public revenue. We do not interfere in the agitation of the question about protecting duties. We believe the cheapness of produce and labour and improved machinery and labour-saving processes, will occasion manufactures to prosper and increase, and thus to support the growers of produce and the owners of the land, beyond even our free and valuable trade. To this, the duties laid for revenue, for defence, and for the encouragement of agriculture, will materially contribute; such as the impost upon East India cotton goods, of 27¹⁄₂ to 62¹⁄₂ and even 80 and 90 per cent., as made entirely of foreign cotton, rival to our cotton, flax, hemp, wool and silk.

FOR THE RURAL MAGAZINE.

EXTRACTED FROM THE MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONS OF C. E.

On the increase of the Domestic Sugar of the United States.

It would seem to be a great acquisition to our country, if we could produce from our own soil whatever sugar might be necessary for our own consumption, without having recourse to foreign Islands or nations; it will therefore be satisfactory, I apprehend, to all lovers of their country to find that we are already making rapid advances, as will appear to any person who attentively weighs the following items of information, collected at different times from our public newspapers; from whence it may be inferred, that before many years have expired a supply sufficient for our own use will be furnished within our own territories.

1812, January 10—Albert Gallatin, Esq. then Secretary of the Treasury, informed the Committee of Ways and Means, in a letter, that the Western States were then entirely supplied with salt of domestic produce; and that they consumed annually seven millions of pounds of sugar, made from the Sugar Maple tree, which, says he, is nearly all they use. Now, if in 1812 the Western States produced 7,000,000 pounds of sugar from such trees, it is probable that in 1820, they would produce not less than 10,000,000 in a year. If to this we add what is yielded in the states of Vermont, New York, and Pennsylvania, it seems likely that the whole amount of such sugar, now made annually in the United States, is not less than 15 millions of pounds.

By a publication in a late newspaper, it appears that there were exported from New Orleans, in six months preceding 1st May, 1820, 15,652 hogsheads of sugar; all this no doubt was of their own growth and produced from the Sugar Cane. I am informed by a dealer in sugar, that the sugar hogsheads of New Orleans do not average less than 1000 pounds to each hogshead, making, in six months, 15,652,000 pounds, and in the whole year probably 20,000,000 pounds; total of sugar from the Sugar tree and Cane, 35,000,000 pounds annually. This exhibits a very rapid increase in the amount of sugar made, as I think Secretary Gallatin, in an older communication, not 20 years ago, stated that New Orleans at that time exported only about 2,000,000 of pounds of sugar.

The supply now furnished as above will probably be greatly augmented in future years, from the same sources.

Add to these the prospect of sugar to be raised or produced from the Cane in Carolina and Georgia, as may be collected from the following items, selected from the newspapers also, viz.

In 1814, Thomas Spalding made on Sapelo Island, in lat. 31¹⁄₂, as much as 95 hogsheads of excellent sugar, equal to Jamaica, from Canes he had planted there.

In 1815, Major Butler, on his plantation in South Carolina, produced by the labour of seventeen hands, off of 85 acres of land, 140,000 pounds of sugar, and 75 hogsheads of molasses.

Also, John M'Queen, off of 18 acres, had 20,000 Canes per acre, worked by five or six hands; 5,000 Canes, the produce of one quarter of an acre, yielded 600 gallons of juice, which boiled down made 672 pounds sugar, and may lose 50 pounds in draining, leaving 622 pounds; or per acre, of sugar, 2,488 pounds.

Again, as to the Sugar Maple tree, or as some say it is more properly styled, "The Sugar Tree;" in 1815, 64,000 pounds of sugar were made in the town of Plattsburgh, Clinton county, New York. In 1818, 22,000 pounds were made by 80 families, in one township in Bradford county, Pennsylvania, which is on an average 275 pounds to each family.

There can be little doubt but that arrangements might be made by some of the merchants of Philadelphia, to procure a regular supply of the best Sugar Tree sugar, for the accommodation of such persons as are religiously scrupulous of using sugar made from the Cane, which is produced by the labour of slaves.

I have seen Maple sugar with which sufficient pains had been taken in the making and draining, that was as handsome in its appearance and as well tasted and good in every respect, I thought, as any West India sugar I had ever seen, and when refined equal to any loaf sugar. Of which, I remember H. D. of this city, merchant, since deceased, about the year 1789, sent some boxes as a present to general Washington, then president of the United States, residing in New York.

Near twenty years ago, when little domestic sugar was made in the United States, I computed from the duties paid, that the whole consumption of sugar annually in our country, then, was about ten pounds for every individual, on an average. There are now, I suppose, ten millions of inhabitants in the United States, who, at the above ratio, would consume annually 100,000,000 pounds sugar, of which we now make 35,000,000 lbs. per annum, as above calculated.

Last winter there was an account in some of the newspapers, that a person in Virginia had obtained a patent for making sugar from wheat, rye or Indian corn; that it was good sugar, and that each bushel yielded fifteen pounds. I have heard no more of it, but if well founded, this would be the greatest acquisition of all, because, in every part of our country, sugar, without the use of slaves, could be made in the greatest abundance, and might beneficially supplant the practice of making so much pernicious whiskey, in places remote from sea-ports.

From what has been now stated, there seems to be scarce room for a doubt, but that in a few years, we can be supplied from domestic sources with all the sugar we shall want for our own consumption.

By an account of Joseph Cooper's native Grape Vine, published in your Rural Magazine, No. 7, page 247 as little doubt can exist but that with proper care by the farmers, our country may also be supplied with good wine, sufficient for our own use, and probably with more profit to the growers, than they can find by pursuing the old beaten track of adhering almost entirely to grain which is now so low in price.

The southern and western parts of our territories would, probably, with proper encouragement, yield all the coffee and silk we might be able to consume.

All these, and many other objects of culture, are proper for the attention, recommendation and encouragement of state legislatures, of agricultural societies, and of all patriotic members of society. Thus we may become, in time, really independent; and from the extent of our country, and the variety of its climates, come to consider our own dominions as a world of our own, producing nearly all that is necessary for the use of man, as Sir George Staunton, in his Embassy, says the Chinese consider their vast extensive empire. This consideration, probably, makes them in a great measure, regardless of foreign trade.

C. E.

FOR THE RURAL MAGAZINE.

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR FARMERS ON POOR LAND.

It is believed, that many productions possess a delicacy in their qualities, when