In addition to these facilities for informa- twenty years, and justify the hope and extion, many of the states have established pectation of the most splendid results in the township and district libraries, by means of future. which the choicest works on all subjects are brought within the reach of all, the poor as well as the rich. In these libraries are generally included a fair proportion of agricultural works. This system was initiated by New York in 1837, by making an appropriation of two hundred thousand dollars a year for three years, and subsequent annual grants of over fifty thousand dollars. Massachusetts followed the example of New York in 1839, and more recently Michigan passed a law giving each township the sum of fifty dollars annually for this purpose. Indiana adopted the same policy in 1854, and Ohio in 1857, the former appropriating $300,000 for two years, and the latter $80,000 annually. Illinois and other western states have also adopted a similar course. It ought not to be overlooked, in this connection, that there has been a most decided progress within the last twenty years in agricultural chemistry and kindred sciences. This progress has been made not wholly and strictly by scientific men in our own country, but scientific discoveries in agriculture are the property of the intelligent farmer everywhere, and those made abroad have had a material and important influence in promoting the advancement of practical agriculture among us. The labors of Arthur Young and Sir Humphry Davy were exceedingly valuable, but they bear the same relation to more recent investigations that the labors of the pioneer in the western forest do to those of the sons who till the soil and reap the harvests for which the father had prepared the These measures are properly regarded as way. The former did more than any other well calculated to diffuse information, and man to stir up the agricultural mind of his promote not only agricultural improvement, country. The latter was the first to give but the general welfare of the community. principles to practice, and he announced the To this should be added the fact that most new philosophy in these words: “Vegetables states publish annually an abstract of the derive their component principles-which proceedings of the county agricultural so- are, for the most part, hydrogen, carbon, cieties for general gratuitous distribution. oxygen, and nitrogen-either from the atMany of the states produce volumes of great mosphere by which they are surrounded, or value. Ohio distributes from twenty to from the soil in which they grow. The procthirty thousand copies. Massachusetts pub-ess of vegetation appears to depend upon lishes ten thousand copies, and Maine as the perpetual assimilation of various substanmany more. These various instrumentalities ces to the organs of the plant, in conse are now in constant activity, and are exerting quence of the exertion of their living and an immense influence. of their chemical affinities." Allusion should also be made to the establishment, in some of the states, of agricultural colleges, where special attention is to be given to the various sciences which bear directly or indirectly upon practical agriculture. Michigan was the first to lead off in this direction; a liberal endowment was granted by the state. New York, Maryland, and other states soon followed; but the results of these institutions are not yet attained, nor can they at present be fully appreciated, since time only can prove their value and their efficiency. This brief survey of the growth of the facilities for information upon agricultural subjects and the appliances brought to bear upon the instruction of the young farmer, will sufficiently indicate the rapidity of the progress which has been made in this particular direction within the last ten or The conversion of inorganic bodies into gases, and the assimilation of gases by organic structures, formed the basis for a new starting point, and had never before been announced. Carbonic acid had been discovered by Black in 1752. Dr. Rutherford called attention to nitrogen in 1772, and Priestley discovered oxygen in 1774, and obtained it from the leaves of plants; and when Davy appeared with a series of investigations more intimately connected with agriculture, the properties of air and water had not long been known. ress had been made in vegetable anatomy. Most of all that is known with regard to the organs of plants-their mode of growth by food taken from the air, from water, from manure, and from the soil by transmuting processes of wonderful delicacy-has been discovered within the last fifty years; Since But little prog ted artificial manures. The best methods of preparing these substances were thus made known both by scientific and practical men. Davy's time, the processes of chemical anal-scientific men soon discovered the most apysis have been vastly improved, and abstract proved formulas for the manufacture of suchemistry itself has grown up to a science perphosphate of lime, and other concentraof inestimable importance, which it had not in his day. The accumulation of scientific facts is the work of time, and it was not till 1840 that Liebig prepared his report on the progress of agriculture for the British Association for the Advancement of