No. 216.] 549 



Agriculture, as I have before said, and as we all know, is the 

 basis of every thing. We begin by getting something to eat; when 

 that is accomplished we are ready to look about and see what re- 

 mains to be done. 



All manufactures and commerce rest on agriculture; rice, cotton, 

 coffee, tea, sugar, breadstuff's and provisions, load far the greater 

 part of the uncounted keels that track the waters of the globe; all 

 arts and trades depend upon successful agriculture. 



But still, while all this is true of it, agriculture is much indebted 

 to the arts and to commerce, to manufactures and to science, for the 

 distribution and consumption of its products, for its development, 

 and encouragement, and elevation, as the pedestal of a statue is in- 

 debted for its value and its honor to the beautiful proportions which 

 rest upon it. 



While other arts would not be at all without agriculture, without 

 other arts, agriculture would be dull, barbarous and unfinished — a 

 great base supporting nothing. 



It will, I suppose, be admitted on all hands, that merely agricul- 

 tural countries are necessarily always poor and in a great degree de- 

 pendant. 



Of the thousand examples that rise before us of this truth, we 

 might take the provinces of the Ukraine of Russia, so rich wheat- 

 bearing regions, and contrast them with rugged Scotland; or, near 

 home, let us see what comparison unfortunate or wretched Mexico 

 bears with ourselves. 



She is agricultural merely — her mines occupy but a very small 

 part of her population, and the rest are farmers or herdsmen. With 

 a climate and soil much readier to yield than ours, and with eight 

 millions of population, allowing all we can to bad government, what 

 is the reason that Mexico is so very poor, with all her gold, except 

 that she makes nothing for herself and buys every thing. Great 

 bridle-bits and spurs, lassos and ponchos, are pretty much the sum 

 of Mexican manufactures; and of commerce! how many Mexican 

 merchant vessels traverse the seas? 



* 



Does Mexico even make muskets and ammunition to defend her- 

 self? Has all Mexico a foundry that will cast an iron ball? 



