North America Volume I Part 8

St. Paul contains about fourteen thousand inhabitants, and, like all other American towns, is spread over a surface of ground adapted to the accommodation of a very extended population. As it is belted on one side by the river, and on the other by the bluffs which accompany the course of the river, the site is pretty, and almost romantic.

Here also we found a great hotel,--a huge square building, such as we in England might perhaps place near to a railway terminus, in such a city as Glasgow or Manchester; but on which no living Englishman would expend his money in a town even five times as big again as St. Paul. Everything was sufficiently good, and much more than sufficiently plentiful. The whole thing went on exactly as hotels do down in Ma.s.sachusetts, or the State of New York. Look at the map, and see where St. Paul is. Its distance from all known civilization,--all civilization that has succeeded in obtaining acquaintance with the world at large, is very great. Even American travellers do not go up there in great numbers, excepting those who intend to settle there.

A stray sportsman or two, American or English, as the case may be, makes his way into Minnesota for the sake of shooting, and pushes on up through St. Paul to the Red River. Some few adventurous spirits visit the Indian settlements, and pa.s.s over into the unsettled regions of Dacotah and Washington territory. But there is no throng of travelling. Nevertheless, an hotel has been built there capable of holding three hundred guests, and other hotels exist in the neighbourhood, one of which is even larger than that at St. Paul.

Who can come to them, and create even a hope that such an enterprise may be remunerative? In America it is seldom more than hope, for one always hears that such enterprises fail.

When I was there the war was in hand, and it was hardly to be expected that any hotel should succeed. The landlord told me that he held it at the present time for a very low rent, and that he could just manage to keep it open without loss. The war which hindered people from travelling, and in that way injured the innkeepers, also hindered people from housekeeping, and reduced them to the necessity of boarding out,--by which the innkeepers were, of course, benefited.

At St. Paul I found that the majority of the guests were inhabitants of the town, boarding at the hotel, and thus dispensing with the cares of a separate establishment. I do not know what was charged for such accommodation at St. Paul, but I have come across large houses at which a single man could get all that he required for a dollar a day. Now Americans are great consumers, especially at hotels, and all that a man requires includes three hot meals with a choice from about two dozen dishes at each.

From St. Paul there are two waterfalls to be seen, which we, of course, visited. We crossed the river at Fort Snelling, a ricketty, ill-conditioned building, standing at the confluence of the Minnesota and Mississippi rivers, built there to repress the Indians. It is, I take it, very necessary, especially at the present moment, as the Indians seem to require repressing. They have learned that the attention of the federal government has been called to the war, and have become bold in consequence. When I was at St. Paul I heard of a party of Englishmen who had been robbed of everything they possessed, and was informed that the farmers in the distant parts of the State were by no means secure. The Indians are more to be pitied than the farmers. They are turning against enemies who will neither forgive nor forget any injuries done. When the war is over they will be improved, and polished, and annexed, till no Indian will hold an acre of land in Minnesota. At present Fort Snelling is the nucleus of a recruiting camp. On the point between the bluffs of the two rivers there is a plain, immediately in front of the fort, and there we saw the newly-joined Minnesota recruits going through their first military exercises. They were in detachments of twenties, and were rude enough at their goose step. The matter which struck me most in looking at them was the difference of condition which I observed in the men. There were the country lads, fresh from the farms, such as we see following the recruiting sergeant through English towns; but there were also men in black coats and black trousers, with thin boots, and trimmed beards,--beards which had been trimmed till very lately; and some of them with beards which showed that they were no longer young. It was inexpressibly melancholy to see such men as these twisting and turning about at the corporal's word, each handling some stick in his hand in lieu of weapon. Of course they were more awkward than the boys, even though they were twice more a.s.siduous in their efforts. Of course they were sad, and wretched.

I saw men there that were very wretched,--all but heart-broken, if one might judge from their faces. They should not have been there handling sticks, and moving their unaccustomed legs in cramped paces.

They were as razors, for which no better purpose could be found than the cutting of blocks. When such attempts are made the block is not cut, but the razor is spoilt. Most unfit for the commencement of a soldier's life were some that I saw there, but I do not doubt that they had been attracted to the work by the one idea of doing something for their country in its trouble.

