many causes, natural and artificial, the natural causes being our di- 

 versity of soil and climate, and the variety of our crops, and the 

 economy with which new and fertile lands can be cultivated— the 

 artificial causes being the advantages of local and general markets 

 and the relations established between the farmer and the soil he 

 cultivated by the independent ownership of the land under the laws 

 of our country To this last cause may be attributed much of 

 that elasticity and energy which the American farmer manifests in 

 occupying new lands, and the cultivation of crops adapted to the 

 market which they can reach. It were not easy to tell the strength 

 and stimulus which came through the ownership of the soil, to 

 him who occupies it, has' fixed his home upon it, and looks to it as 

 his means of subsistence. It is to the division and subdivision of 

 the land, almost as much as to their devotion to the institutions of 

 learning and their determination to secure all social and civil rights 

 that our fathers owe their success in establishing free government 

 on this continent. They had the Anglo-Saxon love of land, but above 

 all they had the Anglo Saxon love of individual independence, and 

 land monopolies, entail and primogenture were especially odious to 

 them. They established in the earliest colonial days a system of 

 landholding so simple, so exact, so easily managed, that it has be- 

 come the example which all republican governments follow. They 

 established a public registry of deed, and provided for an easy and 

 recorded transfer of landed estates from hand to hand, as easy as 

 the transfer of personal property. The state which they formed 

 became not only the home of civil and religious freedom, but of 

 small landed proprietors also. When they struck for freedom 

 they struck for the sacred right of their own homes, which had 

 become scattered throughout the length and breadth of the land, 

 and were the nurseries of a hardy, independent, sturdy race of 

 puritans in religion and roundheads in politics. They were indeed 

 the lords of the soil, and were as unoonquerable in their defense of 

 their little farms as the great landed proprietors of their old homes 

 were in protecting their immense estates from invasion or popular 

 revolution. The feudal tenure of England never gained a foot- 

 hold here. But the commercial tenure which took its place gave 

 every prosperous member of the community an opportunity to cul- 

 tivate his own little kingdom, and to dispose of or exchange it at his 

 pleasure. The temptation to secure land, under these circumstances, 

 becomes irresistible. The mechanic labored to secure his home- 

 stead ; the merchant was never satisfied until he had purchased a 



