162 RUTA BAGA CULTURE. [PART I. 



worst description. And thus is this a mere 

 political job ; a channel for the squandering of 

 some thousands a year of the people's money 

 upon worthless men, who ought to be working 

 in the fields, or mending " His Majesty's High. 



wavs." 



120. Happily, politics, in this country, have 

 nothing to do with agriculture ; and here, there 

 fore, I think I have a chance to be fairly heard. 

 I should, indeed, have been heard in England ; 

 but, I really could never bring myself to do 

 any thing tending to improve the estates of the 

 oppressors of my country ; and the same con 

 sideration now restrains me from communi 

 cating information, on the subject of timber 

 trees, which would be of immense benefit to 

 England ; and which information I shall reserve, 

 till the tyranny shall be at an end. Castlereagh, 

 in the fulness of his stupidity, proposed, that, in 

 order to find employment for " the population" 

 as he insolently called the people of England, 

 he would set them to dig holes one day and 

 fill them up the next. I could tell him what to 

 plant in the holes, so as to benefit the country 

 in an immense degree ; but, like the human 

 body in some complaints, the nation would 

 now be really 'injured by the communications 

 of what, if it were in a healthy state, would do 

 it good, add to its strength, and to all its means 

 of exertion. 



