The weekly Minnesotian. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1852-1858, 1857-12-19
Tho Gfest West ana Minnesota as q
Part OF 1t.

touching the advantages and capacities OF the
"Great West -
Awhile back, to save themselves from the
impending financial tempest, the West was
the theme of universal depreciation. Cred
its to western merchants were decried as UNI
safe and hazardous investments in western
property were set down as money thrown a.
way.
But, all at once, the bankers and money
brokers of the east, have made the discove-
nv, that western paper is a little better than
their own eastern merchants acceptances.-
They have re-discovered the principle, that
the nearer negotiable paper is to the consumer,
the better guaranty does it afford of redemp-
ton at maturity.
And then as to western real estate-with
the picture before them of the immense de-
probation their own houses and lots and
farms have undergone, it begins to dawn up
on their minds that the real property of the
West, bought by them at comparatively low
prices and sure to De further stimulated by
emigration, must hold its own, and even soon
rise rapidly above the low water mark OF the
panic level; so that, looking at the whole
battle field of finance, and counting all the
killed. wounded and missing, they are forced
to admit that the Western contingent in the
army of business, comes out of the fight in
better plight, with fewer hors de combat, than
their eastern brethren who were even less dar-
ing, or (f they would prefer the term) less
reckless in their engagements. An article
now before, us in the Philadelphia North
.lmerican, the principal business paper of the
city of brotherly love, has in part occasioned
the foregoing remarks. Here is an extract :
among the good effects which will come
in as compensations for the late revulson,
will be the more rapid filling mp of the Great
West
The tide Of emigration from the Atlantic
,restrard, will be stimulated in the spring by
the closing Of those now unproductive pur-
suits which have heretofore sustained large
population at the general expense.
The cessation of employment in legitimate
enterprises, now overdOne, will add to the
number of unemployed, and the general re
ductlon of wages, which must take place, will
lessen the temptation to cling to the older
Stotes as places of residence.
These, and various other causes, in their
continued influence, must tend to equalze
the population of the republic to deplete
the over crowded districts, and to settle the
The very disposition to move and SEEK for
new quarters, argues activity and capacity ;
and the wonders which have been achieved in
our inland commonwealth show that the set
tiers there vindicate the character which, in
emigrating, they assumed.
Even the malcontents and political refugees
of foreign birth, who clamor for impossible
things in the cities, and stand ready to fill up
the ranks Of fillbustering expeditions, make
excellent borderers.
If, like Corporal Nym, they hold the world
their oyster, there is no better place at which
hey may open it than in the Uea.
Their restless activity finds good exercise
there; and, as lords of their own freeholds,
they can subside into profitable employment
rs bear hunters and the exterminators of pam
theirs.
The ownership of land is the very best Sc
curlty which nation can have for the good
conduct of its citizens. Other property and
abstract political rights require process OF
ratiocination which disappointed revolution
lists cannot or will not take.
But farm, with acres to clear, cabins to
build and stock to protest, is substantial
reality which they can appreciate"
The article then goes on to observe "But
emigrants westward have lately been met, at
every point within approachable distance, by
enormous prices for lands" but the opinion is
expressed by the american that the revulsion
through which we have passed, which was in
effect general taking account of stock, and
marking it down to its actual value, will dis
sipate the golden dreams on which too ma.
ny western spectators have been living.
Land, it says, "must come into the mar
ket, and at such prices as buyers can afford tc
pay for actual use and improvement
The position of the North american in the
last sentence, is undeniable.
Still we DISCERN an error lurking underneath
its remarks.
At no time, has plenty of land been lack
ing at reasonable prices, to accommodate The
emigrant and settler.
1t was and is to be obtained also at wha
the american calls "approachabie distances.
Even now there is good land within fifty
miles of St. Paul, to be taken up at govern
ment prices-as good land as the sun eve
shone upon, and affording favorable opportu
nifty to a farmer to make him spendit
farm, with all the requisites of wood, water
prairie upland, and natural meadow.
1t is mistake, the idea which many seen
to entertain, that Minnesota is near settled
or that the government title is extinguishet
to most of her farming lands.
Except strip, comparatively narrow
along the Mississippi River, and along it
great tributary, the Minnesota, the who'll
country is an open field inviting the farme
to plunge boldly in and mark him out spo
of land wherein to erect his family altar
North of the Minnesota River,-for instanc,
and nearly due west from St. Paul, an(
within radius of hundred miles from it
lies body of land capable of being made
Farmers Paradise, and yet, the myriads o
flowers on its prairies bush unseen, its wood
resound to no woodlands ak, the tall grass o
its meadows bow to no trenchant scythe, it
fat soil is unrumpled by the plowman's skill
and its emerald lakes-some of them larg
and important-glisten in silence, unrufle'
save by wild-fowl gliding over their glass,
surfaces, or by herds of elk and deer quench
ing their thirst in the waters near thei
shores. Clear up to the head Of navigatio