16 MISSACUUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



The history of modern nations, too, is full of illustrations of 

 this connection between the condition of a people and the 

 tenure of their lands, and the character of the labor by which 

 they are carried on. We could in no way so readily measure 

 the extent of the changes which were wrought in the social 

 fabric of France by her Revolution of 1703, as by tracing the 

 condition of her peasantry before tliat event and the extent to 

 which it was alfected by the monopoly of her soil into a few 

 hands. Feudalism had kept its hold upon the lands of th€ 

 kingdom up to the very hour when the yells of tlie mob rung 

 through the gorgeous salons of the Palace of Versailles. And 

 it was only by the common crash of the throne and the mo- 

 nopoly of the nobles, that the people began to share a heritage 

 which till then had been denied them. The change upon the 

 face of the earth which was witnessed when the deluge had 

 subsided, could have been scarcely less marked than was that 

 which the storm of the revolution left in the social condition of 

 the cultivators of the soil of that kingdom. Two-thirds of her 

 population, we are told, are now engaged in agriculture, and 

 more than luiU' of her entire people are proprietors of the soil. 



It is not necessary to assume that because she has thrown 

 open her lands to her people that she has done all that she 

 ought for labor or for freedom. But we cannot fail to perceive 

 that, in doing this, an element of strength and stability for her 

 government has been provided which we seek for in vain among 

 the nations of the South of Europe where the Metaijer system 

 or the working of lands by tenants upon shares, has so long 

 prevailed. 



In preparing our minds to judge of the importance of the 

 principle I am attempting to enforce, I ought not to forget the 

 condition of that people from whom we borrow so much of our 

 history, as well as so many of the opinions which are current 

 here. 



The love of dominion over some portion of soil which he may 

 call his own, is an instinct in every Englishman's composition. 

 And whoever is favored enough to attain to this, is an object of 

 regard to all who cannot aspire to so enviable a distinction. 

 From the dependence of the manufacturing classes upon the 

 agricultural, to supply their articles of consumj)tion, this instinct 

 for the ownership of land has been stimulated and strengthened 



