STAPLES OF AND FOB AMSRICA. 47 



petition? It may be said there is a boundary in Ame- 

 rica to rice cultivation from limitation of suitable land. 

 Let the rice planters consider well ! ! Do they not at 



,t, at least some of them, find in their possession a 

 little piece of machinery at which they rejoice e.\ 

 iugly. It throws up water with the greatest rapidity, 

 and irrigates rice estates in the twinkling of an eye. 

 Now, if that engine or any other remedy be found to give 

 command over the course of the waters flow, and if irri- 

 gation can be so effected, whole districts may be called 

 into that cultivation ; and then, who will purchase a rice 

 plantation at the rate of one hundred dollars, more or 

 . who would purchase at all when they 

 could get land for a song? Let rice planters dwell upon 

 this point, and reflect if rice be fifteen per cent, lower 

 now than it has been nine years ago. Should double the 

 quantity of land be brought into cultivation what would 

 consequence'? The first effect would be from the 

 use of such power over water, that there would be no sales 

 for rice lands beyond the value of the formerly waste 

 ond would be, the influx into the cultiva- 



<>uld reduce prices to a rate that would leave rice 



land valueless and the rice planters beggars. The rice 



.1 as cotton planter, and every American, 



is deeply interested in promoting the cultivation of other 



articles, to divert the attention of the public from the 



.tly channels now left them, and keep them from 



choked up by the dense mass of people who musi, 



hard necessity, rush into them. 



the fi. redoing review <{' liie existing position 



of the liow the necessity of enter- 



ity of their people doing something 