Science, and opened a new world of thought and study, awakened the attention of practical farmers to the importance of applying the results of chemical investigations, and, in some respects, essentially modified the practice of all civilized countries. Liebig said, in his "Organic Chemistry," that "to manure an acre of land with forty pounds of bone dust, is sufficient to supply three crops of wheat, clover, potatoes, turnips, etc., with phosphates, but the form in which they are restored to the soil does not appear to be a matter of indifference. For the more finely the bones are reduced to powder, and the more intimately they are mixed with the soil, the more easily they are assimilated. The most easy and practical mode of effecting their division is to pour over the bones, in the state of fine powder, half of their weight of sulphuric acid, diluted with three or four parts of water." The leading idea in this and other propositions of Liebig opened the way for the whole system of artificial manuring, which has extended so far in modern times. Previous to that time, the farmer had confined himself to the use either of a compost of animal and vegetable materials, or of other simple substitutes, as ashes, salt, soot, or something of the kind; but not in accordance with any fixed principles derived from reasoning or the results of observation, but simply because experience had shown them to be beneficial. Liebig's idea was that sulphuric acid, the vitriol of commerce, would make the neutral phosphate of lime soluble, and give it a powerful action in the soil. For the subsequent discovery and use of mineral phosphates we are indebted to the same source, the development and application of the views first advanced by Liebig. Immediately after the announcement of his propositions, experiments were instituted with such satisfactory results that manufactories were established in England, and the importation of bones from Germany, the United States, and South America, became of great importance to commerce as well as to agriculture; while the earnest researches of The advantage of these discoveries cannot be disputed, for though the farmer may be liable to be deceived in the purchase of a particular kind of superphosphate, yet there is no longer any doubt of its great value as a fertilizer, when properly made; while its introduction rendered substances previously of little worth, easily and quickly available for the nourishment of plants, and hence very valuable. It was these investigations that made known the value of guano as a fertilizer. This substance has come into use since the year 1840, when twenty casks were landed in England, where it was soon found to be a most valuable manure. So great was the confidence immediately inspired in its value as a means of increasing the products and renovating the soil of the country, that the very next year, 1841, seven vessels were employed to convey 1,733 tons from the Chincha Islands to England, and the number increased in 1842 to forty-one British and three foreign vessels, and the amount imported to 13,094 tons. Before the close of 1844, no less than 29,000 tons were imported into that country from the coast of Peru, to say nothing of the many thousand tons which came from the Ichaboe and other guano islands at that time discovered. In 1855, no less than 210,000 tons were sold in England, being an increase of twenty per cent. on the consumption of 1854, which was at least twenty per cent. over that of 1853. From 1841, the date of the extraction of guano, to any extent, from the Chincha Islands, to the end of 1856, the quantity removed from those islands alone reached the enormous figure of two millions of tons, and the aggregate amount of sales in that time was $100,263,519. From the commencement of 1851 to the end of 1858, there were imported into the United States and used, no less than 673,412 tons. As a means of renovating many of the tobacco and cotton worn lands of the southern states, guano must be regarded as a valuable addition to the sources of fertility made known by modern science. A thousand other facts might be mentioned to show that science has done much for agriculture, and that there has been no small degree of progress already made, while investigation and experiment are, at the present time, being pushed with such vigor as to promise far more valuable and tangible results in future. THE PROSPECTS OF AGRICULTURE IN THIS COUNTRY. Having given some of the features of agricultural progress in the preceding pages, it is proper to say, in conclusion, that the present is but the dawn of a new era-an era of improvements of which we cannot yet form an adequate conception. The scientific discoveries, the mechanical inventions, the general spirit of inquiry, and the wide-spread intelligence which have been alluded to, indicate that a greater application of the mind to the labors of the hand distinguishes the present generation over all preceding times in a manner which those only can appreciate who will look back and consider the past-the slow growth of new ideas and new practices, the struggles with prejudice, ignorance, the want of markets, and the want of means, all of which contributed to depress American agriculture fifty years ago, and to keep it at a point wretchedly low, compared