Chapter XIV (1)

Egerton had thrown himself at full length on the sofa, a position exceedingly rare with him; and about his whole air and manner, as Levy entered, there was something singularly different from that stateliness of port common to the austere legislator. The very tone of his voice was different. It was as if the statesman--the man of business--had vanished; it was rather the man of fashion and the idler, who, nodding languidly to his visitor, said, "Levy, what money can I have for a year?"

"The estate will bear very little more. My dear fellow, that last election was the very devil. You cannot go on thus much longer."

"My dear fellow!" Baron Levy hailed Audley Egerton as "my dear fellow." And Audley Egerton, perhaps, saw nothing strange in the words, though his lip curled.

"I shall not want to go on thus much longer," answered Egerton, as the curl on his lip changed to a gloomy smile. "The estate must, meanwhile, bear £5000 more."

"A hard pull on it. You had really better sell."

"I cannot afford to sell at present. I cannot afford men to say, 'Audley Egerton is done up--his property is for sale.'"

"It is very sad when one thinks what a rich man you have been--and may be yet!"

"Be yet! How?"

Baron Levy glanced towards the thick mahogany doors--thick and impervious, as should be the doors of statesmen. "Why, you know that, with three words from you, I could produce an effect upon the stocks of three nations, that might give as each a hundred thousand pounds. We would go shares."

"Levy," said Egerton coldly, though a deep blush overspread his face, "you are a scoundrel; that is your look-out. I interfere with no man's tastes and conscience. I don't intend to be a scoundrel myself. I have told you that long ago."

The Baron laughed, without evincing the least displeasure.

"Well," said he, "you are neither wise nor complimentary, but you shall have the money. But yet, would it not be better," added Levy, with emphasis, "to borrow it, without interest, of your friend L'Estrange?"

Egerton started as if stung.

"You mean to taunt me, sir!" he exclaimed, passionately. "I accept pecuniary favours from Lord L'Estrange! I!"

"Tut, my dear Egerton, I dare say my Lord would not think so ill now of that little act in your life which--"

"Hold!" exclaimed Egerton, writhing. "Hold!"

He stopped, and paced the room, muttering in broken sentences, "To blush before this man! Chastisement, chastisement!"

Levy gazed on him with hard and sinister eyes. The minister turned abruptly.

"Look you, Levy," said he, with forced composure--"you hate me--why, I know not. I have never injured you--never avenged the inexpiable wrong you did me."

"Wrong!--you a man of the world! Wrong! Call it so if you will, then," he added shrinkingly, for Audley's brow grew terrible. "But have I not atoned it? Would you ever have lived in this palace, and ruled this country as one of the most influential of its ministers, but for my management--my whispers to the wealthy Miss Leslie? Come, but for me what would you have been--perhaps a beggar?"

"What shall I be now if I live? _Then_ I should not have been a beggar; poor perhaps in money, but rich--rich in all that now leaves my life bankrupt. Gold has not thriven with me; how should it? And this fortune--it has passed for the main part into your hands. Be patient, you will have it all ere long. But there is one man in the world who has loved me from a boy, and woe to you if ever he learn that he has the right to despise me!"

"Egerton, my good fellow," said Levy, with great composure, "you need not threaten me, for what interest can I possibly have in tale-telling to Lord L'Estrange? As to hating you--pooh! You snub me in private, you cut me in public, you refuse to come to my dinners, you'll not ask me to your own; still, there is no man I like better, nor would more willingly serve. When do you want the £5000?"

"Perhaps in one month, perhaps not for three or four. Let it be ready when required."

"Enough; depend on it. Have you any other commands?"

"None."

"I will take my leave, then. By the by, what do you suppose the Hazeldean rental is worth--net?"

"I don't know, nor care. You have no designs upon _that_, too?"

"Well, I like keeping up family connections. Mr Frank seems a liberal young gentleman."

Before Egerton could answer, the Baron had glided to the door, and, nodding pleasantly, vanished with that nod.

Egerton remained, standing on his solitary hearth. A drear, single man's room it was, from wall to wall, despite its fretted ceilings and official pomp of Bramah escritoires and red boxes. Drear and cheerless--no trace of woman's habitation--no vestige of intruding, happy children. There stood the austere man alone. And then with a deep sigh he muttered, "Thank heaven, not for long--it will not last long."

Repeating those words, he mechanically locked up his papers, and pressed his hand to his heart for an instant, as if a spasm had shot through it.

"So--I must shun all emotion!" said he, shaking his head gently.

In five minutes more, Audley Egerton was in the streets, his mien erect, and his step firm as ever.

"That man is made of bronze," said a leader of the Opposition to a friend as they rode past the minister. "What would I give for his nerves!"

JOHNSTON'S NOTES ON NORTH AMERICA.

_Notes on North America, Agricultural, Social, and Economical._ By JAMES F. W. JOHNSTON, M.A., F.R.SS.L. and E., &c. Two Vols. post 8vo. William Blackwood & Sons.

Professor Johnston had three objects in view in his visit to the New World. His high reputation as an agricultural chemist had induced the Agricultural Society of New York to request him to give a course of lectures at Albany upon the connection of chemical and geological science with that of the cultivation of land. He had also been commissioned by the Government of New Brunswick to examine and report on the agricultural capabilities of that province. And besides these public duties, he was impelled by a strong desire to study the actual position of the art of husbandry in the fertile regions of the West, and the influence which its progress is likely to exert upon British agriculture.

