depended upon. The home market, even to the most commercial nations,
is of many times the amount of the foreign one. The former is not
easily effected, except by a self-mistaken policy; but the latter
is as capricious as the winds, and beyond our control. Speculation
does not create value--the purchase and sale of a million's worth
of goods does not improve their quality or add to their quantity,
to the amount of a cent. A change of commodities between different
countries, may increase their value to the extent of the labour
expended in transporting them; and it is generally convenient,
if not advantageous, when exchanges are made on equal terms. But
poverty must be the lot of every society which barters the labour of
two or more of its members for that of one person in another society.
Employment is the best preservative of health and morals. Things
should be so that every person willing to labour for his living,
should find labour to do, and live plentifully. If it is otherwise,
an error has been committed that ought to be corrected immediately,
for it is pregnant with the greatest evils. It is the chief check
to population, and more powerful than the sword to destroy the
liberties of nations. Nations and individuals are spendthrifts of
the worst description when they purchase that which they can make
from the spare labour at home. Who will give away a hundred dollars
and their interest for ever, for the sake of receiving twenty
dollars of his own money as a premium? Yet thus a nation acts when,
for the sake of the duties on imports, it accepts of another nation
any commodity which it might supply itself with, without detriment
to its other branches of industry.
Agriculture is the noblest and best occupation of man; and in a
country like the United States, where land is plenty and labour
scarce, it will always be pushed to the extent which a profitable
market demands. Yet if none worked but those who laboured in the
field, society could not exist long. We should perish with cold and
hunger. It is by an association of the arts that we live--and our
comfort materially depends on their respective perfections. Only
about one fifth of a population are fitted for agricultural labours,
in general. The other four fifths, if idle would consume the whole
amount of value produced, and send the labourers supperless to bed.
It is the capacity of production in the most numerous body that must
be brought into action, if families and nations would prosper and
be happy. If they purchase any thing which their lost time might be
applied to the fabrication of--they might as well throw its cost
into the sea.
In the course of our essays, which we expect to commence in two
or three weeks, we shall endeavour to point out some of the chief
things that require the protection of government, just as those of
a well regulated family are managed; and shew that the well being
of a nation depends upon a fair exchange of labour for labour,
substantials for substantials, and even luxuries for luxuries. The
man who exchanges wheat for _ear-rings_, unless those rings are
manufactured in his country, wastes to the country the whole amount
of the _intrinsic_ value of the wheat over that of the _ear-rings_,
which latter is only that of the metal composing them. A nation
cannot be independent, if it looks to another for necessaries--it
cannot be rich, if it exchanges necessaries for luxuries. And
luxuries, especially, should not be received at all, unless things
of the same class are remitted in payment for them. The effect
of these on population and manners, will also be considered, and
illustrated by many statistical facts--as leisure is allowed to
arrange them.
FROM HUMBOLDT'S PERSONAL NARRATIVE.
_The Coffee Plant._
The coffee tree flowers only the second year, and the flowering
lasts only twenty-four hours. At this time the shrub has a charming
aspect; seen from afar, it seems covered with snow. The produce
of the third year becomes very abundant. In plantations well
weeded and watered, and recently cultivated, we find trees bearing
sixteen, eighteen, and even twenty pounds of coffee. In general,
however, a produce of more than a pound and a half or two pounds
cannot be expected from each plant; and even this is superior to
the mean produce of the West India Islands. Rains at the time of
the flowering, the want of water for artificial irrigations, and
a patastic plant, a new species of coranthus, which clings to the
branches, are extremely injurious to the coffee trees.
_Sugar Cane._
Three species of sugar cane can be distinguished even at a distance,
by the colour of their leaves; the ancient Creole sugar cane,
the Otaheite cane, and the Batavia cane. The first has a leaf
of a deeper green, the stem less thick, and the knots nearer
together.--This sugar cane was the first introduced from India into
Sicily, the Canary Islands and the West Indies. The second is of a
lighter green; and its stem is higher, thicker, and more succulent.
The whole plant displays a more luxuriant vegetation. We owe this
plant to the voyages of Bougainville, Cook, and Bligh. Bougainville
carried it to the Isle of France, whence it passed to Cayenne,
Martinique, and since 1792, to the rest of the West India Islands.
