196 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



There is still one other consideration which must not be over- 

 looked. A nation can import only what it has means to pay for. 

 Any check of domestic production diminishes the power of im- 

 portation The wisest of all our political economists, Stephen 

 Colwell, has shown that a nation consumes abundantly, only when 

 it produces abundantly. When Pennsylvania is able to produce 

 in a year five hundred thousand tons of iron, through the activities 

 and quickening influences of this industry, and the rapidity of the 

 societary circulation of which the whole State partakes, she is 

 able to consume all these five hundred thousand tons. She pays 

 for them through her own domestic production and exchanges 

 stimulated by this great vivifying industry. Let the production 

 of iron fall off, Pennsylvania will not import the deficiency. She 

 will cease to consume. Railroads will cease extension, old tracks 

 will not be repaired, the machine-shops will be stopped ; with the 

 arrest of production, the power of consumption comes to an end. 

 This is as true in wool industry as in iron production. 



Unfortunately our wool-growers did not do justice to themselves 

 by the exhibits of raw fleeces at the International Exposition ; but 

 the foreign experts in the wool industry at Philadelphia saw with 

 unconcealed surprise the evidences of our domestic wealth as dis- 

 played in our fabrics. They saw, with astonishment, blankets 

 made from American wool in the new States of California and 

 Minnesota, as well as old Massachusetts, which seemed fit only 

 for royal couches ; flannels, on the one hand, of snowy white- 

 ness and of the softness of cashmeres, and others dyed with every 

 hue of the rainbow, and in all varieties, so cheap and abundant as 

 absolutely to shut out all foreign competition ; shawls, pleasing 

 in design and substantial in texture, and yet so reasonable in price 

 that the humblest work-woman could aflbrd the comely covering ; 

 yarns of every shade which the infinite applications of the knit- 

 ter's art could demand, recalling Morris's lines, — 



•' The many colored bundles newly dyed 



Blood red, and heavenly blue, and griissy green; 

 Yea, and more colors than man yet has seen 

 lu flowery meadows midmost of the May;" 



fancy cassimeres rivalling the best products of Elbeuf looms ; and 

 worsted coatings which had their onlj' rivals in the master-pieces 

 of Sedan. They heard manufacturers declare that for all these 

 fabrics they preferred American wool, because it is " stronger, 

 softer, and works more kindly." We believe, in fine, that the 



