The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1860-09-07

The Hastings Democrat devotes itself to
the examination at length of the proposition
advocated in this paper week or to since,
that st. Paul was the natural and inevita-
BILE outlet of the agricultural products,
seeking an Eastern or Southern market, OF
nine tenths of the whole area of Minnesota.
The Democrat makes curious attempt to
controvert this position. In answer to this
assertion that $4,000 of the 10000 square
miles of agricultural territory in Minnesota,
is, and must always remain directly tribu-
tary to St. Paul, it says that "St. Paul
cannot command grain trade direct of
over thousand square miles, and this is a
liberal estimate" This thousand square
miles "is embraced within the narrow strip
of territory laying between the Mississippi
on the one hand, and the st. Croix on the
other, and running North,oard to.0ards the
British Possessions" As the district of
country here defined contains over 10000
square miles, we are inclined to think the
Democrat has not very accurate perception
of what it is talking about. This opinion
is more than confirmed by the Democrats
notion of what constitutes market. Speak.
ing of the large agricultural district north
of the Mississippi, in which, by-the-by, lie
nearly all the agricultural resources of the
State, he says:
All embraced within sixty miles of St: Paul
is directly tributary to Minneapolis and st. An
thony, while remote localities tciN necessarily
seek q market at the to.ons on the Upper Mis''s:
sippi, or on the Minnes0ta riuer.
The Minnesota river being navigable must and
will command all the grain trade on either side
of it for years, until Railroads, &c.
Exactly, Of course, the grain of the Min
nessota Valley necessarily seeks market at
the towns on the river, ard where does it 60
to then? Its movements to the towns on
the Minnesota is merely the first steps in its
transmission to final market. Since the
minnesota river commands all the grain
trade on either side of it," the second move
ment is necessarily and inevitably towards
the outlet of that river for reshipment at
St. Paul on its way to a final market. The
third movement is to La Crosse, where it is
again reshipped for the fourth movement to
Chicago, thence by fifth movement to
Buffalo, and thence to New York, and
thence perhaps to London or Hamburg.
Now the Democrats idea is that in all these
movements, the little interior village where
a lot of grain is first purchased from the
farmer, is the only market in the case, St.
Paul, Chicago, Buffalo, New York and
London are not in his view markets at all,
they are merely way stations. If the Dem
ocrat will re-examine the matter it will
probably find that the grain market Of St.
Paul is made up of the contributions of all
the interior towns upon the waterlines to
the Southwest and Northwest, just as the
grain market of Chicago is made up of
larger streams, from the towns in the nu.
merous lines of trade which converge at
that point, or as that of New York is made
upof the combined contributions of Chicago
Milwaukee, Cincinnati, Cleveland, and q
hundred Others. st. Paul is in other words
the great grain depot of the State, as Chi
cago is Of the Northwest, and as New York
is of the Union.