10 
THE CULTIVA10R. 
arts, not only because it was the first art practised 
by man, but because the other arts are its legitimate 
offspring, and cannot continue long to exist without 
it. It is the great business of civilized life, and 
gives employment to a vast majority of almost every 
people. 
The substantial prosperity of a country is always 
in the ratio of its agricultural industry and wealth. 
Commerce and manufactures may give temporary 
consequence to a state ; but these are always a pre¬ 
carious dependence. Venice, Genoa, Portugal, 
Spain, &c., each in turn rose to wealth and power 
from commercial enterprize. But they all now ex¬ 
hibit melancholy evidences of fallen greatness.— 
Their population degenerated under the corrupting 
influence of commercial wealth, and having no suit¬ 
able agricultural basis to rest upon, they have fal¬ 
len in succession, from their high standing, victims 
to the more robust energies of rival powers, or to 
the enervating influence of domestic cabals. They 
exhibit nothing - now, in their political or social in¬ 
stitutions,—in their agriculture or the condition of 
their population,—that can be admired or coveted, 
by the freemen of America. Great Britain has now 
become ascendant in commerce and manufactures; 
yet her greatness in these sources of power and opu¬ 
lence, are primarily and principally owing to the 
excellent state of her agriculture,—without which 
she could not probably sustain her manufactures or 
her commerce, in their present flourishing state, or 
long retain her immense foreign possessions, or any 
thing like her present population. Only one third 
of her population are said to be employed in agri¬ 
culture , yet the labors of this one third, such is the 
high condition of her husbandry, suffice to feed 
themselves and the other two thirds. Five millions 
of agricultural population, of all ages, produce an¬ 
nually, from her limited soil, seven hundred mil¬ 
lions dollars worth of agricultural produce, aver¬ 
aging about one hundred and forty dollars to each 
man, woman and child. The recently published 
letters of Dr. Humphreys, are so conclusive, and 
instructive, upon this subject, not only in regard to 
the importance of agriculture to a nation, but as 
showing the susceptibility of this art of high im- 
rovement and great productiveness, that we subjoin 
elow an extract from one of his letters. 
“It is the opinion of competent judges, that the ad¬ 
vances made in the agriculture of Great Britain, during 
the last seventy or eighty years, are scarcely exceeded 
by the improvement and extension of its manufactures, 
within the same period ; and that to these advances, no 
other old settled country furnishes any parallel. That 
they have been very rapid indeed, the following figures 
and comparisons abundantly show: In 1760, the total 
growth of all kinds of grain in England and Wales, was 
about 120,000,000 bushels. To this should be added, 
perhaps, 50,000,000 for Scotland—making a great total 
of 170,000,000. In 1835, the quantity in both kingdoms 
could not have been less than 340,000,000 bushels. In 
1755, the population of the whole island did not much, 
if any, exceed 7,600,000. In 1831, it had risen to 
16,525,180, being an increase of 9,000,000, or 120 per 
cent.! Now, the improvements in agriculture have 
more than kept pace with this prodigious increase of 
demand for its various productions ; for it is agreed on 
all hands, that the 16,500,000, or rather the 17,500,000, 
(for more than a million has been added since 1831,) 
are much fuller fed, and on provisions of a far better 
quality, than the 7,500,000 were, in 1755. Nor is Great 
Britain indebted at all, at present, to foreign markets 
for her supplies. Since 1832, she lias imported no grain 
worth mentioning; and till within the last six months, 
prices have been so exceedingly depressed, as to call 
forth loud complaints from the whole agricultural in¬ 
terest of the country. England is, at this moment, so far 
from wanting any of our bread-stuffs, if we had them 
to export, that she has been supplying us liberally all 
winter from her own granaries; and, according to the 
latest advices, she had still bread enough, and to spare. 
Again, it is estimated by British writers, of high autho¬ 
rity, that the subsistence of 9,000,000 people costs, in 
raw produce, no less than £72,000,000, or £8 per each 
individual, per annum. According to this estimate, the 
annual product of this great branch of national industry 
is $350,000,000 more at present, than it was in 1755 ; 
which is more than twice the value of the whole cotton 
manufacture of the country, in 1831. Now if it costs 
$350,000,000 to feed th e increased population of 9,000,000, 
then to feed the present population of 17,500,000, must 
cost near $700,000,000! What an amazing agricultural 
product for so small a territory! And yet it is the opi¬ 
nion of practical men of the highest respectability in 
England, that the raw produce of the island, might be 
well nigh doubled, without any greater proportional ex¬ 
pense being incurred in its production; that is to say, 
25,000,000 people might draw their subsistence from one 
little speck in the ocean! Now we have a territory 
more than fifteen times as large as the island of Great 
Britain; and what should hinder it, when it comes to 
be brought under no higher cultivation than some parts 
of England and Scotland, from sustaining a population 
of 500 or 600 millions of people! This would give to 
Virginia something like thirty millions; to Illinois and 
Missouri,about the same number each} to New-York 
• ! - - ;-;-as--- 
near twenty-five millions, and so on in proportion to the 
other states, I am quite aware that this estimate will 
be regarded as extremely visionary and incredible, by 
many of your readers; but not more so than it would 
have been thought in the middle of the last century, 
that England, Scotland and Wales, could ever be made 
to sustain thirty-five or even thirty millions.” 
