Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Tableaux of New Orleans / by Bennet Dowler. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)
9/48
![planter, the city is a great store-house for him, its inhabitants are but factors, agent?, commis- sion merchants, bankers ; he does Dot receivo for his cotton bales New Orleans fabrics, made of inc. The goods that he purchases, bo they cottons or woollens, ploughs or axes, hats or Shoes, are bu( the products of distant lauds. Iu selling and in buying, ho isalike dealing with agents, nol with producers. Tho commissions may remain with the former, bat the the chief profits go to the latter; that is, out of the city. This is the charmed circle. Tho Legislature cannot achantment, but the rolling of machinery, and tho smoke of workshops, can. Silenceis great. But a citizen of New Orleans can hardly avoid thinking aloud, as to the jealousy manife ted towards the city, in the enactments of the Legislature of Louisiana. Although an exclusively planting and agricultural interest is, in some degree, antagonistic to tho growth of large non-manufacturing cities, whose population consists of the non-producing classes, as agents, merchants, bankers, lawyers, doctors, and itinerant speculators j yet New , even in thiB.point of view, is destined to surpass all Southern cities, as in di climate, position, and natural advantages. Arts, trades, and manufactures, mo I anally stand Bide by side with commerce. During the Trench Revolution of 1789, there was an individual called the Tho Or. the Human Race. Such an orator might nave said, without arrogance, thai the human race has erred in concentrating itself too near the Ley circle! Go towards the Mm, to I bo southern valley's, where cl te itself becomes capital! But in what sense is climate capital 1 Political economists, who have tortured alllangu in order to give a satisfactory definition of capital, have omitted this element Capital is that portion of the material possessions of a country destined to be employed with a view to profit,—( Malthus.) Food, clothing, raw materia! ay to give efii cl to labor. (Ricardo.—Accumulation do valenrs soustraites a la consumption unproductive.—{Say) The sense in which climate is capital to 8 sity, a country, or an individual, will plaini d, not merely by words, but by facts and historical examples. Three a atui cattle, horses, and some ether domestic animals imported from Europe, i dfrom their owners, and wandered upon the plateaux, Llanos, and pampas of Amoi mull iplied wil houl human care, so as almost to cover plains sufficiently tants of Europe to dwell in without crowding. From the plains of « konoco to the Lais lof M.>i- racabo, M. Dupons reckoned that 1,200,000 oxen, 180,000horses, and90,000mules,wand large. In (Inito, asses multiplied and ran wild, so as to become a nuisance. In 27 years ai discovery of St. 1 lomingo, the cattle taken there from Europe, a few pair, had multiplied so that droves from moo to 8000 were not uncommon^ The same increase took place in Ne\i S [Mexico.] tn 1587, the number of hides exported from Si lone was 35,444, and from Vu Spain, 65 years after the taking of Mexico, 64,350. Hogs multiplied in the same manner.* (La/ell.) Bunos AyreS alone has three millions of cattle roaming without owners, whilst in Uruguay, man] estates among a total population of only 115,000. have each from 60,000 to 200,- 000. ( Macgregor.) The Llanosof Venezuela, on the Orinoco, have 2,400,000 horned 1,900,000 sheep, L00,000hogs. (Humboldt.) Now, these animal are,ex- al stock, the creations and gifts of the climate, as much as the luxuriant) i h they graze throughout the year, and constitute capital just as much fed upon artificial, instead of natural meadows, ami had been stabled and fed by man moi half of each year ol toprevenl them from perishing from cold and hunger. [( ult, perhaps impossible, for all the Northern nations of the world, with their unil I number of these animals, (as described above,) in a vigorous cli- mate. A climate that produces cattle, hogs, sheep, horses, grasses and the like, without human labor, can only be surpassed bj one th produces hats and shoes, garme bread. iead\ ' r u-e. mate is \ irtual food; which is estimated to yield 1000 pounds of nutriment on l,076square to maintain a family, (as Humboldt affirms,) by working very m rleans anJ Environs, that in tha Parish of Opelousas, 1 inbnl,, eir flocltt and herds by thousands. On one estate SO0O calve« were branded in the Spring ol](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21115680_0009.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