The sugar cane of Otaheite, the _To_ of those islanders, is one of
the most important acquisitions, for which colonial agriculture is
indebted to the travels of naturalists. It yields not only one third
more of juice than the Creolian cane on the same space of land; but
from the thickness of its stem, and the tenacity of its ligneous
fibres, it furnishes much more fuel. The last advantage is important
to the West Indies, where the destruction of the forests has for a
long time obliged the planters to use the canes deprived of their
juice, to keep up the fire under their boilers.
But from the knowledge of this new plant, the progress of
agriculture on the continent of Spanish America, and the
introduction of the East India and Java sugars, the revolutions of
St. Domingo, and the destruction of the great sugar plantations of
that island, would have had a more sensible effect on the prices
of colonial produce in Europe. The Otaheite sugar cane was carried
from the Isle of Trinidad to Caraccas. From Caraccas it passed
to Cicuta and San Gil in the kingdom of New Grenada. In our days
its cultivation during twenty-five years almost entirely removed
the apprehension, which was at first entirely entertained, that,
transplanted to America, the plant would by degrees degenerate,
and become as slender as the Creole cane. If it be a variety, it
is a very constant one. The third species, the violet sugar cane,
called _Cana de Batavia_, or _de Guinea_, is entirely indigenous
in the island of Java, where it is cultivated in preference in the
districts of Jupara and Pasuruan. Its foliage is purple, and very
broad; and it is preferred in the province of Caraccas for rum. The
_tablones_, or grounds planted with sugar canes, are divided by
hedges of a collossal gramen; the latta, or gynesium with distich
leaves.
_American Fig Tree_.
The trunks of these trees are covered with very odoriferous
plants of vanilla, which, in general, flower only in the month of
April.--We were here again struck with those ligneous excrescenses,
which in the form of ridges, or ribs, augment, in so extraordinary
a manner, and as far as twenty feet above the ground, the thickness
of the trunk of the fig trees of America. I found trees twenty-two
feet and a half in diameter near the roots.--These ligneous ridges
sometimes separate from the trunk at a height of eight feet, and are
transformed into cylindrical roots two feet thick. The tree looks
as if it were supported by buttresses. This scaffolding, however,
does not penetrate very deep into the earth. The lateral roots wind
at the surface of the ground, and when at twenty feet distance from
the trunk, they are cut with the hatchet, we see the milky juice of
the fig tree gush out, which, when deprived of the vital influence
of the organs of the tree, is altered and coagulates. What a
wonderful combination of cells and vessels exist in these vegetable
masses; in these gigantic trees of the torrid zone, which, without
interruption, perhaps during a thousand years, prepare nutritious
fluids, raise them to the height of 180 feet, convey them down again
to the ground, and conceal beneath a rough and hard bark, under the
inanimate layers of ligneous matter, all the movements of organic
life!
_The Cow Tree._
"Amid the great number of curious phenomena which have presented
themselves to me in the course of my travels, I confess there are
few that have so powerfully affected my imagination, as the aspect
of the cow tree.
"Whatever relates to milk, whatever regards corn, inspires an
interest, which is not merely that of the physical knowledge of
things, but is connected with another order of ideas and sentiments.
We can scarcely conceive how the human race could exist without
farinaceous substances, and without that nourishing juice which
the breast of the mother contains, and which is appropriated to
the long feebleness of the infant. The amylaceous matter of corn,
the object of religious veneration among so many nations, ancient
and modern, is diffused in the seeds and deposited in the roots
of vegetables; milk, which serves us as an aliment, appears to
us exclusively the produce of animal organization.--Such are the
impressions we have received in our earliest infancy; such is also
the source of that astonishment which seizes us at the aspect of the
tree just described. It has not here the solemn shades of forests,
the majestic course of rivers, the mountains wrapped in eternal
frosts, that excite our emotion.--A few drops of vegetable juice
recal to our minds all the powerfulness and fecundity of nature.
On the barren flank of rock grows a tree with coriaceous and dry
leaves. Its large woody roots can scarcely penetrate into the stone.
