bushels to each inhabitant, New England yielded but eleven quarts to each individual; and yet the traditional brown bread has nearly disappeared from eastern tables, and no difficulty is experienced in obtaining full supplies of flour, since the building of the network of railways connecting nearly every village. Even the larger cities, crowded with tens of thousands of laboring poor, show little if any diminution in consumption of flour during the past three years of high prices. There is another reason for increased consumption in the enlarged facilities for production, by means of machinery, which has superseded at least half of the manual labor formerly required in cultivating, harvesting, and cleaning.

In 1839 the crop was 84,823,272 bushels, or 4.76 to each inhabitant; in 1849, 100,485,944, or 4.33 to each individual; in 1859, 173,104,924 bushels, or 5.50 per capita; in 1868, by estimates of this department, 230,000,000 bushels, including Oregon and the territories, which are not found in the tables. As the increase of population was thirty-five per cent. from 1840 to 1850, and also from 1850 to 1860, a similar pro rata increase from 1860 to 1868 would make our population 39,000,000. If the same ratio of increase could be expected through this decade, viz., thirty-five per cent. in population, and twenty-five per cent. in the wheat yield in proportion to population, the crop of 1869 would be 292,000,000 bushels, and that of 1867 should have been more than 260,000,000 bushels. Though far better than the two preceding crops-a fair yield upon a broad area-it probably did not exceed our estimate, 224,036,600 bushels, exclusive of that produced by Oregon and the Territories. Of course there is no expectation of permanency in the rate of increase of the last decade; yet with the prodigality and wastefulness of food for which our people are noted, there is no reason to doubt that we shall attain a consumption at least as large per capita as that of Great Britain, viz., six bushels, in addition to the corn which must always constitute an item in our subsistence. The rapid dissemination of reapers and threshers, and the increasing facilities for a general distribution of wheat, are circumstances favoring a lower price and a further advance of the individual rate of consumption. The present increase of wheatgrowing in the south is the commencement of a movement which will add materially to the aggregate of future crops; a confident expectation of a home supply of hat section is held, but it is neither probable nor desirable that exportation of southern wheat should ever be a prominent interest, other crops, of less bulk and greater value, promising far greater returns. With all this stimulus to enlarged production-the food requirements of a prosperous people, the larger use of flour by the poorer classes, extended facilities for its distribution through districts yielding wheat very sparingly, the greater economy of production by the employment of farmi machinery, and the more general growth of this cereal in the distant west, the south, and on the Pacific coast, it would be a short wheat crop in 1869 that should not aggregate 270,000,000 bushels.

CORN.

A disposition was manifested to obtain a large planting of corn in the spring of 1867. The South was anxious to be independent in feed for farm stock and supplies of bread, and put in more of the staple grain than usual. Prices were high in the West, a large meat production was wanted, and farmers were therefore desirous of extending their fields of maize, but their labors encountered many impediments, the principal being a spring so wet as to retard the operations of the plow, and a scarcity of farm laborers.

The cold rains also caused slow growth and an unpromising appearance until the summer was somewhat advanced, when a serious drought set in, which continued until the season of ripening, resulting in a loss of one-third of the expected crop in the principal corn-growing section of the Union-the Ohio valley. The aggregate yield of the year was less by 250,000,000 bushels than should have been reasonably expected as a good crop; the revised estimates showing but 768,000,000 bushels, against $38,000,000 in 1859, when 1,000,000,000 are required for consumption, export, and a reserved stock.

In 1868, the necessity for a determined effort to make good the deficiency of corn was apparent to all. Returns of estimates of acreage showed an increase of more than two millions of acres, or about seven per cent. A large proportion of this advance was in the southern States, indicative of an apparent intention to make that section self-supporting, and its cotton strictly a surplus product. The following is a statement of the estimated increase or decrease of acreage in the several States:

The high temperature of July was favorable to the growth of corn, which is generally grown upon deep, rich bottoms; and the prospect was good for a thousand million bushels until August, when unseasonably cool, and, in some localities, wet weather set in, followed by early frosts. The result was a sudden and an injurious check at the critical period of earing, resulting in late ripening, smut, and other evidences of abnormal conditions.

While the early summer was excessively warm, few localities suffered from drought; showers were sufficiently frequent, as a rule, and the heated term was not of long continuance. In August the rain-fall became injurious, and much damage to corn was reported in southern Indi

ana, southern Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. The injury from early frosts was heavy in northern Indiana, northern Illinois, and Iowa. Many local reports contained estimates of forty per cent. of soft corn in consequence.

These causes reduced the aggregate yield at least one hundred millions. The final estimate is in round numbers nine hundred millions of bushels.

COTTON.

A reduction in the acreage of cotton is noted in every State except Texas, in which the increase appears to be about thirty per cent. The decrease, as compared with the previous year, is estimated at twenty-four per cent. in Louisiana, eighteen in Mississippi, thirteen in Arkansas, twenty in Tennessee, twelve in Georgia, eighteen in South Carolina, and thirty-two in North Carolina. The returns of diminished acreage in early summer did not excite apprehensions of a decrease in the crop of the year. On the contrary, a reasonable expectation was held of a return at least equal to that of 1867. This confidence grew out of the fact that cleaner and better culture was attained, and in the Atlantic States a larger amount of fertilizers was used, while a steady improvement in the quality of labor was realized.

