The Evansville daily journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ia. [i.e. Ind.]) 1848-1862, 1860-09-08
The Resurrection of the west.

From nearly all quarters come cheering
accounts of the great crop now harvesting in
this important part of the country. Wheat,
plump and sound in the berry, is pouring
into Chicago as fast as the long trains can
bring it from the South-W est, and North
West the farmers are gathering in a yield
of from 80 to 40 bushels TO the acre as rap
idly as Teaping- machines and men can do it.
The corn-6eds 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 a harvest more satisfactory,
and never since the settlement of the coun-
try was it more needed or more gratefully
received. IL now becomes interesting to
study the probable effects of this magnificent
crop, and as we examine the subject we find
a prospect unfolded to the view extending
beyond anything hitherto claimed for the
future of the West. Three years of partial
crop-failure have passed away. The DIS
heartened farmer looked gloomily at his
unproduetive fields and curtailed his expens-
es. Labor fond but scanty employment
and poor pay, and the traders saw lmost
an extinction of business. Emigration fell
of enormously, land became unstable and
everywhere and upon everything settled
down a thick, dark cloud of adversely
Look now at the reverse picture, at fields
smiling with a copious yield, at farmers
rich and prosperous, at well-employed labor,
traders busy a preparing for a sure traffic,
and railways which had but little more
than earned running expenses, now lacking
rolling stock to do the business Offering
Such a change within half year has sell
dom, if ever, been witnessed, and the great
West, recently so PROSTATE, is again erect
simultaneously with this agricultural pros
perity, it happens that EurOpe-not only in
Great Britain, but in portions of France
and Spain--is threatened with a deficiency
which will take good portion of our great
surplus. The probability is, therefore, that
rot only will the West harvest an unequal
ed crop, but that it will command good
price.
The result, so tar as we can'arrive at any.
thing which has a future, viii 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 contributed 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 enter
prise, will furnish the world with the rich
product of soil which otherwise had no way
to a market 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 thous-
auds, is turned to our advantage. 1t has
been quite popular to talk disparagingly Of
tue West-to hold up its bankruptcies and
its poverty in strong light, and to speak
Of its trade as almost unworthy of cultiva-
ton. The tone is now changing, and the
ostracised Republican merchants, who re-
fused to submit to the black mail operations
of The atlanta COryederacy, are now upon
as good footing for trade as those who per-
mitted the exactions of that ephemeral
sheet. We deprecate comparisons which
elevate one section of the country at the ex-
peuse of another; but we maintain that the
West has been moderated by the CONNER
cial world, and while we are not disposed TO
deny to The South the possession of cotton
fields and unlimited q niggers,' we may
claim for the West all the advantages which
result from a free and enterprislng popula-
ton, earnestly at work upon as prolific
soil as the world can SNOWY. /. IrI5.