Our shrewd brother Jonathan, however brilliant his achievements have been in other arts, has not hitherto earned any great reputation as a scientific farmer. Nature has been so bountiful to him, that, with "fresh fields and pastures new" ever before him, he has hitherto had no need to resort to the toilsome processes and anxious expedients--"_curis acuens mortalia corda_"--of our Old World systems of agriculture. On the newer lands of the Union, at least, the rotations followed, the waste of manures, and the general contempt of all method and economy, are such as would break the heart of a Haddingtonshire "grieve," and in a couple of seasons convert his trim acres into a howling wilderness. What would our respected friend Mr Caird say to a course of cropping like the following, which, though given by Professor Johnston as a specimen of New Brunswick farming, is the usual method followed on most of the new soils of North America?--

"He cuts down the wood and burns it, then takes a crop of
potatoes, followed by one of wheat, with grass seeds. _Nine
successive crops of hay follow in as many years_; after which
the stumps are taken up, the land is ploughed, a crop of wheat
is taken; it is then manured for the first time, or limed, and
laid down again for a similar succession of crops of hay. This
treatment is hard enough; but the unskilful man, after burning
and spreading the ashes, takes two or three more crops of grain,
leaves it to sow itself with grass, then cuts hay as long as
it bears a crop which is worth cutting--after all which he
either stumps and ploughs it, or leaves it to run again into the
wilderness state."--(_Johnston_, vol. i. p. 104.)

Such a system seems, at first sight, to argue a barbarous ignorance of the very first elements of agriculture; and yet, as Professor Johnston remarks, "we English farmers and teachers of agricultural science, with all our skill, should probably, in the same circumstances, do just the same, so long as land was plenty, labour scarce and dear, and markets few and distant." Let no one suppose that our wide-awake kinsman does not know perfectly well what he is about. His apparently rude agricultural practice is regulated by a maxim which some of our _Mechists_ at home would do well to bear in mind--that high farming is bad farming if it is not remunerative. He knows that to manure his land would be to insure the lodging and destruction of his crops, and he therefore leaves his straw to wither in the fields, and lives on in blessed ignorance of the virtues and cost of guano. To plough deep furrows in a virgin soil, saturated with organic matter, would be an idle waste of labour; and the primitive Triptolemus of Michigan scatters the seed upon the surface--or, raising a little mould on the point of a hoe, drops in a few grains of maize, covers them over, and heeds them no more till the golden pyramids are ripe for the knife. The first three crops, thus easily obtained, generally repay to the settler in the wilderness the expense of felling the timber, burning, and cultivating. If he then abandon it, he is at least no loser; but for eight or ten years the soil will still continue to produce crops of natural hay; and then, having extracted from it all that its spontaneous fertility will yield, he sells his possession for what it may bring, and moves off westward to repeat the same exhaustive process on a fresh portion of the forest, leaving to his successor the task of reinvigorating the severely tested powers of the soil by rest and restoratives.

This locust-like progress of the American settler--ever on the move to new lands, and leaving comparative barrenness in his track--must evidently place the case of America beyond the sphere of those ordinary laws of political economy which are applicable in European countries; and Professor Johnston seems to consider the fact of the incessant exhaustion and abandonment of lands as the chief key to a right understanding of the peculiar economical position of the United States. The owner of land in the older and more populous States, who has not learnt to apply a restorative system of culture, derives little benefit from the comparative advantage of situation, while the inhabitants of the towns and villages around him are fed with the surplus spontaneous produce of the far off clearings in Ohio or Missouri. But these in their turn become worn out--and as cultivation travels on westward, the chief centres of agricultural production are gradually receding farther and farther from the chief centres of population and consumption; and this increasing distance, and consequent cost of transport, is every year enhancing the price of grain in the busy and crowded marts of the West--ever filling up with the incessant stream of immigration from Europe. Such is Mr Johnston's view of the present normal condition of the Union in regard to the sustenance of her people; and he makes it the ground-work, as we shall presently see, of certain rather doubtful inferences, of some importance in their bearing on the agriculture of this country. One consequence, however, of any material increase in the price of food in the Eastern States of the Union is very obvious--the proprietor of land in these districts will gradually be enabled to apply, with profit to his exhausted soil, the artificial aids and costlier system of culture followed in Britain. Already this result is apparent in Professor Johnston's account of the energetic spirit of agricultural improvement which is rapidly spreading over most of the New England States. In the keen, restless, and enterprising New Englander, our Old Country farmers will undoubtedly find a more formidable competitor, for the honour of the first place in agricultural advancement, than any they have yet met on this side of the Atlantic. We have seen this year what his invention can produce in mechanical contrivances for economising the labour of the field; and, that he is not indifferent to the aids which science can afford him, is sufficiently proved by the occasion of that visit to America of which Professor Johnston has here given so pleasant and instructive a record. The invitation was not more creditable to the character of the Professor, than to the discernment of the zealous and patriotic men who thus showed how correctly they apprehend the true method of improving their fine country. His engagement was fulfilled during the sitting of the State Legislature at Albany in January 1850, when the hall of the Assembly was given up to him as a lecture-room; the leading members of the Assembly and of the State Agricultural Society were among his auditors, and the greatest public interest was evinced in the important subjects of his prelections.

