40 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



gar party spirit which, when analyzed, resolves itself into love of the flesh-pots — 

 that Bohon Upas, which first appearing in the North, is spreading over the whole 

 country, withering everything fair and fruitful within the reach of its baleful 

 shadow ? And to this we answer at once, that it is idle to dream of any substan- 

 tial and progressive reform in the action of Governments, as that action bears 

 upon and influences the landed interest, or even to expect any great and honora- 

 ble (because intellectual) improvement in the field of practical husbandry, but 

 hy enlightening the minds of the sons of farmers as they grow up, m all that 

 concerns not only the art of tillage but their political rights in relation to them- 

 selves and to other classes. Farmers ! it is thus only that you can achieve a re- 

 form that shall reach the main springs of public prosperity. When thus you 

 shall have raised the standard of general intelligence among yourselves, the 

 intellectual and moral grade of your legislators will rise in proportion, until their 

 sole ambition will be to vindicate and elevate the agricultural industry of the 

 country, securing for it the benefit of all those reforms which Knowledge and 

 Science never fail to achieve when applied to the melioration of every human 

 pursuit. Above all things, learn to despise and scorn the fool or flatterer who 

 would persuade you that your pursuit is either above or below the reach of be- 

 ing benefited by the lights of science — by thinking, by inquiry, by observation and 

 comparison. With equal plausibility might the owner of an iron-mine bank be 

 told that art can do nothing with the ore which it brings thence to be fashioned 

 into your saw or your spade, your knife or your razor. Yet what has not inven- 

 tive Science done to fashion things of so much usefulness and elegance out of 

 such rude materials ? For remember that without Science the mere physical 

 strength of all the men in Maryland could not produce them, nor, but for ma- 

 chinery, could they be produced for their present cost a hundred times told. 



But to come back more immediately to our subject : duty prompts us to add 

 that great merit is to be accorded to those who take the lead in bringing manu- 

 factories into new and appropriate localities, creating on the spot a fair remuner- 

 ating demand for the products of neighboring fields, gardens, dairies, &c. Such 

 difi'usion of capital and enterprise has, as before intimated, a tendency to break up 

 the great monopolies enjoyed now by those only who reside in the immediate vicin- 

 ity of large towns, where, under the centripetal influences adverted to, capital and 

 consumers have a sort of legalized tendency to aggregate. It Avill, however, be 

 observed that we have not ventured an opinion on the capabilities and fitness of 

 Marlboro' for the particular manufactory in question, in reference either to 

 the stockholders or the planters of the county. That must depend on various 

 considerations, of which those concerned are far better qualified to judge than we 

 pretend to be. The free and enlightened policy of the State of New-Jersey, in 

 promoting the habit of association, and her exemption from taxes, are all drawing 

 oflF or withholding wealth and population, rapidly and to a very large amount, 

 from New- York and Pennsylvania. 



This much we will venture to say in conclusion, that if the people of Massa- 

 chusetts and Rhode Island could be lifted up, en masse, and set down in Mary- 

 land andVirginia, carrying with them their more liberal and sagacious policy in re- 

 gard to the use and exercise of their money and enterprise, banks and manufac- 

 tories would be seen to spring up in every county, and the whole of these old 

 States, so long stationary or declining, though radically so much more fertile 

 and more easily labored than those, would, before many years, possess four times 

 as many people, and four times as much wealth as they do now. 



(88) 



