PRINCIPLES OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY. 219

their recent conduct in reference to the slavery question, as the supporters of General Cass, the pro-slavery candidate, is sadly inconsistent with their affected hostility to every form of tyranny. But where men go for the predominance of a party, small considerations regarding consistency will not readily restrain them.

But if the principles of this extreme section of the democratic party in the United States be such as their own organs (the Ohio Union, for example,) represent them, they can scarcely be charged with inconsistency in this, or almost any other case. "They believe that the democratic impulses are right, and should be obeyed, not thwarted: they believe in and favour progress, and would not prescribe a fixed rule in all minor matters for all time, but would adapt action to the circumstances and exigencies which arise in the progression of events, and to the rights and interests which accompany or result from that progression and its changes.' This is virtually surrendering principle to impulse, and giving the reins into the hands of a constantly shifting expediency. If they find it expedient, for party purposes, to oppose the extension of slavery to-day, therefore, it will not, with these professions, be inconsistent to pronounce it expedient to favour that extension to-morrow.

Proceeding from Rochester to Attica, a distance of forty-four miles, in a south-west direction, we again crossed the several geological formations I have already described, and saw much strong wheat-land. Here and there considerable patches of forest remained, and sometimes fields with the stumps standing; and occasionally my memory was refreshed by a more or less extensive burning of the stumps, reminding me of what I had seen so frequently, and on so large a scale, in the forests of New Brunswick. Thirty miles more brought me to Buffalo; and upon this tract the native forest, still untouched, and the log cabin, and the half-cleared land,

220

EVIL EFFECTS OF LAND-JOBBING.

and the blackened stumps, and the occasional fellings and burnings, told of our approach to the limits of complete settlement-to the wilderness lands, over which the living tide of redundant European energy is so rapidly diffusing itself.

Along the line of this great thoroughfare in the State of New York, comparatively few emigrants now linger. Farmers, with capital to stock a good farm at home, occasionally find eligible farms to buy, upon which they can comfortably settle, and bring up their families without fear of rent-days or shifting corn-laws. But the mass of movers, who are men of comparatively small means, pass on without inquiring whether or not the State of New York has still any suitable land to sell.

It may at first sight be considered as a remarkable circumstance, indeed, that, in a country so large and so new as the State of New York, containing 46,200 square miles, only 350,000 acres were public property at the beginning of 1849. Of these only 25,000 belonged to the State, 11,000 to the Literature Fund, and 314,000 to the School Fund. But a little inquiry soon shows that when people are flocking in from foreign countries, and lands are for sale at a fixed price, landspeculators will spring up, in whose hands large tracts will accumulate, to be held till a rise in price enables the first purchasers to sell with a profit. It is by land-jobbing, in fact, that the largest fortunes have been made in most of the States. Though this land-jobbing has made it the interest of individuals to use all efforts to turn the tide of emigration in particular directions, and has thus at first more rapidly increased the population of the new States, it has undoubtedly, in the end, the effect of retarding the settlement of a country and the development of its natural resources; and it is one of the internal evils under which our own North American colonies are now to a considerable extent suffering.

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.

Its

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 great; but both are easily intelligible—unavoidable, in

222

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.