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EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



personal and pecuniary interest, and without an absolute head, 

 does any sober man dream that such communities can be sus 

 tained, excepting within the narrowest limits? or that such prin 

 ciples can be applied, to any great extent, to society at large, 

 without an entire change in the whole structure of society, 

 and, I may almost add, an entire renovation of human nature 

 itself? Far be it from me, however, to suggest that the evils of 

 society are without a remedy, or at least beyond alleviation. 

 Our own country, under a free constitution of government, and 

 with an almost unlimited extent of the most fertile territory, 

 accessible upon the easiest terms, presents, perhaps, the most 

 favorable condition, which has been known, for a security of the 

 rights of labor, and the just fruition of its products ; but it would 

 be a great injustice to infer that there are not to be found in 

 England many generous and just persons, devoted to the 

 maintenance of the rights, and the welfare and improvement, of 

 the humble and laborious classes. There cannot be a doubt, 

 that, in a noiseless and unobtrusive way, much is, and infinitely 

 more can be, done for these objects ; and the aim of every good 

 man, as far as he has any power, should be to diffuse, to the 

 greatest extent possible, the means of subsistence and comfort to 

 all, and to remove every impediment to the most equal distribu 

 tion of the products of labor among those whose labor in their 

 production gives them certainly a fair claim upon these products. 

 Now, whether it be by large farms or by small allotments, by 

 plough or by spade husbandry, that mode of husbandry by 

 which the largest amount of product, and at the least expense, 

 can be drawn from the soil, and with the least injury to its pro 

 ductive powers, is to be preferred. This great point is not yet 

 ascertained ; and its determination must necessarily be different 

 in different places and conditions. But it is with England a 

 question of tremendous importance, what is to become of the 

 vast accumulations of people, which are continually increasing 

 here at the rate of from seven hundred to a thousand per day. 

 It is impossible to become accurately, though it may be slightly, 

 acquainted with the condition of things in England, the actual 

 suffering for a want of the means of subsistence, which prevails 

 among large portions of the population, especially in some of the 

 agricultural districts, and not to feel that there are powerful 

 elements of disease at work in the social body, whose disastrous 



