AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS OF THE UNITED STATES. 75 
indigenous plants unknown to ancient agriculture, 761,000,000 
bushels of Indian corn, 263,000,000 pounds of tobacco, 145,- 
000,000 bushels of potatoes, 22,000,000 bushels of sweet pota- 
toes, 28,000,000 pounds of maple sugar, and 925,000 gallons of 
maple molasses.* To all this we are to add 27,000,000 tons of 
hay,—produced partly by new, partly by long known, partly by 
exotic and partly by native herbs and grasses, the value of 
$21,000,000 in garden vegetables chiefly of European or Asiatic 
origin, 3,000,000 gallons of wine, and many minor agricultural 
products.t 
The weight of this harvest of a year would be many times 
the tonnage of all the shipping of the United States at the 
close of the year 1870—and, with the exception of the maple 
sugar, the maple molasses, and the products of the Western 
prairie lands and of some small Indian clearings, it was all 
erown upon lands wrested from the forest by the European 
race within little more than two hundred years. The wants of 
Europe have introduced into the colonies of tropical America 
the sugar cane, { the coffee plant, the orange and the lemon, 
all of Oriental origin, have immensely stimulated the cultiva- 
tion of the former two in the countries of which they are na- 
tives, and, of course, promoted agricultural operations which 
* There is a falling off since 1860 of 11,000,000 pounds in the quantity of 
maple sugar and of more than a million gallons of maple molasses. The 
hich price of cane sugar during and since the late civil war must have increased 
the product of maple sugar and molasses beyond what it otherwise would have 
been, but the domestic warfare on the woods has more than compensated this 
cause of increase. 
+ Ramie, Boehmeria tenacissima, a species of Chinese nettle producing a 
fibre which may be spun and woven, and which unites many of the properties 
of silk and of linen, has been completely naturalized in the United States, and 
results important to the industry of the country are expected from it. 
} The sugar cane was introduced by the Arabs into Sicily and Spain as 
early as the ninth century, and though it is now scarcely grown in those 
localities, Iam not aware of any reason to doubt that its cultivation might 
be revived with advantage. From Spain it was carried to the West Indies, 
though different varieties have since been introduced into those islands from 
other sources. 
