USA > Minnesota > Minnesota as it is in 1870 : its general resources and attractions for immigrants, invalids, tourists, capitalists, and business men ; with special descriptions of all its counties and townsand inducements to those in quest of homes, health, or pleasure > Part 10
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It is too soon to hear of many cases of heavy yields this season (it is now October 4th,) the extraordinarily wet weather and floods of September-over ten inches of rain-having delayed threshing. The corn is still in the field, so we have no instances of this crop. We have simply clipped the above from the papers at random for several weeks past, and have not taken other years, which might give heavier yields, and more than we have room for. We will just add one which meets our eye in Robertson's Monthly, of May, 1869.
John Rollins, of St. Anthony, writes that in the spring of 1868 he planted the Golden Drop variety of wheat, and obtained 41 measured bushels per acre, although it was harvested late and shelled badly. Except for this, he estimates the yield would have been 50 bushels per acre. On another field, which had been cropped in wheat twelve years, except a portion in corn one year, he raised 27 measured bushels, with the same drawbacks of shell- ing and late cutting. It is safe to say that with good
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RAILROADS AND RIVERS.
farming and good seed, there is little difficulty in securing these extra yields year after year. It is the slouchy farming which makes our average only 18 to 22 bushels, and some years lower. Flax and clover seed are being largely and profitably raised by some of our farmers, but we have no statistics of special yields at hand.
(See report of this year's crop in closing pages of Part First.)
CHAPTER IX.
MINNESOTA RAILROADS, RIVERS, AND MARKETS .- HER COMMERCIAL ADVANTAGES.
Lake Superior, the Mississippi and other Rivers, and our Railroads, bring us as near to the Eastern and Southern Markets as Iowa, Illinois, or Wisconsin .- Pope, in his official report (1849) recommends grants of land for railroads from Red River to Lake Superior, and from Red River to the Minnesota River.
As his recommendations have now almost become ac- complished facts, we give his comments on the advantages of these roads.
" I regard it as not at all more difficult to deliver the produce of this whole country at the western extremity of Lake Superior, than it is to deliver the produce of the interior of Wisconsin or Illinois at any point on Lake Michigan. The distance from Buffalo, New York, to Chicago, is little less than to Fond du Lac, and in open steamboat navigation would be of little consequence. This line of railroad, therefore, to connect the head of
MAJ .- GEN. G. K. WARREN. 115
navigation of the Red River of the North with Lake Su perior, could be easily built by the appropriation of the alternate grants of land, and would enable Minnesota to compete in the Eastern markets with Illinois and Wiscon- sin. The second route, from the head of navigation of the Red River to the head of navigation of the St. Peter's, would open the valleys of the Red River and of the St. Peter's to the Mississippi, below the Falls of St. Anthony, and would bring both these valleys quite as near to the Southern market as the interior of Iowa, Wisconsin and Illinois."
Water Communications .- He further reported : "The peculiar conformation of the whole region of country be- tween the Minnesota, Mississippi and the head of naviga- tion of the Red River of the North, and the water com- munications, remarkable not only for their great number but for their almost unlimited extent, will enable the farmer and manufacturer to transport to Lake Superior or the Mississippi River, all his supplies, produce and articles of manufacture in one-fourth of the time, and at one-twentieth of the expense, that the same amounts could be carted from the interior of Illinois, Iowa, or Wisconsin, to any navigable stream. In point of time and expense (the two great considerations,) Minnesota has equal ad- vantages at least with the interior parts of the States above mentioned."
Major-Gen. G. K. Warren, in his report recommending the improvement of the Fox and Wisconsin rivers, so as to connect the Mississippi River with Lake Michigan, says : " We believe it is safe to say that a good line of water transportation from the Mississippi to Green Bay can be so built as to profitably transport at one-half cent per ton per mile. The line would be two hundred and eighty miles long, and this would make the cost of the
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RAILROADS AND RIVERS.
entire distance one dollar and forty cents per ton, a sav- ing of one dollar and ninety cents per ton upon the cheapest railroad transportation, and on the present wheat crop would save, upon what the railroads now charge, three dollars and forty cents per ton, or, in the aggre- gate, three million seven hundred and eighty thousand dollars."
This improvement was urged by the Legislatures of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, and by a Canal Con- vention, held at Prairie du Chien, Nov., 1868, and will ultimately, like Pope's railroads, become an accomplished fact.
