XX11 PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS. 



it withdraws men from the competitions of trade and manufactures ; and, above 

 all, it attaches men to the soil, and so far gives a pledge of order, loyalty, and 

 patriotism. 



The efforts of government, then, should be directed to give every possible 

 facility and protection to this art or pursuit ; to render land accessible ; to break 

 up those tenures under which, by various provisions, worthy only of a barbarous 

 age, land is kept out of cultivation ; to alleviate, as much as possible, the bur 

 dens upon land ; to assist in all those great improvements, which are too vast 

 for individual effort ; to diffuse agricultural knowledge ; to promote agricultural 

 education ; to learn and translate the improvements and crops of other countries : 

 and by honors and premiums to encourage an emulation in the only art in which 

 emulation is not only innocent and harmless, but always useful to all parties ; and 

 thus to stimulate cultivation and improvement in every branch of this art, and 

 induce habits of domestic economy, by every practicable means. What govern 

 ments can do on a large scale, landlords and proprietors may do perhaps more 

 efficiently and successfully within their own domains. May they feel the great 

 responsibility which their situation imposes on them ! If any one of the great 

 nations of Europe would give but half the attention and half the expense to the 

 improvement of its agriculture, which it now bestows upon its military prepara 

 tions and improvements, AVC might expect an equal proficiency in the one art as 

 in the other. Which should be preferred whether it be better to save life or 

 to destroy I leave to the judgment of my readers. 



It is now only a few months since I passed a day at Waterloo. I saw, waving 

 with their luxuriant crops, the fields which had been enriched by torrents of 

 human blood: I stood upon the grassy mound under which tens of slaughtered 

 thousands lay entombed. I have a profound reverence for that heroism which 

 bares its bosom in defence of right, justice, and freedom ; but I have no respect 

 for that tiger ferocity which delights in human carnage, and that mad enthusiasm 

 which follows, reckless of its own and of other lives, the phantom which men 

 call military glory. The cannon s roar, the waving plumes, the burnished hel 

 met, the bristling bayonets glittering in the sunshine, have no charms for me. I 

 took in my hands a skull pierced by a ball, which the plough had recently turned 

 up. I thought for a moment of the burning passions, the fiery hate, the thirst 

 for revenge, for conquest, and for blood, which had filled and swelled in this little 

 casket, the noblest production of divine power, when death instantly de 

 manded the account. Other associations rushed upon the mind. I thought of 

 some once cheerful fireside made desolate ; of some aged mother robbed of her 

 staff; of a widow cast friendless upon the world ; of orphan children, and of 



