Part 2

The want of being acquainted with the efforts and discoveries of predecessors is the cause of prodigious waste of time and talent. Hence the thousand schemes for perpetual motion, and a variety of other attempts scarce less extravagant, because made with equal ignorance. And, in fact, there is a strong tendency in having acquired the knowledge of the labours of others, to clip the wings of invention, and render men of learning much less apt to attempt novelties than while they knew less.

Extravagance in pecuniary matters is another frequent cause of the ruin of ingenious artists and of those who trust in them. This is shown, both in imprudently investing considerable sums of money without a reasonable probability of a return, and in the general lavish style in which such men often live and experiment.

In fact, to turn inventions to advantage, requires the singling out of one good, feasible plan, mercantile prudence in calculating probabilities, and mercantile economy in the conduct of the business, together with perseverence enough to prevent marring one scheme by prematurely beginning another. These qualities are so rarely found in combination with mechanical originality, or, indeed with that restless versatility which keeps men on the search for its productions, that it will perhaps always continue to be generally the case; that one man shall invent and persuade another to make experimental trials, but a third, and one totally unconnected with either, if any one, shall reap the increase.

S. C.

FOR THE RURAL MAGAZINE.

THE PRODUCTIONS OF THE EARTH.

No subject can more deeply interest the planters and farmers of this country. Our merchants can export every American production without duty, tax or impediment. We have all the benefits of a foreign, coasting, and interior trade, free as to our own laws, and the national government are constantly engaged in negotiations and regulations calculated to soften or remove the inconveniences of foreign monopolies in commerce and navigation. Such measures are pending now with Britain and France.

When trade has exhausted its power to find a profitable market, abroad or at home, the conversion of our unsaleable surplus produce into new forms, commonly denominated _domestic manufactures_, becomes an object of reasonable consideration. It is well known, that the cultivated soil and the bowels of the earth give us the following principal objects as the fruits of the culture of the land, or as its spontaneous productions. 1, Hemp; 2, Flax; 3, Wool; 4, Iron; 5, Silk; 6, Hides and Skins; 7, Sugar; 8, Indigo, Woad, Madder; 9, Grass; 10, Grain; 11, Wood; 12, Tobacco, and 13, Cotton. Such has long been the unforced state of our manufacturing industry, that in 1797, in 1810, and in 1819, we did not export any surplus or quantity, however small, of the first eight of those valuable productions. Our manufacturers, without the war or double, or present duties, bought at home and worked up the whole. The returns of exports prove, that we did not ship any part of several of those articles, and if we shipped a little of some, we imported a greater weight and value of the same kinds of foreign produce or raw materials.

Of the 9th article, Grass or Hay, we shipped very little, screwed into compact bundles for the West Indies.

Of the 10th, Grain, with some Fruit and Molasses, we have a brewery and distillery, a cider and general liquor manufacture, equal to forty millions of gallons, and requiring a quantity of produce equal to the value of sixteen millions of bushels of grain, of which above seven-eighth parts are drawn from our own lands. This is equal to the value of seven millions of barrels of flour, and we did not ship to foreign countries, in 1819, more than 750,000 barrels. It is plain, that the liquor manufactories of the United States (to which we are adding wine, worth to France 100,000,000 dollars,) are a very principal support of our agriculture.--We also make of grain, quantities of starch, hair-powder, sizing, paste, ship bread, wafers and vermicelli, hominy, firmity, soft bread, pastry and other preparations of grain. It is converted into fatted cattle, hogs and poultry. Ingenuity is and should be on the stretch to employ and profitably consume grain. Pork and beef maintain better prices abroad than the grain (or meal thereof,) with which we feed cattle and hogs. The prohibition of spirits, and the distillation of molasses, in St. Domingo, will cut off our supply of molasses.

Of the 11th article, Wood, we have now one manufacture (our sea vessels, coasters, river and other boats,) worth 40 or 50 millions of dollars. We manufacture, for exportation, from 120 to 180 millions of staves, heading, hoops, boards, scantling, plank, and we have an immense cooperage for foreign and domestic sale and use. Besides buildings, fences, cabinet ware, carriages, ploughs, harrows, handspikes, turnery, boxes, cases, faggots, cord-wood, &c. &c., to a vast amount, profiting the owners and clearers of wood lands.

12. Tobacco, of which we manufacture nearly all we consume, and fabricate as much for exportation, probably, as we import in a manufactured state for our consumption. We could manufacture a quantity of tobacco equal to the supply shipped by all Europe.

