No. 144.] 4f)3 



The first Divine injunction that was laid upon man was to be 

 fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth, and he is now ful- 

 filling it. The fact that it is fulfilling proves that men have not 

 existed upon the earth for an indefinite time, and it is interesting 

 to inquire at what limit the firllness of population will be at 

 tained, and the commandment fulfilled. There are causes tend- 

 ing to postpone this event. As man improves his condition from 

 that of the savage to that of the shepherd and herdsman, and af- 

 terwards to that of the agriculturist, and eventually to that of 

 the civilized man, with towns and a division of labor, he requires 

 less and less land for his support. Yet we must not conclude 

 from this fact that it is the mission of man to ascertain the least 

 possible amount of land on which he may subsist, or that he was 

 ci-eated to till the soil. It is not for us, in our zeal to avoid the 

 "skinning" farm policy, to adopt any doctrine that to improve 

 the soil is the chief end of man, or that he should be confined to 

 any one portion of the earth's surface. This continent and its 

 brute population have been given us for purposes of subsistence, 

 and even with our diifuse farming we succeed in occupying but a 

 small portion of it. 



Another cause that is tending to postpone the event of over- 

 population is the continual improvement that Nature is effecting 

 in the condition of the soil. Not only are water and roots bringing 

 to the surface the soluble salts, but there is an annual addition made 

 to the depth of the soil, by the falling leaves and the dead limbs 

 and trunks of trees, that go to make humus. Hence Nature's ro- 

 tation of crops is progressive, from mosses and lichens to the 

 higher orders, such as sorrel or mint — from pine and hemlock 

 timber, with little or no ash in its composition, to beech and ma- 

 ple, rich in the most expensive ash. This change in the case of 

 hemlock timber is continually going on in tliis country, where 

 land, once cleared of it, "comes in," as the expression is, to a 

 hard wood growth. The natural timber of a region is an indica- 

 tioir of the condition of the soil that is well known to the pioneers 

 — one in which they have learned to trust ; and the condition of 

 the ground in which the hemlock once flourished and propagated 

 must have been quite inferior to that in which the beech and ma- 



