e aware of the immense
number of countries lying in the equatorial and tropical ranges of the
torrid zone, many of which, from the value and importance of their
indigenous productions, have already attracted considerable notice,
and to which still more attention will be directed by European nations
as the value of their various products becomes more extensively known.

The homeward commerce which we carry on with our numerous Colonies,
with our Indian Possessions, and with foreign countries, is
principally in articles furnished by the vegetable kingdom, such as
the cereal grains, wheat, rice, maize, &c.; vegetables used in
preparing dietetic drinks and distilled liquors, as tea, coffee,
cacao, and the sugar cane, grapes, &c.; spices and condiments; drugs;
dyes and tanning substances, obtained from the bark, leaves, fruit,
and roots of various herbs and trees; the expressed or distilled oils
of different plants; fruits in the green, dried, or preserved state;
starches obtained from the roots or trunks of many farinaceous plants;
fibrous substances used for cordage, matting, and clothing, as cotton,
Indian hemp, flax, coco-nut coir, plantain and pine-apple fibre;
timber and fancy woods. These substances, in the aggregate, form at
least nine-tenths in value of the whole imports of this country. There
are also several products of the animal kingdom dependent on vegetable
culture, which might be brought into this category, such as silk and
cochineal. Very few of these products of the vegetable kingdom come to
us in any other than an unmanufactured state; they are shipped to this
country as the chief emporium and factory of the world, either for
re-export or to be prepared for consumption by the millions to whom
they furnish employment, sustenance, and articles of clothing.

It is a wise ordination of Providence, that the different nations of
the earth are as it were mutually dependent on each other for many of
the necessaries and luxuries of life, and the means of progress and
civilization. Commerce is thus extended, the various arts and
manufactures improved by comparison and competition; and the acres yet
untilled in distant lands hold out strong inducements for immigration,
their climate and products affording health, freedom, and independence
to the over-tasked and heavily taxed artisan and agriculturist of
Europe. Although the systems of tropical agriculture, generally
pursued, are peculiar and effective, yet there is