the different soils and climates, a list of invaluable productions, some found by the first discoverers of the country, others introduced by mere accident, and others transported from Europe, during the simple state of agriculture in the last century. In the southern latitudes, particularly the States of Georgia, South-Carolina, and North-Carolina, rice, much superior to that of Italy or the Levant, is raised in very great quantiIt is expected that Virginia will add this article to her list of exports, as it is supposed a large body of swamp in her most eastern counties is capable of producing it; and mountain rice has been raised by way of experiment in the new country near the head of the Ohio. Tobacco is a staple article of all the States, from Georgia as far north as Maryland, including both. . . . The soil of Kentucky and the Cumberland and Tennessee country seems also to be eminently calculated for the culture of this plant. Indigo, of an excellent quality, is produced by North-Carolina, SouthCarolina, and Georgia. Cotton has been lately adopted as an article of culture in the southern States; and as the prices of rice, tobacco, and indigo decline, it must be very beneficial to the owners and purchasers of lands in that part of the Union. . . . As the inhabitants increase very rapidly by emigration and the course of nature, it is certain they cannot procure wool from their own internal resources in sufficient quantities. The owners of cotton plantations may therefore expect a constant and great demand for this article, as a substitute for wool, besides its ordinary uses for light goods. Tar, pitch, and turpentine are produced in immense quantities in North-Carolina, which State ships more of these articles, particularly the last, than all the rest of the Union. Tar and pitch are also produced in the southern parts of Jersey, and more or less in all the States southward of that.... The wheat country of the United States lies in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New-Jersey, and New-York, and the westernmost parts of Connecticut, as also the western parts of the two Carolinas, and probably of Georgia, for their own use. The character of the American flour is so well known, that it is unnecessary to say any thing in commendation of it here. . . . In the wheat States are also produced great quantities of Indian corn or maize. . . . Hemp and flax are raised in very large quantities throughout the United States. And though South-Carolina and Georgia produce less than any other States of these two articles, they are capable of raising immense quantities. Georgia, from the advantage she has in the river Savannah, could produce hemp with the greatest profit. Large portions of the new lands of all the States are well suited to hemp and flax. Though sheep are bred in all parts of America, yet the most populous parts of the middle States, and the eastern States which have been long settled, and particularly the latter, are the places where they thrive best. In the four eastern or New-England States, they form one of the greatest objects of the farmer's attention, and one of his surest sources of profit. The demand for wool, which has of late increased exceedingly with the growth of manufactures, will add considerably to the former handsome profits of sheep; and the consumption of meat by the manufacturers will render them still more beneficial. Horned or neat cattle are also bred in every part of the United States. In the western counties of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, where they have an extensive range, and mild winters without snows of any duration, they run at large, and multiply very fast. In the middle States, cattle require more of the care and attention they usually receive in Europe, and they are generally good, often very fine. But in the eastern States, whose principal objects on the land have until lately been pasturage and grazing, cattle are very numerous indeed, and universally fine; cheese is, of course, most abundant in those States. No European country can excel the United States in the valuable article of salt provisions. Their exports of this kind are every day increasing; as the raising of cattle is peculiarly profitable to farmers, the greater part of whom have more land than they can cultivate even with the plough. Barley and oats are the productions of every State, though least cultivated to the southward. Virginia, however, is turning her attention to barley, as also Maryland, and can raise great quantities. Masts, spars, staves, heading, boards, plank, scantling, and square timber, are found in almost all the States: but New-Hampshire, and the adjoining province of Maine, which is connected with Massachusetts, are the two most plentiful scenes: the stock there seems almost inexhaustible. In New-York they abound; and in North-Carolina and Georgia, the pitch-pine plank, and scantling, and oak staves, are excellent, especially in the former. . . . Pot and pearl ashes, have become very valuable articles to the landholders and merchants of the United States; but their importance was unknown twenty years ago. ... New-England and New-York have derived great advantage from their attention to pot and pearl ashes; but it has hitherto been made in very inconsiderable quantities in the States to the southward of them: in most of them it has been entirely overlooked. . . . A grand dependence of the eastern States is their valuable fisheries: a detail of these is unnecessary. It is sufficient to say, that with a small exception in favour of New-York, the whole great sea fishery of the United States is carried on by New-England; and it is in a variety of ways highly beneficial to their landed and manufacturing interests. Iron is abundant throughout the Union, excepting New-England and the Delaware State, though the former are not destitute of it, and the latter can draw it as conveniently from the other States on the Delaware river, as if it were in her own bowels. Virginia is the State most pregnant with minerals and fossils of any in the Union. Deer skins and a variety of furs are obtained by all the States from the Indian country, either directly or through the medium of their neighbours. Hitherto they