The Tipton advertiser. [volume] (Tipton, Cedar Co., Iowa) 1856-1962, 1873-06-26
[From Harper's weekly.l


and Necessities Of the West.
From Harper's Weekly.l
The growth of the Northwestern
States, as described in the recent cen
sus, offers the most remarkable pictur,
in the annals of nations. With
sudden stride group Of powerful com
munities have sprung up in the vii
derness, and in few years have sur
passed the greatness of many European
Kingdoms. All the advantages 0
modern civilization have been carried
to the fertile territory that surround
the sources of the Mississippi. School.
and colleges, railways and roads, fin,
cities and prosperous villages, a popu
lation enterprising and public-spirited
beyond example, fill the wide land
scape where twenty years ago the
Indian had scarcely abandoned his
hunting field, and the settler was
aiming his first blows at the primeva
forest. The State of Minnesota, from
a population of G, 900 in 1850, has risen
within twenty years to $4,000; Wis.
consin, from 500, 900 in 1850, to 1854.
600 in 1870. Nebraska and Kansas
Dakota AMI Montana, flourishinp
States or Territories, have scarcely
yet driven the savages form their Dor.
ders. Iowa, from 1872, 900 inhabitants
twenty years ago, has risen to 1,194,.
600; while the older States of Illinois
Michigan, Missouri, and Indiana,
that form the exterior line of the new
empire, seem to have lost little of their
vigor. Ten millions of
people encircle the borders Of the great
lakes and rivers, and ten millions
more are soon to gather around the
central waters Of the continent.
A power has been developed in this
recent wilderness of which not many
have formed just conception. The
Northwestern N States are already the
d-producing section of the cont.
nent, and hold that rigid control over
all the rest that ever lies with those
who feed their fel!ow-men. II would
be useless to name the millions Of
bushels of wheat, the hundreds of
millions of bushels of corn, the limit
less profusion Of beef, bacon, or pro-
duce OF various kinds, that spring from
this matchless territory, and pour out
their ceaseless supplies to America
and to Europe. Within few years
the once savage fields of Minnesota
and Wisconsin have become the
sources of plenty to London and New
York. Their fertility for the present
seems boundless, and the tide o: culti-
vation is still pouring Westward,
finding new scenes of prolific agricul
ture. What Egypt was to Constan-
tinople or Africa to Rome, what
Dantzic and Odessa were to England
and France, the Northwest has be-
come to the Anglo-Saxon race; and
but for the sudden and unprecedented
profusion of its ceaseless productive
ness, but for the energy of its farmers,
and the vigorous republicanism of its
people, it is not difficult to see that the
progress of mankind must have been
for the want of food. Starva-
ton would have thinned the manu.
of New England, and the
high prices of corn must have borne
heavier upon the laborers Of every
land.
The claims Of the Northwest upon
The rest OF the community, North,
South, or East, are evident. 1t will
not do to disregard the demands Of
hose who give US our food. What
ever they ask in reason should be
granted. And the single aim which
now seems to agitate the great body of
the food producing portion of the
Union is the improvement of our
means of internal communication.
by canals or railroads, or the
of the water-courses, the
of the corn fields OF Min
nesota and Wisconsin by easy aad sure
transit with the Atlantic ports must
for many years form the leading ques
ton of our internal politics, and can
not fail to fix the attention of the ma
ority of the people. In it will be
swallowed up all the less important,
because already determined, purposes
that have governed political parties in
the past. The next Congress will be
called upon to discuss without faction
and in no illiberal spirit the question
IF the day. Nor, we believe, will it
be difficult to provide some ready
means of satisfying the demands of
he farmers, and OF quieting that un-
usual agitation which has sprung up
n the busy West. The farmers
should unite upon some definite OBJ
ect; they should present their claims
distinctly before the community they
should point out what to them seems
he surest means of opening their re-
to the Eastern consumer, and
Indicate what railway facilities they
or what cheaper means of
transit may be necessary to satisfy
heir wants. Thus far they have oc-
,upied themselves in pointing out the
svil to be remedied rather than in de-
.ermining the surest and most effective
'ure. Yet 1t is plain that if, as the
census assures, corn that is worth
ninety cents bushel In Boston is
burned for fuel in Minnesota, the
waste of food must be at once pre-
vented by the whole energy Of the
community.