82 LAND AND LABOR. 



of high prices and great demand, as during and short- 

 ly after the war of the rebellion, and have been so 

 rare as to excite general comment ; they in no sense 

 represent usual conditions. The general facts are, 

 that great destitution and constant want mark the lot 

 of that class of farmers. Even the payment of tithes 

 has ever been considered a burden too great to be 

 borne by the agriculturist ; and the one fifth to one 

 fourth of his crop paid by the English farmer for 

 rent is a principal cause of the agitations now threat- 

 ening the existence of the English government. But 

 however great may have been the burdens of the tith- 

 ing system, or of the English tenants, those of the 

 tenant farmers in the United States are five times 

 greater than in the one case, and twice as great as in 

 the other. 



Still the notable fact remains, that the system of 

 slavery against which Pope Alexander issued his bull, 

 in the feudal age of Europe, exists in gigantic propor- 

 tions on the soil of the United States. Here we nurse 

 and protect by our laws a system of villanage too odi- 

 ous to be endured in most of Europe in her darkest 

 days of barbarism, and against which the church of 

 Home hurled its thunders seven hundred years ago. 

 But though the Metayer system long since went grad- 

 ually out of use in most of Europe, it was continued 

 in France till the last quarter of the past century, 

 when it found its end in the horrors of the revolution 

 of 1793, which it provoked, and of which the guillotin 

 :lic avmLT'T. 



The following is a tabulated statement of the nuin- 

 !>' r <>t' l nant farms in each State and Territory of the 



