16 



MR. BRAMAN S ADDRESS. 



their cost that to infuse such notions in the head of the peas- 

 ant, was a dangerous experiment on his democracy, for he be- 

 gan to have still higher aspirations. The revolution followed, 

 and the oppressed toilsmen had the audacious insolence to 

 claim the full attributes and rights of humanity. 



Other impositions were made on the cultivators, of a most 

 aggravated character. The expense of maintaining the 

 highways was so great as entirely to exhaust the resources of 

 great numbers of them, and reduce them to want ; and the 

 whole mass of restrictions, and interference and exactions in 

 various forms, was so great as to discourage industry, repress 

 hope, and throw insurmountable obstacles in the way of all 

 agricultural progress. 



The system of tenantry in Great Britain is as favorable to 

 the interests of the farmer as in any part of Europe. The 

 influence of freedom, humanity and religion, has been felt up- 

 on this branch of her institutions as well as on all others ; and 

 although the art of agriculture has made rapid advance in lat- 

 er times, and been carried to a high point of improvement, it 

 is yet, probably, far behind what it would have reached if its 

 exercise had been united with an independent occupancy of 

 the soil. 



It was the opinion of Adam Smith, expressed long since, 

 that whatever addition was made to the value of an estate, 

 either by the progress of time, or changes in the condition of 

 property, or the exertion of the tenant himself, accrued 

 wholly to the owner of the land ; and that no part of it was 

 shared by the tenants. He declares that "the tenant gets the 

 smallest share with which he can possibly content himself 

 without being a loser; and the landlord seldom means to leave 

 him any more." What prospect is there under such circum- 

 stances for improved cultivation ? It is certainly for the inter- 

 est of the occupant to so adapt his labors as to obtain only 

 what products can be derived from the soil, without adding to 

 it any permanent value. Those large and prospective plans 

 that wait for distant returns — those new modes of culture 

 which involve a great outlay of expense, and depend on the 

 slow products of many years for remuneration, are not to be 



