moderate rate in the North-Central and Western States, which are chiefly devoted to agriculture, while it increased at an enormous rate in the North Atlantic Division, the principal seat of the manufacturing industries and commerce. On the other hand wealth per head declined disas

trously in the South Atlantic and the South-Central Divisions, the home of the defeated slave-holding States.

As the comparisons given are perhaps a little too summary it will be worth while to compare the wealth of some of the more important States in 1860 and 1870. According to the United States Censuses their wealth has changed very unequally. Statistics will be found on page 266.

While during the decade the wealth of the Southern States shrunk to one-half and even to one-third notwithstanding six years of peace, the wealth of the Northern States increased prodigiously. That of Illinois, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania grew two-and-a-half-fold, that of New York increased three-and-a-half-fold, and the wealth of the 'new' agricultural States in the West grew even more quickly. The wealth of Kansas increased sixfold, and that of Nebraska nearly eightfold. During the decade 1860-1870 the wealth of the manufacturing States and of the wheat-growing States of the Far West grew at an unprecedented rate. The simultaneous development of industry and agriculture during the decade 1860

1870 coincided with, and was chiefly due to, the American Civil War. That is recognised by many scientists and writers who have studied that period. Mr. E. L. Bogart, in his 'Economic History of the United States,' wrote:

The Civil War, by practically cutting off foreign intercourse, immensely hastened the growth of domestic indus

tries. The industrial revolution thus inaugurated has been compared with that in England one hundred years before. It certainly marks a turning-point in the economic development of the country as distinct as that in political life and more significant in its effects than the earlier industrial revolution, introduced in this country fifty years before by the restrictive period.

Another American writer, Katharine Coman, stated in her Industrial History of the United States':

The war demands, coupled with the protective tariff, induced an extraordinary activity in every department of business enterprise. Universal buoyancy and unbounded confidence in the future rendered it easy to borrow money at home and abroad. European capitalists invested readily in the United States securities, railroad bonds and mining stock, and the resources of the country were exploited as never before.

Theodor Vogelstein wrote in his book Organisationsformen der Eisenindustrie und Textilindustrie in England und Amerika' (Leipzig, 1910):

The manufacturing industries of the North came out of the war in a splendid condition. The enormous exertions made during the struggle, by which more than a million of the best workers were withdrawn from economic life, promoted the replacing of human labour by machine labour to an unusual extent. The necessity of paying interest on the large loans raised abroad naturally stimulated very greatly the export trade. On the other hand, imports, except of such goods as were required for the army, suffered. Lastly, the war brought with it a system of rigid protection, of a protection more severe than any American manufacturer would have thought possible in his wildest dreams. One of the greatest errors which one may encounter over and over again, even in scientific publications, is the idea that rigid American protectionism was created in 1890. . . . It is no mere coincidence that 1866, when Congress began to abolish internal war taxes, and left unaltered the corresponding import duties, saw the rise of the first American Trust.

When hostilities began between the North and the South, the United States had only a few thousand troops, and were utterly unprepared for the gigantic struggle. The vastness of the conflict, the employment of millions of soldiers, naturally created an enormous demand for weapons, and

munitions, vehicles, railways, telegraphs, and manufactures of every kind. As the American foreign trade was very seriously restricted through reasons which will be discussed further on, and as the majority of the able-bodied men were withdrawn from the economic activities and enrolled in the army, a greatly reduced number of workers in field and factory had suddenly to provide an immensely increased output. The necessity of vastly increasing individual production compelled employers to introduce the most perfect and the most powerful labour-saving machinery available both in agriculture and in industry. Professor E. D. Fite wrote in his excellent book 'Social and Industrial Conditions in the North during the Civil War':

Three things saved the harvest the increased use of labour-saving machinery, the work of women in the fields, and the continued influx of new population.

Up to this time the use of reaping machines had been confined almost entirely to some of the large farms of the West. . . . Grain was generally sown by hand. These processes required the work of many men, so that when the able-bodied began to go to war, with large harvests left to garner, new methods and new implements were absolutely necessary if the crops were to be saved.

Immediately interest in labour-saving machinery and in the relative merits of the different machines became widespread, and next to enthusiasm over abounding crops in time of war was the most striking characteristic of the world of agriculture. . . . The old apathy was gone. The war suddenly had popularised methods of cultivation in which the agricultural papers had striven in vain for a decade to arouse interest.

The Scientific American of February 12, 1864, stated:

The total number of mowers manufactured increased from 35,000 in 1862 and 40,000 in 1863 to 70,000 in 1864; estimating the number for 1861 at 20,000, this would make the number for the four years 165,000, compared with 85,000 the number made in the preceding ten or twelve years.

Owing to the great improvements in agricultural machinery, agricultural production increased rapidly, and the losses caused by the war were soon made good. I have shown in the beginning of this chapter that between 1860 and 1867 the number of cattle, horses, mules, and pigs decreased very severely owing to the war. Between 1867 and 1877 the number of farm animals increased rapidly, as follows:

The great improvement in agricultural appliances and machinery enabled a few men to do the work of many. The steam plough, the seed-casting machine, the reaper, the self-binder, and the railway made possible the opening and the vigorous exploitation of the rich agricultural plains of the West, notwithstanding the scarcity and the dearness of labour and the inaccessibility of the far-away interior. But for these machines the enormous agricultural wealth of the North American prairies would still be unutilised.

The Civil War gave a powerful stimulus to the development of the American railway system, especially as transport by the Mississippi was interrupted by the war, for the mouth of that mighty river was in the hands of the rebels. Professor Fite has told us :

The Mississippi formerly had been the outlet, carrying the grain and other produce to New Orleans, whence it was distributed in all directions. After the war closed the river, if the railroads had not been in existence, the West would have been isolated without a market; and it was believed by some that, rather than lose this, the section would have followed its market into secession.

...

The new routes of trade to the Atlantic coast were