14 MK. braman's address. 



dustry, but his iinintellectual mind is slow to admit new con- 

 ceptions. The introduction of an improved machine encoun- 

 ters a mighty impediment from the refractory living machines 

 that are required to work them. Perhaps some may recollect 

 seeing a West India plough, a few years since, in one of the 

 agricultural warehouses in Boston. It was so unlike anything, 

 else of this description which was ever made among us, that it is 

 not easy to convey an idea of it by comparison. Indeed it 

 was not made at all. It grew like a tree, for it seemed to 

 have been once a forked branch, one prong of which served 

 for a beam, and the other to scrape the ground ; with a sprout 

 or some other fixture in the trunk to enable it to be held. The 

 planter on whose estate it was used, wished to substitute an 

 improved structure. But the reluctance of the slave was so 

 strong, and his awkwardness in the use so great, that the ob- 

 stacles proved insurmountable. The plough and the holder 

 were certainly adapted to each other. For the instrument was 

 as much like a New England plough, as a West India slave 

 was like a New England man. And what domestic servitude 

 had so well joined together, the planter should not have at- 

 tempted to put asunder. 



3. To ensure a more rapid improvement in agriculture, the 

 system of tenantry must be abolished, and the cultivator must 

 be the owner of the soil. It is a just remark, made twenty 

 years since, by a distinguished writer, that "hitherto the ma- 

 jority of mankind who have tilled tlie earth have been slaves 

 or tenants^ The system of tenantry in modern Europe 

 grew out of Feudalism. When the Roman Empire fell before 

 the incursions of the northern barbarians, the lands of the con- 

 quered were divided between the chieftains of the invading 

 hordes, v;ho became possessors of large tracts, the occupancy 

 of which was granted to such as desired to cultivate them, 

 for stipulated considerations. The great land owners were 

 originally princes, who required military service from their de- 

 pendents, as a part, or the whole of the condition upon which 

 lands were held. The cultivatorsof the soil were the subjects, 

 as well as the tenants of the large proprietors. The relation 

 became modifi.ed by the progress of time, and the changes- 