It is apparent, from many passages of the _Notes_, that the author has listened too confidingly to the flattering tale--the "_canor mulcendas natus ad aures_" of the syren of Free Trade. He seems to be gifted with a strong natural faith, and a patriotic confidence in what British enterprise, and especially British agriculture, can achieve in the way of surmounting difficulties. It is not perhaps to be wondered at that one, whose professional pursuits naturally lead him to place a high value upon the aids which science has in store for the agriculturist, should encourage the farmer to think lightly of his present difficulties, and keep up his spirits with the hope of some paulo-post-future prosperity. It must be allowed that the farmer, poor fellow, has not wanted abundance of kind friends to comfort him in his adversity. Generally, however, their consolations--like those of the sympathetic Mrs Gamp--have been rather indefinite--vague moralisings upon his calamity, as if it were some inevitable stroke of Providence, to be bowed to in silent resignation, and hazy anticipations of good luck awaiting him. Others, again--who have professed the greatest friendship for him, and, like the Knight of Netherby, have come down to hearten up the broken-down man by imparting to him some plan of theirs, as sheep-pasturage or the like, for setting him on his legs again--are mentally taking an inventory of his remaining chattels, and calculating when to send the sheriff's officer. But Professor Johnston belongs to neither of these classes of comforters. His opinion, we know, is at least disinterested, and he brings it before us in the shape of a distinct proposition--viz., that the wheat-exporting capabilities of the United States are not so great as have generally been supposed, and that, as they must diminish rather than increase in future, the prospect of competition with American produce need cause no alarm to the British farmer.

This opinion, coming from such an authority, claims a deliberate examination; and the more so that, in the dearth of other gratulatory topics, it has been eagerly laid hold of by the _Edinburgh Review_, the _Economist_, and other Free-Trade organs, and vaunted as a complete proof that protective duties are quite unnecessary.

The reasons which Professor Johnston assigns for believing that the _present_ wheat-exporting powers of the United States have been exaggerated, may be passed over with very little comment. The Board of Trade returns leave no room for doubt as to the quantity that has actually reached this country, and it is therefore unnecessary for us to follow him through his hypothetical estimate of the exportable grain, grounded on what they _ought_ to have had to spare for us. We may remark, however, that the data on which his calculations proceed are far from satisfactory. He shows that all the _wheat_ produced in the United States, as given in the estimates of the Patent Office, is inadequate to afford the eight bushels which in England we reckon to be requisite for the annual supply of each inhabitant--the population of the Union being about twenty-one millions, and the produce of wheat one hundred and twenty-seven millions of bushels. He does not overlook altogether the fact that wheat is not in America, as it is with us, almost the sole cereal food of the people; and he admits that a considerable allowance must be made for the consumption of Indian corn instead of wheat. But how much?--That is the question. The compilers of the State Papers at Washington estimate that Indian corn, buckwheat, and other grain, form so large a proportion of the food of the people, that they require only _three_ bushels of wheat per head; and no doubt they have good grounds for this calculation. Professor Johnston, however, without indicating any reason whatever for his assumption, has set down the consumption of each individual at _five_ bushels per annum; and thus, by a stroke of his pen, he reduces the average exportable surplus of the Union to _only_ three millions of quarters.

As to what may be expected in future--Professor Johnston anticipates the gradual diminution of the supply, from the circumstance, already adverted to, of the progressive exhaustion of the newer lands of the Union, and the rapid increase of population in the old. If several of the Western States, he argues, have even already ceased to raise enough wheat for the supply of their present inhabitants, and are compelled to draw largely on the produce of the remote States of Illinois, Ohio, &c.--and if the productive power of these new lands is annually becoming less, the virgin soils more distant, and the transport of subsistence more difficult--if this is the state of matters now, what will it be in 1860, when immigration and natural increase will probably have raised the population of the Union to some thirty-four millions? "It is very safe," he concludes, "to say that in 1860 their wheat-exporting capability will have become so small as to give our British farmers very little cause for apprehension." It may perchance occur to these gentlemen, that the consolation Professor Johnston here offers them is not very cheering after all; and as long as they see the provision stores in every market town piled up with the interloping flour barrels of New York, and their own waggons returning home with their loads unsold, it is not to be wondered at if they are not greatly exhilarated with the prospect of what may possibly happen nine years hence. And slender as is the hope deferred here held out to them, it rests, we fear, on very questionable grounds.

Professor Johnston's opinion is founded on two suppositions: 1st, That the exhaustion of the Western States, on which he dwells so much, is proceeding so rapidly as already to affect the markets of the eastern districts; 2d, That these older districts will be unable to increase the quantity of produce raised within their own boundaries, without so adding to its cost as to prevent its being profitably exported.

