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American agriculture. Indeed (as I have already sug- 

 gested), if these throngs of emigrants, and if so many of 

 the young men and women of our own stock, are to swarm 

 over at once to our Western lands, and enter forthwith up- 

 on a life of agricultural production, they will only increase 

 and aggravate the difficulties under which our farmers 

 already labor. Instead of population gaining upon food, 

 food will still go on gaining upon population ; instead of 

 mouths waiting for bread, we shall perpetuate the specta- 

 cle of bread waiting, and waiting in vain, for mouths. 



In one word, there must be a division and distribution of 

 labor in our country, to a much greater extent than exists 

 at present, in order that agricultural industry may receive its 

 just rewards. There must be more, and more numerous, 

 separate classes of consumers, distinct from the producers, 

 in order that food may command a fair price, and afford 

 an adequate compensation and encouragement to the labor 

 which is employed in raising it. Cheap food is a blessing 

 not to be spoken lightly of; but the laborer is worthy of his 

 hire, and it can never be the policy of any country to have 

 food so cheap that it shall not pay for the raising, that it 

 shall not pay something more than the mere cost of the 

 raising. It can never be the policy of a free republican 

 country like ours, where the most important rights and 

 duties of Government are enjoyed and exercised by all men 

 alike and equally, and where intelligence, education, and 

 individual independence are essential to the maintenance 

 of our liberties, to reduce either the profits of land or the 

 wages of labor to the standard of a bare subsistence. 



Farming is never destined to be a means of fortune-mak- 

 ing, and we may all thank Heaven that it is so. If million- 

 naires and capitalists and speculators could make their cent 

 per cent per annum by growing corn, we should soon see 

 our land bought up for permanent investment for hirelings 

 to till ; and our little independent proprietors, cultivating 