Of Cotton, we are supposed to manufacture 30,000,000 of pounds, shipping above three times that weight to foreign countries. We yearly increase in the goodness, fineness, utility, variety and value of our cotton manufactures. The looms of the United States were, in A. D. 1810, 325,000, of which North Carolina and Virginia, cotton and wool states, had the most, being each nearly 41,000 looms. The water and steam are well established, and work lower than the cheapest hand looms of Europe or Asia.

The plain instruction, of these genuine facts, to our planters and farmers, is, to encourage household manufactures, and all other manufactures on the estates, at the doors, in the townships, villages, and counties in which they live, consuming raw materials, building materials, food for man and beast, fuel, drinks, and other productions of the earth. This system of adjacent manufactures saves all the cost of transportation of our productions to the sea-ports, and the expense of carrying foreign goods from the sea-ports to the interior, more profitable than canals and turnpike roads.

Every judicious member of the agricultural body must be a friend to the freedom and encouragement of our foreign commerce, as affording a constant and sure market for a considerable portion of the productions of the earth. But, that manufactures afford also a very great and sure market for a larger variety, quantity and value of our landed productions, is no less manifest and certain. The nail mill, the paper mill, the screw mill, the brewery, the spinning and weaving mills, the calico printing mill, the pottery, and many other works and arts to fabricate useful necessary supplies out of our raw materials, will (including all our manufactures) be worth, in the whole of 1820, more than five times the value of our exported goods for sale in foreign countries. Let every farmer, planter, iron-master, &c., therefore, encourage manufactures in his household, on his estate, and in his neighbourhood, as the surest method of making a profitable home demand, without the expense of transportation, for the fruits of his labour, and the natural productions of his forests, mines and quarries. We purposely avoid to urge forcing and protecting duties, referring only to those existing, which have been ordained principally for the purpose of raising the requisite public revenue. We do not interfere in the agitation of the question about protecting duties. We believe the cheapness of produce and labour and improved machinery and labour-saving processes, will occasion manufactures to prosper and increase, and thus to support the growers of produce and the owners of the land, beyond even our free and valuable trade. To this, the duties laid for revenue, for defence, and for the encouragement of agriculture, will materially contribute; such as the impost upon East India cotton goods, of 27½ to 62½ and even 80 and 90 per cent., as made entirely of foreign cotton, rival to our cotton, flax, hemp, wool and silk.

FOR THE RURAL MAGAZINE.

EXTRACTED FROM THE MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS OF C. E.

_On the increase of the Domestic Sugar of the United States._

It would seem to be a great acquisition to our country, if we could produce from our own soil whatever sugar might be necessary for our own consumption, without having recourse to foreign Islands or nations; it will therefore be satisfactory, I apprehend, to all lovers of their country to find that we are already making rapid advances, as will appear to any person who attentively weighs the following items of information, collected at different times from our public newspapers; from whence it may be inferred, that before many years have expired a supply sufficient for our own use will be furnished within our own territories.

1812, January 10--Albert Gallatin, Esq. then Secretary of the Treasury, informed the Committee of Ways and Means, in a letter, that the Western States were then entirely supplied with salt of domestic produce; and that they consumed annually seven millions of pounds of sugar, made from the Sugar Maple tree, which, says he, is nearly all they use. Now, if in 1812 the _Western_ States produced 7,000,000 pounds of sugar from such trees, it is probable that in 1820, _they_ would produce not less than 10,000,000 in a year. If to this we add what is yielded in the states of Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania, it seems likely that the whole amount of such sugar, now made annually in the United States, is not less than 15 millions of pounds.

By a publication in a late newspaper, it appears that there were exported from New Orleans, in six months preceding 1st May, 1820, 15,652 hogsheads of sugar; all this no doubt was of their own growth and produced from the Sugar Cane. I am informed by a dealer in sugar, that the sugar hogsheads of New Orleans do not average less than 1000 pounds to each hogshead, making, in six months, 15,652,000 pounds, and in the whole year probably 20,000,000 pounds; total of sugar from the Sugar tree and Cane, 35,000,000 pounds annually. This exhibits a very rapid increase in the amount of sugar made, as I think Secretary Gallatin, in an older communication, not 20 years ago, stated that New Orleans at that time exported only about 2,000,000 of pounds of sugar.

The supply now furnished as above will probably be greatly augmented in future years, from the same sources.

Add to these the prospect of sugar to be raised or produced from the Cane in Carolina and Georgia, as may be collected from the following items, selected from the newspapers also, viz.

In 1814, Thomas Spalding made on Sapelo Island, in lat. 31½, as much as 95 hogsheads of excellent sugar, equal to Jamaica, from Canes he had planted there.

