15 



under cultivation, the proportion of cultivated land devoted 

 to the production of different articles of food, the relation of 

 production to population in the various States and in the 

 country at large, the comparative productiveness of the 

 same crops in different parts of the Union and under dif- 

 ferent modes of culture, and generally whatever details 

 may be included in a complete statistical account of Ame- 

 rican agriculture. 



Our commercial and navigating statistics are already 

 provided for, as incidental to our revenue-system. We 

 need similar returns both of our agriculture and our manu- 

 factures ; and I should not be sorry to have them committed 

 to a common bureau. 



One of the brief sayings, which have given a name and a 

 perpetual fame to the Seven "Wise Men of Ancient Greece, 

 is the simple precept, " Know thyself." And a celebrated 

 Latin poet has not been willing to regard it as a mere say- 

 ing of human origin, but has emphatically declared that 

 it descended from heaven. 



It was a saying addressed to individual man, and un- 

 doubtedly contemplated that self-examination, that search- 

 ing of the heart, which is a duty of higher than human 

 authority, and which is essential to all moral or spiritual 

 improvement. But it is a doctrine as applicable to the 

 outer as to the inner man, and as essential to the progress 

 and improvement of nations as of individuals. And this 

 country, beyond all other countries, needs to know itself, to 

 understand its own condition, to watch closely its own pro- 

 gress, to keep the rim of it, as we may well say, for it is 

 always on the run, advancing and going ahead with a rapi- 

 dity never before witnessed, or dreamed of. More especially 

 should the industry of our country know itself, and realize 

 its own condition and circumstances. American labor, in 

 all its branches, should have a map, on which it may behold 

 its own aggregate position, and its own individual relations, 



