About thirty per cent. of this consisted of farm produce from the Northwest, together with horses, mules, implements, and clothing. The need of ampler transportation facilities to accommodate all this business was apparent. A response came in plans for new north and south lines of railway. The difficulty of financing these enterprises was solved in part by the expedient of land grants by the different states. These amounted to no less than eight million acres under President Fillmore, attaining a total of nineteen million acres under the Pierce administration. By 1861 these grants, mainly in aid of railroads, had reached a total of no less than 31,600,842 acres,--more than equal to the area of either of the states of Ohio, or New York.[8] The Illinois Central grant in 1851 was the largest among these. Congress in 1850 had made over a tract of 2,700,000 acres to the state of Illinois to be used for this purpose. This gift was soon followed elsewhere by grants to aid the building of the Mobile & Ohio and the Mississippi Central, together with smaller roads in Alabama and Florida. The Gulf of Mexico was thus reached by through lines from the west in 1858-1861. In other parts of the country railroads were pushed well out in advance of population. The Mississippi was reached by the Rock Island system in 1854, quickly followed by the Alton, the Burlington and the predecessor of the present Northwestern system. The Hannibal & St. Joseph was the first to reach the Missouri river in 1858. There is no doubt that the discovery of gold in California greatly stimulated interest in all these far western enterprises.