In the Sing Sing, N. Y., state prison, average number of pri แ Sing Sing, N. Y., state prison for females, average Clinton county, N. Y., state prison, average number of New Jersey state prison, average number of prisoners 1614, 293, 16 In each of the prisons above mentioned, in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, one suicide is included among the deaths. In the prison at Sing Sing was the only epidemic in the prisons above named last year, in which 300 were sick with malignant dysentery, to which half the deaths were imputed. 6th. Insanity in Penitentiaries in 1848. In the Maine state prison, out of 684 prisoners, 2 were removed to the insane hospital, of whom one became insane during the year. In the Vermont state prison, out of 53 prisoners, none were removed to the insane hospital; one was insane, but it does not appear when he became insane. In the Massachusetts state prison, out of 284 prisoners, 2 were removed to the insane hospital; none became insane. In the Rhode Island state prison, out of 19 prisoners, none were removed; none became insane. In the Auburn, N. Y., state prison, out of 487 prisoners, 3 were removed to the insane hospital, and five others were wholly or partially insane. In the Sing Sing, N. Y., state prison, out of 646 prisoners, 7 were removed to the insane hospital, and one other was occasionally insane. In the Clinton county, N. Y., state prison, out of 163 prisoners, 1 was removed to the insane hospital, and no other case of insanity. In the New Jersey state prison, out of 1644 prisoners, none were removed to the insane hospital; none became insane; and one old case of insanity. In the new penitentiary in Philadelphia, out of 293 prisoners, 10 became insane during the year; 4 old cases died insane, and one insane before committed suicide. MECHANICAL INDUSTRY AND INVENTIVE GENIUS OF AMERICA. We make the following interesting extracts from a lecture lately delivered by Professor WALTER R. JOHNSON, of Washington, before the Maryland Insti tute. "The patent laws of the United States have now been in existence fifty-nine vears. From the commencement down to the 1st of January, 1849, the number of patents issued has been 16,208; and this number would doubtless have been much greater, had the laws continued as they were before 1836, when the system of examinations prior to the grant of letters patent was established. Under that system a large proportion of all the applications is now rejected; some for want of essential novelty, and others for want of suitable care and ability in preparing the required specifications and other documents. Notwithstanding this, it may be mentioned as a fact indicative of the high degree to which inventive genius is excited among us, that the number of patents granted in 1848 (exclusive of a few granted to foreigners) was 649. "To what subjects all this ingenuity has been devoted, and how it has been divided among the different branches of art, is an inquiry at once interesting and practical, and I will endeavour concisely to state the result. "1. Of the whole 16,208 patents issued, 1,966, or 12.03 per cent. have had for their object agriculture, its instruments and operations. This, as might have been anticipated from the vast interest and importance of that department of industry, is the largest class. "2. To the manufacture of fibrous and textile substances, including machines for preparing wool, cotton, silk, fur, and paper, 1,579 patented inventions, or 9.74 per cent. of the whole number, have been devoted. "3. For calorific purposes, comprising lamps, fire-places, stoves, grates, furnaces for heating buildings, cooking apparatus, and preparation of fuel, 1,479, or 9.12 per cent. of the whole number of patents have been granted. "4. To metallurgy, and the manufacture of metals and instruments therefor, 1,384 patents, or 8.54 per cent. of the whole number. "5. For chemical purposes, manufactures, and compounds, including medicines, dyeing, colour-making, distilling, soap and candle making, mortars, cements, &c., 1,051 patents, or 6.47 per cent. "6. For hydraulics and pneumatics, including water-wheels, wind-mills, and other implements operated on by air or water, or employed in the raising and delivery of fluids, 976 patents, or exactly 6.02 per cent. of the entire number have been granted. "7. For lumber working, including machines and tools for preparing and manufacturing, such as sawing, planing, mortising, shingle and stave, carpenters' and coopers' implements, 950 patents, or 5.86 per cent. "8. For household furniture, machines and implements for domestic purposes, including washing machines, bread and cracker machines, feather dressing, &c., 724 patents, or 4.46 per cent. of the whole. "9. For grinding mills and mill gearing, containing grain mills, mechanical movements, and horse-powers, &c., 686 patents, or 4.23 per cent. "10. For navigation and maritime implements, comprising all vessels for conveyance on water, their construction, rigging, and propulsion, divingdresses, and life-preservers, 615 patents-3.79 per cent. "11. Steam and gas engines, including boilers and furnaces therefor, 654 patents-4.03 per cent. "12. Civil engineering and architecture, comprising works on rail and common roads, bridges, canals, wharves, docks, rivers, weirs, dams, and other internal improvements, building roofs, &c., have had 596 patents-3.67 per cent. of the whole. 13. Leather manufactures, including tanning and dressing, making of boots, shoes, saddlery, and harness, 558 patents-3.44 per cent. "14. Land conveyance, comprising carriages, cars, and other vehicles used on roads, 558 patents-3.44 per cent. 15. Fine arts, polite and ornamental, including music, painting, sculpture, engraving, books, printing, binding, and jewelry, 475 patents-2.93 per cent. 16. Mechanical powers, viz., lever, screw, &c., as applied to pressing, weighing, raising, and moving weights, 402 patents-2.47 per cent. "17. Stone and clay manufactures, including machines for pottery, glass making, brick making, dressing and preparing stone, cements, and other building materials, 338 patents-2.08 per cent. "18. Wearing apparel, articles for the toilet, &c., including instruments for manufacturing them, 287 patents-1.77 per cent. 19. Mathematical instruments, philosophical, optical, clocks, chronometers, &c., 258 patents-1.59 per cent. "20. Surgical and medical instruments, including trusses, dental instruments, bathing apparatus, 253 patents-1.56 per cent. VOL. II.