For several months of the year not a single shower moistens its
foliage. Its branches appear dead and dried; but when its trunk is
pierced, there flows from it a sweet and nourishing milk. It is at
the rising of the sun that this vegetable fountain is most abundant.
The blacks and natives are then seen hastening from all quarters,
furnished with large bowls to receive the milk, which grows yellow,
and thickens at its surface. Some employ their bowls under the tree
itself, others carry the juice home to their children. We seem to
see the family of a shepherd, who distributes the milk to his flock.
"I have described the sensation which the cow tree awakens in the
mind of the traveller, at the first view. In examining the physical
properties of animal and vegetable products, science displays
them as closely linked together; but it strips them of what is
marvellous, and perhaps also a part of their charms, of what
excited our astonishment.--Nothing appears insolated; the chemical
principles that were believed to be peculiar to animals are found in
plants; a common chain links together all organic nature."
_Singular effect of Peruvian Bark._
A French merchant, at Guayra, named Delpech, in 1806, had occasion
to receive several travellers, inhabitants of those countries. The
apartments destined for visitors being filled, and the number of his
guests increasing, he was under the necessity of putting several of
them in rooms occupied by _cinchona_. Each of them contained from
8 to 10 thousand pounds of that bark. One of his guests was ill of
a very malignant fever. After the first day he found himself much
better, though he had taken no medicine; but he was surrounded with
an atmosphere of cinchona which appeared very agreeable to him.
In a few days he felt himself quite recovered without any medical
treatment whatever. This unexpected success led M. Delpech to make
some other trials. Several persons, ill of fever, were placed
successively in his magazine of cinchona, and they were all speedily
cured, simply by the effluvia of the bark.
In the same place with the cinchona, he kept a bale of coffee, and
some bottles of common French brandy. In some time M. Delpech, when
visiting his magazine, observed one of the large bottles uncorked.
He suspected at first the fidelity of a servant, and determined to
examine the quality of the brandy. What was his astonishment to find
it infinitely superior to what it had been!--A slightly aromatic
taste added to its strength, and rendered it more tonic and more
agreeable. Curious to know if the coffee had likewise changed its
properties, he opened the bale, and roasted a portion of it. It was
more bitter and left in the mouth a taste similar to that of the
effluvia of bark.--The bark which produced these singular effects
was fresh. Would the cinchona of commerce have the same efficacy?
_Oil of Pumpkin Seed._
C. S. KAPINESQUE, Esq. to Doct. SAMUEL MITCHELL.
_New York, 20th Feb. 1819._
While I was at Harmony, on the banks of the Wabash, in the state of
Indiana, last summer, I was told by the industrious German Society
of the Harmonites, that instead of throwing away or giving to the
pigs the seeds of their pumpkins, as is usually done all over the
country, they collected them and made an oil from them which they
use for all the purposes of lamp oil and olive oil. It is well
known, that all the different species and varieties of pumpkins
(genus _cuburbita_ Linnæus) afford an oil which has valuable medical
properties, possessing in the highest degree the refrigerative
quality; but I had never heard before of its being made on a large
scale, and for economical uses.
It will be sufficient to mention this fact to some of our
enlightened farmers, to induce them to imitate the worthy
Harmonites, and I recommend highly the practice, as likely to become
eminently beneficial. The pumpkin seeds afford their oil with the
greatest facility and abundance. One gallon of seeds will give
about half a gallon of oil. They may be pressed like rape and flax
seed.--Their oil is clear, limpid pale, scentless, and when used for
salad instead of sweet oil, has merely a faint insipid taste; it
burns well, and without smoke. Those advantages entitle it to our
attention, as an indigenous production of first necessity. Pumpkins
grow all over the United States, from Maine to Louisiana, and with
such luxuriance, as to produce sometimes as much as 50,000_lbs._
weight of fruits, and about 2000 _lbs._ weight of seeds, in one acre
of Indian corn without injuring the crop of corn. Those 2000 _lbs._
of seeds might produce about 200 gallons of oil, worth about 200
dollars. I calculate that about two millions of gallons of such oil
could be made annually in the United States, from the seeds that are
wasted or given to cattle and pigs. This is worth saving--and in
addition to the bread, pies, soups, dishes, feed, &c. afforded by
pumpkins, we shall have a good and wholesome home-made vegetable oil
for lamps and food.
