AGRICULTURE AND THE INDUSTRIAL ARTS. 5 



depth of eiglit inches or stirs to the depth of fifteen inches, the 

 subsoiL A deeper culture is equal to a larger extension of arable 

 surface. Under the effects of such mechanical improvements, 

 the globe of agriculture dilates with multiplied dimensions. From 

 the sickle to the reaping and mowing machine, from the tramp- 

 ling oxen and the flail to the threshing machine, from the unaided 

 palm of tlie sower to the drilling machine, from the slow-picking 

 fingers of the slave to the cotton-gin, from the hand-hoc to the 

 horse-hoe and hoeing machine, from the hand-rake to the horse- 

 rake, from the basket borne upon the head, or the back of an 

 animal, or the market-wagon, to the railroad train drawn by the 

 locomotive engine, we have similar gradations of mechanical 

 progress followed by the enhanced productiveness of the farmer's 

 labor. But for these improved implements, most of which, in 

 their American manufacture, supply a world-wide demand, the 

 crops of Europe and America could not be planted, raised, gath- 

 ered or distributed, and their populations must suffer and perish 

 for lack of food. The last census in a single fact represents in 

 its enormous magnitude the accumulated contribution which 

 mechanical art makes to the resources of American agriculture. 

 The tables of the last census prove that in the ten years over 

 which its reckoning extends, an addition was made to the 

 improved land of the country of fifty million acres. The whole 

 improved land of the United States amounts to one hundred and 

 sixty-three million acres. In the ten years from 1850 to 1860 

 agriculture subdued to itself an extent of territory very nearly 

 one-half as large as that of the whole improved land that had 

 resulted from the farming of the country since its first settlement. 

 Agriculture and the farmer have received not only these 

 advantages, but they have shared the benefits of the general 

 movement which has attended the progress of the mechanical 

 arts, and improved the condition of society. The mechanic and 

 the manufacturer have won the first great triumphs under that 

 leader of the race who raised the standard of dominion over 

 nature, as the rightful realm of man. The spoils they win, how- 

 ever, are divided with all. They cannot contrive a mode by 

 which the enhanced productiveness of their industry, shall not 

 redound to the common weal. The million man-power of machin- 

 ery can be wielded only for mankind. No single class can appro- 

 priate its capacity for human aggrandizement. No system of 



