A HUNDRED YEARS' PROGRESS. 293 



disturbed state of political aiiaiis, or from any other cause, no one could 

 set bounds to our surplus, because the more she wants the more we have 

 to spare, and the less she requires, the more freely is it used at home. 

 In other words, the amount of exports will be regulated chieHy by the 

 price, and if foreign countries are willing, or are compelled to pay for it, 

 we can supply them to any extent under any ordinary circumstances. 

 The export, for instance, in 1850, amounted to little moi"e than eight mil- 

 lions and a half, while in 1854 it went up to over twenty-seven millions 

 of bushels. 



We have seen that wheat was cultivated, to some extent, by the early 

 settlers of the country. Occasionally, to meet the exigency of a short 

 crop in England, France, Portugal, Spain, or the West Indies, it was 

 exported, to some extent, in the early part of the last century. By the 

 year 1750 New Jersey had come to take the lead of all the Colonies in 

 raising wheat, and niay be regarded as at that time the great center of 

 the wheat-gTOwiug region. Its culture had grown to be very consider- 

 able along the Hudson and the Mohawk, and in Pennsylvania. Mary- 

 land, Virginia, and the provinces further south had made tobacco the 

 leading object of culture, almost from the first of their settlement, and 

 this crop constituted for a long time the most important export from the 

 British provinces, though North Carolina had shipped, on an average, 

 about 130,000 barrels of pitch, tar, and turpentine, and South Carolina 

 considerable quantities of rice. But the product of tobacco had been 

 diminishing for some years previous to the Eevolution, on account of the 

 exhaustion of the soil for that crop, and the planters there had turned 

 their attention, to a gTcater extent, to the growing of wheat and other 

 grain. They could by law export tobacco only to Great Britain, but 

 they could ship wheat, flour, lumber, &c., to the West Indies and else- 

 where. Wheat, therefore, had begun to enter into the exports of the 

 more southern provinces prior to the Eevolution. 



But that the production of wheat and flour had not risen to anything 

 like the relative importance which it holds at the present time, will appear 

 from the fact that in 1791 the export of this grain was but 1,018,330 bush- 

 els, and 019,681 barrels of flour, while in 1800 it was but 26,853 bushels of 

 wheat, and 653,052 barrels of flour. In 1810 the amount sent abroad 

 was 325,021 bushels of wheat, and 798,431 barrels of flour. No statis- 

 tics of the actual production of this grain were gathered previous to the 

 census of 1840, but it is reported in that year to have been 84,823,272 

 bushels. From that time to 1850 the increase appears to have been but 

 15 per cent., the product, at the latter date, being 100,485,944. In that 

 year, or rather in 1849, on which the return is based, Pennsylvania pro- 

 duced more than any other State in the Union, or 15,307,691 bushels. Its 

 product at the last census was nearly 20,000,000, but the center of pro- 

 duction has moved farther and farther to the west. 



Since' the practicability and economy of the reaper and other machinery 

 became certain, the increase in the production of wheat has been more 

 rapid, as appears from the fact that in 1860 the crop amounted to 

 173,104,924 bushels, and in 1870 to 287,745,626 bushels. Our exports of 

 this cereal in 1800 amounted to about 12,000,000 bushels, in 1861 to over 

 20,000,000, and in 1862 to very near 30,000,000, a greater quantity than 

 had ever been known before. In addition to the vast increase of this crop 

 in the Middle and Western States, the production of wheat in California 

 now comes in to swell the aggregate capacity of expansion, to an extent 

 worthy of notice ; for while in 1850 her product of wheat is returned as 

 only 17,228 bushels, her yield of 1870 was nearly 17,000,000 bushels, with 

 her resources but sliglitly developed. And when it is considered that 



