1S35. 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



265 



a sense of the evils arising from it, which they al- 

 ready feel and lament; yet the law will occasionally 

 have its course; and the estate once divided, can 

 never again be united. The consequence of this 

 is, that landed property is no longer an object of 

 profit or pleasure; thw choose to possess more than 

 is necessary for their own convenience; fewer live 

 in the country than heretofore; no houses, in many 

 parts of the country, of any consideration, are 

 building; and no improvements of any kind taking 

 place. Willi the decline of this class of people, 

 and their property, is also that of the produce of 

 the soil; lbr the poor and the ignorant must una 

 voidably wear it out; the opulent and the intelligent 

 alone can improve and ornament their country, and 

 increase the produce of it. Such is the operation 

 of the new constitutions on the higher orders; and 

 it will be found, that manners too, have their full 

 influence on the inferior orders; the mass of those 

 we should call planters or farmers, are ignorant, 

 uneducated, poor, and indolent: such an one who 

 possesses an hundred acres of ground, will not in 

 stock, furniture, or property, be worth £60; were 

 he to possess such a capital, he would be esteemed 

 a person of considerable substance; but he boasts 

 of his independence, and enjoys inaction. 



Of the people of this, and of inferior ranks, ease 

 is the greatest bliss, and a frolic the greatest spur 

 to activity; with such inclinations, labor will afford 

 but. a bare subsistence; and with this, such people 

 will sit down contented rather than toil. From this 



picture, must be entirely excepted the people of 

 the New England states; they, with a more ra- 

 tional love of independence, possess also an equal 

 love of industry and order; consequently this ex- 

 emplary and enterprising people, enjoy the natural 

 attendants of such principles, knowledge, wealth, 

 and power, in full proportion to their respective 

 stations. The consequence of this state of thinga 

 cannot be otherwise, than that the produce of the 

 country must be stationary, if not on the decline; 

 and that the supplies hereafter to be drawn from 

 this, by other countries, cannot be greater, if so 

 great, as they have been, unless some sudden and 

 very material alteration of public principles and 

 private practice should take place. It may account 

 also, in part, for the excessive price which a de- 

 mand not excessive, and no very great supply, has 

 created in most articles of export from the United 

 States, and especially within the last two or three 

 years; and it may perhaps also appear, that this in- 

 creased demand, and excessive price, have not ma- 

 terially added to the quantity exported* of articles 



* The following is an account of the export of the 

 staple articles of the United Sates, in the first and last 

 years, in which it can at this time be obtained; in the 

 first year, public disturbances in Europe had not had 

 any material influence on commerce; in the last, a vi- 

 gorous and general war had called for all the supplies 

 that America could afford. 



The return of this article being defective in 1794, that of 1793 is here taken. 



The United States are therefore 

 Losers. Gainers. 



Dollars. j By rice, at 18 dollars per tierce, 

 314,718,5 By flour, at 6^ dollars per barrel, 

 1,416,080 By beef, 61 dollars ditto, 



38,220 

 272,000 

 427,661 



By maize, at \ dollar per bushel, 

 By tobacco, at 40 dollars per hogshead, 

 By cattle, at 20 dollars each, 

 By horses, at 40 dollars each, 

 Buckwheat, at 1 dollar per bushel, 



2,468,779,5 

 1,657,982,25 



Dollars— 810,697,25 



By pork at S^dollars ditto, 



607,788 

 609,583 

 331,981,25 

 108,630 



Dollars 1,657,982,25 



The dollar 4s. 6d. sterling. 



Therefore, though a bounty from 50 to 100 per cent, has been offered on the export of their chief articles 

 of produce, in that great increase of price that was paid for them in 1794, yet in five years the United States 

 have declined in the value of their export to the amount of upwards of eight hundred thousand dollars, accord- 

 ing to the peace price. The price has augmented the export of articles of chief demand by the belligerent 

 powers, but an immense loss in other articles, the produce of their soil, so as to leave the above great balance 

 against the owners of it. If this be fairly stated, and the writer apprehends that the authorities from whence it 

 is derived, cannot be disputed; surely it behoves the government of the United States to pay more attention to 

 the landed and agricultural interests of their country; to remedy principles of law, so destructive to them, to 

 occupy their minds on certain and immediate benefits, rather than attend to uncertain and distant speculations, 

 before habits have become fixed in the mass of the people, which cannot afterwards, when wanted, be coun- 

 teracted; before the principal people have abandoned a country life, as no longer affording them an occupation 

 worthy of their attention; before their estates cease to be objects of rational pleasure, by being split into por- 

 tions no longer worth possessing; and before they feel that their property and pursuits no longer afford them that 

 influence, which their rank in society ought to give them. 



Vol. 111—34 



