xiv AN ADDRESS, &C. 



the last quarter, considerable shipments of that article have 

 taken place, twenty-five per cent may be added to form an 

 estimate of the whole number of barrels shipped, during the 

 year 1816. The number of American vessels cleared from 

 the port of Philadelphia was 310. — Their tonnage amount- 

 ed to 55,446. The whole number of clearances was 437, and 

 the tonnage 78,844. 



The only article of import subservient to Agriculture is 

 Gypsum, of which 19452 tons were imported during the last 

 year from Nova Scotia. When we reflect that much is also 

 imported into New York, and some into other States, and 

 that the quarries on Cayuga Lake are in active operation, 

 and found to produce Gypsum of an excellent quality, we 

 may form some calculation of the quantity of that inesti- 

 mable mineral production consumed in the agriculture of 

 the United States. 



Among the desiderata Of American husbandry t lireshing ma- 

 chines have long been ranked,* and so early as the year 1792, a 

 successful attempt had been made by a gentleman of Phila- 

 delphia to construct one. the model which of is now in the 

 cabinet of the American Philosophical societyof Philadelphia. 

 It is to be regretted, that the gentleman* in whose ingenious 

 mind the excellent idea of that useful machine originated, 

 did not prosecute, it as we should probably have had those 

 machines in operation in the United States, even before they 

 were generally introduced into Europe; and the old world 

 might have been indebted to us for one of the most useful 

 implements of husbandry, as it has been for a knowledge of 

 the application of steam to a purpose the most useful and im- 

 portant in human life, and most efficient as a mean of defence 

 in naval warfare, that ancient or modern ingenuity can boast 

 of. I know I am anticipated by all of you, when I mention the 

 stemming of rapid steams, and the safe and expeditious na- 



* Col. A. Anderson. See Appendix I> 



