326 HOW TO GET A FARM, 



nations of the world, and the richest of human 

 aristocracies.&quot; 



Thus, &quot; under the influence of the culture created 

 by the action of such minds upon labor, we find a 

 yield of 50 to 80 bushels of wheat per acre in Eng 

 land, from 40 to 70 in France, and the productive 

 power of an acre of land in the well cultivated part 

 of Europe to be double what it was seventy-five 

 years ago. In proof of the influence of improved 

 tillage in England in enabling her to sustain her 

 own people with diminished reliance on importa 

 tions from foreign countries, I may here state the 

 important fact, that while in the first ten years of 

 the present century she imported foreign wheats at 

 the rate of eight quarts per annum for each person 

 in the realm, in the next ten years she imported but 

 six, in the next five years but four, and in the last 

 three years of these five, at the low rate of a single 

 pint, the soil of the kingdom supplying all the rest 

 consumed. More land had indeed been brought 

 under tillage, but every acre, old and new, having 

 been better tilled, had made a better yield.&quot; 



Many of the foregoing facts and observations are 

 here reproduced from anonymous sources ; but it 

 may be said that everybody who has taken the 

 smallest pains to ascertain the facts, knows and tes 

 tifies that agriculture has advanced just in propor 

 tion as mind, mind as developed in men of intellect, 

 intelligence, education, and reflection, has given at 

 tention to it. The condition of English agriculture, 

 as an obvious and suggestive example, bears ample 

 testimony to the influence of mind upon progress. 



