we have in our minds a homogeneous subject. But the 

 vast territorial extent of our country, and its varied soils 

 and climates and productions, prevent altogether that per- 

 fect unity and identity of" interest which are found among 

 the tillers of the earth in other lands. The planting in- 

 terests of the Southern States present, I need not say, a 

 totally different subject of discussion from the farming in- 

 terests of the Nortliern and Western States. The charac- 

 ter of the labor by which the great crops of the South are 

 raised, and the purposes to which they are applied, make 

 them an obvious exception to the general subject of Ame- 

 rican agriculture, or, at any rate, so distinct a branch of it 

 as requires a distinct and separate consideration. 



I intend, then, in these remarks, to confine myself to the 

 agriculture which is carried on by the hands of freemen, 

 and which is generally occupied in the production of food. 



And in reference to American agriculture, as thus under- 

 stood, I begin by asserting that Government can do little 

 or nothing for its protection, in the sense in which the term 

 " protection" is employed in such connections, by any di- 

 rect means ; and that, even were what is called " the Pro- 

 tecting System," the established policy of the country, it 

 would be impossible to apply it to any considerable extent, 

 directly and immediately, to agriculture. 



The protection of agriculture is an idea plainly applica- 

 ble to countries in which food cannot be produced in suffi- 

 cient quantities to meet the wants of the population, or in 

 which it cannot be produced at all, except at a higher cost 

 than that at which it could be procured from other sources 

 of supply. It supposes a competition, actual, or at least 

 possible, in our own markets with the products of our own 

 fields. It is a protection against something, and that some- 

 thing is obviously foreign importation. 



Great Britain may be in a condition to protect her agri- 

 culture. And she did so in earnest, and most effectively, 



