For the product of these articles the following quantities of land are cultivated, viz.
| Square miles. | |
| For cotton | 555 |
| rice | 65 |
| tobacco | 176 |
| sugar | 63 |
| wine | 2110 |
| —— | |
| 2969 |
This is little less than three-fourths of the state of Connecticut.
The authority for cotton, rice, and tobacco, is Seybert's Statistical Annals, and the personal information of gentlemen of experience in the culture of those articles.
For sugar I have the authority of Humboldt's Essai Politique.
For wine I depend on Chaptal: his "Treatise, theoretical and practical, on the culture of the vine, and the art of making wine, brandy, spirits of wine, and vinegars, simple and compound," is a truly classic work, in which he had the aid of Rozier, Parmentier, and Dussieux. It contains all that the chemist, or botanist, or vine cultivator, or enlightened statesman can reasonably ask or wish to know. It is in two octavo volumes, of about 500 pages each, with 21 plates.
This admirable treatise should be translated for the use of our fellow citizens who occupy our wine-yielding regions. For, in a few years, the United States will produce wine for their domestic consumption and exportation.
A revolution of our planet on its axis would present to the eye of an observer, at the distance of a few thousand miles, a few spots or specks (China or Holland) fully cultivated. The rest would be as a desert. Pauperism in England, now so extensive and so dangerous, is fulfilling the prophecies of Goldsmith's Deserted Village.
"Political economy (says Jean Baptiste Say,) is founded on statistical knowledge, or (what is the same thing) history;" and that "the American confederacy will have the glory of proving that the loftiest policy is in accordance with moderation and humanity."
The most active mind has not yet conceived an adequate idea of the vast resources of the United States.