From Fort Snelling we went on to the Falls of Minnehaha. Minnehaha, laughing water. Such I believe is the interpretation. The name in this case is more imposing than the fall. It is a pretty little cascade, and might do for a picnic in fine weather, but it is not a waterfall of which a man can make much when found so far away from home. Going on from Minnehaha we came to Minneapolis, at which place there is a fine suspension bridge across the river, just above the falls of St. Anthony and leading to the town of that name. Till I got there I could hardly believe that in these days there should be a living village called Minneapolis by living men. I presume I should describe it as a town, for it has a munic.i.p.ality, and a post-office, and, of course, a large hotel. The interest of the place however is in the saw-mills. On the opposite side of the water, at St. Anthony, is another very large hotel,--and also a smaller one. The smaller one may be about the size of the first-cla.s.s hotels at Cheltenham or Leamington. They were both closed, and there seemed to be but little prospect that either would be opened till the war should be over. The saw-mills, however, were at full work, and to my eyes were extremely picturesque. I had been told that the beauty of the falls had been destroyed by the mills. Indeed all who had spoken to me about St.

Anthony had said so. But I did not agree with them. Here, as at Ottawa, the charm in fact consists, not in an uninterrupted shoot of water, but in a succession of rapids over a bed of broken rocks.

Among these rocks logs of loose timber are caught, which have escaped from their proper courses, and here they lie, heaped up in some places, and constructing themselves into bridges in others, till the freshets of the spring carry them off. The timber is generally brought down in logs to St. Anthony, is sawn there, and then sent down the Mississippi in large rafts. These rafts on other rivers are I think generally made of unsawn timber. Such logs as have escaped in the manner above described are recognized on their pa.s.sage down the river by their marks, and are made up separately, the original owners receiving the value,--or not receiving it as the case may be. "There is quite a trade going on with the loose lumber," my informant told me. And from his tone I was led to suppose that he regarded the trade as sufficiently lucrative if not peculiarly honest.

There is very much in the mode of life adopted by the settlers in these regions which creates admiration. The people are all intelligent. They are energetic and speculative, conceiving grand ideas, and carrying them out almost with the rapidity of magic.

A suspension bridge half a mile long is erected, while in England we should be fastening together a few planks for a foot pa.s.sage.

Progress, mental as well as material, is the demand of the people generally. Everybody understands everything, and everybody intends sooner or later to do everything. All this is very grand;--but then there is a terrible drawback. One hears on every side of intelligence, but one hears also on every side of dishonesty. Talk to whom you will, of whom you will, and you will hear some tale of successful or unsuccessful swindling. It seems to be the recognized rule of commerce in the Far West that men shall go into the world's markets prepared to cheat and to be cheated. It may be said that as long as this is acknowledged and understood on all sides, no harm will be done. It is equally fair for all. When I was a child there used to be certain games at which it was agreed in beginning either that there should be cheating or that there should not. It may be said that out there in the western States, men agree to play the cheating game; and that the cheating game has more of interest in it than the other. Unfortunately, however, they who agree to play this game on a large scale, do not keep outsiders altogether out of the play-ground. Indeed outsiders become very welcome to them;--and then it is not pleasant to hear the tone in which such outsiders speak of the peculiarities of the sport to which they have been introduced.

When a beginner in trade finds himself furnished with a barrel of wooden nutmegs, the joke is not so good to him as to the experienced merchant who supplies him. This dealing in wooden nutmegs, this selling of things which do not exist, and buying of goods for which no price is ever to be given, is an inst.i.tution which is much honoured in the West. We call it swindling;--and so do they. But it seemed to me that in the western States the word hardly seemed to leave the same impress on the mind that it does elsewhere.

On our return down the river we pa.s.sed La Crosse, at which we had embarked, and went down as far as Dubuque in Iowa. On our way down we came to grief and broke one of our paddle-wheels to pieces. We had no special accident. We struck against nothing above or below water.

But the wheel went to pieces, and we lay-to on the river side for the greater part of a day while the necessary repairs were being made.

