NEW AND EXTENSIVE WHEATFIELDS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume IV, Issue 1223, 18 March 1880, Page 2

NEW AND EXTENSIVE WHEATFIELDS.

By " Agricola" in the Auckland Weekly* .News.' .> Some months ago there appeared in the' Nineteenth Centurya lengthya,iid interesting account of the wheat-fields <jf . Dakota* aud Minnesota, in, the north-western pact of America, that during the last t\fo orthree years have been opened up. Thisi wonderful and fertile region:—aapidly being settled by thousands of indußtmioias. and enterprising farmers—has bean, oalledl the " corn granary of the would'." So> rich is the virgin soil that forty to 'sixtybushels of wheat, and seventy of oats* have been obtained to the acre. Thei productive power and rich character of tha soil seems to be almost inexhaustible, wheat having; been grown by some of the pioneer settlers season .after season from the same land for a number, of. years. Indeed, so rich is, the land that if tho crops, begin to get light, by ploughing alittle deeper, new .and fruitful soil isbrought into cultivation, the crops grown thereon beiftg up to the aVerage previously obtained.

' •WHAT THE " TIMES" SATS. " Of such importance are these wheatfields that the Times has had, a reporter travelling through the country, who.visitecL well-nigh the whole ground. The editor says that "starting from the AtlanticStates, he has worked westward along thecourse which the settlers have themselvesfollowed. He has left behind him the small New England dairy farms,.and the rich orchards and vegetable gardens of Long Island and New York. From plpt® of ten acres or less, in which: every foot off ground is looked aftec and stirred and! turned carefully to afiftoujit, he has passedi to regions where single farms are to ba> found as large a&qo English county, andi where there is rooi&ljeft on every side, for even larger farms as soon as it becomes; worth while to appropriate the virginground. It is a land of wonders of which, our correspondent writes. The scale of things is gigantic, and yet perfect order prevails every where, and details are as well', looked after as if profits and losses weret counted on the old world standards of; value. Corn and cattle are- tihe staple t produce, and are likely to continue so for/ some time yet. At some future-day thai stores of mineral wealth which the country.contains will be opened out. Mines willl be sunk, and manufactories establishedl under conditions in every way favorableto them. But in the extreme in Dakota and in Minnesota, the age of; manufacture, has not yet come. The' advancing wave of civilisation has swept Upi to these regions, but it has not yet swept over them. The buffalo and the elk have retreated before it, but the primaaval forest is still standing, and millions of acres of prairie land are still waiting for the first ploughshare to be driven into them."

RAILWAYS ESTABLISHED. Any quantity of corn and any number of cattle could have been produced, but no market was found until railways were< started. And these have been pushed along with wonderful rapidity. " The far west has been connected with the east by a network of railways, and has been thus, for all practical purposes, brought close to the most distant markets of the world. In this region of enterprise the railways are the most enterprising. The farmers are no laggards. They have been pushing on at so rapid a pace that they have kept well ahead of weeds and wire-worm. Even the rats and mice have not yet come up with them. They brave the cold of winter, which is too severe for others of their accustomed persecutors. But therailway people have been moving on more* rapidly still, and have been beckoning tlio rest to follow them. As soon as they have secured a sufficient grant of land from the* State, they run a line through it, so as to make it easy for the migratory folk a little; further east to settle down upon it or near to it, and thus to give it a market value, or to improve what it has got already.' 1

SUPPLY OF WHEAT ILLIMITABLE. It is hardly possible to form a conception of the character, extent, and capacity of these wheat-fields of the far northwestern States. It would.appear that the Red River valley alone would yield sufficient wheat for the consumption of the whole of the United Kingdom. But there are to the north additional valleys, besides the valleys of the Missouri, the Mississippi, and their tributaries. So that the country that will produce wheat is so vast in extent, and the, choice of lai)d is so unlimited, that for years to come the supply can be kept up, however large the demand may chance to be. The Times says : " That the wheat can be produced we are in no doubt whatever. It seems, too, that the process might go on, not only without check, but even with increasing ease, for some time yet to come. We are driven to believe that Western America could feed us from her superfluous wealth so easily that she would scarcely miss what she sent over in full satisfaction of pur demand; She has quite lately got the machinery of transport into complete working order, and she has already produced an effect on English prices more satisfactory to the English consumer than to the English farmer." The consumer indeed may fairly anticipate that, in reach of such a country, the loaf will remain at a reasonable price for probably years to come. " But will the . enormous yield of corn last, and will it be given a dozen years hence on the same easy terms as it is given now 1" Our correspondent, says the Times, tells us of 20 successive wheat crops grown on the same soil with no manure added, and with no interval of