SPADE HUSBANDRY. 125 



land cultivated in large occupations. But in reference to a general 

 competence, and a more equal and just distribution of the prod 

 ucts of the land, and in its moral effects upon the character of 

 the laboring population, the system of small farms should doubtless 

 be preferred.* If pecuniary gain alone must be the paramount 

 object of consideration, and the prosperity of a country is to be 

 measured only by dollars and cents, or pounds, shillings, and 

 pence, the cultivation of the land in large parcels would doubt 

 less best effect the purpose ; but if the true prosperity of a 

 country is rather to be determined by the general comfort, im 

 provement, and personal independence, of its population, we can 

 hardly doubt that arrangements which most nearly connect an f 

 individual s interest with his own exertions and character, and, if \ 

 the expression be allowed, make him the creator of his own 

 fortune, are those which are most likely to effect these ends._/ 

 /The difference in the condition of an individual laboring always 

 / at the will of another, and having no other share in, or control 

 I over, the products of his labor, than that which he obtains from 

 the willing consent, or wrings from the reluctant necessities, of 

 his employer, and that of an independent lYeclmldrr in tlio soil, 

 who has a personal stake in the products of his labor, who ap 

 plies this labor as he chooses, and has the absolute control of its 

 results, can be best understood by those only who have seen 

 mankind in these two different situations. 



There are two cases in which the spade husbandry might 1 

 have an important application in the United States. The Eng 

 lish know nothing of, and can scarcely, as far as my own obser 

 vation goes, be made fully to understand, a condition of things, 



* &quot; No one,&quot; says the Baron de Stael, &quot; can compare the present state of France 

 with that which prevailed in 1789, without being struck with the great increase 

 of the national riches. Throughout all France, the greater number of laborers 

 and farmers are at the same time proprietors. Nothing is more common than to 

 see a day-laborer proprietor of a cottage, which serves as an asylum to his family ; 

 a garden, which feeds his children ; a little field, which he cultivates at his leisure 

 hours, and which enables him to sustain, with more chance of success, the terrible 

 struggle between laborious poverty and engrossing opulence.&quot; f 



In 1838, the number of separate properties taxed for the impot fonder, in 

 Prance, amounted to the enormous number of 10,896,000. The population of 

 landed proprietors, with their families, is estimated at 20,000,000, or nearly two 

 thirds of the total population. The average size of each property is about four 

 teen acres.&quot; f 



f Quoted in Laing s Address. J Porter s Progress of the Nation. 



11* 



