Wisconsin herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1846-1849, 1848-10-07

That our agricultural products far exceed
the consumption of our own country, as was
shown by the large exports to meet the de-
mands of the famine in Europe the last
year. That even i'm our hest cultivated
counties, there are yet large tracts of land
wholly unimproved; that we have immense
territories organized and unorganized, and
almost houndless tracts i'm the new States,
of the richest soil, which are destined for
the pillow; and THAI with the great discove-
rles and improvements made in agricultural
science and practice, il is next to impossible
to measure our agricultural capacities or to
fix a limit to our surplus productions. And
the consequence is, that these ncalchable
products must seek n market abroad, that
now existing at home being inadequate for
their consumption.
/ Now, this view, it seems TO me, assumes
the very point in dispute. Itproceeds upon
the superstition that our people will almost
exclusively devote themselves to agriculture,
that no considerable portion of them win or
can be drawn off to other pursuits, and that
the United States of North America, is TO
supply the world with breadstuiis and pro-
visions. The very object of those who adj
vocate the establishment of manufactures, is
to afford lucrative employment for labor in
other than agricultural products, and thus
undue and disproportonate absorption of
labor and capital in any one channel They
deprecate MS most disastrous, the policy,
which would hazard the prosperity of the
country upon the cast of a single die.
They deprecate this very extension of
agricultural pursuit, rs an evil in itself
which can be checked only by the timely
diversion of labor into other channels. And
to accomplish this, they would provide in
ducements in navigation, in mechanical em-
ployments, but chiefly in manufactures of
every kind, TO the laborcrs and capitalists of
the country to seek those occupations. They
add what no one will deny, that this course
of policy would relieve agriculture from
superabundance of labor, and ut the same
time to a great extent absorb the excess of
its products. To argue then, in favor of n
foreign market, upon the hypothesis, that
there will and can he little or no other en-
ployment than agriculture, for the great
masses of our people, is TO assume without
proving it, what is most strenuouSly denied
on the other side. ID is maintained that il
only requires the exhibition of facts and the
plain differences from them, "a convince our
intelligent countrymen that nothing can be
more injurious to them than the di>propor-
toned concentration of labor and capital
upon any one interest, that il must necessa-
rily and inevitably he overdone and protitless,
and that diversion of labor aud variety of
employment, mutually stimulate and sustain
each other, and insure improvement and per-
fectinn in each. Wen informed agricullur-
lists lament the improvidence Of those " no
seek in new lands for that fertility of soil
which they can command without removing
from their own hnnesteuds, by proper tilage
aud by the application of manurcs within
their reach, and which they suffer GO
waste, or by draining and clearing the rich
bottoms in their immediate vicinity. They
lament the shiltess, Irregular aud unproduc-
tive cultivation, which is the consequence Of
such improvidcnce. And it is for these rea-
sons-to check the tendency 10 excessive
agriculture, and 10 improve and perfect thai
which is safely carried ON, that the value of
n home market is so strongly pressed. To
them, it is not sufficient TO assert that eN-
ccssive aud reckless agriculture 1cW conlin-
ne aud tcW augment Wlih our increasing
populatiun and our increasing territories,
and thar therefore we must look TO foreign
rather than home market. The answer
Is, that this Is the very reason why we should
foster our home markets and discourage the
injurious and tnllnrious expectation Of eX-
tenslye foreign consumption.
But, assuming the full truth Of the repre-
senialion, that this vast country is destined
to become almost universally agricultural,
that lis capacities for production are to be
expanded to their greatest extent under the
guidance of science; that our new territories
arc TO be filled with grain and cattle--can
the mind of man conceive with any APP
proach to accuracy, the vast amount of pro-
ducts of the soil which will then seek pur-
chascr-?
l. the market for them TO be found in Eu-
rope! i here is not "A single country IN
Europe, except Great Britain, that does not
ordinarily export the very same agricultural
products which are raised IN thrcc-iourths
of the United States.
This fact lies al the foundation Of all our
inquiries on the subject, aud IS dec islye of
the question nj issue. Our biographies M
form us Of the general fact, although We
have No means Of nSccrialnlng directly the
exact amount Of the expectations OF each
country, of the different kinds of agrcul-
turul products.
We find however, IN Waterton's Cyclic
pedin of commerce tables giving the amounts
of wheat imported into Great Britain for ten
years. from 1898 to 1889, and 10 McCnloch's
Dictionary of Commerce, q simllcr table for
1891. These show the quantities of wheat
imported from each country; ! Lake the years
1881 and 1889 when the lnrgest quantities
were received; the total iInportations of 1881
being Z, 81 900 quarters, and ~ 1889, 8, lOO,
600 quarters. There were received from
Russia. in 1881. 4G1, 900, and IN 1899, 372,-
600. from PRUSSIA. in 81, $50, GOO. ~ 80,
7G7 900; from Italy, ~ ~, 253,C00, in -,
81 600; from Germany, IN 81, 4l5o0O, ~
'39. 42s 600; from Denmark, in -. $1,000,
~ 80, 207 600; from France, ia 81, 1885,
OG0. 10 80, 1900; from Holland, in -,
$4,000, in -, 4It 600. Imporlations Of
smaller amounts were made from Spain,
Turkey aud various other places. From .
the United States 10 81, 4CS,000, IN 80,
I27 600