As to the first supposition, it may be conceded that, in the course of time, a period must necessarily come when the spontaneous fertility of the newer-settled States will cease to yield grain with the same bountiful abundance it has done hitherto. But, when may that period be expected to arrive?--to what extent has exhaustion already taken place?--and what is the rate of its progress? For a reply, we have only to point to that vast territory, bounded by the lakes on the north and Ohio on the south, comprising the five States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin--a territory eight times the size of England and Wales, with a population about equal to that of Scotland, containing 180,000,000 acres of arable land, a large portion of which is of surprising fertility--and ask whether it is possible to believe that it has already reached the turning point of its wheat-productiveness,[1] or can by any possibility do so for centuries to come? Why, the extent of land advertised in these five States for sale, (which forms only a fraction of what still remains in the hands of government,) is greater by a fourth than the whole area of England; and of the territory that has been actually sold, it is estimated that five-sevenths is still unreclaimed from the wilderness. Then look at the means of transport provided for conveying the overflowing abundance of those rich alluvial regions to the markets of the East, by way of the two great outlets--the lakes on the north, and the Mississippi on the south. The cost of such transport is no doubt considerable; the conveyance of a quarter of wheat from the centre of Illinois to Boston, by New Orleans, averages about 16s. 6d. But, nevertheless, so trifling is the original cost of production, that immense quantities of corn do annually reach the eastern seaboard by this route, a considerable portion of which is re-shipped to Liverpool, and sold there at prices greatly below its cost of production in this country. The annexed table[2] shows the remarkable fact, that, of the whole quantity of grain exported from the United States in the five years 1842-6, twelve-thirteenths of the wheat, about one-half of the flour, and a large proportion of the Indian corn, came from the two ports of New York and Philadelphia alone. Now, as we know that these large supplies were not grown within the confines of the Eastern States, and _must_ have been brought from the westward, the inference is obvious that the two causes insisted on by Professor Johnston--the distance of the virgin soils, and the expense of transport--are as yet inoperative; or at least that they have not prevented the transmission of grain to the east in such vast quantities, as not only to meet the wants of all the population of that part of the Union, but to afford an average surplus for exportation to other countries equivalent to the annual maintenance of a million and a half of men. We need only mention one other fact, which seems in itself a sufficient refutation of the theory Professor Johnston has taken up. The causes which he thinks are so soon to dry up the supplies now derived from the West are of no recent or sudden emergence. The process of exhaustion on the new lands, and the rapid population of the old, has been going on for many years. If, then, these causes are so influential as he imagines, their effects should at least be apparent in a gradual increase of the prices of bread-stuffs in the Eastern States. Now, no such effect is to be found. On the contrary, we find that, during the last twenty years, the price of wheat, as well as of maize, in the chief marts of the east, has been _steadily diminishing, instead of increasing_. We extract from the returns published by the Board of Trade the annexed comparison[3] of the prices of wheat flour at New York, during two periods, from which it appears that, in the very State where the results of Professor Johnston's hypothesis ought to have been most manifest, the experience of twenty years shows a reduction of price instead of an enhancement, notwithstanding that the latter period in the comparison embraces the years of the potato failure. An examination of similar returns from Baltimore and New Orleans establishes the same fact, namely, that the tendency of prices for twenty years past is _not upwards, but downwards_--a fact quite irreconcilable with the supposed rapid exhaustion of the wheat soils of the interior.

[1] The estimated produce of wheat in these five States in the year
1847 was 38,400,000 bushels.

[2] Quantity of bread-stuffs exported from the whole of the United
States, and from the ports of New York and Philadelphia, in the
years 1842-46 inclusive:--

| Wheat | Flour | Indian Corn | Indian Corn
| (bushels.) |(barrels.) | (bushels.) |(Meal barrels.)
|------------+-----------+-------------+---------------
United States, | 2,691,711 | 7,048,356 | 4,764,450 | 1,199,255
|------------+-----------+-------------+---------------
New York, | 1,985,900 | 2,610,944 | 2,443,733 | 242,294
Philadelphia, | 474,788 | 1,055,382 | 677,530 | 565,682
|------------+-----------+-------------+---------------
Total of both ports, | 2,460,688 | 3,666,326 | 3,121,263 | 807,976

[3] Comparative statement of the prices, per barrel, of best wheat
flour at New York, (taken from the _Monthly Averages_) in 1829-33,
and 1844-48:--

FIRST PERIOD.

1829, Dr. 6.23
1830, 5.02
1831, 5.84
1832, 5.70
1833, 5.70
----
Average of five years, 5.69

SECOND PERIOD.

1844, Dr. 4.60
1845, 5.00
1846, 5.16
1847, 6.77
1848, 5.83
----
Average of five years, 5.47

It is much to be regretted that Professor Johnston was unable to extend his tour to these granary States of the West. It would have been satisfactory to have had from him an estimate of their capabilities founded on actual survey and personal observation, instead of indirect inference. We are quite ready to admit, that many of the accounts of those regions which have reached us, drawn up to suit the purposes of speculators in land, are of very dubious authenticity, and, like the stage-coach in which Mr Dickens travelled to Buffalo, have "a pretty loud smell of varnish." But, on the other hand, we cannot discredit the official data supplied by the State papers--without at least stronger grounds than those inferences from general geological structure which Professor Johnston has adduced to disprove the alleged fertility of the State of Michigan. There can, of course, be no more valuable criterion of the natural agricultural value of a country than is afforded by its geology--provided the survey be sufficiently extensive and accurate. But it is difficult to follow those enthusiasts in the science, whom we occasionally find drawing the most startling deductions from very narrow data--and prophesying the future history of the territory, and even the character of its inhabitants, from a glance at the bowels of the earth, as the Roman augur foretold the fate of empires from the entrails of his chickens.

