le), move, as a rule, to points south of a due west
course; thus leaving the more northern latitudes to such only as have an
eye for them on account of their varied attractions, and who are quite
willing to exchange a few dollars of extra income for a few pounds of
extra flesh, and who count health as first-rate capital stock and the
full equivalent of any other kind which a settler can possess.

Notwithstanding this general tendency of things, we believe the net
increase in both population and wealth, for the last decade, to be
relatively as great in the State of Minnesota as in that of any other
State in the Union; or, at least, far above the average in the
aggregation of those things which make up their power and importance.

It would be a grave error, however, if the mind of the reader was left
with the impression that this State was lacking in the fertility of her
soil, and in those other elements so essential to the foundation, true
prosperity, and greatness, such as can only come from a well-ordered
system of agriculture and from prolific fields. Far from this,--on the
contrary, she is widely known at home and abroad as presenting as many
inducements on the score of husbandry alone as any of the most highly
favored of States. There doubtless is a percentage of advantage in
richness of soil; but this is more than counterbalanced by the living
springs and flowing streams that everywhere dot and cross her surface.
Ask the farmer on the distant plains what consideration he would give
for pure and abundant water as against soil. Her grasses are more tender
and sweeter, and her beef better than is that of those localities which
rival her in fertility. Go walk through the waving fields of golden
grain in summer-time, spread almost endlessly up and down her beautiful
valleys, and far out over the rolling prairies, and then answer if eye
ever beheld better, or more of it, in the same space, anywhere this side
of the Sierras.

Wheat is the great staple product of the West, and is the chief article
of export. It is this, more than all things else, which puts the
thousands of railway trains in motion, and spreads the white wings of
commerce on all the lakes and oceans. This important grain is, in the
valley of the Mississippi, nowhere so much at home as in this State. The
superior quality of the berry, and the abundant and steady yield of her
acres, long since settled the question of her rank as a grain-producing
State. Th