Part 5

Bread stuffs, meats & drinks, D. 13,500,000 270,000,000 Provender for horses, &c. (say) 50,000 60,000,000 Manufactures, (in general) 2,000,000 220,000,000 Product of the fisheries 1,500,000 9,000,000 -------------- forest 6,000,000 60,000,000 Cotton, lbs. 85,000,000 40,000,000 Tobacco, hhds. 75,000 25,000 Rice, tierces 80,000 80,000

The value of the cotton, tobacco, and rice consumed in the United States, being considered as included in the aggregate values of the manufactures used, or other stuffs consumed, will give a value to the consumption equal to 619, say 620 millions of dollars per annum; and assuming our population at 9,500,000, the average for each individual is 65 dollars a-year. This amount includes ALL sorts of disbursements needful to the subsistence, convenience and comfort of the people, except the product of the value of labour directly applied to the _erection_ of buildings or other permanent works. The amount, though it appears enormous, I am satisfied is less than the actual value consumed. It brings out the general result, that our exports stand to our consumption as 45 is to 620--or as _one_ is to _fourteen_, at the present time. When the price of commodities was higher, the rate was as _one_ to _seventeen_.

The ratio of each of the preceding items are about as follows:

_Exported. Consumed._

Bread stuffs, meats & drinks, as 1 is to 21 Provender, 1 -- 200 Manufactured articles, 1 -- 110 Product of the fisheries, 1 -- 6 ---- forest, 1 -- 10 Cotton, 2 -- 1 (nearly.) Tobacco, 3 -- 1 Rice, 1 -- 1

It would be excessively tedious to attempt to detail the multitude of items that affect these general conclusions. Accuracy is not pretended in either of them. Probabilities only are aimed at.

From these facts assumed as being pretty near the truth, we may estimate the importance of the home trade, or internal commerce and consumption of the people, and arrive at a multitude of highly interesting considerations. Take the following for an example:

The sudden introduction of less than 500,000 persons, would leave us no surplus of _present_ products of food for men. But it is a demand for this surplus, no matter how created, that assesses the value of the whole product. Such products, let the fact be recollected, were at as high prices during the late war, when there was very little export of them, as they are now, the difference in the value of our circulating medium being also considered. This was caused by a partial want of agricultural labourers; but more by the waste of provisions that belong to a belligerent state.

Foreign commerce, nevertheless, has a powerful bearing on the consideration of value in a state of peace, to the growers of grain, meats, &c. The amount beyond their own _immediate_ consumption and that of their families, may be about two fifths of the whole, besides the foreign export, or nearly 110 millions,--the _price_ of which is fixed by the small amount of 13,500,000 dollars' worth sent abroad! And, this little surplus remaining unconsumed, or without being wasted, at home, would depreciate the general value of the whole surplus at least 50 per cent. Hence, it would seem of greater interest to the farmers even to _destroy_ a portion of their products, than to cast them into a glutted market, according to the principles acted upon by the Dutch in regard to spices. A policy not to be recommended on the score of morality, but as according with the spirit of trade. It cannot, therefore, be advantageous to the agriculturist to depend upon a foreign market to assess the value of his articles, for it is, and ever must be uncertain and unsteady. It is his interest to have a market at home, for this may be depended upon, and the product will be regulated by the demand, so as to leave a fair profit.

A gentleman of observation, on a certain occasion, when I Was speaking on this subject, related the following case in point.

At an interval of about 10 years, he had stopped for a short time at a certain village in Connecticut--when first there, it contained two first rate taverns, and one other respectable establishment of the same kind. Two lines of stages made it their halting place every night, and all seemed flourishing and lively. When there again, the three taverns were shut up, or at least not occupied as such, and he had to apply at a private house to be accommodated during his stay, and every thing appeared dull and desolate. He asked the reason.--It was the establishment of steam-boats which had destroyed the lines of stages, and driven off the persons and horses that they had given employment to, and of course the market they created, which hitherto took off all the surplus products of the neighbourhood, had ceased to be. A thousand instances of this sort might be noted to prove that a _ready market_ is the prosperity of a neighbourhood, country, state, or nation.

On the different items, especially those of _cotton_ and _sugar_, as mentioned by the writer in the National Intelligencer, we intend to speak particularly hereafter, in the essays we have promised to write under the head of "Political Economics," the introduction to which appeared in the Register of the 13th ult. page 162.

_Vine Dressing near Vevay._

VEVAY, (Indiana) Oct. 28.

The season for making wine is just over; and notwithstanding the uncommon dry season, the vine dressers near Vevay have made four thousand eight hundred and ninety-two gallons.

[We copy the following from Niles' Weekly Register, with an intention, as his proposed essays appear, of giving them a place in the _Rural Magazine_,--having no doubt, from our knowledge of the editor, but they will be instructive as well as Interesting to our readers.--_Ed._]

_Political Economics._

INTRODUCTORY.

