No. 4. 



Peter A, Broiime''s Address. 



109 



Brantz, Clay, Gowen, and Kelley, let us not 

 forget that the task is not finished. 



Tiiird. Soiling-, it is apprehended, has 

 been too much neglected by most American 

 husbandmen. 



Fourth. Irrigation has also been too little 

 attended to in the United States. 



Fifth. Proper care and precaution have 

 not been sufficiently bestowed upon the selec- 

 tion of seeds. This is a subject of the great- 

 est importance. 



Sixth. Much is yet to be learned in re- 

 gard to the preservation and economical use 

 of manure. 



Seventh. The introduction, more gene- 

 rally, of labour-saving machinery, and par- 

 ticularly of the itinerant threshing machine, 

 deserves to be mentioned. 



Eighth. Gardening and raising fruit are 

 much neglected by our farmers. 



It is respectfully suggested that special 

 committees might, with advantage, be raised 

 upon these and other useful topics, to report 

 at the next annual meeting. 



Pennsylvania contains nearly thirty mil 

 lions of acres. According to the census of 

 1840, she had a population of one million 

 seven hundred and odd thousands, which is 

 nineteen acres and a fraction for each inhab- 

 itant. In 1842, she raised, of grains of all 

 kinds, upwards of sixty millions of bushels; 

 of potatoes, nearly thirteen millions of bush- 

 els; of hay, upwards of two millions and a 

 quarter of tons; of flax and hemp, upwards 

 of three thousand three hundred tons; of 

 tobacco, four hundred and eighty thousand 

 tons ; of silk, upwards of twenty-one tliou- 

 sand pounds; of sugar, nearly three millions 

 and a half of pounds ; and of wines, nearly 

 eighteen thousand gallons. 



In the wheat crop, Pennsylvania ranked 

 the third State in the Union. Ohio, with 

 twenty-five millions six hundred thousand 

 acres, raised twenty-five millions and a quar- 

 ter of bushels; and New York, with thirty 

 millions of acres, raised upwards of eleven 

 millions of bushels, while we raised ten mil- 

 lions eight hundred thousand bushels. 



In the Indian corn crop, — the great staple 

 of the United States — Pennsylvania stands 

 only the twelfth State in the scale of pro- 

 duction. We raised thirteen and a half mil- 

 lions of bushels, whereas, Tennessee, which 

 has twenty-five millions six hundred thou- 

 sand acres, and a population of only eight 

 hundred and twenty-nine thousand, produced 

 nearly fifty-six millions of bushels; and Ken- 

 tucky, with barely twenty-five millions of 

 acres, and a population of only seven hun- 

 dred and seventy-five thousand, raised nearly 

 fifty millions of bushels. 



But Tennessee and Kentucky, that year, 



did not produce half the quantity of wheat 

 that was raised by Pennsylvania. The en- 

 tire wheat crop of the United States, con- 

 taining two millions of square miles, in 

 1842, was rising one hundred and two mil- 

 lions and a quarter of bushels, of which 

 Pennsylvania, containing forty-six thousand 

 square miles, raised nearly one tenth. So 

 that, while the Pennsylvania farmer can 

 find nothing in the national satistics of 

 which he ought to be ashamed, he perceives 

 much in the industry of other States to ex- 

 cite his ambition. 



The manufacture of sugar has so much 

 increased, and is so much increasing, in the 

 United States, that we shall soon, not only 

 be independent of other nations, for that ne- 

 cessary of life, but we shall furnish it to 

 foreign countries. The whole capital em- 

 ployed in tjie manufacture of cane sugar in 

 the United States, is said to be fifty-two 

 millions, and the average produce is esti- 

 mated at eighty millions of pounds, besides 

 four millions of gallons of molasses. In ad- 

 dition to which, maple sugar has become an 

 article of much importance, as has been seen 

 by the immense quantity produced by Penn- 

 sylvania in 1842. The manufacture of su- 

 gar from the stalk of the Indian corn, has 

 also lately attracted the public attention, 

 and is worthy of experiment. 



The foregoing slight sketch of the na- 

 tional statistics and of our State resources, 

 is deemed to be sufficient authority to con- 

 gratulate you, my fellow citizens, upon our 

 general prosperity, at least so far as farming 

 is concerned, and to encourage us to hope 

 that, with the blessing of Providence, we 

 may enjoy still more in future. We have a 

 moderate climate, a fruitful soil, and free 

 institutions, and with these, if we are not 

 happy, the fault must lie at our own doors. 

 Let us continue to reverence the religion of 

 our forefathers — to preserve the integrity of 

 the legislative, the executive, and the judi- 

 cial departments of government — to pass 

 fewer laws, and to put those in existence 

 into stricter execution — to maintain peace 

 without, and industry, economy, sobriety 

 and independence within, and these United 

 States will be respected by every people 

 upon the face of this earth. 



It is said, by Mr. Ellsworth, that it is not 

 easy to describe the United States as they 

 now are ; but it is far beyond the limit of the 

 brightest fancy to conceive what they will be, 

 in after times, when all your territories shall 

 be filled, and all our lands put under cul- 

 ture. Mississippi, Tennessee and Illinois, 

 used to be esteemed " the far West ;" but 

 now we have, still further in that direction, 

 the flourishing States of Arkansas, Missouri 



