It is also gratifying to note the evidences of
 improvement in some of the most important agri-
 cultural operations, proving that our farmers are
 fully in sympathy with the progressive spirit of
 the age, and not behind their fellow citizens
 engaged in other industrial occupations. .

 The increasing annual products of agriculture in
 our highly-favored country, and the hay and grain
 crops in particular, furnish striking illustrations
 of the close interdependence and connection of all
 branches of the national industry. Without the
 improvements in ploughs and other implements of
 tillage which have been multiplied to an incredible
 extent, and are now apparently to culminate in the
 steam plough, the vast wheat and corn crops of those
 fertile plains could not probably be raised. But
 were it possible to produce wheat upon the scale
 that it is now raised, much of the profit and not a
 little of the produce would be lost were the farmer
 compelled to wait upon the slow process of the
 sickle, the cradle, and the hand-rake for securing
 it when ripe. The reaping machine, the harvester,
 and the machines for threshing, winnowing, and
 cleaning his wheat for the market have become
 quite indispensable to every grower.(8)

 Manufacturing, if anything was changing even more

rapidly than was agriculture.

 The returns of MANUFACTURES exhibit a most grat-
 ifying increase, and present at the same time an
 imposing view of the magnitude to which this
 branch of the national industry has attained
 within the last decennium.

 The total value of domestic manufactures, (including
 fisheries and the products of the mines,) according
 to the Census of 1850, was $1,019,106,616. The
 product of the same branches for the year ending
 June 1, 1860, as already ascertained in part and
 carefully estimated for the remainder, will reach
 an aggregate value of nineteen hundred millions of
 dollars ($1,900,000,000). This result exhibits
 an increase of more than eighty-six (86) percentum
 in ten years!(9)


 Ibid., pp. 81-82.

 9Ibid., p. 59.