els; in 1856, to 21,583,291 bushels; and in 1857, to 18,032,678 bushels. In 1860 the shipments are estimated to amount to at least from thirty to forty millions of bushels. In the first eight months of this year (1860) they amounted to over twenty-one millions!

It is to be considered that the agriculture of the region which feeds the warehouses of Chicago is but yet in its infancy. The resources and the capacity for production are still to a very great extent undeveloped. The country is still sparsely settled, compared with the older states, and the operations of agriculture are carried on under great disadvantages, with a great scarcity of labor, and

grain. Her immense warehouses are erected on the river and its branches, and railroad tracks run in the rear of them, so that a train of loaded cars may be standing at one end of a large elevating warehouse, and while its load is being raised by elevators at the rate of from 7,000 to 8,000 bushels per hour, at the other end the same grain may be running into vessels, and be on its way to Buffalo, Montreal, or Liverpool within six hours' time. The Illinois Central railroad grain warehouse can discharge twelve cars loaded with grain, and at the same time load two vessels with it, at the rate of 24,000 bushels per hour. It can receive grain from twenty-four cars at once, at the rate of 8,000 bushels per in many cases a want of capital. hour. And numerous other immense grain The reader will now be able to appreciate, houses can do the same thing. Grain can, to some extent, the vast importance of the therefore, be handled with wonderful dispatch as well as with cheapness. The warehouse alluded to, that of the Illinois Central railroad, is capable of storing 700,000 bushels of grain. It can receive and ship 65,000 bushels in a single day, or it can ship alone 225,000 a day! But this is only one of the magnificent grain warehouses, and there are many others, some of which are of nearly equal capacity, and in the aggregate they are capable of storing 3,395,000 bushels. They can receive and ship 430,000 bushels in ten hours, or they can ship alone 1,340,000 bushels in ten hours, and follow it up the year round. In busy seasons these figures are often doubled by running nights.

The amount of capital in grain warehouses alone exceeds three millions of dollars, to say nothing of a large amount of capital invested in other incidental means of conducting this immense business.

The amount of wheat shipped from Chicago in 1853 was 1,680,999 bushels; of Indian corn, 2,780,253 bushels; and the amount of oats, 1,748,493 bushels. The amount of wheat shipped from there in 1857 was 10,783,292 bushels; of Indian corn, the same year, 6,814,615 bushels; and of oats, 416,778 bushels. The shipment of flour has kept constantly increasing. In 1853 it was 131,130 barrels; in 1854 it was 224,575 barrels; in 1855 it was 320,312 barrels; in 1856, 410,989 barrels; and in 1857, 489,934 barrels.

improvements in agricultural implements and machinery, which have already been described on a preceding page as having been made within the last twenty years. With the implements and processes in use within the memory of most men, it would be impossible to attain such magnificent results in the way of agricultural produce. There are at the present time, in the city of Chicago, some five or six large manufactories engaged in making and selling agricultural implements and machinery, each employing from one hundred to three hundred hands, besides other large establishments at Rockford, Freeport, Alton, and many other places, employing throughout the state more than ten thousand persons. There are at least a dozen reaper and mower manufactories, and other establishments devoted to making threshers, cultivators, ploughs, drills, etc., and the demand for these improved machines is rapidly increasing.

But Chicago is only one of the great centres for the receipt of agricultural produce directly from the farmer, and St. Louis, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Buffalo, Rochester, and many other large points might be mentioned, of nearly equal importance, to say nothing of many of the large grain-dealing cities of the south, like Richmond, for instance.

In view of these facts we can realize that agriculture produces, as was estimated in 1854 by the superintendent of the census, more than sixteen hundred millions of dollars a year; and that in the state of New The shipment of all kinds of grain, and York, where "the assessed value of the real flour as grain, in 1854 amounted to 12,902,- estate is eleven hundred millions (1,107,272,320 bushels; in 1855, to 16,633,813 bush-715) of dollars, notwithstanding the enor

mous wealth of the metropolis, the agricultural interest pays four-fifths of the taxes."

