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MOOBE’S BUBAL WEW-YOBKER. 
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366 
AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 
J. R. DonoE, Statistician of the Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture, read a paper at Atlanta, 
Gs., May 13, entitled “ Practical Hints From 
Agricultural Statistics,” from which we make 
the following extracts: 
USES OF AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS. 
It is the province of agricultural statistics 
to measure the extent of our vast resources ; 
to contrast the actual with the possible in 
production, by living examples of accorn 
plishod results ; to weigh the effect of over 
production in the diminution of prices; to 
illustrate the folly of dependence on distant 
and uncertain markets for primary products; 
to allow the correlation of the industries, 
and the advantage of augmenting numbers 
of consumers upon the prices and Jproftts of 
agriculture ; and to mark the progress of 
sciences, in their application to the business 
of the cultivator, and aid the ruralist in keep¬ 
ing pace with such progress. 
There is great, activity of statistical inquiry 
at the present time, and but little patience 
of investigation ; there is frequency and flip 
pancy in statement, but less of accuracy and 
thoroughness. There is a feverish desire to 
accomplish the census of a continent in one 
day, and proclaim its results the next. Few 
take time to weigh facts, sift error from 
truth, and reach broad and philosophical 
conclusions. What is wanted in statistics is 
more of thought and less of flurry, more in¬ 
dustry and less precipitancy, sounder .judg¬ 
ment and less zeal without knowledge. Few 
have yet learned the logic of statistics, and 
some even of our law-givers are prone to 
build by proxy the framework of their polit¬ 
ical economy, and liable to give it a fantastic 
and incongruous finish. 
THE BREADTH OF OUR STATISTICAL FIELD. 
When we consider that less than a third of 
the area of the States, and less than a fifth of 
the entire domain of the United States, is 
mapped into farms, and remember that of 
this farm-area o'nly one-fourtli is tilled or 
mowed ; and when we further reflect that 
the average yield per acre could be doubled 
if the many could be brought, up to the plane 
of the few in the practice of intensive cul¬ 
ture, then we begin to realize what numbers 
our country is capable of feeding, and what 
waste of toil and effort comes from neglect 
of the economic lessons taught by the .statis¬ 
tics of scientific agriculture. 
We know now that our wheat occupies an 
area less than the surface of Mouth Carolina, 
and if the yield should equal that of England 
half of that acreage would suffice. We know 
of our uational crop, maize, which grows 
from Oregon to Florida, and yearly waves 
over a broader field than all the cereals be¬ 
side, that it covers a terrritory not larger 
than the Old Dominion, and might produce 
its amplest stores within narrower limits 
than | the present boundaries of Virginia. 
The potato crop could grow in the urea of 
Delaware, though yielding less than a hundred 
bushels per acre; the barley for our brewing 
requires less than the area of a half-dozen 
counties ; and the weed of solace, sufficient 
to glut our ow n and European markets, is 
grown on the area of a county twenty miles 
square. 
STATISTICAL TEST OF CURRENT PRACTICES. 
The dictum of the poet, “ Whatever is, is 
right,” must have in agriculture, as in mor¬ 
als, a restricted acceptation. The prevailing 
practice may have an obvious and even it 
specious reason for its existence, when its 
contravention by science and experimental 
test is undeniable. We often fail t<> do what 
we know is best, because custom lias made 
easy what has become habitual. The deduc ¬ 
tions of agricultural statistics reveal many u 
popular error or short-coming in agricultural 
practice. Perhaps I may not better illustrate 
the province and proper use of this science 
than by a few examples showing the preva¬ 
lence of such misconception and remissness 
in different .sections of our common country. 
THE WEAK POINT IH HEW ENGLAND AGRICULTURE. 
