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produced the largest quantities of spring wheat; Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Michigan, Missouri, and New York, of winter wheat.

The

Rye is a much hardier plant than wheat, and is cultivated mostly in the extreme northern or more elevated parts of the country. Its cultivation is much less profitable than that of wheat. total yield in 1870 was 16,918,795 bushels, of which Pennsylvania, New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Kentucky produced the largest amount.

The cereal, Oats, is so well adapted to either cold or warm climates, that it may be cultivated in nearly every portion of our country. It produces from 30 to 80 bushels to the acre. The yield in 1870 was 282,107,157 bushels, which were raised chiefly in the Northern and Middle states, as Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Iowa, Missouri, and Minnesota.

Barley, also, is a product of the north, and is almost exclusively used for the manufacture of malt beer. It yielded in 1870, 29,961,305 bushels, the greater portion of which was produced in California and New York.

The product of the cereals, from 1850 to 1870, was as follows:

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The money value of the 1,330,029,400 bushels of cereals produced in 1867 is officially stated by the Department of Agriculture to be $1,248,037,000.

The area of cereals, in acres, is reported by the same department as follows:

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The large crops of 1870 were produced by the farming population of over thirty-eight millions inhabitants, being at the rate of 33 bushels a head for the whole population. If it is correct to assume that eight bushels of cereals are sufficient to support one person for one year, the United States had a surplus of 25 bushels per inhabitant for exportation, or an aggregate of 1,000 millions of bushels. A very large portion of this surplus, however, was fed to swine and other animals, and reappeared in the form

of animal food, while a not inconsiderable quantity was distilled into whisky and other spirituous liquors, or converted into starch,

etc.

The total production of cereals is on an average more than twice as large for each inhabitant of the United States, as it is in Europe. This enormous production is in a great measure owing to the numerous machines for sowing, planting, reaping, threshing, and preparing the grain for market, which are the result of the inventive genius of the American people, saving the labor and taking the place of millions of men, and that, too, at seasons of the year when men in sufficient numbers could not be obtained. The number of reaping machines actively employed in 1866 was estimated by Mr. John Stanton Gould at 210,000, a number which since then must have greatly increased. Rice is pre-eminently the grain of the subtropical zone. It requires a great deal of moisture, and can be cultivated only on fields which are subjected to inundation, either natural or artificial. Rice culture is described thus: "A sluice is cut through the river banks, and the fields, being first inclosed in a levee, are flooded. The land is plowed and flooded in March, and as soon as the young plants appear, they are submerged in water, so regulated as to keep their heads just above the surface. When the grain has matured, the fields are laid dry, and the crop is gathered. The yield is from 30 to 60 bushels per acre, but under favorable conditions rises as high as 90 bushels.' Rice was introduced into Virginia early in the seventeenth century, and fifty years later into the Carolinas. It is also cultivated now along the coasts of Georgia, Florida, Louisiana, and Texas.. The total crop in the United States was 80,841,422 pounds, in 1840; 215,312,710, in 1850; 187,167,032, in 1860; 73,635,021, in 1870. The great decrease in its production for the last decade is owing to the civil war. During this war labor was entirely disorganized; flood-gates, drains, canals and barns were destroyed, ard when peace returned rice culture had well nigh ceased. In 1860 rice to the value of $2,567,399 was exported; in 1870 the export had fallen to $127,655.

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Tobacco is indigenous in America, and was first introduced into Europe by Sir Walter Raleigh. Since then the consumption has enormously increased, so that its culture has extended to every part of the civilized world where the conditions of soil and climate are favorable to its growth. The tobacco crop in the United States for 1840 was 219,163,319 pounds; for 1850, 199,752,646 pounds; in 1860, 434,209,641 pounds; and for 1870, 262,735,341 pounds. Over forty per cent. of this quantity was raised in Kentucky (viz: 105,305,869 pounds). Virginia, Tennessee, Ohio, Maryland, Missouri, and North Corolina produced 44 per cent.; while the remainder was produced chiefly in Con

