218 AMERICAN HUSBANDRY. 



terchange of the products of his industry with the 

 other classes of society. Agriculture has been call- 

 ed the parent of arts, not only because it was the 

 first art practised by man, but because the other arts 

 arc its legitimate offspring, and cannot continue long 

 to exist without it. It is the great business of civ- 

 ilized life, and gives employment to a vast majority 

 of almost every people. 



The substantial prosperity of a country is always 

 in the ratio of its agricultural industry and wealth. 

 Commerce and manufactures may give temporary 

 consequence to a state ; but these are always a 

 precarious dependance. Venice, Genoa, Portugal, 

 Spain, &c., each in turn rose to wealth and power 

 from commercial enterprise ; but they all now ex- 

 hibit melancholy evidences of fallen greatness. 

 Their population degenerated under the corrupting 

 influence of commercial wealth, and, having no suit- 

 able agricultural basis to rest upon, they have fallen 

 in succession from their high standing, victims to 

 the enervating influence of domestic cabals, or be- 

 fore the more robust energies of rival powers. They 

 exhibit nothing now, in their political or social insti- 

 tutions, in their agriculture or the condition of their 

 population, that can be admired or coveted by the 

 freemen of America. -Great Britain has now be- 

 come ascendant in commerce and manufactures ; 

 yet her greatness in these sources of power and op- 

 ulence is primarily and principally owing to the ex- 

 cellent state of her agriculture ; without which she 

 could not maintain her manufactures or commerce 

 in their present flourishing state, or long retain her 

 immense foreign possessions, or anything like her 

 present population. Only one third of her people 

 are said to be employed in agriculture ; yet their 

 labours, such is the high condition of her husbandry, 

 suffice to feed themselves and the other two thirds. 

 An agricultural population of five millions, of all 

 ages, produces annually, from her limited soil, seven 