The railroads now charge $5 per ton to transport wheat from the river to Lake Michigan. This improvement, according to Warren, would reduce it to $1.40. This would reduce the freight on wheat about eleven cents per bushel, and add the same amount to the price. His estimate of the cost is thus given in the Governor's Message, January, 1869 : " Gen. Warren estimates, from careful surveys, (1,) that an expenditure of $427,749.37 will secure three feet low-water navigation for steamboats in the Wisconsin River ; (2,) that four feet depth of naviga- tion at low water, part river and part canal, can be obtained at a cost of $3,206,790 ; (3,) that five feet navi- gation, canal and river, can be secured at a cost of $4,164,270."
The Governor adds : "It is ascertained from reports and tables carefully prepared, that the average net cost of transportation by railroad of a ton of freight per mile, is eighteen mills. It is also ascertained that the average net cost of transportation by canal is from four to six mills per ton per mile, showing that the cost of canal trans- portation is but about one-third the cost of transportation by rail."
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MR. WHEELOCK.
In the mean time, while this improvement is yet to be secured, we already have Lake Superior almost connected with the Mississippi by rail.
Lake Superior saves us 882 miles, and brings us as near the New York market as Chicago .- The St. Paul & Superior Railroad being now virtually an accomplished fact, its bonds, amounting to $4,500,000, having been cashed, and its construction to be finished in 1870, the remarks of Mr. Wheelock, in his official report (1861) upon the advan- tages of this connection, are interesting and encouraging. He says :
In my former report it was shown by an analysis of the com- parative cost by water and railroad, that the frontage of Minne- sota on Lake Superior is equivalent in a commercial sense to a decrease of the distance from New York, measured upon railroad lines, of 882 miles-that is to say, the difference in the cost of transportation in favor of the water route would pay the freight upon her products from her central districts for that distance. In other words, her water communications place her interior districts on a par, commercially, with States depending upon rail- road outlets, which are only 442 miles from New York : for ex- ample, with Southwestern Pennsylvania and the Upper Ohio Valley. By this channel, therefore, when Minnesota shall have built a railroad to Lake Superior, it will cost no more to ship a bushel of wheat from Red Wing than from Pittsburgh. But to compare the commercial effect of this position with other States having a frontage on the lakes, the result is quite as favorable to Minnesota. A vessel on her way from Buffalo to Chicago for a load of grain, at a distance of 60 miles before she enters the Straits of Mackinac, is at the entrance of Lake Superior, and almost as near Fond du Lac as Chicago. The distance by water from New York to Chicago is 1428 miles, from New York to Fond du Lac 1510, or only 85 miles further, an inappreciable difference in transportation by water-so that as an absolute physical fact, Minnesota is as near New York by water as Illinois.
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COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE.
THE GENERAL EFFECT OF OUR RAILROADS .- ILLINOIS WITH AND WITHOUT RAILROADS .- ANECDOTE OF PROF. MITCHELL, THE ASTRONOMER .- DISTANCE CONQUERED.
At the celebration of the completion of the St. Louis and Cincinnati Railroad, Professor Mitchell, of Cincinnati, thirteen years ago, said : " Well do I remember a family with whom I passed a night in my early explorations on the banks of the Little Wabash. On all sides of their cabin stretched the rich and boundless prairie. The fertile soil yielded abundant return for the labor of the hard-working husbandmen. But alas! the crops were even but partly gathered and a sort of dependent gloom rested on the brow of the sun-bronzed farmer, 'Why don't you gather your corn,' said I. ' What's the use,' was the reply, ' we have gathered and cribbed more than enough for our own use. It is utterly impossible to reach a market. There is no one to buy, and we have no inducement to labor. Our sons and daughters are growing up around us in ignorance. The turnpike road has failed; the State works have failed; and now the last ray of hope has been kindled by the talk of a great railway from Cincinnati to St. Louis .. We have enough of everything : all we want is an outlet. But there seems to be no chance and we are slowly sinking into gloom and despair.'" And yet, says Mr. Rawlings, author of "America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific," to whom we are indebted for the above, from that very region of country, which Prof. Mitchell referred to so short a time since, the report of the Secretary of the Interior of the United States for 1864 proves that there passed, bound to the Atlantic coast, over $50,000,000 worth of freight for the year ending 1863; and that very farmer, who complained of his poverty, is now one of the largest graziers in the State of Illinois.
