The first record of
the net tons of freight passing the canal was opened in 1881, which
showed an aggregate of 1,567,741 net tons of all kinds of freight. In
1898 it had grown to the enormous sum of 21,234,664 tons. These figures,
like distances in astronomical calculations, require a special mental
effort to fully comprehend them. An incident occurred in September,
1899, in connection with this canal traffic, that assists in
understanding its immense proportions. By an accident to a steamer, the
channel of the river was blocked for a short time, until she could be
removed, during which time a procession of waiting steamers was formed
forty miles in length.

I have been unable to obtain any reliable figures with which to present
a contrast between the commerce of this canal and that of the Suez,
connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea, but it is generally
estimated that the St. Mary's largely exceeds the Suez, although the
commerce of the world with the Orient and Australia largely passes
through the latter.

AGRICULTURE.

In the early days of Minnesota its agricultural population was largely
centered in the southeastern portion of the state. The soil was
exceptionally fertile, and produced wheat in unusual abundance. The
Western farmer of early days was a careless cultivator, thinking more of
the immediate results than permanent preservation of his land. Even if
he was of the conservative old New England stock, the generous soil of
the West, the freedom from social restraint, and the lessened labors of
the farm, led him into more happy-go-lucky methods than he had been
accustomed to in the East. It was Mark Twain who once said that if you
plant a New England deacon in Texas, you will find him in about a year
with a game chicken under his arm, riding a mule on Sunday to a
cock-fight. When farms were opened in the southeastern counties of
Minnesota it was not an unusual thing to be rewarded with a crop of from
thirty to forty bushels of wheat to the acre. The process of
cultivation was simple, and required scarcely any capital, so it was
natural that the first comers should confine their efforts to the one
product of wheat. They did so, regardless of the fact that the best soil
will become exhausted unless reenforced. They became accustomed to think
that land could always be had for the taking, and in twenty or
twenty-five years, the goose that laid the golden eggs died, and six or
eight bushels was all