12 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



gay passage under the bed of the stream, where the tides of the 

 ocean daily roll their waves, and the mighty barks of commerce 

 and war float in all their majesty and pride over his head, exhib 

 iting the perfection of engineering, and a strength of construction 

 and finish, which leaves not a doubt of its security and endurance, 

 he perceives an expense of labor which disdains all the lim 

 ited calculations of a young and comparatively poor country. 

 He remarks a thoroughness of workmanship which is most 

 admirable, and which indicates a boldness and bravery of enter 

 prise, taking into its calculations not merely years but centuries 

 to come. We have, in America, a common saying in respect to 

 many things which we undertake, that &quot; this will do for the 

 present,&quot; which does not seem to me to be known in England ; 

 and we have a variety of cheap, insubstantial, slight-o -hand 

 ways of doing many things, sometimes vulgarly denominated 

 &quot;make-shifts to do,&quot; which we ascribe to what we call Yankee 

 cleverness, of which certainly no signs are to be seen here. 

 Agricultural operations and improvements are here in general 

 conducted and finished in the most thorough and substantial 

 manner. 



The walls enclosing many of the noblemen s parks in England, 

 which comprehend hundreds, and, in some cases, thousands of 

 acres, are brick walls, of ten and twelve feet in height, running 

 for miles and miles. The walls round many of the farms in 

 Scotland, called there &quot; dikes,&quot; made of the stone of the coun 

 try, and laid in lime, and capped with flat stones resting vertically 

 upon their edges, are finished pieces of masonry. The improve 

 ments at the Duke of Portland s, at Welbeck, Nottinghamshire. 

 in his arrangements for draining and irrigating, at his pleasure, 

 from three to five hundred acres of land, without doubt one of 

 the most skilful and magnificent agricultural improvements ever 

 made, are executed in the most finished and permanent manner ; 

 the embankments, the channels, the sluices, the dams, the gates, 

 being constructed, in all cases where it would be most useful and 

 proper, of stone or iron. These are only samples of the style in 

 which things are done here. The important operations of em 

 banking and of draining, especially under the new system of 

 draining and subsoiling, are executed most thoroughly. The 

 farm houses and farm buildings are of brick or stone, and all 

 calculated to endure. 



I cannot recommend, without considerable qualifications, these 