Of the aggregate number of bushels of wheat returned by the census of 1850, and which, as has been intimated, gives an exceedingly inadequate idea of the ordinary produce of this grain, the south, embracing the states mentioned on a preceding page, produced 27,878,815 bushels, valued at $25,090,933; the west produced 41,394,545 bushels, valued at $37,255,088; and the north produced 30,761,941 bushels, valued at $27,865,746.

The crop of wheat of the present year is probably the largest by far ever raised in this country, and will not probably fall short of 230,000,000 of bushels. With the surplus of last year still on hand we shall have nearly 70,000,000 of bushels for exportation to foreign countries.

In the statement of the above staple crops, little or no credit is given to the productions of California, which was admitted into the Union on the 9th of September, 1850. At that time it was not generally thought to rank anywhere as an agricultural state. Its wheat crop was returned, in 1850, at only 17,228 bushels; its Indian corn at only 12,236 bushels; and its other agricultural products in proportion. In 1852 the wheat crop of that state was less than 300,000 bushels, and the imports of flour in 1853 were no less than 500,000 bushels; it sold, at times, as high as fifty dollars a barrel. In 1859 the wheat crop was more than 6,000,000 of bushels, while the crop of 1860 very greatly exceeded that, so that many a shipload was exported to South America, Australia, China, and even to New York and Liverpool.

and the oats, which then were worth less than $100,000, are worth this year nearly $2,000,000. Then only about a hundred thousand acres were under cultivation in the whole state; now the number of acres is nearer a million and a half. Then, nobody thought the state would ever be able to raise even its own flour. Now, with less than a fortieth part of her lands under cultivation, she is exporting flour to foreign countries. California could probably support a population of twenty millions under a full development of her agricultural resources.

What has been said in speaking of the The corn crop of California has increased exports of Indian corn, may be said, also, of in like manner since 1852, when it amountwheat, that the amount sent abroad is reg-ed to only about 60,000 bushels. It was ulated very much by the extent of the de- over 1,000,000 bushels in 1860! The barmand there. The surplus of this grain-that ley crop is double now what it was in 1852; is, the amount that can be spared for shipment to foreign ports, over and above what is required for home consumption-is as elastic as India-rubber. If Europe wants our wheat, or our flour, and is compelled to pay good prices, either from a short crop, a disturbed state of political affairs, or any other cause, it is impossible to set bounds to our surplus, because the more she wants, the more we have to spare, and the less Europe, or any foreign country wants, the less we have to export. If little wheat is wanted abroad, it is used more freely at home, and the balance is stored for future use. If large quantities of it are required abroad, less will be used at home, the people resorting to In- RYE is not, at the present time, so extendian corn and meal to a large extent. The sively used for food as formerly. The amount amount of export is, therefore, regulated by grown is, therefore, comparatively small. the price. If foreign countries are willing, Rye was introduced and cultivated in all the or are compelled to pay for it, we can supply colonies at the earliest periods of their setthem to any extent under any ordinary tlement, and its meal was mixed with Indian circumstances. The export in 1846 was meal for the making of bread, in New Eng13,268,175 bushels; in 1847, 12,309,972; land, as early, certainly, as 1648, and perin 1848 it reached 26,312,431 bushels, un-haps even as carly as 1630, and that custom der the stimulus of the high prices consequent upon famine in Ireland; in 1849 it fell off to 10,366,417, and again, in 1850, to 8,656,982 bushels, when it began to increase again, and amounted in 1851 to 13,948,499, and in 1852 to 18,680,686; in 1853 it was 18,958,993 bushels, and in 1854 no less than 27,000,000!

PRODUCTION OF OTHER GRAINS.

became very common. The export of this grain has never been very extensive, and since the demand for wheat has been so much increased, its extent of cultivation has diminished rapidly.

