296 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



admitted only by the payment of a duty which is almost pro 

 hibitory. It cannot be grown in England, though, under some 

 extraordinary circumstances in accidental localities, it has occa 

 sionally ripened. If, instead of importing fat cattle from the 

 Continent, to supply their markets, they would import lean cattle, 

 and at the same time import Indian corn under a low or nominal 

 duty, to fatten them with, (and it would be difficult to find a 

 substance which, in proportion to its cost, is more nutritious.) it is 

 obvious that, besides the profit upon the labor of fattening these 

 cattle, they would have the great advantages of their manure 

 certainly a most serious consideration.* 



Agriculture in England appears altogether as a commercial 

 pursuit. Where heavy amounts of rent are to be periodically 

 and punctually paid, men are compelled to look carefully at 

 their expenditures, purchases, and contracts, and their pecuniary 

 results. It is by no means so with us in the United States, 

 where most farmers are their own landlords and the owners of 

 the estates on which they live, and where, if their sales from 

 their farms are sufficient to meet the expenses of labor, the light 

 taxes of the government, and those supplies for their families 

 which the farm itself does not yield, they feel themselves at 

 least secure, if they are not satisfied. I design presently to give 

 some example of the manner in which farm accounts are kept 

 here by the most careful farmers, and which show all the exact 

 ness of mercantile transactions. Indeed, it must be so, or they 

 would become involved in inextricable confusion, which would 

 surely terminate in bankruptcy and ruin. I know farmers here 

 who pay their two hundred, four hundred, six hundred, and one 

 thousand pounds rent ; I have been credibly informed of a 

 farmer in Scotland, or on the borders of Scotland and England, 



* The alteration of the tariff, allowing the admission of fat cattle, and foreign 

 cheese, &c., under a reduced duty, does not appear, at present, to have produced 

 =,o great results as was expected, whatever may be the case hereafter. 



The report made to Parliament this present session, (1845,) returns, as imported 

 into the country from abroad the last year, of cattle, 2,241, (which, if we suppose 

 them to average 800 pounds per head, would give only about three fourths of a 

 pound of meat to each individual ;) of sheep, 1,063, (which, at 80 pounds per 

 head, a large average, would give half an ounce of mutton to each individual ;) 

 of cheese, 11,000 tons, (which would give about one pound per individual.) 

 At the same time, the minister in Parliament states that, during the last year, the 

 population of the kingdom has increased by 380,000 ! ! 



