Wonderful Growth and Resources of the United States.
THE following summary of the leading facts in the report of the American Delegate to the International Statistical Congress, at Berlin—Hon. S. B. Ruggles—is worthy of the widest circulation, and will at once greatly and interest the reader: During the last 60 years, while the population of France has increased but 37 per cent., and that of England 121 per cent. (Prussia increasing 79 per cent. in 45 years), the increase of the United States has been 593 per cent. The food-producing Western States, embracing an area of 282,134,688 acres, form, says the report, "an immense natural garden, in a salubrious and desirable portion of the temperate zone, into which the swelling stream of population from the older Atlantic States and from Europe has steadily flowed during the last decade, increasing its previous population from 5,403,595, to 8,957,690, an accession of 3,554,095 inhabitants, gained by the peaceful conquest of nature—fully equal to the population of Silesia, which cost Frederick the Great the seven years' war, and exceeding that of Scotland, the subject of struggle for centuries. "The rapid influx of population into this group of States increased the quantity of the 'improved' land, thereby meaning farms more or less cultivated, within their limits, from 26,680,261 acres in 1850 to 51,826,395 in 1860, but leaving a residue yet to be improved of 230,308,293 acres. The area of 25,146,054 acres thus taken in ten years from the prairie and the forest is equal to seven-eighths of the arable area of England, stated by its political economists to be 28,000,000 of acres. "The area embraced in the residue will permit a similar operation to be repeated eight times successively, plainly demonstrating the capacity of this group of States to expand their present population of 8,957,690 to at least 30,000,000, if not 40,000,000, of inhabitants without inconvenience. "The effects of this influx of population in increasing the pecuniary wealth, as well as the agricultural products, of the States in question, are signally manifest in the census. The assessed value of their real and personal property ascended from $1,116,000,000 in 1850, to $3,926,000,000 in 1860, showing a clear increase of $2,810,000,000. We can best measure this rapid and enormous accession of wealth by comparing it with an object which all nations value, the commercial marine. The commercial tunnage of the United States in 1840 was 2,180,764 tuns; in 1850 was 3,535,404 tuns; in 1860 was 5,358,808 tuns. "At $50 per ton, which is a full estimate, the whole pecuniary value of the 5,358,808 tuns, embracing all our commercial fleets on the oceans, and the lakes, and the rivers, and numbering nearly 30,000 vessels, would be but $267,940,000; whereas the increase in the pecuniary value of the States under consideration, in each year of the last decade, was $681,000,000. Five years' increase would purchase every commercial vessel in the Christian world." The capacity of these States for the production of vegetable and animal food is dwelt upon by Mr. Ruggles with much force. He says: "In the last decade their cereal products increased from 309,950,295 bushels, to 558,000,000 bushels, considerably exceeding the whole cereal product of England, and nearly if not quite equal to that of France. In the same period the swine, who play a very important part in consuming the large surplus of Indian corn, increased in number from 8,536,182, to 11,039,352, and the cattle from 4,373,712, to 7,204,810. Thanks to steam and the railway, the herds of cattle which feed on the meadows of the Upper Mississippi, are now carried in four days through 18 degrees of longitude, to the slaughter-houses of the Atlantic." "It is difficult to furnish any visible or adequate measure for a mass of cereals so enormous as 558,000,000 of bushels. About one-fifth of the whole descends the chain of lakes, on which 1,300 vessels are constantly employed in the season of navigation. About one-seventh of the whole finds its way to the ocean through the Erie Canal, which has been once enlarged for the purpose of passing vessels of 200 tons, and is now under survey by the State of New York for a second enlargement, to pass vessels of 500 tons. The vessels called canal-boats, now navigating the canal, exceed 5,000 in number, and if placed in a line would be more than 80 miles in length. ". . . . "A general famine is now impossible, for America, if necessary, can feed Europe for centuries to come. Let the statesman and philanthropist ponder well the magnitude of the fact, and all its far-reaching consequences—political, social and moral—in the increased industry, the increased happiness, and the assured peace of the world." In regard to the metalliferous deposits of the country, Mr. Ruggles presents some interesting statistics, and concludes with the following paragraph: "From the documents and other evidences now before the International Statistical Congress, it must be apparent that the metalliferous regions of the United States of America are destined, sooner or later, to add materially to the supply of the precious metals, and thereby to affect the currency of the world, especially if taken in connection with the capacity of the auriferous regions of Russia, Australia, and British America, and the possibility of increased activity in the mines of Mexico." The concluding reference, in this passage, to the possibility of increased activity in the mines of Mexico, created a sensation among the French delegates to the Congress, who subsequently took occasion to disclaim for France any intention of occupying Mexico permanently.