Richards discusses his farmland and how its acreage will be divided and used. In seeking to prepare Elisabeth for the West, he describes how Illinoisans have changed in the years since he first settled in the state, saying ". . .the roughest & worst of them have moved West and the others are all prosperous, & with prosperity has come new ideas. . .but being in the transition state their efforts are rather ludicrous, it is rather hard for a man or woman who was born & raised in a log hut on the frontier to ape fashion, use silver forks, wear hoops, &c &c, but their children take to it naturally."