IMPROVING OVR AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY. 267 



under the influence of tradition and prejudice, shall many of 

 them be exploded ; nor until we shall begin duly to appreciate 

 the importance of forming our own habits, as well as those of 

 our posterity, for encountering the evils of a crowded popula- 

 tion. 



This consideration presents an object of vast importance. 

 In the Eastern World, those evils have began to press, when 

 the habits and manners of the people were formed ; and so 

 formed as to aggravate and increase, rather than to avert 

 them. They probably were governed by the influence of the 

 same error that we now are. The farmer who possessed only 

 an hundred acres, and had a number of sons, did not think him- 

 self able to provide a competent agricultural establishment for 

 only one. The others, if tkey were not educated for some of 

 the learned professions, were either sent to the army, or en- 

 gaged in commercial or mechanical pursuits, to depend for 

 support on the casualties and caprice of customers ; or on the 

 degrading and dependent emploympnt of hired servants. 



It is very obvious from a view of their present condition, that 

 no calculation has been made throughout most of the kingdoms 

 of Europe, to provide for the evils of a crowded population, by 

 engaging the laboring class of their citizens in developing the 

 utmost productive resources of their soil. For while they 

 have vast forests, as well as extensive tracts of valuable land 

 lying in an uncultivated state, not more than one sixth part of 

 her population is employed in practical agriculture, and a great 

 proportion of it doomed to the most abject state of servitude 

 and penury. 



The American people are too much inclined to form the 

 habit of the rising generation for other than agricultural pur- 

 suits ; too many had rather see their sons engaged in some 

 specnlative pursuits, by vvhich they may chance to live, without 

 the drudgery of the field, rather than settle down on fifteen or 

 twenty acres of land, to "seize the plough and greatly indepen- 

 dent live." We have in our republic too many professional 



