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for long distances has taken the place of all other modes of communication. On short distances, as in the Eastern states, its peculiar advantage is its speed and its economy of business time; but in long distances, as in the Western states, its more marked advantage will be its economy in the cost of transportation in connection with its availability at all seasons; its power in other words to render the market cities available to lands three hundred to five hundred miles from the rivers, as well as to the lands on the rivers. The interior of the far West would, without its assistance, remain entirely inaccessible to the agriculturist, and continue for a long period as barren of results as now. The railroad has become a necessity of the times, and no Western state will be able to maintain her position and influence without such a connection with the leading railroads now in progress from the seabord cities, as will unite her with the Eastern and Southern markets, and afford the citizens of Missouri for instance, the same advantages for the sale or purchase of commodities, as will then be possessed by the intervening states of Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. Many citizens may consider it to be a matter of choice, whether they construct or not the two railroads now commenced in Missouri. We view the case very differently and look upon their construction, and that of some others, as undertakings which cannot be avoided, and which as the progress of the neighbouring states becomes more prominent, no one will desire to avoid. It is in view of this state of affairs, that a liberal and early settlement of the policy to be pursued by the Government in regard to the public lands, becomes important. If the Government performs its part as fairly towards the state of Missouri, as it has done towards the states of Alabama, Mississippi and Illinois, the difficulty attending the execution of the necessary lines of communication will be much reduced. Without such aid these undertakings must strain the resources of the State, and embarrass her progress. The position of the other Western states is essentially the same.

During the next five years the two railroads now commenced in Missouri will be completed, and in operation at an outlay of not less than ten millions, and within ten years from this date it will be a moderate estimate to assume, that, including other similar enterprises to be undertaken, the railroad capital then in existence will represent twenty millions. With the assistance of the public lands the citizens of the State may be relieved of one half of this

amount, without loss but with profit to the Government, and the State will to that extent be free to develope her extensive mineral resources, and will have received a vast increase of population and of wealth, not without effort and sacrifice, but without distress or discredit.

If the citizens of Missouri will weigh their position, and looking at the state of Ohio for instance, endeavour to understand what they have to do during the next ten years, they will be prepared to acknowledge the moderate view taken here of the expenditures to be met in some shape during that time. A little determined and united exertion now throughout this state, and all the Western states similarly situated, will not merely lessen their difficulties one half, but will secure the completion of many subsidiary works which would otherwise be neglected.

Too much dependance in relation to the public lands is placed upon the exertions of the officials of the railroads under construction. It is not remembered, that their exertions may be profitless unless endorsed by the expressed and earnest opinion of the people. There is no county in the state, which cannot be of service in this respect, and every county, however situatel, must ultimately reap the benefit directly or indirectly. The other railroads yet to be made with their branches, will be reached and completed so much the more promptly according to the measure and time of assistance afforded by the Government. If the leading counties have held meetings before, and have presented petitions before, these petitions to this time have been without effect, and their repetition to a new Congress, cannot be entered upon too earnestly. It is necessary to show that there exists no indifference on the part of the citizens of any portion of the state to the measure for which others are contending in their name. Such petitions would have more influence, if they could be presented in a body, instead of being allowed to drop upon the House of Representatives, one by one to be silently laid aside. We would suggest, that the Mayor of St. Louis should receive all such petitions, and that he or some equally prominent citizen should be requested, to go on to Washington, and present them in a body, and see to their existence being acknowledged. And to that end all the counties, which understand their own interests sufficiently, to be willing to take any trouble in this matter, should take steps immediately to have such petitions,

expressing strongly their views, prepared immediately, and signed by all friends to internal improvement without respect to party.

The subject is one which cannot be too freely canvassed. The better it is understood, the better it will be supported. The more it is talked about, the more distinctly will the consequences of inaction now be foreseen.

We propose in a future number to make some remarks on the disposition of the middle and the Eastern states towards Western improvements.

K.

ARTICLE IV.

Ignorance of the Agricultural Interest.

We commend the following article, from the Horticulturist, to the perusal of all who feel an interest in the permanent prosperity of the country.

The preservation and improvement of the soil is a high moral duty. It follows, therefore, that a people who exhaust the natural fertility of their land, by an improvident system of agriculture, are guilty of a great national sin. This we regard as a religious and philosophical truth. And, we hold it to be the solemn duty. of those who assume the office of instructing mankind in the highest of all knowledge, to enforce it upon the minds and hearts of their fellow men. For without the observance of this important truth, civilization and the great principles upon which it is based, can never obtain throughout the earth.

The National Ignorance of the Agricultural Interest.

