nurture, heirs to the polish of a far-reaching ancestry, established their "seigniories" here and there, but paid little attention to the cultivation of the soil. Louisiana was the only French colony in which especial attention was paid to agricultural pursuits. A variety of crops was tried successively, but none proved as remunerative as the sugar-cane, which had been taken from India to Spain, by the Saracens, thence to Madeira, and thence to the West India Islands. In 1751 a French transport, having on board 200 troops for the garrison of the colony of Louisiana, touched at St. Domingo. The Jesuits located in the bay of Port-au-Prince obtained leave to send on board, for their branch establishment at New Orleans, a supply of cane, with a few negroes used to its cultivation and the manufacture of sugar. These canes were landed and planted, but for several years the Jesuits, and those to whom they gave canes, were equally unsuccessful either in their cultivation or in the manufacture of sugar. A quaint engraving, executed in Germany, represents the process of manufacture. The cane was stripped of its leaves and ground, or rather crushed, by a heavy stone, made to revolve by manual force. The expressed juice, after having been boiled in a cauldron, was ladled into large stone jars, which were exposed to the rays of the sun until the sugar crystallized. In 1764 the Chevalier De Mazan tried the experiment on his plantation, on the opposite shore of the Mississippi River, with more success. In the following year, Destrehan (then treasurer of the king of France, in the colony), and several other planters, put up works below the city, on the left bank, but with the same result. The planters were disheartened, and in 1769 the manufacture of sugar in Louisiana was entirely abandoned, and the planters turned their attention to the cultivation of indigo, cotton, tobacco, rice, corn, etc. A few small gardeners continued the planting of sugar-cane in the neighborhood of the city, which they retailed in the market for the use of children, or expressed the juice, making syrup, which they sold in bottles. More than twenty-five years elapsed before further efforts were made in its cultivation. In 1791 A. Mendez, of New Orleans, purchased the apparatus, land, etc., which now forms a part of the Oluren plantation, at Terre aux Bœufs, below the city, and, nothing daunted, resolved to carry on the manufacture of sugar. He secured the services of M. Morie, who had gained some experience in the manufacture at St. Domingo. He was more successful; and at a grand dinner with Don Reindin (then Spanish Intendant of Louisiana), given to the public authorities of New Orleans, he exhibited as a curiosity a few small loaves of refined sugar, the first ever produced in Louisiana. In 1792 Etienne Bord, a planter living a few miles above the city, finding his indigo crops a failure, determined, as a dernier resort, to try the cultivation of sugar. At length, in 1795, his success was partial, and in the following year, under the auspices of Morie, it was rendered complete. He was induced to make further improvements and essay new experiments, until he fully established this, one of the most productive branches in Louisiana. At that time there were but two varieties of cane in Louisiana -the Malabar or Bengal, and the Otaheite; these have disappeared, or nearly so, and have given place to the purple or redribbon cane of Java or Batavia. The Dutch introduced it, about the middle of the last century, to St. Eustatius, Curaçoa, Guiana, and Surinam, whence it spread all over the West Indies, and over a portion of the South American continent. In 1814 an American schooner imported a few bundles of this cane into Georgia, and in 1817 about a dozen of these plants were brought to New Orleans by John Joseph Coiron, who planted them in his garden at Terre aux Boeufs. Meeting with the most gratifying success in their cultivation, Mr. Coiron, in 1825, imported a sloop load from Savannah, which he planted on his estate, known as the St. Sophie plantation, about thirty-six miles below the city. Thence originated the ribbon-cane, or Javanese, now most generally grown throughout Louisiana and Texas. The French were the first to collect agricultural statistics on this continent. The governors of Canada and of Louisiana, from the year 1689 until the termination of the French rule in those colonies, obtained every year the number of acres cultivated, the amount of crops raised, the number of horses, cows, sheep, and swine, and the success which attended the cultivation of new These crops introduced by order of the home government. interesting agricultural statistics, with the exception of a few missing years, are now in the archives of France. The Revolutionary Period. The American colonists not only subdued the wilderness, but conquered its savage occupants, and carried on expensive wars, fighting bravely at Quebec and at Louisburg, at Ticonderoga and at Fort Duquesne. As they advanced in civilization, attempts were made to improve their cultivation of the soil, being stimulated by the premiums offered in England. In 1747 Jared Elliot, a Connecticut clergyman, published a useful work on field husbandry, and the invoices of the London tobacco factors show that there was a demand for the works of Jethro Tull, by the Virginia planters. When Dr. Franklin went to England, as the agent of Pennsylvania, he was not unmindful of its greatest interest, and he sent home for distribution, in 1770, seeds, mulberry cuttings, silkworms' eggs, etc., thus initiating that system of government supply which has been productive of such important results. The glorious aid