Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1860-09-15
CFrorn the Mr.. Tribune
THE RESURRECTION OF rae WEST

From nearly all quarters come CHEERING
accounts of the great crop now harvesting
in this important region Of country
Wheat, plump and sound in the berry is
pouring into Chicago as fast as the long
trains can bring it from the South West
and in the North West the farmers are
gathering in yield from 80 to 40 bushels
to the acre as rapidly as reaping-machines
and men can do it. The corn-felds rustic
with some 900 millions Of bushels of grain,
still IN the ear, and oats, barley, and other
cereal products are in the same scale Of
abundance. Never were the prospects Of
harvest more satisfactory, and never since
the settlement of the country was it more
needed or more gratefully received It now
becomes interesting to study the probable
effects Of tins magnificent crop, and as We
examine the subject we find prospect I'M
Itoidei to the view extending beyone any
thing hitherto claimed for the future of the
West. Three years of partial crop failure
have passed away The disheartened far
mer looked gloomiy at his unproductive
fields and curtailed his expenses. Labor
found but scanty employment and poor
pay, and the traders saw almost an extinc-
ton Of business. Emigration fell off enor-
mously, lands became unstable, and every
where and upon everything settled down a
thick, dark cloud Of adversely. Look
now at the reverse picture, at fields smiling
with copious yield, farmers rich and pros
porous, at well-employed labor, traders
busy in preparing for sure traffic, and
railways which have but little more than
earned running expenses, now lacking roll
ing stock to do the business offering. Such
a change in a halfyear has seldom, if ever,
been witnessed, and the great West, recent
ly SO PROSTATE, is again erect Sinulta-
neously with this agricultural prosperity, it
happens that Europe-not only in Great
Britain, but in portions ofgfance and Spain
lis threatened with deficiency which
will take good portion Of our great surplus.
The probability is, therefore, that not ouly
viii the West harvest an unequaIed crop,
but that it will command a good price,
The result, SO far as we can arrive at any
thing which has a future, will be, that the
West will, for the present, at least, spring
from poverty and stagnation to comparative
wealth and activity. One of the causes
which contribute largely to the crisis of
1857, viz: the rapid extension Of the rail
way system, is now to act with quite as
much force in bringing the country to health
and prosperity, for the expanse now opened
by the rails of many hasty enterprise, will
furnish the world with the rich product of
8 soil which otherwise had no way to a mar
Set. Thus an expenditure made in ten
years, which in the natural course Of things
should have extended over thirty, and from
which came ruin and disaster to thousands,
is turned to our advantage. 1t has been
quite popular to talk dispargingly of the
Westto hold up its bankruptcies and its
poverty in a strong light, and to speak Of
its trade as almost unworthy of cultivation.
The tone is now changing, and the ostrac-
ised Republican merchants, who refused to
submit to the black mail operations Of The
Atnatic ConJederacy. are now upon as
good footing for trade as those who per
mitted the exactions ofthat ephemeral sheet |
We deprecate comparisons which elevate
one section of the country at the expense
of another; but we maintain that the West
has been moderated by the commercial
word, and while we are not disposed to
deny to the South the possession Of cotton
fields and unlimited 'saiggers,' we may
claim for.the West all the advantages which
result from free and enterprising popula-
ton, earnestly II work upor as prolific a
soil as the world can show.