170 Progress of Population and Wealth 



servation, the unavoidable errors will probably so balance and 

 compensate each other, that the result will afford an approximation 

 to the truth, which is all that the subject admits of, and, indeed, all 

 that it is important for us to know. 



In making the subjoined estimate, the following course has been 

 pursued : — Of those articles of which the census has given, only the 

 quantities, the market price at the place produced, or where the 

 producer transports it by his own labour, is considered the fair 

 value. To ascertain this, local information, from persons compe- 

 tent to give it, has been procured, as far as practicable. The 

 prices affixed ought, in strictness, perhaps, to have been those 

 which prevailed in 1840, when the census was taken ; but, as the 

 prices of most articles of commerce were not uninfluenced, even 

 then, by the distention of the currency which succeeded the termi- 

 nation of the Bank of the United States, in 1836, it was thought 

 that a medium between the prices of 1840 and those of the present 

 year, 1843, when they are unusually depressed, would give a fair 

 average. 



In estimating the product of live stock, one-fourth of its gross 

 value has been assumed to be its annual value. This may be some- 

 what too much for horses and mules, but it is far too little for sheep 

 and hogs, and may not be quite enough for neat cattle. The pro- 

 ducts of this branch of husbandry is compounded in a small degree 

 of rent, but principally of the wages of personal service and the 

 profits of capital ; and, considering the high price which both labour 

 and capital bear in this country, 25 per cent seems to be not too 

 high. In England, it is supposed that one-fourth of the cattle is 

 slaughtered in the year. As those fatted for the shambles are 

 worth about double the general average, this rule would give twice 

 the amount of the present estimate ; but then it would be necessary 

 to deduct the value of the food consumed in the process of fatten- 

 ing, which would bring us to nearly the same result. From the 

 gross value of domestic manufactures, included in the products of 

 agriculture, one-half is deducted for the raw materials. 



In estimating the products of commerce, as they also are com- 

 pounded of the wages of industry and the profits of capital, they 

 have, in like manner, been set. down at 25 per cent on the capital 

 employed. Without doubt, this greatly exceeds the rate of profits 

 in the wholesale and foreign trade, but it is also far short of the re- 

 tail trade, in which, for the most part, the capital is turned over 

 several times in the year. The census shows, that upwards of 



