tively small. The number of practical agriculturists taken from their occupations is deemed too few for their influence to have been very perceptible, and the demand of food may not have been materially lessened on this account. It cannot, we believe, be viewed as fairly counterbalancing other and more influential elements, such as those for instance, which are comprised in the variations of the seasons, the improvements in husbandry, and greater foreign demand.

The year opened with unusual promise of activity in business at home and abroad; a prospect which has proved remarkably correspondent to the actual result. Expectation of greater demands from abroad, with a prosperous state of things at home, authorized, it was felt, more than usual effort to meet the requisition of almost starving nations, and a multiplied population of our own. Besides the increased amount already devoted to the winter grains in the previous autumn, the spring and summer seeding, it seems, was considerably larger than usual.

Taking the whole extent of the country, the season of the previous year, (1846,) was favorable; in the large grain districts the crops were abundant, and this, again, may have had a tendency to stimulate agricultural industry, particularly as the outlet for the surplus appeared to be widened. Farmers are proverbially influenced not a little by the effect of one or more favorable or unpropitious seasons. They feel encouraged, when they have been successful, to go on and extend yet more their enterprizes; but if balked in their expectations by untimely weather and lessened harvests, they shrink back, and scarcely feel willing to repeat their experiment. Happily, this year there had been and yet existed that combination and co-operation of causes which dispelled their fears, and emboldened them to plunge the plough yet deeper and farther into and through the soil; and their most sanguine expectations have met, it is believed-looking at the collective aggregate-with a proportionate reward of their labor.

Whether the stream of surplus products will flow wider, or be narrowed down again to its former dimensions, time must determine; but from the best information we can gather, we should be inclined to hazard the belief, that though subject to occasional interruption, the progress of demand upon our agricultural resources will be steady, and with increased needs to be supplied. Facts that we are yearly accumulating seem to justify this expectation.

Unlike many other countries, especially those of the old world, the whole of our population comparatively enjoy the means of livelihood, and are fed from the plenty that abounds in our land. Vast numbers of their poor and starving have sought a refuge among us, and many, too, better provided, have chosen their habitation on the rich and fertile lands of the west and north-west, that are there outspread to invite their residence. Taken in the aggregate, these, while they have added to our population, have probably also increased the amount of products raised

among us.

The emigration from Europe has been far beyond what it ever was before. By the returns of the collectors of five of the principal ports, to the Secretary of State, the number of persons of this character arriving during the year ending Sept. 30, 1847, is stated to be 233,798, an in

crease of not less than 82,134 in one year. It is very probable that the addition of others at the smaller ports, and those entering our country by the way of Canada, would swell the aggregate to not less than 300,000, and possibly more. The following table presents the comparison, in this respect, of the last two years:

The ratio for the months since Sept. 30, for the whole time has probably increased rather than diminished, though we notice that, as to the port of New York, it is stated there has been a slight falling off. In that port, however, in one of the months since that at which the enumeration above given closed, we have seen it stated the persons thus arriving amounted to about 17,000.

A portion of this emigration no doubt still lingers in the Atlantic cities, and numbers are employed on the various rail roads and works of public improvement still in progress. But the vastly greater number direct their way to the west. A single fact or two shows the influx of population from this source in the north-western states. In general the current flows on unobserved, but now and then some incident transpires which calls the attention to its ever-widening tide. In the catastrophes which have occurred on the lakes and rivers of the west, it is found that a large proportion of the passengers moving westward are foreign immigrants. Thus, in the case of the steamer Phoenix, lost by fire recently, out of three hundred prssengers, not less than about two hundred are said to have belonged to this class. This was the fact, too, in the wreck of the Talisman, on her way up the Mississippi. A very large proportion of the passengers were Germans. The Norwegians alone in Wisconsin are said to number not less than 15,000, and many thousands more are expected soon; 8000 more are stated to occupy the northern portions of Illinois. From 50,000 to 100,000 Germans, it has been mentioned, on what appears to be good authority, are preparing to embark for the United States in the course of another year.

Thousands of acres, and some of the best kind, are in every successive stage of improvement, and every year takes from them a fair proportion and adds their products to the great aggregate of the harvests.This, in the more recently constituted States, furnishes a large counterbalance to the effect of the disastrous season, and is one reason why, notwithstanding the apparent necessity of reduction in our estimates, we have sometimes put down an actual increase. The sale of the public lands during the past year, as appears by returns to the Land Office, amounted to 2,526,600 acres, principally in the States of Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, Iowa, Wisconsin.

INDIANA PUBLIC DEBT.

From the New York Journal of Commerce.

AN agent of the State of Indiana is now paying, in this city, the semiannual interest of two per cent. on one half of the original amount of her debt, to such of her creditors as have discharged or will discharge the State from the other half of the principal, as also the interest due on said discharged half of the principal.

The law of Indiana, under which the payment of interest is making on the preferred half of the principal debt,-provides further, "That the State will make no provision whatever to pay either principal or interest, on any internal improvement bond or bonds, until the holder or holders thereof shall first surrender said bonds to the Agent of the State, and shall have received in lieu thereof, certificates of stock as provided in the first section of the Act."

The first section alluded to in this quotation, requires, as first above stated, that the holders of the bonds of the State shall give them up, and receive in lieu thereof, two certificates, each for an equal moiety of the principal of said bonds; one of which certificates the State promises to pay the interest thereon from and after the 1st of January, 1847, and finally to pay the principal of said half; and that the holder shall look only to the revenues of the Wabash and Erie Canal for the principal and interest of the other certificate.

To obtain the promise of payment of this preferred half of the principal, and also of one half of the interest due on said preferred half principal, the law of Indiana requires, first, that the creditors of the State shall subscribe to and complete the Wabash and Erie Canal, in an amount notless than eight hundred thousand dollars. Without this amount of subscription, nothing could be received by any one. With it, those who subscribed, could receive a new promise and the "solemn, irrevocable pledge of the faith of the State" for one half the principal and less than one half the interest due, "for the whole of which they held the same solemn and irrevocable pledge of faith as is contained in the new pro

mise."

There is in this Act, a palpable violation of the Constitution of the United States, which says, "No States shall pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts."

There is no probability whatever that the subscribers to this forced loan will ever receive from the revenue of the Canal the half of the original debt of the State, from which they have been compelled to discharge the State. But whether there is a probability of it or not, the violation of the Constitution is equally great in either case; as the "obligation of the contract" is impaired, and one half of the debt is absolutely annulled, by the act of the State forcing the creditors to accept those terms or nothing.

It is hoped and believed that sober second thought will induce the State of Indiana, now the fifth in rank of population and wealth in our