STAPLES OF AND FOR AMERICA. 47 



petition 1 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 

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

 little piece of machinery at which they rejoice exceed 

 ingly. 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 

 less, per acre ? yea, 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 

 be the 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 

 lands. The second would be, the influx into the cultiva 

 tion would reduce prices to a rate that would leave rice 

 land valueless and the rice planters beggars. The rice 

 planter, as well 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 

 two only channels now left them, and keep them from 

 being choked up by the dense mass of people who must, 

 from hard necessity, rush into them. 



I believe the foregoing review of the existing position 

 of these States suffices to show the necessity of enter 

 prise. the necessity of their people doing something 