Though so much has been said on political economy as applicable to the national prosperity, by profits derived from national industry, that we despair of offering any new thing on the subject, we have so far yielded to the wishes of many friends as to resolve upon the publication of a new series of essays, to elucidate some of the facts that belong to this deeply interesting concern--a concern that presses itself into every man's business, which invades our fire-sides and accompanies us to our bed-chambers: yet, so beset with it, and feeling it in all that we have to sell or want to buy, and in whatsoever business we do that requires the aid of money or use of credit--still we shrink from the trouble of ascertaining its operation and extent. The mind, by repeated mortifications and disappointments, loses its tone; and we seem rather disposed to trust to the chapter of accidents for redress, than rouse ourselves to an exertion to put an end to our wrongs, through the means afforded; forgetting that effects flow from causes.

It has pleased Providence to bless us with a "goodly land," and we are favoured with the best system of government ever devised--but the seat of ancient Paradise is a howling waste, and Greece and Rome are tenanted by slaves.

A nation's prosperity is the happiness of the individuals composing it. The freeman cannot be a happy man unless private industry secures private independence; and freedom itself must pass into despotism. The power of a government rests in the moral and physical force of the governed, and its wealth is constituted by personal acquisitions of property. Governments were made for the good of the people, not the people for governments; and their object fails when private happiness ceases to be respected. Emancipation from political tyranny, without the means of preserving personal liberty, is a nullity. The gift of life without the means of living, is destitute of value.

Production is the only source of national wealth that can be depended upon. The home market, even to the most commercial nations, is of many times the amount of the foreign one. The former is not easily effected, except by a self-mistaken policy; but the latter is as capricious as the winds, and beyond our control. Speculation does not create value--the purchase and sale of a million's worth of goods does not improve their quality or add to their quantity, to the amount of a cent. A change of commodities between different countries, may increase their value to the extent of the labour expended in transporting them; and it is generally convenient, if not advantageous, when exchanges are made on equal terms. But poverty must be the lot of every society which barters the labour of two or more of its members for that of one person in another society.

Employment is the best preservative of health and morals. Things should be so that every person willing to labour for his living, should find labour to do, and live plentifully. If it is otherwise, an error has been committed that ought to be corrected immediately, for it is pregnant with the greatest evils. It is the chief check to population, and more powerful than the sword to destroy the liberties of nations. Nations and individuals are spendthrifts of the worst description when they purchase that which they can make from the spare labour at home. Who will give away a hundred dollars and their interest for ever, for the sake of receiving twenty dollars of his own money as a premium? Yet thus a nation acts when, for the sake of the duties on imports, it accepts of another nation any commodity which it might supply itself with, without detriment to its other branches of industry.

Agriculture is the noblest and best occupation of man; and in a country like the United States, where land is plenty and labour scarce, it will always be pushed to the extent which a profitable market demands. Yet if none worked but those who laboured in the field, society could not exist long. We should perish with cold and hunger. It is by an association of the arts that we live--and our comfort materially depends on their respective perfections. Only about one fifth of a population are fitted for agricultural labours, in general. The other four fifths, if idle would consume the whole amount of value produced, and send the labourers supperless to bed. It is the capacity of production in the most numerous body that must be brought into action, if families and nations would prosper and be happy. If they purchase any thing which their lost time might be applied to the fabrication of--they might as well throw its cost into the sea.

In the course of our essays, which we expect to commence in two or three weeks, we shall endeavour to point out some of the chief things that require the protection of government, just as those of a well regulated family are managed; and shew that the well being of a nation depends upon a fair exchange of labour for labour, substantials for substantials, and even luxuries for luxuries. The man who exchanges wheat for _ear-rings_, unless those rings are manufactured in his country, wastes to the country the whole amount of the _intrinsic_ value of the wheat over that of the _ear-rings_, which latter is only that of the metal composing them. A nation cannot be independent, if it looks to another for necessaries--it cannot be rich, if it exchanges necessaries for luxuries. And luxuries, especially, should not be received at all, unless things of the same class are remitted in payment for them. The effect of these on population and manners, will also be considered, and illustrated by many statistical facts--as leisure is allowed to arrange them.

FROM HUMBOLDT'S PERSONAL NARRATIVE.

_The Coffee Plant._

The coffee tree flowers only the second year, and the flowering lasts only twenty-four hours. At this time the shrub has a charming aspect; seen from afar, it seems covered with snow. The produce of the third year becomes very abundant. In plantations well weeded and watered, and recently cultivated, we find trees bearing sixteen, eighteen, and even twenty pounds of coffee. In general, however, a produce of more than a pound and a half or two pounds cannot be expected from each plant; and even this is superior to the mean produce of the West India Islands. Rains at the time of the flowering, the want of water for artificial irrigations, and a patastic plant, a new species of coranthus, which clings to the branches, are extremely injurious to the coffee trees.

