No. 199.] 317 



of labour, and of the crossing and improvement of breeds, whether for 

 labour, weight and food, or beauty ; and whether tlie pampered swine, 

 file useful ox and cow, the invaluable sheep, or the sagacious horse. 



Nowhere has one cause of a larger supply of milk and a richer dairy 

 been more significantly pointed out, than by the Scotch farmer, who, 

 according to Coleman, sold his thiifty cows to an Englishman, that 

 returned ere long with complaints of their great falling off in milk. 

 " Remember," said the Scotchman, " I did not sell you my pasture, 

 but only my cows." In nothing, however, is the advance in agriculture 

 among us more conspicuous, than in the new and useful articles on 

 which it has, within this recent period, bestowed a portion of its 

 energies. It has added the tomato and rhubarb plant to give health 

 to our tables, the sweet and the Irish potato to feed millions, and the 

 latter, with the turkey, to immortalize the discovery of America even 

 more than its magniiicent rivers and mountains. Our increase has 

 been so rapid, also, in rearing former articles, partly by means of more 

 prolific soils, but much by improved methods and skill, as to supply 

 pork, for instance, to portions of another continent, and lard to half 

 the world, if needed ; and even oil, till the hog is painted in the wset 

 as swallowing the whale. The growth of hemp, also, has there been 

 greatly extended for duck and cordage ; and the cane in the southwest, 

 for sugar ; and the wheat crop of the whole country augmented till it 

 has reached 112,000,000 of bushels, becoming as much as that of all 

 England and Wales, besides our vastly augmented products of potatoes, 

 hay, rye and oats, and 540,000,000 of bushels of inestimable Indian 

 corn. In short, we seem to have become to Europe, if not the world, 

 what northern Africa once was to Palestine, in the days of Joseph, or 

 the Pharaohs, and afterwards to all Italy, the great granary, and the 

 chief safeguard against famine. 



Within little more than a half century, agriculture has likewise in- 

 troduced here, and, by aid of the cotton gin, supplied, probably, three 

 fourths of the raw material which clothes a large portion of the habitable 

 globe. Within that brief space, it has swollen the production of 

 cotton, from a few bags, to more than a thousand million pounds, and 

 to the value of sixty or seventy millions. It has thus not only yielded 

 the agricultural wealth which enriches states, but provided employment 