A city may flourish by foreign commerce—by 
becoming the carrier of other nations—till foreign 
aggression, or foreign rivalship, or the opening of 
new channels of commerce—contingencies of no 
unfrequent occurrence, shall blast its prospects, and 
consign it, like Persepolis, Petra, Tyre, and other 
ancient cities of the east, to ruin and oblivion. 
A town or district , may flourish by manufacturing 
industry, as many have done in ancient and in mo¬ 
dern times, as long as it can exchange its merchan¬ 
dise for the means of subsistence and of acquiring 
wealth ; but if its dependence for these is upon fo¬ 
reign lands, its prosperity is unstable—the inter¬ 
change is liable to be interrupted by wars, rival- 
ships and other contingencies. 
A country can be long prosperous, and truly in¬ 
dependent, only when it is sustained by agricultural 
intelligence and agricultural industry. Its foreign 
commerce may be swept from the ocean; its ma¬ 
nufactures may perish; yet still, if its soil is tilled, 
and well tilled, it can be made to yield all the ab¬ 
solute necessaries of life ;—it can, when misfortunes 
abate, like the roots of the trunkless tree, send forth 
a new stem, new branches, new foliage and new 
fruit; it can rear again the edifice of the manufac¬ 
turer, and spread again the sails of commerce—and 
it will yet retain the germ and the spirit of inde¬ 
pendence. 
The preceding facts will serve to show the im¬ 
portance of agriculture to a nation, in sustaining 
its prosperity, and its independence, and in sup¬ 
plying the wants, and multiplying the comforts of 
its population. The same reasoning that applies to 
nations, applies to states, to counties, to towns and 
to neighborhoods. Agriculture constitutes the ba¬ 
sis of their prosperity, directly or remotely ; and 
the blessings which it confers are always in the ra¬ 
tio of the intelligence, skill and industry which di¬ 
rect and control its operations. Take a town, for 
instance, which has a mixed population of the va¬ 
rious classes of society. If the average produce of 
each acre of land is but ten dollars, it is sufficient, 
merely, to cover expenses and to feed the farmer’s 
family. Having nothing to sell, the farmer of course 
cannot buy ; or, if he buys, he cannot pay, the 
merchant, the manufacturer or the mechanic, nor 
can he support the lawyer, the physician, the school¬ 
master, or the clergyman. But if every acre is 
made to produce thirty dollars worth of produce an¬ 
nually, which most lands, properly managed, are 
capable of doing, the twenty dollars, or two-thirds 
of the whole product of the soil, become virtually a 
circulating medium. It is so much surplus wealth, 
created by the agricultural labor of the town. Now 
let us suppose, further, that the lands in the town 
amount to twenty thousand acres. Under the reck¬ 
less system of management, which too generally 
prevails, and which upon the average does not pro¬ 
duce over ten dollars an acre, in old improved lands, 
the product would be barely sufficient to maintain 
the agricultural population, without adding to their 
wealth, or enabling them to buy of the merchant or 
others, the necessaries and comforts which they 
stand in need of. I am aware that this does not hold 
good in practice ; for even the most shiftless farm¬ 
ers do buy; but if they pay, it is at the expense of 
many of the substantial comforts of life, or per¬ 
haps ultimately of their farms, which they might 
continue to enjoy under a more enlightened sys¬ 
tem of management. But under the improved sys¬ 
tem, which we have not graduated high, at thirty 
dollars per acre, and which is under the average 
product of well cultivated lands, both in Europe and 
America, the aggregate agricultural labor of the 
town, would give an annual increase to its wealth 
of four hundred thousand dollars. Is there an in¬ 
telligent, reflecting man, who cannot see and ap¬ 
preciate the advantages to society—to the state and 
to the nation, of a high state of improvement in our 
agriculture ? Is there one who does not see his per¬ 
sonal interests promoted by this certain and constant 
influx of wealth, drawn from the soil—prolific in 
the bounties and blessings of a wise and beneficent 
Creator ? He has spread every where the means of 
making man wise and happy. He has given him 
the capacity to apply these means to his own good. 
