256 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



creasing numbers, and gather up the immense herds necessary to meet the 

 demands which come from the more eastern sections of the States. It is in 

 this valley that cattle must be produced for the growing wants of the nation. 



The general law of the distribution of cattle in 1840 is thus very plainly 

 shown. Beginning on our eastern limit, cattle are found in very small numbers. 

 As we move westward they constantly increase, even to our extreme western 

 borders. The west has nearly three times as many cattle as the east in propor- 

 tion to the number of inhabitants, the smallest ratio being in Rhode Island and 

 Massachusetts, and the largest, nearly six times as great, being in Florida and 

 Ai'kansas. 



DISTRIBUTION OF CATTLE IN THE YEAR 1850. 



1. During the ten years intervening between 1840 and 1850 we find the 

 western limit of the minimum class (that is, those containing less than 80 

 cattle to every 100 people) has moved far to the westward of the Potomac and 

 Monongahela rivers — its position in 1840. It now includes, in addition to its 

 territory of 1840, the States of North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio, Michigan, Wis- 

 consin, Iowa, Minnesota, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The limit of 

 1840, in ten years, passed over in its westward course at least five hundred 

 miles. It now commences at the southern limit of North Carolina, on the 

 Atlantic coast, and follows the boundaries of that State and Tennessee to the 

 Mississippi river, then up that river to the eastern boundary of Illinois, and by 

 that to Lake Michigan. 



2. The medium class now occupies only the States of Alabama and New 

 Hampshire. That portion of territory which constituted this class in 1840 has 

 now mostly dropped to the minimum class. North Carolina has remained 

 nearly stationary. South Carolina, of all the medium class of 1840, has risen 

 to the maximum of 1850 ; its per cent, in 1840 was 96, and in 1850, 116 per 

 cent. At the same time Massachusetts and Ehode Island have dropped from 

 35 and 38 per cent, to 24 and 26 per cent. 



3. The maximum class occupies the same position as it did in 1840, with 

 the exception of Alabama ; but those States lying east of the Mississippi have 

 depreciated from an average of 145 per cent, in 1840 to 115 in 1850. We 

 must expect this portion to occupy a medium position in 1860. Florida and 

 South Carolina have made a remarkable increase of their ratios, elevating them 

 from 217 and 96 in 1840 to 299 and 116 per cent, in 1850. But these ex- 

 ceptions, as well as those of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, before men- 

 tioned, are to be explained, not so much by their departure from general laws 

 controlling the status of cattle as of men, the States of Florida and South Caro- 

 lina not having in this decade the increase of population which marks the his- 

 tory of States in general, and which had occurred in Massachusetts and Rhode 

 Island. 



The States west of the Mississippi river have also made a remarkable in- 

 crease from an average of 131 per cent, in 1840 to 159 in 1850. Texas rises 

 to the head of the list, having 438 per cent. 



DISTRIBUTION OF CATTLE IN THE YEAR 1860. 



Having in the last decade ascertained the general law of the ratio of cattle 

 to the population, it will be more interesting to note the movement from 1850 

 to 1860. We are led to infer a general reduction in the entire country east of 

 the Mississippi river, with an occasional exception, whilst our great herds will 

 still gather around the pioneers, as, pushing westward, they lay the founda- 

 tions of civilized life in the dominions of the savage. 



