677 



that the soil, with its modem cultivation, will bear. This is true of Ju- 

 dea and Egypt, and sections of country in the north of Africa, and in. 

 the vicinity of Rome. 



But the fact is, agriculture is capable of indefinite improvement. The 

 productiveness of the soil may, at least for many generations, advance 

 more rapidly than population can possibly increase. In ancient Italy 

 it was said that seven acres was the average size of a farm. In Flan- 

 ders, at present, where the soil was originally sterile, one acre and a 

 quarter supports a human being. As in ancient Egypt, so, if we may 

 credit accounts in the most modern China, the land has reached a still 

 higher productiveness. 



According to the statements of our last census, the quantity of im- 

 proved or cultivated land in the United States, is about 7^ acres to each 

 inhabitant, but at the same time, our country exports to other lauds ani 

 immense amount of agricultural produce. Still the amo\int of exports 

 over and above the imports of agricultural productions from other lands 

 has not been more than one-fiftieth of the products of our soil. In 

 other words, forty-nine-fiftieths of the products are consumed on our 

 owTi soil. 



Now it is evident that the agriculture of our country could easily be 

 so improved that two acres would support a human being. At that rate 

 the land in these United States, now under cultivation, without subdu- 

 ing a single acre more of wild land, would support a population of 

 236,915,244 human beings, a population equal to that of all Europe, 

 and one-fourth as large as that of the whole world. But still further, 

 the United States and Territories comprise about 2,000,000 of square- 

 miles of land. Allowing one-half of this for permanently uncultivated 

 territory, comprising the beds of streams and lakes, the tops of moun- 

 tains, deserts, the sites of buildings, roads and parks, forests and marshes, 

 still there would be 640 millions of acres, capable, we verily be- 

 lieve, by processes already known, of amply supporting 640 millions of 

 human beings, a population not much less than all of the living human 

 family. 



How many generations must pass away then, before the world is 

 deluged with human beings ! Not one particle of matter capable of 

 entering into the constitution of vegetable and animal, shoiild be wasted 

 or placed where its value cannot be received. Bodily life is but one of 



