569 



Now it is this mixed husbandry — this highest ^and most scientific 

 kind of farming, to which our State, and more particularly this portion 

 of it, is best adapted. At least this is the conclusion at which I have 

 arrived in regard to this county from a cursory examination of its sur- 

 face, and also from descriptions I have received from those whose facili- 

 ties for knowing have been greater than mine. But there is another 

 point from which, in considering the capabilities of the country, we 

 must survey its position before we can thoroughly understand its ad- 

 vantages ; and that is, commercial locality. 



Hillsdale, in common with the counties/by which she is surrounded, 

 has outlets by railroad for her surplus produce both to the east and west. 

 These outlets give easy facilities for the sale^.of her productions at the 

 highest market rates, minus the cost of transportation to New York or 

 Boston. For these eastern markets being the great emporiums where 

 all produce goes for distribution to the actual consumers, they are, and 

 must remain, the regulating scale by which we are guided as to the 

 value of all articles raised by the western agriculturist. Tl.ere is, for 

 instance, no part of Michigan that can compete with the prairies 

 of Illinois and Iowa in raising cattle in great numbers, favored as those 

 States are by the natural rankness of the wild grasses, the mild climate 

 and the vast range of as yet unappropriated pasture lands, as well as their 

 fertility in corn; but then the farmers of Michigan have the advantage 

 of being nearer that market which all must seek. When the cattle 

 grower of Illinois has to pay $13 to $14 per head, of freight from his 

 prairie to New York, the farmer who raises stock in Hillsdale need not 

 have it cost him more than $9 to $10 per head to get his animals to 

 the same place. So with his wheat, which may be laid down in New 

 York from this county and not average a great deal over 28 cents per 

 bushel for transportation ; but this cost] will be greater to the more 

 western farmer, and must increase the farther he goes from the great 

 distributing market. 



Again, Hillsdale is well situated to become a centre from which other 

 localities may bo supplied with the better breeds of domestic animals. 

 The diversified surface of her soil is calculated to"give_the stock raised 

 here a good constitution ; and as there is prospect of a constant de- 

 mand for many years to come, to supply the west, which is just begin- 



72 