THE FUTURE COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE OF MINNESOTA .- The New York Post says : "There is a remarkable pecu- liarity in the local position of Minnesota with reference to the future commerce of the world. The steam navi- gation of the two great internal channels of the continent, the rivers St. Lawrence and Mississippi with the great lakes, terminates in Minnesota, and there meets the
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HON. WM. H. SEWARD.
Northern Pacific Railroad from Puget's Sound, the short- est thoroughfare between Europe and Asia. When that road is completed, the whole trade of those water lines will break bulk in this neighborhood, and make the State the entrepot and point of distribution of a commerce whose extent cannot now be calculated."
The Hon. Wm. H. Seward said, in a speech delivered at St. Paul in 1860 :
I find myself now for the first time upon the highlands in the centre of the continent of North America, equidistant from the waters of Hudson's Bay and the Gulf of Mexico-from the Atlan- tic Ocean to the Ocean in which the sun sets. Here upon the spot where spring up, almost side by side, so that they may kiss each other, the two great rivers, the one of which pursuing its strange, capricious, majestic, vivacious career through lake, cascade, and river rapid, and lake after lake, and river after river, cataract and bay, and lake and rapids, finally, after a course of 2000 miles, brings your commerce half-way to Europe ; the other, after passing through highlands and prairie a distance of 2000 miles, taking tributary after tributary from the East to the West, bringing together waters from the western declivity of the Alleghanies, and from those which trickle down the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, finds its way into the Gulf of Mexico.
Here is the place-the central place-where the agriculture of the richest region of North America must pour out its tri- butes to the whole world. On the east, all along the shore of Lake Superior, and west, stretching in one broad plain in a belt quite across the continent, is a country where State after State is yet to arise, and where the productions for the support of human society in other old, crowded States must be brought forth.
This is then a commanding field ; but it is as commanding in regard to the destinies of this country, and of this continent, as it is in regard to their commercial future; for power is not per- manently to reside in the East, the eastern slopes of the Alle- ghany Mountains, nor in the seaports. Seaports have always been overrun and controlled by the people of the interior, and
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VAST FERTILE AREAS.
the power that shall communicate and express the will of men on this continent is to be located in the Mississippi Valley, and at the sources of the Mississippi and St. Lawrence.
In our day, studying perhaps what might have seemed to others trifling and visionary, I had cast about for the future and ultimate seat of the power of the North American people. I had looked at Quebec, New Orleans, at Washington and San Francisco, at Cincinnati and St. Louis; and it had been the result of my conjecture that the seat of power for North Ame- rica would yet be found in the Valley of Mexico, and the glories of the Aztec capital would be surrendered, in its becoming ulti- mately, and at last, the capital of the United States of America. But I have corrected that view. I now believe that the ulti- mate last seat of government on this great continent will be found somewhere within a circle or radius not very far from the spot on which I stand, at the head of navigation on the Mississippi River.
THE VAST FERTILE AREAS WEST AND NORTHWEST OF MINNESOTA, AND THEIR BEARING ON MINNESOTA.
The Fertile Belt and the North Pacific Railroad .- The popular idea that Minnesota is the extreme verge of future population and prosperity, northwestward, is a popular error.
" North of the latitude of Milwaukee, and west of the longitude of Red River, Fort Kearney and Corpus Christi ; or to state the fact in another way, east of the Rocky Mountains, and west of the 98th meridian, and between the 43d and 60th parallels, there is a productive cultivable area of 500,000 square miles, which is perfectly adapted to the fullest occupation by cultivated nations. West of the Rocky Mountains, and between the same parallels, there is an area of 300,000 square miles."
Another Illinois beyond Minnesota .- The majority re- port of the Committee of Congress on the Pacific Railroad, February 19th, 1869, says : "There are between Lake Superior and Puget Sound and the mouth of the Columbia
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THE FERTILE BELT.
