113 Economic Advantages of the United States (1795)
The United States possess an advantage over most of the European kingdoms, for they are not only subject to the gradations from almost extreme heat to extreme cold but seem capable of supplying almost all the productions of the earth. We find even in the present half-tried state of the capacities of the different soils and climates a list of invaluable productions. In the southern latitudes, particularly the States of Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina rice much superior to that of Italy or the Levant is raised in very great quantities. It is expected that Virginia will add this article to her list of exports, as it is supposed a large body of swamp in her most eastern counties is capable of producing it. And mountain rice has been raised by way of experiment in the new country near the head of the Ohio [River].
Tobacco is a staple article of all the States from Georgia as far north as Maryland. Indigo of an excellent quality is produced by North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia. Cotton has been lately adopted as an article of culture in the southern States and as the prices of rice, tobacco, and indigo decline it must be very beneficial to the owners and purchasers of lands in that part of the Union. As the inhabitants increase very rapidly by emigration and the course of nature, it is certain they cannot procure wool from their own internal resources in sufficient quantities. The owners of cotton plantations may therefore expect a constant and great demand for this article as a substitute for wool, besides its ordinary uses for light goods. Tar, pitch, and turpentine are produced in immense quantities in North Carolina [and] are also produced in the southern parts of Jersey and more or less in all the States southward of that.
The wheat country of the United States lies in Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York, and the westernmost parts of Connecticut as also the western parts of the two Carolinas and probably of Georgia for their own use. The character of the American flour is so well known that it is unnecessary to say anything in commendation of it here. Hemp and flax are raised in very large quantities throughout the United States. Though sheep are bred in all parts of America, yet the most populous parts of the middle States and the eastern states which have been long settled and particularly the latter are the places where they thrive best. In the four eastern or New England states they form one of the greatest objects of the farmer’s attention and one of his surest sources of profit.
Horned or neat cattle are also bred in every part of the United States. In the western counties of Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia where they have an extensive range and mild winters without snows of any duration, they run at large and multiply very fast. But in the eastern states whose principal objects on the land have until lately been pasturage and grazing, cattle are very numerous indeed and universally fine. Cheese is of course most abundant in those states. Barley and oats are the productions of every state, though least cultivated to the southward. Virginia however is turning her attention to barley.
Masts, spars, staves, heading, boards, plank, scantling, and square timber are found in almost all the states. But New Hampshire and the adjoining province of Maine which is connected with Massachusetts are the two most plentiful scenes. The stock there seems almost inexhaustible. In New York they abound and in North Carolina and Georgia the pitch-pine plank, and scantling, and oak staves are excellent. Pot and pearl ashes have become very valuable articles to the landholders and merchants of the United States but their importance was unknown twenty years ago.
A grand dependence of the eastern states is their valuable fisheries; a detail of these is unnecessary. It is sufficient to say that with a small exception in favor of New York, the whole great sea fishery of the United States is carried on by New-England. And it is in a variety of ways highly beneficial to their landed and manufacturing interests.
Iron is abundant throughout the Union excepting New England and Delaware, though the former are not destitute of it and the latter can draw it as conveniently from the other States on the Delaware river as if it were in her own bowels. Virginia is the State most pregnant with minerals and fossils of any in the Union. Deer skins and a variety of furs are obtained by all the States from the Indian country either directly or through the medium of their neighbors. Hitherto they have been exported in large quantities but from the rapid progress of American manufactures that exportation must diminish.
The article of pork, so important in navigation and trade, merits particular notice. The plenty of mast or nuts of the oak and beech in some places and of Indian corn everywhere occasions it to be very fine and abundant. Two names among them are preeminent, Burlington and Connecticut. The first of which is generally given to the pork of Pennsylvania and the middle and northern parts of Jersey, the second is the quality of all the pork north of Jersey. It may be safely affirmed that they are fully equal to the pork of Ireland and Britany and much cheaper.
Cider can be produced with ease in considerable quantities from Virginia inclusive to the most northern states, as also in the western country of the Carolinas and Georgia. But New Jersey and New England have hitherto paid most attention to this drink. An exquisite brandy is distilled from the extensive peach orchards which grow upon the numerous rivers of the Chesapeake and in parts of Pennsylvania. Silk has been attempted with success in the southernmost states. But is not well suited to the nature of their laborers who, being blacks, are not careful or skillful. Rye is produced generally through all the states north of the Carolinas and in the western parts of the three southern states.
In addition to the above capital articles, the United States produce or contain flax-seed, spelts, lime-stone, alum, saltpeter, lead, copper, coal, free-stone, marble, stone for wares, potters’ clay, brick clay, a variety of ship-timber, shingles, holly, beech, poplar, curled maple, black walnut, wild cherry, and other woods suitable for cabinet-makers, shingles of cedar and cypress, myrtle-wax, bees-wax, butter, tallow, hides, leather, tanners’ bark, maple sugar, hops, mustard seed, potatoes and all the other principal vegetables, apples, and all the other principal fruits, clover and all the other principal grasses. On the subject of their productions it is only necessary to add that they must be numerous, diversified, and extremely valuable as the various parts of their country lie in the same latitude as Spain, Portugal, the middle and southern provinces of France, the fertile island of Sicily, and the greater part of Italy, European and Asiatic Turkey, and the kingdom of China which maintains by its own agriculture more people than any country in the world beside.
Connected with this, we may mention another advantage which the states possess: this is the ease with which the produce of one state may be conveyed by water to another with a very trivial addition of expense. There is in this respect a striking difference between the navigable waters of the United States and those of any country in the old world. The Elbe is the only river in Europe which will permit a sea vessel to sail up it for so great a length as seventy miles. The Hudson or North River between the states of New York and New Jersey is navigated by sea vessels one hundred and eighty miles from the ocean. The Delaware between Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the Delaware State, one hundred and sixty miles. The Potomac between Virginia and Maryland, three hundred miles. And there are several other rivers, bays, and sounds of extensive navigation far exceeding the great river Elbe. The inland boatable waters and lakes are equally numerous and great.
When we consider these and extend our ideas to the different canals already formed and still forming by which the most important rivers are or will be united, we may venture to assert that no country in Europe does or possibly can possess so completely the advantages of inland navigation. By this the extremes of the confederacy will become intimately united and acquainted with each other and each state will reap from the produce of the whole nearly the same advantage as though it possessed every resource within itself. Indeed, no doubt can by a reflecting mind be entertained but that the time is near when a communication by water will be opened with every part of the Union.
Source: William Winterbotham, An Historical, Geographical, Commercial, and Philosophical View of the American United States (1795) III, 287-293. https://archive.org/details/toldcontemporari03hartrich/page/66/mode/2up
