Within the past year, by the opening up of new and most important channels of railway communication, our position with respect to the great railway system of the continent, is rendered all that could be desired. In that regard it is indeed difficult to point out how any improvement could be made. With respect to our local advantages, however, admirable as they are, there is yet much in store for us. The signs are far more favorable than at any former period for the rapid settlement of the State, as well as for the more adequate development of her resources. We are constantly receiving intelligence that some new source of wealth has been revealed within our borders, or that one previously discovered is likely to surpass the expectations at first entertained. These events must not only tend directly to hasten the settlement of the State, but also add in a still greater ratio to her commercial importance and her wealth.

If we were to fail to refer, in this connection, to the law passed by our legislature last winter, providing for the reclamation of the "swamp lands," technically so called, and inaugurating an admirable system of State roads throughout all the upper portions of the State, we should be ignoring decidedly the most pregnant of the signs of promise. In adopting so well-timed and beneficent a measure, our law-givers have proved themselves worthy guardians of a commonwealth whose interests so plainly bespeak a much greater degree of wise legislation than has heretofore been wielded for her benefit. Next in importance to these wholesome measures, is the law providing for the appointment of Commissioners of Emigration—one resident here, and the other stationed in New York. Those seeking homes in the West have only to be made aware of the unequaled inducements presented by our State, to secure immense accessions to our population.

Detroit does not alone reap the benefit of her advantageous position. It is shared by all interests, but perhaps by none others to so great an extent as the tillers of the soil. It is a most significant fact that breadstuffs and provisions not unfrequently bring as high prices here as in New York, giving producers all the advantages at home of a seaboard market, and virtually putting the cost of shipment into their pockets. Thus a farmer whose land possesses a nominal value of ten or twenty dollars per acre, can enjoy all the pecuniary advantages of a location near one of the largest eastern cities, where farms are valued at one to two hundred dollars per acre. This fact alone should go very far toward transforming our northern wilderness into cultivated fields.

As a matter of interest, and to some extent of curiosity, we present a comparative statement exhibiting the ruling prices of extra Michigan flour twice a month throughout the year, in Detroit, New York and Liverpool, and also the prices in the latter market, for the corresponding dates in the year 1858:

Liverpool, '58.Liv'L, '59.N. York, '59.Detroit, '59.
Jan. 1st.5 76a6 744 80a5 044 95a5 155 00a5 12
" 15th.5 76a6 244 80a5 045 60a5 855 00a5 12
Feb. 1st.5 76a6 244 80a5 045 90a6 405 75a6 00
" 15th.5 52a6 004 80a5 045 90a6 256 25a6 50
Mar'h 1st.5 52a6 244 80a5 046 30a6 506 25a6 50
" 15th.5 52a6 244 80a5 046 50a6 756 50a6 75
April 1st.5 28a5 524 80a5 046 30a6 75a6 75
" 15th.5 28a5 764 80a5 046 00a6 60a6 50
May 1st.5 28a5 525 04a5 286 25a6 75a6 50
" 15th.5 28a5 526 00a6 247 30a7 85a8 00
June 1st.5 04a5 28a5 767 00a7 40a7 50
" 15th.5 04a5 28a5 766 70a7 057 12a7 25
July 1st.5 04a5 28a 6 00a6 50a7 25
" 15th.5 08a5 405 04a5 285 45a6 007 00a7 12
Aug. 1st.5 28a5 404 80a5 524 90a5 504 75a4 87
" 15th.5 04a5 285 04a5 524 30a4 654 50a4 75
Sept. 1st.5 16a5 405 04a5 524 40a5 004 62a4 75
" 15th.5 16a5 404 80a5 524 65a4 854 25a4 50
Oct. 1st.5 04a5 285 28a5 764 75a5 104 62a4 75
" 15th.5 04a5 285 28a5 764 80a5 20a4 75
Nov. 1st.5 04a5 285 52a6 005 00a5 30a5 00
" 15th.4 80a5 045 76a6 245 24a5 45a5 12
Dec. 1st.4 80a5 046 76a7 005 45a5 65a5 12
" 15th.4 80a5 046 76a7 005 48a5 65a5 12

The Detroit mills manufacture excellent flour, and it is to be regretted that they are not capable of making a much larger quantity of their well-known brands. There are six flouring mills of different capacities in the city, and although they are generally at full work such is the demand for flour they make, that they are very often not able to supply their customers. These mills ought to be enlarged, or others built. Detroit, the commercial metropolis of a great wheat-growing State, should be capable of manufacturing an immense quantity of flour. The increased expenditure of money, in the purchase of wheat, would be very beneficial to the trade of the city.

For the last fifteen years, the exports of breadstuffs from the United States have fluctuated very much. In 1846 they amounted to nearly twenty-eight millions of dollars, and rose in 1847 to sixty-nine millions. In 1848 they fell to thirty-seven, and in 1852 to twenty-six millions. In 1853 they amounted to nearly thirty-three millions, and in 1854 they rose to about sixty-millions, but fell in 1855 to about thirty-nine millions, and again rose in 1857 to seventy-seven millions. In 1858 they again declined to about fifty millions. We cannot accurately detail the exports of 1859, but they have been very light on account of fall in the European market, after the termination of the war in Italy. During these years there were various causes for the remarkable fluctuations which we have noted; namely, famine in Ireland, the Crimean war, and the failures of the harvest at home and abroad, nor have these exportations been regularly divided or spread over the various months of each year. They have increased or diminished according to the European demand, governed by the supply at home and regulated by advices from the other side of the Atlantic. It is likely that the export of breadstuffs in 1860 will be very considerable.

Michigan possesses many advantages over her sister States, and these enable her to bear up against monetary panics better than they. Her immense length of lake coast is indented with excellent harbors, which invite commerce from every quarter, and furnish excellent outlets for her surplus produce or mineral wealth. The great and diversified resources of the State support her in the evil day, and bring her through a commercial crisis in safety. From the ushering in of the year to the close, there is not a day in which the marts of commerce are not enlivened by the contributions of grain or live stock from our fields, fish from our lakes, lumber from our forests, or ores of various kinds from our inexhaustible mines.

According to the census returns of 1840, the State of Michigan produced 2,157,108 bushels of wheat, there were 190 flouring mills at work, employing 491 hands, and producing 202,880 barrels of flour annually. In 1853 this State produced 7,275,032 bushels of wheat, there were 245 flouring mills at work, employing 604 persons, and manufacturing 1,000,000 barrels of flour in a year. It will be seen that the flouring mills have increased greatly both in number and capacity since 1840, and that very large quantities of flour are now manufactured in the interior of the State, a circumstance which partly accounts for the comparatively small quantity of wheat that is now exported. The number of flouring mills have doubtless increased since 1853, and as steam power has been applied in many instances their manufacturing capacity must now be very great. Farmers are beginning to understand the importance of disposing of their produce near home, and having the surplus exported in a manufactured state, instead of sending away the raw material; the bran and "shorts" being very valuable for mixing with the food of horses, cattle, and swine. A flouring mill is a great benefit in a rural district, it furnishes the farmer with a home market, and when he receives the price of his produce, there are many domestic wants which must be supplied, and on this account we always see stores and mechanics' shops clustering around a mill, and villages springing up in places where the solitude of the forest was, until lately, unbroken by a sound. It is evident that the mill power of Michigan is increasing rapidly, and that in future the greater part of the surplus grain crop will be exported in a manufactured state.