In 1796, no less than 50,614 barrels of rye meal were exported from Philadelphia, and in 1801 the United States exported

one reason for its increase, while the price it | lence of the disease, it fell off to 104,056,commands makes it a profitable crop.

It was, no doubt, many years before it became possible, in the nature of things, to provide full supplies for their cattle, and it was not unfrequently the case, even after the culture of grasses was introduced, that the cattle were obliged to browse in the woods in a long and hard struggle for life, owing to the loss of crops by drought and imperfect cultivation.

tons. In 1850 it was 13,838,642 tons, an increase of 3,590,533 tons. The hay crop of the present year cannot be less than 15,000,000 tons, with a value certainly not less than $150,000,000. To this is to be added the value of the grass crop, which is not less than that of the hay, and we have an annual production of at least $300,000,000, an amount nearly equal to all the other agricultural products of the country, excepting wheat and Indian corn.

The cultivation of timothy, the most important and valuable of the forage grasses, was not introduced, according to Jared The production of hay is, to a certain exEliot, who wrote in 1750, till a few years tent, a tax upon the farmer imposed by the previous to that date, having been found by severity of climate. In a mild climate and one Herd, in a swamp near Piscataqua. He short winters, the necessity for curing hay propagated it till it was taken to Maryland in any considerable quantities is avoided. and Virginia by Timothy Hanson, after Less hay is made, of course, at the south whom it is most frequently called. The than at the north. The same number and well-known orchard grass was cultivated as size of cattle would require less artificially early as the middle of the last century, for prepared fodder in a mild climate than in a we know it was introduced from Virginia severe one. Maine, for instance, raised into England in 1764, or thereabout. The 755,889 tons of hay, and kept 385,115 head June, or Kentucky blue grass, was probably of cattle and horses, consuming about two indigenous, and sprung up in the pathway tons a head on an average. Illinois, with of the settlers, as it does now, wherever the 601,952 tons of hay, kept 1,190,264 head footstep of civilization penetrates. But it of cattle and horses, using but little over was not till a recent date that the general half a ton per head; while Alabama, which culture and improvement of the grasses re-made only 32,685 tons of hay, kept 915,911 ceived the attention it deserved.

The grasses spring up almost spontaneously in many localities, it is true, othererwise the settlers would have suffered far more severely than they did. From the time when the great mandate went forth, even before the creation of man, "Let the earth bring forth grass," it has been a law of nature to clothe the earth with verdure as soon as the advance of civilization lets in the light upon the soil by the first clearings of the pioneer settler.

The progress made in the cultivation of grasses and the production of hay has been greater within the last half century than ever before. This will appear, especially when we consider the improvement in the means of cultivating and harvesting the crop. The culture of clover had been commenced, in some parts of the country, previous to that time, but it had not established itself in the farmer's favor to any very great extent, and the indigenous grasses were chiefly relied on, while the seed used in many parts of the country was that which had fallen from the hay-mow, foul, of course, and full of weeds.

According to the census of 1840, the hay crop of the United States was 10,248,108

head of cattle, the proportion being but one ton of hay to thirty head of cattle. There is, it is true, some compensation in this, as in most other things, and that is the extreme difficulty of growing the ordinary natural grasses in a southern latitude, on account of the severe drouths. It is almost impossible to produce a fine, close, permanent turf south of the 39° of latitude, and considerable quantities of cured hay are taken from the northern and eastern ports to most of the southern ports every year.

There is, also, another most important compensation in the greater facility afforded by the wintering of cattle for economizing manure, and thus keeping up the fertility of the soil. For example, tobacco culture is said to have impoverished the soil of Virginia. One reason for it was, that keeping comparatively few cattle, and never housing them, but rather "browsing" them from one year's end to another, there was no possibility of saving and making a great quantity of manure. Till the introduction of guano, it was extremely difficult to get manure for the tobacco field, and exhaustion was inevitable. In Massachusetts, on the other hand, there is no crop that a wheat or corn crop will follow so well as that of to