462 EUROPEAN AGRICULTURE. 



ing the progress and advancement of human skill and art. From 

 digging the ground with a stick, that a hole might be made for 

 the deposit of the seed, to the perfect inversion of it by the 

 plough, what an immense stride ! That is now done in a day, 

 which, in the rude ages referred to, could scarcely have been 

 accomplished in a year ; and that is now performed with ease, 

 and without any unkind tax upon the health of man or beast, 

 which could not otherwise have been effected without the most 

 severe exactions of human toil, and often at the expense of the 

 premature shortening of human life. 



LXXXIII. IMPROVED MACHINERY. 



There are persons continually complaining of the introduction 

 and use of machinery in the place of human labor, and as there 

 fore prejudicial to the interests of the poor. At an agricultural 

 dinner, I listened with a good deal of interest to a distinguished 

 nobleman, who was defending machinery against this charge, 

 by endeavoring to show that, so far from machinery lessening 

 the demand for labor, it was the ordinary result of it to cause 

 the employment of more persons than were occupied before its 

 introduction. This may be the fact ; but if this were the only 

 result, or if this result stood alone, it would not be a very strong 

 recommendation, and should be classed with the kind of argu 

 ment used not long since in Parliament, in commendation of the 

 corn laws, that they encouraged labor by rendering agricultu 

 ral produce dear, when it is obvious that, just in proportion as 

 the price of agricultural produce increases, the value of the wages 

 of the laborer decrease, his supplies are diminished, and, though 

 labor is more in demand, it is worse paid. 



1. MACHINERY LIGHTENS LABOR. The value of improved 

 machinery rests upon different grounds. Its first effect is to 

 lessen the severity of human toil. Through the ingenious ap 

 plication of the mechanical powers, that is effected by the hand 

 of a child, which the united force of hundreds of men, strained 



