Page:Memoir upon the negotiations between Spain and the United States of America which led to the treaty of 1819.djvu/57

47 or tillers, from negligence or impossibility, cease to cultivate it. The revenue, or general product, of land in the United States, must be calculated, therefore, with a proportionate allowance for these facts. I do not include in this calculation the rent, or price of tenanted granges and farms, which will make about a third of the general product of land in these States: let us allow this, then, to cover the deficit which must necessarily result, in the sum total, from the causes which I have mentioned, and we shall find that the product of land in this country cannot amount to much more than 200 millions of dollars. It is, however, the most important branch of national wealth. Three fourths of it is consumed in the country, and the balance exported.

The product of the woods, mines, and waters, of the United States, forms another branch of public wealth. The Americans obtain from their woods timber for ship building, and for other purposes, for which it is used in other countries; but the timber