The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1881-06-29
The Great. West.


vote shall be taken. This proposition has
passed one Legislature, and will come up for
adoption next winter for the second time, and
do not see that there can be any doubt of its
success; since the Republican party, which Is
in large majority, has adopted the measure
as its own. 1t is said, there can be no doubt
that such an amendment will be approved by
the people by large majority.
That Western country is a wonderful region,
consisting as 1t does of boundless extent of
most fertile land, which produces great crops
of all products of the temperate zone, without
fertilizers of any kind. OF course, in time,
manures must be applied to the soil, but hith-
erto none whatever have been used.
1T was curious sight to me, as 1 was travel
ling through the country, to see enormous
buildings at almost every railroad station for the
reception and storing Of cereals, intended to
be sent off by rail to all parts of the world
whore market may be had. At the same
time all the great lines of travel were literally
encumbered with immense trains of "freight
cars loaded with corn, wheat cattle and
hogs, going away to tho coast for shipment
across the Atlantic to feed the nations Of the
Eastern hemisphere, whose soil does not afford
sufficient food for the people.
Immense fields Of grain were seen on either
side OF the rail, in some instances stretching
away to the horizon, so that the horses, plows,
and men engaged in tho cultivation seemed in
the distance to be moro pigmies, like teams Of
goats attached to baby carriages. And again,
were seen vast herds of fat cattle,
feeding on the rich and juicy grasses of i'm
mense pastures, verdant, always, as the most
fields in English rural landscapes
Many of these fields are unenclosed and free
to the cattle of all who choose to occupy them,
but the enclosures, wherever there are any, are
Of "barbed wire," which in England would be
an effectual protection to the crops Of hard
working farmers, against the burglarious fox
hunters, who in the pursuit Of pleasure in
cruel sport, trample into the ground the
young corn, upon which the owner depends
for the support of his family and the payment
Of his rents; in default Of which he is summa-
rily evicted and turned out to take shelter un-
dor the weeping sky.
Another curious sight we have as we travel
in the far west is the long trains Of carriages
upon the rail, or upon the sidings at the sta
tions, loaded with emigrants from Europe
They crowd the platforms Of the cars, and ev-
cry window is full Of their eager faces, gazing
curiously at our Pullman or Wagner carriages,
as we rest for o moment beside them. They
come from England, Scotland, Wales, Ger
many, Italy, Sweden, Norway, and in smaller
numbers than formerly, from Ireland, crowd
ed out Of the land of their birth, by some mys
terious influence, not yet clearly seen. Is it the
remains OF feudalism, yet lingering there,
by which the masses of the people are shut out
from the ownership of land, while the soil is
in the hands Of an aristocratic
class, for the support of which in ease and lux
ury the people toll incessantly, having for their
own share of the products of their industry on
ly the most meagre subsistence, while by far
the larger share goes to the "rent?" Is it that
the governments under which they have hith-
erto lived are not "by the people and for the
people," but by and for a select few, who claim
to be established forever among the many, to
govern them, to live upon them, and other
wise and everywise to use them for their own
selfish ends-and all ''By the Grace of God?"
Who can tell by what influences itIis that these
poor people can have no food, no shelter in the
land of their fathers, but must go to a far dis
tant and strange country. of whose people, and
language, and Ve 0A Ashey know nothing,
as if God in ~ 49, had abandoned the
poor in the eastern hemisphere, and would on
ly smile upon and comfort them in the new
world, to which such multitudes have come to
seek blessing from him?
In that Western country varied industries
are springing up rapidly, and by and by it will
be nearly independent of the eastern States for
all the necessaries, comforts and luxuries of
life The people there will soon do their own
work in supplying all their own wants, and
thus will save the money at home instead of
sending 1t to the East or to Europe, as they
used to do, by which course of trade they were
kept poor, and would be so to the end of time
under such policy.
Some of their industries outside of farming
are already on large scale, and are rapidly in
creasing in number and extent. Their facto-
ries for the manufacture of agricultural imple-
ments are numerous and enormous. The ma
chinery produced by them is the best in the
world, and quite unlike any other In any coun-
try, being adapted to the fertile and friable
soil Of the prairies, and to use upon the enor-
nous acreage of their fields Of corn and grain
and grass. The inventive genius of the West
ern people has been actively employed In de-
vising machinery by which the most and best
work can be done in the least time and with
the least labor.
The land is not only plowed and narrowed
by horses, but the crops are "hoed" by them
with implements made for that purpose The
plowman no longer follows his team, slowly
plodding along in the furrow which is to run
to the horizon; the mower no longer from dewy
ened scythe; the reaper no longer bows his ach-
ing back to cut the golden grain, for all these
operations are rapidly and thoroughly per-
formed by machinery adapted to the purpose,
and the workman who guides 1t rides and
drives the teaml
profitable industry in the West. All sorts Of
woods of the temperate zone grow here freely
and rapidly, more SO than in any other coun-
try. The black walnut, 80 valuable for furni-
lure and for architectural purposes, will grow
here with great luxuriance; and already many
people are turning their attention to it. After
the tenth year of planting the trees will pay
every year by their fruit, cent per cent. on
cost of land and all other expenses. In twenty
Eve years one half the trees may be taken out
to make room for those which remain, and
may be sold for very large sum per acre. and
in fifty years the remaining trees, at present
prices, will be worth nearly or quite one hun
dred dollars each. No man can find any in
for his children nearly so sure and
profitable as to make for each Of them at their
birth plantation of ten or twenty acres of
these most valuable trees. All along by the
railway, at almost every station, are seen the
huge trunks of black walnut trees awaiting
to England.
All the world knows that hog-raising Is one
of the great industries of the West, but very
few people have any knowledge of the process
by which these animals are converted into
pork and put into the packages of many forms
in which it makes the tour of the world. To-
day, in company with my host, I went to see
Packing House" here, and great was the won
der with which I witnessed the various pro-
cesses carried on there from the first to the
last. u
The establishment consists of great mass of
buildings in brick, surrounded by a labyrinth
Of other buildings and sheds and shanties in
wood. Here are enormous sheds in which corn
is stored for the food Of the living animals.
Here are also innumerable small buildings in
which they are kept as they arc brought to the
by the farmers carts and by
train. Here are long passages through which
the animals, all unconscious Of their doom,
move along steadily in solid columns to the
spot where the process of packing" begins.
Men are there ready to receive them, who
deity clap "clincher" upon the right hind
foot, and instantly some unseen power lifts
the pig up ten feet from the floor, where in
close file he and many others in an endless
al