necticut, Indiana, Iowa, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

Sugar-cane (Saccharum officinarum) is a tropical plant, and its cultivation in the United States is almost entirely confined to the Mississippi delta in Louisiana. It is very sensitive to frost, so that, if the juice becomes frozen, the sacharine matter contained therein will not crystalize into sugar. In the West Indies the cane is a perennial plant; in Louisiana the crops are gathered from one planting. The quantity of sugar produced on an acre varies greatly, according to the quality of soil and care of cultivation. The crop of 1860 in the United states yielded 230,982 hogsheads of sugar, of 1,000 lbs. each, and 14,963,996 gallons of molasses; in 1870, 87,043 hogsheads of sugar and 6,593,323 gallons of molasses. During the latter year sugar and molasses were imported to the amount of nearly $72,000,000, being little less than the total value of exports during the same year, of corn, wheat, and flour. It is not likely that the limited area fit for cane culture will ever produce more than a small portion of the amount annually consumed in our country, and hence the introduction of the beet-sugar industry would be of great advantage to our prosperity. That this can be done is shown by actual experiments successfully made in various places.

Sorghum (Sorghum saccharatum) is raised in the Mississippi valley, and yielded in 1870, 16,050,059 gallons of molasses; but only twenty four hogsheads of sugar. The product of maple trees was 28,443,645 pounds of sugar, and 921,057 gallons of molasses.

Cotton is the great staple of the Southern states. Two varieties are cultivated-the upland and the sea-island cotton. The former grows under favorable conditions as far north as the 40th parallel, but as a commercial crop it is limited by a line which coincides with the northern boundary of Mississippi, sweeps around the base of the Appalachians through Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, and then turns north to Raleigh and southeastern Virginia. Beyond the Mississippi its culture extends up he lower valleys of the Red, Arkansas, and White rivers. The sea-island variety is raised on the low fertile islands of the South Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Its value is five or six times as great as that of the upland.

In 1792 the question was seriously discussed in England, whether the United States would ever produce one hundred bales of cotton. Subsequently the inventive genius of Eli Whitney conquered for this plant a place among the principal staples of the world, second only to the cereal grasses. His cotton gin, which separates the fibre from the seed, renders it possible to prepare even the largest crops for the loom.

In 1800 the whole product amounted to 100,000 bales of 400

pounds each; in 1824, to 509, 158 bales; in 1830, to 976,845 bales; in 1840, to 2,128,880 bales; in 1850, to 2,445,793; and in 1860, to 5,196,940. The war brought this branch of industry almost to a standstill; nor has the recovery been very rapid since. In 1866 the crop was almost 2,000,000 bales; in 1867, 2,500,00 bales; and in 1870, 3,011,990 bales, which were produced chiefly in Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Arkansas, the Carolinas, and Tennesse. For years to come the production will not, in the opinion of the Commissioner of Agriculture, reach the quantity before the war, and the average value will not exceed 300,000,000 dollars.

The Potato is hardly of less importance than corn or wheat. It is a native of America, and has been found growing wild in Chili and Ecuador, but is now cultivated in nearly all parts of the temperate zone. Its climate range is very wide, as it is successfully grown from Alabama and Georgia to the shores of the Great Lakes, and even of Hudson Bay. The average yield is below two hundred bushels to the acre, though crops of four hundred bushels are not rare under favorable conditions of soil and season. In 18ǝYork United States produced 143,337,473 bushels, chiefly in New York Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and Wisconsin.

The Sweet Potato is a native of the East Indies and tropical America; and is in the United States chiefly cultivated in the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, Arkansas, and Texas. The crop in 1870 was 21,709,824 bushels.

Flax and Hemp were cultivated in the United States at an early date; but they are now in great measure superseded by cotton. The hemp crop yielded, in 1870, 12,576 tons, eleven-twelfths of which were produced in Kentucky and Missouri. Flax yielded in the same year 27,133,003 pounds, two-thirds of which were produced in New York.

The Hay crop of the country is of great value; but from its weight and bulk it does not form an important item in the list of exports. In 1850 there were produced 23,838,642 tons; in 1860 19,083,896 tons; and in 1870, 27,316,048 tons. The following states produced from one to between five and six millions of tons each: New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Ohio, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Maine, and Vermont. The Southern states receive from the Northern large quantities of hay in the form of compressed bales.

Butter, Cheese, and Milk are produced chiefly in the Northern states, and of these New York is far in advance of all others. The subjoined table shows the increase of dairy produce during the three last decades:

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