AGRICULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES. 449 



The adventurers who landed at Tampa Bay, and followed the 

 stern De Soto to the Mississippi River, were in search of El 

 Dorado, and had no desire to cultivate any of the fertile regions 

 over which they passed during their toilsome march. But the 

 home government desired a more permanent colonization, and, 

 in 1565, we find that Spain granted to Francisco de Eraso 

 " twenty-five leagues square (3,600,000 acres), to be located 

 wherever he pleased, in Florida, with the office of governor, and 

 various other titles and privileges for himself and heirs, exempt- 

 ing them from imposts and duties, on condition that he should 

 provide several caravals for exploration, and colonize his tract, 

 within three years, with 500 settlers, most of whom should be 

 husbandmen, 500 slaves, 100 horses and mares, 200 heifers, 400 

 swine, and 400 ewes." Several colonies were thus established, 

 but they did not prosper, and little was done to improve the 

 cultivation of the soil until the English took possession in 1763. 

 When the Spaniards regained possession, agriculture was again 

 neglected, fields were allowed to grow up with briers, and sugar- 

 houses to rot down. 



The Puritan English Colonists. The English Puritans, who 

 settled in New England, were men who regarded civil and relig- 

 ious liberty as the primary object of rational beings. To use 

 their own words, "They left their pleasant and beautiful homes 

 in England to plant their poor cottages in the wilderness," that 

 they might worship God as revelation and conscience might teach, 

 and found a free agricultural state equal to Palestine in its palmi- 

 est days, when Israel's kings had " herds of cattle, both in the low 

 country and on the plains, granaries for their abundant crops, 

 husbandmen also, and vine-dressers in the mountains." The 

 sacred light of Biblical history was not to them like the stern- 

 light of a vessel, only illuminating what had been passed over, 

 but rather the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire moving before 

 them on the path of life, giving guidance by day and assurance 

 by night. The fate of Babylon, of Nineveh, of Carthage, of 

 Venice, of Genoa, and many commercial governments of Central 

 Europe, warned them 



*' That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, 

 As ocean sweeps the labored mole away." 



