worker in tte vineyard occupies the place filled by his grandfather's grandfather 

 Whatever of progress we find in England and Scotland, is to be attributed to a 

 higher and broader development of mind. Turn to France, and in the follow- 

 ing description of its agriculture in the south, we see the results of subdivided 

 instruction. One of our most intelligent consuls thus writes : 



" I received the request from the Agricultural department to furnish it statis. 

 tics. I know not what to do. I, who have always so loved agricultural and 

 horticultural pursuits, would certainly be expected to do much in this line. But 

 when I look around, I find absolutely nothing in all France to interest our 

 country in that line. So far is France behind us in all labor-saving machinery^ 

 in everything relating to agriculture, or the mechanic arts even, that I know it is 

 the wrong place to seek light. Many things are unearthed at Pompeii and Her- 

 culaneum that are much in advance of anything in France. The ploughs are of 

 the style of the ancient Egyptians — a forked tree. Their carts and wagons of 

 the farm are four times the size of our own — awkward and clumsy affairs you 

 might worship and not break the second commandment, for they are the like- 

 ness of nothing on earth. The peasants drive in a single hog to market as in 

 Ireland, and everything else is in the same piddling, picayune style. Is this 

 the style to be imitated by our own large-minded, great-souled, enlightened, free, 

 born Americans 1 Not by my aid or consent. 



'♦ This distiict, and the Avhole south of France from here to Nice, on the Italian 

 border, is a land mostly of grapes ; the eastern half of olives also ; a poor, mis. 

 erable character of farming, which we should leave, I think, after looking 

 over the whole ground, to the small-minded, small farmers of Europe. Or 

 when we do go at grape-raising, as we will largely in California, let us go at it 

 in our own grand style, as we raise hogs, corn, wheat, &c., &c. ; no piddling or 

 scratching like this." 



Here we have graphically described the difference between the enlarged Ameri- 

 can agricultural mind, and the dwarfed European agricultural mind. Our agri- 

 culture presented a scope that demanded thought ; it was vast in itself, and by 

 its own greatness raised up the farmers of our country to the higher standard 

 we find in the foregoing contrast. But as population becomes more dense, there 

 will be a tendency to European division of labor and its narrow views. This 

 must be counteracted by liberal education. Grand as have been the achievements 

 of American agriculture, it has been aided by a natural richness of the soil, which 

 must be replaced and sustained by the riches of science. 



But the American farmer and artisan have not yet achieved their greatest ele. 

 vation, either in their occupations or in their positions as American citizens. 

 Look into the army and at the civil offices. A stranger to our institutions might 

 readily suppose that the profession of law constituted a privileged class in thig 

 country, and that no one outside of its ranks could hold a civil or military offi. 

 cial position. Is this just to the industrial classes 1 Or is it safe to the govern- 

 ment ? The mission of these classes is not one of toil merely, but of equal posi- 

 tion as citizens. The skilful artisan, the comprehensive farmer, the far-seeing 



