AGRICULTURE. 



AGRICULTURE. 



necessary to say much upon that topic here, 

 where the agricultural resourses of the Re- 

 public will be mainly dwelt upon. 



Notwithstanding the desolation to which a 

 scourging course of tillage has reduced so 

 many of the once rich acres in the Atlantic 

 states, the ngricultural productions of the 

 country are exceedingly abundant. Until very 

 recently, the value of these products has been 

 a subject for conjecture and approximate com- 

 putation. The act of Congress for taking the 

 Census of 1840, provided that the persons en- 

 gaged in enumerating the population, should 

 collect facts so as to show the amount of the 

 products of husbandry, as well as of every 

 other branch of industry pursued throughout 

 the country. A fund of authentic information 

 of the highest interest has ieen thus obtained, 

 exhibiting not only the aggregate value, but 

 the relative proportions the several products 

 of agriculture, commerce, the forests, and the 

 manufactures, bear to each other. 



As the agriculture of the country yields the 

 inuiii -iliute means of subsistence, so does it 

 furni.^h the basis of commerce, and the various 

 branches of industry, all of which mu>t prosper 

 or languish according to the good or bad suc- 

 cess attending rural affairs. 



" Land and Wade," says a quaint old English 

 writer, " are twins, and ever will wax and 

 wane together. It cannot be ill with trade but 

 lands will fall, nor ill with lands, but trade will 

 feel it." (Sir Joseph Child.) 



"In the pursuit of agriculture," says a sen- 

 sible writer in Hunt's Magazine, "we are, in 

 effect, advancing the other great interests of 

 the country, a fact which we are too apt to 

 forget in discussing any single interest with 

 te views. We will take the mere subject 

 of commerce, which is supposed to be inimi- 

 cal to the other interests of the nation, and 

 what a mighty spring is given to the internal 

 trade of the country by agricultural enterprise, 

 looking at the actual condition of the trans- 

 portation of agricultural products upon the 

 principal lines of commercial communication 

 both at the east and we*t. How large a por 

 tion of the freights is furnished by the agricul 

 ture of the south to the ships which are con- 

 tinually plying from its ports to the inland 

 ports of our own territory, and to the prominent 

 cotton markets abroad. Of the vessels that are 

 daily taking in their cargoes in the harbours 

 of Charleston and New Orleans, and the inter- 

 vening ports, it is safe to say that the princi- 

 pal portion of those freights is derived from 

 the cotton, sugar, tobacco, and rice, as well as 

 the other agricultural staples of the surround 

 ing territory. The same is the case with the 

 commerce of the Mississippi : and we find the 

 numerous steam ships and flat boats which 

 ply upon that river during the season of navi- 

 gation, are laden with the agricultural product 

 of the states that border its banks, or that are 

 sent down through the interior by the Ohio. 

 The commerce of the lakes is maintained, more- 

 over, in a great measure by the transportation 

 of the agricultural produce of the great states 

 of Ohio, Illinois and Michigan, lying upon their 

 borders, to the eastern maikets: and the same 

 may be said of the canal and rail-load trans- 



portation of the greater number of the states 

 as well as our coastwise trade. Furthermore, 

 if we examine the decks and holds of the ships 

 which are constantly setting sail from our 

 commercial towns both at the east and south, 

 we find that agriculture supplies the great 

 bulk of the cargoes which are exported abroad. 

 It is agriculture indeed which gives life-blood 

 to the trade and commerce of the country, and 

 is doubtless as important to the solid vigour of 

 commercial enterprise as nutritious food to the 

 health of the human body. Withdraw this re- 

 source from our commerce, and the veins and 

 arteries of the commercial system would sink 

 into a state of collapse, exhibiting the cadave- 

 rous and pallid hue of disease and starvation. 

 Of the amount of the several species of agri- 

 cultural products yielded by the country, we 

 are furnished with the following statements. 

 An estimate of the products of labour and cap- 

 ital in the U. S., for the year 1848, is given, 

 as a means of comparison with more recent 

 statements which follow. 



