4^6 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



Railroad receipts of WiiiiAT at St. Louis, 1857. 

 Sacks (2 bushels). 



By Chicago aud Alton Railroad 62,000 



„ Terre Haute and Alton do 32,700 



„ Ohio aud Mississippi do 41,600 



„ Pacific do 28,000 



„ North Pacific do. , 27,400 



191,700 

 Kailroad receipts of Corn at St. Louis, 1857. 

 Sacks (2 bushels). 



By Chicago and Alton Railroad 30,300 



„ Terre Haute and Alton do 12,200 



„ Ohio and Mississippi do 6,500 



„ Pacific do 1,800 



„ North Pacific do 4,200 



55,000 

 The aggregate grain receipts at St. Louis, in 1857, were the 

 following : — 



Flour barrels 458,981 



„ sacks 46,523 



Wheat „ 1,421,990 



, barrels 1,791 



„ bushels 34,200 



Corn sacks 1,143,414 



„ barrels 198,958 



Oats sacks 563,530 



„ bushels 90,827 



The aggregate grain shipments from St. Louis to New Or- 

 leans, in 1856, no later account published, were the follow- 

 ing:— 



Flout* , barrels 845,600 



Wheat sacks 1,331,400 



Corn „ 859,200 



* The St. Louis city manufacture of flour, in 1856, was 

 678,496 barrels. 



Chicago, as has been already stated, stands at the 

 head of the navigation of Lake Michigan, and con- 

 nect-s with the Illinois river and the Mississippi by the Illi- 

 nois and Michigan Canal. Unlike St. Louis, the Illinois 

 and Michigan canal is the only water tributary of the Chi- 

 cago produce trade. Not one great river flows into Lake 

 Michigan, and each and all of its important towns and cities 

 owe their present and prospective greatness to the railroads. 

 Before the railroad era, the .shores of Lake Michigan were 

 little visited and thinly settled ; and since then people have 

 flocked to them in crowds, and built villages, towns, and 

 cities, the public and private edifices and streets of some of 

 which are not surpassed in Europe. With the destruction 

 of the railroad interest, or with its produce-carrying diverted 

 into other channels, existing industries would receive a fatal 

 blow, and the people be obliged to move elsewhere, or to 

 make their living in a different way. Railroads first gave 

 marketable value to the unlimited supply of western lands ; 

 and when superseded by cheaper and more efficient means 

 of transit, land and its collateral oft'shoots must necessarily 

 decline in value. 



These are not unadvised remarks. Traverse the Illinois 

 and Wisconsin shore of Lake Michigan, or, what is more, 

 go inland some distance from the shore; and it is quite sur- 

 prising that the farmer, and the plough, and the fenced and 

 cultivated field are so seldom met with. Everywhere through- 

 out the district there is abundant evidence that land is held 

 for higher purposes than cultivation. Outside of every little 

 knot ot country-houses new streets are graded, and survey- 

 ors' rods and poles scattered round ; and in the vicinity of 

 the larger towns immense tracks remain uncultivated, in the 

 expectation that sooner or later they will be required to 

 build upon. Chicago, for example, which some day or other 

 may turn out to have a much less population than is gene- 

 rally supposed, has its city limits laid out on something like 

 the scale of London ; and so very valuable are contiguous lands 

 esteemed, that Chicago is supplied with vegetables from 

 Cincinnati and St. Louis. Vegetables can be raised, not 

 quite so early, but in the highest perfection within the Chi- 

 cago city limits, and outside the limits also ; but hitherto 

 land has been held at too high a price to yield sufficient 

 profit, to the market-gardener, or cabbage-growing has been 

 too democratic for the go-ahead Chicago people. 



In short, until the railroad period, the eastern section of 

 the State of Illinois was in bad repute, and immigrants 

 preferred settling on lands contiguous to the Mississippi or 

 the Illinois ; and in those days people settled down to . 

 work, and to turn the prairie to some account. These agri- 

 cultural beginnings grew apace, and to the unwearied in- 

 dustry of the early river settlers the grain-prodncing name 

 of Illinois is wholly owing. The other sections of the 

 State only now begin to attract attention, and to be made 

 available by local railroad transit ; and while making rapid 

 agricultural progress, the earlier settled districts receive 

 additions to their working hands, and break up prairie in an 

 undiminished greater ratio. 



Of the twelve most thickly settled counties of Illinois, 

 the Western and Eastern sections have the following popu- 

 lation — 



Western. Intermediate. Eastern. 



Peoria 1,031* Winnebago.... 830 Cook.. 2,396 



Adams 937 — Kane.. 1,049 



Madison ..918 — McHenry 878 



St. Clair.. 916 — — 



Rock Island 862 — — 



Knox .... 843 — — 



lo Davis . . 822 — — 



Morgan ..830 — — 



* Inhabitants to the square mile — State Census, 1855. 



These western counties are of the early character just 

 spoken of; five of them skirting the Mississipi, and three — 

 Peoria, Knox,and Morgan — contiguous to the Illiuois. The 

 eastern counties embrace Chicago and the town and village 

 populations that clusterround that city. These latter are more 

 mechanical or speculative in their avocations than the others ; 

 and although M'Henry is the greatest wheat-producing 

 county in the state, the agricultural class are but a fraction 

 of the whole. In the western counties it is otherwise. There 

 the people are not crowded up in large communities, but 

 are scattered, and agriculture is the occupation of the 

 mass. 



The following is the wheat and corn production of these 

 twelve counties— Census, 1850 : 



Wheat. Corn. 



Western Counties. bush. bush. 



Peoria 185,000 1,013,000 



Adams 502,000 2,092,000 



Madison 88,000 1,153,000 



St.Clair 224,000 1,102,000 



Rock Island 83,000 215,000 



Knox 210,000 1,570,000 



lo Davis 207,000 220,000 



Morgan 91,000 2,6.93,000 



Intermediate County. 



Winnebago 316,000 281,000 



Eastern Counties. 



Cook 238,000 429,000 



Kane 316,000 337,000 



McHenry 562,000 301,000 



These are important considerations, and what applies to 

 Illinois applies to Wisconsin also. 



The great producing districts are thus contiguous to the 

 Mississippi ; and to move produce to hnkf. Michigan, is to 

 divert it from an available and open watercourse, and to incur 

 expensive railroad transit. And further, those sections of 

 Illinois and Wisconsin opened up by railroads are as conti- 

 guous to the Mississippi as to the lakes. Which course, 

 theu, vvUl Western pro'duce take in future .» 



The Grand Trunk Railroad Company, and the advocates 

 of the Erie Canal and St. Lawrence routes, have evidently 

 not thought deeply on this subject, but have concluded that, 

 as Western trade has taken the Chicago and Milwaukie 

 channels, it will there remain. Such will likely be the case 

 until Americans themselves, if not the capitalists of Europe, 

 are informed of theanomalous state of things that now obtains, 

 and then it is more than likely that the route offering the 

 cheapest and most convenient means of transit will be chosen. 

 That the Mississipi is the cheapest and the shortest route 

 is manifest from the fact that the growing districts are upon 

 Its banks, that railroad transit is not required, and that St. 

 Louis is nearer to New Orleans than Chicago is to New 



