lOB TRANSACTIONS OF TEE 



selves of this superiority it will very soon become necessary for us to 

 abandon, in a measure, the cultivation of products which may profit- 

 ably' be produced in the temperate zones, and devote our attention 

 more to those products to which our climate is peculiarly adapted. 

 When we devote our soils to the growth of wheat, we enter into com- 

 petition in the production of an article which may be grown in the 

 largest breadth and area of the earth's surface, and in doing this we 

 abandon the superior advantages which our climate affords. But I 

 believe with increased facilities for transportation, our orchards and 

 vinej^ards will become steadily more and more profitable with ea.ch 

 year, and that very soon we will devote more attention to the culti- 

 vation of fruits, because we will find in them a product which may be 

 profitably exchanged for the products of the northern climates. 



No discussion of production would be complete without some atten- 

 tion being given to the important bearingof transportation on the sab- 

 ject. Transportation is an important factor in production ; in fact, it 

 may be said that they are not only allied, but that they are but parts 

 of a single process. The productions of soils and climates differ, and 

 transportation enables men to avail themselves of the economy 

 arising from the production of articles useful to them in the soil 

 and climate best adapted to their growth. A proper division of 

 labor will interest different individuals in different departments 

 of industry and activity, and in the adjustment of the rights of 

 these to each other, there will always be some friction. But if in 

 the agitations growing out of these adjustments any have been led to 

 conclude that an irrepressible conflict must forever exist, all such are, 

 in my opinion, mistaken. If in the heat of any contest that has 

 arisen any have been led into the extreme view of concluding that 

 agencies of transportation ought to be injured or destroyed, a dispas- 

 sionate view of the relations of modern agencies of transportation to 

 civilization will convince them that such a conclusion is mistaken 

 and erroneous. We cultivate fruits in the tropics and cereals in the 

 temperate zone simply because transportation permits us to make 

 that distribution of labor which is most profitable. If we could 

 wrench from the soils of the north a small dole of the cotton and the 

 sugar raised in more temperate latitudes, it would not be profitable 

 to do so, while on the other hand the cereals of the north cannot be 

 profitably grown in the tropics. Without commerce the producer in 

 the north must derive from his unwilling soil, through its clenched 

 fist as it were, everything he must eat and wear, and which is neces- 

 sary to the maintenance of civilization. This would prevent the 

 accumulation of wealth, and with it the growth of all that exercises 

 a refining influence upon life. We weave cotton fabrics in Manches- 

 ter and make iron and steel and edged tools in Sheffield only because 

 of transportation. We make iron where iron and coal are found 

 together. We grow grain upon the broad prairies of the West. We 

 mine for silver and gold in the mountains of Nevada and California, 

 and we exchange these commodities and find there is a profit over 

 and above the cost of transportation incidental to that exchange, by 

 reason of producing everything where it can be produced with the 

 greatest facility. Nature helps sugar and cotton to grow in Louisiana, 

 and corn and wheat in Illinois, so that transportation is the sug- 

 gestion of nature. Transportation and commerce are one and 

 inseparable. They are assisted by the zones, by the tides, by the 

 seasons, and by everything that is natural. To resist their tenden- 



