AND WHERE TO FIND ONE. 325 



tnre ; noblemen not only by right of geniture and 

 rank, but noble men in the noblest sense of the 

 word, who are carrying forward on their enormous 

 estates the most magnificent operations in the high 

 est culture of the soil, winning from their well fed 

 and well tilled acres the richest reward of the wisest 

 husbandry. One contemplates with amazement the 

 magnificence of their arrangements for irrigating 

 hundreds of acres, as may be seen on the estates of 

 the Duke of Portland ; the vast extent of their sys 

 tems of drainage and subsoiling, the enormous cap 

 ital invested in carrying on their agricultural pro 

 cesses and improvements, and the vast revenues by 

 which they are enabled to push forward their splen 

 did designs. It is fortunate for mankind that such 

 men devote their talents and their great resources 

 to an enterprise so important, and exert their pow 

 erful influence in the promotion of so great a cause 

 a cause which holds concentrated within itself 

 every inducement to allure the loftiests minds and 

 the fullest means to its support, as upon its success 

 humanity itself depends for the continuance of its 

 very existence.&quot; 



It may be safely asserted that &quot; but for the high 

 culture which the soil of England has received un 

 der such influences, and the consequent develop 

 ment of its exuberant riches, her population could 

 not have made the great strides that have carried it 

 from four and a half millions in 1600 to more than 

 twenty-five millions in 1862 ; nor could the nation 

 itself have attained that immense power and wealth 

 which make her now to stand foremost among the 



