CHAPTER VIII.

City of Buffalo; cause of its rapid rise.-Influence of the growth of the Western States on the agriculture of western New York and Upper Canada.-Passage from Buffalo to Chicago in Illinois and Millwaukie in Wisconsin.-Home ideas as to these new States.Cheap wheat does not imply rich land.-Character of the soils in Michigan. Average produce of this State, and of its several counties. -Exaggerated statements of the producing and exporting powers of these new States.-Can the export from these new States continue ? -Thin sowing of buckwheat.-Quantity of seed-corn per acre sown for the different kinds of grain in the several States of the Union.— Copper mines of Lake Superior.-Immense masses of native copper. -Extent and richness of the deposits.-How they occur.-Ancient Indian workings.-Amusing differences of opinion as to the mode in which the copper has been deposited.-State of Wisconsin.-Popular feeling in regard to the several new States.-Quantity of public land sold in each in 1847.-Short Michigan fever in 1836.-Minnesota, the New England of the West.-Influence of these new States on the future traffic of the St Lawrence. - Wonders of the hog crop of Ohio. Comparative productiveness of the States of Ohio and New York.-Indian corn the staple of Ohio.-Outlet for this crop in raising pork.-Hogs killed in the several western States.-How they are fed.-"Packing business" at Cincinnati.-How all the parts of the animals are disposed of.-Lard oil exported largely to France to adulterate olive oil.-Amount of the various marketable products of this business at Cincinnati. Connection of rural economy and manufactures.

BUFFALO, now a city of upwards of 40,000 inhabitants, contained in 1830 only 8,653, and in 1813 was a small village, which in that year was destroyed by fire. rise has been rapid, and its future progress is likely to be

Its

great; but both are easily intelligible—unavoidable, in

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PROGRESS AND TRAFFIC OF BUFFALO.

fact, in the nature of things. Its position at the termination of the Erie Canal, the monopoly of the carrying trade of the lakes, and the rapid peopling of the Far West-these are the sources of its past progress, and must be the causes of a great increase still to its size, wealth, and importance. It bears, in fact, at one end of the inland water communication of the State, the same relation to the traffic of the wide north-western country as New York at the other end bears to the commerce with Europe.

It is interesting to note the direct and immediate effect which the peopling of a new country has, not only on the rise and prosperity of particular localities, but upon the general wealth, economical value, and forms of husbandry followed in countries which adjoin it.

Thus, in 1838, wheaten flour was shipped at Buffalo for the west; and the wheat-region of New York, with that of Upper Canada, were the main sources of its supply. Now, after only twelve years, an enormous supply of wheat and flour is brought from the west, along Lake Erie, and shipped upon the Erie Canal for the east, at Buffalo and the adjoining port of Blackrock. Thus, of wheat and flour so shipped, independent of what might be arrested by the way, at Rochester and elsewhere, there arrived at the Hudson River, in—

The value of these articles at Buffalo, in each of these last two years, averaging about 10,000,000 of dollars.

The effect of these large arrivals from the Western States-which were unnaturally stimulated during the years of European famine, as the large number opposite the year 1847 indicates-has been to render wheat less valuable in western New York, to make the wheat

HOME OPINIONS OF THESE NEW STATES.

223

culture less remunerative, and to turn the attention of the New York farmers more to grazing and dairy husbandry, fruit culture, and other branches of rural economy, in which they think the north-west will be unable so directly to compete with them.

The nearest of the new North-western States to Buffalo is Michigan, which commences at the other end of Lake Erie. On the arrival of the trains from Albany, steamers, during the summer months, are in waiting to convey emigrants up the lake without delay. At the time of my visit, 500 emigrants a-day were said to leave the Hudson River, and make their way by rail to Buffalo. Along the lake to Detroit, in Michiganabout 250 miles-is, by the quicker boats, 17 hours; from Detroit across the south end of Michigan, by railway, to New Buffalo, 11 hours; and again, by steamboat, across the foot of Lake Michigan, to Chicago in Illinois, is 4 hours; and to Millwaukie, in Wisconsin, about 6 hours more;-in all, about 32 hours to Chicago, (518 miles,) and 42 to Millwaukie.

We are accustomed to attach the idea of great natural productiveness, and of boundless tracts of rich land, to those new States from which come the large supplies of wheat that are annually poured into the port of Buffalo, and which vex the New York State and New England farmers, by their effect upon the prices of the staple article of vegetable food. But a closer examination of these counties undeceives us as to both these points. The power of exporting large quantities of wheat implies neither great natural productiveness, nor permanently rich land, in a district which, from a state of nature, is beginning to be subjected to arable culture.

In Michigan, for example, the geological structure shows that a very large portion of the State is occupied by rocks which belong to the coal measures, and, like the similar rocks in New Brunswick, yield poor soils.

224

SOILS IN MICHIGAN.

Then the central basin, in which the coal is found, is encircled by a broad zone of those older rocks of which I have spoken under the name of the Portage and Chemung groups, as forming the upland and interior portions of western New York. Among these, thick sandstone rocks occur, which give sandy and stony soils, and dark-coloured shaly rocks, poor in lime, which yield soils on which an inferior forest vegetation naturally springs up, and which, under the influence of culture, yield poorly remunerating returns.

In Michigan generally, therefore, the soils ought to be poor the main exceptions being at its northern extremity, towards the straits of Michilimackinac, which connects Lake Huron with Lake Michigan, and on its south-eastern extremity, where it adjoins the river and lake of St Clair, and the rich lands of the southwestern limit of Upper Canada--and such, I believe, is practically found to be the case. The Michigan Central Railroad passes over much poor sandy country. And although extensive tracts of thin poor soil, sparsely studded with open forests of stunted oak, appear to invite the settler by the ease with which they can be cleared, and the first crops put in, yet a few years' trial warns him, at the first favourable opportunity, to shift his location,-sell it, if he can, to a new-comer-and to seek out for a permanent resting-place in a more naturally favoured district.

And yet, such a country as I have described-like the interior uplands of western New York-will give excellent first crops, even of wheat, and will supply, to those who skim the first cream off the country, a large surplus of this grain to send to market.

The correctness of these remarks is proved by a comparison of the actual average produce of the land in this new State of Michigan, with the quantity of wheat and flour it has of late years been able to export. Thus

COUNTY AVERAGES IN MICHIGAN.

225

-according to the Statistical Returns for 1848, published by order of the State legislature in 1849, and for a copy of which I have to express my obligations to the Secretary of the State Agricultural Society, Mr Holmes. -it appears that, in 1848, the number of

Acres sown to wheat, was

Of bushels produced, was

And the average, per imperial acre,

465,900 4,739,300

10 bushels;

or less than 9 bushels, if seed-corn be deducted. And that this average is not derived from the combinations of extreme numbers, given by very poor and very rich land, appears from the fact, that, of the twenty-nine counties of which the separate averages are deducible from the published returns—

These last 2 counties being Macomb and St Clair, situated on the fertile south-east portion of the State, to which I have already referred.

And yet the quantity of wheat and flour exported from this State is comparatively large-though I have access to no trustworthy data from which the absolute quantity can be estimated.* Were we to allow to each

* I may give, as an illustration of the very loose, and often exaggerated statements which are put forth regarding these new States, what has been published by authority in regard to Michigan. In the Patent Office Report for 1847, p. 547, a table is given, representing the estimated population, produce in wheat, home consumption of this grain, and surplus for export in each State of the Union in that year. In this table the population of Michigan is taken Р

VOL. I.