River 500,000 square miles of territory, upon the larger portion of which the United States government can im- press the prosperity, wealth and power of Illinois. It is the winter-wheat region of this continent; a region of alternate prairies and pine forests, rich in coal, iron, gold, silver, and copper ; the salubrity of whose climate has made it the sanitarium for consumptives from the Atlan- tic slope ; whose Rocky Mountain section, broken down on its formation so as to be passable by loaded ponies, is blessed with a temperature so mild that countless herds of cattle range and fatten through the winter upon the natural grass within ten miles of the summit ; in all whose valleys peaches, apples, pears, plums, cherries, grapes, and sweet potatoes have rapid growth and complete ma- turity ; so rich in grass and so blessed in climate, that it has ever been the home in winter, as well as summer, of the buffalo, the elk, and the antelope. It has timber, water power, and stone. It has a population of 1,410,000 people. Illinois possessed no such endowment. Her inheritance, so amazingly developed by railroads, was a garden soil, deeply underlaid with a thin seam of coal and deposit of friable sandstone. She had nothing else."
The Fertile Belt is thus described by Mr. Rawlings, author of "America, from the Atlantic to the Pacific," (published in 1865 :) " The Valley of the Sascatchewan contains an extended belt of land, called the 'Fertile Belt,' which is unsurpassed for the richness of its soil and its adaptability for agricultural purposes. The ex- plorations of Simpson, Hind, Palisser, Hector, Sullivan, and Blakiston all serve to prove that within British terri- tory the most fertile soil west of the Mississippi exists ; and that so vast, so rich is this great valley, that it is capable of subsisting 20,000,000 people."
Dr. Cheadle, the English writer quoted elsewhere,
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THE FERTILE BELT AND ITS DESTINY.
under the head of "Minnesota as a Farming Country," says : " North of latitude 49° is another Minnesota. It has the same mixed or park-like character-prairies and lakes, woods and streams. This extends from the Red River settlement almost to the base of the Rocky Mountains, or nearly 1000 miles in length and almost 100 miles wide."
Products of the Fertile Belt. - He says : " Wheat grows at Fort Garry, at the eastern end, and with equal luxuriance at Edmundton, 800 miles distant, near the western end, yielding thirty to fifty bushels per acre, and in some instances more. The root crops I have never seen equalled in this country. Potatoes get to immense size, and yield enormously. Turnips often attain a weight of sixteen or seventeen pounds apiece. Flax, hemp, and tobacco all grow well ; all the cereals appear to flourish equally well. * The herbage of the prairies is so feeding, that corn is rarely given to horses or cattle. They do their hard work, subsist entirely on grass, and are most astonishingly fat. The draught oxen resemble prize animals at a cattle show."
Climate of the Fertile Belt .- "The climate is that of Canada, or perhaps rather milder. The summer is long and warm, the weather uniformly bright and fine, with the exception of occasional showers. A wet day is almost unknown. The winter is severe, and unbroken by thaw, but pleasant enough to those able to house and clothe themselves warmly."
The Fertile Belt and its Destiny .- Climate, Coal Fields, and future Cities .- Compared with similar latitudes in Europe .- Pacific Railroad.
"Carleton," correspondent of the Boston Journal, writes August, 1869 :
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CARLETON.
Open at the map of North America or of the country west and northwest of Lake Superior.
You see that the boundary between the United States and the British Possessions is the forty-ninth parallel. Now turn to the map of Europe. You see that the same parallel runs near Paris, right through that valley of the Rheims where the champagne grapes are grown. The vineyards of the Rhine are north of it. England, Scotland, Ireland and the largest half of Europe, all are farther north then the northern boundary of the United States. All the testimony of those who live in Minne- sota, as well as those who have hunted buffalo on the Sascatche- wan or trapped beaver on the Mackenzie River, shows that the climate of the Northwest is essentially that of Middle and Northern Europe.
If in the old world such cities as London, Paris, Berlin, Dresden, Prague, Moscow, Stockholm and St. Petersburg can rise north of the 49th parallel, why may there not be great centres of civilization in the Northwest? So far as climate is concerned, what is there to hinder?
We know already the wonderful productiveness of Minnesota. I have been far enough west to know that the fertility extends to Dakota. There is no portion of the country surpassing that of the Red River Valley for richness. Canadian explorers, travelers, trappers, Prof. Hind, of the Scientific Survey, all assure us that on the Assiniboine, the Sascatchewan and in the British possessions as far north as the Athabasca and Macken- zie rivers, the soil has the same characteristic of fertility.
Let us start now on a journey to the far Northwest. We are at St. Paul, so near latitude 45 that we may say we are on that parallel. It is the latitude of Venice and of Southern France. St. Paul is a little south of the parallel and so is Bordeaux. We travel northwest four hundred and fifty miles to the boundary between the United States and the British possessions, before we reach the latitude of Paris. We do not think of the people in France as dwelling in a frozen region-why should we those of Minnesota ?