have been exported in large quantities; but from the rapid progress of American manufactures, that exportation must diminish. The article of pork, so important in navigation and trade, merits particular notice. The plenty of mast or nuts of the oak and beech, in some places, and of Indian corn every where, occasions it to be very fine and abundant. Two names among them are pre-eminent, Burlington and Connecticut; the first of which is generally given to the pork of Pennsylvania, and the middle and northern parts of Jersey; the second is the quality of all the pork north of Jersey. It may be safely affirmed, that they are fully equal to the pork of Ireland and Britany, and much cheaper. Cider can be produced with ease in considerable quantities, from Virginia inclusive, to the most northern States, as also in the western country of the Carolinas and Georgia; but New-Jersey and NewEngland have hitherto paid most attention to this drink. An exquisite brandy is distilled from the extensive peach orchards, which grow upon the numerous rivers of the Chesapeak, and in parts of Pennsylvania, and may be made in the greater part of the country. Silk has been attempted with success in the southernmost States, so far as due attention was paid to it; but is not well suited to the nature of their labourers, who, being blacks, are not careful or skilful; and there are many other objects of more importance and profit in the agriculture of those fertile States. ... Rye is produced generally through all the States north of the Carolinas, and in the western parts of the three southern States. But the detail of American productions, and the parts in which they most abound, would be very long. It will therefore be sufficient to say, that in addition to the above capital articles, the United States produce or contain, flax-seed, spelts, lime-stone, alum, saltpetre, lead, copper, coal, free-stone, marble, stone for wares, potters' clay, brick clay, a variety of ship-timber, shingles, holly, beech, poplar, curled maple, black walnut, wild cherry, and other woods suitable for cabinet-makers, shingles of cedar and cypress, myrtle-wax, bees-wax, butter, tallow, hides, leather, tanners' bark, maple sugar, hops, mustard seed, potatoes, and all the other principal vegetables; apples, and all the other principal fruits; clover, and all the other principal grasses. On the subject of their productions it is only necessary to add, that they must be numerous, diversified, and extremely valuable, as the various parts of their country lie in the same latitude as Spain, Portugal, the middle and southern provinces of France, the fertile island of Sicily, and the greater part of Italy, European and Asiatic Turkey, and the kingdom of China, which maintains by its own agriculture more people than any cou[n]try in the world beside. Connected with this, we may mention another advantage which the States possess; this is the ease with which the produce of one State may be conveyed, by water, to another, with a very trivial addition of expense. There is in this respect a striking difference between the navigable waters of the United States and those of any country in the old world. The Elbe is the only river in Europe which will permit a sea vessel to sail up it for so great a length as seventy miles. The Hudson's, or North river, between the States of New-York and New-Jersey, is navigated by sea vessels one hundred and eighty miles from the ocean; the Delaware, between Pennyslvania, New-Jersey, and the Delaware State, one hundred and sixty miles; the Potomack, between Virginia and Maryland, three hundred miles; and there are several other rivers, bays, and sounds, of extensive navigation, far exceeding the great river Elbe. The inland boatable waters and lakes are equally numerous and great. When we consider these, and extend our ideas to the different canals already formed, and still forming, by which the most important rivers are, or will be united, we may venture to assert, that no country in Europe does, or possibly can possess so completely the advantages of inland navigation; by this the extremes of the confederacy will become intimately united and acquainted with each other, and each State will reap from the produce of the whole nearly the same advantage as though it possessed every resource within itself; indeed, no doubt can by a reflecting mind be entertained, but that the time is near when a communication by water will be opened with every part of the Union. William] Winterbotham, An Historical, Geographical, Commercial, and Philosophical View of the American United States (London, 1795), III, 287-293 passim. 24. Cotton Culture (1802) BY DOCTOR FRANÇOIS ANDRÉ MICHAUX (TRANSLATED BY B. LAMBERT, 1805) Michaux, following in his father's footsteps, was sent by the French government to study the forests of America, He was a recognized authority in botany, and a personal friend of Jefferson. — Bibliography: M. B. Hammond, The Cotton Industry, I, Appendix II. THE HE two Carolinas and Georgia are divided naturally into the upper and lower country: but the upper country embraces the greatest extent. . . The low price to which tobacco has for some years fallen in Europe, has occasioned the culture of it to be abandoned in these countries. That of the Green-seed Cotton has replaced it, very advantageously for the inhabitants, a great number of whom are already enriched by it. The separation of the seeds from the husks which enclose them, a tedious operation, which requires much manual labour, has been lately simplified by a machine, for which the inventor has obtained a patent from the American government. The legislature of South Carolina, have, for three years, paid him a sum of fifty thousand piasters, for permitting all the inhabitants of that state to construct them. This very simple machine, the price of which does not exceed sixty piasters, is worked by a horse or current of water, and cleanses three or four hundred pounds of cotton in a day, while, by the common process, a man cannot pick more than twenty-five or thirty pounds. It is true that this machine has the inconvenience of cutting the wool already too short in this species of cotton, which, for that reason, is of an inferior qual |