The average farmer of the Eastern States 
disregards the logic of facts which reveals 
success only in high culture. II is brother ot 
he West has cheap lands, very fertile, easily 
worked, without obstructions interfering 
with the most varied employment of agri¬ 
cultural machinery. Ilis own lands may be 
low in price, because poor in plant-food ; his 
sons have gone into trade and manufactures, 
and to virgin soils toward the sunset; his 
surplus earniugs have gone to the savings 
bank, or to Illinois or Kansas, as a loan at 1U 
per cent., until rheumatic, and declining with 
age, he finds production also declining, his 
herds and floeks decreasing, and the con¬ 
clusion Inevitable that “farming does not 
pay.” Labor is scarce aud high because in 
demand by other industries, which in turn 
offer high prices for farm products ; fertiliz¬ 
ation is needed everywhere, draining in many 
situations, and irrigation in some others. 
Put these things cost money, and he luis 
neither the ambition nor the confidence for 
its expenditure, and, worse still, in many 
instances the money is lacking. These may 
be potent reasons for discouragement, but 
they do not prove that farming there, w ith 
money, youth, enterprise, and skill, may not 
be highly profitable. And the teaching of 
statistics, in examples of high success with 
high culture, disproves t he current assump¬ 
tion of unprofitableness. There are numer¬ 
ous eases in which the gross return per acre 
has been hundreds ot dollars instead of tens. 
I know an instance there in which a common 
vegetable, usually known in field culture 
rather than in gardening, returned in 187:? 
$13 for every day’s labor expended on it. 
The lesson of statistics of <irent Britain, of 
Holland, of all countries of dense population, 
proves success to be only possible by enrich¬ 
ing the soil and increasing the yield. Though 
Massachusetts fanners constitute but one- 
eighth of the aggregate of all occupations, 
there is no reason why they should not be 
able to feed all, if Great Britain with one- 
sixteenth of her population can furnish more 
than half her required food supplies. And 
if, in the present state of Massachusetts agri¬ 
culture, the value of her annual product be 
$-143 to each farmer, while the cultivator of 
the rich prairie Stole, Illinois, earns but 
(and in point of fact it is probable that un 
enumerated products of the former State 
would swell the total to the. latter figures,) 
then the results of intensive culture through¬ 
out the. Commonwealth would be compara¬ 
tively munificent. This is a valuable lesson 
which Now England will ultimately learn 
from statistics, far more thoroughly than is 
now known and practiced by a few of her 
best cultivators.? 
A WESTERN FALLACY. 1 
The West has also much to gain from the 
teaching of statistics. Iowa, vigorous and 
ambitious, too young for despondency, is in 
a. spasm of indignation against monopoly and 
an excess of middlemen, and yel in trade 
and transportation she has but 8 per cent., 
or little more than half the proportion of the 
Middle States. She may have too many and 
too greedy go-betweens, and she. needs jus¬ 
tice in the transportation of her products; 
but these evils remedied, the burden of her 
trouble would still remain. The great ilitti 
unity is, her corps of indushy /imitil per end. 
of ftinners iiiKlt iul of 26. Double-track rail¬ 
roads, canals vexed with steam-propellers, 
Hrange association, I reo trade, and every 
other fancied boon obtained, she will still 
remain in comparative poverty and positive 
discontent while she continues to have less 
Ilian 14 per cent. Of her people engaged in 
manufacturing and mechanical industry. 
History does not point to a permanently 
prosperous people having H.n h preponder¬ 
ance of population in agricultural pursuits. 
FOLLY QF FOREIGN DEPENDENCE. 
Minnesota is only happy when the people 
of Great Britain are supposed u> be in danger 
of starvation. That danger is greatly over¬ 
estimated. Statistics will show that in some 
years hut 8 per cent, of our wheat export, 
and but a trilling proportion i n any season, 
can be sold to any except subjects of Great. 
Britain. On one sixteenth the area of that 
island is grown in a good year one hundred 
million bushels of wheat, in an average sea¬ 
son ninety millions ; and in fifteen years, 
from 186S to 1873 inclusive, the deficiency 
made good by importation was a fraction 
less than sixty six millions per annum. 
