INTRODUCTION. clxix 



that this has been the effect, though perhaps not to so great an extent as the reverse, in the ease 

 of produce. In 1839- 40 sugar was just the same price as in 1857 and 1858; but the average 

 price of coffee from 1833 to 1838 was three cents higher than it was from 1853 to I860. On the 

 whole, the prices of articles carried from the east to the west were diminished, while those from the 

 west to the east were increased. Again, the influence of railroads on the value of farming lands is too 

 great and striking not to have been noticed by all intelligent persons. We have, however, some 

 remarkable instances of the specific effect of certain railroads ; we have, for example, the immediate 

 effect produced on the lands of Illinois by the Illinois Central railroad. That company received from 

 the government a large body of land at a time when the government could not sell it at a dollar and a 

 quarter ($1 25) per acre. Since then the company has constructed its road and sold a large part of 

 those lands at an average of 811 per acre, and the greater part of the lands of Illinois is fully worth 

 that. Notwithstanding the rapid growth of population, the larger part of this advance is due to rail 

 roads. The following table shows the advance (by the census tables) of the cash value of farms in 

 the five States mentioned in the ten years from 1850 to 1860 : 



1850. I860. 



Ohio $358,758,602 $666,564, 171 



Illinois 96, 133, 290 432, 531. 072 



Indiana 136, 385, 173 344, 902, 776 



Michigan 51,872,446 163,279,087 



Wisconsin 28,528,563 131, 117,082 



Aggregate 671, 678, 075 1, 738, 394, 188 



Increase in ten (10) years 81, 066, 716, 113 



It is not too much to say that one-half this increase has been caused by railroads, for we expe 

 rience already the impossibility of conveying off the surplus products of the interior with our railroads. 

 Putting the increase of value due to railroads at a little more than one-third, we have four hundred 

 millions of dollars added to the cash value of farms in these five States by the construction of railroads. 

 This fact will be manifest if it is considered that the best lands of Illinois were worth but a dollar and a 

 quarter per acre prior to the construction of railroads, and are now worth twenty dollars. 



We need not pursue this subject further. If the effect on the central western States has been so 

 great, it is still greater in the new States which lie beyond the Mississippi. They are still further from 

 market, and will be enriched in a greater ratio by the facilities of transportation. Indeed, railroads are 

 the only means by which the distant parts of this country could have been commercially united, and 

 thus the railroad has become a mighty means of WEALTH, UNITY, and STABILITY. 



PRESERVATION OF FOREST TREES. 



We have endeavored to avail ourselves of all proper occasions, to impress upon our generation the 

 importance of exercising greater care in the preservation of forest trees. It is lamentable, in view of present 

 ruthlessness, and the demands of posterity, to observe the utter disregard manifested by the American 

 people, not merely for the preservation of extensive groves, but the indifference which they exhibit for 

 valuable trees, the destruction of which is not necessary to good cultivation, and the existence whereof 

 would not only add greatly to the value of their property, but contribute vastly to health, the fertility 

 of their farms, and the comfort of their live stock. We have seen thousands of farms rendered less 

 productive and of much less intrinsic value by the destruction of timber, especially on their north and 

 west boundaries, where they protect from the colds of winter, and others made unhealthy by removing 

 the barriers which nature had placed to the encroachments of miasm. 



We remember, upon an occasion of remonstrance with a farmer against destroying a beautiful 

 isolated tree in a large field, his foolish reply in extenuation of his labor, that it supplied a resort for 

 the blackbirds which destroyed his corn, nor could he be persuaded that its use by the birds which 

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