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fendant to pay a penalty of £200. The penalties were laid at £1,000. A warrant was issued for the burning of the leaves, and another for the recovery of the penalty. In default of payment, the defendant would suffer imprisonment, with hard labor, for the space of twelve months.

PROGRESS OF THE SUGAR TRADE IN THE UNITED STATES.

The amount of sugar shipped from New Orleans in 1830 was trifling. In 1836 the quantity amounted to 6,461,500 pounds. In 1840 it had increased to 47,005,500 pounds. The amount sent to the interior for the Valley of the Mississippi, we have no means of ascertaining; the quantity, however, must be very considerable. This is more than one fifth of all the sugar made of cane, which is consumed in the United States, as there was about 190,000,000 pounds imported in 1839. Should the manufacture of sugar increase for the next five years as it has done for the last five, we shall make all our own sugar. We paid to foreigners, in 1839, for sugar, the sum of $9,924,622, which The shipments of moexceeds in value any one article of our exports, except cotton. lasses, too, from New Orleans to our eastern cities, has increased in the same proportion, they being, in 1836, only 419,358 gallons; and in 1840, 3,830,400 gallons. In 1839, we imported 23,094,677 gallons, valued at $4,364,234.

BOSTON ICE TRADE.

There are now sixteen companies in Boston engaged in the business of shipping ice The de. to the East and West Indies, and to New Orleans and other southern ports. mand for the article is now so great for exportation, that large contracts have been made for it in Worcester county, to be transported to Boston by railroad. They formerly sold their ice in New Orleans at six cents a pound, but now sell it at one cent; and where they made one dollar at selling it at six cents, they now make four dollars by selling it at one cent a pound. When it sold at six cents, none but the wealthy could afford to purchase, but at one cent all classes buy it, so it is sold before much of it is wasted by melting. The ice is sawed by a machine into square blocks, not less than twelve inches thick, and is packed on board the vessels with straw and hay, boxed with thin lumber, made air tight. One of the Boston companies paid last year $7,000 for the straw and hay they used for packing.

COMMERCIAL RESOURCES OF THE SOUTH.

"The staple productions of the world belong to the south," says the Macon Telegraph, "and if she wisely avail herself of the great variety of soil and climate which are in her possession, in a greater degree, we believe, than any other section in the Union, she is destined, ere long, to be the most enterprising and wealthy portion of the confederacy-a mart where men of trade 'will' always congregate.' She will deal out to all with a prodigal, nay even with a liberal hand, her valuable and various products, Her cottons are superior to all and while benefiting them she will enrich herself.

others, and form a staple basis which will attract capital to her from almost every quarter. Her tobacco is as rich to her as the opium to the east, and will continue to increase in value. Her vineyards may be made as profitable to her as those of Italy and France. Her sugar plantations will soon be more fruitful and profitable than those of the West Indies. Her immense forests in Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi, will also soon give her a decided ascendency in the lumber market, and-her silk establishments will, at no remote day, in their works, vie in beauty, durability, and productiveness, with any quarter of the globe, if, indeed, the south does not excel them in the manufac ture and cultivation of this valuable fabric.

HUNT'S

MERCHANTS' MAGAZINE.

OCTOBER, 1841.

OF THE

ART. I.-RUSSIA, AND HER COMMERCIAL/STRENGTH.

FA RÚSSIA ERYSIC

POPULATION AND TERRITORY OF RUSSIA PHYSICAL RESOURCES-MANUFACTURES-COMMERCIAL RESOURCES OF THE RUSSIAN

MERCIAL QUALIFICATIONs of the RUSSIAN PEOṛle.

EMPIRE-COM

In the spring of 1698, there arrived at Amsterdam a pilgrim from the farthest east, who had placed before him a shrine of a less romantic, though of a more propitious character, than those which are usually the objects of the pilgrim's adoration. As an apprentice in the great shipbuilding manufactory of the town he enrolled himself, and it was not until he had meted his arm with those of his better drilled competitors, and mastered the trade he had come to learn, that his workman's apron slipped off, and he stood forth in the robes of the Czar of Muscovy. He might have thought, as he looked around him in his week-day labors, on the huge timbers and the unshapen trunks which were dragged into the workshop from the forests of Denmark, of a country that lay stretched in vast and inhospitable masses, in a region to which the most enterprising merchants of Amsterdam had not pierced. He might have laid out, also, at the time when he was collecting the tools which were to build up an arm of the national defence, the plan on which the great empire that was intrusted to his care, was to be hewn and moulded, till it was fitted to take its place in the society of nations. With an ambition more holy than is common among his brother monarchs, he entered upon the task of shaping and knitting together the vast though unwieldy materials that were brought before him; and with a workmanship more rapid than that by which European statesmen are generally distinguished, he suffered not a moment to elapse in which a plank was not smoothed, or a nail driven. The hulk had scarcely lain on the stocks long enough to rest her timbers from the strain which they had undergone, before she was launched into the ocean that was spread before her, in the majesty of her complete attire. Russia is now the strongest, as in a few years she will be the most powerful, among European nations; and while from the immensity of her

frame and the diversity of her climate, she presents capabilities for every species of exertion, she may expect, in the freshness of her youth, to live onward to a period which will place old age at the distance of centuries. As Americans, we stand on a level with her on the platform of nations; from the same century our mutual existence is dated; and from the contiguity of our dominions, and the connection of our trade, we have been joined in a union with her, which will continue to exist when its origin is placed in antiquity. We propose at present to collect from the accounts of travellers who have visited her shores, and from the reports of her own municipal authorities, the data which are laid open of her past growth, and her present condition. The work will be of interest to the theorist, and we may hope, of use to the practical man. We shall consider at present,

I. The population and territory of Russia.

II. The physical resources of Russia.

III. The manufactures of Russia.

IV. The commercial resources of the Russian empire.

V. The commercial qualifications of the Russian people.*

I. Russia, with regard to its population and territory.

The following table is made up from the computation of 1829, which is the latest that is, as a whole, on hand. There are returns, however, of single provinces, of a much more recent date, which we will make use of under other heads.

