12 MR. sai.tonstall's address. 



amount of bread-stuffs, including potatoes, being 716,- 

 147,950 bushels. And the crops of this bountiful year 

 will probably be greatly increased. By a comparative 

 statement of the arrivals of flour at tide water, by the 

 Erie canal, from the opening of the canal in April to 

 the close of August last, it appears that the enormous 

 number of 926,813 barrels passed, being 143,032 more 

 than in any previous year* 



The last census shows that the number of persons 

 employed in agriculture is more than one third of the 

 whole population, and nearly three times as many as 

 are employed in manufactures, trade, commerce and 

 navigation. Our Country is essentially a nation of 

 farmers — and when we consider the rapid increase of 

 population, the subject of agriculture swells into one of 

 immense magnitude. Applying the ratio of increase of 

 the last, to the next fifty years, a period which some 

 who hear me will reach, the population in eighteen 

 hundred and ninety will be seventy-four millions, and 

 at the end of a century, three hundred millions. What 

 but agriculture can sustain and furnish employment to 

 this mighty population ? 



The mind is overwhelmed, as it contemplates, in con- 

 nexion with this subject, the future destinies of our 

 Country. Think of its vast extent, stretching along the 

 coast, through twenty degrees of latitude, and spread- 

 ing from the Atlantic to the great Western ocean — 

 imbosoming inland seas, and traversed by mighty rivers, 

 the sources of some of which have scarcely yet been ex- 

 plored. Think of its rich and various soils, heaving 



*NoTE. This has been since greatly increased. 

 Flour and Wheat. — Account of flour and wheat arrived at tide water 

 daring 



3d week in October. Total to 22d October. 



Flour, barrels. Wheat, bushels. Flour, barrels. Wheat, bushels. 



1839, 48,Gi3 39,466 568,797 362,588 



1840, 91,080 100,445 1,240,404 1,059,617 



1841, 62,691 47,529 1,206,591 525,507 



1842, . 112,549 64,325 1,193,670 700,369 



1843, 106,076 42,849 1,531,283 634,719 

 Reducing the wheat to flour, allowing five bushels to a barrel, we have an 



ao-grcgate of 1,65{),227 barrels of flour arriving at tide-water since the opening 

 of navigation. — [.Albany Argus, October 24. 