A lack of rain in the Gulf States gave rise to apprehensions of loss, and a pretty severe drought prevailed in Tennessee; but the cotton plant, if in good soil, thoroughly cultivated, can only be injured by excessive drought, and it may well be doubted whether the high temperature and continued sunshine accomplished as much of injury as they effected development and perfection of the bolls, and ultimate increase of the crop.

Fewer drawbacks than usual were reported. In parts of Georgia the continued dry weather (for ten weeks in May, June, and July) was to some extent prejudicial. The cotton caterpillar destroyed a portion of the sea-island cotton. The boll worm appeared in some places to a limited extent.

The autumn was remarkably favorable, both for ripening and picking; frosts came late, and the weather as a rule continued dry and pleasant. The mean temperature of Mississippi was 64° in October and 510 in November; in Texas, 69° in October and 57° in November. The aggre gate crop of the year was estimated in October at two million three hundred and eighty thousand bales.

The most egregious misstatements are regularly made by the bulls and bears of the cotton markets, prior to the season of picking, concerning the probable yield of the year. Estimates will inevitably appear in business letters and circulars, and in the news journals of the day; and it is of the utmost importance that judicious estimates should be made and published long before the actual receipts can be footed up. The Department of Agriculture, having the best facilities for an accurate estimate of the coming crop, has issued, each October for three years past, at the very commencement of the cotton harvest, bulletins estimating the probable production. The first estimate was of the crop of 1866; and while another department of the government, coinciding with the views of the planters themselves, placed it at 1,200,000 bales, our figures were 1,835,000 bales. The actual receipts up to the following September showed that the crop of 1866, after deducting the cotton of previous years, brought forth from the hiding places of the war, was

about 1,900,000 bales. The estimates of 1867 and 1868 were respectively 2,340,000 bales and 2,380,000 bales. In every instance the estimate has come within 50,000 to 150,000 bales of the result as known ten months afterwards.*

The manufacture of cotton in the United States is steadily increasing. The rate of its increase is indicated by the following figures:

Returns made to the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers and Planters, to the date January 30, 1869, place the consumption of seven hundred and fifty mills at 417,367,771 pounds. The eighty-one known mills not reporting are estimated to require 27,960,000 pounds. With 24,672,229 pounds used for textile fabrics and batting, the aggregate required per annum is 470,000,000. Allowing for possible exaggeration, the total consumption is assumed to be 450,000,000 pounds. Of the seven hundred and fifty mills reported, eighty-six are in the southern States, running 225,063 spindles, consuming 31,415,750 pounds. The following table presents, in condensed form, the substance of these

*The supplementary report of the honorary commissioner at the Paris Exposition recently issued by the State Department uses the following language:

"It is much to be desired that the Statistical Bureau, established at Washington, shall prepare and publish, periodically, full and reliable statistics concerning all the important, branches of business in this country, similar to those issued by the British Board of Trade; and it is equally to be desired, for the credit and business interests of the country, that the Agricultural Bureau shall issue accurate statistics in place of its estimates of the cotton crop, which, from their supposed official character, have obtained credence, while erroneous beyond excuse, to the extent of about 300,000 bales in the statement of production of each of the last three crops."

As the estimate of this department for the last of the "last three" crops was 2.350,000

The increase in the manufacture of cotton in Europe has also been steady. From 1835 to 1840 the quantity used in Great Britain was less per annum than for a similar period commencing with 1862, the year of greatest scarcity, not reaching a million bales, while the annual average for the latter period of five years was 1,298,417 bales of 400 pounds each. The average for the period of five years commencing with 1856, the era of unexampled production of cotton goods, was 2,397,647 bales, or 959,058,800 pounds. The falling off in consumption of raw cotton, therefore, during the scarcity of American cotton was forty-five per cent. The present requirements of the manufacture are fully up to the average of 1856-261, or about 2,400,000 bales of 400 pounds each, while the continent of Europe and the United States require 2,600,000, or 5,000,000 bales in all. Of this supply of the spindles of Europe and America this country takes one-fifth, the proportion attained prior to 1860, and very nearly the same quantity. Were prices of cotton lower, a still larger quantity might safely be placed upon the markets of the world, as the consumption of cotton goods tends constantly to increase. The following table presents a condensed view of the exports of American cotton during the past forty-three years. It makes an aggregate of 26,464,000,000 of pounds, and the exports prior to 1825 would bring the total contribution of America to the factories of Europe up to about 28,500,000,000 pounds.

Statement showing the actual exports of cotton, as officially reported, from 1826 to 1868,

bales, and as scarcely half had been delivered at the date of this report, the assumption of an underestimate of 300,000 bales was as unwarrantable as it has proved erroneous. The estimate of 1867 was 2,340,000, while the Commissioner places the yield at 2,599,241, which is a greater error than the estimate. He declares the crop of 1865 to have been 2,342,116, when every one at all acquainted with the history of that crop is well aware that a large proportion of this aggregate of receipts was grown in previous years, and that the planting season in the very midst of the expiring throes of the war was generally disregarded or utterly ignored. His error mainly consists in not discriminating between the crop of a given year and the cotton movement of the commercial year. He takes no account of the old cotton in the hands of planters. His attention is respectfully called to a single instance—a sale of 600 bales, the present year, grown during the war!