men; and whether in the east or in the west you always find Germans among the best and most numer ous of the small farmers. That is their special voca tion. They are also very numerous among small shopkeepers and traders. German Jews are now be coming very prominent in the States. Of late years there has been a great emigration of people from the Scandinavian countries: Swedes and Norwegians, and people from Finland and some parts of Russia. They confine themselves to the extreme Northern States, pushing on to the far north-west; but they are admirable settlers, and a great source of increase and improvement to the States to which they go. In several parts of the United States there is a considerable old French element which contributes in many respects to the brightness of the population and to certain branches of enterprise and industry.

The native Indians have never come to any good; I am afraid they have never been very well managed in the States, not so well as in Canada; at all events they are gradually pushed off the soil; only a few still remain as pensioners, and they cannot be accounted as a considerable element in the population. On the other hand, the negro race, imported as slaves, is now very numerous and very prominent, forming about half the population of many of the Southern States. We have heard a great many prophecies of the terrible things which would happen when these poor helpless children were set free. Mr. Anthony Trollope, whom I have mentioned, is one of the most lugubrious of the prophets. They were to die out

or be sent back to Africa, or to be a perpetual incu bus to the white people among whom they lived. I have been agreeably surprised to find how all this has been falsified. Far from dying out they are now prospering and increasing. They produce that immense crop of cotton, larger far than any produced in slave times, which supplies the mills of the whole world. They are capital workers at railways and other works in the southern climates not fitted for white men. They do almost as much work as Irishmen. I was told that many of them are becoming small independent farmers; and altogether instead of being a burden they are becoming an important class of American citizens. They are already zealous Christians. They have adopted the ways and habits of the white men. They have the rights of citizens, and are rapidly being educated.

I have alluded to the New Englanders of the North-Eastern States, and said that very many of them have pushed further west. It is in consequence of this emigration that the great North-Western States are very distinctly marked by a New England or Yankee character. Undoubtedly the least fertile portion of the United States is New England. The only wonder is how the first settlers should ever have settled there; but having taken root there they were rewarded for their industry by the acquisition of the great countries to the north-west. The State of New York is a great State; but its agricultural citizens have abundant room within their own State; and it is rather the City of New York than the State

that is so prominent in American politics and commerce. That city is, in fact, situated in a position extraordinarily favourable to commerce, and has far outdone all rivals. It has a magnificent harbour, with a tide just enough to keep it clean and sweet, and not so much as to render necessary dry docks and other elaborate appliances which we require. Ships of the largest burden lie alongside the shore for miles, and have facilities such as are not found in our harbours. Then in the latitude of New York there is a natural cleft in the Alleghany Mountainsthe only cleft which exists from the Gulf of Mexico to Northern Canada. Through that cleft there is a splendid waterway, the Hudson River, and railways have been carried alongside of it. Thus it is that New York has a natural advantage which no other port possesses. In the country districts of the New York State, as in the city, there are still considerable remains of the old Dutch element, but nearly Anglicised; the other settlers on the land of all classes, both British and foreign, constitute a very large and prosperous population of small farmers. Pennsylvania, again, is a very great State, originally founded by English Quakers, but in which the German element is now very large. It is, perhaps, the most advanced State in the Union, in regard to its manufactures and the character of its agriculture. Pennsylvania, too, has very largely colonised the Western States. Virginia is an old State, but not so prosperous. I am afraid most of the Englishmen who have taken up land there have not made a particularly

good thing of it, except those in the hilly country to the west, where splendid cattle are produced. But Virginia is, as it were, the mother of the Southern States. From Virginia people have very largely gone southwards to colonise the higher and cooler parts of the Carolinas, Georgia, and the other Southern States; so that in these States, while, as I have said, about half the population are negroes, the other half are very decent and respectable white people, principally small farmers. There has not been much white immigration there of late years, but in the last century a good many Scotchmen went there, especially Highlanders.

THE PRINCIPAL PRODUCTS OF THE SOIL.

If you look at the map you will see the great varieties of latitude and of physical configuration which enable the United States to produce so many things, and so largely to supply the world with food and the materials for clothing. Round the Southern seaboard, from North Carolina to Texas, and up the Mississippi to Arkansas and Missouri, we have a belt of States producing by far the largest portion of the cotton-supply of Europe. On the lowlands of the Carolinas and Georgia rice of fine quality is grown ; and near the mouths of the Mississippi there are great sugar plantations; but these latter articles only thrive under protection, and are not exported. There has lately been a good deal of talk and fuss about the production of sugar from maize-stalks and sorghum,

is

a Chinese millet. Many farmers cultivate patches of the latter; but so far as I could learn, this sugar not likely to come to much-only a sort of molasses for domestic use is ordinarily obtained.

The American tobacco is principally grown in the Central States; still to a large extent in Virginia, but even more in Kentucky and Tennessee, and farther west, and now a good deal in Pennsylvania also.

There is some very fine grazing ground in the Central States, Kentucky, Tennessee, and West Virginia. The blue grass of Kentucky is famous ; though it is not blue at all, but green, and very like our common natural grass. In the South an EastIndian grass, known as 'Dhoop,' or Sun-grass, has been introduced, and proves very productive as a permanent grass. In most of the Northern States timothy grass, rye grass, and clover are largely sown; and in some parts further south lucerne is a productive crop.

Efforts are being made to reintroduce silk in the South, but it has been tried before, and I doubt if it will come to much. The tea-plant grows very well, but it requires too much labour to be a practical culture in the States. There is too much frost for coffee. The Southerners are trying to grow Bengal jute, but nothing has come of these experiments yet. They used to cultivate indigo, but it has quite gone out; Bengal has beaten them in that. And they have not attempted to rival our Indian opium. Attempts are made to produce wine, but I think it is only in California that vineyards are very successful.