The agricultural system of America is eminently favourable to cheap production. Unoccupied lands are the property of the nation, and are made over to cultivators on easy terms, and in many cases gratuitously. A rent-paying farmer is practically unknown; the farmer owns the land which he tills. His farm has cost him little, and as the invariable improvement in value cancels even that, it may be said that it has cost him nothing. The average farm of the Western States is one hundred and sixty acres. It is cultivated almost without outlay of money. The farmer and his family perform the work of the farm, with the help of a neighbour at the great eras of sowing and reaping. This help is requited in kind, and therefore costs nothing in money. The rich, deep, virgin soil asks for no manure during many years. The sole burden upon the farm is the maintenance of the farmer and his family, and of the four oxen or mules which share his toils. His local taxation is trivial. His national taxation is less than one-half of that which the English farmer bears.[3] The evil of distance from the great markets of the world is neutralized by the low charge for which his grain is carried on railway or canal.[4] His husbandry is careless, insomuch that two acres of land in the valley of the Mississippi yield no more than one acre yields in England.[5] But if his agriculture is rude it is constantly improving; and, meanwhile, it is so inexpensive that he can send its products to England, four thousand miles away, and undersell the farmer there. A vast revolution, whose results we as yet imperfectly appreciate, is in progress around us. The antiquated, semi-feudal land-system of England totters to its fall, unable to sustain itself in presence of the more free and natural system of the West. Immigration languished during the earlier years of the war. The distracted condition of the country, and the fears in regard to its future so widely entertained in Europe, formed sufficient reason why men who were in search of a home should avoid America. But when success crowned the efforts of the North, her old attractiveness to the emigrating class resumed its power. It came then to be pressed upon the public mind that the progress of the West was frustrated by want of adequate communication. There was no railway beyond the Missouri river. From that point westward to the Pacific communication depended upon a rude system of stage-coaches, or the waggon of an adventurous pioneer. It was a journey of nearly two thousand miles, across an unpeopled wilderness. The hardship was extreme, and the dangers not inconsiderable; for the way was beset by hostile Indians, and the traveller must be in constant readiness to fight. This vast region, composed mainly of rich prairie land, was practically closed against progress. The resources of the country, as it seemed, could not be developed excepting near the margins of the continent, or by the borders of her great navigable rivers.