Delay in travelling is usually an annoyance, because it causes the unsettlement of a settled purpose. But the loss of the day did us no harm, and our accident had happened at a very pretty spot. I climbed up to the top of the nearest bluff, and walked back till I came to the open country, and also went up and down the river banks, visiting the cabins of two settlers who live there by supplying wood to the river steamers. One of these was close to the spot at which we were lying; and yet though most of our pa.s.sengers came on sh.o.r.e, I was the only one who spoke to the inmates of the cabin. These people must live there almost in desolation from one year's end to another.

Once in a fortnight or so they go up to a market town in their small boats, but beyond that they can have little intercourse with their fellow-creatures. Nevertheless none of these dwellers by the river side came out to speak to the men and women who were lounging about from eleven in the morning till four in the afternoon; nor did one of the pa.s.sengers except myself knock at the door or enter the cabin, or exchange a word with those who lived there.

I spoke to the master of the house, whom I met outside, and he at once asked me to come in and sit down. I found his father there and his mother, his wife, his brother, and two young children. The wife, who was cooking, was a very pretty, pale young woman, who, however, could have circulated round her stove more conveniently had her crinoline been of less dimensions. She bade me welcome very prettily, and went on with her cooking, talking the while, as though she were in the habit of entertaining guests in that way daily. The old woman sat in a corner knitting--as old women always do. The old man lounged with a grandchild on his knee, and the master of the house threw himself on the floor while the other child crawled over him. There was no stiffness or uneasiness in their manners, nor was there anything approaching to that republican roughness which so often operates upon a poor, well-intending Englishman like a slap on the cheek. I sat there for about an hour, and when I had discussed with them English politics and the bearing of English politics upon the American war, they told me of their own affairs. Food was very plenty, but life was very hard. Take the year through, each man could not earn above half a dollar a day by cutting wood. This, however, they owned, did not take up all their time. Working on favourable wood on favourable days they could each earn two dollars a day; but these favourable circ.u.mstances did not come together very often. They did not deal with the boats themselves, and the profits were eaten up by the middleman. He, the middleman, had a good thing of it, because he could cheat the captains of the boats in the measurement of the wood. The chopper was obliged to supply a genuine cord of logs,--true measure. But the man who took it off in the barge to the steamer could so pack it that fifteen true cords would make twenty-two false cords. "It cuts up into a fine trade, you see, sir," said the young man, as he stroked back the little girl's hair from her forehead.

"But the captains of course must find it out," said I. This he acknowledged, but argued that the captains on this account insisted on buying the wood so much cheaper, and that the loss all came upon the chopper. I tried to teach him that the remedy lay in his own hands, and the three men listened to me quite patiently while I explained to them how they should carry on their own trade. But the young father had the last word. "I guess we don't get above the fifty cents a day any way." He knew at least where the shoe pinched him.

He was a handsome, manly, n.o.ble-looking fellow, tall and thin, with black hair and bright eyes. But he had the hollow look about his jaws, and so had his wife, and so had his brother. They all owned to fever and ague. They had a touch of it most years, and sometimes pretty sharply. "It was a coa.r.s.e place to live in," the old woman said, "but there was no one to meddle with them, and she guessed that it suited." They had books and newspapers, tidy delf, and clean gla.s.s upon their shelves, and undoubtedly provisions in plenty. Whether fever and ague yearly, and cords of wood stretched from fifteen to twenty-two are more than a set-off for these good things, I will leave every one to decide according to his own taste.

In another cabin I found women and children only, and one of the children was in the last stage of illness. But nevertheless the woman of the house seemed glad to see me, and talked cheerfully as long as I would remain. She inquired what had happened to the vessel, but it had never occurred to her to go out and see. Her cabin was neat and well furnished, and there also I saw newspapers and Harper's everlasting magazine. She said it was a coa.r.s.e, desolate place for living, but that she could raise almost anything in her garden.

I could not then understand, nor can I now understand, why none of the numerous pa.s.sengers out of the boat should have entered those cabins except myself, and why the inmates of the cabins should not have come out to speak to any one. Had they been surly, morose people, made silent by the specialties of their life, it would have been explicable; but they were delighted to talk and to listen. The fact, I take it, is, that the people are all harsh to each other.

They do not care to go out of their way to speak to any one unless something is to be gained. They say that two Englishmen meeting in the desert would not speak unless they were introduced. The further I travel, the less true do I find this of Englishmen, and the more true of other people.

