AMERICAN AND BRITISH AGRICULTURE. 341 



animals and seed, the landowner gets one-third. But terms 

 may vary according to situation, soil, and crop. 



Farm-hired men, or by whatever other name they may be 

 distinguished, are to be had in all old settled districts, and also 

 in many of the new ones. In most cases their reward is ample, 

 and their treatment good, living on the same kind of fare and 

 often associating with their employers. A great deal of farm 

 labour is performed by piece-work. 



The agriculture of a country is affected by local circum 

 stances, and farming in Britain and in the remote parts of 

 America may be considered the extremes of the art. In the 

 one country the farmer aims to assist, and in the other to rob 

 nature. When the results of capital and labour are low, com 

 pared with the hire of them, they are sparingly applied to the 

 cultivation of the soil, in which case nature is oppressed and 

 neglected, if I may be allowed to use such terms ; and when 

 they are high, compared with their hire, she is aided and car- 

 ressed. Both systems are proper in the respective countries ; 

 and, by assuming a fixed result for nature, they admit of arith 

 metical demonstration. Along the eastern shores of America, 

 manures and a considerable portion of hired labour are ap 

 plied to the cultivation of the soil: but in remote districts 

 manures are not used, and the smallest indispensable quantity 

 of labour bestowed. In the eastern parts, the results of capi 

 tal and labour enter into the productions of the soil ; in re 

 mote districts the aid of capital can scarcely be said to have 

 been called into action, and in both situations nature is the 

 chief agent. 



The circumstances affecting the application of capital and 

 labour to the cultivation of the soil in Britain and America 

 are as opposite as their systems of farming. In Britain, with 

 her limited surface and dense population, nature s contribution 

 towards the production of farm produce is given to the 

 landholder as rent, and the rural inhabitants living near the 

 starvation point, the price of provisions regulates in a great 

 measure the hire of labour. Accordingly, the wages of 

 agricultural labour in the different parts of the country are 

 proportionate to the value of their produce ; being lowest in 

 the remote and inclement situations, and highest in the most 