In 1815, Major Butler, on his plantation in South Carolina, produced by the labour of seventeen hands, off of 85 acres of land, 140,000 pounds of sugar, and 75 hogsheads of molasses.

Also, John M'Queen, off of 18 acres, had 20,000 Canes per acre, worked by five or six hands; 5,000 Canes, the produce of one quarter of an acre, yielded 600 gallons of juice, which boiled down made 672 pounds sugar, and may lose 50 pounds in draining, leaving 622 pounds; or per acre, of sugar, 2,488 pounds.

Again, as to the Sugar Maple tree, or as some say it is more properly styled, "The Sugar Tree;" in 1815, 64,000 pounds of sugar were made in the town of Plattsburgh, Clinton county, New York. In 1818, 22,000 pounds were made by 80 families, in one township in Bradford county, Pennsylvania, which is on an average 275 pounds to each family.

There can be little doubt but that arrangements might be made by some of the merchants of Philadelphia, to procure a regular supply of the best Sugar Tree sugar, for the accommodation of such persons as are religiously scrupulous of using sugar made from the Cane, which is produced by the labour of slaves.

I have seen Maple sugar with which sufficient pains had been taken in the making and draining, that was as handsome in its appearance and as well tasted and good in every respect, I thought, as any West India sugar I had ever seen, and when refined equal to any loaf sugar. Of which, I remember H. D. of this city, merchant, since deceased, about the year 1789, sent some boxes as a present to general Washington, then president of the United States, residing in New York.

Near twenty years ago, when little domestic sugar was made in the United States, I computed from the duties paid, that the whole consumption of sugar annually in our country, then, was about ten pounds for every individual, on an average. There are now, I suppose, ten millions of inhabitants in the United States, who, at the above ratio, would consume annually 100,000,000 pounds sugar, of which we now make 35,000,000 lbs. per annum, as above calculated.

Last winter there was an account in some of the newspapers, that a person in Virginia had obtained a patent for making sugar from wheat, rye or Indian corn; that it was good sugar, and that each bushel yielded fifteen pounds. I have heard no more of it, but if well founded, this would be the greatest acquisition of all, because, in every part of our country, sugar, without the use of slaves, could be made in the greatest abundance, and might beneficially supplant the practice of making so much pernicious whiskey, in places remote from sea-ports.

From what has been now stated, there seems to be scarce room for a doubt, but that in a few years, we can be supplied from domestic sources with all the sugar we shall want for our own consumption.

By an account of Joseph Cooper's native Grape Vine, published in your Rural Magazine, No. 7, page 247 as little doubt can exist but that with proper care by the farmers, our country may also be supplied with good wine, sufficient for our own use, and probably with more profit to the growers, than they can find by pursuing the old beaten track of adhering almost entirely to grain which is now so low in price.

The southern and western parts of our territories would, probably, with proper encouragement, yield all the coffee and silk we might be able to consume.

All these, and many other objects of culture, are proper for the attention, recommendation and encouragement of state legislatures, of agricultural societies, and of all patriotic members of society. Thus we may become, in time, really independent; and from the extent of our country, and the variety of its climates, come to consider our own dominions as a world of our own, producing nearly all that is necessary for the use of man, as Sir George Staunton, in his Embassy, says the Chinese consider their vast extensive empire. This consideration, probably, makes them in a great measure, regardless of foreign trade.

C. E.

FOR THE RURAL MAGAZINE.

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR FARMERS ON POOR LAND.

It is believed, that many productions possess a delicacy in their qualities, when raised on light soils, which they have not, when grown on rich and fat soils. The wool produced on the poor South Down soils of Great Britain is far superior to the wool raised on the rich alluvion lands of Lincolnshire in that country. The wines produced among the gravels and pebbles of the _Medoc_ district near Bordeaux are much superior to the wines produced on the _palus_ or alluvion lands between the two rivers Lot and Garonne in the same vicinity. The Tesamum produces the most delicate oil from light soils. This suggestion is worthy of consideration and experiment in respect to animals, fruits, grains, and gardeners and farmers' vegetables.

From the July No. of the North American Review.

_Letters écrites d'Italie en 1812 et 13, à M. Charles Pictet, l'un des Rédacteurs de la Bibliothéque Britannique par Fréderic Sullin de Chateauvieux. A Paris et à Genéve._ 1816, 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 576.

Perhaps there are none of our natural advantages which it still remains for us fully to appreciate and avail ourselves of, so much as those which respect the agriculture of our country.