CHAPTER XI.

CERES AMERICANA.

We stopped at the Julien House, Dubuque. Dubuque is a city in Iowa on the western sh.o.r.e of the Mississippi, and as the names both of the town and of the hotel sounded French in my ears, I asked for an explanation. I was then told that Julien Dubuque, a Canadian Frenchman, had been buried on one of the bluffs of the river within the precincts of the present town, that he had been the first white settler in Iowa, and had been the only man who had ever prevailed upon the Indians to work. Among them he had become a great "Medicine," and seems for a while to have had absolute power over them. He died I think in 1800, and was buried on one of the hills over the river. "He was a bold bad man," my informant told me, "and committed every sin under heaven. But he made the Indians work."

Lead mines are the glory of Dubuque, and very large sums of money have been made from them. I was taken out to see one of them, and to go down it; but we found, not altogether to my sorrow, that the works had been stopped on account of the water. No effort has been made in any of these mines to subdue the water, nor has steam been applied to the working of them. The lodes have been so rich with lead that the speculators have been content to take out the metal that was easily reached, and to go off in search of fresh ground when disturbed by water. "And are wages here paid pretty punctually?" I asked. "Well; a man has to be smart, you know." And then my friend went on to acknowledge that it would be better for the country if smartness were not so essential.

Iowa has a population of 674,000 souls, and in October 1861 had already mustered eighteen regiments of 1000 men each. Such a population would give probably 170,000 men capable of bearing arms, and therefore the number of soldiers sent had already amounted to more than a decimation of the available strength of the State. When we were at Dubuque nothing was talked of but the army. It seemed that mines, coal-pits, and corn-fields, were all of no account in comparison with the war. How many regiments could be squeezed out of the State, was the one question which filled all minds; and the general desire was that such regiments should be sent to the Western army, to swell the triumph which was still expected for General Fremont, and to a.s.sist in sweeping slavery out into the Gulf of Mexico. The patriotism of the West has been quite as keen as that of the North, and has produced results as memorable; but it has sprung from a different source, and been conducted and animated by a different sentiment. National greatness and support of the law have been the ideas of the North; national greatness and abolition of slavery have been those of the West. How they are to agree as to terms when between them they have crushed the South,--that is the difficulty.

At Dubuque in Iowa, I ate the best apple that I ever encountered.

I make that statement with the purpose of doing justice to the Americans on a matter which is to them one of considerable importance. Americans as a rule do not believe in English apples.

They declare that there are none, and receive accounts of Devonshire cyder with manifest incredulity. "But at any rate there are no apples in England equal to ours." That is an a.s.sertion to which an Englishman is called upon to give an absolute a.s.sent; and I hereby give it. Apples so excellent as some which were given to us at Dubuque, I have never eaten in England. There is a great jealousy respecting all the fruits of the earth. "Your peaches are fine to look at," was said to me, "but they have no flavour." This was the a.s.sertion of a lady, and I made no answer. My idea had been that American peaches had no flavour; that French peaches had none; that those of Italy had none; that little as there might be of which England could boast with truth, she might at any rate boast of her peaches without fear of contradiction. Indeed my idea had been that good peaches were to be got in England only. I am beginning to doubt whether my belief on the matter has not been the product of insular ignorance, and idolatrous self-worship. It may be that a peach should be a combination of an apple and a turnip. "My great objection to your country, sir," said another, "is that you have got no vegetables." Had he told me that we had got no seaboard, or no coals, he would not have surprised me more. No vegetables in England! I could not restrain myself altogether, and replied by a confession "that we 'raised' no squash." Squash is the pulp of the pumpkin, and is much used in the States, both as a vegetable and for pies.

No vegetables in England! Did my surprise arise from the insular ignorance and idolatrous self-worship of a Britisher, or was my American friend labouring under a delusion? Is Covent Garden well supplied with vegetables, or is it not? Do we cultivate our kitchen gardens with success, or am I under a delusion on that subject? Do I dream, or is it true that out of my own little patches at home I have enough for all domestic purposes of peas, beans, broccoli, cauliflower, celery, beet-root, onions, carrots, parsnips, turnips, seakale, asparagus, French beans, artichokes, vegetable marrow, cuc.u.mbers, tomatoes, endive, lettuce, as well as herbs of many kinds, cabbages throughout the year, and potatoes? No vegetables! Had the gentleman told me that England did not suit him because we had nothing but vegetables, I should have been less surprised.

