jected, will place all the commercial points in connection with the great marts of the world.

As an agricultural State Mississippi has great advantages, the soil being very fertile and the climate remarkably equable. It produces the grains, wheat, rye, oats, Indian corn, barley, buckwheat, with Irish and sweet potatoes, peas and beans, hemp, sugar, and tobacco, while the fruits of temperate climates grow in perfection; also, the fig and orange in some parts.

Cotton is the great crop of the State, the product of that staple comparing favorably with that of any other State of the Union.

The foreign trade of Mississippi is indirect, being almost entirely through New Orleans and Mobile, and the exports consisting mainly of cotton and lumber, but the coasting and river trade is great, employing a large tonnage.

This State presents to immigrants, in a great degree, the inducements usually found in a new country, combined with the advantages of longestablished civilization, lands being cheap, all modern improvements already inaugurated, and the United States having still undisposed of 4,648,453.27 acres of public lands, already surveyed, and offered as homesteads to actual settlers at a charge merely nominal. Among these lands are some of the most fertile in the State, and capable of producing all the most valuable staples.

LOUISIANA

has an extensive front on the' Gulf of Mexico of about 300 miles, with an irregular coast line, including bays and other indentions, of 1,256 miles. It is bounded by Mississippi on the east, Texas on the west, Arkansas on the north, and the Gulf of Mexico on the south, lying between latitude 28° 50' and 33° north, and longitude 88° 40' and 94° 10' west; extreme length, east and west, 290 miles; extreme width, north and south, 200 miles; area, 41,255 square miles, or 26,403,200

acres.

This State is of a low surface, generally level, having some hilly ranges of little elevation in the western part, and many basins or depressions of the soil. The southern coast is composed mainly of sea marsh. The vast level of the prairies, covering about 4,000,000 acres, extends north of the marsh, and but slightly elevated above it, the highest elevation in any portion of the State being not more than 200 feet, while in the south about one-fourth part is not more than ten feet above the sea, and is annually inundated by the spring floods. In the north and west the country is somewhat broken and diversified with low hills. It is estimated that, of the entire surface of the State, about 8,200,000 acres consist of swamp and lands subject to overflow.

Louisiana has superior water facilities. The Mississippi is its boundary on the east for 450 miles. It then passes through the interior of the State for 350 miles to the sea. The Atchafalaya, which has for tributaries the Teche and Courtableau, with Bayous Plaquemine, Lafourche, and the Manchac, which receives the waters of the Amite, are all outlets of the Mississippi. Red River, the most important tributary of the Mississippi in the State, reaches the latter river after a course of 2,000 miles, and is navigable within the State for 500 miles. The Black River, which is its principal tributary, is formed by the union of the Tensas, Washita, and Catahoula or Little River, all considerable streams and navigable for steamboats. The Bayou du Bon Dieu is also a large river, which flows into the Red River. The Vermillion, Mermenteau,

and Calcasieu spread out into shallow lagoons on the low marshy strip of the State on the Gulf coast. The Sabine, a considerable stream, bounds the State on the west, dividing it from Texas from its mouth to the latitude of 32°, while it has the Pearl River on its eastern frontier, separating it for some distance from Mississippi. There are numerous bays and inlets on the coast, and lakes in the interior of the State, the extent of steam communication being estimated at 2,000 miles, available at all seasons.

Louisiana was first explored and occupied by the French, by whom it was ceded to Spain in 1763; the whole vast tract lying west of the Mississippi was then included under this name. In 1800 Louisiana was ceded to France, and, in 1803, by that power was transferred to the United States for $15,000,000. In 1804 the southern part of the country was set off as a Territory under the name of the Territory of Orleans, to which was afterward added a portion of territory lying between the Pearl River and Mississippi south of the thirty-first parallel, obtained from Spain in 1810, aud in 1812 was admitted into the Union under the name of Louisiana. In 1810 the population was 75,556; in 1860 it had increased to 708,002.

Included within the limits of this State is New Orleans, the emporium of the Mississippi Valley, the second city in America in the amount and value of its exports, the greatest cotton market in the world, and far beyond all other cities in the number of steamboats employed in its trade. It is situated on the left bank of the Mississippi River, about 100 miles from its mouth, the older portion of the city being built on the convex side of a bend of the river, from the shape of which it has been called the "Crescent City."

The population of New Orleans in 1803, when Louisiana was acquired by the United States, was about 8,000; in 1860 it was 168,823. It embraces many foreigners, principally French and Spanish, and the French and Spanish languages are extensively spoken. The city has numerous fine public buildings, large and elegant private residences, churches, schools, and institutions of benevolence. Its commercial prominence is due to its favorable position near the mouth of the great river of the continent, making it the principal point of shipment for the products of the vast regions, to which that river presents the most eligible means of transportation, and its importance must increase in proportion to the growth of those regions in population and productiveness. New Orleans is the commercial capital of the State, having a consolidated district land office.

