15 



cuted agriculture with irrigation. In the Illi- 

 nois country, Marquette found abundance of 

 corn, beans and melons. Bartram thought from 

 his examination of old Indian town sites that 

 the persimmon, honey locust, Chickasaw plum, 

 mulberry, black walnut and shell bark hickory 

 were cultivated by the aborigines, as were the 

 apple and peach at a later period when intro- 

 duced by Europeans. From the Kennebec, and 

 even the northern shores of Lake Superior, to 

 the Mexican border and beyond, the Indian was 

 probably advancing in agricultural art and in 

 Mexico and Peru had settled down to established 

 courses of industry. But it was agriculture 

 without metal tools and without domestic ani- 

 mals. It is said that th e North American Indian 

 had no domestic animal except the dog, and that 

 he was not used even for the chase, but was sim- 

 ply a pet. The agriculture of the aboriginal pe- 

 riod was mostly the work of women, using tools 

 of stone, shell or bone in the more sandy and 

 fertile soils along the streams. 



EARLY AGRICULTURE OF THE UNITED STATES. 



There was no immediate change made in this 

 state of things by the coming of the white man. 

 The dense forests, the abundant game, the In- 

 dian hostilities, the predatory animals, the want 

 of markets, all delayed the progress of agricult- 

 ure. But some advance was made in the cen- 

 tury and a half that elapsed between the land- 

 ing of the May Flower and the battle of Bunker 

 Hill. 



At the time of the Declaration of Indepen- 

 dence our population was probably less than 

 3,000,000 including 500,000 slaves. In New Eng- 

 land which had nearly one-fourth of this popu- 

 lation, the great body of the people were farm- 

 ers, working on small farms, but probably de- 

 voting a good deal of time to the pursuits of the 

 hunter, fisherman and wood cutter. Elliott 

 quotes from " The American Traveler" an esti- 

 mate of the exports of New England in 1770 from 

 which I gather that of 370,500 valuation of ex- 

 ports, 12,000 were horses and live stock and 13, 

 000 pickled beef and pork. Nearly all the re- 

 mainder were products of the forest or fisheries 

 mainly the latter. New England therefore at 

 that time probably did not much more than sup- 

 ply her own population with agricultural pro- 

 ducts. 



In Virginia and Maryland where the growth of 

 tobacco commenced at an early day, the agri- 

 cultural exports were much more important. 

 Jefferson states that Virginia exported 70,000 

 hogsheads of tobacco in 1758, and at the time of 

 the beginning of the revolution estimated the 

 annual exports of that state to equal 850,000, 

 which includes 55,000 hogsheads of tobacco, 800,- 

 000 bushels of wheat, 600,000 of Indian corn, 4,000 

 barrels of pork, 1,000 barrels of beef, and 5,000 

 bushels of peas, besides flax seed, hemp, cotton, 

 horses, &c. Six-sevenths at least of the exports 

 of Virginia at the time appear to have been ag- 



ricultural products. Tobacco was already ex- 

 hausting the soil and its culture diminishing r 

 and Jefferson rejoiced at the fact and advocated 

 the growth of wheat and live stock. 



In South Carolina I believe the principal agri- 

 cultural product of the colonial period was rice, 

 though some strong efforts had been made, with 

 partial success, to establish silk culture. Here 

 as in Louisiana, under the French, attempts 

 were made at growing other tropical and semi- 

 tropical products with a varied success. The 

 growth of the sugar-cane was begun. Indigo 

 was planted and cotton was experimented with, 

 though the lack of cheap ginning processes 

 prevented its extensive culture until the subse- 

 quent period. 



Far up in the French Louisiana, In what was 

 afterwards the Illinois country, wheat and cattle 

 were already staple products and on occasion of 

 need, a large surplus could be furnished to the 

 regions about New Orleans. 



Clear around the Atlantic and Gulf coasts from 

 Maine to Louisiana, and scattered along the 

 great river, Mississippi, the beginnings were 

 made of the great agricultural empire whose 

 chief development has taken place at a period 

 far subsequent even to the revolutionary period. 



In 1790, when our first census was taken, we 

 had a population of 3,929,214, settled on an area 

 of 239,935 square miles. One-thirtieth of this 

 population was found in cities of 8,000 inhabi- 

 tants or over. The population of that period, 

 although we have no classification of its occupa- 

 tions, must have been very largely engaged in 

 agriculture or kindred pursuits that could be 

 prosecuted with it such as hunting, lumbering 

 and fishing. Every person in most communities 

 had a direct interest in practical agriculture. 



There was not at that period, nor a time long 

 subsequent, anything of what is now called Sci- 

 entific agriculture or the use of scientific facts 

 and scientific methods in the study of the best 

 practical agriculture. Agricultural implements 

 down to within a period in the memory of many 

 now living were scarcely better than in the days 

 of Hesiod or of the Scriptores, Rei Rusticae, 

 The improved races of horses, cattle, sheep, 

 swine and poultry, unless it may be thorough- 

 bred horses, were little known or sought. From 

 Maine to Georgia the westward sweep of culti- 

 vation, like a forest fire, consumed the streets 

 and burnt out the land. I wish I could say that 

 in this last respect we had made a stay of the 

 devastating hand of a pioneer and pilfering hus- 

 bandry; but better methods seem only to be 

 born of necessity. 



AGRICULTURB OF 1876. 



At the end of the first century of our national 

 history, we find a population of 38,558,371, settled 

 on 1,272,239 square miles. Our population has 

 increased ten- fold, our settled area five or six-, 

 fold. But one-fifth of this vastly increased pop- 

 ulation lives in cities exceeding ei*ht thousand 



