THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE. 2/ 



munity of interests than with the latter. That such 

 towns may grow and prosper, it is required that the 

 industry of agriculture be first prosperous, as a base of 

 general industrial power. Agriculture must be treated 

 as the leading industry — not of secondary importance. 



It is not, then, a correct political economy which de- 

 termines that manufacturing leads husbandry, as the 

 protectionists would have it ; nor that trade should lead, 

 as many free traders desire ; but that agriculture be the 

 first, the only true condition. 



Mr. Henry C. Carey was correct when he advocated the 

 theory : " That man may cease to be enslaved, and that 

 agriculture may become a science, it is indispensable 

 that there be a division of employments ; that his facul- 

 ties be stimulated to activity ; that the power of associa- 

 tion arise ; that the market for his products be brought 

 to the neighborhood of the land ; that the utility of all 

 the things yielded by it, whether in the form of food 

 or vegetable fibre, coal, ore, lime, or marl be thus in- 

 creased ; that its owner be thereby freed from the 

 enormous taxation to which he is subjected because of 

 the extending necessity for effecting changes of place ; 

 that he be freed, too, from the extraordinary waste of 

 human power, physical and mental, that always attends 

 the absence of diversity in the modes of employment ; 

 and that the powers of the land be increased by means 

 of the constant repayment to it of the manure yielded by 

 the consumption of its products." ' 



' Carey was, however, far from correct in his claim that even the 

 extreme measures which he advocated could bring about the freedom 

 and community of interests which he desired, the very opposite being 

 the evident experience of America, as she has approached them. 



