UNITY OF INTERESTS. 47 



After the war, the manufactured products of England again 

 found an open door, and encountering the infant manufac- 

 tures of America in free competition, the latter being unable 

 to sustain themselves, the industry which had sprung up and 

 prospered during the war, was extinguished. 



Our manufacturers were ruined. Our merchants, even 

 those who had hoped to enrich themselves by importations, 

 became bankrupt, and all these causes united had such a dis- 

 astrous influence upon agriculture that a general depreciation 

 of real estate folloAvecl, and fjiilure became general among 

 proprietors. American industry must have perished in that 

 struggle, if the embargo, and afterwards the war of 1812, 

 had not come to its relief. In this period, as in the war of 

 Independence, the industrial arts received an extraordinary 

 impulse. 



Long experience has taught us that agriculture could not 

 arrive at a high degree of prosperity without manufacturing 

 industry. 



As Jefi*erson said : "The prosperity of the country can only 

 be fixed upon a solid basis where the manufacturers are placed 

 side by side with the agriculturists." 



Allow me to quote from Mr. Allen's most excellent address 

 given before the society last year. He said: "The stimulus 

 given to production by the late civil war, causing high prices, 

 induced such an increase in the manufacture of agricultural 

 machinery and implements as to more than fill the place of 

 the million of men drawn into the ranks of the army. And 

 the consequence was that this nation exhibited an example 

 such as has never been seen in all history, of a people sup- 

 porting a consuming army of a million in the field of war, yet 

 not only filling the gap, but actually so increasing their 

 domestic products as to create a larger surplus for exporta- 

 tion than ever before. As compared with 1860 and the years 

 previous, these exports, except cotton only, were actually 

 doubled during the war, and thus our agriculture not only 

 supplied food for the masses of the people and for the army 

 and navy, but gold for the public treasury. What a proud 

 monument is that to the skill of our mechanics and the enter- 

 prise of our farmers. For who can say that, but for this won- 

 derful spirit aroused and developed in agriculture, our 



