DRAINAGE. 75 



sand or more acres of the land, the engine would have drained 

 it, with scarcely any additional expense.&quot; 



10. GRANDEUR AND VALUE OF THESE IMPROVEMENTS. I have 

 had peculiar pleasure in giving my readers an account of these 

 magnificent improvements. They present most striking and 

 beautiful examples of the application of capital, labor, and skill, 

 in the actual creation of wealth, and of wealth itself of a redu 

 plicative character, and full of beneficent and enduring results. 

 Thousands and millions, the produce of severe toil, are often 

 wasted upon useless bawbles, upon idle pageants, upon objects 

 of mere luxury and parade ; and, when the sun goes down, the 

 show passes away as a mere dream. I say nothing of the moral 

 results of such exhibitions, which are but too often not indifferent 

 merely, but pernicious. But here we witness the glorious and 

 enduring triumphs of art and science ; the useful application of 

 labor ; the means of human subsistence and comfort largely 

 extended ; the waste places enriched, the barren made fruitful ; 

 the solitude peopled ; a wide territory peacefully rescued from 

 the sea, and converted into the abodes of industry and plenty ; 

 and desolate sands and sunken bogs transformed into cultivated 

 fields, waving with golden harvests. 



11. RELATION OF THESE IMPROVEMENTS TO THE UNITED STATES. 

 It may be thought that such improvements as these can hardly 

 be looked for in the United States for centuries to come, and 

 while so many millions of public and unappropriated lands, of the 

 richest description, remain to be had at the cheapest rates. I am 

 not of this opinion. The value of lands is materially affected by 

 their situation. Excepting in extraordinary fluctuations, or 

 seasons of inflated speculation, prices have always a tendency to 

 equalize themselves, and to become conformed to actual values. 

 If land in the immediate neighborhood of a city is worth three 

 hundred dollars per acre, while land in ono of the Western States 

 may be purchased at the government price of one dollar and a 

 quarter per acre, it is because the advantages growing out of the 

 position of the one or the other differ in a corresponding degree. 

 In the neighborhood of some of our large and growing cities, of 



* Milliard s Practical Farming 1 . 



