The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1865-10-20
MINNESOTA.
As SEEN BY HORACE GREELEY.
His Letter to the Tribune.

An SEEN BY HORACE GkEELEYs
His Letter to the Tribune.
Editorial Correspondents of the N. Y. Tribune.
MINNEAPOLIS, Sept 80, 1866.
The few days haye spent In this new State
have been 80 employed that have seen too
little of it, and I must leave after SEEING verv
little more. But l have met and conVersed
with Intelligent residents and OF travellers
through nearly every section, and have path
cred facts that ought to suffice for the basis of
tolerablv accurate and safe conclusion. And
those conclusions shall at least be candidly set
forth.
when she was organized Is territory in March,
1S4S. In 1850, she had 6,077 by the census
of 1860, she had about 1700O0-a rapid but
had occurred the s0-called "panic" of 1857,
which brought down these air castles about the
heads of her myriods of high-fying speeula-
tors. who were one day dreaming OF their
millions, and the next anxiously inquiring how
they should secure daily bread. Everybody
that pretended to be anybody was ruined, !"
to their own Christening and the ultimate good
manufacture of city lots from wild lands just
bought at $1.25 per acre and their sale to YER
dant simpletons at $50 to $5 900 per lot, had
been the leading branch of business-Or rather,
the main stem-the chief branches being the
supply of champagne and kindred comforts TO
the operators and the construction for their
occupancy of palaces on the credit of their
prospective gains. Up to this hour the terri
tory had imported most of the breadstuffs re-.
quired by its people; now, large proportion
Of them suddenly left in pursuit of fortune or
OF food, while the residue went to work |;
and this, from being the idlest or most use
lessly employed suddenly became the most
Industrious and thrifty community on earth.
Very soon, its surplus product of wheat
some five and half millions of bushels
being returned by the census of 1860 as the
yield of 1859-only the second year after that
most wholesome and necessary 'panic' of 1857.
Since then, the bloody Indian raid and massa.
ere Of 1862, whereby some 500 immigrants,
mainly women and children, were killed. and
the whole Western frontier devastated and
driven in, has done much to retard settlement.
while the war, making constant drain on the
resources and the life-bloOd of the young State,
has very nearly neutralized her growth SO
that it is not expected that her census now in
progress win show an aggregate of more than
225,000 to 250, 600 people. But, while her pop.
ulation has almost stood still, her production
has steadily increased, so that in spite of Sc
1868 and 1854, she exported from five to seven
millions of bushels of Wheat and Oats of the
prodacts OF either season. This year, there has
been sufticiency of rain, and the yield of
small grain is entirely beyond precedent. The
very lowest estimate have heard of the aver
age yield of wheat is "a bushels per acre, while
"a is unusually claimed, and many will not be
satisfied with less than 80 am assured that.
in almost every instance, actual measurement
has overrun the owners anticipations. One
farmer who sowed five hundred acres has
threshed out and weighed of 16 600 bushels,
or 81 bushelf per acre from the entire area
sowed. Considering that very little is
Fall-sewn or Winter Wheat--the light
SHOWS and hard frosts killing out that
variety, especially if sown on the broad.
wind-swept prairies-this seems to me i'm
mense, especially as much Of it is necessarily
sown too late, on ground not more than half
plowed. The general rule take to be this
Harvest and stack your grain; then start the
pillow and keep it running till hard frost stops
It, which It usually does between the 10th and
10th Of November. Now turn to threshing
and marketing which, with getting wood for
fuel, is the winters work and when the frost
goes, about the middle of April, turn to SOW.
ing and narrowing In on the ground plowed in
the tall though many resume blowing and
keep at it for two or three weeks of spring.
After it is too late to SOW wheat it will still do
reason for sowing them 30 extensively. In an
excursion made on Tuesday oyer the Mime.
sofa Central Railroad, on the occasion of it's
opening to Mortified, 40 miles south of this.
l saw oats still lying ungathered in many
fed, though noted none wherein they had
not been cut, as l had been Led to expect But
the season having been wet, and its earlier half
cold, the entire harvest was late this year and
Indian corn, though generally ripe, is far from
heavy. Potatoes are alike abundant and ex.
cellent as are nearly all root crops.
They say the spring wheat of Minnesota is
equal to the winter wheat of other States, and
~ he best -four made from it at this place
commands the very highest prices. The yield
vi 1868 cannot fall below ten millions of bush
els which, allowing one million for home con.
sumption (four bushels per head for the entire
population) and a like amount for seed and
waste, leaves eight millions for sale worth at
the river rather more than 80 900 600 today
Allowing 81, 600 OfO for her GA; crop and tue
little corn that will be spared from the SOUTH
ern counties, Minnesota is seen 10 be abun-
dainty able to paw fn- al! the goods she ought
to buy and her thrifty, bard-working people
'ctA pay, do raw. for what they buy. Whoever
chooses to supply the other sort on credit will
doubtless deserve what he gets and get what
he deserves.
The climate of Minnesota is her chief bno-
bear and while have little fellow-feelino
with the CHAP who confessed TO "a prejudice
against the equator. own up to slight re-
pagnance to 40 deg. below zero And vet the
climate with most Minnesotians is their strong
point. Nearly all l have met assure me that
they have never passed winters so deliehtfullv
in milder ATTITUDES as here; several spent q
winter mere as an experiment before migrating
and found the dry atmosphere. bright skies
and steady cold. SO exhilera:iDg that thew
could not henceforth live elsewhere. Several
have assured me that they feel the cold far less
mere mere tnan they diI in Central Ohio. New Eng
land, or even in New York CITY. They saw the
winter days are almost uniformly still and sun
ny, and that man comfortably clad does NOT
ma the cold unpleasant They admit how.
ever, tnat there are few days each winter at
once cold and windy, and these are most agree
aoiy passed between roaring fireplace and
hot stove N .
There are hundreds here-perhaps thous-
ands-who came to save their lives and all in.
SYST tnat the Climate is an antidote to pulmon-
afY affections and n cure for <rrsnvn,.x:.--