36 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



indeed strike an American with astonishment. In the United 

 States, and especially in the northern parts of it, where there is 

 a constant struggle to live, where men have to contend with a 

 severe climate and a stubborn soil, and where money is compara 

 tively scarce, the accumulations small, and the farms extremely 

 limited, and where the first lesson taught to a child, even in 

 his swaddling clothes, is a lesson of self-dependence, it is not 

 surprising that men should be compelled with extreme care to 

 husband their small means, and that a frugality, in itself highly 

 commendable, should sometimes verge within the limits of mean 

 ness. This, indeed, is far better than that reckless expenditure, 

 without regard to one s means, which we sometimes see, and 

 which is almost sure to involve the individual who indulges in 

 it in irretrievable debt and ruin. But there cannot be a doubt 

 that in New England we often commit a great error in withhold 

 ing a reasonable expenditure in the improvement of our lands ; 

 and that we are not sufficiently impressed with the obvious truth, 

 that a proper expenditure of capital is as important to a success 

 ful and improved agriculture, as to the successful prosecution of 

 any branch of manufactures, trade, or commerce. 



Leases may be annual, or at will, or for a term of years. When 

 land is taken by the year, it is understood that the tenant has six 

 months notice of the intention of the landlord not to renew his 

 lease, if such intention exist. The lands in England are bur 

 dened with taxes from which the United States are free. These, 

 in many cases, amount to a sum equal to the rent of the land. 

 The tithes, or tenth of every article produced, are not now taken 

 in kind, but are commuted and paid in money. The poor and 

 parochial rates are often heavy ; these all are paid by the tenant, 

 unless a special agreement is made to the contrary. 



Some persons are disposed to question the right of individuals 

 to such extensive tracts of land, which, in many instances, they 

 neither cultivate themselves, nor suffer others to cultivate, and 

 which descend undiminished through successive generations in 

 the same family. The legal or constitutional right is determined 

 by statute ; upon the moral right, or the right founded upon prin 

 ciples of political justice, I am not disposed to enter, as this 

 would lead me to discuss the foundations of all property a sub 

 ject foreign from my purpose. The tithe system, as it exists 

 here, strikes a foreign and unpractised eye as a singular feature in 

 the condition of things. A tithe, or tenth part of the produce 



