XVI PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 



sterile, but which human labor has made productive, two and a half acres will 

 give ample support for a man and wife and three children, or what is considered 

 equal to three grown-up men and a half; and add to it three acres more, which 

 this amount of labor is more than sufficient to cultivate, and you add a consid 

 erable surplus for other purposes. 



The great cause, then, of the evils complained of, is, that the cultivation of 

 the earth is deserted ; and that such innumerable multitudes pour into cities and 

 towns, and, filling every profession and every mechanical art and trade, destroy 

 each other by a competition in articles of which the demand is necessarily lim 

 ited. There may be too many physicians, too many lawyers, and too many 

 ministers, for them all to get a sufficient and an honest living ; and too many 

 hatters, and too many printers, and too many shop-keepers ; for, besides that 

 these persons furnish more of a particular article or service than the community 

 require, their work is in general only formal ; they only manufacture, they do 

 not produce ; they do not, like the grower of bread and of clothing, create that 

 which may be said to have a substantial and permanent value. For when was 

 the time when there was too great an abundance of the materials I mean par 

 ticularly of those which can be kept from year to year for food and clothing, 

 for human subsistence and comfort ? As long as this state of things continues, 

 there must be misery in the community ; as the population increases, this misery 

 must increase. 



In cities, money becomes the standard of prosperity. Wages are paid in 

 money ; money is the instrument of subsistence, of gain, and of pleasure. 

 Avarice, under these circumstances, becomes stimulated to excess, and often 

 leads to crime. Men s happiness becomes dependent upon that which has no 

 intrinsic, but only an arbitrary value, a value which is always capricious, and 

 continually changing. If men could be induced to cultivate the earth, and, 

 trained to the simple habits of laborious and rural life, be satisfied with what 

 that affords them ; if they would measure their prosperity and Avealth, not by so 

 many shining pieces of gold or silver, which they have hoarded in their closets, 

 but by the produce of their labor in bread and clothing, and the various and 

 innumerable simple luxuries of life, with which a kind Providence so often 

 blesses the labors even of the most humble, how changed would be their condi 

 tion ! If they could be as well satisfied to breathe the fresh air of their native 

 mountains and forests as the corrupt and pestilential atmosphere of crowded 

 streets and confined dwellings, from which both sun and light are shut out ; as 

 well content to enjoy the simple and healthful sports of the country, as the ex 

 citing and exhausting pleasures of city life ; if their taste could be better satisfied 

 to contemplate the verdant fields, waving with crops or enamelled with flowers, 



