AGRICULTURE. 



palm-oil (worth about six thousand pounds), 

 besides all damages and expenses. This is the 

 only safeguard white men have against a dis- 

 turbance like the present becoming most dis- 

 astrous. 



The population of Africa is estimated, by 

 the best authorities, at about one hundred and 

 eighty-eight millions. A real census of the 

 population is only made in the European colo- 

 nies, and even there it is, in most cases, based, 

 not upon an actual count, but upon taxes and 

 hearths. In the dependencies of Turkey noth- 

 ing but estimates are made ; only Egypt has 

 taken a few censuses, but the method of taking 

 them has inspired but little confidence in their 

 accuracy. As to the interior, the vague state- 

 ments of travellers are the only source of our 

 information. This source has, of late, how- 

 ever, become much more abundant than in 

 former years. If we do not know yet the ac- 

 tual number of the population, we already 

 have a tolerably trustworthy picture of the 

 density of the population in the different sec- 

 tions of the country. The densest population 

 is to be found on the land-girdle encircling the 

 Gulf of Guinea. The territory to the north of 

 this girdle is but thinly settled, even Nubia, 

 Kordofan, Taka, and Abyssinia, not excepted. 

 In the countries of the Gallas, and the shores 

 of the White Nile, the population is again 

 more numerous; farther south, down to So- 



fala, the population again declines ; Livingstone 

 found it on the Zambesi small in comparison 

 with what the country would be able to sup- 

 port. British Kaffraria has about twenty-two 

 men to a square mile, but the southern ex- 

 tremity of Africa is, again, thinly peopled. 

 Only on the Cunene we again find an increase 

 in the density of the population, which from 

 there increases steadily in Benguela, Angola, 

 up to the equator. 



AGRICULTURE. The necessity of issuing 

 the ANNUAL CYCLOPAEDIA early in the year 

 succeeding that whose date it bears, renders it 

 impossible to obtain accurate and complete 

 returns of the crops of the preceding year, 

 agricultural statistics being always very slow 

 of collection. We are compelled, therefore, in 

 this, as in the last volume, to give the complete 

 returns of the year before the last in a con- 

 densed form, which have just been published 

 by the Agricultural Department, and then to 

 make our estimates of the principal crops for 

 1869 from the data furnished by the monthly 

 reports. This is the less to be regretted, be- 

 cause these monthly reports have now attained 

 to such a measure of accuracy as to approxi- 

 mate with sufficient nearness to the official re- 

 turns, to answer all practical purposes. The 

 final returns of the principal crops for 1868, 

 and the comparative crops of 1860 and 1867, 

 were as follows : 



How much should be added for the crops 

 of sugar (cane, sorghum, maple, and beet-root), 

 honey, and wax, peas, beans, rice, hemp, flax, 

 hops, sweet potatoes, beets, turnips, parsnips, 

 squashes, melons, cucumbers, onions, silk, 

 fruits of all kinds, and dairy products, is, of 

 course, a matter of conjecture ; but, basing our 

 estimates on the census of 1860, with the 

 known increase in many particulars, both in 

 quantity and price, we are satisfied that 



$400,000,000 is not an over-estimate, which 

 would give for agricultural products, aside 

 from live-stock, or the meat and skins, of 

 slaughtered animals, $2,262,674,495 as the 

 agricultural productions of the year 1868. 



The following table shows the number, 

 average price, and total value, of the domestic 

 animals in the United States, in February, 1869, 

 together with the number of cattle, sheep, and 

 swine, in Great Britain and Ireland, in 1868 : 



