163 AGRICULTURAL REPORT. [March, 



and, in one respect, manufactures, by withdrawing a large portion 

 of labor from our farms, and by the high wages, which by the 

 amounts of artificial capital existing among us the manufacturers 

 have been able to pay, have tended rather to the discourage- 

 ment of agriculture in the Slate than to its extension. I do 

 not mean that our agricultural interest has been depressed ; but 

 so large a portion of our population have turned their attention 

 to manufactures, that our population and even many of our 

 farmers have depended upon foreign sources, other states and 

 other countries, for the supply even of the first necessaries of 

 life ; and cultivation and improvement have been narrowed 

 rather than extended. 



With our present population, a larger proportion are now 

 occupied in manufacturing pursuits than can be spared from 

 agriculture, without injury to its interests ; and as, in the pres- 

 ent state of things, is for the interest of the manufactures 

 themselves. Our cotton manufactures certainly do not desire 

 their extension. Our woollen manufactures cannot get on 

 without a reduction of the price of labor with which the 

 laborers are not satisfied, or of the price of wool with which 

 the farmers are not satisfied. Why, under these circumstances, 

 should we wish to see the manufacture of silk introduced— 

 an article, in a great measure, of mere luxury. 



XXII. Manufactures in England. — But the prosperity of 

 England, we are constantly told, has been bassed upon her 

 manufactures. It will not be questioned, that they have been 

 to her the source of immense wealth. But who has had this 

 wealth? Who has been benefited by this signal prosperity? 

 Not the laborers themselves, whose toil has created it. They 

 have seen the mountains of wealth rising up among them ; 

 and they have brought their contributions to increase these 

 masses in the hands of the great proprietors ; but they them- 

 selves have scarcely been permitted to reserve from the pro- 

 ducts of their own toil the means of sustaining life. Broken 

 down with excessive toil they have been crushed between two 

 mill-stones, low prices for labor on the one hand, and high 



