labor given to agriculture, there is a rapid augmentation in the corn and cotton yielded by the earth, accompanied by as rapid an improvement in the tastes of the consumers, and in their power to gratify them. With the fourth it is otherwise, and necessarily so. Without large increase in the quantity of corn and wool, there could be no employment for the improved machinery used in the work of transportation and conversion, and but little for the trader. Of what advantage would be increase in the number or power of ships, mills, railroads, or locomotives, did not the quantity of raw material extracted from the earth as rapidly augment? All are dependent on the men whose labors are given to developing the powers of the land thereby increasing the quantity of things to be transported, converted, and exchanged. Chemistry, as we know, treats of matter that is incapable of progress, and the particles of which it treats, combine in definite and unchanging proportions- the atmospheric air of the days of the Pharaohs having been, and that of the Alps or of the Himalaya now being, composed of the same elements as that by which the reader finds himself surrounded. Social science, on the contrary, treats of man in a state of progress from the condition of slave to nature, to that of becoming her master; and therefore is it, that there is a change of proportions accompanying the growth of population and wealth, and the increase of power to maintain commerce. With every step in the progress of change, society tends more and more to assume a form that is at once stable and beautiful-acquiring a broader base, with correspondent power of elevation, as here is shown. § 5. The view above presented of the proportions into which society tends naturally to divide itself, is either true or false. If the former, then must it be in accordance with what we see around us in respect to all the pursuits in which man is accustomed to be engaged, as there can be but a single law. Being untrue in regard to any one, so must it be in regard to all. That it is true everywhere, the reader may readily satisfy himself by looking at the movement in our Western settlements. Timber is there, generally, of little worth, because of its abundance; but lumber is very dear, because of the distance of the saw-mill. The consumption is, therefore, small, and the proportion borne by the persons engaged in felling trees is trivial, when compared with the number engaged in hauling them to the mill and converting them into lumber. In time, however, other and nearer mills are built, and the value of lumber declines, while that of man rises with corresponding increase in his power to obtain houses, and furniture with which to stock them. The demand for lumber increases, and more people now employ themselves in adding to the quantity of trees in market, while fewer are engaged in the works of transportation and conversion. Next, the planing machine comes-causing a further diminution in the difference between the raw material and the manufactured article—a further decrease in the quantity of labor required to intervene between the two- and a further addition to the value of trees, and to the number of persons employed in felling them. Coal and iron ore perhaps abound, but they are valueless, because of the distance of the furnace; while, for the same reason, iron is dear. The proportion of labor given to the transportation of iron is large; whereas, that given to the development of the powers of the earth is small; and, as a consequence, but little iron is used. In time, however, furnaces are erected in the neighborhood; and now much of both time and mind is applied to the augmentation of the quantity of raw material produced, with no increase, perhaps, in the quantity given to the works of transportation and conversion. Mineral lands then acquire value, but iron loses it the raw material and the manufactured article steadily approximating each other, with corresponding increase in the proportion of the labor given to the augmentation of quantity, and diminution in that applied to effecting changes of form and place. Utilities increase as values decline; and with every stage of that decline there is an increase in the value of man, and in his power of accumulation. What is true with regard to trees and lumber, coal, ore, and iron, must be equally so in reference to wool and cloth. Every improvement in the manufacture of cloth tends to augment the demand for wool-causing an increase in the quantity of human effort given to the work of cultivation, while diminishing the quantity given to conversion, and thus producing that change in the proportions of society to which attention has above been called. § 6. The changes above described are all of them but steps towards the great and ultimate object of obtaining larger supplies of food, clothing, and the thousand other commodities required for the maintenance and improvement of the condition of man, and for the development of his various faculties. To attain that end, he needs to make the earth labor for him-a process requiring a high degree of knowledge. Physics, geology, chemistry, meteorology, electricity, entomology, vegetable and animal physiology, and an intimate acquaintance with the habits of plants and animals, are all required for the composition of the skilful agriculturist of the man whose business it is, so to guide and direct the various forces of nature as to produce those vital changes to which we are indebted for an increase in the quantity of corn, wool, sugar, rice, cotton, and silk, susceptible of being transported or converted. Without such increase, population cannot grow, society cannot be formed, nor can commerce be maintained. Each helps, and is helped by, the other. As commerce grows, labor is economized, the intellectual faculties are stimulated, and mind is seen gradually taking the place of physical force. As mind is developed, man