50 



THE ILLINOIS FAKMER. 



Feb. 



possible that an intelligent reader of any agricul- 

 tural paper can be swindled with such barefaced 

 falsehoods as the above. We know that hundreds 

 are thus taken in, but we have not heard that any 

 of the subscribers of the Firmer are among the 

 number. We hope the schoolmaster may be por- 

 permitted to visit the land before the fool killer 

 makes his appearance. En. 



The New Staple— Coal oil. 



Our fossils are making the nation rich. It is 

 surprising how suddenly a new discovery is 

 made to take rank as an important staple. No 

 other country in the world has been so ripe for 

 such extraordinary transitions. The Romans knew 

 that England abounded in tin, but centuries elapsed 

 before it rose to the dignity of a commercial staple, 

 and it was exactly so with her iron. North America 

 seems to be in all respects an exceptional region. 

 Coal and iron rose here, within a single lifetime, 

 into national importance. The gold of California 

 became a gigantic staple within a twelvemonth. 

 The last of these extraordinary eccentricities is pe- 

 troleum. Four years have been sufficient to elevate 

 it from the worthless condition of a floating pellicle 

 on the surface of an obscure creek to the rank of a 

 prime staple, of which the world cannot get 

 enough. There is nothing in the history of indus- 

 trial development to equal the progress it has made. 

 When the country first heard that an adventurer 

 in Western Pennsylvania had dug a well from 

 which gushed out a thousand gallons of oil daily, 

 the multitudes refused to believe. Many of those 

 who did believe were sure the flow would quickly 

 fall off — it wag impossible such luck should last. 

 It not only did last, but has been matched by hun- 

 dreds of others. 



In this country development is in proportion to 

 the crowd that can be collected. As in the gold 

 mines, so in the oil region. The latter was already 

 within a day's ride of dense population, who, amaz- 

 ed at the discovery almost at their own door, flock- 

 ed in to sec, to be satisfied, and to bore wells. 

 Outsiders, a thousand miles awiiy, became simihirly 

 affected. Presently Oil City was founded, and 

 population flowed in as rapidly as the oil flowed 

 out. Thousands took to boring ; it was, in fact, a 

 community of borer.o. The rush was in a small way 

 equal to California itself. Within a single year 

 petroleum became an important staple. Its hid- 

 ing place in the caverns beneath us has been pene- 

 trated, only to prove that the supply is inexhausti- 

 ble. It has already founded new cities and given 

 prodigious vitality to old ones — even quickening the 

 trade of such as this, and built a railroad twenty- 

 seven miles in length, over which, in the four- 

 teen months ending with 1863, there were carried 

 430,684 barrels of oil, 22,727 tuns of freight, and 

 within thirteen of 60,000 passengers. The receipts 

 were $384,705, and the dividend 25 per cent. All 

 these wonders have been wrought within four years 

 in a wild region, into which strangers never pene- 

 traated, where the land was of little agricultural 

 value, and where population had never gathered. 



Up to 1863 the progress of the petroleum trade 

 astonished everybody. But that of the past year 

 has exceeded all expectation. It is evident the 

 wells have no bottom. What the product for the 



year has been we cannot say. It may be tliat in 

 the excitement of a highly prosperous buisness no 

 accurate account h;is been kept. But the Custom- 

 House figures give same indication. Petroleum ia 

 exported to every country in the world. In 1861 

 we shipped 1,112,476 gullons ; in 1862 it rose to 

 10,887,701 gallons, and in 1863 it reached the ex- 

 traordinary quantity of 28,000,000. Of this total, 

 19,544,604 gallons were shipped from this port. In 

 addition to this foreign export the home demand 

 is enormous. Thouj^h the whole buisness is strict- 

 ly a new one, yet it has already assumed shape and 

 stability. Ships for conveying it to England are 

 constructed oil tight, and the barrels emptied di- 

 rectly into the hold, thus carrying it in bulk. The 

 export of last year employed what was equal to 

 252 ships of 1,000 tuns each, and was worth near 

 $15,000,000 if refined, or about 12,000,000 if crude. 

 The export for this year is estimated at 40,000,000 

 gallons. 



Refined coal oil is now as colorless as water, and 

 quite as free from smell. It is burned in lamps in 

 tens of thousands of families, and fortunes have 

 been realized by the inventors of lamps and the 

 manufacturers of shades and chimneys. The con- 

 sumtion for illuminating purposes is only just begun. 

 As the pleasantest and cheapest light, next to gas, 

 it is destined to supercede all but the latter. Like 

 iron, gold and coal, no one can fix the limit of 

 consumption. It can only be arrested by f ;ilurc of 

 the wells to yield. Of this geologists say there is 

 little probability. The petroleum wells of Burmah 

 have yielded uninterrupted supplies for thousands 

 of years. How long our coal mines may last has 

 been frequently calculated, but no calculator has 

 ventured to predict th;it they were likely to give 

 out. The iron and gold they give up as inexhaust- 

 ible. If they abandiin petroleum to the same ex- 

 tended term it may justly claim to take rank beside 

 them as anequally enduring staple. — N. Y. Trib. 

 = <•» — — — - — — 



Tobacco of California. 



The valae of the tobacco used, in California, 

 would astonish any one that would give time to 

 make the estimate, and yet now that the cultivation 

 of it has commenced the growers have great diffi- 

 culty in inducing manufacturers to purchase our 

 home raised article. This is a very great error, 

 and to show how the thing is brought about we 

 quote frum a grower's letter to us — a curious idea 

 but a good one. The writer says : 



"I have raised three acres of tobacco this year 

 and it has done well. I have some samples put up 

 to bring down to you, but was not able to come 

 last week ; it is a good article, and fine as can be 

 raised in the East. What is the reason the mer- 

 chants will not buy anything raised in California, 

 if they can help itV They ask 50c ^ 5> for tobac- 

 co in the leaf, and it is black and musty, and some 

 of it rotton at that, but California tobacco sent to 

 New York arid then shipped back is considered an A 

 JVo. 1, article." 



Now this short letter lets the "cat out of the 

 bag," here the merchant or speculators combine to 

 depress the value of native tobaccos, then buy it 

 up for shipping to New York, to be le-shipped to 

 California, invoiced as "genuine Kentucky Leaf," 

 "Maryland" or "Connecticut," and it sells readily 

 for 56c ^ ft). Suppose large growers should try 

 this experiment themselves? We think it would 

 pay ! — Cal. Farurb. 



.^\l-JBSi 



