ntry's labor seems to seek New York by inevitable
channels. Products run down to the managing, disbursing, and balancing
hand of New York as naturally as the thoughts of a man run down to the
hand which must embody them. From the north it takes tribute through the
Hudson River. This magnificent water-course, permitting the ascent of
the largest ships for a hundred miles, and of river-craft for fifty
miles farther, has upon its eastern side a country averaging about
thirty miles in width to the Taconic range, consisting chiefly of the
richest grazing, grain, and orchard land in the Atlantic States. Above
the Highlands, the west side of the river becomes a fertile, though
narrower and more broken agricultural tract; and at the head of
navigation, the Hudson opens into another valley of exhaustless
fertility,--that of the Mohawk,--coming eastward from the centre of the
State.

Thus, independent of her system of railroads, New York City possesses
uninterrupted natural connection with the interior of the State, whence
a new system of communications is given off by the Lakes to the extreme
west and north of our whole territory.

To the northeast, New York extends her relations by the sheltered avenue
of Long Island Sound,--alluring through a strait of comparatively smooth
water not only the agricultural products which seek export along a
double water-front of two hundred miles, but the larger results of that
colossal manufacturing system on which is based the prosperity of New
England. To a great part of this class of values Long Island Sound
stands like a weir emptying into the net of New York.

The maritime position of New York makes her as easy an entrepot for
Southern as for foreign products; and in any case her share in our
Northern national commerce gives her the control of all trade which must
pay the North a balance of exchange.

The Hudson, the Sound, and the line of Southern coasting traffic are the
three main radii of supply which meet in New York. Another important
district paying its chief subsidy to New York is drained by the Delaware
River, and this great avenue is reached with ease from the metropolis by
a direct natural route across the Jersey level. Though unavailable to
New York as a navigable conduit, it still offers a means of penetrating
to the southern counties of the State, and a passage to the Far West, of
which New York capital has been prompt to avail itself by the Erie
Railroad, with its Atlant