_Disease among Horses._
MIFFLINTOWN, (Penn.) Nov. 20.
A disease prevails among the horses in this part of the country, by
some called the Burnt Tongue. We understand that it originated in
the western section of this state, and has extended along this route
from Pittsburg to Philadelphia. It has in a few instances proved
fatal: but we understand that the stages west of the Alleghany have
been stopped, and numbers of wagonners are obliged to lie by in
consequence of it. It affects the tongue and prevents the creature
from eating, and is very catching, so much so, that it is said a
beast will take it in consequence of its having been _hitched_ at
the same place that the one has stood which was affected.
LANCASTER, (Penn.) Nov. 23.
The following method of practice and recipe for the care of the
prevailing disease among horses, called _sore mouth_, was obtained
from Mr. Tomlinson, (one of the proprietors of the Western Mail
Stages) on his return from visiting the sick horses in the line, and
I am authorized to say, will, if strictly attended to, succeed in
curing in 99 _cases in_ 100--by inserting it you will oblige MANY.
RECIPE.
On the commencement of the disease, bleed moderately. If the blood,
after cooling, appears to have much buff on it, repeat the bleeding;
give a pint of castor oil; if it does not operate in 16 hours, give
two thirds of a pint. Nitre may be given at the rate of 2 _oz_. a
day, or salts two or three times a week; 1/4 _lb._ at a time. These
may be given in a thin mash, or rather slop of bran, it being the
best food for the animal while diseased.
Take half a pint of honey, one table spoonful of borax, and one
quart of strong sage tea. Mix them well together; then take a stick
and tie a soft rag to the end of it, dip it in the mixture, and wash
the tongue, gums and mouth well; the more frequent the better, at
least every two hours. Sweet milk in the tea will do no harm, or
a little nitre may occasionally be put in it with good effect. Be
particular in keeping the mouth clean and nursing the horse with
care.
The pulse and appearance of the blood must govern as to the
necessity of bleeding more than once.
_The Arabian Horse_.
This noble animal, which lately arrived in the ship Horatio, has
been sold for _four thousand dollars_, to Messrs. Allison and Van
Ranst, and has been conveyed to Long Island.
_Wild Horse of the West._
The horse of the Columbia River will rank with the finest of his
species in the known world. His size is fifteen or sixteen hands,
even in a state of nature, unprovided with food or shelter by the
hands of man. His form exhibits much bone and muscle, but not
the mass of flesh which is found on the fat European horse.--His
limbs are clean and slender; the neck arched and rising; the hoofs
round and hard; and the nostrils wide and thin. He is equally
distinguished for speed and bottom. He runs rapidly, and for a
long time; rivalling, in this respect, all that we have heard of
the English hunting horses. In other respects--in the docility of
his nature, in his capacity to sustain hunger and hardship, in his
powers to provide food for himself and his master, he is wholly
unrivalled. He is readily trained to the business of his master's
life, that of hunting, and pursues the game with all the keenness of
the dog, and with equal sagacity and more success. He will run down
the deer in the _prairies_, with or without his master on his back,
and, when overtaken, will hold it with his teeth. When rode after
game he needs no guiding of the bridle to direct him. He will pursue
a drove of buffaloes, and, coming up with them, will stop one by
biting him with his teeth. The animal bitten, immediately wheels to
defend himself with his horns; the horse wheels at the same instant
to avoid it; and at this moment, when the side of the buffalo is
presented, the Indian lets fly an arrow, which often passes entirely
through his body. The wounded animal always turns out of the drove
to lay down and die. The horse and his rider pursue the gang to make
fresh slaughter. Another horse trained to a second part of the game,
with other Indians, take the trail of the wounded buffalo, which is
butchered and carried into camp. These things seem incredibel; but
we have them upon the authority of Lewis and Clarke, and a great
number of traders who have been upon the Columbia river since the
time of their discovery; some of whom are now in this town.
