10 THE IMPORTANCE OF 



to a state, but these are always a precarious dependance. 

 They are effemmating and corrupting ; and, unless back- 

 ed by a prosperous agricultural population, they engender 

 the elements of speedy decay and ruin. Venice, Genoa, 

 Portugal and Spain, each in turn rose to wealth and 

 power by commercial enterprise. But they all now ex- 

 hibit melancholy evidences of fallen greatness. They 

 have fallen, in succession, from their high standing, vic- 

 tims to the more robust energies of rival powers, or to 

 the enervating and corrupting influence of commercial 

 cupidity. They exhibit nothing now, in their political or 

 social institutions, and but little in their agriculture or 

 in the useful arts, that can be admired or coveted, by the 

 citizens of our free country. Great Britain has now 

 become ascendant in commerce and manufactures, yet her 

 greatness in these sources of power and opulence, is 

 primarily and principally owing to the excellent condition 

 of her agriculture ; without which she would not be able 

 to sustain her manufactures or her commerce, in their 

 present flourishing state, or long retain her immense 

 foreign possessions, or any thing like her present popula- 

 tion. Only one third of her inhabitants are said to be 

 employed in agriculture ; yet the labors af this one third, 

 sucli is the high condition of her husbandry, suffice to fur- 

 nish subsistence for the whole. Five millions, of all ages, 

 produce annually, from her limited soil, seven hundred 

 millions worth of agricultural produce, averaging about one 

 hundred and forty dollars for each man, woman, and child 

 of her agricultural population. The recently-published let- 

 ters of the Rev. Dr. Humphrey are so conclusive and so 

 instructive upon this subject, not only in regard to the 

 importance of agriculture to a nation, but as showing the 

 susceptibility of this art, of high improvement and great 

 productiveness, that we here quote an extract in illustra- 

 tion of what we have stated. 



"It is the opinion of competent judges," says Dr. 

 Humphrey, " that the advances made in the agriculture 

 of Great Britain, during the last seventy or eighty years, 

 are scarcely exceeded by the improvement and extension 

 of Its manufactures, within the same period ; and that to 



