CHAPTER III.

GENERAL PRODUCE.

BESIDES Wheat, there are various agricultural productions of the United States, which almost wholly enter into home consumption. The following list of the products of the country may not be unacceptable :

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCE OF THE UNITED STATES.-1860.

It will be seen that the production of INDIAN CORN was no less than 838 millions of bushels. This was more than double the aggregate of the wheat, rye, oats, barley, buck-wheat, peas, and beans; and was nearly five times the amount of the wheat alone. Illinois stands at the head of the Indian corn, as it stands at the head of the wheat-producing, States. The Western States, indeed, produce nearly one-half of all the Indian corn grown in America, although the late slave-owning States produced

* This quantity is questioned, but I give it according to the official returns. Vide "Eighth Census of the United States,” p. 185.

large quantities of that grain for the supply of their

dependent population.

The culture of Indian corn, throughout the United States, fully keeps pace with the increase of population, which is not the case with other varieties of produce. One cause of this is the ease with which it is grown its cultivation involving the smallest expenditure of trouble, time, or money. A loose, moist, and not wet, but fertile soil, with abundance of sunshine, is solely needed for the growth of this cereal; and, according to the Agricultural Commissioner, "there are millions of vacant acres that seem as though they were absolutely formed for its production." The extent to which Indian corn is used throughout the United States as food for every description of animal, including swine, as well as for domestic poultry, gives immense importance to this production. In the South, the coloured population subsist to a very great extent on Indian corn; indeed, throughout the war, 'Hominy" made of this cereal formed a most important item of subsistence for the entire people. In many cases, we are told, that even the higher classes of the Southern population were frequently unable to obtain any better provision during the progress of the war. The army was also very largely fed with Indian corn. fess to feeling some surprise, that this product does not enter more largely into the consumption of Great Britain and Ireland. Much of the comparatively small quantity imported is worked up by parties who sell it as farinaceous food for children, for pastry-making, &c. In this form Indian corn is a comparatively costly article. It is

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in the cheaper forms in which it is used throughout America that it seems to me it might be much more generally employed here.*

The cheapness of Indian Corn accounts for the comparatively little attention which is given in some of the States to the production of OATS :-Indian Corn being considered a more nourishing food for stock. The increase of the Oat production between 1850 and 1860 was far less than that of wheat, and in the Slave States the large decrease in the growth of oats was said to be very remarkable. The Western States, too, comparatively disregard this crop. Whilst they produce over forty-five bushels of Indian corn to each inhabitant, they only produce six-and-a-half bushels of Oats. In the Middle and New England States some lands, which have gone out of wheat cultivation, have been laid down in Oats, and in these States alone does the cultivation at all increase.

BARLEY also occupies a subordinate position in American agriculture: indeed, the climate generally is too dry for its production. But with the rapid increase of a foreign population, there has been latterly an annually increased demand for barley for malting purposes, and the price for it is said to have advanced more rapidly than that of any ordinary grain crop. At the present time, wonderful to narrate, California raises the largest

* There are various ways of dressing Indian Corn. Boiled, in its green state, it is a most delicious vegetable. There is no reason why it should not be introduced into this country. It is cheap enough in America, and it bears the voyage here. I have it frequently at my own table, where it is much approved.

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barley crop of any State in the Union; a sandy soil having been found favourable to its production. It is sown just before the November rains. Owing to the general dryness of the climate, the grain dries rapidly as it approaches maturity, and in harvesting it "shatters out some." This sprouts, and again taking root in a rainy season, yields a crop which is called the "volunteer crop," and which is well worth harvesting. In some instances a second "volunteer crop" is produced by the same process, which affords a fair average. Thus, even without the trouble of sowing seed, hundred thousands of bushels of barley are grown in California.

RYE is not largely cultivated in the West. It is grown principally on light sandy soils of the Middle States, in Pennsylvania especially, not so much for the grain as for the straw. BUCK-WHEAT is grown extensively in the Middle and Eastern States as an article of food for sheep in winter, and it is said that there are few crops which produce a better profit. "Buck-wheat cakes" are also a

very favourite dish.

PEAS and BEANS are raised very largely in the State of New York, and also in the Southern States-especially in the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi. In the rest of the United States, these crops are not much attended to. It is to be regretted that there is no separate return of peas and beans, for they are cultivated and used in the United States for very different purposes. Beans are principally used as human food, whilst peas are used as food for farm animals, or for ploughing under as a green crop for manure. In the South, what is called