420 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



The appearance of a bush-farm, and the condition of the 

 farmer and his dependants, do not need repetition here. 

 Everything is the opposite of everything iu England. The 

 farm, it may be, is an uneven roadside opening in a dense 

 forest, round which zigzag fencing has been raised, to keep 

 cows and hogs from an attack upon the crop ; and the crop 

 is visible between a few solitary blazed and girdled trees, 

 and a thousand stnmps. The farm-house and steading, it 

 may be, is one rude erection, affording shelter to the house- 

 hold and the stock, and not unfrequently storage also to the 

 products of the soil. In perhaps the majority of cases, 

 these buildings are inferior in style and comfort to the 

 worst specimens of peasant-huts, in the worst parts of Ire- 

 land, during the potato-famine ; and the inmates, as a 

 whole, are socially worse than Southern negroes or the serfs 

 of Russia. The farmer does not, as in England, keep his 

 dog-cart and attend meetings of the hounds, but drives an 

 ill-fed pair of oxen, aud too frequently, in anticipation even, 

 dissipates all he has in some neighbouring rot-gut whiskey- 

 grocery. The story of the heart-broken misery of the 

 families of such would appal the callous, and go far to give 

 contentment at home to many with the honest, humble 

 English garret-fare of bread and water. 



Unwooded or prairie land presents a more hopeful pro- 

 spect, inasmuch as equal labour and equal capital yield 

 twice or thrice the product that woodland does. The 

 miserable drudgery of chopping out a farm from dense 

 heavy-timbered forest land, and being cursed with dead 

 trees and stumps for ten years at least, is not suffered on 

 the prairie. What is needed there is a few fence-posts 

 and boards ; and these are to be had at all times on easy 

 terms : and, with a fence erected, the work of farming may- 

 be commenced as easily as on English park or fallow. 

 The surfece of the country is a dead level, without bush or 

 tree, and the soil sometimes without a pebble. Nothing 

 more is necessary than to break the grass with a surface- 

 plough, scatter in the seed, and apply M'Cormick's reaper 

 at the harvest. Then the prairie-grass outside the fence is 

 available for cattle-feeding ; and a single mounted herd can 

 keep a thousand head together. Nor is that all. Prairie- 

 grass can be cut in any quantity for hay, which, together 

 with a little oats or Indian corn, subsists stock, at a trifling 

 cost, throughout the winter. 



While, therefore, the bush-farmer is engaged chopping 

 wood, or growing green crop for the consumption of his 

 stock in winter, the prairie-farmer is devoting his time and 

 help and capital to the production of wheat and com, leaving 

 hi^ stock to feed at large on national or state domain, and 

 fencing in new land at leisure. Need it be said that, while 

 the one is too often sunk to the most degraded state of 

 serfdom, and eats the bread of sorrow, the other is amassing 

 wealth, or speculatinff in -lands or banks, and surrounded 

 with every comfort, and happy ? When crops are short in 

 Europe, the one cannot turn his land to use, and derive the 

 benefit ; while the other, at a moment's notice, can hire or 

 bu}', on time, all the land he pleases, and, with little 

 trouble, sow out twice or thrice the usual breadth, and reap 

 twice or thrice the usual crop at harvest. 



This statement is fully borne out by the recent census of 

 the state of Iowa, and by the recent estimated increase in 

 the state of Illinois : 



Production op Wheat, Corn, and Oats in Iowa, and 

 Ratio of Increase during Six Years. 



11,711,725 42,760,207 365 



Production of Wheat, Corn, and Oats in Illinois 

 in 1850, AND estimated Production in 1857, with 

 Ratio op Increase during Seven Years. 



1850. 1857. Ratio of Increase. 



wri. . ^.^'}fi^- Bushels. Percent. 



Wheat .. 9,414.575 35,000,000 373 



Corn.... 57,646,084 190,000,000 329 



Oats..,. 10,465,904 60,000,000 5/3 



77,527,463 285,000,000 ~367 



Such is prairie-farming; and its great development is 

 attested further by the rapid growth of Chicago trade, _ A 

 few years ago, Chicago was a mere trading post, exporting 

 a few thousand bushels of wheat and corn to the lower 

 lakes; but now, it is the greatest primary grain market in 

 the world. Should its trade not be diverted into the Mis- 

 sissippi river, not many years will elapse before the annual 

 exports reach fifty million bushels — a quantity little short 

 of the whole floating grain trade of Europe some few years 

 ago. 



