The United States in Prophecy

WE take the following article from "The Centennial History of the United States," just published at Hartford, Ct., pp. 768-779:—

"Here, on the verge of the centennial anniversary of the birth of our Republic, let us take a brief review of the material and intellectual progress of our country during the first hundred years of its political independence.

"The extent of the conceded domain of the United States, in 1776, was not more than half a million square miles; now (when the word now appears in this relation it means the year 1875) it is more than three million, three hundred thousand square miles. Its population then was about a million and a half; now it is forty millions.

"The products of the soil are the foundations of the material wealth of a nation. It has been eminently so with us, notwithstanding the science of agriculture and the construction of good implements of labor were greatly neglected until the early part of the present century.

"A hundred years ago the agricultural interests of our country were mostly in the hands of uneducated men. Science was not applied to husbandry. A spirit of improvement was scarcely known. The son copied the ways of his father. He worked with no other implements and pursued no other methods of cultivation; and he who attempted a change was regarded as a visionary or an innovator. Very little associated effort for improvement in the business of farming was then seen. The first association for such a purpose was formed in the South, and was known as the 'South Carolina Agricultural Society,' organized in 1784. A similar society was formed in Pennsylvania the following year. Now there are State, county, and even town agricultural societies, in almost every part of the Union.

"Agricultural implements were rude and simple. They consisted chiefly of the plow, harrow, spade, hoe, hand-rake, scythe, sickle, and wooden fork. The plow had a clumsy wrought-iron share with wooden mold-board, which was sometimes plated with pieces of old tin or sheet iron. The rest of the structure was equally clumsy; and the implement required, in its use, twice the amount of strength of man and beast that the present plow does. Improvements in the construction of plows during the past fifty years save to the country, annually, in work and teams, at least $12,000,000. The first patent for a cast-iron plow was issued in 1797. To the beginning of 1875, about four hundred patents have been granted.

"A hundred years ago the seed was sown by hand, and the entire crop was harvested by hard manual labor. The grass was cut with a scythe, and 'cured' and gathered with a fork and hand-rake. The grain was cut with a sickle, threshed with a flail or the treading of horses, and was cleared of the chaff by a large clamshell-shaped fan of wicker-work, used in a gentle breeze. The drills, seed-sowers, cultivators, mowers, reapers, threshing-machines, and fanning-mills of our day, were all unknown. They are the inventions of a time within the memory of living men. Attempts were made toward the close of the last century to introduce a threshing-machine from England, but the flail held sway until two generations ago.

"Indian corn, tobacco, wheat, rye, oats, potatoes, and hay, were staple products of the farm a hundred years ago. Timothy and orchard grass had then just been introduced. The cultivation of all these has been greatly increased. Then nearly the whole products, excepting tobacco, were consumed by the million and a half of people; now forty millions are supported by them, and vast amounts of agricultural products are exported to foreign countries. At the present time these products amount annually, on an average, in round numbers, as follows: Indian corn, 900,000,000 bushels; wheat, 270,000,000; rye, 22,000,000; oats, 300,000,000; potatoes, 165,000,000; and buckwheat (introduced within the century), 15,000,000. The hay crop averages about 28,000,000 tons; the tobacco crop about 265,000,000 pounds; flax, 28,000,000 pounds, and hemp, 12,000 tons. To these agricultural products have been added, within the century, barley, cotton, and sugar. Of barley, the average crop is about 28,000,000 bushels; cotton about 2,000,000,000 pounds, and sugar 120,000 hogsheads, of 1,000 pounds each. The expansion of the cotton culture has been marvelous. In 1784, eight bales of cotton sent to England from Charleston were seized by the custom-house authorities in Liverpool on the ground that so large a quantity could not have come from the United States. The progress of its culture was slow until the invention of the gin, by Mr. Whitney, for clearing the seed from the fiber. It did the work of many persons. The cultivation of cotton rapidly spread. From 1792 to 1800, the amount of cotton raised had increased from 138,000 pounds to 18,000,000 pounds, all of which was wanted in England, where improved machinery was manufacturing it into cloth. The value of slave labor was increased, and a then dying institution lived in vigor until killed by the civil war. The value of the cotton crop in 1792 was $30,000; now its average annual value is about $180,000,000.

