here could
scarcely be a more significant index of advancing wealth, population, and
industry.

The Land of Corn and Cotton.

The Southwest at this moment is enjoying a prosperity unexampled in its
annals. Last year's yield of corn, wheat, and cotton proved better than
was expected early in the season, the corn crop being particularly good.
Land values have doubled in much of this region during the past five
years; though prices are still so much below those prevailing in Missouri,
Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana that the inrush from those
States continues to be large.

Traveling salesmen report better business in Oklahoma, Texas, and their
neighbors than in any other part of the West. More visitors came to the
St. Louis Exposition from the Southwestern States and Territories than
from any other part of the country, in proportion to population--which was
a good test of that region's financial condition.

Before the Civil War, when the South was proclaiming cotton to be king,
cotton's realm was in the Atlantic seaboard States. But Texas now produces
nearly a third of the country's entire crop. Her recent average has been
about three million bales; last year the yield was a little less than
that. The Indian Territory and Oklahoma are beginning to figure
prominently in cotton production. Cotton accounts for much of the
prosperity of the Southwest. More and more the farmers of that region are
raising other crops for a living, and using the proceeds of their
cotton-fields as a surplus fund.

What Statehood Will Mean.

Statehood, of course, will give a new impetus to the growth of the
Territories of the Southwest, attracting settlers and capital. It is
practically certain that Oklahoma and the Indian Territory are shortly to
become a State under the name of Oklahoma. The political future of New
Mexico and Arizona is more problematical, being a subject of controversy
at Washington as this is written. It is variously proposed to admit each
Territory separately, to admit New Mexico while excluding her sister
Territory, or to unite them into a single State, probably under the title
of Arizona. The question will have been settled before this reaches the
reader, unless its settlement is postponed to a later session of Congress.

The State of Oklahoma will start with a population of fully a million and
a half--about equal to that of California, and considerably above that of
such commonwealths as Louisiana,