100 



Silas WrighVs Address. 



Vol. XII. 



are paralyzed, his spirits sink, and he scarce- 

 ly feels that the year has added to his gains. 

 He sees little encouragement in toiling on, 

 to cultivate beyond his wants, productions 

 which will not sell; and the chances are, 

 that his farm is neglected, his husbandry 

 becomes bad, and his gains in fact cease. 



To continue a progressive state of im- 

 provement in agriculture, then, and to give 

 energy and prosperity to this great and vital 

 branch of human industry, a healthful and 

 stable market becomes indispensable, and no 

 object should more carefully occupy the at- 

 tention of the tarmers of the United States. 



Deeply impressed with the conviction of 

 this truth, benevolent minds have cherished 

 the idea that a domestic market, to be influ- 

 enced only by our own national policy, would 

 be so far preferable, in stability and certain- 

 ty, to the open market of the commercial 

 world, as to have persuaded themselves that 

 a sufficient market for our agricultural pro- 

 ducts is thus attainable. It is not designed 

 to discuss the soundness of this theory, where 

 it can be reduced to practice; but only to 

 inquire whether the state of this country, 

 the condition of its society, and the tendency 

 and inclination of its population, as to their 

 industrial pursuits, are such, at the present 

 time, or can be expected to be such for gene- 

 rations yet to come, as to render it possible 

 to consume within the country the surplus of 

 the productions of our agriculture. The 

 theory of an exclusively domestic market 

 for this great domestic interest, is certainly 

 a very beautiful one, as a theory, and can 

 scarcely fail to strike the mind favorably 

 upon a first impression. Still, examination 

 has produced differences of opinion between 

 statesmen of equal intelligence and patriot- 

 ism, as to its influences upon the happiness 

 and prosperity of a country and its popula- 

 tion. Any examination of this question 

 would lead to a discussion properly consid- 

 ered political, if not partisan, and all such 

 discussions it is my settled purpose to avoid, 

 as inappropriate to the place and the occa 

 sion. 



I simply propose to inquire as to a fact, 

 which must control the application of theo- 

 ries and principles of political economy 

 touching this point, to our country and its 

 agricultural population, without raising any 

 question as to the wisdom of the one, or the 

 soundness of the other. Is the consumption 

 of this country equal to its agricultural pro- 

 duction, or can it become so within any cal- 

 culable period of years 1 How is the fact 1 

 May I not inquire without giving offence, 

 or transcending the limits I have prescribed 

 for myself in the discussion? «Can a fair 

 examination, scrupulously confined to this 



point, take a political bearing, or disturb a 

 political feeling? It is certainly not my de- 

 sign to wound the feelings of any member 

 of the Society, or of any citizen of the 

 country; and I have convinced myself that 

 I may make this inquiry, and express the 

 conclusions of my own mind as to the re- 

 sult, without doing either. If I shall prove 

 to be in error, it will be an error as to the 

 fact inquired after, and not as to the sound- 

 ness of the principle in political economy 

 dependent upon the fact for its application, 

 because as to the soundness of the principle, 

 I attempt no discussion and offer no opinion. 

 It will be an error as to the applicability of 

 a theory to our country, and not as to the 

 wisdom or policy of the theory itself, because 

 of the soundness, or unsoundness of the the- 

 ory, when it can be practically applied, I 

 studiously refrain from any expression, as 

 inappropriate here. With the indulgence 

 of the Society, I will inquire as to the fact. 

 Our country is very wide and very new. 

 It embraces every variety of climate and 

 soil most favourable to agricultural pursuits. 

 It produces already almost every agricultu- 

 ral staple, and the most important are the 

 ordinary productions of extensive sections 

 of the country, and are now sent to the mar- 

 kets in great abundance. 



Yet our agriculture is in its infancy al- 

 most everywhere, and at its maturity no- 

 where. It is believed to be entirely safe to 

 assume that there is not one single agricul- 

 tural county in the whole Union, filled up in 

 an agricultural sense — not one such county 

 which has not yet land to be brought into 

 cultivation, and much more land, the culti- 

 vation of which is to be materially improved, 

 before it can be considered as having reached 

 the measure of its capacity for production. 

 If this be true of the best cultivated agricul- 

 tural county in the Union, how vast is the 

 proportion of those counties which have en- 

 tire townships, and of the States, which have 

 not merely counties, but entire districts, yet 

 wholly unpeopled, and unreclaimed from the 

 wilderness state"? 



When to this broad area of the agricultu- 

 ral field of our country, we add our immense 

 territories, organized and unorganized, who 

 can compute the agricultural capacities of 

 the United States, or fix a limit to the pe- 

 riod when our surplus agricultural produc- 

 tions will increase with increasing years and 

 population? Compare the census of 1830 

 and 1840 with the map of the Union, and 

 witness the increase of population in the 

 new States, which are almost exclusively 

 agricultural, and who can doubt the strong 

 and resistless inclination of our people to 

 this pursuit? 



