AN AMERICAN FARMER IN ENGLAND. 



land.* The following account of our author's embarrassment at the quantity of bathing 

 utensils in a first-rate English private residence, and the anecdote that follows it, are signifi- 

 cant commentaries on our short-comings in certain essential points of civilization — as we 

 think, still unrecognized in this country generally, despite our superior popular education : 



•■'The bed-chambers and dressing-rooms were furnished to look exceedingly, posy and 

 comfortable, but there was nothing very remarkable about them, except perhaps the im- 

 mense preparation made for washing the person. I confess if I had been quartered in one 

 of them, I should have needed all my Yankee capabilities, to guess in what way I could 

 make a good use of it. 



" There is a story told of two members of our legislature that came from " the rural 

 districts," and were fellow lodgers. One of them was rather mortified by the rough ap- 

 pearance of his companion, who was of the " bone-and-sinew" sort, and by way of 

 opening a conversation in which he could give him a few gentle hints, complained of the 

 necessity which a Representative was under to pay so much for " washing." " How often 

 do you shift?" said the Hon. Simon Pure. " Why of course I have to change my linen 

 every day," he answered. "You do?" responded his unabashed friend. " Why, what 

 an awful dirty man you must be! I can always make mine last a week." 



The present condition of the tenant farmers in England, (and those who actually culti- 

 vate the land — above the laborers — are almost all tenants,) is far from being an enviable 

 one. Free trade, which has benefitted largely the manufacturer, has borne down heavily 

 on the farmer, and notwithstanding the improvements in farming, and the low price of la- 

 bor, nothing can enable the tenant farmer to live, but a great reduction of the rents all 

 over the country. Mr. Olmsted thinks that the general introduction of thorough drain- 

 ing alone, during the last ten years, has saved England from a revolution; and it is certain 

 that only those farmers who have large capital, and the most perfect system of farming, 

 can make profit under the present and probable future condition of things in England. The 

 consequence will inevitabl}^ be, the gradual breaking up of all heavily encumbered landed 

 estates, and the greatly lowered value of the rents upon others. In the mean time, small 

 farmers are swallowed up, and the laboring rural population is more and more driven to 

 emigration. 



Mr. Olmsted deals with aristocracy, and especially with the law of primogeniture, with 

 the spirit of a republican, who cannot see either rhyme or reason in them : 



" Strange! T find this monstrous primogeniture seems natural and Heaven inspired 

 law to Englishmen. I can conceive, how, in its origin, it might have been so — in the pa- 

 triarchal state, where it was the general direction of the common inheritance, rather than 

 the inheritance itself, that was taken by the eldest of each succeeding generation ; but in 

 modern civilized society, with its constant re-familization, and in England, especially, 

 where the immediate isolated domiciliation of every newly-wedded pair, is deemed essential 

 to harmony and happiness, it seems to me more naturally abhorrent and wrong than po- 

 Ij'gamy or chattel-slavery. 



" Doubtless, if you take it up as a matter to be reasoned upon, there is much to be said 

 for it, as there is for slavery, or, among the turks, for extra wiveing, I suppose; and first, 

 I fully appreciate that without it, could in no way be sustained such noble buildings and 

 grounds — national banner-bearers of dignity — schools of art, and systematic encourage- 

 ment of art, and perhaps T should add, systematic, enterprising agricultural improve- 

 ments, such as this of five thousand acres thorough-drained in the best manner, by the 



* When will the keepers of our showy hotels, for instance, banish the dirty dish of hot-water, and dirtier towel, at 

 the side table, into wliicli everybody's fork is dipped, and with which it is afterwards wiped by the waiter 



