32 



1849-50 36 inches. September inches. 



1850-'51 5 " October " 



185l-'52 18 " November 2 " 



1852-'53 36 " December 5 " 



1853-'54 20 " January 3 " 



]854-'55 18 " February 2 " 



1855-'56 14 " March 4 " 



1856-'5T 10 " April 2 " 



1857-'58 15 " May 1 



1858-'59 16 " June " 



1859-'60 22 " July " 



1860-'61 16 " August " 



1861-'62 35 " 



The hope that copious rains had fallen has not been disappointed. The 

 San Francisco Mercantile Gazette of March 22, just received, says: "Since 

 our report of the 10th instant, the long expected rains have commenced fall- 

 ing, and all serious apprehensions in regard to the supply of breadstuflFs for 

 the ensuing twelve months have ceased." These rains have been general in 

 the State, and of ample supply, as believed, 



CHICAGO AND THE NORTHWEST. 



One of the wonders, even in this age, when progress has outstripped the 

 anticipations of the most sanguine, is the growth of Chicago. It is not a 

 representative of manufactures, nor of a foreign commerce, but solely of 

 agriculture and the commerce created by it. Situated at a point of lake 

 navigation which made it tlie receptacle of an immense and fertile agricul- 

 tural region, seeking its markets in the eastern States and in Europe through 

 Chicago, its growth has kept pace with the progress of that region, and 

 therefore it is the representative of that progress as well as of its own. 



Its more rapid advancement, however, since 1860, is not an indication of 

 a corresptjudiiig development of the agricultural resources of the country, 

 whose trade it has always enjoyed, or of more remote places added to it by 

 new raih'oad communication, but of that disturbing influence upon commerce 

 caused by the war. The navigation of the Mississippi having been closed 

 in 1861, the products of the upper parts of that river, and beyond it, in 

 Iowa and Missouri, as well as the more southern portions of Illinois, had 

 to seek a new transit to the eastern markets; they therefore centred in 

 Chicago instead of in St. Louis, and other minor places. 



With this explanation, we republish the following table of shipments of 

 breadstuffs from Chicago for the last twenty-six years, which we take from 

 HunVti Merchants^ Magazine, and of provisions in the last seven years, com- 

 piled from different sources. How much of successful energy and toil, of 

 wealth and of comfort, and of home happiness in the country life, is embraced 

 in a single glance over these tables! 



