36 The Tariff and the Farmer. 



Then came tlie higher duties of the protective tariff of 

 1842-46, when exports annually averaged about $94,000,- 

 000. 



But under the low revenue duties of the tariffs of 1846 

 and 1857 the value of exjjorts bounded up from $101,700,- 

 000 in 1846 to $316,200,000 in 1860— a most marvelous 

 increase; a percentage of gain in trade which our com- 

 merce has rarely, if ever, matched. AVith the export 

 record before him, how could Mr. Stanwood come to the 

 conclusion he did! 



That most of this gain was in agricultural products is 

 evident from data furnished by the American Almanac 

 for 1888, page 26: "Total exports of agricultural prod- 

 ucts," 1850, $123,800,000; 1860, $295,000,000. Of these 

 values raw cotton comprised the chief part, in the former 

 year nearly $72,000,000 and in the latter about $192,000,- 

 000. In the exportations of 1850-60 the products of the 

 West cut a comparatively small tigure. Her great stores 

 of provisions, which in later years swelled to vast pro- 

 portions, at this period were but little drawn upon. The 

 railroad system had penetrated but a small part of her 

 territory. 



T'lien came the Civil War with its interruption of busi- 

 ness, chauging the channels of industry. The young men 

 were swept from the farms into the army and into the 

 manufacturing centres. The South could no longer send 

 its cotton abroad. The country could but little more than 

 supply its own demands for provisions for man and 

 beast. For these reasons the value of agricultural exports 

 for several years was at a low point. Nor for some years 

 after 1870 had agriculture so far recovered from the 

 effects of the war — the destruction and demoralization 

 wrought at the South, and the high prices caused by the 