Of the whole empire, Russia in Europe, though in itself one half of Europe, forms one fifth; the duchy of Poland, one hundred and seventy

*We make use of the first opportunity of expressing our obligations to a work, from which is taken the greater part of the statistics we shall give, as well as the order in which they are thrown: "Handbuch der Allgemeinen Staatskunde; bei SchubertBerlin, 1835, 4 Band." It has never yet, as far as we can learn, been translated, though it deserves a place on the table of the merchant, as well as in the library of the political economist.

fifths; and Russia in Asia, three fourths, The whole area is more than twice that of all Europe, (27 times;) and is nearly one sixth of the entire compass of the earth. Its gross population is one fourth of that of Europe, though of the whole amount its Asiatic territories contribute but one sixth. Throughout Russia in Asia, with the exception of a few of the southwestern provinces, the ratio of population is only one to five miles square, a proportion too small to be of use either for defence or available for cultivation.

II. The physical resources of Russia,

1. Agriculture. From the great scarcity of labor and the vast amount of unoccupied territory, it is calculated that in the most prosperous provinces, the gross amount of produce is but one half of that of which the soil is naturally capable. Personal labor appendant to the soil has become, therefore, an object of investment more advantageous than the soil itself; and a system of slavery has thus grown up, of a character like that of the old English villenage. The following statement is taken from " Herrman's Beitrage zur Physick, &c., des Russischen Staates."

The amount of land under improvement is less, therefore, than one sixth of the entire territory.

A table for 1802 rates the gross amount of grain consumed in that year in the European territories, at about 400,000,000 Berlin bushels; which leaves, on an average, including the usual consumption for beer, bread, and the nourishment of cattle, about ten Berlin bushels, or fourteen of our own, to each individual. Hemp and flax are the most profitable and the most cultivated of the natural productions; and they have risen within the last twenty years to a value which has made them an important ingredient in commerce. In the Krimm and in the southern districts of Russia, the vine is cultivated with great success. The quantity of wine raised was estimated in 1825, at more than 500,000 wedras annually, (about 1,600,000 of our wine gallons.) In the Ukraine, in Podalia, and on the Volga, tobacco fields have been lately planted to so great an extent, that the yearly crop amounted in 1834 to 300,000 puds, or 12,000,000 lbs. The hop is confined to Poland, West Russia, and Little Russia.

2. Live stock. Her immense amount of pasturage has given Russia advantages for the raising of live-stock unequalled in Europe. There is a climate for every grain, and cattle for every climate. In the southeast, the market is so full that single proprietors have been frequently known to own herds to the amount of 10,000 horses, 300 camels, 3,500 head of neat cattle, and 10,000 goats. Reindeer at the north, and horses among the Tartars, form not only the floating capital, but the medium of exchange. The sheep is spread, under various modifications, over the whole territory, and attempts have been in some degree successful to introduce the merino breed. There are no general calculations of the entire stock that can be relied on, though from the fact that the amount of tallow, of hides, of bristles, and of wool annually exported, amounted in

1831 to $15,000,000, we can form an estimate of the extent to which the commodity from which they are derived is produced.

3. Mining. The principal mines are found in Siberia, in Ural, in Altai, and in the Nertscherischen mountains. In the government of Perm, where four fifths of the mineral ore is found, more than 180,000 men are employed, together with 200 iron works, more than 1,200 forges, 27 copper smelting houses, 200 ovens, and 12 smelting houses for silver and lead. We give a table of the amount forged from 1704 to 1809 inclusive, together with one for the single year 1810.

In the last thirty years the mines have been more actively worked, and with much greater success. In 1821, there were gold mines discovered in the government of Tobolsk, near the Ural mountains, of considerable extent. In 1823, 7,792 men were employed in mining and refining alone, and a little while after the number amounted to 15,000. The sand by itself, without taking into consideration the lumps of pure metal, yields per cent of refined gold. The produce from 1830 to 1834, is thus given:

The average produce of the five years is about 350 puds, or 14,000 pounds, which is worth, according to Schubert's valuation, 5,145,000 Prussian dollars,† or nearly the whole annual profit of the Brazilian mines.

Of platina there were produced from June, 1824, to January, 1834, about 678 puds, (27,120 pounds,) out of which 476 puds (19,040 pounds). pure metal were extracted, and from which 400 puds (16,000 pounds) were thrown into bars, which brought in the market 8,186,620 silver rub., (about 6,300,000 Prussian dollars.) The profits of the three years following were equal to an average of 110 puds, or 4,400 pounds a year, yielding an annual revenue of 369,000 Prussian dollars.

The

The silver mines have remained almost stationary since 1810. yearly profit varies between 1,225 and 1,300 puds, and if we take the average of 1,260 puds, (50,400 pounds,) the actual value may be placed at about 1,234,000 Prussian dollars.

The amount of copper produced between 1810 and 1830, averaged at about 265,000 puds, (10,600,000 pounds.) As the principal copper mines are in the hands of the crown, it reaps whatever revenue they are

* Das Russische Reich,-Erster Band,-s. 220.

+ The Prussian (convention) dollar is rated at 97 cts. 2 d.