HUNT'S

MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE.

SEPTEMBER, 1841.

ART. I. AGRICULTURAL COMMERCE OF THE UNITED STATES.

In surveying the vast extent of our national domain, we can hardly fail to be amazed at the amount of its agricultural resources. Stretching through various degrees of latitude, and exhibiting a soil which is warmed by a temperate as well as a tropical climate, it yields nearly all the grains, grasses, and vegetables that are required for the substantial comfort of man, as well as those more luxurious fruits that administer to his tastes and tend to pamper his appetites. Taking the six states of New England, which are limited in their territory, we find that although the soil is of primitive formation, and much broken by hills and ledges of rocks, the common grains, such as rye, corn, buckwheat, potatoes, and most of the garden vegetables, are produced upon its hill-sides and in its valleys to a considerable extent, which may be much increased by improved methods of culture, although a large portion of its surplus population is annually drained off to the more productive lands of the new states of the west. Agriculture, in this portion of our country, is not, however, prosecuted in that scientific and improved form which prevails in England, and by which the crops of that portion of Great Britain are quadrupled. The common and ordinary means which were formerly used for the cultivation of the soil, are now too generally retained; and the necessary consequence is, that the amount of agricultural produce raised is not sufficient for the support of its population. In the state of Massachusetts, however, which has exceeded all other of the New England states in the point to which it has carried the agricultural interest, a better form of husbandry exists. Not only has greater attention been paid to this interest as a science, but the influence of that improvement is experienced in the greater abundance and the superiority of its crops. Passing to the state of New York, we find the advantages furnished by the interest of agriculture most signally dis played. In that wide alluvial soil, stretching away from the banks of the

Hudson to the shores of Lake Erie, the surface of the territory, throughout nearly its entire extent, is checkered with prosperous farms, tilled by an agricultural population which is probably exceeded by that of no other portion of the country in the independence and solid comfort which they enjoy a condition that is principally derived from the cultivation of the soil. In that condition, indeed, we perceive the benefits which might be diffused throughout the whole country were this species of enterprise more widely extended. The production of wheat alone in this state, yields a vast revenue to its producers; and the flour which is poured out from its mills, and the quantity of beef, pork, and other products of stock-husbandry, as well as grains and vegetables, which fill the channel of the Hudson, supply the wants of the villages upon its banks, and the great metropolis at its mouth. Passing towards the south, we reach the territory of Western Pennsylvania, cultivated with pains-taking thrift by Dutch farmers, a source of no inconsiderable wealth to the state. Arriving in Maryland, we enter upon a soil which, while it produces most of the grasses and grains of the north in as great abundance as even the state of New York, yields also the tobacco; and from that state, through Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, we have a territory which stretches away in plain and valley, inviting the labors of the plough, and giving in return, not only the vegetable products of the north, but also those great staples, rice, tobacco, and cotton.

Nor are the agricultural advantages of this portion of our territory, however great, equal to those furnished by the soil of the west. The valley of the Mississippi, or that domain which extends from the head of Lake Superior to New Orleans, watered by about three thousand miles of that great river, spreads out a more fertile territory, as has been justly remarked by a recent French traveller,* than that of any other portion of the globe. The oak-lands, extending through Michigan to the borders of the lakes, the prairies of Illinois, the deep mould which stretches from the southern borders of the lakes beyond both banks of the Ohio, the forests of Kentucky, and the numerous states organized along the Mississippi, the Illinois, and the Missouri, from the rugged cliffs of Lake Superior to the cotton and sugar plantations of Louisiana and Alabama, develop a field for agriculture which almost bewilders us by its magnitude.

