The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-08-21
NORTHERN PACIFIC RAILROAD.

NOrlnweef-Ita Arpu
and dRichness-A Description OF the Country.
Carleton" the well-known correspondent
OF the Boston J0arBal writes as follows to
that paper
RED RIVER OF THE NORTH, July, 1S69.-To
the Editor of the Boston JOundl:-I want to
mold familiar talk this morning with the great
multitude of people in the East about this
country OF the Northwest
WHERE WE ARE.
Spread out before you, my friends. the map of
North America-not of the United States alone
but map which will show YOU the British DOS
sessions of the Northwest Let it be a school
atlas, If you have nothing better. Lay ruler
upon it, and draw a line northwest from Chicago
running through st. Paul or through Minnesota
At the western boundary, on the bank of the
Red River of the North, you will find our camp.
look out from my tent and see the water
gliding past, to pour its ever-increasing flood
into the frozen ocean of the North through Hud-
sons Bay.
Here the river is perhaps one hundred and
fifty feet wide and six to ten feet deep, winding
through the level prairies Rank grass grows
upon its banks; wild fowl build their nests along
its reedy shores; bobolinks are pouring forth
their rollickng songs; the sparrow sends up his
cheerful chirp: the swallows are Uwttcring mer-
rily; insects are humming in the air. the sun
shines through a mellow haze, while all around,
as far as the eye can see, there is such richness
of verdure, such wealth of greenness and display
of flowers that the language descriptive of the
Elysan fields and the choicest and best of poesy
is too forceess and feeble to convey an idea of
the richness and beauty of this fair region of the
world.
EXTENT OF THE DOMAIN.
Follow i'm Imagination the line which you
have drawn from Chicago. Here you are five
hundred miles distant from that city. Follow
on the track which some OF our party are to
take and you will find just such vcrdure, such
soil, such climate, such flowers in bloom, even
though you travel one thousand miles from this
point to the northwest. Fifteen hundred miles
from Chicago, in the far Northwest you will
hear the bobolink pouring out his love song: you
will find the soil fertile there, the climate as
mild summer and winter on the praries
around Lake Michigan.
The fields of wheat on these plains of the
Northwest are as Observation-Disclosures advanced
to-day than in New England. Fifteen days hence
the reapers will be cutting the wheat, and the
harvest will go on here just as it does in New
England.
CLIMAToLoGY.
One of the most wonderful features of this
region is its climate. Here we are in latitude
46-several degrees further north than Boston,
but the summers are longer than in Massachu-
Setts, and the winters, though colder, are less
kyere than in that State. The air is dry, the
Xys calm, and the hundreds of men that meet
40 have come hither from Maine and New
Rpshire, selecting this as their future home,
hat this climate is far preferable to that of
yre@ England.
Yesterday saw Scotchman, who lives five
line, on the shore of Lake Winnipeg. The
winter there, he says, is not so severe as at Chi
cago Scientific men have spcculated on this
phenomenon. but we have seen no satisfactory
explanation. Doubtless it is due to a cOmbina-
ton of cause.-the influence OF the great lakes
on the one side and the Rocky Mountains on the
other-to the Missouri and Mississippi and Red
rivers, to the currents of air sweeping up the
Missouri valley from the dry plains of Nebraska.
Be the cause what it may, the fact remains that
here-reaching from Chicago northwest over a
territory embracing Wisconsin, Minnesota, Da-
cotah, Northern Montana, and vast region in
the British possessions-lie the wheat lands of
North America
COMPARISON WITH OTHER LANDS.
No other country has such a domain The
plains of Bavaria and Hungary, upon which
Central Europe relies for its grain, united,
would not exceed in area a single county in
Minnesota. The fine lands of Prussia have
thin soil. while the wheat fields of France have
been cultivated for centuries, and are only kept
in heart by constant application of fertilizers,
but here the soil is in its virgin state, yielding
such returns are not obtained in any other
land, unless it be in the San Joaquin and Santa
Clara valleys of California.
The most fertile acre of the Ganges valley in
India will not yield greater return than these
of the Northwest. The Nile and the Yangtze
their fertility renewed by each annual Hood
may vie with the uplands of Minnesota, but
there are sections along this Red river of the
North-alOng the Cheyenne and Mouse rivers OF
Dacotah, which are not surpassed by the richest
in the heart of China or on the delta of the Nile
OUR INHERITANCE.
know that many of those who will read this
letter are accustomed to look into the future,
and to take enlarged views of what our country
is to be in the coming years; but am confident
that there is no man-even him of the must
comprehensive mind-that has taken just
measure of the future greatness of this nation.
Many of those who, perchance, may read these
lines have visited Illinois and seen the wheat
and corn fields and cultivated lands of that
State reaching on and on in boundess eXpanse
have heard the music of the reaperS gathering
the ripened grain-have beheld the harvest
fields in all their glory. Think now of those
fields extended as far as it is from Boston to
Omaha, over a tract as wide as from Montreal to
Philadelphia, and you have the area OF the wheat
field lying northwest OF Chicago,
1t is region presenting features different
from the country along the highway opened TO
San Francisco by the Union Pacific road. The
plains of Nebraska and Kansas magnificent in
extent-are traversed by no great water courses.
The streams are few-and when the summer
heats prevail they dwindle to riyulets and be-
come wholly dry; but here there are eyer-hoWing
streams and lakes of pure fresh water, fed by
neyer-failing springs. Ride where you will over
this vast territory and you are always in sight
of a river, creek, or a lake of purest water,
where the waves break on pebbly beaches, and
where thousands of water-iowl rear their young
beneath the oaks and naples that fringe the rip
pling streams. ,.
Beautiful as are the prairies of Illinois and
Iowa, nature has been even more generous IN
her adornment of the Northwest. The larger
lakes are bordered by parks and groves pre-
senting landscapes of indescrbable beauty.
Many pioneer on this Northwestern verge OF
civilization may look out from the door oil MS
log cabin on scenery as enchanting as any III
Old England. True, there is no background Oh
mountains no rocky crag, or deep and tortuous
defiles. but there are undulations, sunny slopes,
pentle swells rounded wood-crowned SUBMITS,