Without running into all the errors of the economists or adopting their entire theory, we trust that we may assert the paramount importance of this pursuit, particularly to the United States. To every country it affords at least a partial, and often a complete subsistence for its population; it gives a constant and healthful employment to sometimes more than half and never less than a fifth of the community; its profits though not so large, are more certain than those in other employments of captal; and while it replaces the annual advance invested, a surplus profit has accrued, which can be employed as private interest and the public good may require.[3] But in the United States the cultivation of the soil has these and many more advantages; nay, it is intimately connected with our national character, because it powerfully acts upon the morals and constitution of our citizens. If it be true, that the torch of liberty has always burned with a purer and brighter lustre on the mountains than on the plains, it is still more true, that the sentiments of honour and integrity more generally animate the rough but manly form of the farmer, than the debilitated body of the artisan. There is in that primitive and honourable occupation, the culture of the earth, something which, while it pours into the lap of the state an increase beyond every other employment, gives us more than the fabled stone, not only a subsistence, but a placid feeling of contentment; not only creates the appetite to enjoy, but guarantees its continuance by a robust constitution, fortified with the safeguards of temperance and virtue.

[3] 'Farmers and country labourers, on the contrary, may enjoy completely the whole funds destined for their own subsistence, and yet augment at the same time the revenue and wealth of their society. Over and above what is destined for their own subsistence, their industry annually affords a neat produce, of which the augmentation necessarily augments the revenue and wealth of their society.' _Smith's Wealth of Nations,_ Vol. 111. p. 178.

'Farmers and country labourers, indeed, over and above the stock which maintains and employs them, reproduce annually a neat produce, a free rent to the landlord.' _Ibid_, p. 186.

The anxiety of our countrymen to possess in fee a spot of ground however small, and the consequent paucity of leases, is a fact no less curious than it is solitary. This is not the case, or at least in any considerable degree, in any other country. Such indeed in Britain were formerly those small proprietors called franklins, who possessed a keen spirit of independence and a determined opposition to oppression; feelings which, with the alienation of their farms, have gradually departed from the breasts of their descendants.

Notwithstanding, however, the ease with which the pride of independent possession may be gratified, it is not the less true that agriculture, instead of being a favoured, has been a degraded and unpopular pursuit; that instead of cherishing every motive which might lead to its honourable extension, we have endeavoured gradually to weaken its legitimate efforts. It is indeed a singular inquiry, why the cultivation of the soil among us should have been so little encouraged, when every state in Europe, since the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle, has turned its most assiduous attention to this most important department of domestic economy, and ultimately borrowed from it the resources which have carried them through the prodigious conflicts of the last generation.

There have been many causes, certainly not all of equal efficacy, which have co-operated against the interests of agriculture. But there is a prominent one to which we can but just allude. During a very considerable period, since the peace of '83, the peculiar situation of Europe has afforded opportunities for commercial enterprise too tempting to be resisted.--American merchants received, in the lapse of a very few years, the most astonishing accessions of wealth; and fortunes, ordinarily the fruit of a laborious life, and never the portion of many, were amassed with unparalleled rapidity, and by large numbers. Our domestic prosperity more than equalled the extension of our trade. It was then that the compting-houses of our merchants were filled with youth from the country, who forsook the slower but surer emoluments of agriculture, for the mushroom but unsubstantial fortunes of commerce; nay, who preferred the meanest drudgery behind the counter of a retail dealer, to the manly and invigorating toil of the cultivator of his paternal acres. Unfortunately this spirit of migration was encouraged by too great a success in trade. Feelings of vulgar pride contracted in town caused the manual labour of the farmer to be regarded as degrading; this unworthy sentiment spread with baleful influence, and when the compting-houses became overstocked and afforded no longer a resource, it was no uncommon thing to see a young man with no qualifications but a little bad Latin picked up at a miserable village school, forsake a large and fertile farm and apprentice himself to a poor country attorney.

Another cause of the depressed state of agriculture, mentioned in late publication,[4] is the constant emigration to the west. There must necessarily be a tendency to a most empoverishing system of cultivation, where people feel that after having extracted all the richness of the soil, they may throw it up and remove to a country, which offers them an untouched surface, and needs no artificial aid of composts or manure. The land, besides suffering from negligence consequent on the prospect of departure, will be worn out by successive crops, and long be rendered unfit for the most valuable dispositions of the agriculturist. Indeed we have been informed, that in many instances, when the land is almost ruined by the continued culture of tobacco, it is sold by the planter to some enterprizing and laborious individual, who may restore it by his patience and attention, while he himself removes to another spot, where the same wretched system of exhaustion may again be renewed.--There are other causes we might mention, such as the unwieldy size of our farms, and particularly the want of a regular enlightened farming system. But we cannot now stop to enter on these topics, but may notice them hereafter.

[4] Letters on the Eastern States.