With the Chicago grain trade, Canadian capitalists and 

 merchants have been for years identified ; and so far last year 

 was the acknowledged superiority of praitie farming over 

 bush farming carried by the leading men of Canada, that 

 farming was said to be ruinous to the province. Whether 

 such is the case or no, would be out of place in this connexion 

 to inquire ; but obviously, in a seaaon of low prices, grain pro- 

 duction would be maintained upon the prairies when it would 

 be abandoned elsewhere. 



There is, besides, other testimony to the disadvantage of 

 Canada, in respect to farming, than that of individual public 

 men — as Isaac Buchanan — aud to the superiority of the 

 prairies ; and that is furnished by the action of Canadian rail- 

 roads. Whatever the first intention of these railroads their 

 present purpose is the diversion of western or prairie trade ; 

 and, to gain that, they are almost ready to make any sacrifice. 

 Their western terminus is not the limits of British territory 

 at Lake St. Clair, but is established at Chicago, beyond the 

 State of Michigan acd the lake of that name. The A^ictoria 

 bridge at Montreal and the Liverpool and Quebec line of 

 ocean steamers have regard to the present and future trade of 

 Canada as incidental only, and seek, on the one hand, to 

 share with New York the western carrying trade, and British 

 freight aud emigration on the other. In the sequel it will be 

 seen whether these ends are ever likely to be attained. 



Another characteristic of the North American continent is 

 its thinly settled state. Whether the traveller makes his start, 

 into the interior, from New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Balti- 

 more, New Orleans, or Montreal, he is alike struck with the 

 little progress yet made in the way of settlement and the little 

 land yet brought under cultivation. Here and there well 

 known cities are reached, and left behind ; but there are hours 

 of travel during which the marks of civilization are few 

 and far between. Especially is this the case in the newer dis- 

 tricts, and oce sometimes begins to question the utility of rail- 

 roads at 80 great a distance from the seaboard. This train of 

 thought is by-and-by disturbed by visible approaches to 

 another great business centre, and the conclusion is irresistible, 

 that but for railroads so vast a country could scarcely be kept 

 together. Still it seems strange, so far, that railroads have 

 done so little to cluster population near them, and in- 

 quiry of course is made. A flood of light is thus let iu upon the 

 subject, and the secret of the impoverished state of the North 

 American railroad interest made manifest. The railroads are 

 ostensibly projected to open up the country to immigrants and 

 other?, and to move merchandize and produce in a cheap, expe- 

 ditious way, to and from the seaboard ; but, in reality, the 

 object of the railroads is to fill the pockets of a few unscrupu- 

 lous and reckless speculators. These are interested in the sale 

 of lands ; and the opening of a railroad through, or even con- 

 tiguous to their claims, attracts crowds of bargain-hunters 

 from every district, aud sales are readily efi'ected at prices all 

 but fabulous. The buyers hold on to their purchases, aud puflf 

 up the railroads and the district, until, in turn, they get others 

 victimized, and so on. The whole district thus falls speedily 

 into the hands of plunderers, and immigrants with small 

 means have to move onward where railroads and specnlatora 

 are unknown. Thus a few acres are only bought and sold, and 

 the adjoining lands are not settled : thus the railroad does not 

 pay, and bond and mortgage holders lose their money. 



Instances are adduced in which enormous grants of land 

 have been made by Government ; land enough, in fact, to pay 

 the railroads, if only a low price were realized; and yet these 

 railroads become bankrupt also. " What," you ask, " is the 

 reason ?" and you are told that the mark has been missed by 

 waste and humbug. The lauds were not put upon the market 

 in moderate quantities, and sold for the ready money they 

 would bring ; but were held at extreme prices ; costly adver- 

 tising was gone into ; a numerous surveying-staflF organized ; 

 and, in the end, the land-sale receipts fell short of the land- 



