602 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



[No. 10 



other "learned" and "polite 1 ' professions, and con- 

 sequently, not so with each other: when this is the 

 case, is not a little mystery and delay the best? — 

 better not to tell all at once — excite the curiosity — 

 endeavor to slate the true principles of agricul- 

 ture first — then people will say, "I did not think 

 of this hefore — this is a sensible fellow — I should 

 like to know what his practice is, and more of the 

 results." We are thought loo meanly of, and we 

 think too meanly of ourselves; that is, of our pro- 

 fession — its value and importance. The remarks 

 of Col. Bondurant upon this subject, in your De- 

 cember No. are excellent. I want 1o say some- 

 thing about this in my notes upon Brooks' letter 

 from London, and about the true principles of ag- 

 riculture — and we can poke in a little practice as 

 we go along. Practice, by itself, is like recipes, 

 prescriptions, good advice, &e. in the newspapers — 

 soon forgotten, and little attended to. 



Don't be afraid of some of my heterodox opin- 

 ions: they will come in, and tell by and by; for I 

 have a strong hold against, at present, high estab- 

 lished . authorities. Between ourselves, I have 

 made the greatest and most important discovery 

 ever made by man; this is in agriculture, and in 



folitical economy, as regards food and population, 

 t is of no use to myself and society to tell this 

 publicly, all at once. I am perfectly confident in 

 the truth of my positions. I call my practice the 

 anti-Malthusian system of agriculture.* A word 



* The theory of Malthus of the laws of population 

 and subsistence, may not be familiar to all who will 

 read the remarks of our correspondent — and therefore 

 we may be pardoned for presenting the following 

 concise statement in explanation. 



The doctrine of Malthus, (which has obtained the 

 assent of almost all political economists,) is, that pop- 

 ulation naturally increases in a geometrical ratio, while 

 food can only be increased in an arithmetical ratio. 

 Suppose that marriages on an average produce 4 chil- 

 dren, who may themselves live to marry: then each 

 generation will serve to double the population, accord- 

 ing to the ratio of 1, 2, 4. 8, 16, 32, See. Let the rate 

 of increase be ever so much slower, it is still in a geo- 

 metrical ratio, and, in a longer time, will produce simi- 

 lar results. 



In a country thus increasing in population, the 

 quantity of food, or means of subsistence, will of 

 course be increased also — but however rapidly, it will 

 not be in geometrical, but in arithmetical proportion — 

 not by doubling — but by regular additions of equal 

 (or more often of decreasing) quantities. Thus food 

 may increase at first, (and generally will, in new and 

 fertile countries,) even faster than population — as in 

 the ratio of 1 to 4, (or by additions of 3) — but then it 

 will be only at the rate of 1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16— and of 

 course the increase of population will be rapidly over- 

 taking, and then outstripping the means for its support. 



The rule, however, can only work freely and fully 

 so long as there are no checks obstructing propagation 

 — and there is no country, no condition of man, in 

 which such checks do not operate with more or less 

 force. Perhaps they have less influence on the slave 



about it. Do you not see that man has never 

 yet lived according to the natural law of his sub- 

 sistence — which is, according to his organization; 

 that Malthus and his followers never thought of 

 ascertaining what this law is, and the correspond- 

 ing law of agriculture ! ! ! — and hence all their er- 

 rors. Do you not sec that man has hitherto deem- 

 ed it of no importance whether nations subsist 

 upon bread, potatoes, rice, or Indian corn, &c, 

 with little or no animal food; and hence the utter 

 exhaustion of the soil; because vegetable matter, 

 (grass, roots, &c.) and animal manure (with cal- 

 careous matter as the governing power, in duly 

 proportioning stalk, leaf, fruit, grain and seed — ) 

 have, under these circumstances, been almost 

 wholly wanting; and hence the "decline anil fall" 

 of Rome, (and all other empires,) with accotn- 

 plishingwhich, Caesar had no more to do than Gen. 

 Jackson had. Individuals have no such power as 

 Ikat, either for good or evil — particularly the latter. 

 The fall and permanence of nations depend upon 

 the non-observance and observance of the laws of 

 nature, by the mass of the people — not upon the 

 acts of individuals. 



I consider that man was formed to subsist upon 

 animal and vegetable food, in certain proportions; 

 the proportion of animal food increasing with de- 

 crease of temperature — obviously for the wisest 

 and best purposes; and that the true principles of 

 agriculture are conformable to this law of subsist 



population of most of the southern states, than on any 

 other class in ike world. The checks are either pru- 

 dential, moral, or physical — the latter being the state 

 of starvation and other extreme suffering following 

 want of food. The first two checks to population 

 seive to restrain the natural tendency to propagation — 

 and if they are not exerted, the last one serves effectu- 

 ally to destroy the redundant increase and to reduce pop- 

 ulation within the limits fixed by the amount of sub- 

 sistence then furnished by the industry and products 

 of the country. 



The inferences are — that the most prosperous and 

 fertile country, with the best regulated society, con- 

 tains the seeds which will surely produce an abundant 

 harvest of misery. There is no effectual remedy — and 

 the only hope for mitigating the weight of these ap- 

 proaching inflictions, is the rigid enforcement of the 

 operation of the three checks to population. This stern, 

 repulsive, and stubborn doctrine, wars with the 

 strongest as well as the most generous natural impulses 

 of the human race, and even forbids the exercise of 

 acts of charity, by continually warning us that in giv- 

 ing present aid and comfort, we are producing a ten-fold 

 amount of future misery. We have not read Malthus 

 for nearly twenty years — and now state his views, and 

 our own inferences from recollection — but the lapse 

 of time has not lessened our submission to his rea- 

 soning. Though we doubt the ability of our corres- 

 pondent, and of all other persons, to show the theory 

 of population to be false, we heartily wish him success, 

 and should be rejoiced to yield to his arguments our 

 present unwilling conviction of the truth of the heart- 

 benumbing, hope-stifling doctrine of Malthus. Ed. 

 Farm. Reg. 



