total land in farms in 1860; in 1880, only 45.9 per cent. In 1860 the value of farms, including fences and buildings, was $27,505,922, and of farming implements and machinery, $1,018,183; in 1880, the value of farms was $193,724,460, and of farm machinery, $13,089,783. The direction of agricultural effort is recently changing from the almost exclusive growing of the cereals, and principally wheat, to a more mixed farming, especially to stock raising and dairy products. Much attention is paid to the improvement of breed of both horses and cattle, and to the manufacture of superior butter and cheese. At the New Orleans Exposition in 1884-5, Minnesota butter took the first premiums against all competitors. This success was deserved and expected, and has just been repeated at Chicago. It goes without saying that the best wheat and the finest flour were found in her exhibit at New Orleans, but that her fruit growers took the first prizes there for apples and grapes, was a surprise to those who did not remember that the Wilder medal for finest fruit exhibit had been previously won by Minnesota at the Philadelphia Exhibition of the American Pomological Society in 1883. The course and progress of our agriculture may be seen at a glance from the figures taken from the United States censuses of 1860 and 1880, and the State statistical volume of 1885, each of which reports products of the year before its date : Agriculture remains the occupation of the majority of the inhabitants, but recently commercial and manufacturing pursuits *From State report. Not given in the United States Compendium. are rapidly coming forward, and the increase of population tends to the cities. This is illustrated by the astonishing growth since 1880 of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, those contiguous "cities which, like double stars, are separate to their dwellers, yet which, to the observer, seem but one." The paid-up capital stock of the banking institutions in the State, June, 1884, was $16,294,099; their surplus, $2,310,144; and the deposits, except those in private banks which are unknown, $27,339,949. In 1886, their capital was $20,149,100; surplus, $3,195,836; and deposits, $34,992,873. The bank capital and surplus of Saint Paul is $8,115,885; of Minneapolis, $7,027, 066. The wholesale trade of Saint Paul rose from $36,948,983 in 1881 to $81,195,836 in 1885; that of Minneapolis amounted to $33,136,000 in 1881 and to $61,082,200 in 1885. Sales of flour and lumber from mills are not included. The first railroad construction was of ten miles in 1862. The completed miles numbered 1,092 in 1870; 3,099 in 1880; 4,226 in 1885, and at the close of 1886, 4,951 miles will be ready for operation. Since 1868 the State has published very full agricultural statistics, but has adopted no adequate means for obtaining returns of other industries. The United States furnishes the following regarding manufactures: Sawed lumber was the first manufactured product of Minnesota, and remains second in importance to that of flour. The values of the lumber cut, as reported by federal censuses since 1850, were $57,800, $816,808, $4,378,191, and $7,366,038. The lumber product of 1886, it is estimated, will amount to 960,000,000 feet of pine, with the equivalent of ten per cent. additional in shingles and lath, and 40,000,000 feet of hard wood. The total value will be fully $14,000,000. About one-third of the pine is sawed at Minneapolis, about one-sixth at Stillwater, the same at Winona, and nearly as much at and near Duluth. The products of the flour and grist mills were in 1850, $500 in value; in 1860, $1,300; in 1870, $5,718,887, and in 1880, $41,519,004. Wheat was the material used for more than 98 per cent. of the above. There will have been, in round numbers, 8,500,000 barrels of flour made in the State in 1886, more than threefourths of it being the output of Minneapolis mills. The production of building materials other than lumber is very rapidly increasing; red and cream-colored brick, gray and white limestone, white, pink, and brown sandstone, gray and black granite, lime, cement, and artificial stone. Mining is an infant industry with us. Iron mines are opened at Tower, from which the first shipments of ore were made in 1884, of 62,124 tons. Eleven hundred men are now employed in them, and the shipments in 1886 amounted to 305,954 tons. So much for the material thrift of State and people. What is their provision for education of youth, for care of incapables, for repression of crime, for preservation of health, for moral growth? The theory of the Minnesota educational system is that the State shall furnish free instruction to every resident child, in common and grammar schools, high schools, the university and professional schools. The system is fully adopted and is in operation as far up as the university and such professional schools as are already established. One-eighteenth of all the land in the State is devoted to form a permanent school fund, which, already amounting to $7,311,898, will probably finally reach $18,000,000, or $20,000,000. In addition to the revenue from this fund, taxes are levied annually at the pleasure of each district for the support of common and graded schools. From the aggregate thus obtained in 1885, which was $2,442,612, schools were maintained in 5,234 districts, employing 7,136 teachers, and having 243,059 pupils enrolled between the ages of five and twenty-one years. There were 346 new schoolhouses built that year, at a cost of $508,070. The value of all school-houses and sites is $6,906,166; of school apparatus, $97,243; and of school libraries, $31,796. High schools, fifty-nine in number, assisted by appropriations of State funds and subject to examination by a State High School Board, prepare students for the State University. Graduates from grammar schools may enter the high schools, and graduates of the high schools may enter any college or university in the State without further examination. The University has a special grant of lands for its support and receives large appropriations annually. It now has a faculty of 30 professors and instructors, and numbers 406 students, of whom 25 are post-graduates, 113 are in the preparatory, or sub-freshman class, 86 in the artisans' training school, and 50 are pursuing special courses. The Agricultural College, now a part of the University, operates an Experimental Farm of 250 acres. The invested fund of the University amounts to $851,526, to which the sale of its remaining grant will add $400,000; its grounds, buildings, and apparatus are valued at $983,000; its library contains 10,000 volumes and its museum 20,000 specimens. Three Normal schools, with twelve to fifteen instructors each, apparatus, libraries, model schools, etc., taught 1,565 learners the last year and graduated 98 teachers. Their grounds, buildings, and equipment are of the value of $350,000. A school for the deaf and the dumb, one for the blind, and one for imbeciles, are among our most favored and most successful institutions. Their structures and sites represent investments of $300,000. Besides these State educational institutions, many private schools exist, and, notably, denominational colleges, or those under the special care of various religious denominations, as Episcopalians, Methodists, Presbyterians, Baptists, Congregationalists, Lutherans, and Catholics. The insane are cared for in two asylums, in which adequate accommodations are afforded for 1,600 patients. Inebriates may become the subjects of treatment in these. A third asylum is now locating, and its construction will be commenced another sea son. Several orphan asylums are supported by private and municipal bounty. The one State prison has at length been found insufficient for this day, especially as it does not permit the separation of first term offenders, of whose reclamation there is reasonable hope, from the older and hardened criminals. Provision is made for the location of a second prison, which will doubtless be of the kind known as reformatories. These prisons, with our most successful Reform School for juvenile offenders against the law, and for incorrigible children, and the State Public School, now just completed and opened, for the care of younger children of indigent or criminal parents, whose offspring might otherwise become criminal for want of attention and protection, will complete our system of correctional establishments. A non-partisan State Board of Corrections and Charities visits and examines all the penal, reformatory and eleemosynary institutions of the State, and, though without authority to manage or control either, by counsel and suggestion, and through recommendations to the Legislature, brings about co-operation in action and a better co-relation of functions of all. A State Board of Health, acting largely by the agency of local boards, which it is authorized efficiently to direct, has proved itself adequate to protect against the spread of contagious and infectious diseases among men and also among domestic animals. Derived from peoples long since civilized and Christian, the inhabitants of Minnesota inherit and cherish the religious character and morality of their ancestry. The church and Sundayschools supplement the instruction of the secular schools. Vicious practice and crime are as infrequent as among any other equal population. Such are the beginnings of the progress of Minnesota. |