EAILWAY DEVELOPMENT. 39 



a doubt of its vast capability of further development, it does 

 not surprise me that capitalists in London are disappointed 

 with their railway investments here. In England we make 

 railways to facilitate an existing traffic. Elaborate statistics 

 are furnished to show the extent of the present business of the 

 country proposed to be accommodated. But in the Western 

 States of America railways are made for hundreds of miles 

 through the wilderness, not to accommodate but to create 

 traffic. You may often travel for miles through the open prairie 

 without seeing a living creature, till the shrill whistle of the 

 engine startles a solitary sand-hill crane or a covey of prairie 

 fowl. An Englishman cannot at first imagine the possibility 

 of a traffic to be found in such a country, adequate to the sup- 

 port of a railway. But the experienced American knows bet- 

 ter the rapid rate at which population and produce increase in 

 a rich open country, to which access is made. He points to 

 the fact that six years ago there were only forty miles of rail- 

 way in Illinois, the earnings of which fell short of 8000Z. while 

 last year the total earnings of the lines centring in Chicago ex- 

 ceeded 3,700,OOOZ. 



While, however, this is the fact, there cannot be a doubt 

 that the development of railway accommodation has been too 

 rapid, and has for the present outrun the immediate require- 

 ments of Illinois. This was encouraged by a state of circum- 

 stances which sanguine speculators did not perceive to be ex- 

 ceptional. A series of short crops in Europe, coupled with 

 the cessation of supplies from the Black Sea during the Eus- 

 sian war, caused such a demand for the produce of Western 

 America, as at once doubled the price of wheat, and thus ren- 

 dered the cultivation of prairie lands enormously profitable. 

 For even in the first year that such land is broken up, it can 

 be successfully cropped with wheat, and to any extent for which 

 labour can be procured. The temptation to settle on land, the 



