256 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



whom the attempt was made. To the utter amazement of our 

 representatives at the Court of France, Napoleon welcomed 

 their idea, and instead of acceding to their request made, as he ■ 

 is quoted, the famous remark : " They asked me for a prov- 

 ince, I gave them an empire." He asked them to purchase the 

 entire Louisiana territory for fifteen millions of dollars. They 

 at once saw what it meant to this country, and they immedi- 

 ately set about the negotiations which accomplished that end. 

 Therefore the entire tract of the Louisiana territory passed 

 under the control of the United States for fifteen millions of 

 •dollars, an immense sum then, but comparatively nothing now, 

 for the city of St. Louis alone pays in revenue to the United 

 States government, annually, more than fifteen millions of 

 •dollars, and more than the original cost of the entire Louisiana 

 purchase territory. No truer words w^ere ever spoken. " They 

 asked me for a province, I gave them an empire." Roughly 

 speaking, this territory extended from the Dominion of Can- 

 ada on the north to the Gulf of JMexico on the south, and from 

 the Mississippi River to the crest of the Rocky Mountains. 

 It was greater in extent than the entire original thirteen states 

 of the Union. It covered more than a million square miles in 

 extent, and was larger than the combined areas of England, 

 France, Germany, Scotland, Ireland, Belgium, Italy, and 

 Spain. These figures seem incredible, but I have only to refer, 

 for their substantiation, to the book wdiich was published by 

 Mr. Charles M. Kurtz, Ph.D., who w^as assistant director of 

 arts at the St. Louis exhibition. Such an event as this, the 

 transfer of such a territory from the old world to the new, by 

 peaceful means, meant everything to the United States. People 

 have discussed, and philosophers and statesmen have attempted 

 to explain what motive moved Napoleon to surrender to the 

 new world such a magnificent piece of territory, which had not 

 its equivalent upon the face of the globe, a territory which, in 

 resources, in richness, in mineral wealth and agricultural de- 

 velopment, had no equal, and no equivalent in the same amount 

 of territory' anywhere on earth. Three reasons have been 

 given why Napoleon acceded to this request. Some state that 

 he w^as such a farseeing statesman that he knew that the allied 

 powers W'Ould move against this valuable tract, and that he 

 never could successfully defend it in the new^ w'orld. The 

 davs of steam navigation of the Atlantic were far in the future. 



