No. 8. 



Cheajj Land and Low Wages. 



243 



supply the officers with their expensive 

 clothing. 



When estates are sold, the timber and 

 buildings are all included; the buildings be- 

 ing more numerous and more extensive than 

 would be requisite, were the labourers more 

 industrious, their indolent habits requiring a 

 much larger number on an estate; while the 

 severity of their climate renders necessary 

 the housing of every description of stock 

 during the whole winter — their crops also are 

 all housed — and besides this, the number of 

 wolves, which is alarmingly increasing, is so 

 great that no cattle can be left in the fields 

 in the winter ; these animals range in packs 

 of from four to fourteen, and no winter passes 

 without several human beings — particularly 

 children — falling a sacrifice to their voracity ; 

 and they will undermine the foundations of 

 the cattle and sheep houses to get at their 

 prey. 



But in the Austrian province of Moravia 

 is a better state of things, arising from its 

 agriculture finding domestic consumers; a 

 greater proportion of the population can af- 

 ford to live on moat and use wheaten flour, 

 and hence the agriculturists find a market 

 for their productions : the demand for animal 

 food being greater, a greater stock of cattle 

 is kept, more of the land is consequently de- 

 voted to green crops, and thus the growth of 

 grain does not exhaust the land so much as 

 the stock of cattle, by their manure, renews 

 it by its prolific qualities; while in Hungary 

 the want of vent for their surplus grain has 

 so depressed the price of that and other pro- 

 ductions of the soil, that they lose by every 

 article they raise except wool ; and although, 

 from farming their own land, they have no 

 rent to pay, yet the greatest difficulty is en- 

 countered in collecting the trifling taxes that 

 are laid upon them. 



In an account of a large estate in Granow, 

 in the Russian province of Podolia, of 130,560 

 acres, the agricultural labour including the 

 team, is paid with 12 cents, and other manual 

 labour with 8 cents per day, while the pro- 

 duction of the soil, on an average of five 

 years, is, rye ten-fold, wheat nine, barley and 

 oats seven, buckwheat six, flax and hemp 

 three, and millet two only ! The larger 

 quantity of produce, which cannot be dis- 

 posed of, is increasing from year to year, it 

 not being possible to find a vent for it in the 

 country. And it is argued, distress is great- 

 est where provisions are cheapest ; there is 

 then famine without dearth, hunger amidst 

 abundance of provisions, farmers without a 

 market, and labourers without the means to 

 purchase ! In the fall of prices famine ori- 

 ginates, the fall preventing the tenant from 

 paying his rent; the landlord, himself bound 

 by debts and contracts, is unable to make 



abatement; then the miserable stock of the 

 wretched tenantry is seized, the labourer is 

 left destitute without employment, and then 

 ensues a scene of famine and despair, of tu- 

 mult and bloodshed, only to be suppressed by 

 military force! 



The excellent writer then goes on to say, 

 " It has been frequently remarked, that the 

 exportation of grain from any country, if 

 long continued, must tend to exhaust the soil, 

 unless some articles capable of becoming con- 

 verted into manure are introduced, to com- 

 pensate for the injury. Many parts of the 

 North of Africa and Asia Minor, which form- 

 erly supplied large quantities of grain to Eu- 

 rope, have since become deserts ; while from 

 Poland, for near two centuries, the exports 

 of grain have been very large, and, on the 

 other hand, nothing has been imported de- 

 serving of notice which could be converted 

 into nutriment to the soil ; thus, the system 

 of rotation, by which two crops of grain are 

 raised in succession, and nothing is adminis- 

 tered to refresh the land but a naked fallow, 

 would soon exhaust the best soil with which 

 we are acquainted. In every part of Poland 

 the impression communicated while looking 

 over the fields, whether of growing crops, 

 stubble, or under the operation of the plough, 

 is, that they are approaching to a state of ex- 

 haustion from excessive cropping, although 

 fallowed every third year : and this view, 

 which the rotation of crops and the face of 

 the country suggests, is confirmed by the 

 above statistical facts, which show that its 

 power of supplying the wants of other coun- 

 tries is fast passing away." 



Will our friends read, mark, learn and in- 

 wardly digest the above, and say, how much 

 of the reasoning is applicable to certain parts 

 of this country, particularly to the exhausted 

 tobacco lands of Maryland. I conclude in 

 the words of the President of the Philadel- 

 phia Agricultural Society, " Depend upon it, 

 there is no surer sign of national prosperity 

 than high wages, and God grant that for 

 many a long year it may be the lot of our 

 countrymen, who subsist by the labour of 

 their hands, to work well, to be paid well, 

 and to live well." James Courtland. 



The land must be kept clean as a garden, 

 by thoroughly working and cleaning, by hand- 

 picking, pulling and cutting up noxioua 

 weeds, as well in the early stages of their 

 growth as after the crops are carried : in 

 short, every opportunity must be seized to 

 encourage the growth of seed-tceeds, and 

 thereby to prevent them rising with the crop; 

 and this is to be done by harrowing the stub- 

 bles after harvest, preparatory to turning them 

 down in the autumnal ploughing. — Main, 



