144 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



where property being more equally distributed, and in almost all 

 cases the fruit of personal industry, its rights are more readily 

 admitted, and its protection becomes matter of equal and uni 

 versal concern. 



I return now to speak of the present actual condition of agri 

 culture in England. I have dwelt largely, but I hope not too 

 largely, upon miscellaneous and incidental considerations. I 

 propose now to consider the actual condition and character of 

 English agriculture j the improvements which it has effected : 

 and those which remain to be devised. 



XVIII. PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE, COMPARED 

 WITH OTHER PURSUITS. 



I have already said that the agriculture of England and here 

 I include Scotland is highly improved ; but I may say, I think, 

 with confidence, and certainly without censoriousness, that it has 

 not yet reached that degree of excellence to which it is capable 

 of being carried. In parts of the country, not much has been 

 done ; in the best cultivated districts, it would be presumptuous 

 to say that the goal of perfection has been reached. Among 

 the highest gifts with which Heaven has endued the human 

 mind is a generous and insatiable ambition after excellence ; an 

 avarice of improvement, if so it may be termed, which character 

 izes a great mind ; which knows in no case entire satisfaction ; 

 which no sooner mounts one summit than it essays to climb a 

 higher ; and which, if in any thing it should reach barriers that 

 are absolutely impassable, would, like the celebrated hero of anti 

 quity, &quot;weep that it had no more worlds to conquer.&quot; I am 

 not willing to admit that this ambition, one of the noblest attri 

 butes of the human soul, can ever be stimulated to too great a 

 degree. Cobbett, in his terse, energetic, but rather coarse manner, 

 says that &quot;he despises a man who is contented with his condi 

 tion ; &quot; and in the sense in which he obviously designed to be 

 understood, I quite agree with him, that no man should be satis 

 fied with good while better is attainable ; and that it would 



