feet from the ground and carefully planted and watered. In about three months shoots, large enough to be budded, will grow out. The buds are taken from sweet trees and carefully inserted into the young shoots, just as peach trees are budded at the North. It is common for trees to bear the sweet orange in eighteen months from the budding. If the sour trees are selected from the hammock of good size, (and they can be found of all sizes,) in three years they will be competent to bear a thousand oranges each, and will go on, every year increasing in size and production.

This culture is well adapted to persons of small capital, whose health requires a residence in Florida. A suitable piece of land is easily obtained, on which provision can be easily raised, and an extensive grove established, at a very moderate expense. But to farmers and planters this culture presents also advantages over those of any other Southern State; for without interfering, at all, with their agricultural operation they can, gradually, and without the outlay of a dollar, plant an orange grove, that may ultimately yield more than all their other productions.

The longevity of the orange tree is another thing which invests it with a more permanent character than common fruit trees. It lives and flourishes to a very advanced age. There are orange trees now living, in the city of Rome, that are known to be more than three hundred years old! So that an orange grove, when once established, will not only last a man's life time, but become a valuable inheritance for his children.

COMMERCE OF NFW YORK.

The following statistics of the commerce of New York for the first quarter of the current year, are calculated, as we believe, to sustain the opinions expressed in the leading article of the present number. The Editor of the Merchants' Magazine, to whom we are indebted for this article, remarks:

"The business of the Port of New York continues to increase beyond all precedent, and some are seriously alarmed as each month's returns swell the aggregate expansion. There is less cause to fear, however, in this flow of prosperity when we consider that nearly all branches of business have received a corresponding impulse. The buoyancy has not been confined to real estate or to stocks alone; the imports of merchandise, about which many are so fearful, have not increased in proportion to the exports; and the expansion of the currency has been, not for speculative purposes, but to meet the wants of increased regular business, and has been based on a large increase of specie capital. The increased imports, either for the last month, or the quarter ending

1st of April, are not made up, as many seem to suppose, chiefly of dry goods, the increase in other merchandise being full as large in proportion, as will be seen by the following comparative state

ment:

IMPORTS AT NEW YORK IN MARCH.

1851.

1850.

1849.

Dutiable merchandise..... $11,719,579 $8,149,821 $7,928,470

Free merchandise....... Specie, including California gold dust......

Total........

Of which were dry goods

982,530 1,364,182 591,849

2,241,348 907,634 130,895

$14,943,457 $10,421,637 $8,651,214 5,648,544 4,101,670 3,990,802

Deduct, now, the specie, of which the receipts for the last month include $1,970,843 from California, and we have an increase in all the other imports over the corresponding month of last year of $3,188,106, of which only $1,546,874 were in dry goods, and the remainder, $1,641,232, in general merchandise, showing the imports to be as equally divided as possible. A similar state of things is found by examining the exhibit for the quarter:

Free.

Specie.

Total.

IMPORTS AT NEW YORK FOR JANUARY, FEBRUARY AND MARCH. Total, exclusive Of which were Dutiable. of specie. dry goods. 1851..$35,793,788 $3,128,216 $5,875,501 $44,797.505 $38,922,004 $21,989,327 1850.. 27,320,278 2,464,445 1,922,878 31,707.601 29.784,723 17,057,136 1849.. 24,019,966 1,402,500 209,918 25,632,384 25,422,466 15,095,102 This shows that the increase is regularly and nearly equally divided between foreign fabrics and general merchandise.

The exports for the month show a marked increase over the corresponding period of previous years:

1851....

1850....

1849..

1848.....

EXPORTS AT NEW YORK FOR MARCH.

Domestic

Specie.

Total.

produce. Foreign. ..$3,976,198 $345,615 $2,368,861 $5.690,674 2,865,634 270,310 172,087 3,308,031 2,687,803 339,591 86,506 3,104,900

1847....

1846.........

The shipments for the last month of domestic produce show an increase of more than 30 per cent. over the same period of last year. The exports for the quarter are also larger than for any previous year if we except the year of "famine" abroad:EXPORTS FOR JANUARY, FEBRUARY, AND MARCH.

These statements of the imports and exports would convey an erroneous impression in regard to the actual state of our foreign trade but for some explanatory remarks. The figures represent the value and not the quantity of the receipts and shipments. Almost every description of foreign dry goods has advanced abroad, since this time last year, nearly enough to account for the difference in the total entries, without implying an excess of quantity. This is partially true, also, of the exports, as many of our staples have been entered at a higher rate. It may not be uninteresting, in this connection, to exhibit the comparative quantity of some of the principal articles of produce which have left this port during the first quarter of this and the previous year :

This

The exports of specie have been large, but bear no comparison with the actual receipts. In the latter item our entries at the Custom-house are seriously at fault, as the larger portion of the California gold dust is brought in the hands of passengers. statement was at first received with incredulity, and the large capitals displayed in the newspaper extras on the arrival of each steamer from the Isthmus, were looked upon by the more cautious as mere traps to encourage emigration. But the returns from the Mint not only confirm these reports, but actually go beyond them; the deposits for the quarter being double the nominal imports. The following will exhibit the movement in specie for the quarter:Exports from this port...... $1,266,281 $1,007,689 $2,368,861 $4,642,831 Imports from abroad. 210.455 164,031 644,991 Nominal imports from California. 2,478,239 781,428 5,230,510 Receipts of gold dust at the Mint 4,940,000 2,860,000 2,634,000 Receipts of other bullion....... 60,000 147,700 45,400 253,100

......

...... ......

270,505 1,970,843

10,434,000

Here we have in our nominal imports from California but $5,230,510, while the actual receipts at the Mint, acknowledged from that source, amount to $10,434,000. Considerable amounts in gold dust have also been included in our exports, so that the quarter's receipts from California at this port alone are upwards of ten and a half millions.

Rhode Island

30,374,684

7.922

STATEMENT EXHIBITING A CONDENSED VIEW OF THE TONNAGE OF THE SEVERAL DISTRICTS OF THE UNITED STATES ON THE 30TH OF JUNE, 1850.