POPULATION. 



PORES. 



and Greece, and such the long-desolated shores 

 of Northern Africa. It is not Nature that is 

 barren of her gifts, but it is man that has 

 abused them all ; and, in the climates and the 

 lands where we might look for the verdure of 

 an eternal spring, we find only the moving 

 mountains and interminable tracts of the de- 

 sert. 



It is unnecessary, perhaps, to enlarge upon 

 this statement, but one or two facts wijl surely 

 convince the most incredulous that we are not 

 yet nearly arrived at the maximum available 

 produce of the earth. Even as regards the 

 saving in the seed-corn, we have witnessed in 

 our time that the drill has done much, and the 

 dibbling system still more ; but, by transplant- 

 ing, greater things may yet be done. I will 

 illustrate this position by only one or two facts 

 out of many of a similar kind that I am ac- 

 quainted with. At the Battle Horticultural 

 show (in 1837), R. White received a prize for 

 61 fine ears of wheat growing from one grain, 

 which are deposited at the apartments of the 

 Labourer's Friend Society in Exeter Hall, and 

 another prize at the Society for Encouragement 

 of Aits, &c., in the Adelphi, and similar pre- 

 miums are again offered there and elsewhere. 

 P. 13nwn raised that year 345 roots, with 4250 

 ears, from one grain, since June, 1836, the 

 plants having been divided three times; and it 

 is recorded in the Philosophical Transactions for 

 1768, that in the same space of time, one grain 

 of wheat produced 21,109 ears, containing 

 576,840 grains, or nearly a bushel of clean 

 grain ; thus, an acorn cup would hold seed- 

 wln.-at enough to raise plants for an acre of 

 land, and full 10,000,000 bushels of seed-wheat 

 might be saved on the 4,000,000 acres under 

 wheat in England and Scotland; which quan- 

 tity, allowing 8 bushels to each person, would 

 support 1,250,000 persons, who, if employed in 

 weeding the crops, would double the produce, 

 as is shown by the increased crops raised by 

 the tenants under the allotment system. 



And again, as regards manuring the soil, 

 agriculture is yet only in its infancy; crushed 

 bones, now so extensively employed, were un- 

 known as fertilizers 25 years since; gypsum, 

 which abounds in England, is only slowly com- 

 ing into use; and millions of tons of the rich- 

 est manure are now annually wasted in our 

 cities and towns suffered to putrefy in cess- 

 pools, or poured into the sea through a thou- 

 sand sewers; "and yet," says the Thames Im- 

 provement Company, "strange as it may ap- 

 pear, England is almost the only nation in 

 Europe, notwithstanding its advance in agri- 

 cultural knowledge, which suffers the peculiar 

 manure in question to be wasted and cast 

 away; while all the other nations on the Con- 

 tinent, and even China, husband it, and trea- 

 sure it up for their lands, make it an object of 

 extensive and lucrative traffic, and some ex- 

 port it to their colonies. The principal Lon- 

 don sewers have been carefully gauged, and 

 are found to convey daily into the river 

 Thames 115,608 tons of mixed drainage." 



By these and other certain improvements, 

 we may safely conclude that, as regards the 

 cultivation of the most barren tracts, the drift- 

 ing sands of Norfolk, the heath lands of the 



north of England, and even the shingle of its 

 sea-coast, hardly a tithe has yet been effected 

 in the way of cultivation. At the suggestion 

 of the Archbishop of Dublin, an acre of shingle 

 at East Bourn was covered with 3 or 4 inches 

 of clay, at a cost of only 16rf. This has formed 

 a plate to retain what mould, &c., the tenant 

 has added, who has hired this ground for four- 

 teen years at 40s. per acre. So no land is 

 hopelessly barren. Let such improvements 

 proceed; let science go hand in hand with the 

 farmer ; let the naturalist find new cultivata- 

 ble vegetables, or new varieties of those al- 

 ready known ; let the chemist yield his magic 

 aid to demonstrate the best mode of promoting 

 their growth and increasing the fertility of the 

 soil ; and then, I fearlessly assert that many 

 times the present inhabitants of Britain may 

 be amply supported by the produce of the land 

 of our birth. 



POPULATION, AGRICULTURAL, OF 

 THE UNITED STATES. By the census of 

 1840, it appears that the number of all the 

 males, of 10 years old and upwards, in the 

 United States and Territories, exclusive of the 

 naval service, was 5,907,752. The whole 

 population of the Union was 17,069,453, of 

 which the number engaged in agricultural pur- 

 suits is more than a fifth part of the whole 

 population. When this is compared with the 

 proportions engaged in some other pursuits, 

 we find the next most numerous class com- 

 prised of those engaged in the various manu- 

 factures and trades, which, in the non-slave- 

 holding states and territories, amounts to 1 in. 

 17, and in the slave states to 1 in 40 averag- 

 ing, in the whole Union, 1 to 22 of all the in- 

 habitants. The largest proportion of manu- 

 facturers is in Rhode Island, where it consti- 

 tutes about four-fifths of all the males above 

 20 years of age ; next in Massachusetts ; next 

 in Connecticut ; next in New Jersey ; next in 

 >rk. The proportion employed in com- 

 merce comprises, in the free states, 1 in 122, 

 and in the slave states 1 in 197 the average 

 in all the states being 1 in 146 of the whole 

 population. The largest proportion is in Lou- 

 isiana, which contains the great depot for the 

 commerce of the Mississippi Valley. The 

 next largest is in Wisconsan Territory, and 

 the next in Rhode Island. The proportion em- 

 ployed in ocean navigation is greatest in 

 Massachusetts, where it amounts to 27,153, 

 being 1 in 31 of the whole population of the 

 state, and nearly one-half of all those engaged 

 in the same pursuits in the whole Union, viz., 

 56,021, or 1 in 305. The next greatest is in 

 Maine, where it amounts to 10,091, being 1 in 

 49-72 of the state population. New York has 

 5511, Connecticut 2700, and Pennsylvania 

 1815, employed in ocean navigation. The pro- 

 portion engaged in the learned professions, in- 

 cluding engineers, amounts to 45,162, or 1 in 

 217 of the whole population of the free states, 

 and 20,093, or 1 in 361, of the whole inhabitants 

 of the slave states. 



PORES. In botany, apertures, more or less 

 visible, in the cuticle of plants, through which 

 transpiration takes place. They may exist on 

 the cellular tissue ; and when there they are 

 the organs of insensible perspiration of the 

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