50 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



until, nowadays, no morning opens that does not overspread the counters of New 

 York booksellers with new tracts and volumes — some heavy as lead, some light- 

 er than chafl" itself— and when to these are added the myriads of daily impressions 

 of miniature and mammoth newspapers, one is at a loss to guess where lies that 

 world of rags in which the paper-makers find their materials, and yet more the 

 wonder is, where time and readers can be found for such a world of printed 

 thought ! 



A full exposition of this branch of business would amaze the public, and is 

 needed in exhibition of our industrial statistics. The conductors of " Chambers^s 

 Edinburgh Journal,^'' and other publications of great note and value, turn out 

 from their machines annually, as we are told, ten millions of sheets, each sheet 

 being a book of its kind ; and theirs is but "a fragment of the modern trade in 

 literature." It would be curious to learn what is done in the same way annu- 

 ally by the Harpers, Appletons, Wiley &: Putnam, Burgess & Stringer, Graham 

 and others in New- York, and by Lea & Blanchard, and Carey & Hart, Phila- 

 delphia. But, Sir, is it not to be apprehended that the supply is overrunning the 

 consumption, especially of the cheap literature — that its circulation is too exclu- 

 sively confined to city populations ; and that some new and more adequate facul- 

 ties need to be contrived and systematized, for distributing the surplus over the 

 land, as it were, and forcing it on the attention and enjoyment of the mass- 

 es in smaller towns and in the country generally ? It takes a disciple of Izaak 

 Walton, like Webster, to catch and cook a fish, but any lazy hulk will eat his 

 chowder when it is put before him. 



Under the title of booksellers, there is a chapter in the Edinburgh Journal for 

 March last, which, if it has not attracted, I would fain recommend to, the notice 

 of all our large houses in the "trade." And here be it said, en passant, that 

 were honors and rewards bestowed in this world in proportion to the real benefits 

 which men confer on their kind, these brothers — Harpers of your City, and W. & 

 R. Chambers of Edinburgh — deserve to rank your mere military heroes ; for 

 while these run you through the body, secundem artem, in the name of " God 

 and Liberty," those are subduing realms of ignorance and barbarism with the 

 two-edged sword of Knowledge and Virtue ; shedding a light that gives verdure 

 and vigor where darkness had hitherto etiolated the minds of the masses. In 

 thus referring to military heroes, be it always understood that no allusion is to be 

 implied to him who was " first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of 

 his countrymen ;" for his warlike achievements are esteemed by the world as al- 

 together subordinate to his civil virtues. 



In the chapter referred to, is a brief sketch of the revolution which has oc- 

 curred of late years in the system of book printing and selling, which leads the 

 editors to recommend corresponding measures with a view to render this cheaper 

 production available to the far greater extent of which they are satisfied it is sus- 

 ceptible. 



" The only sure way," say these men of vast experience, is " to act aggressive- 

 ly on the masses. Take the bookseller's shop to their doors and firesides, and let 

 them see and handle what is going on in the department of Literature specially 

 addressed to them. There appear to be only two ways, say they, by which the 

 thing could be feasibly attempted. One would consist in country booksellers 

 greatly altering the style of their operations. Instead of laying a parcel of new 

 tracts or cheap popular books on their own counters, and then letting them take 

 their chance, they might either proceed themselves or send persons in their em- 

 ployment to call on all parties around, likely to become purchasers. If well 

 worked, such a system would carry literature into every neighborhood, and pro- 

 bably extend the sale of cheap and useful books immensely ; and it would have 

 the advantage of being carried out at scarcely any expense. 



" Should provincial booksellers find it inconvenient or impracticable to institute 

 any such process, then another distributive enginery might be attempted. Small 

 shopkeepers in the country, or in densely populated neighborhoods, might safely 

 and profitably adventure in the trade of selling cheap and popular tracts, and so 

 might individuals out of employment take up the busmess of hawking articles 

 of this kind. A number of instances have come under our knowledge of parties 

 formerly in wretchedness making a good livelihood by this easily-conducted 

 trade ; while at the same time they greatly extended the taste for popular litera- 



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