GKAIN-GROWING EAST AND WEST. 163 



earth as in the spacious fields of Wheat and Corn in 

 our grand Mississippi valley. 



And yet I have seen in that valley many ample 

 stretches covered with Corn, whereof the tillage 

 seemed susceptible of improvement. Riding between 

 these great corn-fields in October, after everything 

 standing thereon had been killed by frost, it seemed 

 to my observation that, while the corn-crop was fair, 

 the weed-crop was far more luxuriant ; so that, if 

 everything had been cut clean from the ground, and 

 the corn and the weeds placed in opposite scales, the 

 latter would have weighed down the former. I can- 

 not doubt that the cultivation, or lack of cultivation, 

 which produces or permits such results, is not merely 

 slovenly, but unthrifty. 



The West is for the present, as for a generation 

 she has been, the granary of the East. In my judg- 

 ment, she will not long be content to remain so. 

 Fifty years ago, the Genesee valley supplied most of 

 the wheat and flour imported into New-England ; ten 

 years later, Northern Ohio was our principal re- 

 source ; ten years later still, Michigan, Indiana, 

 northern Illinois, and eastern Wisconsin, had been 

 added to our grain-growing territory. Another de- 

 cade, and our flour manufacturers had crossed the 

 Mississippi, laying Iowa and Minnesota under liberal 

 contributions, while western New- York had ceased 

 to grow even her own breadstuffs, and Ohio to pro- 

 duce one bushel more than she needed for home con- 

 sumption. Can we doubt that this steady recession 



