554 NATURAL AND ClVlL 



this way, every day's labor spent in clearing up 

 his land, receives high wages in the grain which 

 it procures, and adds at the same time a quanti- 

 ty of improved land to the farm. An acre of 

 land which in its natural state, cost him perhaps 

 the half of one day's labor, is thus in one year 

 made of that value, that it will afterwards annu- 

 ally produce him from fifteen to twenty five 

 bushels of wheat ; or other kinds of produce, 

 of equal value. In this way, the profits attend- 

 ing labor on a new settlement, are the greatest 

 that ever can take place in agriculture ; the la- 

 borer constantly receiving double wages. He 

 receives high wages in the produce of his corn 

 or wheat ; and he receives much higher wages 

 of another kind, in the annual addition of a new 

 tract of cultivated land to his farm. This double 

 kind of wages, nature with great benevolence 

 and design, has assigned to the man of industry, 

 when he is first making a settlement in the un- 

 cultivated parts of America : And in two of 

 three years, he acquires a very comfortable and 

 independent subsistence for a family, derived 

 from no other source but the earth, and his own 

 industry. 



In every country, agriculture ought to be es- 

 teemed, as the most necessary and useful pro- 

 fession. The food and the raiment b)^- which 

 all orders of men are supported, must be deriv- 

 ed from the earth. Agriculture is the art, by 

 which this is effected ; and of consequence the 

 art which supports, supplies, and maintains all 

 the riest. It ought therefore to be esteemed the 

 primary, the fundamental, and the most essential 

 art of all ; that which deserves the first and the 



