The weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1852-1858, 1853-10-29
NUMBER 7.

Agricultural Fair of New York, recently. We
take from it the following description of the mi
mute division of landed property in France -
"In the country which is separated from Eng
land by narrow sea, and yet more by .
strongly contrasted national character, institu-
tions and manners, the discOuragements Of agri-
culture are of precisely opposite nature.
There is not the monopoly, but the extreme un.
natural subdivision of landed property and the
diminutiveness of farms, almost to the verge Of
the infinite divisibility of matter, that opposes
the most serious obstacle to the general pro-
gress ofagrcultural Improvement. What would
we think on this broad continent of ours, of 4
held measuring one and half yards by two,
and farmer owning and cultivating q single
furrow, and that by no means long one. And
yet in Lorraine there are examples of the for
mer, attested 10y the authority Of grave and
respectable French writer; and in Brittany the
common name applied by the peasant to his
possession is sHiOn, or furrow, and il is in fact
often nothing more. It is estimated that there
abouta million and quarter Of prOprietors in
France, none of which hold more than two
hectares, or five acres of land, and dividing the
whole area of the country by the total number
OF proprletors of every grade, the average size
of the farms is about eleven and half acres.
This inOrdnate subdivision of landed property,
encumbered. too. for the most part with hered-
ltary mortgages which have descended with the
land from father to son, must, it is evident, in
much the larger number OF instances, leave
neither the space nor the capital necessary for
an improved system of husbandry. There are,
Notwithstanding, examples of high and success
ful farming in France.'
TREASON IN TIE CAMP.-The New York Eve
ming Post which is the Presidents organ-as far
as he has any-in New York, is itself kicking
out of the traces. If the President cannot keep
even the Softs" " from mutiny, his case is
hard one.
The POst-in an article in which it iustifes
the course Of Secretary Guthrie towards Col
lector BrOnsOn-eXccpts to the test of the Dem
Ocracy as laid down by that official in his late
threat, n ng letter to Mr.. b., as follows:
The rule laid down by Mr.. Gutbrie-that Of
adherence to the Baltimore platform-is dis
gracefully illiberal of itself The Baltimore
platform, our readers will remember, was not
adopted by the convention which nominated Mr..
Pierce IN such manner as to give it any
weight 1t was not considered, it was not de-
bated, it was not put to vote in such way as
to afford any indication of the opinions of the
majority of the members-it was brought for
ward at the very moment of adjournment when
many of the members were gone and going out
at the door; it was not heard by half the peo-
pie on the floor, and not voted for by half the
rest That any grown man. and in particular
that Mr.. Guthrie, who is grown man, not on
ly in person but in intellect, should bring for
ward this bugbear of the Baltimore platform
every day in the year, like Chinese bonze air
ing his ngly wooden idol, is folly for which we
can hardly account"
Now what can the President say when the
boasted Baltimore platform--this touchstone of
DcmOcracy-this scale in which every Locofo-
co is weighed-is spit upon by the leading pa
per in his party.
The Administration will retire from Office az
fat as dead small beer it will eclipse in insig-
nificancy the Tyler dynasty.-Cleueland Her
aid.
Rents IN NEW YORK.-A New York CORES
pondent of the National Intelligencer, has the
following statement relative to the enormous
amounts paid for rent in New York:
Il am perfectly astonished at the rate of rents
in this city. know a single basement room, on
Wall street, to reach which you must descend
five or six steps from the footway, with low,
ten foot ceiling and the room not more than
thirty by twenty feet, which rents for S60OO.--
A lot, twenty-five feet by seventy-five, as high
up on Broadway as the corner OF Fulton street,
was recently leased for twenty one years, at
S14,500 per annum. at the end of which time
the ground landlord is besides to have the bull
ding, which is now being erected on it, and will
cost twenty thousand dollars. A building on
Broadway, Immediately adjoining Trinity
church yard, forty feet front and two hundred
deep, opening on side alley, and cut up into
corridors and offices, brings an aggregate rent
of sixty thousand dollars per annum and
gentleman, who has built himself splendid
dwelling as high up in Broadway as the neigh
borhood of Union Square, at least two miles
above the City Hall, says he plainly sees that
he must be driven away in u few years by the
encrOachment of hotels, stores and shops, and
told me he had already been offered a rent of
ten thousand dollars per annum for the house."
HIGH FRETGHS.-Freights on shipments to
New Orleans have advanced materially. Flour
is now charged one dollar per barrel, and grain
fifty cents per hundred, hemp Sll per ton, and
other articles in prOOortiOn. Extreme low wa
ter prevents the larger boats from going out
with anything like load, and the consequence
is they must charge their light cargoes enorm-
ously to continue in the trade at all. Western
produce bears good price in the markets Of
the world but the difficulty is to get to the sea
coast. With the present transportation charg-
es there is but little, if anything, to be made
by shipments, and without rise in the river or
an advance on the price of produce abroad. the
supplies in this section must go off rather slow
ly. The articles principally in demand at this
time are flour. corn, oats. and hemp; all of
which are held high at home, in consequence Of
foreign advces-too high to withstand the en-
hanced freights, and leave any thing like mar
gin for proft.-.No. Rep.
No MORE W0oD OR Coal FUEI~-Astonishing
as this may appear we hear that wood and coal
is to be banished from houses and gas made to
answer the double purpose of producing heat
and light. The New York Mirror says =
"We verify believe that a way has been dis
covered of warming houses by burning gas that
will speedily do away with the use Ofwood and
coal for all heating and culinary purposes.
This will astOnish fOgydOm but we have entire
confidence in the success of this great discOve-
ry, and have made arrangements to have the
Mirror Office warmed by this process. The
fame from single gas burner, such as we now
use, can be so difused as to produce any re-
quired degree of heat-at cost for gas, and
that, too, at present city rates, Of only fifteen
cents day! We regard this discovery as one
of the latest wonders and most useful achieve
ments Of the age"
The Louisville Courier grows tacetious on
the dangers of Western steamboating. 1t says:
The danger of steamboat travelling is much
Dverrated, and the same may be said of rail-
roads. let alarmists do what thew will For tha