118 WISCONSIN AGRICULTUEE. 



condition of obedience and subordination as laborers in the hus- 

 bandry of these large estates, while the titled landholders them- 

 selves were made Earls and Dukes, Barons and Lords, who 

 lived in idleness, ease, and luxury upon the unrequited servi- 

 tude of the landless and the poor. 



From this most impolitic and unjust apportionment of landed 

 estates, has arisen, and from the very ground itself, has grown 

 up, the oppressive and odious features in the civil governments 

 and social systems of Europe. From this source sprang the 

 ancient families, in whose possession these baronial estates re- 

 mained, increased rather than diminished, for centuries perpetu- 

 ated by the laws of descent and primogeniture, while the 

 laboring tenantry and menial dependants, who eke out a scanty 

 subsistence by their servitude, in the cultivation and improve- 

 ment of the land to which they can acquire no title but fealty, 

 and from which they can derive no reward except a bare sup- 

 port, have continued, in their peculiar relation, unimproved and 

 unprogressive, from generation to generation. Under the oper- 

 ation of this system, in some commanding position upon the 

 estate, the lordly owner of the fee would build his castle and 

 his country seat, guarded by moat and draw-bridge, by towers, 

 turretted walls, and massive gates, embellished by the highest 

 perfection of art, in architecture, painting, and sculpture. The 

 grounds about this mansion of the lordly farmer would be laid 

 out and ordered in harmony with the ease and luxury of his 

 habits and his state. Here thousands of acres of woodland, 

 threaded with paths and ways, and filled with wild game, cov- 

 ering the natural variety of plain and mountain, stream and 

 lake, would be the ample park dedicated to sport and pastime. 

 Here the closely shorn lawn would spread its emerald carpet, 

 ornamented with exotic tree and shrub, with flowers and vines, 

 and foantains. In short, every minute arrangement of artifi- 

 cial beauty and convenience ; every thing that could please the 

 eye, gratify the taste, or minister to ease and pleasure, were 

 planned and perfected in profuse and costly extravagance and 

 grandeur. The lords and ladies, and the younger scions of the 

 ancient house, proud, haughty and insolent, in their vast and 



