STAPLES OF AND FOli AMERICA. 15 



sent amount produced. In value they have fallen to a 

 very low figure. 



Look back to the time prior to the introduction of 

 cotton and rice. What was the condition then of the 

 people ? Was it not a general struggle for an humble 

 subsistence 1 Had not cotton and rice, c., been intro 

 duced, what would be the state of the United States to 

 day 1 W T ould her wealth or her population be to what they 

 now are ? These products aided to advance the pros 

 perity and raise these States to great eminence ; and 

 sixty years of peace, progress, and agricultural pros 

 perity have placed the United States of America in the 

 proudest position. Will Americans rest content with 

 past achievements ? Her staples of production were all- 

 sufficient for the profitable employment of her population 

 heretofore : these staples are, if not falling oif in quan 

 tity, very much reduced in value ; while the population 

 is increasing with extraordinary rapidity, and the extent 

 of land called into cultivation is spread from one sea to 

 the other. 



Cotton and rice were golden mines, and all-sufficient 

 for their time, and, left to the support of the few, would 

 go on enriching them to the end of time ; but let a great 

 and numerous people place their dependence on them 

 alone and they will become exhausted, and want, idle 

 ness and misery must be the consequences. 



The present products of America were all-sufficient 

 to the state of things some twenty years ago, but to 

 day s greatly increased numbers, require something 

 more. And if nothing additional be forthcoming things 

 must retrograde; and America s future be a grievous 

 history. 



