The weekly Oskaloosa herald. [volume] (Oskaloosa, Iowa) 1855-1885, 1871-07-13
IOWA.

inality in this article. We have been
interested in looking at the Report of
the Commissioner of the General Land
Office. In noting therein how an I'M
BIASED witness-One without Hawk
eye prepossessions one whose field
of operations is the whole territory of
the Union from Alaska to Florida,
looks at our State and how it appears
to him. We don't say anything
don't suggest anything. We put him
on the witness stand, and for the rest,
the reader has only to do with Mr..
Commissioner. Mr.. Commissioner
proceeds:
His first declaration is gratifying to
any born or adopted Hawkeye. He
says 1owa-the territorial position
Of this fourishing State is unsurpass-
ed, and scarcely equalled in its advan-
tages for commerce and industry
Proceed now without further inter-
ruption Walk over It and you ira
verse fifty thousand square miles
measure it and you get fifty-five mil
lion two hundred thousand acres. On
the highway between Western Europe
and Eastern Asia, that great part of
the worlds commerce will pass thro'
it. Its own admirable facilities for
domestic commerce will turn that to
great advantage. The returns of 1867
are the latest the Commissioner has.
twill be interesting to bear these in
mind and compare them with the re-
turns of 1870, when published.
Then S,263,174 acres of inclosed
land /: 1,057,331 of them in wheat,
yielding 1855, 500 bushels; 1892 1896
acres of corn, and 56,92S,93S bushels
the resulting crop. With 1,075,177
bearing, and 3,629,7SO non-bearing,
fruit trees. Raising 2,4S3, OlO bushels
of coal, and its western coal fields COW
ering an area of25,000 square miles.
The manufactures of the State for
that year amounting to $l5,957,599
One thousand one hundred and fifty.
two miles of completed rail-
way, representing capital of thirty
five million dollars. Sixty-two col
leges, academies and universities, an
increase OF twenty-one in three years.
We have but taken few representa-
tive figures. We don't want to make
this article table of statistics "The
State presents a surface sufficiently
undulating for drainage, but nowhere
rises into mountains. In some cases
along the Mississippi the bluffs APP
pear in considerable abruptness, but
generally the land is in graceful
slopes, alternately swelling and sink
ing to the line of the horizon. In
many cases these are crowned with
heavy oak forests, while in other in
stances the beautifully rounded sum-
mits have carpet of green, dotted
with clumps of trees battling the mat
tentive skill of the landscape garden
er. Upon these slopes and their in
tervening alluvions are located flour
ishing towns and cities, the way sta
tons of the splendid tide of the Mis-
slsslppl commerce. Back from the
great rivers the traveller meets with
immense prairies, covering, perhaps,
three-fourths of the surface of Iowa.
These in state of nature are beauti-
full with profusion of delicate wild
flowers and grasses, and skirted, along
the streams, with belts of heavy tim
Der. The soil of the State, especially
In the southern part, is remarkably
well adapted to the growth ofcereals,
presenting desirable combination of
organic with earthly and saline mat
ter, and based upon calcareous and
magnesia rocks. The prairie is gen.
orally underlaid by the devonian and
carboniferous formations, affording by
their decomposition the most desira-
BILE inorganic elements, which, in COM
bination with accumulations ofanimal
and vegetable NATTER dating back
through ages, afford a productive sur
face found only in the choice of up
land plains. No soil, perhaps, affords
greater nutriment to woody fiber, as
is attested by the rapid growth of for
est timber since the repression of the
annual prairie fires. 1t is estimated
that timber in Iowa is growing much
faster than its consumption, through
the influence of an extensive tree
planting enterprise and careful econ
omy in the use of fuel. The rapid
growth of woody fiber has been at
tributed by chemists to the immense
accumulations of potassa and its COM
binations, caused by annual prairie
fires. Fruit trees grow rapidly and
bear early. The climate of the State,
extending as it does through three
degrees of latitude, present some va
riations, but it is free from unhealthy
extremes. Its general character is a
salubrious dryness, which greatly al
leviates the extremes of winter cold
and summer heat. The sweep ofprai-
RE plains facilitates free circulation
near the surface, removing malaria
and conducting to general health, both
OF animal and vegetable organic life.
The advance of civilization and it's
consequent changes, and the extern
sion, Of fruit culture, will tend to re-
move such general and local causes as
produce disease, and thus improve the
sanitary condition of the country. The
exp srience of the community has AL
ready detected, and, to great extent.
neutralized those minor difficulties
which embarrassed early settlers"
And this is how Iowa looks to the
Commissioner of the General Land
~