To general observers, the prosperity of the United States in the great interests of trade, commerce, manufactures, and agriculture, is a matter of every-day remark, and general assent. The country extends itself from one zone to another, and from one ocean to another. New states are settled, our own population increases, emigration pours its vast tide upon our shores, new soils give abundant harvests, new settlements create a demand for the necessaries and luxuries of life provided by the older cities, and the nation exhibits at every census, so unparalleled a growth, and such magnificent resources, that common sense is startled, and only the imagination can keep pace with the probable destinies of the one hundred millions of Americans that will speak one language, and, we trust, be governed by one constitution, half a century hence.

As a wise man, who finds his family increasing after the manner of the ancient patriarchs, looks about him somewhat anxiously. to find out if there is likely to be bread enough for their subsistence, so a wise statesman, looking at this extraordinary growth of population, and this prospective wealth of the country, will inquire, narrowly, into its productive powers. He will desire to know whether the national domain is so managed that it will be likely to support the great people that will be ready to live upon it in the next century. He will seek to look into the present and the future sufficiently to ascertain, whether our rapid growth and material abundance, do not arise almost as much from the migratory habits of our people, and the constant taking-up of rich prairies, yielding their virgin harvest of breadstuffs, as from the institutions peculiar to our favored country.

We regret to say, that it does not require much scrutiny on the part of a serious inquirer, to discover that we are in some respects like a large and increasing family, running over and devouring a great estate to which they have fallen heirs, with little or no care to preserve or maintain it, rather than a wise and prudent one, seeking to maintain that estate in its best and most productive condition.

To be sure, our trade and commerce are pursued with a thrift and sagacity likely to add largely to our substantial wealth, and to develope the collateral resources of the country. But, after all, trade and commerce are not the great interests of the country. That interest is, as every one admits, agriculture. By the latter, the great bulk of the people live, and by it all are fed. It is clear, therefore, if that interest is neglected or misunderstood, the population of the country may steadily increase, the means of supporting that population, (which can never be largely a manufacturing population,) must lessen, proportionately, every year.

Now, there are two undeniable facts at present staring us Americans in the face amid all this prosperity: the first is, that the productive power of nearly all the land in the United States which has been ten years in cultivation, is fearfully lessening every season, from the desolating effects of a ruinous system of husbandry; and the second is, that in consequence of this, the rural population of the older states is either at a stand still, or it is falling off, or it increases very slowly in proportion to the population of those cities and towns largely engaged in commercial pursuits.

Our census returns show, for instance, that in some of the states (such as Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware and Maryland,) the only increase of population is in the towns for in the rural population there is no increase at all. In the great agricultural state of New York, the gain in the fourteen largest towns is sixtyfour per cent, while in the rest of the state it is but nineteen per cent. In Pennsylvania, thirty-nine and a quarter per cent in the

large towns, and but twenty-one per cent in the rural districts. The politicians in this state, finding themselves losing a representative in the new ratio, while Pennsylvania gains two, have, in alarm, actually deigned to inquire into the growth of the agricultural class with some little attention. They have not generally arrived at the truth, however, which is, that Pennsylvania is, as a state, much better farmed than New York, and hence the agricultural population increases much faster.

It is a painful truth, that both the press and the more active minds of the country at large, are strikingly ignorant of the condition of agriculture in all the older states; and one no less painful, that the farmers, who are not ignorant of it, are as a body, not intelligent enough to know how to remedy the evil.

"And what is that evil?" many of our readers will doubtless inquire. We answer, the miserable system of farming steadily pursued by eight tenths of all the farmers of this country, since its first settlement: a system which proceeds upon the principle of taking as many crops from the land with as little manure as possible-until its productive powers are exhausted, and then-emigrating to some part of the country where they can apply the same practice to a new soil. It requires far less knowledge and capital to wear out one good soil and abandon it for another, than to cultivate a good soil so as to maintain its productive powers from year to year, unimpaired.-Accordingly, the emigration is always "to the west." There is ever the Arcadia of the American farmer; there are the acres which need but to be broken up by the plough, to yield their thirty or forty bushels of wheat to the acre. Hence the ever full tide of farmers or farmer's-sons, always sets westward, and the lands at home are left in a comparatively exhausted and barren state, and hence, too, the slow progress of farming as honest art, where every body practices it like a highway robber.

There are doubtless many superficial thinkers, who consider these western soils exhaustless "prairies where crop after crop can be taken, by generation after generation." There was never a greater fallacy. There are acres and acres of land in the counties bordering the Hudson such counties as Duchess and Albany - from which the early settlers reaped their thirty to forty bushels of wheat to the acre, as easily as their great grand-children do now in the most fertile fields of the valley of the Mississippi. Yet these very acres now yield only twelve or fourteen bushels each, and the average yield of the county of Duchess one of the most fertile and best managed on the Hudson, is at the present moment only six bushels of wheat to the acre! One of our cleverest agricultural writers has made the estimate, that of the twelve millions of acres of cultivated land in the state of New York, eight millions are in the hands of the "skinners," who take away everything from the

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