s 
WISCONSIN STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
two thousand miles in extent, before the introduction 'of railways- 
changed the mode of improvement. 
The people and the government of the United States were not 
slothful in recognizing the utility of these great agents of civil 
progress and empire. The first construction of the kind, of which 
we have any authentic knowledge, was the South Hadley and 
Montague canals in Massachusetts, undertaken by a chartered 
company in 1792. 
The Erie canal, one of the grandest works of the kind on the 
continent, was completed in 1825, at an original cost of $7,602,000. 
It has a length of about 850 miles, and has 84 locks of 15x90 
feet. The construction of this great work, though at a cost of 
labor less than a fiftieth part of the great Chinese canal, secured 
to the state of New York a perpetual lease of empire. When 
De Witt Clinton proposed the undertaking, he was beset by finan¬ 
cial objections on all hands. New York, financially, commer¬ 
cially and numercially, was then weak. She stood then (1812) 
third on the list of states. Her settlements, wfith the exception of 
a few bold pioneers that had penetrated the western wilds of 
Chautauqua, Cattaraugus, Erie, Genessee and Alleghany, were con¬ 
fined principally to the banks of the Hudson, the Mohawk and 
lake Champlain, and along the St. Lawrence. Her people were 
poor, and with immense and heavy forests before them, they 
dare not risk the unlearned expense of a canal from the Hudson 
to lake Erie. But Clinton, with a wisdom that modern savans 
admit to have been almost inspired, demanded that the work 
should commence. But the legislature was weak, and feared to 
risk the necessary appropriation, and Mr. Clinton was posted off 
to Washington as commissioner, to ask the general government to 
enter into joint construction and ownership. The answer returned 
was, that “ the general government is not able to assist in so ex¬ 
pensive work.” Mr. Clinton replied that “New York is able, 
and amply able,” and on his return he pictured in such glowing 
terms the vast benefits to result from the undertaking, that finally 
the work was commenced and finished as already stated. Mr. 
Clinton argued, and that justly, that the joining of the great lakes 
with the Hudson by a water channel, would not only build up 