even with what it is at the present time. We have seen not only the calling, but the men who live by it gradually rising in dignity, in self-respect, and the respect of mankind. It is an imperative law of society that educated mind and educated labor will take its position above uneducated; in proportion as the farmer of to-day is better educated and more intelligent than the farmer of half a century ago, the former would naturally stand above the latter in the general estimation of the community. But in many other respects the farmer of the present day is far in advance of his forefathers. His labor is easier, and his mental activity is consequently greater. The same amount of manual labor produces more, and the farmer has time for the culture of the mind and the social virtues, as well as the farm, and agriculture holds a position of pre-eminence unknown at any former period. These changes we have seen in our own day, and we know that a higher development of our agricultural wealth must go hand in hand with an increase of population, if there were no other stimulus to its growth. Now, if we consider the immense area of the United States, and the facilities for the ex pansion of our population, the mind itself is incapable of fixing limits to the increase of this grand interest, already involving a greater amount of the wealth of the country than any other, producing annually to the value of more than sixteen hundred millions of dollars, and capable of a hundred-fold greater development than that which it has already attained. The original area of the country was but 820,680 sq. miles, till the purchase of Louisiana, in 1803, brought an addition of 899,579 more, and the acquisition of Florida, in 1819, an addition of 66,900 square miles. The annexation of Texas gave us 318,000, and that of Oregon 308,052, to which is to be added the territory acquired by the treaty with Mexico, of 522,955 square miles, and we have at the present time the vast extent of nearly three millions of square miles, or 2,936,166. It is expected that the census of 1860 will show that the population is somewhat over thirty millions; possibly it may be thirty-three millions. The annual increase since 1790 has been four times as great as that of Russia, six times as great as that of Great Britain, nine times as great as that of Austria, and ten times as great as that of France; and if the ratio of increase in our population from 1840 to 1850 should continue to 1890, we shall have a population of one hundred and seven millions. The density of population in 1850 was less than eight persons to the square mile, or, more accurately, 7.90. That of the New England states was less than forty-two (41.94) to the square mile. That of the middle states was about fifty-eight (57.79), while Texas and California had less than one to the square mile. If we had the density of population to be found in Spain, it would give us two hundred millions; if that of France, it would give us five hundred millions; if that of Belgium (402), it would give us eleven hundred and eighty millions. The area of the Pacific slope of this country is 786,002 square miles, or 26.09 per cent. of the whole territory of the United States. The area of the Atlantic slope, proper, is 514,416 square miles, a ratio of only 17.52 to the whole. The area of the gulf region is 325,537 square miles, or 11.09 per cent. of the whole; that of the northern lake region is 112,649 square miles, or only 3.83 per cent., while that of the Mississippi valley and the region water ed and drained by its tributaries is 1,217,562 square miles, or 41.47 per cent. of the whole, or more than two-fifths of our national territory. this immense valley, containing within its limits one million two hundred thousand square miles, lying in its whole extent in the temperate zone, and occupying a position midway between the Atlantic and the Pacif The number of farms and plantations in the United States in 1850 was about a mil-ic oceans, unequalled in fertility and the lion and a half, or more strictly, 1,449,075, and the number of acres of improved land, one hundred and thirteen millions. The number of acres of unimproved land was more than one hundred and eighty millions. The proportion of improved land to the unimproved was greatest in New England, or twenty-six acres in a hundred; the proportion in the southern states was sixteen, in the north-western twelve, and in the south-western only five in a hundred. diversity of its productions, intersected in These farms, with comparatively few exceptions, are owned in fee by the farmers When the period foreseen by that great who cultivate them, thus giving a constant statesman shall arrive, the millions of people stimulus to improvement and permanent which shall then occupy the fertile valley of occupation, rousing the energy and enter- the Mississippi may look back upon the prise of individuals as no other interest labors of the early pioneers in improvement, could. All these facts have an important and give a retrospective application to the bearing upon the future prospects of agri- sentiment of Dean Swift, that "Whoever culture in this country, and they cannot be has made two ears of corn, or two blades of overlooked. grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, deserves