The Manchester Journal

The following facts are collated from the official statistics of Minnesota :

Rapid has been the growth of the new Western States, Minnesota has surpassed them all in the rapidity of its progress. Its population in 1850 was 5,330; in 1860, 172,022. Its agricultural development has been even more remarkable. The number of acres of plowed land in 1850 was 1,900; in 1854, 15,000 ; in 1860, 433,267-having increased nearly thirty fold in six years.

The number of bushels of wheat produced in 1850 was 1,401 ; in 1854, 7,000; in 1860, 5,001,432 bushels. Being nearly thirty bushels to each inhabitant, or four times as much as the whole wheat crop of New England in 1850.

The whole amount of grain and potatoes produced in Minnesota in 1850 was 71,709 bushels ; in 1860 it was 14,848,517 bushels-mostly in the small grains. What a progress for ten years!

This rapid agricultural growth has been achieved chiefly since the collapse of land speculation in 1857. In 1858 Minnesota imported bread and provisions. In 1861 she exported 3,000,000 bushels of wheat alone.

Minnesota is probably the best wheat State in the Union, with the exception of California and perhaps Wisconsin. The statistics of her wheat crop show an average yield in 1860 of twenty-two bushels per acre, and in 1859 of nineteen bushels-these results being from fifty to three hundred per cent, greater than that of the principal wheat States, with the exceptions noted. In 1859, for example, the average yield of Iowa was four and one-third bushels per acre; of Ohio, seven and one-third bushels. Illinois, according to a high local authority, produces from year to year not more than eight bushels per acre, and fifteen bushels is considered an unusually large average for the best wheat States. The comparative exemption of Minnesota from the disease and insects which ravage the wheat crops of other States, gives it a great advantage in the cultivation of this most valuable staple.