VEGETABLE AND FRUIT MARKETS. 361 



can scarcely be said to apply to a country, where the masses of 

 wealth are the accumulations of centuries, and are fortified and 

 hedged in by the strong iron fences and the bristling chevauz-de- 

 frise of laws of entail and rights of primogeniture. It may 

 serve better to illustrate a condition of society like that in the 

 United States, where the paths of competition in the various 

 departments of life are equally open to all the condition of the 

 laws and the habits of the country favor the more equal distribu 

 tion of wealth, and seem to forbid any extraordinary perma 

 nency to any large accumulations. Which condition is to be 

 preferred, my reader must determine for himself. 



The luxury in which the higher and wealthier classes in Eng 

 land live is, probably, unequalled in any country, and is, per 

 haps, not surpassed in the history of Roman grandeur or Oriental 

 magnificence. They expend, whether willing or unwilling, 

 with a profusion which it is difficult for those of us brought up 

 in the school of restricted and humble means to understand ; and 

 in respect to true liberality, there is probably the same diversity 

 of disposition and character to be found as among those, who. 

 instead of dispensing guineas, are obliged to keep their reckoning 

 in pence and farthings. I do not forget that excessive wealth, as 

 well as extreme penury, have each their peculiar moral dangers. 

 But the liberal expenditures of the rich, even upon many articles 

 of pure luxury, are a great public benefit. Certainly, no immoral 

 indulgence is ever to be justified or excused. I do not say that 

 it is the best appropriation of the money ; that point I shall not 

 now discuss ; but certainly the person, who gives his two guineas 

 for his dozen of peaches, encourages industry, rewards horticul 

 tural skill, stimulates improvement, excites a wholesome compe 

 tition, and would, surely, be doing much worse with them if he 

 kept them parsimoniously and uselessly hoarded in his coffers. 



The apples, in England, are in general inferior, excepting for 

 cooking purposes. The superiority of our Newton pippin is 

 every where admitted and proclaimed. Of other of our fine ap 

 ples, such as the golden russet, the Baldwin, the blue pearmain, 

 and many others, I have seen none, though it is not to be confi- 



blest flower did not perform its proper part in purifying the air, the great element 

 of life to all animated existence, and regale many a sentient being by its fra 

 grance, and feed myriads upon its leaves, and yield to many a busy insect the 

 precious honev from its expanded bosom. 

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