From Dubuque, on the western sh.o.r.e of the river, we pa.s.sed over to Dunleath in Illinois, and went on from thence by railway to Dixon.

I was induced to visit this not very flourishing town by a desire to see the rolling prairie of Illinois, and to learn by eyesight something of the crops of corn or Indian maize which are produced upon the land. Had that gentleman told me that we knew nothing of producing corn in England he would have been nearer the mark; for of corn in the profusion in which it is grown here we do not know much. Better land than the prairies of Illinois for cereal crops the world's surface probably cannot show. And here there has been no necessity for the long previous labour of banishing the forest.

Enormous prairies stretch across the State, into which the plough can be put at once. The earth is rich with the vegetation of thousands of years, and the farmer's return is given to him without delay. The land bursts with its own produce, and the plenty is such that it creates wasteful carelessness in the gathering of the crop. It is not worth a man's while to handle less than large quant.i.ties. Up in Minnesota I had been grieved by the loose manner in which wheat was treated. I have seen bags of it upset, and left upon the ground.

The labour of collecting it was more than it was worth. There wheat is the chief crop, and as the lands become cleared and cultivation spreads itself, the amount coming down the Mississippi will be increased almost to infinity. The price of wheat in Europe will soon depend, not upon the value of the wheat in the country which grows it, but on the power and cheapness of the modes which may exist for transporting it. I have not been able to obtain the exact prices with reference to the carriage of wheat from St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota, to Liverpool, but I have done so as regards Indian corn from the State of Illinois. The following statement will show what proportion the value of the article at the place of its growth bears to the cost of the carriage; and it shows also how enormous an effect on the price of corn in England would follow any serious decrease in the cost of carriage.

A bushel of Indian corn at Bloomington in Illinois cost in October, 1861 10 cents.

Freight to Chicago 10 "

Storeage 2 "

Freight from Chicago to Buffalo 22 "

Elevating, and ca.n.a.l freight to New York 19 "

Transfer in New York and insurance 3 "

Ocean freight 23 "

-- Cost of a bushel of Indian corn at Liverpool 89 cents.

Thus corn which in Liverpool costs 3_s._ 10_d._, has been sold by the farmer who produced it for 5_d._! It is probable that no great reduction can be expected in the cost of ocean transit; but it will be seen by the above figures that out of the Liverpool price of 3_s._ 10_d._ or 89 cents, considerably more than half is paid for carriage across the United States. All or nearly all this transit is by water, and there can, I think, be no doubt but that a few years will see it reduced by fifty per cent. In October last the Mississippi was closed, the railways had not rolling stock sufficient for their work, the crops of the two last years had been excessive, and there existed the necessity of sending out the corn before the internal navigation had been closed by frost. The parties who had the transit in their hands put their heads together and were able to demand any prices that they pleased. It will be seen that the cost of carrying a bushel of corn from Chicago to Buffalo, by the lakes, was within one cent of the cost of bringing it from New York to Liverpool. These temporary causes for high prices of transit will cease, a more perfect system of compet.i.tion between the railways and the water transit will be organized, and the result must necessarily be both an increase of price to the producer and a decrease of price to the consumer. It certainly seems that the produce of cereal crops in the valleys of the Mississippi and its tributaries increases at a faster rate than population increases. Wheat and corn are sown by the thousand acres in a piece. I heard of one farmer who had 10,000 acres of corn.

Thirty years ago grain and flour were sent westward out of the State of New York to supply the wants of those who had emigrated into the prairies, and now we find that it will be the destiny of those prairies to feed the universe. Chicago is the main point of exportation north-westward from Illinois, and at the present time sends out from its granaries more cereal produce than any other town in the world. The bulk of this pa.s.ses, in the shape of grain or flour, from Chicago to Buffalo, which latter place is as it were a gateway leading from the lakes or big waters to the ca.n.a.ls or small waters. I give below the amount of grain and flour in bushels received into Buffalo for transit in the month of October during four consecutive years.