_Sugar Cane._

Three species of sugar cane can be distinguished even at a distance, by the colour of their leaves; the ancient Creole sugar cane, the Otaheite cane, and the Batavia cane. The first has a leaf of a deeper green, the stem less thick, and the knots nearer together.--This sugar cane was the first introduced from India into Sicily, the Canary Islands and the West Indies. The second is of a lighter green; and its stem is higher, thicker, and more succulent. The whole plant displays a more luxuriant vegetation. We owe this plant to the voyages of Bougainville, Cook, and Bligh. Bougainville carried it to the Isle of France, whence it passed to Cayenne, Martinique, and since 1792, to the rest of the West India Islands. The sugar cane of Otaheite, the _To_ of those islanders, is one of the most important acquisitions, for which colonial agriculture is indebted to the travels of naturalists. It yields not only one third more of juice than the Creolian cane on the same space of land; but from the thickness of its stem, and the tenacity of its ligneous fibres, it furnishes much more fuel. The last advantage is important to the West Indies, where the destruction of the forests has for a long time obliged the planters to use the canes deprived of their juice, to keep up the fire under their boilers.

But from the knowledge of this new plant, the progress of agriculture on the continent of Spanish America, and the introduction of the East India and Java sugars, the revolutions of St. Domingo, and the destruction of the great sugar plantations of that island, would have had a more sensible effect on the prices of colonial produce in Europe. The Otaheite sugar cane was carried from the Isle of Trinidad to Caraccas. From Caraccas it passed to Cicuta and San Gil in the kingdom of New Grenada. In our days its cultivation during twenty-five years almost entirely removed the apprehension, which was at first entirely entertained, that, transplanted to America, the plant would by degrees degenerate, and become as slender as the Creole cane. If it be a variety, it is a very constant one. The third species, the violet sugar cane, called _Cana de Batavia_, or _de Guinea_, is entirely indigenous in the island of Java, where it is cultivated in preference in the districts of Jupara and Pasuruan. Its foliage is purple, and very broad; and it is preferred in the province of Caraccas for rum. The _tablones_, or grounds planted with sugar canes, are divided by hedges of a collossal gramen; the latta, or gynesium with distich leaves.

_American Fig Tree_.

The trunks of these trees are covered with very odoriferous plants of vanilla, which, in general, flower only in the month of April.--We were here again struck with those ligneous excrescenses, which in the form of ridges, or ribs, augment, in so extraordinary a manner, and as far as twenty feet above the ground, the thickness of the trunk of the fig trees of America. I found trees twenty-two feet and a half in diameter near the roots.--These ligneous ridges sometimes separate from the trunk at a height of eight feet, and are transformed into cylindrical roots two feet thick. The tree looks as if it were supported by buttresses. This scaffolding, however, does not penetrate very deep into the earth. The lateral roots wind at the surface of the ground, and when at twenty feet distance from the trunk, they are cut with the hatchet, we see the milky juice of the fig tree gush out, which, when deprived of the vital influence of the organs of the tree, is altered and coagulates. What a wonderful combination of cells and vessels exist in these vegetable masses; in these gigantic trees of the torrid zone, which, without interruption, perhaps during a thousand years, prepare nutritious fluids, raise them to the height of 180 feet, convey them down again to the ground, and conceal beneath a rough and hard bark, under the inanimate layers of ligneous matter, all the movements of organic life!

_The Cow Tree._

"Amid the great number of curious phenomena which have presented themselves to me in the course of my travels, I confess there are few that have so powerfully affected my imagination, as the aspect of the cow tree.

"Whatever relates to milk, whatever regards corn, inspires an interest, which is not merely that of the physical knowledge of things, but is connected with another order of ideas and sentiments. We can scarcely conceive how the human race could exist without farinaceous substances, and without that nourishing juice which the breast of the mother contains, and which is appropriated to the long feebleness of the infant. The amylaceous matter of corn, the object of religious veneration among so many nations, ancient and modern, is diffused in the seeds and deposited in the roots of vegetables; milk, which serves us as an aliment, appears to us exclusively the produce of animal organization.--Such are the impressions we have received in our earliest infancy; such is also the source of that astonishment which seizes us at the aspect of the tree just described. It has not here the solemn shades of forests, the majestic course of rivers, the mountains wrapped in eternal frosts, that excite our emotion.--A few drops of vegetable juice recal to our minds all the powerfulness and fecundity of nature. On the barren flank of rock grows a tree with coriaceous and dry leaves. Its large woody roots can scarcely penetrate into the stone. For several months of the year not a single shower moistens its foliage. Its branches appear dead and dried; but when its trunk is pierced, there flows from it a sweet and nourishing milk. It is at the rising of the sun that this vegetable fountain is most abundant. The blacks and natives are then seen hastening from all quarters, furnished with large bowls to receive the milk, which grows yellow, and thickens at its surface. Some employ their bowls under the tree itself, others carry the juice home to their children. We seem to see the family of a shepherd, who distributes the milk to his flock.

