1843-February 1858

1848-12-28 Page 2

with some of it $20 per acre & some but $10 - I set out an orchard of 100 apple trees. I have 500 grape vines growing. A strawberry bed 50 feet by 150 - & about 150 peach trees and 150 more to put] out in the spring - The town of Fort Madison is however not improving very fast - A town below us about twenty six miles is all the rage, and in building up with astonishing rapidity. There is no business I like half as well as farming, but I am too poor to be a good farmer. I have labored under some disadvantages ever since I have been in Iowa - first I have always been a whig - to have obtained office I should have been a Democrat -This Country unfortunately for me was always strongly Democratic. Last year we had a Legislature which was so mixed up it could hardly be told what they were or what party had the [illegible] - The consequence was they did not elect any U.S Senators. I went to Iowa City  spent some time there and thought that among the troubled waters I could fish out something handsome for myself - but I found that it would require a deep draft on conscience and a still deeper draft on my person so I gave it up. I was too poor to be sent to the United States Senate. The Legislature this year is Democratic strong, and they have sent two very clever dough faces to the U.S. Senate. The most talented of the two would make a tolerable judge of a bowl of beans [illegible] in some of the (illegible) counties of New York - for me to practice law here is out of the question, I could hardly make my living even if  wheat and pork was cheaper than it is - In the second place the continued ill health of Elizabeth.

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with some of it $20 per acre & some but $10 - I set out an orchard of 100 apple trees. I have 500 grape vines growing. A strawberry bed 50 feet by 150 - & about 150 peach trees and 150 more to put] out in the spring - The town of Fort Madison is however not improving very fast - A town below us about twenty six miles is all the rage, and in building up with astonishing rapidity. There is no business I like half as well as farming, but I am too poor to be a good farmer. I have labored under some disadvantages ever since I have been in Iowa - first I have always been a whig - to have obtained office I should have been a Democrat -This Country unfortunately for me was always strongly Democratic. Last year we had a Legislature which was so mixed up it could hardly be told what they were or what party had the [illegible] - The consequence was they did not elect any U.S Senators. I went to Iowa City spent some time there and thought that among the troubled waters I could fish out something handsome for myself - but I found that it would require a deep draft on conscience and a still deeper draft on my person so I gave it up. I was too poor to be sent to the United States Senate. The Legislature this year is Democratic strong, and they have sent two very clever dough faces to the U.S. Senate. The most talented of the two would make a tolerable judge of a bowl of beans [illegible] in some of the (illegible) counties of New York - for me to practice law here is out of the question, I could hardly make my living even if wheat and pork was cheaper than it is - In the second place the continued ill health of Elizabeth.