But we shall not make the calculation at what we have found to be the average value per ton throughout the country. What rate, then, shall be agreed upon as a basis of comparison between the value of the hay crop of the North and that of the South, and as a means of testing the truth of our declaration--that the former exceeds the aggregate value of all the cotton, tobacco, rice, hay and hemp produced in the fifteen slave States? Suppose we take $13,08-1/3--just half the average value--as the multiplier in this arithmetical exercise. This we can well afford to do; indeed, we might reduce the amount per ton to much less than half the average value, and still have a large margin left for triumphant demonstration. It is not our purpose, however, to make an overwhelming display of the incomparable greatness of the free States. In estimating the value of the various agricultural products of the two great sections of the country, we have been guided by prices emanating from the Bureau of Agriculture in Washington; and in a catalogue of those prices now before us, we perceive that the average value of hay throughout the nation is supposed to be not more than half a cent per pound--$11.20 per ton--which, as we have seen above, is considerably less than half the present market value;--and this, too, in the face of the fact that prices generally rule higher than they do just now. It will be admitted on all sides, however, that the prices fixed upon by the Bureau of Agriculture, taken as a whole, are as fair for one section of the country as for the other, and that we cannot blamelessly deviate from them in one particular without deviating from them in another. Eleven dollars and twenty cents ($11.20) per ton shall therefore be the price; and, notwithstanding these greatly reduced figures, we now renew, with an addendum, our declaration and promise, that--_We can prove, and we shall now proceed to prove, that the annual hay crop of the free States is worth considerably more in dollars and cents than all the cotton, tobacco, rice, hay, hemp and cane sugar annually produced in the fifteen slave States_. HAY CROP OF THE FREE STATES--1850. 12,690,982 tons _a_ 11,20 $142,138,998 SUNDRY PRODUCTS OF THE SLAVE STATES--1850. Cotton 2,445,779 bales _a_ 32,00 $78,264,928 Tobacco 185,023,906 lbs. " 10 18,502,390 Rice (rough) 215,313,497 lbs. " 4 8,612,539 Hay 1,137,784 tons " 11,20 12,743,180 Hemp 34,673 tons " 112,00 3,883,376 Cane Sugar 237,133,000 lbs. " 7 16,599,310 ------------ $138,605,723 RECAPITULATION.