"I have described the sensation which the cow tree awakens in the mind of the traveller, at the first view. In examining the physical properties of animal and vegetable products, science displays them as closely linked together; but it strips them of what is marvellous, and perhaps also a part of their charms, of what excited our astonishment.--Nothing appears insolated; the chemical principles that were believed to be peculiar to animals are found in plants; a common chain links together all organic nature."

_Singular effect of Peruvian Bark._

A French merchant, at Guayra, named Delpech, in 1806, had occasion to receive several travellers, inhabitants of those countries. The apartments destined for visitors being filled, and the number of his guests increasing, he was under the necessity of putting several of them in rooms occupied by _cinchona_. Each of them contained from 8 to 10 thousand pounds of that bark. One of his guests was ill of a very malignant fever. After the first day he found himself much better, though he had taken no medicine; but he was surrounded with an atmosphere of cinchona which appeared very agreeable to him. In a few days he felt himself quite recovered without any medical treatment whatever. This unexpected success led M. Delpech to make some other trials. Several persons, ill of fever, were placed successively in his magazine of cinchona, and they were all speedily cured, simply by the effluvia of the bark.

In the same place with the cinchona, he kept a bale of coffee, and some bottles of common French brandy. In some time M. Delpech, when visiting his magazine, observed one of the large bottles uncorked. He suspected at first the fidelity of a servant, and determined to examine the quality of the brandy. What was his astonishment to find it infinitely superior to what it had been!--A slightly aromatic taste added to its strength, and rendered it more tonic and more agreeable. Curious to know if the coffee had likewise changed its properties, he opened the bale, and roasted a portion of it. It was more bitter and left in the mouth a taste similar to that of the effluvia of bark.--The bark which produced these singular effects was fresh. Would the cinchona of commerce have the same efficacy?

_Oil of Pumpkin Seed._

C. S. KAPINESQUE, Esq. to Doct. SAMUEL MITCHELL.

_New York, 20th Feb. 1819._

While I was at Harmony, on the banks of the Wabash, in the state of Indiana, last summer, I was told by the industrious German Society of the Harmonites, that instead of throwing away or giving to the pigs the seeds of their pumpkins, as is usually done all over the country, they collected them and made an oil from them which they use for all the purposes of lamp oil and olive oil. It is well known, that all the different species and varieties of pumpkins (genus _cuburbita_ Linnæus) afford an oil which has valuable medical properties, possessing in the highest degree the refrigerative quality; but I had never heard before of its being made on a large scale, and for economical uses.

It will be sufficient to mention this fact to some of our enlightened farmers, to induce them to imitate the worthy Harmonites, and I recommend highly the practice, as likely to become eminently beneficial. The pumpkin seeds afford their oil with the greatest facility and abundance. One gallon of seeds will give about half a gallon of oil. They may be pressed like rape and flax seed.--Their oil is clear, limpid pale, scentless, and when used for salad instead of sweet oil, has merely a faint insipid taste; it burns well, and without smoke. Those advantages entitle it to our attention, as an indigenous production of first necessity. Pumpkins grow all over the United States, from Maine to Louisiana, and with such luxuriance, as to produce sometimes as much as 50,000_lbs._ weight of fruits, and about 2000 _lbs._ weight of seeds, in one acre of Indian corn without injuring the crop of corn. Those 2000 _lbs._ of seeds might produce about 200 gallons of oil, worth about 200 dollars. I calculate that about two millions of gallons of such oil could be made annually in the United States, from the seeds that are wasted or given to cattle and pigs. This is worth saving--and in addition to the bread, pies, soups, dishes, feed, &c. afforded by pumpkins, we shall have a good and wholesome home-made vegetable oil for lamps and food.

_Disease among Horses._

MIFFLINTOWN, (Penn.) Nov. 20.

A disease prevails among the horses in this part of the country, by some called the Burnt Tongue. We understand that it originated in the western section of this state, and has extended along this route from Pittsburg to Philadelphia. It has in a few instances proved fatal: but we understand that the stages west of the Alleghany have been stopped, and numbers of wagonners are obliged to lie by in consequence of it. It affects the tongue and prevents the creature from eating, and is very catching, so much so, that it is said a beast will take it in consequence of its having been _hitched_ at the same place that the one has stood which was affected.

LANCASTER, (Penn.) Nov. 23.