The enterprise of our countrymen, discerning the resources of the soil, has kept pace with their development, by marking out important channels of trade through which the agricultural products of the interior can be most conveniently transported to their respective markets. The long lines of canals and railroads that have been projected and partially carried out, both at the north, the south, and the west, are designed not less to provide the conveniences of personal travel, than to furnish the means of transportation for their agricultural products. Connecting the principal commercial marts of our country, and making up by art what nature has left undone, these improvements, while they accommodate the public in its hours of mere amusement, have a direct tendency to stimulate the labors of agriculture by furnishing to its products convenient and rapid markets, constituting an electric chain through which will vibrate the opinions as well as the trade of the country. Added to this, we are supplied by nature with some of the noblest arteries of internal navigation that are to be

See Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville.

found in the world, and which furnish the safest means for the transporta. tion of articles of large bulk. The products of New England may be transported from the interior through the artificial public works to which we have alluded, that are designed to run to the navigable waters of the rivers which partially penetrate the interior, or they may be conveyed coastwise from state to state even to the mouth of the Mississippi. In New York we find the Hudson coursing, perhaps, the most densely popu lated portion of this state from Albany, its largest interior city, to the great metropolis at its mouth; while the agricultural productions of Pennsylvania and Maryland find a ready market at home, and those of the south, which are required to be exported, are provided with an ocean pathway to any port. The navigable advantages of the west are, perhaps, more extraordinary than those that are found in the eastern portion of the country. New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin, have harbors upon the great lakes which are stretched thousands of miles through the forest of our northwestern territory-a territory that is more prolific of agricultural resources than any other portion of our wide-spread empire; and when we consider the advance of population. into that territory, and the measure of production which it has already at tained, we cannot fail to be convinced that it will soon become, in point of strength and influence, the most important part of our republic. From the shores of Illinois we have also a continuous line of navigation through the states bordering the Mississippi, which annually pour out a vast amount of products to the great commercial mart at its mouth-the city of New Orleans. Such are the agricultural advantages of the country, and such the navigable arteries and public works which furnish channels for the transportation of its productions.

In this country extraordinary motives, certainly, are held out for the exercise of agriculture. Besides the constitution of the country, and the laws of the several states, which guaranty to all its citizens a participa tion in the national legislation, a further inducement is held out by the low price of lands. In the new states of the west, it is well known that an abundance of the most fertile soil can be procured at the low price of one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, with the best title; a soil, too, which furnishes in great abundance most of the comforts, and many of the luxu ries of life. When to this is added the fact, that by the advance of population, and the necessary growth of the country, this soil, thus purchased at that low rate, will gradually augment in value as the settlement of the surrounding territory is increased, little additional motive could be urged for its cultivation, especially to that body of men who might linger in the large cities of our older states, dependent upon the chance opportunities of labor which might present themselves, and who would be cut off entirely from these opportunities when a sudden mercantile revulsion should, as has frequently occurred, sweep away the great bulk of the business population in one common wreck.

We perceive in the habitudes of agriculture many advantages possessed by no other form of occupation. The cultivation of the soil by its own proprietor, while attended with hardships, is, in a great measure, relieved from those vexatious cares which disturb the population of large cities. In the first place, he is not confined to the counter of a narrow shop, the attendant upon every purchaser who may enter it on business. obliged to spend wearisome days and nights in toiling over a desk, and He is not

has no visions of bankrupt debtors, or protested notes, to disturb his midnight slumbers. Nor has he any uninsured ships upon the ocean, at the mercy of the winds and waves. On each occurring season he sows his fields, with a calm reliance upon the bounty of an all-wise Providence, that in due time sunshine and shower will ripen them to the harvest. He is troubled little with the derangement of the currency, for he knows that should all the banks fail, his own children will not want for bread. He possesses a freehold-a tract of land which, under ordinary circumstances, will yield him the means of subsistence; and, with this conviction, if he sows his crops with labor, he reaps them with joy. He looks out upon his domain, and feels that he has an interest at stake in his country, for his own freehold is a part of its territory. Should the market for his products be contracted, he experiences no alarm, for the profits of his sales would only be required to furnish a few additional articles of taste. He feels, in fact, as a freeman always should feel, the lord of his own domain.

