THE CIRCUMSCRIBED FARMER. 255 



" The principal reason why this class of farmers 

 so seldom become wealthy, and but too frequently 

 continue poor, is the desire of immediate returns 

 from cropping, and the mistaken idea that the prof- 

 its to be derived from rearing live-stock progress 

 too slowly to answer their purposes. This induces 

 them to crop the soil yearly, with but little attention 

 to grass or an increase of cattle, until their grounds 

 become so much exhausted that rest is absolutely 

 necessary to procure crops worth gathering. The 

 soil being greatly impoverished, and the seeds of the 

 grasses destroyed, as far as perpetual ploughing and 

 cropping can effect this ruinous purpose, the grounds 

 rest with no other covering but that of some scat- 

 tering and debilitated grass and weeds. This ex- 

 poses the soil to the very injurious action of the sun, 

 wind, washing rains, and melting snows. When 

 such grounds are ploughed for crops, instead of 

 being richly stored with grass-roots, and well cov- 

 ered by their tops, scarcely any vegetation is found 

 to replenish them, or to nourish the crops grown on 

 them. 



" These ruinous practices naturally introduce pov- 

 erty of soil, and its inseparable companion, poverty 

 of purse. This, however, is not all : it entails on 

 posterity the wretchedness introduced by their in- 

 considerate forefathers, or an Herculean task to 

 counteract the curse of poverty which their negli- 

 gence has produced. Whether Satan is also the in- 

 stigator of this evil I do not presume to determine ; 

 but certain I am that it is much greater (so far as 

 farming is concerned) than the curse entailed on the 

 soil by the fall of Adam. That seems to consist 

 simply in brambles and thorns, including with these 

 such other vegetation as would compel man to earn 

 hie bread by the sweat of his brow. This curse, we 

 may all see, is irrevocable ; but we may also, at the 

 same time, observe, that if man complies with Heav 

 en's mild decree, and removes those obstacles to the 