We find, for example, a writer of high standing in America accounting for a remarkable diminution in the amount of _bastardy_ in Pennsylvania, some thirty years ago, by the fact--that the settlers at that time _had got off the cold clays and on to the limestone_! A Scottish geologist, with more apparent reason perhaps, has founded an argument for an extensive emigration of the Highlanders on the prevalence of the primitive rocks in the north and west of Scotland. It is only from a complete and systematic survey that we can venture to predicate anything with certainty of the future agricultural powers of a country; and, in the absence of such trustworthy data, we must be content to estimate the future wheat-productiveness of Michigan, as well as of the other States we have named along with it, from what we know of their present fertility, and of the vast extent that is still uncleared.

As to New York and the other old-settled States of the Union, which we are told do not now produce enough for their own consumption, are we to take it for granted that they are always to continue stationary, and to make no effort to keep pace with the growing demands of an increasing population? Professor Johnston, we observe in one passage, has qualified his opinion as to the prospective dearth of grain by this curious condition--"_Provided no change takes place in their agricultural system._" But what shadow of a reason can be given for supposing it will not take place? The area of New York State is only one-twelfth less than that of England, and is, at least, no way inferior as to climate or quality of soil. As far as material means go, it is quite capable of maintaining, under an improved culture, at least four times its present population of three millions. The only question is as to the will and ability of her people to develop these means; and on this point Professor Johnston's own work is full of multiplied proofs of the zealous and intelligent spirit of improvement which is extending rapidly all over the North-Eastern States. We find the central government of the Confederation occupied in organising the plan of an Agricultural Bureau on a scale worthy of a great and enlightened nation--a work that contrasts in a very marked way with the studious neglect which such subjects meet with from the government of this country.[4] We find the several State legislatures anxiously encouraging every species of improvement--that of New York, in particular, devoting large grants to the support of exhibitions; preparing to found an Agricultural College; distributing widely and gratuitously the annual public reports on the state of agriculture; and, finally, sending to Europe for a celebrated chemist to assist in maturing their plans, and sitting--senators and great officers of state--at the feet of a British Gamaliel, laying down the law to them on the true principles of the all-important science of agriculture. Nor are the owners of the land asleep. It is a strong indication of their growing desire for information, that seven or eight agricultural periodicals are published in the State of New York alone. Professor Johnston found no less than fifty copies of such papers taken regularly in a small town in Connecticut of some two thousand inhabitants; and he had occasion to observe, in his intercourse with the farmers of New York, their general acquaintance with the geology of their country, and its relation to the management of their lands. Their implement-makers, who had already taught us the use of the horse-rake, the cradle-scythe, and the improved churn, have recently outstripped us by the invention, or at least the great improvement, of the reaping-machine, the advantages of which are so appreciated in the country of its origin that at Chicago 1500 of M'Cormick's machines were ordered in one year. In short, the proverbial energy, perseverance, and sagacity that distinguish our Yankee friends, seem now to be all directed towards effecting a change of system in the management of land; and the true question is, not whether the hitherto laggard progress of American agriculture is to be quickened in future, but whether we shall be able to keep pace with it.

[4] Vol. ii. p. 389.

But then Professor Johnston tells us that improvement is expensive, and that every process for reviving the dormant powers of the soil, and preserving their activity, must necessarily be attended with an addition to the price of the produce, which will thus prevent its coming into competition with that of England. This view rests upon a fallacy, which we are sure the author must have drawn from his reading in political economy, and not from his experience as an agriculturist. It is an off-shoot from the rent-theory, (the pestilent root of so much error and confusion,) which, however, we shall not notice at present, further than by affirming, in direct contradiction to it, that improvements do _not_ necessarily, nor generally, involve an increase of price. Even those which require the greatest outlay--even a complete system of arterial drainage all over the State of New York, instead of adding to the cost of wheat, may very probably reduce it, as it has certainly done in this country. But most of the improvements readily available in the Eastern States involve scarcely any expenditure at all. The most obvious and effectual is to save and apply the manure, which is now wasted or thrown away; and when that proves insufficient, abundant supplies of mineral manures are easily procurable. On the exhausted wheat-lands of Virginia, a single dressing of lime or marl generally doubles the first crop. Deposits of gypsum, and of the valuable mineral phosphate of lime, seem to be abundant both in New York and New Jersey. Again, in the former State, where the common practice is to plough to a depth of _not more than four inches_, the simple expedient of putting in the plough a few inches deeper would of itself add one-half to the return of wheat over a very large district.

On the whole, so far from seeing any reason to anticipate, with Professor Johnston, a material reduction in the quantity of our wheat imports from the States, we look rather to see it increased; and, at all events, we have no hesitation in saying, that to encourage our English farmers to expect a cessation of competition from that quarter is to deceive them with very groundless hopes.

We have already dwelt at considerable length on this topic, both because of the prominent place it occupies in Professor Johnston's volumes, and of the notice which his speculations upon it have attracted in this country.

