The foregoing exhibits abundantly sustain the extraordinary capacity of
Minnesota for the production of those cereals which are best produced in
high latitudes. Our State is often supposed to be too far north for
Indian corn. This is a great mistake, founded on the popular fallacy
that the latitude governs climate. But climates grow warmer towards the
west coasts of continents; and although its winters are cold, the
summers of Minnesota are as warm as those of Southern Ohio. _The mean
summer heat of St. Paul is precisely that of Philadelphia_, five degrees
further south, while it is considerably warmer during the whole six
months of the growing season than Chicago, three degrees further south.
The products of the soil confirm these meteorological indications.
The average yield of corn in 1868 was 37.33 bushels per acre, and in
1875--a bad year--25 bushels. In Illinois--of which corn is the chief
staple--Mr. Lincoln, late President of the United States, in the course
of an agricultural address in 1859, stated that the average crop from
year to year does not exceed twenty bushels per acre.
These results, so favorable to Minnesota as a corn growing as well as
wheat growing State, will surprise no one who is familiar with the fact
established by climatologists, that "the cultivated plants yield the
greatest products near the northernmost limits at which they will grow."