Let us cross the boundary and take a look at the British possessions, which in due time will share with us a common destiny. We are upon what is called the " Fertile Belt," a vast tract of land which the Hudson's Bay Company have reserved
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THE FERTILE BELT AND ITS DESTINY.
while giving up their charter. It is one of the most fertile sections of the continent, watered by the Assiniboine and the Sascatchewan. We must travel 1000 miles from St. Paul be- fore reaching the latitude of Edinburg. We may still keep on till we have made fifteen hundred miles from St. Paul before we reach the latitude of Stockholm and St. Petersburg !
It is as far from St. Paul as it is from St. Paulto Boston ! All this vast region is susceptible of settlement. In Russia wheat is cultivated as far north as St. Petersburg. Why may it not be grown on the banks of the Peace River? Barley is grown in latitude 63 at Fort Simpson, just as it is hundreds of miles north of St. Petersburg.
Think over the conditions-of fertility of soil, mildness of climate-and can you see any reason why in the future there may not be as dense a population in the Northwest as in northern and central Europe on the same parallels of latitude ? Look at the rivers and the lakes-see how they are connected. It is pure water which flows through them. The plains are not alkaline deserts, but boundless savannas fragrant with flowers in spring time, and warming with verdure in summer. Over all this vast reach, railroads may be constructed as easily as in Illinois.
Coal crops out in the Valley of the Red River, on the Moose and the Assiniboine. It makes its appearance on the banks of the Missouri and Yellowstone. It is found at the base of the Rocky Mountains, and all the way north to the Arctic Circle. Timber is scarce on the plains, but there is fuel in inexhaustible quantities beneath the soil. Railroads will bring timber. Do you think that railroads will be blocked with snow during the winter? Remember that the snow fall is less in the Northwest than it is in New England. One of the finest railroads in the world is that running from St. Petersburg to Moscow. It is never blocked by snow.
Look at the map of the Northwest if you would see how far north that railroad lies. Draw your finger along to the sixtieth degree of latitude, to where it crosses the Mackenzie River. The Hudson Bay Company have a fort at that point, called Fort Liard. Think of it as a city with a million inhabitants. Change the name of the Mackenzie to Neva. Rear upon its banks regal palaces and golden-domed churches. Span its waters with
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NAVIGATION TO THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS.
magnificent arches. Behold the residences of nobles in the surrounding country. Think of a railway, straight and wide, running over the plain four hundred miles, with scarcely a curve, connecting the new with the old capital of the Empire. The old capital has a population of fifteen hundred thousand, more than in New York and Brooklyn together. We think of New York as the metropolis of the New World, but Moscow surpasses it in the number of inhabitants and in gorgeous- ness of architecture. The golden domes and gilded spires of four hundred churches pierce the sky above the old Muscovite city. Its Kremlin is still one of the wonders of Europe. If such capitals can exist in Europe, why may not all this region, possessing a fertile soil and equable clime, be the abode of a mighty race in the future ? Why may there not be great cities, towns, villages, manufactures, railroads, telegraphs, school houses and churches all over this region, now the home of the buffalo, and the last hunting ground of the Indians ?
We have been looking at the region in the far Northwest, and now let us travel westward, along the line of the North Pacific Railroad, which is to start from some point on Lake Superior. When it reaches the Mississippi it will be connected with all the network of railroads leading to Chicago and other points south It will leave the valley of the Red River of the North, reach the Missouri at the Great Bend, follow up the Yellow- stone, cross the Rocky Mountains, and reach the Pacific at Puget's Sound, with a branch down the Columbia to Portland.
The most northern point of the line will be near the Great Bend of the Missouri, in the latitude of Vienna and Central France. Yet the public somehow have obtained the idea that the country along the line cannot be inhabited on account of cold, and that the railroad never can be operated on account of snow.
Navigation nearly to the Rocky Mountains .- Capt. Blakiston (quoted by Mr. Rawlings) says: "Taking either branch of the Sascatchewan River, it is navigable for boats from Lake Winnepeg to near the base of the Rocky Mountains, a distance of 1200 miles."
He says he travelled 1000 miles up it to Fort Edmund- ton at a time of year when the water was lowest.
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