1847. 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
and vigor and fruit; and they are becoming convinced 
that to understand how to plow and sow and reap, is 
not the whole education of a farmer; but that it is quite 
as important to know what land is prepared for the 
plow, and what seed it will bring to a harvest worthy 
of the labors of the sickle. Experience is steadily prov¬ 
ing that, by a due attention to these considerations, a 
better article, doubled in quantity, may be produced 
from the same acre of ground, with a small proportion¬ 
ate increase of labor and expense, and that the farmer 
who pursues this improved system of agriculture, can, 
like the merchant and mechanic referred to, enter the 
market with a better production, at a cheaper price, 
than his less enterprising competitor. 
This change in the agriculture of our state and coun¬ 
try, opens to the mind reflections of the most cheering 
character. If carried out to its legitimate results, it 
promises a competition among our farmers, not to ob¬ 
tain the highest prices for inferior productions, but to 
produce the most, the best, and the cheapest of the ne¬ 
cessaries of human life. It promises agricultural pros¬ 
perity j with cheap and good bread, furnished in abun¬ 
dance to all who will eat within the rule prescribed to 
fallen man, in the sacred volume of the Divine law. 
Steady resolution and persevering energy, are requi¬ 
site to carry forward these improvements to that degree 
of perfection dictated alike by interest and by duty ; and 
the stimulus of a steady and remunerating market will 
rouse that resolution and nerve that energy. Without 
this encouragement in prospect, few will persevere in 
making improvements which require close and constant 
mental application, as well as severe physical labor. 
Agriculture will never be healthfully or profitably 
prosecuted by him whose controlling object is his own 
consumption. The hope of gain is the motive power to 
human industry, and is as necessary to the farmer as 
to the merchant or manufacturer. All who labor are 
equally stimulated by the prospect of a market which 
is to remunerate them for their toil, and without this 
hope neither mental activity, nor physical energy, will 
characterize their exertions. True it is that the far¬ 
mers of our country, as a class, calculate less closely 
the profits of their labor and capital, than men engaged 
in most other pursuits, and are content with lower rates 
of gain. The most of them own their farms, their 
stocks and farming implements, unencumbered by debt. 
Their business gives but an annual return. They five 
frugally, labor patiently and faithfully, and at the close 
of the year, its expenses are paid from its proceeds, the 
balance remaining being accounted the profits of the year. 
Although a moderate sum, it produces contentment, 
without a computation of the rate per cent, upon the 
capital invested, or the wages it will pay to the propri¬ 
etor and the members of his family. 1 he result is an 
advance in the great object of human labor, and, if not 
rapid, it is safe and certain. It is a surplus beyond the 
expenses of living, to be added to the estate, and may 
be repeated in each revolving year. 
If, however, this surplus is left upon the hands of the 
farmer, in his own products, for which there is no mar¬ 
ket, his energies are paralyzed, his spirits sink, and he 
scarcely feels that the year has added to his gains. He 
sees little encouragement in toiling on, to cultivate be¬ 
yond his wants, productions which will not sell ; and 
the chances are, that his farm is neglected, his husband¬ 
ry becomes bad, and his gains in fact cease. 
To continue a progressive state of improvement in 
agriculture, then, and to £ive energy and prosperity to 
this great and vital branch of human industry, a health¬ 
ful and stable market becomes indispensable, and no ob¬ 
ject should more carefully occupy the attention of the 
farmers of the United States. 
Deeply impressed with the conviction of this truth, 
benevolent minds have cherished the idea that a domes¬ 
tic market, to be influenced only by our own national 
policy, would be so far preferable, in stability and cer¬ 
tainty, to the open market of the commercial world, as 
to have persuaded themselves that a sufficient market 
for our agricultural products is thus attainable. It is 
not designed to discuss the soundness of this theory, 
where it can be reduced to practice ; but only to inquire 
315 
whether the state of this country, the condition of its 
society, and the tendency and inclination of its popula¬ 
tion, as to their industrial pursuits, are such, at the pre¬ 
sent time, or can be expected to be such for generations 
yet to come, as to render it possible to consume within 
the country the surplus of the productions of our agri¬ 
culture. The theory of an exclusively domestic mar¬ 
ket for this great domestic interest, is certainly a very 
beautiful one, as a theory, and can scarcely fail to strike 
the mind favorably upon a first impression. Still, ex¬ 
amination has produced differences of opinion between 
statesmen of equal intelligence and patriotism, as to its 
influences upon the happiness and prosperity of a coun¬ 
try and its population. Any examination of this ques¬ 
tion would lead to a discussion properly considered po¬ 
litical, if not partisan, and all such discussions it is my 
settled purpose to avoid, as inappropriate to the place 
and the occasion. 
I simply propose to inquire as to a fact, which must 
control the application of theories and principles of po¬ 
litical economy touching this point, to our country and 
its agricultural population, without raising any question 
as to the wisdom of the one, or the soundness of the 
other. . Is the consumption of this country equal to its 
agricultural production, or can it become so within any 
calculable period of years ? How is the fact ? May I 
not inquire without giving offence, or transcending the 
limits I have prescribed for myself in the discussion ? 
Can a fair examination, scrupulously confined to this 
point, take a political bearing, or disturb a political 
feeling ? It is certainly not my design to wound the 
feelings of any member of the society, or of any citizen 
of the country ; and I have convinced myself that I may 
make this inquiry, and express the conclusions of my 
own mind as to the result, without doing either. If I 
shall prove to be in error, it will be an error as to the 
fact inquired after, and not as to the soundness of the 
principle in political economy dependent upon the fact 
for its application, because as to the soundness of the 
principle, I attempt no discussion and offer no opinion. 
It wall be an error as to the applicability of a theory to 
our country, and not as to the wisdom or policy of the 
theory itself, because of the soundness, or unsoundness 
of the theory, when it can be practically applied, I stu¬ 
diously refrain from any expression, as inappropriate 
here. With the indulgence of the society, I will inquire 
as to the fact. 
Our country is very wide and very new. It embraces 
every variety of climate and soil most favorable to ag¬ 
ricultural pursuits. It produces already almost every 
agricultural staple, and the most important are the or¬ 
dinary productions, of extensive sections of the country, 
and are now sent to the markets in great abundance. 
Yet our agriculture is in its infancy almost every¬ 
where, and at its maturity nowhere. It is believed to 
be entirely safe to assume that'there is not one single 
agricultural county in the whole Union, filled up in an 
agricultural sense—not one such county which lias not 
yet land to be brought into cultivation, and much more 
land, the cultivation of which is to be materially im¬ 
proved, before it can be considered as having reached 
the measure of its capacity for production. If this be 
true of the best cultivated agricultural county in the 
Union, how T vast is .the proportion of those counties 
which have entire townships), and of the states, which 
have not merely counties, but entire districts, yet wholly 
unpeopled, and unreclaimed from the wilderness state? 
When to this broad- area of the agricultural field of 
our country, we add our Immense territories, organized 
and unorganized, who can compute the agricultural ca¬ 
pacities of the United States, or fix a limit to the period 
wffien our surplus agricultural productions will increase 
with increasing years and population ? Compare the 
census of 1830 and 1840 with the map of the Union, 
and witness the-increase of population in the new’ states, 
wdi'ich are almost exclusively agricultural, and who can 
doubt the Strong and resistless inclination of our people 
to this pursuit ? 
Connect with these considerations of extent of coun¬ 
try, diversity of soils, varieties of climate, and partial and 
imperfect cultivation, the present agricultural prospects 
