fruits and wine. The production of strawberries is immense-over 100 bushels are sold daily in the markets. But it is especially famous for its trade in pork, bacon and lard. The number of hogs packed in Cincinnati, during the past season, is 475,000.

We present a table, from the Cincinnati Gazette, of the operations in the three leading articles of provisions during the last two years

The St. Louis Republican furnishes the following statement of the number of hogs packed in the West during the season of 1847-8. The numbers are only given as an aggregate.

There are several small towns not embraced in the tables, which will probably swell the total to 1,500,000.

New Orleans is the great outlet for the trade of the western rivers. Although the receipts of sugar, molasses, hemp, and cotton for the year 1847, do not equal those of 1846, still the value of the products received at New Orleans from the interior, during the past year, exceeds anything of the kind in any previous year, by many millions of dollars.

In 1846 the receipts of sugar

were

molasses "(
hemp

186,650 hogsheads. 9,000,000 galls.

14,873 bales. 785,324 pigs. 1,041,393 bales.

The annexed table exhibits the receipts at New Orleans for the year ending September 1st, 1847.

Commerce of New Orleans-Value of Receipts from the Interior.

The growth of different sections of the United States is thus stated:
Increase of the Eastern States (in 10 years) 16 per cent.

Do.
Do.

Do.

Middle ፡፡

Western ((

N. Western"

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In the Northwest and West, then, lie the great growth of the United States, as compared with European nations, and in the Valley of the Mississippi, the

largest share of it.

ICE TRADE OF THE UNITED STATES.

The principal locality for cutting ice to be exported to foreign countries, is the Wenham Lake, near Boston. Boston and its suburbs, or town of Charlestown, near the lake, are the principal places of export.

There are in Boston about twenty companies engaged in transporting ice to the East and West Indies, New Orleans, South America and Europe, and to other warm climates. In 1830, the quantity of ice shipped from Charlestown to distant ports, amounted to 30,000 tons. No less than 50,000 tons were exported from Boston. The expense to the shippers was 12,340 dollars, or about a quarter of a dollar a ton. The average receipts were 3,570,000 dollars; a single firm in Boston freighted 101 vessels, and a cargo was sent to the East Indies, and exchanged pound for pound for cotton, which was sold at a profit in England. Saw-dust, for packing, is worth three dollars per cord. Formerly, ice sold in New Orleans for six cents per pound, and now sells for one cent per pound; but more money is made from the increased consumption at one cent than was made at six cents. The ice is sawed into blocks by a machine, and is packed on board the vessels with straw and hay, in thin deal boxes, air-tight. One company expended 7,000 dollars for hay alone. The annual crop of Wenham Lake ice is considered good at 200,000 tons, and can be cut and housed in about three weeks.

In September, 1833, the first cargo of ice from Boston, was discharged at Cal

cutta.

Since 1833, the trade has greatly increased; and, from the small beginning at Boston, has extended from other northern ports; and a considerable quantity is now annually shipped at New York.

From an interesting account of the ice cutting, published two or three years since, we make the following extract:

"The Wenham Lake is in an elevated position, and embosomed within hills. The lake has no inlet whatever; but is fed solely by springs which issue from the rocks at its bottom, a depth of 200 feet from its surface. This depth explains the great solidity of the ice formed upon the lake.

"The ice-houses are built of wood, with double walls; the space between which is filled with sawdust; thus interposing a medium that is nearly a non conductor of heat between the ice and external air: the consequence of which is, that the ice is not affected by the temperature of the external atmosphere. "The machinery employed for cutting the ice was invented for that purpose. It is worked by men and horses.

"From the time when the ice first forms, it is carefully kept free from snow, until it is thick enough to be cut; that process commences when the ice is a foot thick. A surface of some two acres is selected, which at that thickness will furnish about 2,000 tons; and a straight line is then drawn through its centre, from side to side, each way. A small hand-plough is pushed along one of these lines, until the groove is about three inches deep and a quarter of an inch in width, when the 'marker' is introduced. This implement is drawn by two horses, and makes two new grooves parallel with the first, twenty-one inches apart, the gauge remaining in the original groove. The marker is then shifted to the outside groove, and makes two more-having drawn these lines over the whole surface in one direction, marking all the ice out into squares of twenty-one inches. In the meantime, the 'plough,' drawn by a single horse, is following in these grooves, cutting the ice to the depth of six inches.

"One entire range of blocks is then sawn out, and the remainder are split off toward the opening thus made, with an iron bar. This bar is shaped like a spade, and of a wedge-like form.

"When it is dropped into the groove, the block splits off; a very slight blow

being sufficient to produce that effect, especially in cold weather. The labor of splitting is very light or otherwise, according to the temperature of the atmosphere. Platforms' or low tables of framework, are placed near the opening made in the ice, with iron slides extending into the water, and a man stands on each side of this slide, armed with an ice hook. With this hook the ice is caught, and by a sudden jerk, thrown up the slide' on to the 'platform.' In a cold day everything is speedily covered with ice by the freezing of the water on the platforms, slides, &c., and the enormous blocks of ice, weighing, some of them, more than two cwt., are hauled along these slippery surfaces as if they were without weight.

"Forty men and twelve horses will cut and stow away 400 tons a day; in favorable weather, 100 men are sometimes employed at once. When a thaw or a fall of rain occurs, it entirely unfits the ice for market, by rendering it opaque and porous, and occasionally snow is immediately followed by rain, and that again by frosts, forming snow ice, which is valueless, and must be removed by the plane.' The operation of planing is similar to that of cutting. "In addition to filling their ice-houses at the lake and in the large towns, the company fill a large number of private ice-houses during the winter-all the ice for these purposes being transported by railway. It will be easily believed, that the expense of providing tools, building houses, furnishing labor, and constructing and keeping up the railway, is very great; but the traffic is so extensive, and the management of trade so good, that the ice can be furnished, even in England, at a very trifling cost.

"Extensive ice-houses, in London and at Liverpool, have been constructed of stone, &c. Though transported in the heat of summer, it is not much reduced in bulk. The masses of ice are so large, that a small surface only is presented to atmospheric action in proportion to their weight, and therefore do not suffer from their exposure to it, as the smaller and thinner fragments do, which are obtained in our own or other warmer climates. It appears, also, that ice frozen upon very deep water, is more hard and solid than ice of the same thickness obtained from shallow water."

TOBACCO.

The growth and enormous consumption of a plant prepared not as a product of use and nourishment, but as a stimulant, and which was not known in Europe three centuries ago, is remarkable.

"In the city of New York alone, the consumption of cigars is computed at 10,000 dollars a day-a sum greater than that which the inhabitants pay for their daily bread; and in the whole country, the annual consumption of tobacco is estimated at 100,000,000 lbs., being seven pounds to every man, woman, and child, at an annual cost to the consumer of 20,000,000 dollars.

"In 1840, it was ascertained by a committee appointed to procure and report statistical information on the subject, that about 1,500,000 persons were engaged in the manufacture and cultivation of tobacco in the United States; 1,000,000 of whom were in the states of Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. Allowing the population of the whole country to be 17,000,000, it will be seen that nearly one-tenth are in some way engaged in the cultivation or manufacture of this article. The value of the export during that year was nearly 10,000,000 dollars."-(McGregor.)

Notwithstanding the variety of the soil in the United States tobacco is produced in most of the states. In Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, MissisVOL. I.—MAY, 1848.

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