It has been mentioned that a large proportion--probably not less than one-half--of the cereal food consumed in the States consists of maize and buckwheat. Mr Johnston always alludes to this fact, as if the use of these grains were a matter of compulsion--as if the Americans resorted to them from being unable to afford wheaten bread. Now, according to the information we have from other sources, the truth is just the reverse of this. We are told that in the Eastern and Central States, as well as on the West frontier and among the slave population, the various preparations of Indian corn are becoming more relished every year; and that the extension of its cultivation is to be attributed, not to the failure of the wheat crops, but to a growing preference for it as an article of food. In a less degree the use both of oats and buckwheat seems to be spreading in the States, as well as in our own colonies of New Brunswick and Canada East; and one can scarcely wonder at the taste for the latter grain, after reading the appetising descriptions our author gives of the crisp hot cakes, with their savoury adjuncts of maple-honey, which so often formed his breakfast during his wanderings. The general use of these three kinds of grain--maize, oats, and buckwheat--has somehow come to be considered by political economists as indicative of a low degree of social advancement. And yet we know that, in the countries suited to their growth, a given area of ground cultivated with any of them will return a greater quantity of nutritious food, at a smaller expense and with less risk of failure, than if it were cropped with wheat. We are told that the great objection to them is, that their culture _is too easy_. Professor Johnston touches upon this notion in some remarks he makes on the disadvantage of buckwheat as a staple article of food. The objections to it, he tells us, consist in the ease with which it can be raised, the rapidity of its growth, and the small quantity of seed it requires: it induces, he says, like the potato, an indolent, slovenly, and exhausting culture; and "it is the prelude of evil, when a kind of food that requires little exertion to obtain it becomes the staple support of a people."[5] It may be noticed in passing, that, in point of fact, the results alleged are at least not universal; for, in regard to this very grain, we find its cultivation prevalent in some of the best-managed districts of the hard-working, provident, and intelligent Belgians. But taking the axiom as it stands, we cannot help suspecting that there is some fallacy lurking at the bottom of it. Misled by what we have observed of the Irishman and his potato diet, we have confounded the _cum hoc_ with the _propter hoc_, and come to regard an easily-raised food as _the cause_ of that indolence of which it is only the frequent indication. It were otherwise a most inexplicable contrariety between the physical and the moral laws which govern this world, that in every country there should be a penalty of social wretchedness and degradation attached to the use of that particular food which its climate and soil are best suited to produce. Can it be supposed that the blessings of nature are only a moral snare for us, and that, while she has given to the American the maize plant--oats to the Scotch Highlander--rice to the Hindoo--the banana to the inhabitant of Brazil--a regard for their social well-being requires each of them to renounce these gifts, and to spend their labour in extorting from the unwilling soil some less congenial kind of subsistence? Virgil has warned the husbandman--

"Pater ipse colendi
Haud facilem esse viam voluit."

But it were surely a dire aggravation of the difficulties of his task if his most plentiful harvest were also the most injurious to his advancement and true happiness. We cannot now, however, examine the grounds of a doctrine so paradoxical, and have adverted to it only to remark that it seems destined to meet with a most direct practical refutation in North America, where we find the habitual use of what we choose to consider the coarser grains associated with the highest intelligence and the most rapid development of social progress. There can be no doubt that the nature of the food generally used in any nation must exert an important influence on its prosperity; but it is difficult to understand how that prosperity should be promoted by the universal use of that variety which costs most labour. At all events, it is certainly a subject of very interesting inquiry, in reference to the increasing consumption among ourselves of wheat--the dearest and most precarious species of grain, much of it imported from other countries--and its gradual abandonment in North America, what effect these opposite courses may have on the future destinies of the two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon race.

[5] Vol. i. p. 80.

Leaving this as a problem for political economists, let us now follow him in his visit to the British side of the St Lawrence. His brief three weeks' survey of the Canadas did not, of course, enable him to form any very intimate acquaintance with the condition of these provinces; and he prudently abstains from pronouncing any judgment upon the vexed topics of Canadian politics. His presence at the great exhibition, at Kingston, of the Agricultural Society of Upper Canada, gave him a good opportunity of estimating the progress that has been made in practical agriculture. The stock, as well as the implements, there brought forward in competition for the various premiums, amounting in all to £1000, gave most satisfactory indications of improvement; while the large attendance, and the interest taken in the proceedings, sufficiently showed that the inhabitants of the Upper Province are now awake to the necessity of agricultural improvement as the main source of their future prosperity. In a country where eighty per cent of the whole population are directly engaged in the cultivation of the soil, the land interest is, or ought to be, predominant. But the bitter animosity of political parties, and the abortive attempts of government to soothe and reconcile them, have hitherto stood much in the way of any combined effort towards the encouragement of improved cultivation. The art of husbandry is not likely to thrive in a country where every man is bent on proving himself a Cincinnatus. Of late, however, public spirit has shown symptoms of taking a more wholesome direction; and, notwithstanding occasional ministerial crises and political explosions, which we on this side the water are sometimes puzzled to understand, all parties in the province seem now fully aware that the development of the vast resources of their fertile soil is the only road to permanent prosperity. The encouragement of local competitions, the provision for systematic instruction in agriculture in the colleges--which Professor Johnston tells us is in progress--and the introduction of elementary lessons in the art as a regular branch of common school learning, are all steps in the right direction. It is precisely in such a community as that of Canada that the last-mentioned kind of instruction is really of essential benefit. From the last census of Upper Canada, it appears that there are sixty thousand owners of land in the province, and only ten thousand labourers without land. The great majority of the boys in the ordinary schools will become proprietors, and, at the same time, cultivators; and, in such circumstances, it is of the utmost importance that the youth should acquire betimes a competent knowledge of the principles on which his future practice is, or ought to be, founded--such knowledge as will, at least, enable him to, shake off the traditional prejudices and slovenly habits which his father may have imported with him from Harris or the County Kerry.

