REPORT OF EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 
45 
vation of wheat is confined to within the isothermals of 65° and 
71° for the months of July and August. This practically con¬ 
fines its production to a belt across the northern part of the 
United States and the southern portion of Canada. So far as 
the United States alone is concerned, this belt embraces Min¬ 
nesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, New England, and 
portions of Northern Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Penn¬ 
sylvania, and of Western Virginia. But it is also a well es¬ 
tablished fact, that the northern portion of this climatic belt is 
best adapted to the production of this cereal. This still more 
narrowly bounds the wheat-producing area, reducing it to some 
250,000 sqnare miles. These are facts of great importance, 
and serve to explain how it is that Wisconsin is the greatest 
Wheat State in the Union. 
j Healthfulness of Climate .—No intelligent person, after even 
a hasty review of the physical geography of Wisconsin — its 
relative position on the continent, and its consequent distribu¬ 
tion of temperature and moisture — its high, undulating surface 
—its abounding lakes and streams of pure water, and its 
remarkable distribution of timber — could fail to see that it 
must necessarily have a delightful and most healthful climate : 
and such is the fact. The winter, long, dry and uniform in 
temperature, is abrubtly followed by a short, pleasant spring, 
remarkable for the rapidity of vegetable growth. The summer 
has a uniform but not intense heat, steadily carrying forward 
the growth of spring to an early maturity; and the autumn 
has scarcely a parallel in any clime for all that contributes to 
the most buoyant and perfect health of man and beast. But 
on this point the logic of statistical figures is of more worth 
than any rhetoric of enthusiastic description. 
According to the census of 1850 — the last, a report of which 
has been published in full — the number of deaths in ratio to 
the number of inhabitants, in some of the Northern States, is 
as follows: in Massachusetts, 1 to 51; Connecticut, 1 to 64: 
New York, 1 to 67; Ohio, 1 to 68; Illinois, 1 to 73; New 
Hampshire, 1 to 74; Indiana, 1 to 77; Maine, 1 to 77; Mich¬ 
igan, 1 to 88; Iowa, 1 to 94; Vermont, 1 to 100; and Wis- 
