kept. In Maine, 755,889 tons of hay were made, and there were 385,115 head of cattle and horses to feed. This is a ratio of nearly two tons per head. In Illinois, 601,952 tons of hay were made, but 1,190,264 head of cattle were kept, or rather more than half a ton per head. In Alabama, 32,685 tons of hay were made, and 915,911 head of cattle kept, or about one ton to thirty head of cattle. In the aggregate, the hay crop of the country and the number of cattle kept was as follows:

This crop of hay, therefore, is a tax upon the labour of the Northern farmer, proportioned to the number of cattle he seeks to winter, and the rigour of the winter he has to provide for. To count this expense among the advantages of free labour is certainly a very fallacious mode of convincing the labourer of its blessings, and would leave the inference that free labour in Maine is much more profitable than in other free States. The advantages of the southern climate are, that not only is natural fodder more abundant,

enabling the same land to support more cattle, but the labour which at the North is applied to making that fodder available, is at the South applied to other productions. The labour which at the North will give 100,000,000 lbs. of hay will, at the South, not being needed for that purpose, give 100,000,000 lbs. of cotton, while the cattle are feeding themselves. It is for this, among other reasons, that the aggregate productions of the South are so much more per head than at the North and West. The chief reason is, however, that the labour at the South is collective, while the free labour at the West depends upon its own resources, and is not able to hire the needful help in sowing and harvest seasons. Improvements in machinery have been a great help in that respect, enabling the farmer to get more into, and more off the ground, than his unassisted labour could effect.

Again, the enormous traffic in Southern goods that passes through the hands of traders in the North, all of whom draw a profit in transitu can hardly be set against the country which furnishes it as a reason of inferiority. Its action upon the financial dealings of the North is stupendous.

The produce and the bills drawn against foreign shipments form the credits against which the Southern banks draw, and these credits form an important

item of deposits in all the Northern banks, but particularly in those of New York City, where the "balance due banks" swells from $17,000,000 to frequently $35,000,000 in the summer, when the crops are mostly realised. The vast movement of produce also gives premiums to the Northern insurance companies, whose swelling dividends and premium shares have been so tempting of late. If the South produces this vast wealth, she does little of her own transportation, banking, insuring, brokerage, but pays liberally on those accounts to the Northern capital employed in those occupations. Those who visit the North in the summer months crowd the hotels and watering-places, and scatter the proceeds of Southern labour broadcast among shopkeepers and tradespeople in return for manufactured articles.

In the last few years of speculative excitement at the West, where such floods of bonds have been sent to New York for negotiation, the presence of the proceeds of Southern crops lying in the New York banks, and by them used to sustain the stock-market, has been a great aid in the negotiation of those Western credits which were applied to the construction of railroads. That large expenditure reflected upon the Western trade, pro

ducing an unusual demand for goods, which disappeared when the railroad expenditure ceased. A very considerable portion of the capital created at the South was applied to the consumption of Western produce, since the thousands of men who were employed in building railroads at the West caused a large local demand for that produce on one hand, while they increased the demand for goods on the other. There has, doubtless, been a large amount expended for railroad construction at the South, but this has not been speculative. We shall, in a future chapter, see that although there are as many miles of railroad in operation at the South as at the West, they have cost hardly more than half the money per mile, and their influence in developing local resources has been immense. We shall see that more than 20 per cent. of Western railroad obligations is dishonoured, while none of the Southern roads have failed to pay. The reason is, the superior cheapness of the latter. It is also a peculiar feature of the Southern roads, that their stocks and liabilities are nearly all owned at home. The dividends and interest do not therefore form a drain upon Southern resources; while at the West that drain has reached a very serious extent, and must lead to the breaking up of numerous companies.

The manufactures of the North have not afforded much surplus for export. They were bred up under the protective system, avowedly because they could not compete with the English manufacturer in the market; and it was not to be expected that they could, under such circumstances, do so in a third market. The greatest increase that has taken place in manufactures has been in cotton goods, and these have increased in the proportion in which, as we have seen in a former chapter, the progress of manufactures at the South has occupied the home market. The South afford the material for that manufacture. The exports of breadstuffs and provisions are also due to the South, since but for the quantities of these which are sent North to feed the Eastern States, little or no Western produce could be spared for Europe, even at high prices. In this respect the West is situated like the English West Indies. There is prolific land enough to raise abundance for export, but no labour. The introduction and use of labour-saving machines alone enables the West to export at all. The use of these requires more capital than the agriculturalists generally possess; but with time, no doubt, they will increase.