The Great Landed Interests of the United States [pp. 189-192]

GREAL LANDED INTERESTS.
preserver of beef for the army. Of course, the process and the
peculiar gas used are the invention of the patentees, and all we can
know on the subject is the successful result. It might be conjectured that the process is expensive, were it not for the fact that
the patentees offer to supply, by this process, firesh beef to London merchants at sch a price that it can be retailed profitably at
from 4 to 6 pence a pound, a price that will place it within the
reach of the laboring class, who are now utterly unable to eat
beef except as a luxury. We may remark also, that this meat
was thoroughly tested in La Plata by a committee appointed for
the purpose, and the very same verdict was pronounced in its
favor.
These English papers speak of this invention as destined to
produce the most wonderful and happy results. They say that
2,500,000 of cattle are annually slaughtered in La Plata merely
for their hides, and that their meat is given to the vultures; while
millions of people in England have to do without it on account of
its high price. They believe this great discovery will have the
effect to give a profitable market to the vast quantities of beef
now thrown away in South America, or sold at verylow prices in
other countries, on account of its abundance, while it will enable
the laborers of Europe to enjoy a daily luxury of which they are
now almost wholly deprived. If this, or any other process for
preserving beef, shall prove entirely successful, it will certainly be
difficult to over-estimate its advantages to Texas. It can scarcely
fail to enable our stock-raisers to realize double and perhaps treble
the price they now receive, and the ultimate consequence will:be
that our almost illimitable prairies will receive a value they have
never yet had for stock-raising purposes, while the beef trade of
the State will probably be a source of larger revenue than any
other article we have for export, not even excepting cotton.
ART. XIII. — GREAT LANDED INTERESTS OF THE UNITED STATES.
[The following is from the pen of Joseph S. Wilson, superintendent of the
General Land Office at Washington. It is an able and admirable condensation
of information relating to our vast public land system with which Mr. Wil son perhaps more than any other man in the country is familiar, in all its
details. When on a recent visit to Washington,- we had the pleasure of in specting the machinery of his office and obtaining some valuable documents.
His public land charts and maps which are shortly to be published by Con gress are the most admirable in every respect and will be of the greatest pos sible value in promoting the settlement of the great West. We were glad to
learn that copies of his reports and maps will be published in several Euro pean languages.-ED.]
"The landed estate of the Union is the great inheritance of the
American people. How was it acquired, and what is its extent?
"The people of the United States, in emerging from the war of
independence, were the holders of extensive regions of country
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