50 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



may do so for a short time, i)ut, in the long run, more women 

 will cai'n their bread by sewing-machines than now do by the 

 needle, and with far less waste of health and strength. Nothing 

 can bo more false than the notion, that the interests of one 

 class are opposed to those of another, or that there is any 

 antagonism between capital and labor, or between the city and 

 the country ; and nothing can be more ungracious than the 

 conduct of the man who attempts to set strife between different 

 portions of the same comnninity, or to persuade this man, or 

 this body of men, that somebody else is growing rich at his or 

 their expense, and appropriating what belongs to them. 



I have thus far spoken of the relation of man to the soil in 

 New England, and endeavored to extract from that the motive 

 and tlie cue for contentment. I now proceed to speak of the 

 relation of man to the land ; a comprehensive and fruitful 

 theme, on which, however, I can dwell for only a very few 

 minutes. In every part of Christendom the traveller sees men 

 laboring in the fields in spring, summer and autumn. It is 

 the same thing to outward sense* everywhere, in Great Britain, 

 France, Italy and America. It is the man and the earth. But 

 the moral, the immaterial, the intangible elements differ very 

 widely ; and half the problems in civil society are solved by an 

 examination into the relations which exist between the man 

 and the land. In the first place, does he owji the land which 

 he tills, or is he only a hired laborer ? Secondly, if he owns 

 the land, under what conditions does he own it? 



In England, as is well known, the land is parcelled out into 

 very large estates. The number of acres in England is 32,342,- 

 400 ; the number of landed proprietors is about 44,000 ; which 

 would make the average size of estates about 735 acres. In 

 Scotland they are larger still. The number of acres is 19,738,- 

 930, and the number of proprietors is not more than 5,000 ; 

 which would give each one nearly 4,000 acres. Five nolilemen 

 own about one-fourth of Scotland. The land is usually let in 

 large farms, on long leases, to tenants ; and is cultivated by 

 laborers who earn from twelve to fourteen shillings a week, 

 and a little more at harvest time. The public sentiment of 

 England encourages this aggregation of landed property, and 

 the law allows it. In France, on the other hand, the law- 

 enacts, and public sentiment sanctions, a minute subdivision of 



