372 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



society, and necessarily of all that society 

 contains and accomplishes, is a sufficiently 

 commonplace statement, but it is one of 

 the great facts which must never be over- 

 looked. Agriculture not only furnishes the 

 great mass of materials in the transforma- 

 tion and distribution of which numerous 

 classes of society are occupied, but it fur- 

 nishes the materials out of which human 

 beings themselves are made. The dust of 

 the earth, and the gases of the air, under 

 the magical enchantment of the forces of 

 the universe, are transformed into the sub- 

 stance of life, and the farmers are the super- 

 intending priests of the marvelous and mys- 

 tical change. This continent is destined to 

 feed and to clothe not only its own increas- 

 ing millions of human beings, but other and 

 numerous millions of people in distant parts 

 of the earth. One of the first great prob- 

 lems, therefore, which press for solution in 

 regard to the future of this country, is that 

 of transportation for the distribution of 

 products to which commercial exchanges 

 give rise. Mr. Ruggles, hence, takes up 

 the question first of all from the point of 

 view of physical geography, or the con- 

 struction of the continent, by which all pos- 

 sibilities of movement are primarily deter- 

 mined. His presentation of the resources 

 of the country is not made in mere alpha- 

 betical order, as in the official census, but 

 topographically by their proximity to oceans, 

 rivers, lakes, and other facilities of trans- 

 portation. In accordance with this idea, he 

 cuts up the country into seven great dis- 

 tricts, which embrace : I. The New England 

 States ; II. The Middle Atlantic States ; 

 III. The interior States north of the Ohio, 

 and on the Upper Lakes and Upper Missis- 

 sippi ; IV. The Southern Atlantic States ; 

 V. The Southwestern States south of the 

 Ohio and on the Gulf of Mexico ; VI. The 

 States on the Pacific and adjacent Terri- 

 tories ; and VII. The Territories in and 

 east of the Rocky Mountains. 



All the products of agriculture in each 

 of the States and Territories are given in 

 detail, and the rates o'f increase are also 

 presented by showing the amount of each 

 at the end of the three decades closing with 

 1850, 1860, and 18*70. The whole is then 

 considered with reference to the racial di- 

 versities of our population, or by ** nation- 



alities." We are thus enabled to compare 

 the different States and Territories, side by 

 side, in reference to the amounts and rates 

 of change of their total population, and the 

 various classes of the population, the amount 

 of land in cultivation, the cash value of 

 farms, and its ratio of increase ; the kind 

 of products in each locality, and the profits 

 that arise from them ; the yearly product 

 of farms, the agricultural capital per head, 

 and average annual income per head of the 

 Germans, Irish, English, Scotch, Swedes, 

 and natives of the United States. 



The agricultural population of the Amer- 

 ican Union was, in 1870, 5,922,741, and had 

 created and acquired a property in agri- 

 cultural wealth valued at $11,124,985,747, 

 showing an average value of |1,878 per 

 head, yielding a net yearly income of $360, 

 or nearly $1 per day. Ten States, in 1870, 

 produced more than 21,000,000 tons avoir- 

 dupois of cereals, and will probably pro- 

 duce, at the end of the century, 40,000,000 

 or 50,000,000 of tons annually. 



These gross results are sufficiently im- 

 pressive, but the value of Mr. Ruggles's 

 statement is not in his striking array of ag- 

 gregates, but in that marvelous analysis by 

 which the discriminations are carried down 

 to the utmost details, so as to bring out the 

 conditions, chances, probabilities, and pos- 

 sibilities of individuals. The Frenchman, 

 or the Dane, who wishes to emigrate to 

 this country, by consulting this pamphlet, 

 may inform himself of the condition of his 

 own class of people, where they go, what 

 they do, and how they have got on in the 

 new country. And so any person in Eu- 

 rope, of special aptitudes and industry, de- 

 siring to emigrate, may learn where that 

 particular kind of industry is most prac- 

 tised and most profitable. 



But, while this pamphlet is of inestima- 

 ble value from a practical point of view, 

 and ought to be scattered by millions in 

 Europe, it is no less interesting and impor- 

 tant as a contribution of data to politi- 

 cal philosophy. The highest form of sci- 

 ence is quantitative. We must not only 

 know the fact, but measure it, that is, know 

 it exactly. Until this is done, principles 

 cannot be deduced so as to serve for valu- 

 able guidance. Careful statistics are quan- 

 titative data for sound social reasoning. 



