AGRICULTURAL PROGRESS. 419 



green herbage, and forming numerous little valleys smil- 

 ing in sunshine, or sweetly sleeping under the summer 

 shade of trees, where the flocks found a comfortable resort 

 in all weathers, are now converted into one vast level. 



The brooks are conducted into canals, and carried along 

 in straight courses for the convenience of labor and pur- 

 poses of irrigation ; for it is necessary that their circuities 

 should not interfere with the progress of the steam-plough. 

 In fine, the pleasing variety of surface that beautified the 

 landscape when it was in the possession of the inhab- 

 itants ; those quiet, rustic lanes, fringed with wild roses, 

 hawthorns, and viburnums, conducting from the dwelling- 

 houses to the adjoining fields and woods ; the comfortable 

 enclosures that resounded with the lowing of cattle and 

 the cheerful noise of poultry ; and, worst fate of all, the 

 old farm-house, where the patriarch of a small estate pre- 

 sided over a happy family, happy because they were free 

 and healthfully employed, all, all are swept away by 

 this besom of improvement. 



And where are the inhabitants ? The sturdy yeoman 

 who, though doomed to hard labor, found this labor sweet 

 because it was voluntary, the happy and independent 

 swain, who called no man master, and who was really a 

 king in his own acres, is now a hired servant of the cor- 

 poration. The farmers, their wives, and their children, 

 have all been reduced to servitude in this grand manufac- 

 tory of corn and vegetables. The tiller of the soil has 

 become a slave to his occupation. Each thousand acres 

 devoted to a single crop is managed by an agent imported 

 from the city, who receives a large salary as superinten- 

 dent, and pays out their weekly pittance to the farm labor- 

 ers. In order to facilitate operations, there is a minute 

 division of labor, as in the cotton and woollen factories. 

 Some of the farmers are employed exclusively as shovel- 

 lers ; some are only drivers of cattle ; some ride on the 



