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steam- power for horse-power. This tendency is marked; its results are signal. A few 
years ago the mower and reaper exhibited in Central Europe was looked upon in open- 
mouthed wonder; now it is a practical thing, beginning to be everywhere sought as a 
necessity. At Leeds, England, I visited the works of John Fowler & Co., where hun- 
dreds of mechanics are engaged in the fabrication of steam-plows, not only for pulver- 
izing the soils of England and the Continent, but the valley of the Nile. There are 
now seven of them in use in this country. The works of the Messrs. Howard, and of 
Porter & Aveling, are also turning out large numbers of similar machines. Prejudice 
against them is breaking down; farms are being fitted to their use, fields squared, 
hedge-rows eradicated, ditches filled, and all other improvements following in the train 
of these. The best cultivation in this country must and will, in a future day, be accom- 
plished by the aid of steam. ; 
Fourth. Increasing intelligence and awakening emulation among’ farm-laborers. 
This is prominently seen in Great Britain ; and the bonds of caste are slowly loosening 
in Central Europe, and medieval stolidity is gradually yielding to the mental mobility 
of the present age. It is now freely acknowledged in England that the demand of the 
farm-laborer for more wages, a better cottage, and a little allotment of land with if, is 
but the outgrowth of advancing civilization and education ; it will be acceded to—by 
some cheerfully as the dictate of justice, by others without much hesitation, under the 
compulsion of the fear of losing their labor by emigration to America, Australia, and 
New Zealand. The day is past for contentment with an average of thirteen shillings 
per week for the labor of an able-bodied man and the support of his family. And even 
this is munificent compared with the wages of rural labor in some other countries. 
The employers are already counseling each other to meet the emergency by a higher 
style of cultivation, a larger use of machinery, a wiser economy of land and labor, and 
a more general use of steam in the various operations of agriculture. 
There is one painful aspect in which the traveler views the labor of all the con- 
tinental countries—the heavy, harsh, exhausting, murderous drudgery of woman. 
While the men appear to be playing soldier, the women seem to be the main reliance 
for producing the food of all, as well as cooking it, for making the clothing worn, 
and producing the materials of which it is made. It is bad enough to see the 
minor transportation of cities carried on by teams constituted by harnessing a dog to 
one side of a wagon-pole and placing a woman on the other, or great buckets like flat- 
tened wash-tubs borne full of water on the shoulders of women, under which they 
stagger with a fortitude worthy of a nobler destiny; or a bevy of barefooted females, 
old and young, climbing the walls of a five-story building under the burden of hods of 
brick and mortar. It is worse, if possible, in the free, pure air of the country, to see 
a woman and a bullock harnessed to a plow, a sight I am thankful not to have seen, 
if it exists, as is frequently reported. If that is an exaggeration, it is certainly true 
that in many districts a large portion of the labor of the farm is performed by woman. 
Fifth. Association for improvement and for protection of property in labor on the 
part of those whose only property is labor, and co-operation for greater economy and 
higher profits by those who would employ jointly their present efforts with the accu- 
mulated surplus of past labor. Such associations are quite general in England, and 
their influence is extending to the continent. It is gratifying to know that some of 
these forms of association have been borrowed from this country, as the cheese-factories 
of England and the condensed-milk factories of Switzerland and Great Britain. These 
combinations for more effective use of small means will increase and prove salutary 
and profitable here as well as in Europe; but when not managed with wisdom and 
prudence will end, in many cases, it.is feared, in mischief and failure. 
I am strong in the belief that the rural population of this country will yet lead in 
most, as it now does in some, of the progressive movements destined to lighten the 
hardships of weary toil, to enhance the profits of honest labor, to render cheerful and 
jocund the life of the country, and to elevate the art of agriculture by all the means 
that applied science can furnish or business tact and wisdom can procure. 
BELGIAN AGRICULTURE. 
From a statement published by authority of the Belgian minister of 
the interior, and prefacing the catalogue of agricultural products in the 
Belgian section of the late Vienna Exposition, it appears that the total 
area of the kingdom is 2,945,506 hectares, or 7,278,640 acres, of which 
2,663,753 hectares, or 6,582,400 acres, are under cultivation. The popu- 
lation is 5,087,105, or 448 per square mile. The soil is naturally sterile ; 
searce a blade of grass can be made to grow without manure; yet such 
is the excellence of the system of agriculture, that aboutoneand a quarter 
acres per capita yield a comfortable support to the densest population 
in Europe, besides yielding a large surplus for export. These mag- 