October, 1858 4,429,055 bushels.

" 1859 5,523,448 "

" 1860 6,500,864 "

" 1861 12,483,797 "

In 1860, from the opening to the close of navigation, 30,837,632 bushels of grain and flour pa.s.sed through Buffalo. In 1861 the amount received up to the 31st of October was 51,969,142 bushels. As the navigation would be closed during the month of November, the above figures may be taken as representing not quite the whole amount transported for the year. It may be presumed the 52,000,000 of bushels, as quoted above, will swell itself to 60,000,000. I confess that to my own mind statistical amounts do not bring home any enduring idea. Fifty million bushels of corn and flour simply seems to mean a great deal. It is a powerful form of superlative, and soon vanishes away, as do other superlatives in this age of strong words.

I was at Chicago and at Buffalo in October 1861. I went down to the granaries, and climbed up into the elevators. I saw the wheat running in rivers from one vessel into another, and from the railroad vans up into the huge bins on the top stores of the warehouses;--for these rivers of food run up hill as easily as they do down. I saw the corn measured by the forty bushel measure with as much ease as we measure an ounce of cheese, and with greater rapidity. I ascertained that the work went on, week day and Sunday, day and night incessantly; rivers of wheat and rivers of maize ever running. I saw the men bathed in corn as they distributed it in its flow. I saw bins by the score laden with wheat, in each of which bins there was s.p.a.ce for a comfortable residence. I breathed the flour, and drank the flour, and felt myself to be enveloped in a world of breadstuff. And then I believed, understood, and brought it home to myself as a fact, that here in the corn lands of Michigan, and amidst the bluffs of Wisconsin, and on the high table plains of Minnesota, and the prairies of Illinois, had G.o.d prepared the food for the increasing millions of the Eastern world, as also for the coming millions of the Western.

I do not find many minds const.i.tuted like my own, and therefore I venture to publish the above figures. I believe them to be true in the main, and they will show, if credited, that the increase during the last four years has gone on with more than fabulous rapidity. For myself I own that those figures would have done nothing unless I had visited the spot myself. A man cannot, 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 sh.o.r.es 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 farmers' 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 pa.s.sage 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. The States of Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana have for some time past received much of their supplies from the north-western lands, and the cutting off of this current of consumption has tended to swell the amount of grain which has been forced into the narrow channel of Buffalo. There has been no southern exit allowed, and the southern appet.i.te has been deprived of its food. But taking this item for all that it is worth,--or taking it, as it generally will be taken, for much more than it can be worth,--the result left will be materially the same. The grand markets to which the western States look and have looked are those of New England, New York, and Europe. Already corn and wheat are not the common crops of New England. Boston, and Hartford, and Lowell are fed from the great western States. The State of New York, which, thirty years ago, was famous chiefly for its cereal produce, is now fed from these States. New York city would be starved if it depended on its own State; and it will soon be as true that England would be starved if it depended on itself. It was but the other day that we were talking of free trade in corn as a thing desirable, but as yet doubtful;--but the other day that Lord Derby who may be Prime Minister to-morrow, and Mr. Disraeli who may be Chancellor of the Exchequer to-morrow, were stoutly of opinion that the corn laws might be and should be maintained;--but the other day that the same opinion was held with confidence by Sir Robert Peel, who, however, when the day for the change came, was not ashamed to become the instrument used by the people for their repeal. Events in these days march so quickly that they leave men behind, and our dear old Protectionists at home will have grown sleek upon American flour before they have realized the fact that they are no longer fed from their own furrows.

I have given figures merely as regards the trade of Buffalo; but it must not be presumed that Buffalo is the only outlet from the great corn lands of Northern America. In the first place no grain of the produce of Canada finds its way to Buffalo. Its exit is by the St.

Lawrence, or by the Grand Trunk Railway, as I have stated when speaking of Canada. And then there is the pa.s.sage for large vessels from the Upper Lakes, Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, and Lake Erie, through the Welland Ca.n.a.l, into Lake Ontario, and out by the St.