Baton Rouge, about 130 miles above New Orleans, on the river, contains about 4,500 inhabitants. Alexandria, on the Red River; Algiers and Gretna, opposite New Orleans; Bayou Sara and St. Francisville, on the Bayou Sara, and Carrollton, 7 miles above New Orleans, are im'portant towns.

The State has railroads connecting New Orleans with the great lines reaching in all directions north and west, and other railroads are in progress.

Louisiana is well supplied with minerals-iron, lead, coal, lime, soda, copperas, gypsum, marl, and potters' earth existing in many places in the northern and western portions of the State, while copper and petroleum are said to have been recently found in several of the parishes.

This State has eminent advantages for the pursuit of agriculture, for which the character of the soil is very favorable. Along the "bottoms" of the rivers the land is exceedingly fertile, and a great proportion of what is now swampy might, at small expense, be reclaimed and rendered

highly productive. All parts of the State are traversed by numerous streams, the soil along which is very rich. The climate is favorable, being so far south that the temperature is rarely below the freezing point, while the heats of summer are rendered less severe by breezes from the Gulf. The valuable crops of the State are cotton and sugar, of the former of which the product in 1860 was 777,738 bales, or more than 11,000,000 pounds; and of the latter 221,726 hogsheads of 1,000 pounds each, and 13,439,772 gallons of molasses. Rice is also an important crop, and the quantity thereof produced in 1860 is stated at 6,331,257 pounds. The value of these three staples, at the prices ruling in 1860, is estimated at $48,000,000. Indian corn, sweet potatoes, wheat, rye, oats, barley, Irish potatoes, tobacco, hay, and, among fruits, the apple, peach, quince, plum, and fig are produced. The agriculture of the State promises an indefinite expansion, as the extensive unoccupied tracts of fertile land come into occupancy of the immigrant, and are brought under cultivation with all the improvements which a more compact settlement will bring.

For stock-raising the prairies in the central portion of the State, with their excellent pasturage, offer superior facilities.

The United States still retain undisposed of in this State 6,427,543.65 acres of public land, of which 3,431,236.65 acres have been surveyed, and are subject to entry by actual settlers under the homestead law.

STATES IN THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI EAST OF THAT RIVER.

OHIO.

This noble State, the oldest of the public domain, possesses a happy combination of advantages, including soil, climate, production, manufacturing capacity, commercial facilities, and geographical position, placing it in the first rank of American communities. To its wonderful resources for the accumulation of wealth, it adds all the charms of agreeable residence, affording scope for the grand development of a free civilization.

Ohio, the eastern portion of the old Northwestern Territory, which was ceded to the United States by the State of Virginia, which claimed the territorial sovereignty, first, by virtue of the original charter of King James, extending westward to the Pacific, and, secondly, by right of conquest, the British power having been subverted in this region by the celebrated expedition of Virginia troops under General George Rodgers Clarke. This State lies between the parallels 38° 24′ and 420 north, and the meridians 3° 32′ and 7° 40′ west from Washington. Its extreme length is 200 miles from north to south, and breadth 195 miles from east to west, giving an area of 39,964 square miles, or 25,576,960 acres. It has a navigable lake and river boundary of 630 miles, with a considerable extent of internal navigation afforded by its interior streams. Its position, with reference to the passes of the Alleghany Mountain chain, secures the transit of the great mass of travel between the East and the West, and especially between the commercial points on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. To this, in part, is due the early development of splendid natural resources.

Ohio is remarkable to the student of our civilization as the first theater for the development of our public land system. The ordnance of 1785 of the old Continental Congress was the first essay for the discharge of the great trust imposed upon the General Government by the selfabnegation of the different States of the Union. Without the experience

since gathered, it is not wonderful that the earlier legislation upon this subject was discordant and fragmentary. It was embarrassed by the reservations of the States ceding the territory to the Union. Virginia stipulated for the reservation of 4,204,800 acres, between the Scioto and the Little Miami Rivers, nearly one-sixth of the State, to satisfy the surplus of the claims of her revolutionary officers and soldiers, after the exhaustion of the lands set apart for them in Kentucky.

The claim of Virginia was bounded by the forty-first parallel, to the north of which the territory was claimed by Connecticut under her colonial charter from the Crown of England. That State, reserving 3,800,000 acres along the lake shore west of the Pennsylvania line, surrendered the balance of her claims to the General Government. She afterward yielded the territorial sovereignty of this reserved area, but retained the dispo sition of the soil in her own hands. The proceeds of this disposal were made the basis of that splendid public school endowment which has given to Connecticut such a noble preeminence in the cause of popular education. The lands thus disposed of by that State are still known in Ohio as the Western Reserve, and are all embraced in eight counties lying along Lake Erie. To compensate the losses of those of her people whose houses were burned and whose property was plundered by British partisans during their destructive raids in the revolutionary war, she devoted 500,000 acres from the west end of her reservation. These have, on this account, been known as the fire lands.