-JUNE, 1849. 28 "21. Warlike implements, fire-arms and parts thereof, including the manufacture of shot and gunpowder, 230 patents, or only 1.41 per cent. "22. And finally, a miscellaneous and very heterogeneous class, forbidding systematic arrangement, 182 patents, or 1.12 per cent. "Of all this varied multitude of objects towards which the inventive genius of America has for the last fifty-nine years been directed, it will be remarked that the first four classes, viz., agriculture, which yields food to man and beast; the manufacture of textile fibres, which affords clothing and various furniture; metallurgy, which supplies all the tools and implements of industry; and calorific processes, which give heat and light for the comfort and manifold uses of daily life, comprise two-fifths of the entire number of inventions which have been patented in the United States. "Another remark is, that though in this aggregate of all the patents issued, agriculture and textile fibres occupy the two highest places, yet when we compare shorter and more recent periods, as the last two years, for example, we find that metallurgy and calorific processes both had higher proportions of the entire number of patents issued during that period than either agriculture or the textile fibre class. The multitude of important discoveries of minerals and metals in our own country within that time has turned a vast amount of inventive power in that direction. One should not, therefore, be surprised to learn that there is at this moment a perfect rush of gold-washing machines in the patent office, all ultimately bound (like the rest of the world) to California. The great and constantly increasing consumption of coal may, in like manner, account for the large increase in late years of the calorific class of inventions. Another remark worthy of attention is the small number of inventions which have had in view the implements and materials of warfarea very significant fact which may serve to indicate that ours is, after all, essentially a peace-loving nation. "In respect to the distribution of the inventions now annually patented in the United States, a few facts may not be without interest. During the years 1847 and 1848, out of 1,165 patents granted, the state of New York received 381, or almost exactly 33 per cent. of the entire number; of these, the city of New York alone obtained 174, or 45 per cent, of those granted to the state, and 15 per cent. of all which were obtained in the whole Union. New York city is, therefore, doubtless the focus where inventive genius is concentrated and acting with the greatest intensity. "In the same two years Pennsylvania received 177 patents, or 15 per cent. of the whole number granted; and of those of the whole state, Philadelphia received 55, or 31 per cent. "In the same time Massachusetts obtained 141 patents, or 12 per cent. of those of the Union; and Boston had 54 of that number, or 31 per cent. of those given to the state. "Ohio obtained 82, Connecticut 72, and Maryland 33; of which last number Baltimore alone had 24, or 72 per cent., being a larger proportion of those of her state than that of any other city in the Union. "From this it appears that the three states of New York, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts have within the last two years contributed exactly 60 per cent., of all the patentable inventions of the country. And these three are the states in which mechanics' institutes and mechanics' fairs have been longest established; that of the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia having led the way in 1826. "In 1847 the total number of patents granted to the fifteen southern states was only 65; of which number Maryland received 13, or exactly one-fifth of the whole. "It is probably unnecessary to pursue the comparison. What has already been adduced is sufficient to show that where the mechanic arts and the practical sciences are in the greatest activity, there inventive genius is also in the highest degree stimulated and most successfully applied. "And let it not be imagined that all this activity of the inventive powers begins and ends with the production of some fanciful toy, or some vain and trivial change in old familiar things. If time allowed, we could recount multitudes of facts to show how much every department of art and industry has been indebted for its advancement to the inventions of our ingenious American mechanics. "American ingenuity alone has given us those improved implements of husbandry, without which more than three-fourths of the present immense productions of our corn-growing states could never have had an existence. Where were all the cotton fabrics of the world without the invention of Whitney? Where, without Fitch, and Rumsey, and Fulton, were the defiance alike of calms and storms, on the broad bosom of the ocean?" AGRICULTURE. I. SETTLEMENT AND CLEARING OF NEW LANDS. We commence a series of articles under our statistical head, on the subject of American agriculture, to be continued from time to time as our limits will permit. In pursuance of the plan of our work, we shall prosecute the subject for the sole purpose of exhibiting the advancement of society, and of enlightening the public mind by the presentation of facts. We have already given many important statistics for the especial use of the farmer, and we believe that the whole work embodies just such information as every intelligent farmer should desire to possess; for nothing can contribute so much to the elevation of the character of the agriculturist, to the dignity and usefulness of his profession, as