Few more beautiful pictures have been painted for us than those of ag ricultural and pastoral life, that may be found in the Eclogues and the Georgics of the ancient poet Virgil. In those parts of his works we have not only the most delightful scenes of such experience, but a treatise, learned for that day, upon the most approved forms of agriculture. And, indeed, how can we fail to believe that such forms of rural taste, such quiet scenes of agricultural simplicity and contentment, could be repeated even in our own continent were men disposed to exercise the means? And these means are obvious. Instead of employing the science of agriculture (we term it a science, because the application of chemistry to the subject has made it one,) as a mode of making money alone, could we not exercise it with greater advantage as a matter of taste as well as of profit? In order to be convinced of the influence that might thus be produced upon the state of agriculture, by blending taste with utility, we require only to visit some of those gardens in the vicinity of some of our larger cities, where taste has been sought as well as utility. Even in these private establishments, laid out, for the most part, to gratify private taste, we perceive in their beautiful decorations-in their grottoes of shells washed by cool waters in their hermit's cells covered with mouldering moss—in their artificial lakes of silver and golden fish-and in their marble statues, disposed in becoming decency along their shaded walks, as well as in the various species of vegetation that furnish refreshing shades, and the variety of flowers which bloom upon different portions of their areas,-scenes which, if not envied by a Shenstone, might almost vie with his classic and rural retreat.

Independently of those quiet beauties which belong to the more tasteful science of horticulture, how intimately might it be blended with the more substantial labors of agriculture! How easily might flocks of grazing sheep and cattle upon the hill-side overlook the broad wheat or corn field, and the artificial pond, and the droves of cows, which, refreshed, return to their stall to replenish the dairy, breathe the fragrance of roses from the flower-garden, and earth thus be made like a second paradise!

That a new era is dawning upon the prospects of agriculture in our own republic, we think there can be but little doubt. The deep interest which the subject has recently excited in various parts of the country, and the motives which almost everywhere exist to extend its operations, point to a marked improvement in this department of labor. Almost every one en

gaged in the bustling scenes of trade, has pictured to his mind a day when he shall retire from the dusty track of business, and spend his remaining days in a quiet agricultural retreat. Hence it is that most merchants engage, with all the ardor of manhood, in the acquisition of wealth; and after the prime and vigor of youth are spent in such toils, the desire of accumulation increases with the acquisition itself, until, perchance, death finds them, like the dray-horse, dead in the traces. Such, we doubt not, is the history of thousands in our own country, who, in the absence of this ardent thirst for gain, might have enjoyed much happier, purer, and longer lives, had they more early devoted themselves to the invigorating and noble pursuit of agriculture. How few there are who adopt this pursuit as one of taste and inclination! With the example of the father of his country before them-for Washington was but a farmer-they toil on in the marts of trade with untiring assiduity, until a fortune shall have been acquired, which, in most cases, eludes their grasp, without due attention to the cultivation of other qualities which might enable them to enjoy it if acquired; or some commercial explosion wrecks them, stranding them like a shattered hulk upon the shore, blasted in their hopes, and cast down in the depths of poverty and despair!

We have indulged in these few introductory' remarks, as naturally grow. ing out of the subject into which we design to enter at some length, namely, the agricultural commerce of the United States. We mean by agricultural commerce, those staples furnished by the cultivation of our soil, that yield a considerable portion of the materials of our foreign and domestic trade.

During the early colonization of the country, it could hardly have been expected that agriculture should have flourished to any great extent. The few settlements that were sprinkled over what was then a mere wilderness, while their population was not so great as to make any considerable inroads into the forest, were obliged to contend with other obstacles connected with the laying of the foundations of new states, in a territory then but little known, and occupied by hostile tribes of savages, as well as by rival civilized powers.

The principal agricultural products indigenous to the country, and which were cultivated by the native Indian tribes, were corn, peas, beans, and tobacco; and when Jacques Cartier penetrated the interior of Canada, as early as 1535, he found fields of the first-named products spread along its shores. Indian corn, it is well known, is one of the original productions of the country; and the maize which was produced upon the prairies and table-lands of the whole territory, were their common articles of food. When, in fact, our country was first colonized by Europeans, the partial cultivation of the soil was found necessary for the support of the inhabitants, and not only were the different species of grains, but agricultural implements also, imported in the first ships that arrived with emigrants from abroad. The magnitude and fertility of the domain furnished ample means and motives for the cultivation of the earth; and we may imagine the colonies of New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and the south, clearing away their small patches of land for husbandry, like the settlers in the remote wilderness of the west at the present time. Upon that broad region which is stretched along the St. Lawrence, the lakes, and the Mississippi, the few feeble French colonies that were scattered through the forest, found it a matter of convenience, while extending their ecclesiasti