The lecturer began by a statement of the complications which arose in Virginia over the proportion of land to be devoted to corn and tobacco. This commenced before there was a Pilgrim on Massachusetts soil. Greed for gain led to making the corn crop subservient to the tobacco. The result was a period of scarcity, and, when the Virginia settlers made a demand upon the Chicka-hominy Indians for corn, they were refused so contemptuously that a fight ensued, in which a number of Indians were killed and others captured. The whites gained the victory, but awakened Indian hate which culminated in a bloody retribution years afterwards.

On the other hand, within a few years after the landing of the Pilgrims, they had corn to spare, and the neighboring tribes "came to depend upon the men of Plymouth for their supply." Thus the want of corn in Virginia was a cause of war, while in Massachusetts the superabundance was a bond of peace. In Virginia it became necessary to limit the production of tobacco by law. In 1623 tobacco was a legal tender in Virginia. When, in 1692, William and Mary College received its royal charter, it was enacted that the College should receive one penny a pound on all the tobacco exported from Virginia and Maryland, towards its support. When the Church of England was recognized as the Stale denomination in Maryland, a portion of its revenue came from the same source. This was in 1698. Corn was cultivated in Peru prior even to the Inca rule, and also in Mexico and New Mexico at the time of the invasions of Cortez and Coronado. It proved a source of revenue to the Aztec throne, and entered into the religion of the country, where to ensure a good crop human sacrifices were offered.

The public granaries of the country were drawn upon by Cortez, so that the very food of the inhabitants was made to assist in their subjugation.

The last census gave the annual yield of corn and rye combined in this country at 1,774,783,271 bushels. The data derived from the same source led the lecturer to estimate that one of the products of these grains - whiskey - gave us about 107,000 insane, criminals and paupers. It would be interesting to know how much of those grains was required to blight so much manhood, and to determine whether, if used in some other way, the same quantity would not have yielded a better return to the country* The above estimate only included those under restraint, and not those of the unnumbered host who were still at liberty to beat their wives and starve their children. The lecturer thought a tariff on Canadian lumber a mistake, as, without a proportionate benefit to us, it placed a premium on the destruction of our own supply.

Rice among the cereals flourished in grounds where none of the others would grow. Hence it utilized large areas in India, China and Japan, and in our own country, which would otherwise have been unproductive. Though containing less nitrogen than wheat, it has, nevertheless, been the almost exclusive food of some of the hardest worked and most enduring races on earth. It was introduced into our country in 1694 by a vessel from Madagascar, which put into Charleston in distress. One of the most valuable characteristics of this grain is its capacity for adapting itself to varying conditions of soil and climate.

Food plants from their abundance may lead to national and individual indolence, as in the Tropics. In such cases, the stimulus growing out of the demands which temperate regions make upon equatorial lands for their productions, is to the inhabitants of the latter, of inestimable importance. Accumulation of wealth by individuals, as well also as the science of political economy, are characteristic of temperate regions, and mainly of the North Temperate. These distinguishing features both grow, directly or indirectly, out of the need of preparing for times of non-production in times of production. Such an occasion can hardly arise under the Equator. Hence, while the tropics furnish the raw product for their own commerce, the capital, machinery and brains, which transport the product, come from the temperate part of the globe.