clo Res if nee an apoual Ba fal at least convenient — of all these — 
implements here on exhibition, how few would remain unsold if what 
pear more urgent demands for absolute necessities did not compel 
e farmer to careful deliberation over his expenditures. 
But to return to agricultural products, let me give an illustration, 
d I purposely select a product partly the result of agricultural and 
artly of the manufacturing industry, also a product almost wholly 
imported and from countries with which we have but very little 
reciprocal commerce, so that it would naturally happen that such a 
product would perhaps best illustrate the increase of the country not 
only in total but per capita consumption, and best illustrate the fact 
that perhaps no people on the earth are to-day so well provided with 
the necessities or even luxuries of living as are we. 
Now, during the decade before the present century, viz., from 
1790 to 1800 the annual per capita consumption of sugar in the 
United States was less than ten pounds (9.65). In 1840 it had in- 
creased to only fifteen pounds. It doubled during the next twenty 
years, being thirty-one in 1850, and during the past thirty years it 
has again nearly doubled, since the present annual per capita con~ 
sumption of sugar in this country is nearly or quite sixty pounds. 
Can any one believe that with such a record there is reason to 
_ question the general prosperity of the country? 
As with sugar, so is it with many another article of consumption 
_by our people. It is estimated that the per capita consumption of 
breadstuffs amounts annually to an equivalent of fully eight 
_ bushels of grain, mainly wheat and corn, “making the fullest 
_ bread ration of any nation in the world,” as the statistician of the 
- department of agriculture declares. Indeed it is proverbial that 
a people we are almost prodigal in our expenditures for food 
_ supplies. But I wish to call attention to the several points which 
_ to me appear to prove that we are upon the eve of what I believe will 
Bereve the golden age of our agriculture. 
First. The population of the country is very rapidly increasing; 
SD cor 1860 to 1870 it increased twenty-three per cent; and from 1870 
to 1880, thirty per cent; so that, if the same increase is continued, as 
there appears no reason to doubt, the present census will show a 
population of 65,200,000; but the increase of those living in cities has 
en more rapid. There were in 1880 nearly thirteen times as many 
ople in the United States as in 1790, but over eighty-six times as 
any living in cities in 1880 as in 1790. The increase of population 
as from 1860 to 1870 twenty-three per cent; of those living in cities, 