The first seven ranges of townships surveyed under the ordinance of 1785 were appropriated, by act of June 1, 1796, to satisfy certain claims of officers and soldiers of the revolutionary army. The policy of land warrants calling for a specific area, locatable at the will of the military grantee, had not then been devised. These lands, not having been eutirely appropriated by these patriotic beneficiaries, were, by act of July 3, 1832, laid open to general sale and settlement. The scrip principle, in rewarding our revolutionary heroes, then prevailed over all others.

Among the early errors of the land policy in this State was the sale, in large portions, to individuals and colonies. The Ohio Company's pur chase, lying along the Ohio River, in the southeast portion of the State, was a case in point. Though it contemplated the disposal of 1,500,000 acres, yet, from a variety of causes, not more than 1,000,000 were paid for and patented. Symmes's purchase, including 311,682 acres, extends from the Ohio River northward, between the Great and Little Miami Rivers. Other tracts, reserved for special purposes, present anomalies in the working of the public land system, which our subsequent legislation, enlightened by experience, was enabled to avoid. The operations of the public land system in Ohio are practically closed.

By the census of 1860 it appears that, of the 25,576,960 acres, 20,472,141 acres were included in farms, but of these, 12,625,394 were improved, leaving 7,846,747 acres unimproved. The actual cash value of the farms was $678,132,991, and the value of farm improvements, $17,538,832; as compared with the census of 1850, these figures showed an increase of 2,474,648 acres, or 14 per cent. While the improved lands increased 2,773,801 acres, the unimproved decreased 299,253 acres; and the uninclosed area declined from 7,579,467 acres to 5,104,819 acres, or about one-third. The cash value of the farms increased during the decade $319,374,388, or nearly 90 per cent., and the value of agricultural improvements $4,788,247, or 38 per cent. It should be remembered that these aggregates represent the primitive gold value subsisting prior to the enormous expansion in the paper circulating medium, necessitated by the late civil war. The value of the live stock rose

from $44,121,741 to $80,384,819, or 82 per cent. A gratifying indication during that ten years was the diffusion of proprietary interest in the soil. The number of farms increased from 143,807 to 179,889, or 25 per cent., while the average acreage declined from 125 to 114. The population, meanwhile, had increased but 18 per cent., showing that a much larger proportion of land owners was found among the people. The increased stability of social order shown by this fact augurs well for the interests of democratic civilization.

During the ten years just passed, the record of which is now being made up in the ninth census, there is reason to believe that the development of the resources of the State has not been less rapid. The aggregate of improved lands in farms will show a great relative increase, as compared with the unimproved lands. The latter will have received large increments from the uninclosed lands, but this addition will not probably equal the increased area brought under cultivation. According to tables compiled under the authority of the Department of Agriculture, in 1867, the value of the farm lands had increased from 30 to 35 per cent. in seven years. It will be but a moderate estimate to assign 50 per cent. as the rate of increase for the entire decade. This will give the present aggregate of farm value at over $1,000,000,000. The value of farm implements will be not less than $25,000,000, and that of live stock not less than $140,000,000.. There are probably not less than 15,000,000 acres in Ohio devoted either to grazing or culture.

The soil in Ohio is of high average fertility, presenting but minor difficulties in its working. The proportion of the surface unavailable for any sort of cultivation is very small. The rich bottoms of the Miami and Sciota are noted for their enormous yields of corn, while the wheat culture predominates in the more northern regions. Other cereals are extensively cultivated and yield abundant and remunerative crops. It has been found, however, that the proportion of our breadstuffs raised west of the Mississippi is annually increasing. Ohio and the elder States erected out of the public domain find it profitable to resign these crops to the financial necessities of the younger States in which the maximum market value of production is accomplished with the minimum outlay of labor. Elder systems of agriculture can more profitably be applied to the producti^ the finer fruits and fibers, those more delicate branches of pro... which pertain to an advanced stage of settlement and civilization. Agriculture in Ohio is now passing into a higher development of principles and processes. Pioneer farming is necessarily confined to rudimentary ideas. In the massive resources of fertility held by a virgin soil, the first efforts to extract subsistence do not recognize the necessity of economizing this endowment, and in recuperating exhausted productiveness by a careful attention to the laws of nature. Hence, the settlement of a new country is necessarily accompanied by an immense waste of natural resources. The class of men that are fitted to break ground for cultivation are seldom qualified for the task of repairing their own waste of nature. They sell out their farms and settle upon fresh areas of virgin soil to subject them to the same processes. Meanwhile purchasers, less disposed to sacrifice the elevating influences of society, apply the resources of science and experience to the recovery of the fertility of the soil. Production, which had declined, now begins again to rise, and the accumulation of wealth becomes visible under the hand of intelligent industry. Ohio has passed through this preliminary stage, and has entered upon a higher agricultural development. The resources of science and skill are directed not merely to the extraction of the greatest possible crop from the soil, but also to