Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1879-12-18

the cost of transporting their products
to England. He uttered a momentous
truth. Nearly one-half of the best of
our northwestern wheat land west of
the Mississippi has cost, and will cost,
its owners only the expense of making
and recording the title deeds to it.
Under the homestead, pre-emp.ion,
soldiers bounty, and tree-culture
laws, farms in this wonderful
wheat region are in effect given away.
1t is utterly impossible for careful agri-
culture on the old high-priced lands of
eastern Europe to compete with grain
growing on this new soil, which costs
nothing, and is conveniently traversed
by rival railroads underbidding each
other for freight to the Atlantic. So long
as the United States shall supply them
selves with textile fabrics, metals and
hardware, this northwestern wheat will,
generation after generation, compel the
flow of gold here from Europe, and
make money abundant and cheap.
The Canadian dominion also possess
es wheat garden, on which large ex-
pectations are founded. Its eastern
boundary is the limit of the Red River
valley. The international line on paral-
lei 49 is its southern limit. With an
average width of one hundred miles, it
sweeps northwesterly through eighteen
meridians of longitude to the foot of
the Rocky Mountains, turns southwark
in parallel 81 and goes down again
to 49,.
The dominion geologist, Dawson, esti-
mates the productive area of only half
of the Red River valley within Manito.
ba at II, 2,176,000 acres. Supposing it to
be all in wheat, and reducing its yield
down to the average of southern Min
nesota-seven bushels per acre-the
crop of one-half of Canada's Red River
valley would amount to sc, $4,000 bush
els! Those are tremendous figures,
but the Canadians have faith in them.
John Macoun, professor of botany, at
tached to the Canadian Pacific railway
survey, latter careful examination, esti-
mated the number of acres of arabic
land available for settlement" between
the Lake of the Woods in Manitoba
and the Peace river district at the foot
of the Rocky Mountains to be 200,-
800; ;O0Ol AT Lake Athabasca, in lat
itude 81, he claims to have found the
best barley and wheat he had ever
seen. He weighed both, and was as
tonished that each exceeded the stand
ard to the bushel by ten pounds, and
found by count that many of the
wheat heads contained one hundred
grains. On Peace river, in latitude 56o
80 Sec, and longitude 121, he saw
cucumbers ripe on the vines on the
10th of August, and wrote in his jour-
nal this enthusiastic opinion of the
agricultural richness of the whole
region: at would be folly to attempt
to depict the appearance of the coun-
try, as it was so utterly beyond what
ever saw before that | dare hardly
make use of truthful words to portray
it."
Supposing that the Canadians are
right about the extent and richness of
their wheat-growing territory IN the
northwest, the mind recoils from a
computation of its productive capa-
city Man has never before contemp-
lated such an agricultural fact. Should
this enormous Canadian wheat field be
successfully cultivated, its annual crop in
favorable years would come into the
business and interest of the entire globe
with a revolutionary force and master
ly power heretofore unknown to fl
nance and trade.