The querulous and depreciatory tone which our Canadian fellow-subjects are apt to employ in speaking of their country, and its prospects, is remarked by Professor Johnston as contrasting oddly with the unqualified adulation of everything--from the national constitution to the navy button--which one constantly hears from his republican neighbour. One consequence of this habit is, the existence of a prevalent but very mistaken notion that, in the march of social advancement, Canada has been completely distanced by the United States. Professor Johnston has been at some pains to demonstrate, and we think most successfully, that this impression is entirely erroneous. Indeed, if we only recollect the history of Canada for the last fifteen years--the disunion of her own people, and the reckless commercial experiments to which she has been subjected by the home government, the rapid strides in improvement--of the Upper Province especially--are almost marvellous. As a corroboration of what Professor Johnston has said on the subject, we have thrown together in the subjoined table, collected from the Government returns, some of the most striking and decisive evidences of the recent progress of Upper Canada. In certain particulars, no doubt, she is outstripped by some of those districts of the States to which from time to time extraordinary migrations of their unsettled and nomadic population have been directed. But putting such exceptional cases out of view, the inhabitants of Canada need fear no comparison with the Union in all the chief elements of national advancement.

PROGRESS OF UPPER CANADA,--1837-47.

| | |Increase | |Increase
| 1837. | 1842. |per cent.| 1847. |per cent.
|-----------+-----------+---------+-----------+---------
| | | | |
Population, | 396,721 | 486,055 | 22 | 723,332 | 48
Number of cultivated| | | | |
acres assessed for | | | | |
local taxes, | 4,736,268 | 5,548,357 | 17 | 6,477,338 | 16
Number of houses | | | | |
assessed | | | | |
for ditto, | 22,057 | 31,638 | 43 | 42,937 | 35
Value of property | | | | |
assessed, |£4,431,098 |£6,913,341 | 56 |£8,567,001 | 23
Number of carriages | | | | |
kept for pleasure, | 1,627 | 2,188 | 34 | 4,685 | 114
Number of | | | | |
elementary | | | | |
schools, | -- | 927 | -- | 2,464 | 165
Number of scholars | | | | |
in ditto, | -- | 29,961 | -- | 80,461 | 170
Number of cattle, | -- | 504,963 | -- | 565,848 | 12
Number of horses, | -- | 113,675 | -- | 151,389 | 33
Number of sheep, | -- | 575,730 | -- | 833,869 | 45

In looking at the great sources of wealth possessed by these provinces, our attention is at once arrested by the growing importance of the St Lawrence as an outlet to the produce, not only of the Canadas, but of a vast area of the States territory. With the exception, perhaps, of the Mississippi, no river in the world opens up so grand a highway for the industry of man as the St Lawrence, with the chain of vast lakes and innumerable rivers that unite with it in the two thousand miles of its majestic progress to the ocean. Never was there an enterprise more worthy of a great nation than that of surmounting the obstacles to its navigation, and completing the channels of connection with its tributary waters; and nobly have the people of Canada executed it. Taking into account the infancy of their country, and the amount of its population and revenue, it is not too much to say, with Mr Johnston, that their exertions to secure water-communication have been greater than those of any part of the Union, or any country of Europe. The improvements on the St Lawrence itself, and the canals connected with it, have already cost the colony two millions and a quarter sterling, in addition to the expenditure of £800,000 by the home government on the construction of the Rideau Canal. The results of this liberal but judicious outlay are already showing themselves, not only by the rapidly-increasing Canadian traffic on the St Lawrence, but by its drawing into it, year after year, a larger share of the commerce of the States. That the influx of trade from the south must ere long vastly exceed its present amount, is evident from a consideration of the gigantic projects already completed, or in course of construction, for effecting an access between the lakes and the fertile regions of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois, &c., already spoken of, and thus saving the longer and costlier transit by the Mississippi. One of the Reports of the State of New York thus speaks of them:--

"Three great canals, (one of them longer than the Erie Canal,)
embracing in their aggregate length about one thousand miles,
are to connect the Ohio with Lake Erie; while another deep and
capacious channel, excavated for nearly thirty miles through
solid rock, unites Lake Michigan with the navigable waters of
the Illinois. In addition to these broad avenues of trade,
they are constructing lines of railroads not less than fifteen
hundred miles in extent, in order to reach with more case and
speed the lakes through which they seek a conveyance to the
seaboard. The circumstance, moreover, is particularly important,
that the public works of each of these great communities
are arranged on a harmonious plan, each having a main line,
supported and enriched by lateral and tributary branches,
thereby bringing the industry of their people into prompt and
profitable action; while the systems themselves are again
united, on a grander scale, with Lake Erie as its common centre."