Could home culture be extended to meet 
this demand, the total breadth required 
would he equal to one ninth the surface of 
Minnesota. All increase in the average 
yield of \\ heat, in France from fifteen bushels 
to eighteen, by a small advance in culture, 
would fully equal the British deficiency, as 
Was recently Stated by the well-known stat¬ 
istician, Mr. James Caird. Russia, with her 
broad and cheap acres, also stands near to 
compete for this deficiency. Minnesota, 
meanwhile, as her crop is maturing, can 
never ascertain whether the want, will be 
fort y millions or ninety, or whether the home 
price will be 50 cents or $1, or the ultimate 
result debt or competence. And yet 70 per 
cent, of the cultivated area of Minnesota Is 
put in wheat, and 57 per cent of her people 
are engaged in its cultivation ; 8 per cent, in 
sending it to market; a large proportion of 
its 14 per cent, of mechanics and manufac¬ 
turers are building mills and grinding wheat; 
aud its 31 per ccut. Of its professional men 
expect much of their income from wheat. 
There are reasons why wheat should be tem¬ 
porarily grown there, but dependence upon 
foreign markets, evidently felt by many, for 
a permanent and increasing demand, is 
shown by statistics to be foolish and futile. 
The home market is the only reliable and 
permanently valuable one for this cereal, and 
the nearer to the place of growth the surer 
and larger the benefit derived. 
THE ERROR OF THE SOUTH. 
The cotton States have been especially 
persistent in disregarding the teachings of 
statistics and defying the laws of political 
economy. Every intelligent publicist knows 
that a certain amount of money, nay a pres¬ 
ent average of $300,000,000, may be derived 
from cotton. If the average quantity is in¬ 
creased the pricediminishes, and Woe versa. 
if fluctuations are frequent, the speculator, 
or manufacturer, and not the producer, de¬ 
rives au advantage. If you choose to pro¬ 
duce five million bales, you obtain ten cents 
per pound and lose money; if you grow but 
three you get twenty cents nod obtain a 
profit. Now it is better for the world, and 
in u series of years, better for the grower, to 
produce regularly enough to supply t he cur¬ 
rent wants ol the trade at a medium and 
remunerative price, or as near a regular sup¬ 
ply as possible, for the vicissitudes of the 
season will inevitably cause injurious fluctu¬ 
ations despite the highest effort of hutuau 
wisdom ami foresight.. As the uses of cotton 
increase, and markets are extended through¬ 
out the world, its manufacture will be en¬ 
larged, and its culture should obtain corre¬ 
spondent enlargement. To overstep the 
boundary of current demand and glut the 
market, may he pleasing to the speculator 
and to the manufacturer, so far as he com¬ 
bines speculation with weaving, but it. is 
death to the grower. 
There is much false reasoning on this mat¬ 
ter. A planter may truly affirm that lie 
obtains per acre for his cotton and but 
$36 for Jus com, and he thereupon and there¬ 
fore declares that he will plant no more corn. 
Let all net upon this suggestion, and instead 
of $65 for the acre of cotton and that of corn, 
the total return of the two acres of cotton 
will be but $80. A surplus of corn may be 
put into meat, and wool, and whisky, or 
used to eke out a scarcity of some kind of 
forage for animals: but a surplus of cotton 
must wait, for the slow grinding of the mills 
of the fabricating gods, usually until disgust 
at low prices reduces production correspond 
ingly. 
Thus, while cotton is and long will be the 
leading product and the most profitable field 
crop at fair prices, its prominence in the list 
has kept, aud is now keeping these States in 
comparative poverty, winch is unnecessary 
as it is inconvenient and injurious. It, does 
not produce money enough to give wealth to 
a population of nine millions. The other 
crops, instead of barely equaling in the ag 
gregaf o the receipts from this, should repre¬ 
sent at least. $4 for every one of cotton. The 
census record of production in these States 
is but 8558 , 000,1100 ; the record should be 
made to read $1,500,01 1 ( 1,01 ill, With three* 
fourths of the people of tell States employed 
in agriculture, the value of agricultural pro¬ 
ducts exceeds but. little that of the states of 
New York and Pennsylvania, where only 
one-fourth are so employed. The averages 
for each person employed in agriculture ui 
those States are respectively, as deduced 
from the census, $(107 aud $?ii7, while those 
of Georgia and Mississippi are - A'10 and $382. 