given by the planters and farmers in the Revolutionary struggle of 1776 forms a bright chapter in the annals of American agriculture. Had we had many large cities then, as now, it is doubtful if independence would have been declared, for we should have been so accessible to attack that it would have been madness to have commenced that "resistance to tyrants" which is "obedience to God." As it was, Tories abounded in the cities, each of which was in turn occupied by the redcoats; and all must admit that British power was prostrated on this continent by the hard-handed operatives of iron nerve, a majority of them yeomen, who left their plows in the furrows to aid the farmer of Mount Vernon in unyoking their land from tyranny. In recalling the patriotic devotion of our forefathers, which has since been imitated again and again, when the war-trumpet has been heard in the land, let us bear in mind. that when Rome - that victorious imperial mother of nations— suffered her noble urban citizens to "crush out" the cultivators by unjust taxation and the free admission of agricultural products, her power began to wane. Long before the race of the patricians had become extinct, the free cultivators had disappeared from the fields, leaving no recruits for the once victorious cohorts, who now fled before the invading Goths. Truly Goldsmith said: "Princes or kings may flourish or may fade, A breath can make them as a breath has made; General Washington, while "first in war," never "virtually ceased," we are told by Irving, "to be the agriculturist. Throughout all his campaigns he had kept himself informed of the course of rural affairs at Mount Vernon. By means of maps, on which every field was laid down and numbered, he was enabled to give directions for their several cultivation, and receive account of their several crops. No hurry of affairs prevented a correspondence with his overseer or agent, and he exacted weekly reports. Thus his rural were interwoven with his military cares; the agriculturist was mingled with the soldier; and those strong sympathies with the honest cultivators of the soil, and that paternal care of their interests, to be noted throughout his military career, may be ascribed, in a great measure, to the sweetening influence of Mount Vernon." The deplorable condition of the agriculture of the republic was not unnoticed by the "fathers of the country." Washington commenced making experiments on his farm at Mount Vernon, and John Adams on his farm at Quincy, and Jefferson on his estate at Monticello. Many of the reverend clergy made their parsonage farms and glebe lands models to the counties round, and there was a great demand for agricultural literature. Mr. Jefferson also exercised his mechanical tastes in improving the mould-board of plows, which he afterwards adapted to an improved plow sent him by the Agricultural Society of the Department of the Seine, in France. His son-in-law, Mr. Randolph, whom Mr. Jefferson thought the best farmer in Virginia, invented a side-hill plow, adapted to the hilly regions of that State. Mr. Jefferson advocated an adherence to scientific principles in the construction of the plow. The first attempt to carry out these suggestions was made by Robert Smith, of Pennsylvania, who took out the first patent for the mould-board alone of a plow. Peace spread her wings over the new republic, and her soldiers returned to their farms. Their system of agriculture, however, was of a low order and, as such, was deprecated by all who understood its importance. Washington, Adams, and others, both by precept and example, sought to instruct and encourage the farmers to more methodical habits and better cultivation. It was not, however, until after the War of 1812 that such an idea was seriously considered; but when it did come it took a strong hold, and the improvements of the present are the results of it. There were many causes for this. The rich and abundant lands of the United States, the variety of soil and climate, together with the rapid increase in immigration, and the almost universal desire to be independent in every sense of the word, led the bulk of the people to choose agriculture as a calling. It required but little skill, and was cheap, and the idea of having a home of their own seemed to obtain quite generally among the people. Then, too, each farmer was a pioneer, and as such learned to do without many of those helps and conveniences that are now seen on every hand. After peace had again been secured, the real work of building a nation began. Statesmen were not wanting who could clearly discern the potent, conservative force that waited upon a permanent and contented element of farmers. The purchase of lands was made comparatively easy, the interests of the farmer cared for, and a general desire was manifested to aid and protect that industry. The growth of agriculture in the United States has been marvellous, and is yet really in its infancy. The possibilities of this branch of the economy of the nation, under kindly laws, would be difficult to conceive. With the invention of farm machinery has come a rapid increase in production. New territory has been opened up, and the railroad has almost eliminated the idea of distance. Taken altogether, American farmers, with a proper and just method of distribution, would stand at the head of the world's producers. There have been several periods of great prosperity among the farmers, and again like periods of distress. The farmers of America are at the present time suffering from a series of years of business depression, and are calling loudly for a change of conditions. They assert that, during the last quarter of a cen |