It is only when I sit down to think of the future, to measure it by the advancement already made, that I can comprehend anything of the coming greatness of the Northwest,--20,000,000 bushels of wheat this year; 500,000 inhabitants in the State, yet scarcely a hundredth part of the area under cultivation. What will be the product ten years hence, when the population will reach 1,500,000? What will it be twenty years hence? How shall we obtain any conception of the business to be done on these railways when Dakota, Montana, Washington, and Oregon, and all the vast region of the Assinniboine and the Saskatchawan, pour their products to the nearest water-carriage eastward? We are already beyond our depth, and are utterly unable to comprehend the probable development. The men who are building this railroad from St. Paul to Duluth have not failed to recognize this one fact, that by water Duluth is as near as Chicago to the Atlantic cities. Wheat and flour can be transported as cheaply from Duluth to Buffalo or Ogdensburg as from the southern end of Lake Michigan, while the distance from St. Paul to Lake Superior is only one hundred and forty miles against four hundred and eighty to Chicago. We may conclude that the wheat of Minnesota can be carried fifteen or twenty cents a bushel cheaper by Duluth than by Lake Michigan,--a saving to the Eastern consumer of almost a dollar on each barrel of flour. Twenty cents on a bushel saved will add at least four dollars to the yearly product of an acre of land. The difference in freight on articles manufactured in the East and shipped to Minnesota will be still more marked, for grain in bulk is taken at low rates, while manufactured goods pay first-class. The completion of this railway will be a great blessing to the people of New England and of all the East, as well as to those of the Northwest. Anything that abridges distance and cheapens carriage is so much absolute gain. I do not think that there is any public enterprise in the country that promises to produce more important results than the opening of this railway. An elevator company has been organized by several gentlemen in Boston and Philadelphia, and the necessary buildings are now going up. The wheat will be taken directly from the cars into the elevator, and discharged into the fleet of propellers running to Cleveland, Buffalo, and Ogdensburg, already arranged for this Lake Superior trade. The region around the western end of the Lake has resources for the development of a varied industry. The wooded section extends from Central Wisconsin westward to the Leaf Hills beyond the Mississippi, and northward to Lake Winnipeg. This is to be the lumbering region of the Northwest, for the manufacture of all agricultural implements,--reapers, mowers, harvesters, ploughs, drills, seed-sowers, wagons, carriages, carts, and furniture,--besides furnishing lumber for fencing, for railroad and building purposes.