Pnblioation Office No, 45 North Sixth street, above Arch. 



iSee Notice to Subscribers on page 191. 



THE FARMERS' CABINET, 



DEVOTED TO AGRICULTURE, HORTICULTURE AND RURAL ECONOMY. 



Vol. II.— No. 13.1 



Pliiladelphia, January 15, 1838. 



[WUole No. 36. 



To the Editor of Uie Farmers' Cabinet. 



On Population and Cultivation. 



The progress of agricultural science during 

 the last quarter of a century, has occasioned 

 many estimates of the anaount of population a 

 given quantity of land may be made capable 

 of supporting. 



With this question is intimately connected 

 that of the area or number of square miles of 

 cultivable soil a country may possess. 



Thus, an approximation may be made to 

 the prospective population, production, power, 

 and wealth of any country. The tendency 

 of the human mirld to dive into futurity, may 

 be satiated by a fair calculation The seats 

 of Empire in after ages, may be indicated, 

 more extensive than those of Alexander, Au- 

 gustus or Tamerlane. Facilities of commu- 

 nication may be so extended, that a continent 

 can be advantageously united in one vast Re- 

 public. 



Already have the predictions of European 

 statesmen, that our Federal Republic would 

 fall in pieces by reason of its extent, and, the 

 inconvenience of communication, been falsi- 

 fied by the Steam-Boat and Locomotive En- 

 gine. 



The dream of the Poet — 

 " Westwatd the march of Em^pire takes its way," 

 is realized, 



Maclaren, a British writer of authority, has 

 recorded the opinion, that this Continent 

 though less than half the size of the old, con- 

 tains an equal quantity of useful soil, and a 

 much more than equal quantity of productive 

 power. He estimates that in America there 

 are upwards of four millions of square miles 

 of laud, each capable of supporting two hun- 

 dred persons, and nearly six millions of square 

 miles, each capable of supporting four hun- 

 dred and ninety persons. 



Cab— Vofc. H,— No.l2. 177 



The above estimate of the capability of 

 America, to support a dense population, would 

 give us ten millions of square miles of fertile 

 soil, averaging three hundred and seventy-four 

 persons to the square mile, and an aggregate 

 of three thousand seven hundred and forty 

 millions of inhabitants. The existing popu- 

 lation of America is estimated at thirty-seven 

 millions, which, if we adopt these data, would 

 give three and seven-tenths inhabitants to 

 each square mile of productive soil. 



The most improved and best cultivated por- 

 tions of the earth, as Great Britain, Holland, 

 and Belgium, average about two hunared in- 

 habitants to the square mile of their whole 

 area. Pennsylvania contains about thirty, 

 and her best cultivated agricultural counties, 

 as Montgomery, about one hundred. 



In Great Britain only sixty-four thousand 

 square miles, or one half the entire surface, 

 has yet been brought under cultivation, — so 

 that her present population is nearly four hun- 

 dred inhabitants to every square mile of cul- 

 tivated soil. Her political economists esti- 

 mate that the land now in cultivation could be 

 made to produce sufRcient bread, vegetable, 

 and meat, for seventy millions of inhabitants, 

 or nearly three times the existing number. 



The elaborate report of the Secretary of the 

 Treasury of the United States, of Dea 5th, 

 1837, exhibits a view of the production; and 

 consumption of wheat flour and m€al,.of grea 

 interest to the Farmer. He estimates our 

 population at fifteen millions, and the con- 

 sumption of each individual to average a pound 

 of flour or meal per day. '* At the price of 

 3 cents per lb. for wheat flour and only 1^ 

 cents per pound for meal from the cheaper va- 

 rieties of grain^ which is not far from the av- 

 erage of 1834 and '35, the cost of bread alone 

 (if only one half the population used wheat 



