Scenes of American Wealth and Industry in Produce, Manufactures, Trade, the Fisheries, &C., &C., &C (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1833 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XVIII.--THE WESTERN STATES. Agriculture. These States have vast tracts of very fertile land, and are well adapted to all the great purposes of agriculture. The greater portion of the inhabitants are farmers. Wheat, corn, and almost all kinds of grain, are raised in every part. In the southern parts, tobacco and cotton are cultivated. In Kentucky, great attention is paid to the raising of hemp. Cattle and horses are reared for exportation, in the northern and western parts; and hogs are raised in such numbers, as to make mense numbers of swine are slaughtered here, and the business of barreling pork and curing bacon, for exportation, is one of the chief branches of the trade of this city. The cultivation in all the States, except Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, is chiefly performed by slaves; of whose character, habits, and condition, we have yet to treat. The farms in Ohio and Indiana, are generally of moderate size, and the cultivators do not materially differ in their habits, from those of the northern Atlantic States. In Kentucky, Illinois, and Missouri, they are more given to what is called "cropping," or raising a crop; that is, devoting the chief attention to the cultivation of one article. In all the States, (save those that cultivate cotton and sugar, ) they make, on an average, sixty bushels of maize to the acre; and the cultivation consists in ploughing two or three times between the rows, during the growing of the crop. From eighty to an hundred bushels are not an uncommon crop; and manuring is scarcely yet thought of, even for the cultivation. The good lands in Illinois and Missouri, yield from thirty to forty bushels of wheat to the acre. The cultivation is on prairie, or bottom land; and as the soil is friable, loose, and perfectly free fr...