234 CHRONICLES OP A CLAY FARM. 



immoveable admirer of primogenitwe-by-Law ; but 

 know that every great and accredited writer on the 

 Wealth of Nations, from Adam Smith to John Stuart 

 Mill, maintains the freedom of land from the feudal 

 shackles of long entail and primogeniture-by-law, as 

 the prime and fundamental rule of Justice to society 

 in the matter of the Soil. The change that we want 

 is but little, but that little underlies and interpene- 

 trates the whole economy of agriculture as a national 

 business ; and renders every acre uncultivated or half 

 cultivated, through the operation of legal trammels 

 upon the owner, a robbery upon the Labourer, the 

 Capitalist, and ultimately on the public purse. It is 

 the first, and the most natural of Savings-banks to 

 the humble, as well as of Investments to the wealthy, 

 capitalist. It is endowed with the most natural and 

 versatile aptitude to the capabilities of both; it be- 

 longs to the Spade as well as the Plough. It is evi- 

 dent as an instinct to every mind, and needs neither 

 proof nor argument, that the soil is the 'primest, 

 eldest ' investment of our capital : to risk our national 

 earnings and accumulations in any other channel till 

 this field is first exhausted, is a course that men may 

 indeed be driven to by the operation of foolish laws 

 or customs, but which few, from either will or cir- 



