14 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



taught at our common schools. Let me mention some facts 

 which have been stated to me on credible authority ; and let me 

 premise that a pound sterling is about equal to five dollars United 

 States currency. Under a law of the present government, here, 

 levying a tax upon every man s income when it exceeds one 

 hundred and fifty pounds sterling a year, persons liable to taxa 

 tion are required to make a just return of their income under a 

 heavy penalty. A confectioner, in London, returned, as his 

 annual income, the sum of thirty thousand pounds sterling, or 

 one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, or six times as much as 

 the salary of the President of the United States ; which showed, 

 at least, how skilful he was in compounding some of the sweets 

 of life. A nobleman, it is said, has contracted with a master 

 builder to erect for him, in London, four thousand not forty 

 not four hundred but four thousand houses of a good size for 

 occupation. In some of the best parts of London, acres of land. 

 vast squares, are occupied with large and elegant dwelling- 

 houses, paying heavy rents, in long rows, blocks, and crescents, 

 and all belonging to some single individual. One nobleman, 

 whose magnificent estate was left to him by his father, encum 

 bered with a debt of some hundred thousand pounds, by limit 

 ing, as it is termed here, his own annual expenditure to thirty 

 thousand pounds, has well nigh extinguished this debt, and, in 

 all human probability, will soon have his patrimonial estate free 

 of encumbrance. The incomes of some of the rich men in 

 the country, amount to twenty, twenty-five, fifty, one hundred 

 thousand, two hundred thousand pounds sterling even three 

 hundred thousand pounds annually. It is very difficult for New 

 England men even to conceive of such wealth. A farmer in 

 Lincolnshire told rne that the crop of wheat grown upon his 

 farm one year was eighteen thousand bushels. The rent annu 

 ally paid by one farmer in Northumberland, or the Lothians, 

 exceeded seven thousand pounds, or thirty-five thousand dollars. 

 These facts, which have been stated to me by gentlemen in 

 whose veracity I have entire confidence, and who certainly are 

 incapable of attempting any &quot; tricks upon travellers,&quot; show the 

 enormous masses of wealth which are here accumulated. A 

 gentleman of distinguished talents and fine classical attainments, 

 and who adds to them a public spirit in agricultural improve 

 ment worthy of his education and his high standing in the 

 community, has recently added to his property, by the purchase 



