552 CROPS ON THE MISSISSIPPI BOTTOM-LANDS. 



along the river is all that has ever yet been brought 

 under cultivation. 



Here therefore is a great region, still almost in a 

 state of nature, which under an efficient system of 

 protection against flood, will doubtless in future years 

 provide an almost inexhaustible field for agricultural 

 enterprise, where an enormous extent of crops of the 

 most valuable character could be raised. It has been 

 estimated that by this means 2-J millions of acres of 

 the richest sugar lands, seven millions of acres of the 

 best cotton lands, and at least one million acres of 

 corn lands of unsurpassed fertility would be thrown 

 open to the use of mankind. * 



Well may Americans entertain a boundless faith in 

 the future wealth and greatness of their country ! There 

 is no speculation which in the end proves so remun- 

 erative as the work of reclamation and cultivation of 

 a fertile soil, and " there is no treasury so reliable as 

 a granary of surplus products. " f The precious metals 

 and other arbitrary standards of value may rise or 

 fall ever so much in value, but the rapidly growing 

 population of the earth must be fed, and blessed is 

 the lot of that country whose store-houses are con- 

 tinually overflowing with the surplus garnerings of 

 a bountiful harvest. We say so, in the teeth of 

 the present temporary depression of the agricultural 

 interest. 



When the renowned French explorer, the Cavalier 

 De La Salle, first made his famous discovery of the 

 Great West, and issued from the forests upon the 



* Encycl. Brit., gth Edition, Vol. xvi., pp. 518-519. (Art. "Mississippi 

 River"). 



f The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom, by P. L. 

 Simmonds, 1854, p. 2/1. 