a familiar acquaintance with those facts which make up the sum of human knowledge. Our object in the present article is to exhibit some of the first operations of the American farmer, in settling and subduing wild land; with a few preliminary remarks on the early state of agriculture in this country. As to the former depressed state of husbandry, and the progress of its improvements, we find some difference of opinion among the American writers of agriculture. "It is, indeed, a lamentable truth," says Mr. Watson, "that, for the most part, our knowledge and practice of agriculture at the close of the revolutionary war, were in a state of demi-barbarism, with some solitary exceptions. The labours, I may say, of only three agricultural societies in America, at that epoch, conducted by ardent patriots, by philosophers and gentlemen, in New York, Philadelphia and Boston, kept alive a spirit of inquiry, often resulting in useful and practical operations; and yet these measures did not reach the doors of practical farmers to any extent. Nor was their plan of organization calculated to infuse a spirit of emulation, which county or state should excel in the honourable strife of competition in discoveries and improvements, in drawing from the soil the greatest quantum of net profits within a given space; at the same time, keeping the land in an improving condition, in reference to its native vigour. These results, and the renovation of lands exhausted by the means of a barbarous course of husbandry, for nearly two centuries, are the cardinal points now in progression in old settled countries, stimulated by the influence of agricultural societies. Nor did their measures produce any essential or extensive effects in the improvement of the breeds of domestic animals; much less in exciting the rival efforts of the female portion of the community, in calling forth the active energies of our native resources in relation to household manufactures. The scene is now happily reversed in all directions. Perhaps there is no instance, in any age or country, where a whole nation has emerged, in so short a period, from such general depression, into such a rapid change in the several branches already alluded to; in some instances it has been like the work of magic." The early neglect of agriculture is traced to various causes. The first settlements were made along the shores of the ocean and bays, or on the banks of rivers. The population was scattered along the sea coast, where enterprise was directed, as the readier means of employment to the fisheries and navi gation. The cultivation of the soil was limited to the production of the necessaries of life. Agriculture did not generally attract industry, though it was found far more certain than other pursuits. The more immediately lucrative pursuits of trade and navigation, were preferred to the more enduring labour of cultivating the soil, and to the more distant time required to await its profits, or casualties. When we, however, consider the formidable and disheartening difficulties that the wilds of America have presented, and, in the remote districts of America, still present to the new settler, we are not surprised at the slow, but at the comparatively rapid progress of agriculture. It is curious and interesting to observe the progress which a new settler makes in clearing and cultivating a wood farm, from the time he commences in the forests until he has reclaimed a sufficient quantity of land to enable him to follow the mode of cultivation which is practised in the old agricultural countries. As this course is, with little variation, followed by all new settlers in every part of America, the following description, which we draw from observation, may be useful to those about to emigrate. The first object is to select the farm among such vacant lands as are most desirable, and, after obtaining the necessary tenure, the settler commences (the nearest inhabitants usually assisting him) by cutting down the trees on the site of his intended habitation, and those growing upon the ground immediately adjoining. This operation is performed with the axe, by cutting a notch on each side of the tree, about two feet above the ground, and rather more than half through on the side on which it is intended the tree should fall. The trees are all felled in the same direction; and, after lopping off the principal branches, cut into ten or fifteen feet lengths. On the spot on which his dwelling is to be erected, these junks are all rolled away, and the smaller parts carried off or burnt. The best time of the year for felling timber depends in a great measure on the season's being wet or dry. Many persons prefer the month of June, when the leaves are of full size. Then by spreading the leaves and brush over the ground, if there should be a very dry time next May, fire may be turned through and a crop of Indian corn and pumpkins may be raised. If what is called a good burn cannot be had in May, then some dry time in July or August may be chosen; aud after the land is cleared and repeated harrowings, wheat or rye and timothy are sown. The habitations which the new settlers first erect, are all nearly in the same style, and constructed in the rudest manner. Round logs from fifteen to twenty feet long, without the least dressing, are laid horizontally over each other, and notched at the corners to allow them to come along the walls within about an inch of each other. One is first laid on each side to begin the walls, then one at each end, and the building is thus raised by a succession of logs cross General Washington was a skilful agriculturist for his time-Buel, Livingston and Powell, have done much to improve the systems of cultivation in America-Very important auxiliaries in the great work have been the conductors of the Genesee Farmer, Agricul turist, Instructor, &c.; the authors of the Patent Office Reports, and the proceedings and exhibitions of agricultural societies by which an unusual stimulus has been communicated to the efforts of the farmer. |