"Fruit culture a hundred years ago was very little thought of. Inferior varieties of apples, pears, peaches, plums, and cherries, were cultivated for family use. It was not until the beginning of the present century that any large orchards were planted. The cultivation of grapes and berries was almost wholly unknown fifty years ago. The first horticultural society was formed in 1829. Before that time fruit was not an item of commercial statistics in our country. Now the average annual value of fruit is estimated at $40,000,000. Our grape crop alone exceeds in value $10,000,000.

"Improvements in live stock have all been made within the present century. The native breeds were descended from stock sent over to the colonies, and were generally inferior. In 1772 Washington wrote in his diary: 'With one hundred milk cows on my farm, I have to buy butter for my family.' Now 11,000,000 cows supply 40,000,000 inhabitants with milk, butter, and cheese, and allow large exports of the latter article. At least 225,000,000 gallons of milk are sold annually. The annual butter product of our country now is more than 500,000,000 pounds, and of cheese 70,000,000. There are now about 30,000,000 horned cattle in the United States, equal in average quality to those of any country in the world.

"A hundred years ago mules and asses were chiefly used for farming purposes, and ordinary transportation carriage-horses were imported from Europe. Now our horses of every kind are equal to those of any other country. It is estimated that there are about 10,000,000 horses in the United States, or one to every four persons.

"Sheep husbandry has greatly improved. The inferior breeds of the last century, raised only in sufficient quantity to supply the table and the domestic looms in the manufacture of yarns and coarse cloth, have been superseded by some of the finer varieties. Merino sheep were introduced early in this century. The embargo before the war of 1812, and the establishment of manufactures here afterward, stimulated sheep and wool raising, and these have been important items in our national wealth. There are now about 30,000,000 sheep in the United States. California is taking the lead as a wool-producing State. In 1870, the wool product of the United States amounted to 100,000,000 pounds.

"Improvements in the breed of swine during the last fifty years have been very great. They have become a large item in our national commercial statistics. At this time there are about 26,000,000 head of swine in this country. Enormous quantities of pork, packed and in the form of bacon, are exported annually.

"These brief statistics of the principal products of agriculture, show its development in this country, and its importance. Daniel Webster says, 'Agriculture feeds us; to a great extent it clothes us; without it we should not have manufactures; we should not have commerce. They all stand together like pillars in a cluster, the largest in the center, and that largest—AGRICULTURE.'

"The great manufacturing interests of our country are the product of the century now closing. The policy of the British government was to suppress manufacturing in the English American colonies, and cloth-making was confined to the household. When non-importation agreements cut off supplies from Great Britain, the Irish flax-wheel and the Dutch wool-wheel were made active in families. All other kinds of manufacturing were of small account in this country until the concluding decade of the last century. In Great Britain the inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Crompton, had stimulated the cotton and woolen manufactures, and the effects finally reached the United States. Massachusetts offered a grant of money to promote the establishment of a cotton-mill, and one was built at Beverly in 1787, the first erected in the United States. It had not the improved English machinery. In 1789, Samuel Slater came from England with a full knowledge of that machinery, and in connection with Messrs. Almy and Brown, of Providence, R. I., established a cotton factory there in 1790, with the improved implements. Then was really begun the manufacture of cotton in the United States. Twenty years later the number of cotton-mills in our country was one hundred and sixty-eight, with 90,000 spindles. The business has greatly expanded. In Massachusetts, the foremost State in the manufacture of cotton, there are now over two hundred mills, employing, in prosperous times, 50,000 persons, and a capital of more than $30,000,000. The city of Lowell was founded by the erection of a cotton mill there in 1822; and there the printing of calico was first begun in the United States soon afterward."