AMERICAN INDUSTRY. 63 



tural product of that year, which at the current prices was 

 valued at one thousand three hundred and twenty-six millions 

 of dollars, an increase upon the product of 1840 of at least five 

 hundred millions, or nearly forty per centum. The same ratio 

 for the eight years since 1850 would give us an agricultural 

 product for the present year of nearly sixteen hundred millions 

 of dollars. And this sum was the estimate Mr. De Bow of the 

 census bureau placed upon the product of last year. But we 

 cannot estimate the aggregate products of this year upon the 

 ratio as to quantity or prices, of advances from 1840 to 1850. 

 The increase is in far greater ratio. The occupation of the 

 great agricultural states of Europe, in pursuits of death rather 

 than life, and the panic produced among us by anticipated 

 visions of short supplies and the startling reality of starvation 

 prices, and especially by the frightful uncertainty attending 

 pursuits of trade, have forced the attention of all — of consumers 

 as well as producers — to the necessity of a more general field 

 culture. To what extent has the aggregate product of agricul- 

 tural industry been increased from such causes ? How much 

 of the seventeen millions of acres of improved but uncultivated 

 lands of 1850 have been turned with the plough and enricheA 

 with seed for the first time, in the present year? In other 

 words, how many acres have been added in 1858 to the 

 improved as well as cultivated lands of 1850, whose upturned 

 soil now for the first time drinks in the dews of heaven, reflects 

 the sun's rays, and glistens with the golden autumnal grain ? 

 Who can say ? 



This is what agricultural industry contributes to the wealth 

 of the country. A yearly contribution, a contribution in dollars 

 and dimes merely, and not embracing an estimate of its physi- 

 cal strength, its capacity for endurance, or the love of labor and 

 the moral power with which agricultural industry invests com- 

 munities wherever it prevails. In this view we confine our 

 consideration strictly to those who make field culture the busi- 

 ness of life. Beyond this, how wide the influence which it 

 exerts upon other pursuits. Whence do we derive the vigorous 

 intellect of professional life that adorns society with its varied 

 accomplishments, and protects individuals in the enjoyment of 

 life, health, and their moral and personal rights ? Whence 

 comes that vigorous and exhaustless intellect that revels in 



