28 MR. braman's address. 



and bordering on the frontiers of the ever Avidening circle of 

 population, there stretched out tracts of untrodden earth to 

 which there seemed to be no limitation. At length the pro- 

 gressive race had diffused themselves with more or less density 

 to the limits of the eastern hemisphere, when a new world in 

 the west emerged from the concealment of ages, inhabited in- 

 deed by human beings, some portions of which had reached 

 that point of civilization, at which they drew most of their 

 sustenance from the cultivated earth, but over a large part of 

 which the savage plucked spontaneous fruit, and hunted his 

 prey for food, Necessity is the mother of invention in agri- 

 culture, as well as in all departments of exertion. But this 

 necessity has been greatly diminished by the extent of cultiva- 

 ble earth. Soils that required comparatively little artificial la- 

 bor to give them productive energy have invited an easy and 

 indolent culture. There are some parts of the earth where 

 perpetual summer and luxuriant soil have made agriculture a 

 useless labor. Bread grows on trees that spring up without 

 planting. The inhabitants have only to receive it as it falls 

 into their hands. They find a table of delicious food always 

 spread out in the refreshing shade of their branches. Men do 

 not eat bread in the sweat of the face. The original sentence 

 upon the ground takes a new form, and the earth is cursed 

 with spontaneous fecundity. 



Where men can obtain a sustenance without effort, the soil 

 will receive little or no benefit from human industry. The 

 Olive tree, in those countries where it is produced, has been 

 found to retard agriculture. The fruit is an article of health- 

 ful and nutritious food, which is yielded in great quantities. 

 It springs out of a stony and barren soil, and those spots upon 

 which nothing else that is useful will grow, will furnish this 

 source of food in luxuriant abundance. In some of the Italian 

 states, the deplorable indolence of the people, and inefficient 

 culture of the earth, have attracted the particular notice 

 of travellers. The Olive tree supplies the demands of the 

 appetite, the inhabitants pluck its fruit and abandon themselves 

 to leisure and repose. 



We have no such gift of nature as this, to supersede the 



