386 INSTABILITY OF AMERICAN LIFE. 



fields, tlie meadows, and tlie pastures, to the rain and tlie dews 

 of heaven, to the springs and rivulets with which it waters the 

 earth. The establishment of an approximately fixed ratio between 

 the two most broadly characterized distinctions of rural surface — 

 woodland and ploughland — would involve a certain persistence 

 of character in aU the branches of industry, all the occupations 

 and habits of life, which depend upon or are immediately con- 

 nected with either, without implying a rigidity that should ex- 

 clude flexibihty of accommodation to the many changes of ex- 

 ternal cu-cumstance which human wisdom can neither prevent 

 nor foresee, and would thus help us to become, more emphatically, 

 a well-ordered and stable commonwealth, and, not less conspicu- 

 ously, a people of progress. 