The capacity of this horse to sustain fatigue, and to provide
food for himself, is equally astonishing. He is galloped all day,
sometimes 80 or 90 miles in the space of 10 or 12 hours, and is then
left to shift for himself during the night. In the spring, summer
and autumn, he finds no difficulty; the short and sweet grass of
that country gives him an abundant and nutricious repast. In the
winter, and towards the mountains, where the snow is several feet
deep, his unerring instinct tells him where to search; he scrapes
away the snow with his hoof till he comes to the ground, and rooting
there with his nose, finds wherewith of moss and grass to sustain
his life. On the borders of creeks and rivers he feeds on the boughs
of willows, and other soft wood, which his master has sometimes the
kindness to fell for him with a hatchet.
This fine animal is found on the banks of the Columbia, in latitude
46, in the great plain which lies on the borders of this river,
between the upper and lower range of mountains. His origin is traced
to Mexico, thence to Spain, thence to the North of Africa, where the
Arabian barb is found in all the perfection of his species. His fine
form, his generous spirit, and his noble qualities, are preserved
upon the Columbia river; and certainly it is worthy the experiment
to endeavour to transplant him into other parts of the United
States. Many citizens have attempted to do so; but have always been
robbed by the Indians of the Rocky Mountains. Lewis and Clarke
procured 73, said by Gov. Clark to be the most beautiful collection
of horses that he has ever seen together before or since; but the
whole number was stolen from them by Indians, who followed their
trail, and never ceased their operations until they had carried off
the last.
[_St. Louis Inquirer._
JAMES WATT.
(Ascribed to an eminent writer.)
Death is still busy in our high places; and it is with great pain
that we find ourselves called upon, so soon after the loss of Mr.
Playfair, to record the decease of another of our illustrious
countrymen, and one to whom mankind has been still more largely
indebted. Mr. James Watt, the great improver of the steam-engine,
died on the 25th ult. at his seat of Heathfield, near Birmingham, in
the 84th year of his age.
This name, fortunately, needs no commemoration of ours; for he that
bore it survived to see it crowned with undisputable and unenvied
honours; and many generations will probably pass away before it
shall have "gathered all its fame." We have said that Mr. Watt was
the great _improver_ of the steam-engine; but, in truth, as to
all that is admirable in its structure, or vast in its utility,
he should rather be described as its _inventor_. It was by his
inventions that its action was so regulated as to make it capable of
being applied to the finest and most delicate manufactures, and its
power so increased as to set weight and solidity at defiance. By his
admirable contrivances, it has become a thing stupendous alike for
its force and its flexibility; for the prodigious power which it can
exert, and the ease and precision, and ductility, with which they
can be varied, distributed, and applied. The trunk of an elephant
that can pick up a pin or rend an oak is nothing to it. It can
engrave a seal, and crush masses of obdurate metal like wax before
it, draw out, without breaking, a thread as fine as a gossamer, and
lift up a ship of war like a bauble in the air. It can embroider
muslin and forge anchors, cut steel into ribbands, and impel loaded
vessels against the fury of the winds and waves.
It would be difficult to estimate the value of the benefits which
these inventions have conferred upon the country. There is no
branch of industry that has not been indebted to them; and in all
the most material, they have not only widened most magnificently
the field of its exertions, but multiplied a thousand fold the
amount of its productions. It is our improved steam-engine which
now enables us to pay the interest of our debt, and to maintain
the arduous struggle in which we are still engaged, with the skill
and capital of countries less oppressed with taxation. But these
are poor and narrow views of its importance. It has increased
indefinitely the mass of human comforts and enjoyments, and rendered
cheap and accessible all over the world the materials of wealth and
prosperity. It has armed the feeble hand of man, in short, with a
power to which no limits can be assigned, completed the dominion of
mind over the most refractory qualities of matter, and laid a sure
foundation for all those future miracles of mechanic power, which
are to aid and reward the labours of after generations. It is to the
genius of one man too that all this is mainly owing; and certainly
no man ever before bestowed such a gift on his kind. The blessing
is not only universal, but unbounded; and the fabled inventors of
the plough and the loom, who were deified by the erring gratitude
of their rude contemporaries, conferred less important benefits on
mankind than the inventor of our present steam-engine.