14 AMERICAN FARMS. 



portant to make men healthy and happy than to inces- 

 santly increase production, it is agriculture that deserves 

 every advantage. Other industries are productive, since 

 they increase the utility of things by rendering them fit 

 for our use, but the farmer sets at work not only physical 

 and chemical, but also vital forces, and thus multiplies 

 commodities. He sows one grain of corn and reaps 

 twenty ; this year he has a couple of sheep, in a few 

 years he will have a flock. Agriculture is the first of 

 industries, because it is the foundation of all others. 

 These can only increase the number of persons they 

 employ if the farms supply them with more food." 



It would be unwise to ignore the counsel of this dis- 

 tinguished authority of our own time, having the inter- 

 ests of no party or class to serve, and pursuing his 

 investigations in the centre of the great manufacturing 

 enterprises of Europe. 



Three years ago, in one of our journals, the author 

 published his views on this point in the following words : 

 *' If we desire our people to avoid sameness or single- 

 ness of occupation, and corresponding degradation of 

 faculties, surely we should not change farm for factory 

 life. If it be for the possession of a great variety of 

 comforts and pleasures for our use as consumers, un- 

 doubtedly that occupation which we are best prepared to 

 develop, that is indigenous to the country, that will yield 

 the largest quantity of that measure which has in its power 

 the command of all wealth ; while no occupation offers 

 a greater multiplicity of interesting subjects for study 

 and experiment than agriculture." 



Deeper and more extended study has not changed our 

 opinion of this view of the merits of the occupation of 

 husbandry, but it has impressed us even more with its 

 importance. 