Lawrence. There is also the direct communication from Lake Erie, by the New York and Erie railway to New York. I have more especially alluded to the trade of Buffalo, because I have been enabled to obtain a reliable return of the quant.i.ty of grain and flour which pa.s.ses through that town, and because Buffalo and Chicago are the two spots which are becoming most famous in the cereal history of the western States.

Everybody has a map of North America. A reference to such a map will show the peculiar position of Chicago. It is at the south or head of Lake Michigan, and to it converge railways from Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana. At Chicago is found the nearest water carriage which can be obtained for the produce of a large portion of these States. From Chicago there is direct water conveyance round through the lakes to Buffalo at the foot of Lake Erie. At Milwaukee, higher up on the lake, certain lines of railway come in, joining the lake to the Upper Mississippi, and to the wheat-lands of Minnesota. Thence the pa.s.sage is round by Detroit which is the port for the produce of the greatest part of Michigan, and still it all goes on towards Buffalo. Then on Lake Erie there are the ports of Toledo, Cleveland, and Erie. At the bottom of Lake Erie, there is this city of corn, at which the grain and flour are transhipped into the ca.n.a.l boats and into the railway cars for New York; and there is also the Welland Ca.n.a.l, through which large vessels pa.s.s from the upper lakes, without transhipment of their cargo.

I have said above that corn--meaning maize or Indian corn--was to be bought at Bloomington in Illinois for 10 cents or fivepence a bushel.

I found this also to be the case at Dixon--and also that corn of inferior quality might be bought for fourpence; but I found also that it was not worth the farmers' while to sh.e.l.l it and sell it at such prices. I was a.s.sured that farmers were burning their Indian corn in some places, finding it more available to them as fuel, than it was for the market. The labour of detaching a bushel of corn from the hulls or cobs is considerable, as is also the task of carrying it to market. I have known potatoes in Ireland so cheap that they would not pay for digging and carrying away for purposes of sale. There was then a glut of potatoes in Ireland; and in the same way there was in the autumn of 1861 a glut of corn in the western States. The best qualities would fetch a price, though still a low price; but corn that was not of the best quality was all but worthless. It did for fuel, and was burnt. The fact was that the produce had re-created itself quicker than mankind had multiplied. The ingenuity of man had not worked quick enough for its disposal. The earth had given forth her increase so abundantly that the lap of created humanity could not stretch itself to hold it. At Dixon in 1861 corn cost fourpence a bushel. In Ireland in 1848, it was sold for a penny a pound, a pound being accounted sufficient to sustain life for a day,--and we all felt that at that price food was brought into the country cheaper than it had ever been brought before.

Dixon is not a town of much apparent prosperity. It is one of those places at which great beginnings have been made, but as to which the deities presiding over new towns have not been propitious. Much of it has been burnt down, and more of it has never been built up. It had a straggling, ill-conditioned, uncommercial aspect, very different from the look of Detroit, Milwaukee, or St. Paul. There was, however, a great hotel there, as usual, and a grand bridge over the Rock River, a tributary of the Mississippi which runs by or through the town. I found that life might be maintained on very cheap terms at Dixon. To me as a pa.s.sing traveller the charges at the hotel were, I take it, the same as elsewhere. But I learned from an inmate there that he with his wife and horse were fed and cared for and attended for two dollars or 8_s._ 4_d._ a day. This included a private sitting-room, coals, light, and all the wants of life--as my informant told me--except tobacco and whiskey. Feeding at such a house means a succession of promiscuous hot meals as often as the digestion of the patient can face them. Now I do not know any locality where a man can keep himself and his wife, with all material comforts, and the luxury of a horse and carriage, on cheaper terms than that. Whether or no it might be worth a man's while to live at all at such a place as Dixon is altogether another question.

We went there because it is surrounded by the prairie, and out into the prairie we had ourselves driven. We found some difficulty in getting away from the corn, though we had selected this spot as one at which the open rolling prairie was specially attainable. As long as I could see a corn-field or a tree I was not satisfied. Nor indeed was I satisfied at last. To have been thoroughly on the prairie and in the prairie I should have been a day's journey from tilled land.

But I doubt whether that could now be done in the State of Illinois.

I got out into various patches and brought away specimens of corn;--ears bearing sixteen rows of grain, with forty grains in each row; each ear bearing a meal for a hungry man.