A Man Can Not, Perhaps Count Up The
Results Of Such A Work By A Quick Glance Of His Eye, Nor
Communicate With Precision To Another The Conviction Which His Own
Short Experience Has Made So Strong Within Himself; But To Himself
Seeing Is Believing.
To me it was so at Chicago and at Buffalo.
I
began then to know what it was for a country to overflow with milk
and honey, to burst with its own fruits and be smothered by its own
riches. From St. Paul down the Mississippi, by the shores of
Wisconsin and Iowa; by the ports on Lake Pepin; by La Crosse, from
which one railway runs Eastward; by Prairie du Chien, the terminus
of a second; by Dunleath, Fulton, and Rock Island, from whence
three other lines run Eastward; all through that wonderful State of
Illinois, the farmer's glory; along the ports of the Great Lakes;
through Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, and further Pennsylvania, up to
Buffalo? the great gate of the Western Ceres, the loud cry was
this: "How shall we rid ourselves of our corn and wheat?" The
result has been the passage of 60,000,000 bushels of breadstuffs
through that gate in one year! Let those who are susceptible of
statistics ponder that. For them who are not I can only give this
advice: Let them go to Buffalo next October, and look for
themselves.
In regarding the above figures, and the increase shown between the
years 1860 and 1861, it must of course be borne in mind that,
during the latter autumn, no corn or wheat was carried into the
Southern States, and that none was exported from New Orleans or the
mouth of the Mississippi.
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