He has commanded him to bring his capacities in¬ 
to constant and active exercise ; and He has pro¬ 
mised to reward, and He will reward, all who prove 
faithful to the command. 
I do not aim to disparage the other great branch¬ 
es of national industry, which are prolific sources 
of wealth and happiness, by praising agriculture; 
but I think the importance of this great business to 
the state, has not been duly appreciated, nor its in¬ 
terests sufficiently regarded and promoted by those 
who have had the management of our state affairs. 
My object is merely to make agriculture the base, 
as it ought to be, of the social superstructure. We 
are so prone to look up for blessings, to what are 
termed the higher walks of life, and to expect them 
to fall upon us without an effort, that it becomes ne¬ 
cessary, sometimes, to point to their legitimate 
sources below, in the soil. Agriculture, manufac¬ 
tures and commerce are all important, in a public 
point of view, in the order in which we have named 
them; and, like the human body and its members, 
are reciprocal aids to each other. The agriculturist 
gathers from the soil the elements of usefulness ; the 
manufacturer fits them to our wants; and the mer¬ 
chant becomes the factor of both, and the medium 
of interchange. 
It is but just, in the mean time, to suggest some 
of the important bearings which our manufactures 
have upon the prosperity and independence of our 
country. These consume the surplus products of 
the soil; they convert into useful fabrics the wool, 
the hemp, the flax, and much of the cotton, of the 
farmer and the planter; and they supply to the 
great agricultural mass of population, articles of 
necessity and convenience, at a cheaper rate than 
the farmer could fabricate them for himself. The 
manufacturers of our country consume more of the 
surplus provisions of our soil, than all Europe, 
Asia and Africa, put together. I know it is said, 
that we can get our wearing apparel from Europe, 
had we no protecting duties, cheaper than we can 
manufacture it ourselves. And this is undoubtedly 
true, as regards many articles we use. But what 
would be the consequence ? What was the conse¬ 
quence in 1836 , when we were flooded with foreign 
goods, without the means of paying for them ? Our 
manufacturers became embarrassed; many of the 
mills were stopped, and a general stagnation of all 
business ensued. Had the causes which produced 
that state of things, continued to operate, a complete 
prostration of our manufacturing energies must have 
ensued, and the manufacturer been obliged to seek 
his employment, and his bread, among the agricul¬ 
tural class : the home market for the surplus pro¬ 
ducts of our soil would have been cut off, and the 
stimuli to industry and enterprise every where para¬ 
lyzed. Europe does not want, and will not buy, our 
agricultural products. She sells to us bread stuffs. 
Ours must find a home market, or no market at all. 
But there is another consideration which claims 
for us an interest in our manufactures. Why are 
manufactured goods cheaper in Europe, than they 
are in America ? Not because our workmen are 
less expert, or our machinery less perfect. The 
difference lies in the social condition of the work¬ 
men of the two countries—in the price of labor. 
So depressed is the condition of the operatives in 
Europe, that they are compelled to work for a bare 
living. They enjoy but few political rights. There, 
the many toil to support the few, in luxury and ex¬ 
travagance. Here the case is different. Our citi¬ 
zens enjoy equal rights, and the spirit of our insti¬ 
tutions demands that they should be so rewarded for 
their labor, as to be able to assert and maintain their 
rights. Depress them by poverty and want, to the 
condition of the operatives in European workshops, 
and you degrade them as men, and render them 
dangerous as freemen. 
The interests of the different classes of society, 
in our country, are so intimately interwoven, that it 
may be assumed, as a truth, that each class, and 
each individual, best subserve their own good, when 
they endeavor to promote the welfare of all, of every 
other class and individual. It comes then to this, if 
our views of the matter are correct, that agricultui - e, 
being the great conservative principle of national 
prosperity, independence and character, should be 
primarily supported—should be encouraged, en¬ 
lightened and honored ;—that our manufactures, be¬ 
ing necessary, like the elaborating organs of the 
plant, to convert to convenient and useful purposes 
the products of agriculture, should hold the second 
rank in our regards—as a branch of national indus¬ 
try, which cannot be dispensed with, without mani¬ 
fest injury to the other classes of society, and with¬ 
out periling our independence as a nation;—and 
that agriculture and manufactures being duly che¬ 
rished, commerce, as a necessary medium of inter¬ 
change between the two great branches of national 
industry, and between them and foreign nations, 
will as certainly prosper and flourish as the tree in 
a rich soil will, which is braced and supported by 
a good system of roots below, and by a healthy 
top and foliage above. Let us then improve our 
agriculture, and foster and protect our manufac¬ 
tures—that our commerce may enlarge its bounda¬ 
ries, and multiply its gains. Then may we, in the 
spirit of our motto—exclaim— our country— 
OUR WHOLE COUNTRY. 
