The things we do!

"In richness of soil, variety of climate, number and value of products,
facilities for communication and general conditions of wealth and
prosperity, the Mississippi Valley surpasses anything known to the Old
World as well as the New." It produces the bulk of the world's cotton and
oil; of corn it raises much more than all the rest of the world combined,
and of each of the following (produced mainly in this same valley) the
United States leads in quantity all the nations of the earth: wheat,
cattle, hogs, oats, hay, lumber, coal, iron and steel, and other mineral
products.
Its valley supports an estimated population of over fifty millions, or
over half that of the whole United States; and has an estimated
maintenance capacity of from 200,000,000 [Footnote: Justin Winsor,
"Mississippi Basin," p. 4.] to 350,000,000 [Footnote: A. B. Hart, "Future
of the Mississippi Valley," _Harper's Magazine_, 100:419, February, 1900.]
or from four to seven times its present population. It has been tilled
with "luxurious carelessness.


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