226 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



Oct. 



of hundreds of millions of dollars. These errors in 

 statistics lead directly to errors in legislation, and 

 the whole community suffers serious injury in consc- 

 (|uence of official misstatements in matters of fact. 



TIuis, all the millers and dealers in wheat wore 

 assured that 10,000,000 bushels of this grain were 

 grown in the State of Michigan in the year 1848. — 

 It is claimed, on page 121 of Patent Office Report 

 for 1848, that the census of 1849 would show 10,- 

 000,000 bushels to be rather " too low an estimate." 

 The census of 1849 w'as taken, and instead of sus- 

 taining tlie guessing of the preceding year, it estab- 

 lished an over estimate of more than 100 per cent. — 

 Tlierc were less than 5,000,000 bushels (4,739,299.) 

 In other wheat growing States, there was also great 

 exaggeration, w'hicli operated to depress the market 

 price of this staple, to the great damage of farmers. 

 Corn-growers sustained equal injury by the extrava- 

 gant report that 200,000,000 bushels of surplus could 

 bo spared for foreign consumption, and of course was 

 in the market. All extravagant calculations of this 

 kind, benefit the buyer, to the prejudice of the^fWu- 

 cer of breadstuffs. One year with another, the lat- 

 ter will be the gainer by having the truth generally 

 known. Correct information is always valuable ; 

 while false information is always injurious, in the 

 long run. To show at a glance how rapidly this 

 system of over estimates has advanced within the 

 last ten years, we copy from the New York Dry 

 Goods Reporter of August 31st, the estimates (offi- 

 cial) of the productive industry of the United States 

 in 1840, and in the Patent Office Report for 1848 : 



Total !f965,413.650 $131,710,081 $76,530,205 



More tli:in one-half of the whole export of American in- 

 clusUy is to England, and of the remainder, $13,043,858, is 

 to her dependencies, Icavinff but $48,136,000 as the value 

 of exports to all the rest of the world. Nearly the whole of 

 these exports to Lnginnd, it will be observed, are raw pro- 

 duels, which go to the direct consumption, as mod, \\hic}i 

 amounted to $14,732,937, and raw material for manufactures, 

 tliat is to say, articles indispensiblo to (eed and employ the 

 operatives of Great Britain. The Britisli returns give llio 

 annual production at ^1347.000,000, and the exports l^ the 

 Tnited Stales £9,.5G 1,902— reducing them to dollars, at $4 SO 

 per il, and comparing them with the aggregate United States 

 returns, we have the following results. It is to he remarked 

 that this valuation for the United States is, as comiKired Willi 

 Kngluiid, \ery large . but the vahmlion for 1848. per Patent 

 Office Reports, 3,300,000,000. 



The reader will see that ten years ago the produc- 

 tive indu.stry of the country was estimated at #965,- 

 41 3,650. In the short space of eight years, the fig- 

 ures stand, on page 720 ef Patent Office Report, at 

 #2,323,504,756. Here is an apparent gain in eight 

 years, of over thirteen hiuidred million of dollars ! — 

 When the Official Tables were made up and pub- 

 lished as the results of the census of 1840, we took 

 occasion to demonstrate (as we believe most conclu- 

 sively,) that the iirodiicls of agriculture were over- 

 estimated at lca.-;t >ti<l()0,(»0(),ooo. Thus, New York 

 was credited !if2b.l43, 123 lor 3,127,047 tons of hay, 

 or at the rate of nine dollars a ton. The hay crop 

 of Pennsylvania wa.s estimated at the same price, 

 and in some other States. Hay, as every body 



knows, is mainly consumed on the farms where it is 

 cut, and is generally worth to the farmer from four to 

 five dollars a ton. Farmers are glad to winter the 

 20,000 canal horses in the State of New York on 

 hay, at five dollars a ton. No man can rear a three 

 year old steer, worth $18, without his consuming si.\ 

 tons of hay, or its equivalent in grass, straw, or other 

 feed. Even the milk the -calf consumes during the 

 first six weeks of its existence, requires for its pro- 

 duction more than a dollar's worth of hay or grass, 

 at twenty-five cents per 100 lbs., dry weight. 



Last .4utumn, while making an agricultural tour 

 through the Western States, we saw many tons of 

 good timothy hay which had been purchased, deliver- 

 ed at a railroad depot north of Springfield, Ohio, at 

 three dollar.s a ton. The purchaser kept three presses 

 at work, and sent the article to New Orleans, Texas, 

 Mobile and the West Indies. What folly to esti- 

 mate the hay crop of the United States at eight dol- 

 lars a ton, when to the agriculturists who raise and 

 consume it, it is worth only about half that sum ! — 

 But this forage which is set down at two prices, re- 

 appears in dairy products, in wool, in neat cattle, 

 and in horses and mules. 



To illustrate the errors perpetrated in 1840. and 

 still continued in an aggravated form, it is sufficient 

 to state that the 583,150,000 bushels of corn said to 

 have been grown in the United States in 1848, were 

 estimated at Jifty-tiine cents a bushel, making $344,- 

 058,.500. The " Butcher s meat, including mutton, 

 beef and pork," made from corn and other food esti- 

 mated at equally extravagant prices, is set down as 

 worth $146,597,360. "Straw, chaff" and manure," 

 are estimated at $160,000,000. A Tcnnes.see plan- 

 ter who raised 10,000 bushels of corn worth 20 els. 

 a bushel or $2,000, which he converts into fat hogs 

 and sells at that sum, is credited, first with $5,90(3 

 for his corn, then with a like sum for the meat which 

 the corn makes, and then with some $2,000 for the 

 manure of his hogs ! The figures are these : 



10,000 bu. of Corn, at 59 els. per bu $5,9U0 



Meat 5,91 ) 



.■Uanurc . . . 3,(i;>:i 



$13,8(111 

 Here is an error of over 600 per cent. The Amer- 

 ican people are induced to over-trade and run extrava- 

 gantly into debt to England, by this ovcr-esliniat? of 

 their resources, which in the aggregate exceeds one 

 thousand millions of dollars. 



Mr. Walki-.u, late Secretary of the Treasury, es- 

 timated the productive industry of the country as 

 equal to three thousand millions of dollars a year: 

 and Mr. Meukdith, his successor, alhides to this es- 

 timate in a way that leads the reader to infer that he 

 regarded it as correct and trust-worthy. Of all the 

 products of -Vmericau soil, whal passe-; for ftntes- 

 manship is the cheapest commodity. A love of truth 

 for the sake of it, and years of patient research to at- 

 tain it, characterize but few of the great men so 

 abundantly manufactured by the patent, short-hand 

 process of our day. The science of Industrial statis- 

 tics is a profound study, and no branch of it is so 

 complicated as that which treats of the transforma- 

 tion of certain elements in earth, air and water, into 

 cultivated plants, and these again into meat fat, 

 wool, milk, and the flesh of horses and mules. The 

 whole operation is in a circle; and the ipianllly of 

 potash and phosphorus which may safely be extract- 

 ed from the soil and exported to foreign countrioi', 

 never to return, is not so large as American farmers 