For the ten States the average is $3t»7 ; for 
the four populous Middle States $t58L5. Even 
the States producing cheap corn show a 
larger return, the average for one man’s 
labor in the five States between the Ohio 
River and the li kes being >U*8, while the m\ 
Eastern si ate- ..luct IINJ for each 
farmer. It may be the census is less com¬ 
plete in the i ‘niton States, but it. is undeniable 
that agricultural industry makes a smaller 
aggregate return there than in any other 
section. Nor is the reason want ing ; it, is due 
to the prominence of cotton, the return for 
which is substantially a fixed quantity, and 
the neglect of all Other resources. 
Let us glance at the topography and capa¬ 
bilities of this section. The area occupied by 
cotton, allowing 10 per cent, additional to 
usual estimates, in less t han one-fortieth of 
the surface of these States ; it is but one- 
thirteenth of the proportion actually occu¬ 
pied as farms. Forty six per cent, of the 
census crop was grown in 81 counties, which 
are all that produce as much as t en thousand 
bales each ; and 77 per cent, grew in 215 
counties, making not less than five bales 
end). The total acreage In cott on is scarcely 
more than one-sixteenth of the surface of 
Texas. What is to b > done with the other 
fifteen-sixteenths i A very large proportion 
of the area of t hese State’s is unadapted to 
cotton, either by reason of elevation or of 
soil. 
There is no other sect ion of Ihe country 
with resources so varied ; none presenting 
such a field for new and promising enter¬ 
prises. Competit ion is possible with the sea 
islands in oranges and bananas and other 
fruits, in Florida, and with New York and 
Michigan, in apples alld other fruits, on the 
table-lands of the Alleghanies. More than 
half the value of all cotton exports is paid for 
imports of sugar, which could and should all 
be grown iu these States. But one pound in 
ten of t he required supply is now made, upon 
a smaller surface than half of a single county 
twenty miles square. '1 he demand of the 
world for oils—cotton, rape, jnilmti ehfivti, 
aud many other—is large, and prices are 
remunerat ive, and this section is peculiarly 
adapted to their production. A hundred 
million pounds of cheese, to compete wtth 
an equal quantity in New York, without 
danger of glut t ing the market, could be made 
from grasses of the glades that grow on lands 
costing one-twentieth the value of Empire 
State pastures. More than two hundred 
millions of acres of these Slates are covered 
with wood, and the ax is still brought into 
requisition to girdle the monareks of the 
forest, and await a slow decay for replacing 
fields worn out. by a wasteful culture, while 
a timber famine threatens other sections of 
the country, und a thousand forms of woody 
fabrication can readily be transmuted into 
gold—at least greenbacks, which seem to be 
preferred to gold iu certain districts. Even 
ihe forest lands, certainly those of the coast 
belt, are covered with wild grasses, only 
partially utilized, which, in connection with 
the herbage of the prairie sections, arc worth, 
in flesh and wool, at a meager est imate, half 
the value of the cotton crop. The list might 
be increased indefinitely. With the intro¬ 
duction of the best machinery, the most 
economical methods, end the most efficient 
means of fertilization, with well directed 
and pri-si*l.eht labor, adapted to the want;-of 
all classes of workers, the present population 
is amply sufficient, to double the gross pro¬ 
duct of agricultural industry, and far more 
than double its profits. 
SOUTHCRN MANUFACTURING. 
I have hitherto only spoken of agricultural 
industry. The suggestions relative to the 
necessity of other productive industries in 
the West apply with augmented force to the 
South. While the proportion engaged in 
them ranges from 14 percent. In Iowa to 24 
in Ohio, it only runs from three per cent, in 
Mlssissqqii to t» per cent, in Georgia. The 
intelligent, planter ot Oeorgiaknows perfectly 
well, by the test of local experience, that the 
manufacture of cotton In his State is far 
more remunerative than the same business 
in Massachusetts, not only on account of 
saving freights and commissions both on raw 
material and manufactured goods but in the 
greater abundance and cheapness of labor. 
