10 MR. gage's address. 



husbandmen of most countries, in being the proprie- 

 tors of the soil you cultivate. You thus feel, to its 

 full extent of influence, the stimulus of personal inter- 

 est in the subject ; in the processes of culture adopt- 

 ed ; the kinds of produce ; the improvements made, 

 &c. That interest, like the principle of gravitation 

 in the physical world, gives union, system, vigor, to 

 all your plans and efforts. 



In Sicily, once, like Egypt, the granary of Rome, 

 we are told, that the nobles own about two-thirds of 

 the soil, while they pay but one-fifteenth of the taxes. 

 And the husbandman, even after he has raised his 

 corn, cannot, without permission from a higher pow- 

 er, sell a loaf to a hungry traveller without being sub- 

 ject to fine and imprisonment. In Italy, often called 

 the garden of Europe, blessed with a most fertile soil, 

 beautiful fields, well watered, covered with perpetu- 

 al vegetation, divided into a thousand small enclos- 

 ures, all cultivated like gardens ; — yet, says the travel- 

 ler, on entering the houses of the cultivators, you ob- 

 serve an entire absence of all the conveniences of life, 

 a table of the most extreme frugality, and an appear- 

 ance of the greatest penury, in the midst of a coun- 

 try producing every thing which the wants of the 

 most luxurious can require. The cultivator is not 

 the proprietor of the soil. He is reduced to a con- 

 dition of extreme poverty. He feels no ambition to 

 make improvements. Being too poor to hire labor- 

 ers, the cultivation of the soil is not conducted with 

 that neatness and efficiency essential to the best re- 

 sults. Indeed, so broken are his spirits by his condi- 

 tion, that we are told, on good authority, that the la- 



