GRAIN-GKOWIXG EAST AND WEST. 165 



wrought the same deplorable result in our rich Gen- 

 esee valley ; while eastern Pennsylvania, though set- 

 tled nearly two centuries ago, having pursued a more 

 rational and provident system of husbandry, grows 

 excellent wheat-crops to this day. 



I insist that the States this side of the Delaware, 

 though they will draw much grain from the Canadas 

 after the political change that cannot be far distant, 

 will be compelled to grow a very considerable share 

 of their own breadstuifs ; that the West will cease to 

 supply them unless at prices which they will deem ex- 

 orbitant ; and that grain-growing eastward of a line 

 drawn from Baltimore due north to the Lakes will 

 have to be very considerably extended. Let us see, 

 then, whether this might not be done with profit even 

 now, and whether the East is not unwise in having so 

 generally abandoned grain-growing. 



I leave out of the account most of New-England, as 

 well as of Eastern New-York, and the more rugged 

 portions of New-Jersey and Pennsylvania, where the 

 rocky, hilly, swampy face of the country seems to 

 forbid any but that patchy cultivation, wherein 

 machinery and mechanical power can scarcely be 

 made available, and which seem, therefore, perma- 

 nently fated to persevere in a system of agriculture 

 and horticulture not essentially unlike that they now 

 exhibit. In the valleys of the Penobscot, the Ken- 

 nebec, the Hudson, and of our smaller .rivers, there 

 are considerable tracts absolutely free from these 

 natural impediments, whereon a larger and more 



