42 BOARD OF AGEICULTURE. 



are not large, to be sure, when compared wUh the immense 

 exportation of this grain at the present day, but they serve to 

 show that, even before the Revohition, Indian corn had come 

 to be regarded as an important money crop, as well as a 

 prime necessity for home consumption. They show a surplus 

 beyond the wants of the population at that time. 



PRACTICAL RESULTS. 



Nothing will more clearly demonstrate the exceedingly slow 

 progress of our agriculture after the Revolution than the fact 

 that, in 1791, the export of corn, including 351,695 bushels of 

 meal, amounted to only 2,064,936 bushels; in 1800, to only 

 2,032,435 bushels, including 338,108 bushels of meal, while 

 in 1810 it fell down to 140,996 bushels, of which 86,744 

 bushels were in the form of Indian meal. That was before 

 the avenues to the great West were opened. It was at a time 

 when the inland farmer had no available market, the cost of 

 transportation of so bulky a product making it impracticable 

 to team it to any great distance. It was before its real value 

 as an article of human food was appreciated in Europe, and 

 when its consumption as such was very small. It was before 

 our cattle had been much improved, and when their number 

 was much smaller than it is now, when it has come to be 

 realized that it makes our beef, our mutton, our pork and 

 our poultry. 



Nor did the production materially increase till within the 

 last forty years. The Erie Canal was not open till the year 

 1825 ; nor were there any railroads to facilitate the trans- 

 portation of merchandise ; but the gradual extension of settle- 

 ments westward after that date, and the increase of population, 

 led to an increase of production, till, in 1840, when this crop 

 first appears in the census, the yield had risen to 377,531,875 

 bushels ; and from that time its increase has been quite mar- 

 vellous, for in 1850 it had reached to within a small fraction of 

 600,000,000 bushels (or, more nearly, 592,071,104), occupy- 

 ing 31,000,000 acres of land. Its value was reported at that 

 date as $296,034,552. It was a gain of 57 per cent., or 

 214,539,229 bushels in ten years, while the increase of popu- 

 lation in the same time was but 35 per cent. It formed about 

 three-sixteenths of the whole agricultural production of the 



