The St. Cloud journal. [volume] (St. Cloud, Minn.) 1866-1876, 1869-08-19
fnE WHEAT FIELD OF THE NORTH.
WEST. e...
ITs AREA AND R1cHuess.
Description of the Country ]ty Carleton,

i
From the Boston journal.
RED RIVER OF THE Noarn, July, 1859
| l want to hold familiar talk thit
morning with the great mul itude 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 a map Which
will show you the British possessions Of
tue Northwest. Let it be sch Dol at.
las if You Lave nothing better Lay a
ruler upon it anl draw line north~cst
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 eyer-in-
creasing food into the frozen ocean of
the North through Hudson's Bay.
Here the river is perhaps one hun
dred and fifty feet wide and six feet
deep, winding through the level prai-
ries. Rauk grass grows upon it's banks :;
Wild fowl build their nests along its
reedy shores; bobolinks are pouring
forth their rollickiog songs; the spar
row sends sp his cheerful chirw; the
swallows are twittering merrily insects
are humming in the air; =; the sun shines
through mellow haze, while all around
rs far as the eye can sec there is such
richness Of verdure, such wealth of
greenness and display of flowers that
the language descriptive of the Elysian
fields and the choicest and best :ot
poesy is too forceless and feeble to con-
vey an idea Of the richness and beauty
Of this fair region Of the world.
EXTENT OF TIE DOMAIN.
Follow in imagination the line which
you have drawn from Chicago. Here
you are 500 miles distant from that
city. Follow on the tract which some
of our party are to take, aud you will
find just such verdure, such soil,
such climate, such flowers in bloom,
e1en though you travel one thousand
miles from this point to the northwest.
Fifteen hundred miles from Chicago in
the far Northwest, you will near the
bobolink pouring out his love song
you will find the soil as fertile there,
the climate as mild, summer and win
ter, as on the prairies around Lake
Michigan.
The fields of wheat on these plains
Of the Northwest are as luxuriant-fur-
ther advanced to-day than in New Eng
land. Fifteen days hence the reap,rs
will be cutting the wheat, and the har-
vest will 60 on here just as it does in
New England.
One of the most wonderful features
Of this region is its climate. Here We
are in latitude 46-sevcral degrees fur
ther north than Boston, but the sum-
mers are longer than in Massachusetts,
and the winters, though colder, are less
severe than in that State. The air is
dry, the days calm, and the hundreds
of men that I meet, who have come
hithe1 from Maine and New Hamp-
shire, selecting this as their future
home, say that this climate is far pre-
ferable to that Of New England.
Yesterday I saw a Sc otchman, who
lives five hundred miles north of this
point in straight line, on the shore Of
Lake Winnepeg. The winter there, he
says, is not so severe as at Chicago.
Scientific men have speculated on this
phenomena, but We have seen no salts
factory explanation. Doubtless it is
due to combination of .causes-the
influence Of the great lakes on the one
side and the Rocky Mountains sou 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-reachiug from Chicago
northwest, over q territory embracing
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Dacota, North
ern Montana, and \ vast region in the
British Possessions:-lie the wheat
lands Of North America.
coxPAR Isox WITH OTHER LANDS.
No other country has such . domain.
The plains of Bavaria and Hungary, up
on which Central Europe relies for its
grain, united, would not exceed in area
:. M;aaAaakA Tia Gna