242 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



any special legislation for the benefit of t!ie farmer? Even madder for the manu- 

 facturer, which might so easily be produced in many of our States under a small 

 duty, is let in a manner to benefit the landlords of the half starved la- 

 borers of Europe who work for nothing, and are then, generally, not half as well 

 fed, clothed or housed as the slaves of the United States. We have munificent 

 and well bestowed national expenditures for instruction in the use of ^ire-arms, 

 but who ever hears of our Government providing for instruction in the use of the 

 arms and implements of husbandry ? Now let us suppose that in New- York, at 

 Hyde-park or elsewhere, removed from the interruptions, the temptations and 

 seductions of a large city, New-York had possessed for an equal time a school 

 with its buildings. Professors, apparatus, and repositories, and libraries, to rear 

 up and send forth instructors over the country, in all the principles of Agricul- 

 ture ; may we not suppose that it would have added as much to the agricultural 

 capabilities of the country as the West Point Academy has added to the efficiency 

 of our Army, in the practice of war ? Alas ! the day is yet too distant "vsrhen her 

 farmers will have the discernment to perceive, combined with the spirit to de- 

 mand, the former as being at least as necessary and useful as the latter. But 

 let us proceed, and we shall see the interest at stake and the ground that land- 

 holders have to insist that Agriculture shall occupy the foremost instead of the 

 rear rank among objects of Government care. 



The area of New- York is 29,220,936 acres ; population 2,604,495, springing, 

 with additions by immigration, from only 100,000 in 1749. Of this amazing 

 increase, 1,000,000 has accrued in the last 25 years ; and much of the impetus 

 under which this increase has taken place flows from the internal icorks that 

 connect her great Atlantic emporium, with the lakes and canals of the growing 

 West. How much will that impetus be augmented when the Ej-ie Railroad 

 shall have been completed ? There are some striking facts that here present 

 themselves for the contemplation of legislators, or rather of statesmen — for un- 

 fortunately these are by no means convertible terms. When the first regular 

 Census was taken in 1790, the population of Virginia was 748,308 ; that of New- 

 York only 340,120. In a race of twenty years, which is but a " brush " in the 

 race of States, New- York had already lapped her, having in 1810 gone up to 

 959,049, while Virginia stood at 974,622. In the next twenty, after she began 

 to wax fat and grow strong in the enjoyment of her internal improvement policy, 

 without any aid from Hercules, (though she called on him,) she beat the Old 

 Dominion by more than a million! Virginia standing, in 1840, at 1,239,797; 

 New-York 2,428,921 — since which she has added nearly 200,000 more, besides 

 doin<T much toward colonizing Michigan and other Western States. To how 

 many States might be applied the remarks of Hon. J. R. Poinsett, of South 

 Carolina, where, contrasting the condition of Flanders and Sicily, from personal 

 observation, he says: " In Flanders the whole country bears the impression of 

 the vivifying industry and zealous enterprise of the people. It is traversed in 

 every direction, by lines of easy communication, furnished with manufactures in 

 every town and every hamlet, to work up the product of its agricultural indus- 

 try, providing the farmer with an abundant home market, while affording em- 

 ployment to a large portion of the population ; wasting nothing, but working up 

 and extracting valuable materials, which are considered in some countries as 

 worthless refuse. Whereas, Sicily, with its fine climate and fruitful soil, bears 

 the impress of slothfulness and neglect. No roads, no canals, none but the 

 coarsest manufactures, the land carelessly tilled, and yielding a scanty subsist- 



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