GEORGE R. RUSSELL'S ADDRESS. 599 



tion to examine. They have little partiality for the " white 

 devil," whose presence drives the affrighted buffalo over the 

 rice-fields, and the frantic women and children screaming- 

 through the villages. 



Though high cultivation is peculiar to parts of China, there 

 are extensive tracts yet unproductive. The agricultural re- 

 sources of the land are not fully developed, and, it is supposed, 

 might be made to sustain even her over-estimated population. 



We look to England, France, Belgium, Italy, for that progress 

 which is worthy of imitation. There is much to be learned 

 from all of them, and the adaptation of crops to soils, regularity, 

 order, and neatness, shame our more slovenly management. In 

 some respects they seem to have attained perfection, and yet 

 they are continually making advances. In Great Britain, 

 especially, there has been, for the last two hundred years, an 

 amazing improvement. There, the wealthy, intelligent, and 

 influential, devote themselves to the earth ; not for mere pur- 

 poses of display, in the exhibition of their magnificent domains, 

 but from a generous feeling for a pursuit which they both love 

 and understand. Fondness for rural life is a strong character- 

 istic of that country. It pervades all classes of society, is in- 

 stilled into them from infancy by all the influences around 

 them, is encouraged by the story books of childhood, and 

 deepened into more intense devotion by the genius of romance 

 and the inspiration of poetry. It may be traced to every 

 region of the globe. Wherever the Briton plants himself, 

 whether in the temperate zone, or under the burning sun of 

 the distant East, he carries with him the taste which has 

 clothed his native land with beauty. If climate will not con- 

 form to his wishes and give him the productions of his well- 

 remembered home, he carves out a space from the forest or the 

 jungle, domesticates the wild flower and trails the strange 

 creeper of the wilderness about his new-made dwelling. Nor 

 has his government been satisfied in patronizing the most use- 

 ful of the arts within the limits of its own jurisdiction only. 

 The early navigators, who, under its direction, first ploughed 

 the waves of the Pacific, took with them the germs of a vege- 

 tation which covers the islands of that now frequented ocean, 



