1838] 



FARRIERS' REGISTER. 



n 



eiiiployeil exclusively in afjriciilture, the jrreaier 

 would be the production of food. Th(> reverse is 

 the larl. The more ;)<rri(Millural a natieii is, ;ind 

 the worse and more unproihiclive is and must be 

 its atfricuhure. There is a sad and mosi lallicious 

 viiMv of'this son in the la'e report ol' the Secreta- 

 ry of I he Treasury, (1S37.) The true productive, 

 and increasins;l>i productive, and rcullij eroiumiical 

 system of agriculture, can only exist vviih the bulk 

 of the population otherwise [iroductively employ- 

 ed than in a<rricuUure. To those who undersiand 

 the true principles of airriculture, all this :s abuu- 

 dautly evident; to those who do not, the example 

 of Enirland will abundantly prove it. No country 

 was in a lower condition than Ensjland when 

 purely agricultural, and that at no distant dale. 

 She was sunk in poverty and barbarism, when Ita- 

 ly was prosperous, wealthy and civilized. As 

 the agricultural population proportionately dimin- 

 ished, and other productive prolessiotis increased, 

 exactly did her prosperity, wealth and power in- 

 crease, with at the same time endless and most 

 heavy drawbacks and burthens upon agriculture. 

 What would have been the condition of Enjiland 

 now. had there been a just and economical gov- 

 ernment, and the soil had been placed upon an 

 equal footiug of freedom and security with her 

 manufactures and commerce. 



The scarcity of Ibod of late in the United States, 

 I foretold many years ago. But not because 

 there are too lew employed in agriculture, as hint- 

 ed at by the Secretary of the Treasury, but be- 

 cause the system of agriculture created during the 

 period of the nation being an almost purely agri- 

 cultural one, is still pursued with an increasing 

 non-agricultural population. The agriculture of 

 the country has not yet improved with and by 

 means of the non-agricultural population; but it 

 will most assuredly do so, il" that population is not 

 madly destroyed and perverted from its present oc- 

 cupations. 



The view taken by the present politicnl econo- 

 mists of wages and human labor, its supply and 

 demand; of deficiency of food, excess of popula- 

 tion, their causes, operations and effects, are most 

 fallacious and mischievous, and will ever be so, so 

 long as the labor of man is merely viewed as a 

 common dead commodity. A far higher view 

 than this must be taken of its operations and ef- 

 fects. They have yet to learn that Icic ivages are 

 the primary cause of excess of supply of labor, 

 and not the eflect in the first instance. The two 

 unquestionably become cause and effect upon 

 each other. 



The causes of too low wages are the ignorance 

 of the people, the equal and corresponding igno- 

 rance, ami the narrow, selfish, short-sighted views 

 of capitalists, as to ihoir own true and permanent 

 interests and those of the operatives — the interests 

 ol both being intimately and indisjolubly bound 

 together — but above all,' from the undue,' dispro- 

 portioned, and non-observance ofihe law of occu- 

 pation. High wages are advantageous to all, 

 more or less so directly and indirectly, hut to none 

 Bo much so as to the firmer; they give him bet- 

 ter prices, they enable him to cultivate the soil by 

 the only true means of improvement and increas- 

 ing fertility, and with the greatest economy of la- 

 bor, in requiring the due proportions of grain 

 and cattle crops, Src The farmer who advocates 

 low wages, commits a quadruple suicide. The 



manufacturer who advocates the same, cute tlie 



throats of the fiir greatest viajority of his custom- 

 e s. The manulacturer who pays low wages, sells 

 a diminislied (luantity at a diminished price only; 

 bat the lartiier who pays low wages, cuts up his 

 [lower and means of production root and branch, 

 for he desii'oys the fertility of his soil, and possess- 

 es no power to maintain and increase it; that is, if 

 wages are hdino the bread and meat power of sub- 

 sistence, which is the natural law of subsistent^e. 

 The profits of tiie farmer will be the greatest and' 

 highest, when all have the power and means of^ 

 obtaining all that is essential tor the due, healthy, 

 legitimate existence of man; for then will prices 

 be the highest, or in other words, the most duly 

 proportioned, and the labor reijuired, the least 

 possible. The prices of all the different produc- 

 'ions are always proportioned to each other ex- 

 actly as the law of oi'.cupation is observed. All 

 the other productive professions h;we always beer« 

 the least duly proponioned to the agricultural, 

 (the latter being in excess and the former defi- 

 c'ent,) so have the profits of tiie farmers been 

 usually the least. 



Were the different professions all duly propor- 

 tioned to ea<;h other, far less land would be in cul- 

 tivation in proporiion to any existing population, 

 than now is; but the land in cultivation would be 

 many times more productive than before, and at 

 much less expense. All this may appear para- 

 doxical enough to those who have not studied 

 and investigated the operations and effects of the 

 due observance of the laws of occupation, subsis- 

 tence, and the production of food. 



With most political economists, (and ftirmers as 

 well,) "capital" is every thing — the panacea, the 

 power, the means, the end, the object, the pursuit, 

 the every thing, the all-in-all. Capital is certain- 

 ly a good and essential power, the product of skill, 

 knovv'ledge and industry; but it is not the first of' 

 all essentials in national prosperity, but only a very 

 secondary one. The first is system — the primary 

 unbought power and means of production. Of 

 what avail is capital to the agriculturist, if the 

 laws of occupation and subsistence are not duly 

 and legitimately proportioned and observed? He 

 n^ay build, make fences, drain, lime, and apply 

 what are foolishly called artificial manures, &c» 

 &c. and the nature and extent of the public de- 

 mand compels him to have a large undue propor- 

 tion of exhausting crops, and the same crops too 

 frequently repeated, (the greatest of all errors in 

 agriculture,) and withholds from him the means of 

 duly maintaining and increasing the fijrlility of the 

 soil, stock being far too little in demand. It ig 

 system which is the all-in-all to him, and this he 

 must be enabled to pursue, by the just and full 

 demand of a legitimately occupied, and conse- 

 quently, legitimately fed population. Without 

 this, capital is of no avail. It is this which will 

 create it; aad which has done so, so largely, in 

 England, and might have done so a hundred-fbid 

 more, were the laws of occupation and subsistence 

 more legitimately observed tlian they have been, 

 and are. 



The true system of agriculture would be — all 

 the grass crops in succession, according to their 

 respective periods of duration, v/ith all the crops 

 for the subsistence of man and stock, and for cloth- 

 ing, &c. intervening; all according to tfie latitudes 

 to which they belong. All those crops which re- 