better of mankind, and has done more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together." Taking, now, a general survey of the whole territory of the United States, I suppose it would generally be conceded that the region of the Mississippi is, on the whole, the most strictly agricultural portion, while, Then, too, will be realized and appreas we have seen, the actual development ciated the grand truth of the remark of of its agriculture is scarcely more than Daniel Webster, that "agriculture feeds; to begun. Mr. Calhoun, glowing with enthu- a great extent it clothes us; without it we siasm in contemplation of the immense and should not have manufactures, we should almost boundless resources of that great not have commerce. They all stand tosection still remaining to be developed, gether like pillars in a cluster, the largest used the following language: "Looking in the centre, and that largest is AGRICULbeyond to a not very distant future, when TURE !” COTTON CULTURE. kept up by the abundance and cheapness of good land. As capital is an aid to labor, by enlarging its products, the rate of interest is high where labor is productive. The distrust of capitalists who were separated from us by the wide Atlantic, and their ignorance of our pursuits, and means, and credit, prevented them from entering into competition with the capitalists here, so that they easily obtained all the borrower was able to pay. This was a very high rate, because the money was of great advantage. Whether the farmer borrowed it to buy more lands, or ploughs, or stock, or the mechanic to enlarge his powers of production by new machines, or tools, or materials, both were able to pay a large per-centage, on account of the profits of their increased business. Thus cheap, rich lands not only advanced the rate of wages, but of interest also. THE high prices of labor in our country, and the large profits of capital, have been remarked from the earliest period of our history. Adam Smith, in his "Wealth of Nations," proposed an explanation of these two peculiarities, and there is no doubt that his keen insight discovered their true cause in the abundance and cheapness of good land. The large products of our rich virgin soil, purchased from the Indians at a mere nominal price, enabled the farmer to offer high wages to the laborer, and large interest to the capitalist. The owner of the land, who was generally a laborer himself, paid no rent, and had made but a small outlay to purchase his farm, so that nearly the whole of his product was the reward of labor. If he could find a poor man who had not means enough to purchase and stock a farm, he could afford to offer him high wages, because he would be himself more than paid by his increased products. These high wages soon enabled the hired laborer to become a landproprietor himself, and both were then competitors in the market for all the labor that could be hired. This competition forced the rate of wages as high as their abundant crops authorized them to pay. The artisans of the towns were tempted from their shops by the large reward offered for their labor in the country; and the few who remained at their trades asked high prices for their work. These they readily obtained, for their only competitors were across the sea, three thousand miles distant, with slow and irregular communication, so that the foreign mechanics could not force those who were here to reduce their prices to the standard of the old world. Thus, in the town and the country, in mechanical as well as agricultural labor, a high rate of wages was NOTE. It is not supposed people will indorse some of the sentiments advanced in this Article-they are such as should be expected from a Southern source. Professor McCay is one of the most able writers of the South; is not a po itician, so far as we know, and has produced a very instructive and valuable Article, it being written before the war, will ever remain one of the most impartial and faithful descriptions of the Cotton interest, and exposition of the views of the people of the South, on the system of labor under which the great staple is cultivated, to be found on record. We think it will be perused with much interest by the general reader.-Publisher. This explanation was satisfactory during all the period of our colonial history. It was still plausible after the war of Independence, for, although our population had advanced into the interior, and the price of lands along the sea-board had risen so that the products of the soil were charged, before they could be exported, with rent or with the cost of inland transportation, leaving a smaller portion of the proceeds for the share of the laborer, the wars in Europe connected with the French Revolution increased the demand for breadstuffs, and maintained them at high prices. Our neutral position gave us the carrying trade between the belligerents, and this required a large number of American ships. These being built of timber procured from our abundant forests, brought large returns to the laborer. The trees that were felled and converted into ship-timber cost nothing, or but a trifle; so that the whole value of the timber consisted of wages only, and the cost of transportation to the sea-port. As this distance was short, nearly the whole was wages. |