318 HOW TO GET A FARM, 



CHAPTER XIY. 



Why Land so often changes Owners Tenures and Estates in 

 England Absorption there and here Results of English 

 Husbandry The real Value of Land Stick to the Farm 

 Scarecrows Why Farming is Unprofitable Go where most 

 wanted. 



IT has been assumed, throughout these pages, that 

 the masses in this country are desirous of becoming 

 owners of land. But among the curiosities of the 

 subject is an extraordinary propensity among a por 

 tion of them to get rid of it. This must have its 

 origin in the absorbing passion of Americans to 

 become traders and speculators rather than farmers. 

 Some writer, whose name is unknown to me, pro 

 nounces the American a type of a restless, adventur 

 ous, onward-going race of people. &quot; He sends his 

 merchandise all over the earth; stocks every market; 

 makes wants that he may supply them ; covers New 

 Zealand with Southern cotton woven in Northern 

 looms ; sends clerks of stores to the Sandwich 

 Islands ; swaps with the Fejee cannibals; sends his 

 whale-ships among the polar icebergs, or to cruise 

 in other solitary seas, till the log-book tells the 

 tedious sameness of years, during which boys be 

 come men ; gives to the torrid zone the ice of our 

 Northern winters ; piles up the crystal squares of 



