10 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



directing their talents to agricultural inquiries : and the humblest 

 in their humble, but not inefficient way, are seconding their 

 efforts. So many minds concentrating their rays upon the same 

 point, they must be sure to illuminate it with an extraordinary 

 brilliancy. 



Agriculture is now getting to be recognized as the command 

 ing interest of the state : so it must ever be as lying at the 

 foundation of all others. Few persons are apprized of their obli 

 gations to agriculture ; and it is difficult to estimate the extent 

 of these obligations. Every man s daily bread, his meat, his 

 clothing, his shelter, his luxuries, all come from the earth. The 

 foundation, or, as the French would say, the materiel of all com 

 merce and manufactures, is agriculture ; and its moral influences 

 are innumerable and most powerful. It will be found likewise, 

 upon an observation of the different conditions of different 

 nations or communities, that a laborious agriculture is, in a high 

 degree, a conservator of good morals ; and that those countries 

 are, upon the whole, and on this account, most blessed, not 

 where the fruits of the earth are yielded spontaneously without 

 care and without toil, but where its products come only as the 

 reward of industry, and the powers of the mind, as well as the 

 labor of the hand, are severely taxed in a struggle for the means 

 of subsistence and comfort. Every one recognizes labor as the 

 source of wealth. How few things have any value, which have 

 not been either produced or modified by labor ! and in what 

 department is labor so productive, so essential, and so important 

 as in that of agriculture ? 



IV. ENGLISH AGRICULTURE. 



I will not dwell longer upon these considerations, with which 

 every intelligent mind must be impressed ; and which must. 

 more or less, constantly present themselves to our notice in that 

 field of observation which we have entered. I shall proceed to 

 present some general views of the agriculture of England, and 

 shall descend, in the course of my reports, to such details as may 

 be deemed useful and practical. 



The condition of practical agriculture in Great Britain, as far 



