19 



sisted not only in the larger armies we were able to put in 

 the field, but also in the immense force which we could still 

 keep employed at home. This force is to be estimated not 

 merely by the number of men and women engaged in the 

 various departments of production, but by every labor-sav- 

 ing machine and process, which has come to their aid. The 

 misguided planter made a fatal mistake when he imagined 

 that he would be more than a match for the Yankee, not 

 only on the score of bravery, but also because of the un- 

 paid Helot, who was to keep him supplied with hog and 

 hominy. He forgot — or, possibly, he did not then know, 

 that ten Western farmers, with their horse-hoes and horse- 

 rakes— their reaping and their threshing machines — are quite 

 equal in productive power to a thousand slaves. 



In this connection, a short extract from the Report for 

 1863, of the United States Commissioner of Agriculture, will 

 not be deemed inappropriate : 



" Although the year just closed has been a year of war on 

 the part of the Republic, over a wider field and on a grander 

 scale than any recorded in history, yet strange as it may ap- 

 pear, the great interests of agriculture have not materially 

 suffered in the loyal States. . . . Notwithstanding there 

 have been a million of men employed in the army and navy, 

 withdrawn chiefly from the productive classes, and liberally 

 fed, clothed, and paid by the Government, yet the yield of 

 most of the great staples of agriculture, for 18(33, exceeds 

 that of 1862. . . . This wonderful fact of history — a 

 young Republic carrying on a gigantic war on its own terri- 

 tory and coasts, and at the same time not only feeding itself 

 and foreign nations, but furnishing vast quantities of raw 

 material for commerce and manufactures, — proves that we 

 are essentially an agricultural people ; that three years of 

 war have not yet seriously disturbed, but rather increased 

 industrial pursuits ; and that the withdrawal of agricultural 

 labor, and the loss of life by disease and battle, have beea 

 more than compensated by machinery and maturing growth 