It might be considered a fair division of t he 
crop, mid certainly a generous one on the 
part of the South, to kt-ep one-third for home 
manufacture, to send a third to the North 
for manufacture Into finer goods, and the 
remaining third to Europe. This would 
insure a steady and imperative demand, and 
a great, enlargement, or net profits. If you 
can do this without a tariff, you can afford 
to let. the tariff slide < if not, far better for 
twenty years a tariff utterly prohibitory of 
all cottons than to forego tins opportunity 
to make the. country prosperous mid rich 
beyond your present Imaginings. 
There is no good reason why Virginia 
should not equal Pennsylvania in manufac¬ 
turing and mining production, as she ever 
does in resources of mine aud forest. There 
is no efficient, cause why 25 percent, of the 
people of Pennsylvania should produce in 
agriculture a value of $53 annually for each 
inhabitant of the State, while .56 per cent, of 
the people of Virginia should only divide $42 
per head of total population. The influence 
of home markets on prices, with the reflex 
influence of prices on fertilization and cul¬ 
ture, is sufficient to answer for all this differ¬ 
ence. 1 ask, in all sincerity and deference, 
if it is manly or just to decry others who 
take advantage of opportunities enjoyed in 
equal fullness by ourselves, while we utterly 
refuse to use t hem. Tn this Oonuectioii per¬ 
mit tne to repeat what 1 said years ago, iu 
the Queerest and most friendly spirit, of the 
unsurpassed facilities for mining and manu¬ 
facturing enjoyed by the southern portion of 
the Atlantic slope: 
“ This path ol progress has been equally 
open to all ; laws supposed to favor a diver¬ 
sified industry have been applicable to all 
States alike ; the best water-power and the 
cheapest coal are iu States that make no 
extensive use of either ; milder climates and 
superior facilities 15,r cheap transportation 
have furnished advantages that have not. 
been transmuted into net profits ; and yet 
such communities, daily inflicting irreparable 
Injuries upon themselves by neglecting the 
gifts of God, and spurning the labor of man, 
are wont to deem themselves injured by 
the. prosperity flowing from superior industry 
and a practical political economy.” 
FACTS FROM NORTHERN INDIANA. 
A word in reference to Hie natural grasses 
spoken of by Mr. Isaac Ksm.vv of South 
Bend, iitcl. First, the dry lund of Northern 
Indiana was originally covered with heavy 
timber; consequently no nat ural grasses 
here. The lowtlat laud known as prairie or 
marsh land produces the grasses alluded to 
as being so fine for dairying purposes (mak¬ 
ing ol gilt edged butter, &c.) The marshes 
are very wet a greater portion of the year, 
and as "a consequence the grass known here 
as marsh grass is of the coarsest kind; it 
grows very large, rough and wiry. To 
give an idea of its fineness, the pe pie that 
have fed timothy, clover and tne like give it. 
the vulgar name of “ rip gut,” and quite 
appropriate too. It has not the delicate 
flavor of timothy, clover, red top, but 
more the perfume of weeds. Our water Is 
hard lime water—no nice cold spring water 
bubbling up from under the lulls. (YVe ha\ e 
good drinking water here, but it is generally 
found deep in wells.) 
Now if Jerseys, Alderney*, or any other 
breed of cows can feed on marsh grass or 
hay, drink hard lime water, and give milk 
that the, cream will produce ‘ gilt edge but¬ 
ter,” then this is the Eldorado for the dairy¬ 
man. The natural grasses are good for 
raising stock, but a failure for fine butter 
and cheese. 
The beauty of this section of the country 
is that, properly tilled, we have as good a 
grain country as <mn bo found anywhere 
east of the Rocky Mountains. Many a far¬ 
mer in this section (and all could if they 
w tilil) raise 80 to 35 bushels of choice winter 
wheat, 80 to luO bushels of corn to the acre, 
200 |to DUO bushels of potatoes to the acre. 
The laud is a rich sandy soil, nearly free 
from, stone, and easily tilled. Fruits, such 
os apples, pears, cherries, plume, peaches, 
grapes, and ail kinds of berries grow lux¬ 
uriantly here; in fact I know of no section 
of the country where all of the different 
kinds of grain aud fruits grow in greater 
abundance or of better quality than here. 
Argos, Indiana. Observer. 
