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from the railway stations than were formerly required for all the 

 stage coaches in New England. So some persons fear that that 

 blessed invention, the sewing-machine, will throAV many poor wo- 

 men out of employment ; it may do so for a short time, but, in 

 the long run, more women will earn their bread by sewing ma- 

 chines than now do by the needle, and with far less waste of 

 health and strength. Nothing can be 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 be- 

 tween the city and the country ; and nothing can be more un- 

 gracious than the conduct of the man Avho attempts to set strife 

 between different portions of the same community, 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 the cue for contentment. I now proceed to speak of the re- 

 lation of man to the land ; a comprehensive and fruitful theme, on 

 Avhich, however, I can dwell for only a very few minutes. In 

 evei-y part of Christendom the traveller sees men laboring in the 

 fields in spring, summer and autumn. It is the same thing to 

 outward sense every where, in Great Britain, France, Italy and 

 America. It is the man and the earth. But the moral, the im- 

 material, the intangible elements differ very widely ; and half the 

 problems in civil society are solved by an examination into the re- 

 lations which exist between the man and the land. In the first 

 place, does he own the land which he tills, or is ho 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. Tlie 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 Scot- 

 land they arc larger still. The number of acres is 19,738,930, 

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

 would give each one nearly 4,000 acres. Five noblemen own 

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

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



