784 7^JiANSACTI0XS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



produce the greatest quantity, and of tliese Illinois stands first. Of 

 the southern States, Virginia produces the largest amount. Of all 

 the States, the smallest amount is produced in New England. This 

 staple is chiefly consumed by cattle and hogs, and thus goes to 

 increase the material wealth of the country, beef and pork forming the 

 principal products of export from the western States to the eastern 

 and southern States, and foreign markets, Chicago, Cincinnati, and 

 St. Louis are the great marts for beef and pork, as well as Indian 

 corn, all of which interests require greater facilities for transhipment 

 to the seaboard, where are found consumers and purcb.asers. In 

 intrinsic value corn may be said to exceed or at least- compare favorably 

 with wheat, cotton, or hay. As an article of export no agricultural 

 product can compare with cotton, yet during the war theexportations 

 of the grain crop were very large. The number of cattle in the United 

 States in 1860 was 25,616,019, being about eighty to every 100 inhabi- 

 tants. The number of hogs was 33,512,867, or more than one hog 

 for every inhabitant in the States and territories. The distribution 

 of these animals will be found to agree in their native State very 

 jiearly with the product of corn, which is their principal food, if we 

 except grass, which is alike the food of horses and. cattle. Grass and 

 hay form another very interesting subject of inquiry, as to where it 

 is raised and where it is consumed. Grass is greatly influenced, both 

 in quantity and quality, by climate influences, growing in the greatest 

 perfection along the center of the temperate zone, where there is a 

 mean annual temperature of fifty degrees Fahrenheit ; the grass, or but- 

 ter zone, as it may he called, lying between an annual temperature of 

 from forty-seven degrees to fifty-three degi'ees Fahrenheit — thus run- 

 ning around the world. The southern limit of the United States, com- 

 mencing in southern New Jersey, euttiiu/ Delaware, Maryland, 

 including the valley of Shenandoah in Virginia, West Virginia, 

 Ohio, Indiana, Illinois (near Alton), northern Missouri and Kansas, 

 nntil, owing to the elevation of the Rocky Mountains, it ceases to be 

 raised in abundance. The northern limit may be said to be parallel 

 with the growth of wheat, which is produced in abundance where a 

 summer temperature of sixty degrees Fahrenheit, including the nor- 

 thern part of the United States and Upper Canada. So far as our 

 European market is concerned the exports of our agricultural products 

 are substantially limited to the articles of wheat, wheat flour, Indian 

 corn and meal, and beef and pork, comjiaring favorably with cotton 

 and tobacco. The above great products arc principally shipped to 



