38 HOW TO GET A FARM, 



$413,541,510 was expended within the limits of the interior 

 central group known as the * food-exporting States, in con 

 structing 11,212 miles of railway to connect them with 

 the seaboard. The traffic receipts from those roads were : 

 In 1860, $31,335,031; in 1861, $35,305,509; in 1862, 

 $44,908,405. 



&quot; The saving to the communities themselves in the trans 

 portation, for which they thus paid $44,908,405, was at 

 least five times that amount ; while the increase in the ex 

 ports from that portion of the Union greatly animated not 

 only the commerce of the Atlantic States, carrying those 

 exports over their railways to the seaboard, but the manu 

 facturing industry of the Eastern States, that exchange the 

 fabrics of their workshops for the food of the interior. 



&quot;By carefully analyzing the $8,048,825,840 in question, 

 we find that the six manufacturing States of New England 

 received $735,754,244 of the amount; that the middle At 

 lantic, or carrying and commercial States, from New York 

 to Maryland, inclusive, received $1,834,911,579; and that 

 the food-producing interior itself, embracing the eight great 

 States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, Min 

 nesota, Iowa, and Missouri, received $2,810,000,000. This 

 very large accession of wealth to this single group of States is 

 sufficiently important to be stated more in detail. The group, 

 taken as a whole, extends from the western boundaries of 

 New York and Pennsylvania to the Missouri river, through 

 14 degrees of longitude, and from the Ohio river north to 

 the British dominions, through 12 degrees of latitude. It 

 embraces an area of 441,167 square miles, or 282,134,688 

 acres, nearly all of which is arable and exceedingly fertile, 

 much of it in prairie and ready at once for the plough. 

 There may be a small portion, adjacent to Lake Superior, 

 unfit for cultivation, but it is abundantly compensated by 

 its rich deposits of copper and of iron of the best quality. 



