superior attractions of climate and scenery. Yet, if this be true, it is
readily accounted for in that the majority of the people moving
westward do not readily consent to make their new homes north of the
parallel of their old ones. On the contrary, the general tendency is to
drop southward, desiring to escape as much as may be the protracted cold
of winter; forgetting, or never knowing, that the isothermal lines have
a general northwest direction as they cross the continent. Many, also,
as before mentioned, who seek solely a fertile soil, or those who wish
to engage in a purely pastoral life (where the open and unreclaimed
country is so favorable), move, as a rule, to points south of a due west
course; thus leaving the more northern latitudes to such only as have an
eye for them on account of their varied attractions, and who are quite
willing to exchange a few dollars of extra income for a few pounds of
extra flesh, and who count health as first-rate capital stock and the
full equivalent of any other kind which a settler can possess.

Notwithstanding this general tendency of things, we believe the net
increase in both population and wealth, for the last decade, to be
relatively as great in the State of Minnesota as in that of any other
State in the Union; or, at least, far above the average in the
aggregation of those things which make up their power and importance.

It would be a grave error, however, if the mind of the reader was left
with the impression that this State was lacking in the fertility of her
soil, and in those other elements so essential to the foundation, true
prosperity, and greatness, such as can only come from a well-ordered
system of agriculture and from prolific fields. Far from this,--on the
contrary, she is widely known at home and abroad as presenting as many
inducements on the score of husbandry alone as any of the most highly
favored of States. There doubtless is a percentage of advantage in