FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE. .95 



as a general rule, that it is better for a young man to buy a 

 farm than to hire one, supposing him to have no more cap- 

 ital than is necessary to stock his farm and purchase 

 implements of husbandry. But supposing that he is so 

 circumstanced, that, besides stocking his farm, he can do 

 something towards purchasing it at the outset, with a rea- 

 sonable expectation that in the course of time, with industry 

 and frugality and temperance, he can make it his own, then 

 it is better that he should purchase than hire. The owner 

 makes improvements with zeal and spirit, for he makes 

 them in the assurance that he or his children will reap the 

 benefit of them ; and every liew improvement furnishes a 

 new stimulus to those efforts which are necessary to pay off 

 the debt. But no person takes genuine pleasure in improv* 

 ing another man's property. It is the interest of the tenant 

 to get as much out of the soil as he can, and give as little as 

 he can back to it. When he has exhausted one farm he 

 can take another. Thus, the land, as far as it is cultivated 

 in this way, is undergoing a gradual decay ; but not more 

 surely than the generous principle in the heart of him who 

 thus occupies it, who is perpetually, though perhaps uncon- 

 sciously, under the influence of his interest, engaged in .de- 

 teriorating his neighbor's property. The owner is under 

 precisely the opposite influence. He strives to render back 

 to the land as much as possible, in return for what he takes 

 from it ; for he feels that he is making it the depository of 

 all that his youth and manhood can lay up for the decline of 

 life, for his family and his children. 



Whatever, in this way, is true of the young farmer who 

 lias purchased his farm on credit, is still more applicable to 

 him, who, happily, begins life the proprietor of the soil 

 which he cultivates. It is particularly in reference to him 

 that the subject presents itself in other relations than those 

 of pecuniary calculation, and assumes an aspect, not merely 

 of an economical, but also of a political question. In gen- 

 eral, the inquiry how the land is cultivated derives great 

 consequence from its connection with the political condition 

 of the cultivators. A very considerable portion of the po- 

 litical power of every country must be vested in the land- 

 holders ; for they hold a large part of the property of the 

 country. They do so even in England, where there is such 

 a vast amount of commercial and manufacturing wealth. 

 Although the land is, to a considerable degree, in England 

 monopolized by rich proprietors, yet attempts have been 



