RECENT AND FUTURE GROWTH OF MANUFACTURES.

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in 1860, and $118,000,000 in 1870. Development, begun along the Ohio, has already reached the northern latitudes, the facilities and material there are unrivaled, and, having fully started, the Northwest will make great progress.

There was, therefore, a new start made in the Valley in manufacturing industry at the close of the war. When the census of 1870 was taken that fresh impulse had but fairly commenced. It may be justly concluded that the regular per cent of increase had not been reached in so short a time; for the few previous years had been only a portion of the period of beginnings in many industries destined to colossal development. No data sufficiently reliable and extended have been attainable since to furnish an accurate measure of the later speed of progress, but they will be supplied by the census of 1880; yet, the indications of the summaries furnished by commerce, by the export of the products of different branches of industry, and various manuals of trade, indicate the full realization of a very reasonable expectation of immense development up to, and in some cases after, the financial disasters of 1873. There is also much reason to suppose that the arrest of activity in various lines of manufacture in the East favored a change of location to more desirable points in the West and South; or a considerable amount of transfer to the advantage of the Valley; particularly in those branches which had nothing to hope from foreign commerce in the near future, but bore important relations to the whole country. To these a central location was desirable and the middle Mississippi region alone could furnish it.

It was this relation of the Valley that rendered the result of the war in preserving and strengthening the Union even more important to it than to other sections. The wide relations, constantly growing in magnitude, and the severe competition of business reduced profit to an extremely small margin. A central position most convenient to material and to the largest number of customers often made the difference

between success and failure, or, at least, threatened to have that effect.

An entirely free system of trade relations between all sections of the country favored the interests of all in a high degree; but most of all, that which had the most numerous relations the central Valley. It must become, to a large extent, the common ground for economical exchanges, and the theatre of the most varied activities aside from its natural capacities for valuable production. It had, therefore, an eminent interest in unity and harmony.

The specialties of the East and the West, of the manufac turing and mining sections, made them its best customers, the largest buyers of its surplus food products, and profit might often depend on the cheapest and freest transfer. As it was the real center, capital from other regions flowed to it, a certain share of the industries most peculiar to other regions would be transferred to it from motives of convenience, and it would assume pre-eminence from its position as well as from its resources. This tendency is likely to continue and gather strength as time passes.

CHAPTER IX.

CULTIVATED AREAS AND FARM VALUES IN THE NEW ERA.

The brilliant progress secured to the Valley from the close of the war had commenced with the second year of that struggle, when the first line of Confederate defence had been broken. The loyal part of the Union no longer doubted the ultimate result; the issues of bonds and legal tenders of the Government served the purpose of a vast capital supplied to the business of the North; and the States above the Ohio River commenced a new career of remarkable prosperity. In all the free States a new impulse had been given to manufactures and trade, railways were organized or extended, cities grew apace, workshops sprung up and business of most kinds became unusually active.

The eastern States extended their agriculture under the stimulus of high prices, and by favor of improved methods, excellent fertilizers and machinery increased results with a smaller corps of laborers; but their best lands had long been occupied and the growth of agricultural products became, from year to year, less adequate to the supply of a non-agricultural population that was growing so much more rapidly. The greater supply required was obtained chiefly in the Valley and on the Pacific coast. In the East the vigorous and ambitious sons of the farmer were drawn to the cities by the favorable openings offered to industry and enterprise through the factory, the workshop, and trade. A fortunate venture, a few years of diligence, or a government contract, often produced a fortune; while the farm promised, at best, moderate gains to persevering toil.

The fertile Valley, however, gave more generous promise, lent itself more readily to the use of machinery, and fur

nished large returns to small investments. Railroads penetrated already through and through its most fertile sections, and bore its exhaustless abundance, at comparatively cheap rates, to all the villages and towns of the manufacturing East as well as to the great commercial centers. The war, the growth of cities, the new activity everywhere, helped to build up the agriculture of the West.

The increase of the Valley, as a whole, in its acreage of improved lands in farms, between 1860 and 1870, was but 28,000,000; but the 90,000,000 acres of 1860 included the lands of the southern Valley, which failed to show as largely in the census of 1870 as in that of 1860, in cultivated land, by 39,000,000 acres. This loss, and its natural gain had there been no war, would probably have amounted, at least, to eighty million acres, which must be added to the gain as it appears in the census to show the real progress of the Northwest. The value of farm lands in the Valley amounted, in 1860, to three thousand, seven hundred million dollars, in 1870 this value had advanced to five thousand, four hundred millions; while those values in Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas and Tennessee had fallen off, in 1870, from the amount given in 1860 four hundred and eighty-five millions. Their united increase, added to the greater increase of Missouri and Kentucky had there been no war, should have been at least a thousand million dollars. The southern Valley may be fairly estimated to have lost in agricultural values, as a result of the war-in direct waste and failure of natural increase-to the amount of two thousand million dollars.

The actual gain of the whole country in the value of farms. was two thousand, six hundred million dollars; of which one thousand, seven hundred millions was in the northern Valley. The absolute gain, however, ascertained from the statistics of the several States and Territories of the Northwest with Missouri, Kentucky West Virginia and Western Pennsylva

GAIN IN AGRICULTURAL VALUES AND IMPLEMENTS.

441

nia was about two thousand, five hundred million dollars. As the entire value of farms in the United States, by the census of 1870, was $9,200,000,000, the gain of the upper Valley, during this decade covering the years of an immense and wasteful war, was more than one fourth of that vast amount. This advance was made in a disturbed period and at long distances from the great markets, while about half a million of the more effective farmers were withdrawn from their labors for nearly half the time, and one half of these were killed, disabled by wounds, or broken in health. This sufficiently indicates the astonishing capacity of the Valley for agricultural progress. Railways and farm machinery supplied its losses and carried it triumphantly over every obstacle. The values lost in the South were more than replaced in the North.

The gain of the whole country in the value of farming implements and machinery during this decade was one hundred ten million dollars, seventy millions of which was in the Valley, although the losses in this respect, in the southern Valley, were so great during the war that in 1870, the values of 1860 had not been replaced by twenty-five million dollars. There was, therefore, an absolute gain in the value of farm appliances in the upper Valley of nearly one hundred million dollars-much more than one fourth of the entire value of those articles in the United States in 1860, which then amounted to the value of three hundred and thirty-six million dollars. This investment, much of which was in labor-saving machinery, explains the great material progress in agricultural values during a period of changes so great and trying to the country. In many cases it enabled one man to accomplish the work of ten and produce a corresponding increase of income, although, necessarily, a part of the additional income must be spent in the purchase of these instruments of labor. But by their means the supplies and waste of war, the increasing amount required by the growth