obtains a knowledge of natural laws — passing onward, through the more abstract physics, and through chemistry and physiology, to the highly concrete and special agriculture, last of all in its development, because requiring a previous acquaintance with so many of the earlier branches of science. That agriculture may become a science, it is indispensable that man always repay to the great bank from which he has drawn his food, the debt he thereby has contracted. The earth, as has been already said, gives nothing, but is ready to lend every thing-and when the debts are punctually repaid, each successive loan is made on a larger scale; but when the debtor fails in punctuality, his credit declines, and the loans are gradually diminished, until at length he is turned out from house and home. No truth in the whole range of science is more readily susceptible of proof, than that the community which limits itself to the exportation of raw produce must end by the exportation of men-and those men the slaves of nature, even when not actually bought and sold by their fellow-men. Jethro Tull introduced the drill, and recommended deep ploughing and thorough pulverization of the soil - doing - this, under the impression that the space which would be gained, combined with the more thorough tillage, would be found equivalent to manure; but experience soon taught him that the more he took from his land the poorer it became, and the less was the return to all his labor. Persistence in such a course would necessarily have produced dispersion of the people, with decline in the power of association in the development of individuality — and in the ability to maintain commerce; with constant deterioration of agriculture, and as constant decline in the local attraction required for resisting the gravitating tendencies of centralization. That such are its results, may now be seen in all the countries that export the products of the soil in their rudest state Portugal, Turkey, Ireland, India, the Carolinas, and even Ohio, and others of the Western States. Hence it is that men are now seen flying by thousands and tens of thousands from the lands of Georgia and Alabama - states that have so recently been settled. Dispersion brings with it, necessarily, an increase in the labor required for effecting the works of exchange and transportation, and a decrease in the quantity that can be given to production thus changing the proportions of society in a direction opposed to the advance of civilization. It brings, too, with it, a decline in the power of association, with corresponding increase in the quantity of physical and mental power that is wholly unemployed; and it is because of this unceasing waste that American agriculture continues in a state so rude. § 7. Of all the pursuits of man, agriculture is the one requiring the highest degree of knowledge; and yet is it the one that is most exposed to interference from men who live by virtue of the exercise of their powers of appropriation. Compelled to labor in the field, the farmer is liable, on occasion of every war, to see his crops destroyed-his cattle carried off-his house and his barn. reduced to ashes-and his family and himself obliged to seek for refuge within the city walls. The warrior-chief demands his services for the carrying on of wars against distant people, whom it is desired to reduce to the same condition with himself. The trader foments disturbances among the nations of the earth, and taxes him for the support of fleets and armies, required for the maintenance of the system of "ships, colonies, and commerce." All these men collect together in cities, and all can unite for the accomplishment of their purposes; whereas, the people of the country-being poor and widely scattered are unable to combine for self-defence. Therefore it is that the man who tills the earth is to so great an extent enslaved; and, that his pursuit the one of all others most fitted to expand the heart and to develop the intellect has been, and even to this hour is, in so many lands, considered worthy of the slave alone. That man may cease to be enslaved, and that agriculture may become a science, it is indispensable that there be division of employments that his faculties be stimulated to activity that the power of association arise-that the market for its products be brought to the neighborhood of the land that the utility of all the things yielded by it, whether in the form of food or vegetable fibre, of coal, ore, lime, or mar!, be thus increased-that its owner be thereby freed from the enormous taxation to which he is subjected, because of the existing necessity for effecting changes of place that he be freed, too, from the extraordinary waste of human power, physical and mental, that always attends the absence of diversity in the modes of employment and, that the powers of the land be increased by means of the constant repayment to it, of the manure yielded by the consumption of its products. To the existence of a state of things like that which is here described, it was due, that Belgium so early distinguished herself in agriculture, and was thus enabled to teach her comparatively barbarous British neighbors; and to similar causes it has been due that, notwithstanding almost ceaseless foreign wars, the agriculture of France has recently made such rapid progress. § 8. With every increase in the motion of society, there is an augmentation of the force at its command, enabling it to devote a larger proportion of a constantly increasing quantity to the development of the resources of the earth. The more rapid the motion, the less is the amount of those disturbing forces which heretofore have tended to lessen the powers of the land, and of the man who has tilled it; and therefore it is, that agriculture becomes a science, and that the cultivator of the soil --the man to whose labors we are indebted for all we eat and wear-- becomes |