The Sun.
London, England, 1869-12-23 00:00:00

constitute its chief importance as a centre for immi-
gration, coupled with the great fact that from it
up that valley runs the World's Highway across the
American Continent to the Pacific. It is difficult
to over-estimate this advantage, and we may safely
say that if that road remains the highway a greater
rise in the value of land and the density of popula-
r tion may be expected along it than skirting any
other line in America, notwithstanding the inferior
Tiality of most of the soil. Permanent frost is un-
known in Nebraska till the end of December, wlnn
it is seldom sufficiently severe to freeze the running
water of rivers, and the winter ends with March.
The cold " snaps " seldom do more than to freeze
ponds and small rills, the thermometer rarely
sicking 10 deg. below freezing point, the mildness
enabling plants and shrubs, such as the cotton, the
catalpa, the sassafras, and the pecan, to flourish in
latitudes where they do not exist cast of the
Alleghenies; and it is noticed by Peyton, in hie
work " Across the Prairies," in pro, f of this mild-
nesS of the climate, that the perpetual SICIOtv line is
only reached at an elevation of 13, 50t) feet. Heavy
dews fall on the prairies, and fogs 1 revail, which in-
crease with the cultivation. We have Fe that the
good land of lowa, that is of half the hick we :.re

describing. has been appropriated; that most of Ne-
brash, that is the other half, is of an inferior charac-
ter, though what is good, being of very great value, is
therefore rapidly taken up. Hence w•e may conclude
that Omaha will not long present advantages to the
emigrant farmer, though to the laud speculator it
may offer more induc!ments than any other centre,
for from that city he looks along the Pacific Rail-
road to San Francisco, distant about 1,900 miles.
We do not hesitate to state our own deliberate con-
viction that the finest country open is the block
we are about to describe to the South, and that the
most desirable land, on its purely agricultural
merits, is along the branches of the Arkansas, run-
ning from Kansas into the Indian Territory. Still
the whole of the country from Omaha across the

Platte, and down the Big B!ue River to the Repub.

lican, is of the same excellent character. When
Nebraska was admitted into the Union in 18G7 over
the President's veto, the following statement of the

Territorial finances was made :—Cash in Treasury,
$23,324; taxes due, $69,973; Congressional ap-
propriations, $45,000 ; delinquent taxes, $26,983 ;

total assets, $165,281 ; total indebtedness $85,471.
In 1860, the infancy of agriculture in Nebraska, the

farms embraced 128,789 acres of improved land and

512,425 of unimproved, the yield being 1,482,080
bushels of maize, 147,867 wheat, 75,502 oats,
162,188 potatoes, 24,458 tons of hay, and 341,541

lbs. of butter. There were 5,000 horses, 7,000

cows, 30,000 oxen and other cattle, 2,500 sheep,
and 25,000 pigs. The increase may be judged by
this fact, that Nebraska City alone four years later

employed 1,792 men, 1,410 mules, 13,808 oxen,
and 1,587 waggons in the transport of produce.

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