360 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



plenty in the market, and in great perfection ; the Tartarian, the 

 bigarreau, and the large black-heart and mazard, predominate. 



Peaches, nectarines, and apricots, are seen occasionally at pri 

 vate tables ; and in great perfection, though in very small quan 

 tities, at the great market, and at some of the splendid fruit shops 

 in London. Peaches are grown in favorable situations on open 

 walls, but in general under glass, and early in the season are 

 forced by an artificial climate. They are brought to great per 

 fection in appearance, and command, when first they appear in 

 the market, two guineas, or about ten dollars and a half per 

 dozen, as pine-apples cultivated here, at some times of the year, 

 bring a guinea or thirty shillings sterling apiece, that is, from 

 five and a quarter to seven and a half dollars each ! 



One, in such cases, ceases to have any solicitude to know 

 where the peaches or the pines come from, but is curious to 

 learn where the guineas come from. To most of us, however, 

 unindoctrinated in the financial contrivances and complex labor- 

 saving machinery of society, this inquiry seems hopeless, and 

 generally ends in the conviction that wealth is very unequally 

 distributed in this world, without any possibility of devising any 

 practicable scheme for a more even and impartial adjustment. 

 Suppose we could at once level all the waves of the sea, and 

 produce a dead calm, and a perfectly even surface ; still it would 

 seem that, while the drops on the top are glittering and radiating 

 in the sunshine, a vast proportion of the drops must be underneath, 

 or near the bottom, sustaining those at the top. The only hope in 

 such case is that, in the continual fluctuations of the whole mass, 

 amid the conflicts of under-currents and upper-currents, the spon 

 taneous effervescence, and the turbulence of winds and storms, the 

 lowest may often be brought to the surface, and the uppermost de 

 scend, and this continual change of place and position may give 

 to all, in the long run, an equal chance.* This analogy, perhaps. 



* It is by no means the case, I am aware, that the low position is always to be 

 commiserated. The place of humble obscurity is, in general at least, the place 

 of safety, and is quiet and peaceful, while the surface is swept and disturbed by 

 the violence of every storm. There is a measure of selfishness and narrowness 

 in the conception of a charming poet, which is not to be approved, when, in the 

 tones of pity and complaint, he says, 



&quot; Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 

 And waste its sweetness on the desert air ; &quot; 



as if the beauties of nature were made only for man s eyes, and as if the hum- 



