2 INTRODUCTION. 



quire predominance. Bloody and desolating wars are viewed in their true light, and 

 the useful arts of peace appear the only proper sources of individual pleasure and 

 national prosperity. As, among these arts, none possesses the vital importance of 

 agriculture, from its furnishing the means of immediate subsistence, so it may fairly 

 be said; no other excites at the present day a greater and more pervading interest 

 throughout Europe and America, with all who seek independence or the gratification 

 of the most rational of tastes. 



The inhabitants of the United States possess advantages for the prosecution of 

 agricultural pursuits, which, for variety and extent, surpass those enjoyed by any 

 other people on the globe. They occupy the greatest portion of the North American 

 continent, embracing all varieties of soil and surface, with a climate which in the 

 southern parts admits the culture of many of the most valuable productions of the 

 tropics, whilst the northern limits verge upon, but do not reach the less favoured 

 regions where too severe and enduring frost entails a scanty vegetation. 



Commencing nearest the tropical limits, the chief attention of the planter is direct- 

 ed to the culture of the sugar-cane, rice, tobacco, indigo, and especially cotton, more 

 of which last is raised in the Southern States than in all the rest of the world besides. 

 In the amount of sugar procured from the cane, Louisiana takes the lead, though 

 Florida, Alabama, and others of the extreme southern states produce considerable 

 quantities. South Carolina yields the most rice, which is also raised to a greater or 

 less extent throughout the southern states, and even as high as Tennessee, Kentucky, 

 and southern Virginia. The cotton region is still more extensive, spreading through- 

 out the extreme southern and south-western states, from the Atlantic far west of the Mis- 

 sissippi, and rising into middle Virginia, and even the lowest portion of Delaware. 

 In the quantity of tobacco produced, Virginia stands foremost, being followed succes 

 sively by Kentucky, Tennessee, Maryland, North Carolina, etc. 



The Middle States raise in the greatest abundance, maize or Indian corn, wheat, 

 rye, barley and oats, whilst in a large , portion of the Northern States, the wheat, 

 rye, oat, potato, and especially grass crops, are extremely productive and valuable. 

 Although maize is most extensively cultivated in the middle states, it is abundant 

 in almost every section of the country, and from its affording so large an amount 

 of the food of man and animals, is universally regarded as the most valuable cereal 

 crop of the United States. Besides these there are many other rich products of the 

 fields and forests, which enter largely into the aggregate of national wealth. 



The first history of American Agriculture differs from that of countries in the old 

 world, where the advances in the arts were slow, and every acquisition marked by 

 rudeness and simplicity. Not so, however, in America, whose intelligent European 

 settlers came with all the appliances of advanced civilization, prepared to chop down 

 the forests and clear away the thickets which had so long encumbered the ground and 

 furnished a scanty subsistence to the savage hunter. For a time the roots obstructed 

 the plough and prevented the deep turning of the soil : but they afforded no impedi- 

 ment to the raising of grain crops, since the light virgin mould, abounding in the 

 alkalies and all other elements of fertility, required but the slightest stirring of the 

 surface to answer the purposes of the plough and harrow. Here then commenced 

 the career of the American planter and farmer, upon a capital accumulated by nature 

 herself through the most gradual accessions. Rich harvests of grain, crops of tobacco 

 and other products sent to Europe and sold at high prices, stimulated to renewed ex- 

 ertions, and the generous soil was subjected to a scourging course of tillage, by which 

 many of the essential elements of its fertility were finally exhausted without any 

 compensating additions. In Virginia, where the primitive settlements were made, 

 large tracts of many hundreds and even thousands of acres, the once profitable cul- 

 ture of which is shown by the extensive ruins of stately mansions, now lie waste 

 and uncultivated, or are covered with a new growth of the oak and pine, renewing 

 forests to which the deer, once driven away, has returned. 



The lands bordering on the Atlantic have thus been worn out by successive years 

 of ci^ure without adequate help, the thinnest soils first, and next the deeper moulds. 

 1 5 ;;t 1 ^t not those whose lots are cast in other and more prosperous parts of the Union 

 sympathize over the decayed fortunes of once flourishing districts, and overlook their 

 own gradual decline. It is in vain for the farmers of the western valleys and prairies 

 to boast of the depth and inexhaustible productive powers of their lands. With every 



