No. 11. 



English Capital. 



856 



vegetable or animal, or mixtures of both. 

 The ordinary manures are precisely such 

 substances; and sooner or later, by their 

 gradual decomposition, are converted almost 

 entirely to the food of plants, and if judi- 

 ciously applied, are consumed by, and help 

 to sustain, the growing crops. 



But it is not enough, by a great deal, that 

 manures serving to form food for plants, 

 shall be given to the soil. There are other 

 conditions necessary for their protitable and 

 best effects; and the most important ot these 

 conditions is, that the soil shall be so consti- 

 tuted as to preserve the putrescent matters 

 from waste and profitless dissipation, and to 

 give them wholly 'or the support and growth 

 of plants. This condition is hirnished by 

 nature, in well constituted soils only, which 

 present the most productive and durable 

 lands under tillage. Without this constitu- 

 tion, all the supplies of putrescent manures 

 which can be given to a farm, will be ot 

 little profit; and if derived from its own re- 

 sources only, will be utterly insufficient to 

 preserve, and still less to increase, the 

 yearly measure of productiveness of the 

 land. — Ruffin's Ag. Survey of S. C. 



English Capital. 



A MARKED distinction belween the condi- 

 tion of the proprietors of the soil here and 

 with us, is in the amount of capital existing 

 here. It is absolutely enormous; and al- 

 most distances the system of enumeration 

 which we are taught at our common school's. 

 Let me mention some facts which have been 

 stated to me on credible authority; and let 

 me premise that a pound sterling is about 

 e(iual to five dollars United States currency. 

 Under a law of the present government, 

 here, levying a tax upon every man's in- 

 come, when it exceeds one hundred and 

 fifty pounds sterling a year, persons liable 

 to taxation are required to make a just re- 

 turn of their income under a heavy penalty. 

 A confectioner, in London, returned, as his 

 annual income, the sum of thirty thousand 

 pounds sterling, or one hundred and fifty 

 thousand dollars, or, six times as much as 

 the salary of the President of the United 

 States; which showed, at least, how skilful 

 he was in compounding some of the sweets 

 of life. A nobleman, it is said, has con- 

 tracted with a master builder to erect for 

 him, in London, four thousand — not forty — 

 not four hundred — but four thousand houses 

 of a good size for occupation. In some of 

 the best parts of London, acres of land, vast 

 squares, are occupied with large and elegant 

 dwelling houses, paying heavy rents, in long 

 rows, blocks, and crescents, and all belong- 



ing to some single individual. One noble- 

 man, whose magnificent estate was lelt to 

 him by his father, encumbered with a debt 

 of some hundred thousand pounds, by limit- 

 ing, as it IS termed here, his own annual 

 expenditure to thirty thousand pounds, has 

 well nigh extinguished this debt, and, in all 

 human probability, will soon have his patri- 

 monial estate free of encumbrance. The 

 incomes of some of the r'ch men in the 

 country, amount to twenty, twenty-five, 

 fifty, one hundred thousand, two hundred 

 thousand pounds sterling — even three hun- 

 dred thousand pounds annually. It is very 

 difficult tor New England men even to con- 

 ceive of such wealth. A farmer in Lincoln- 

 shire, told me that the crop of wheat grown 

 upon his farm one year, was eighteen thou- 

 sand bushels. The rent annually paid by 

 one farmer in Northunnberland, or the Lo- 

 thians, exceeded seven thousand pounds, or, 

 thirty-five thousand dollais. These facts, 

 which have been stated to me by gentlemen 

 in whose veracity I have entire confidence, 

 and who certainly are incapable of attempt- 

 ing any "tricks upon travellers," show the 

 enormous masses of wealth which are here 

 accumulated. A gentleman of distinguished 

 talents and fine classical attainments, and 

 who adds to them a public spirit in agricul- 

 tural improvement, worthy of his education 

 and his high standing in the community, 

 has recently added to his property, by the 

 purchase of lands, to the amount of two 

 hundred thousand pounds sterling, that is, a 

 million of dollars; and his estale, now in 

 cultivation, and under his own personal in- 

 spection, and, with the exception of about 

 four hundred acres, lying in one body, 

 amounts to six thousand acres. Another 

 gentleman of high rank, in respect to whom 

 and to whose amiable family 1 have a con- 

 stant struggle to restrain the open expres- 

 ion of my grateful sense of their kindness, 

 and who, an example here not uncommon, 

 to an extraordinary brilliancy of talent and 

 an accomplished education, unites the most 

 active spirit of agricultural improvement, 

 has, though not all in his immediate occupa- 

 tion, yet all under his immediate supervision, 

 a tract of more than twelve thousand acres, 

 in a course of systematic cultivation or gra- 

 dual improvement.* 



* I mention these eAaniples— to which, from my own 

 j^nowledge, I might add many others— in the form I do, 

 for the purpose, by the way of showine ny American 

 friends, that agriculture here talces its proper rank 

 among the liberal professions, and that not merely as 

 a recreation, but as a business; and in all its minute 

 and practical details, it is not deemed inconipalible 

 with the highest distinctions of talent, education, and 