The various streams of the trade from the interior being thus collected in the lakes--which form, as it were, the heart of the system--there are two great channels for its redistribution and dispersion through the markets of the world. These are the St Lawrence, and the Erie Canal with the Hudson; and the vital question as regards the prosperity of Canada is, by which of these outlets will the concentrated traffic of the lakes find its way to the ocean? Mr Johnston has devoted considerable attention to this subject, and assigns two good reasons for believing that the St Lawrence is destined immensely to increase the share which it has already secured. In the first place, the American artery is already surcharged and choked up;--notwithstanding all the efforts that have been made to expedite the traffic on the Erie Canal, it has been found wholly inadequate to accommodate the immense trade pouring in from the west; and, secondly, the route of the St Lawrence, besides being the more expeditious, is now found to be the cheaper one. In a document issued by the Executive Council of Upper Canada, it is mentioned that the Great Ohio Railway Company, having occasion to import about 11,000 tons of railway iron from England, made special inquiries as to the relative cost of transport by the St Lawrence and New York routes, the result of which was the preference of the former, the saving on the inland transport alone being 11,000 dollars. There seems good reason to expect that a considerable portion of the Mississippi trade may be diverted into the Canadian channel; but putting this out of view altogether, it is certain that the navigation of this glorious river is every year becoming of greater importance to the United States, as well as to Britain: let us hope that it is destined ever to bear on its broad breast the blessings of peace and mutual prosperity to both nations.

After a rapid glance at Lower Canada, Professor Johnston crossed the St Lawrence, in order to complete the survey of New Brunswick, which, before leaving England, he had been commissioned to make for the Government of the colony. We have had no opportunity of seeing the official Report, in which he has published the detailed results of his observations; but the valuable information collected in these volumes has strongly confirmed our previous impression, that the resources and importance of this fine colony have never yet been sufficiently appreciated at home. With an area as nearly as possible equal to that of Scotland, it possesses a much larger surface available for agriculture. The climate is healthy and invigorating; it is traversed by numerous navigable rivers; its rocks contain considerable mineral wealth; and the fisheries on its coasts are inexhaustible. Imperfectly developed as its resources are, the trade from the two ports of St John's and St Andrew's alone, exceeds that of the whole of the three adjoining States of the Union--Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire--although its inhabitants do not number one-sixth of the population of these States. As to the fertility of the soil, Professor Johnston, by a comparison of authentic returns, shows that the productive power of the land already cultivated in the province considerably exceeds the averages of New York, of Ohio, and of Upper Canada--countries which have hitherto been considered more favoured both in soil and climate. By classifying the soils in the several districts, he has estimated that the available land, after deducting a reserve for fuel, is capable of maintaining in abundance a population of 4,200,000; while its present number little exceeds 200,000. In all the course of his travels, he met with but a few rare instances in which the agricultural settlers did not express their contentment with their circumstances; and although it seems still questionable whether farming on a large scale, by the employment of hired labour, can be made remunerative, the universal opinion of the experienced persons he consulted testified that, with ordinary prudence and industry, the poorest settler, who confines his attention to the clearing and cultivation of land, is sure of attaining a comfortable independence.

The question naturally occurs--How is it that, with all these natural advantages and encouragements to colonisation, and with its proximity to our shores, so very small a proportion--not more than one in sixty or seventy of the emigrants from Great Britain--make New Brunswick their destination? Professor Johnston, while he maintains that, taking population into account, New Brunswick is in this respect no worse off than Canada, adverts to several causes of a special nature which may have retarded its settlement. But the truth is, that the question above started leads us directly to another of far greater compass and importance--What is the reason that all our colonies taken together absorb so small a proportion of our emigrants compared with the United States? What is the nature of the inducements that annually impel so large a number of our countrymen to forfeit the character of British subjects, and prefer a domicile among those who are aliens in laws, interests, and system of government?

We hardly know how to venture upon anything connected with the ominous subject of emigration, at a moment when the crowds leaving our shores, at the rate of nearly a thousand every day, are such as to startle the most apathetic observer, and shake the faith of the most dogmatic economist in the truth of his speculations. This is not the place to inquire what strangely compulsive cause it may be that has all at once swelled the ordinary stream of emigration into a headlong torrent.[6] Mayhap it is neither distant, nor doubtful, nor unforetold. But whatever it may be, there stands the fact--which we can neither undo, nor, for aught that can be seen at present, prevent its annual recurrence in future, or say how and when the waves are to be stayed. "When the Exe runs up the streets of Tiverton," says a certain noble prophet--whose vaticinations, however, have not been very felicitous hitherto--"then, and not till then, may we expect to see the reversal of the free-import system;" and then, and not till then, we take leave to add, may we hope to see the ebbing of that tide of British capital and British strength which is now flowing strongly and steadily into the bay of New York.

[6] Total number of registered emigrants for the twenty-one years from 1825
to 1845 inclusive 1,349,476----Average, 64,260
Do. do. _for the five years_ 1846 _to_ 1850 inclusive,
1,216,557----Average, 243,311

PROPORTION OF BRITISH EMIGRATION TO THE COLONIES AND TO THE UNITED STATES, 1846-50 INCLUSIVE.