234 PRESENT AND FUTURE OF AMERICA. 



Turn up the soil of that two billions eighty- two mil- 

 lions of acres ; render it productive and useful ; dig out 

 its rich treasure of precious ores ; build up your cities ; 

 people your wilderness, and then Americans will cease to 

 be elated at their success in building a little yacht, or at 

 their improvements in a revolving pistol ; or smile with 

 complacency when a London newspaper deigns to flatter. 

 But what are the means of extending cultivation 1 



Cotton in twelve years has declined in price 30 per 

 cent, yearly. 



Rice in quantity and quality, in nine years, 15 per 

 cent. 



Tobacco has declined in quantity the last five years, 

 2| per cent. 



Bread-stuffs are returning to the same amount of ex- 

 ports that they were prior to the failure of the potato, 

 &c., in Europe. 



Sugar cultivation is not advancing. Brazil and Cuba 

 will retain that trade in conjunction with East India and 

 the Mauritius. 



There is, under present prices of labor in America, 

 no possibility of extending these articles ; and except 

 tobacco, probably they will all greatly decline. We 

 see that India can produce good cotton, and land it 

 in Liverpool at 3i pence, or 7 cents the pound. In 

 America it cannot be cultivated under 5 cents per Ib. 

 We see not only that they are capable of producing 

 good cotton in India, and at that low figure, but that one 

 of the American planters has given up his employment 

 with the East India Company, and is become a planter on 

 his own account ; a thing in itself trifling, but in the 

 symptoms it exhibits, full of significant meaning. Eng- 



