INDUSTRIAL RESOURCES, ETC., OF THE SOUTHERN AND WESTERN STATES: EMBRACING A VIEW OF THEIR COMMERCE, AGRICULTURE, MANUFACTURES, INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS; Together with HISTORICAL AND STATISTICAL SKETCHES OF THE DIFFERENT STATES AND CITIES OF WITH AN APPENDIX. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. I. BY J. D. B. DE BOW, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, ETC., IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LOUISIANA. PUBLISHED AT THE OFFICE OF DE BOW'S REVIEW, MERCHANTS' EXCHANGE, NEW-ORLEANS ; 79 JOHN STREET, NEW-YORK; AND EAST BAY AND BROAD STREETS, CHARLESTON. 1852. 233.e 128. PREFACE. THE Volumes which are here presented to the public, will be found to embrace a vast amount of valuable information in regard to the practical and industrial interests of the country, alike interesting to the merchant and the planter, the manufacturer, the scholar, and the statesman. Upon all the subjects of Southern life, manners, institutions, and progress, the material is copious and accurate, and has been collected during many years of active researches in the editorial conduct of one of the most widely circulated Journals in the Union. The articles upon SLAVERY, SLAVE LAWS, and PRODUCTIONS, are from the ablest pens-entirely exhaust the subject, and are worthy the study of the statist and philosopher. Such a study and understanding of the subject, in all its bearings, will do more than all the political essays in the world, to restore peace and harmony between the different sections of our wide and growing country. Though the aim of the volumes has been to furnish, for the first time, A COMPLETE VIEW OF THE INDUSTRY, RESOURCES, and WEALTH OF THE SOUTH, with as full and elaborate statistics of the great and growing WEST, in the same particulars, as could be obtained, other papers and articles have been added upon the wealth and resources of the North, of the Union, of South and British America, of Mexico, the West India Islands, etc., carefully prepared, and of much practical interest. Whatever deficiences exist in the minuteness or recentness of the materials of the text, if not corrected, as will generally be done in the appendices of the volumes, will be supplied or corrected in the monthly issues of the work, above referred to, which will at all times furnish the latest and most reliable data. J. D. B. DE Bow. New-Orleans, Nov. 1, 1852. |