Year: 1859




ers, the following very sensible article on the
"Far-off West" from the Boston qroueter Of
the 18th inst. ...r- ..-......


1t gives US pleasure to notice the New Eng
land press are encouraging emigration from
that section Of the country to Minnesota, the
true Western home of New Englanders. Our
climate is far more congenial to the constitu-
ton of natives of the Eastern States than
that of any other Western State. The annu-
al average temperature is about that Of the
Eastern States, and from our inland and ele-
vated situation, we have dry clear atmos-
phere, most of the time, exempted from the
dalnpncss, fogs, and changes which are SO
promotive of pulmonary complaints IN the
sea board States, and at the same time we are
not afflicted with those bilious complaints
that prevail in other states in the West.
| What is said of our soil and crops, is very
true. They cannot be excelled in any part Of
The country, and if any Eastern farmer con-
templates seeking Western home, where he
can find health, good land, and annual crops
In abundance the most certain, let him by all
| means, come to Minnesota.


In no part of the Great West, strange as
it may seem, as experience and a long series
| Of observations prove, has the farmer less to
goodly State


Our crops yield abundantly, and command,
as the article below justly remarks, an ad-
vanced price over crops raised in any other
lection Of the West.


We agree with the traveller in the asser-
tion that ''all that is now wanting to develop
| and enrich that (this) State, are railroad IA
cilites; " but not by any means the compile
ton of the meandering system of railroads
which have already been such an affilctlon
and curse to our hardy, industrious and en-
terprising people,-but first and foremost
railroad that shall unite the headwaters of the
Mississippi with the head of Lake Superior,
by means of which our products will be placed
as near to New York city via the Lakes, as
now are those of the State of Illinois.
Every hundred bushels of grain in the
| State of Minnesota would be worth ten dollars
more to-day than it now is, had we railroad
to Superior, giving US speedy and cheap COM
municaton with the mining regions Of Lake
Superior and the great grain marts at the
East. We may cover our State with net
work of railroads elsewhere, but the State will
never rise to its true Importance nor the glory
Of its position, until we are, as we easily may
be, Independent of every other western State
IN the means and mode of transporting our
products to a market.


The business of our people is, and for
long period of time will be, grain growing,
wool growing, and cattle growing. The ulti-
mate markets for our products are not so
much ST. Louis, Chicago or Milwaukee, as
Boston, New York and Philadelphia, and we
may build dozen railroads to the Rocky
Mountains, but they would not all do us
tithe of the good that one road will connecting
the Mississippi with the Great Lakes.
We do not wish by any means to be con-
sidered as advocating the building of any rail-
| roads within our limits, until it can be done
without burdening our oppressed people. We
merely wish now, as since the result Of the
late election proves that common sense and
sound probity seem at last to have taken pos
session of a majority of our people, to point
out what seems to us the most desirable in
the first place for the future prosperity of our
State in the way of railroad facilities. But
| to the article:


The FAR-oFF WEsT.-A gentleman of our
Immediate nelghDOrhood, directly from Mime
sofa, says the amount of wheat which is daily
and almost hourly accumulating on the Up
| pei Mississippi for the the steamboats, to take
! ipNn the river before the navigation closes, Is
immensely large. 1t is of the very best quail
t. 100, and actually bears higher price than
any other coming into market from any sec
ton of the W est.
The resources of Minnesota, as a grain
! growing country, cannot be questioned. All
that is now wanting to develop and enrich the
State, are railroad facilities. ST. Paul the
! capital, already city of extraordinary CON-
ln,i Cha. euLcrprize, considering the scarcity of
money, the di,sraceful legislation, and de-
lnoraZed pubic sentiment Of too many in re-
yart 10 their Indebtedness to the East, must be
constantly growing in business, increasing in
population, and maintain in all coming time,
an eminent position among the cities of the
West.


Wool i-growing is to be one of the future
productive resources Of the Minnesota farm
ers. Tue climate is admirable for sheep, and
the staple, with the slightest attention to the
subject, would improve as everything else
improves, by culture. 1t is not impossible,
in fact it is quite possible that the fine
broadcloths of America, may yet be manufac-
tured above the Falls of St Anthony.


With such water power as meets the eye
almost every where in the State, it would be a
phenomenon indeed if they were never used
by the industrious, ingenious, energetic people
who are infusing a spirit of enterprise into
every inch and corner of that beautiful new
State.


As blood is necessary to vitality, so is
sound currency to facility in business There
is but very little money there, and that is not
the worst of it. With their thousands of bags
of hard sound wheat, the farmers can hardly
get enough to pay thsr taxes, and the interest
on their debts, contracted perhaps in the pur-
chase of their farms, because the price is too
low. Forty cents bushel is very little to
give for seventy pounds of wheat, of the best
quality In the world-and simply for the
want of railroad conveyances to get crops to
commanding markets spectators are actually
buying at that price in many places in the in
terror.


If, instead of wearing away life on the hard,
poor soil of many section of New England,
the young, able-bodied farmers and farmers
sons would go to Minnesota, they would soon
have something to show as the result of well
directed industry, entirely beyond what they
could ever realize in this tickle climate, where
land costs too much to be profitable for farm
ing purposes.
1t would be very agreeable to dwell at large
on the rising Importance of st. Paul, the great
natural commercial centre of the North. 1t
canAot be kept down, even by hard times
Splendid structures are constantly appearing
+ The number of churches, public edifices, splen-