or the fifth, wheat. He drills his turnips on ridges, twenty-seven inches apart, and works them lengthways with the plough, and crossways with the hand-hoe. In September the crop conceals entirely the surface of the earth. He drills his wheat in rows, nine inches asunder, sowing four bushels to the acre, and works it in the spring with a machine which loosens the earth and destroys the weeds. It is drilled, twelve rows at a time, by a machine about nine feet wide, and drawn by two horses. The same machine makes the drill; carries the manure, (oil-cake,) and empties it into the drills through tin horns, which receive it from little cups on a revolving cylinder; it also covers the manure; drops the wheat over it by smaller cups and horns, and then covers the wheat. I saw fields of wheat at Holkham, which were estimated at twelve coombs (forty-eight bushels) the acre, and fields of barley at twenty coombs. Mr. C. shewed me a field, about the crop on which, a few years since, there existed a very great diversity of opinion among his visitors. To gratify the curiosity of, I think, Lord Grey, the field was measured and the crop cleaned immediately after its removal. The produce was fifty-seven and a half bushels per acre.

These details are sufficient to give you an idea of the immense improvement in agriculture which has taken place in the county of Norfolk, and the results, I think, justify the opinion of that great philanthropist, that if the same methods were adopted throughout the kingdom, England might become a grain exporting country. Mr. C. justly considers annual leases as fatal to good husbandry, and is convinced that the true interest of the landlord and the tenant are the same. He, therefore, gives long and liberal leases; and has proved by experience that large farms properly managed, are not only the most profitable, but even more encouraging to population and the real comforts of the poorer classes. The farm which he cultivates himself gives employment to all the inhabitants of the parish of Holkham. The population of this parish is now four times greater than when he took possession of the estate; and I saw no peasantry in England so neatly dressed, so comfortably lodged, or so respectful in their manners. When he went to reside at Holkham the morals of these now industrious happy people were like the morals of the same class in other parts of England; but although there are

seven or eight hundred persons in that parish, there has not been for the last thirty years a presentment by a grand jury against one individual.

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Such is the progress of agriculture in Norfolk that the stock has become the best in the kingdom. The South Down sheep are preferred by Mr. Coke; and his Holkham Devon cattle are proverbially beautiful. In his opinion the Devon breed, when put in good condition, require less food, give more butter, though less milk, make a greater quantity of good beef at a less expense, and are more active under the yoke than other race. They took the prizes last year at his annual sheep shearing, which is in fact a sort of agricultural fète of three days, for the purpose of exhibiting the state and system of husbandry at Holkham, and during which this distinguished patriot entertains with princely magnificence several hundred British and foreign agriculturists, and distributes prizes in plate to the value of two hundred guineas. The days which I passed at Holkham, after the crowd had retired, I shall ever class among the most gratifying of my life, so sublime and beautiful is the moral spectacle which that estate exhibits. It is not the splendour of his princely mansion, and the sumptuous elegance of his hospitality, and the courteous kindness of his man. ners, that alone attract and command your admiration; for in these he may be perhaps equalled by others. It is the benevolence of his heart which is commensurate with human existence; it is that settled rapture of mind with which he contemplates the happiness he dispenses to thousands; it is the reciprocal affection between him and every thing around him; the glorious devotion of his independent tenantry, and the noble gratitude of his contented labourers; it is the entire absence of poverty and vice from the scene in which he moves and has his being; it is these which cheer and exhilarate the heart of the beholder, and exalt his respect for human nature. May we not then indulge the hope that the time is not very remote when this scene will not stand alone and unparalleled in Europe; when that illustrious patriarch shall find many to copy, some to emulate, and none to envy him?

As the drill system of agriculture with its judicious rotation of crops succeeds so admirably on poor land, there can be little doubt of its producing a prodigious augmentation in the productions of richer soil. It makes its way, however, over that

intelligent kingdom but slowly, for Mr. Coke does not think it travels or radiates more than a mile a year; so that the farmers of Cheshire and Shropshire, for example, and many others, are not yet convinced of the advantage of reaping forty or fifty bushels an acre from their land, instead of sixteen which is now its average product. Wherever Mr. Coke's method has been introduced it has been found to create so great a de mand for labour, as to break up those nests of vice and wretchedness, the parish poor houses. Perhaps it is justly stated by Malthus that the English system of poor laws is "an evil, in comparison with which, the national debt with all its magnitude of terror, is of little moment." That system in its perversion has not only taken away in a great degree the stimulus to labour, but by breaking down the spirit of independence, and extinguishing the sensibility of, shame in the peasantry, it has become the moral leprosy of England. A system of husbandry, therefore, which could root out this demoralizing evil would be, as.a moral vaccine alone, of infinite advantage to that kingdom; and the adoption of such an one in France would not only prevent this government from resorting to any similar expedient as a relief to indigence, but would add inconceivably to the strength of the government, as well as to the prosperity of the nation. Why then does not the king of France invite men, familiar with this system, into his kingdom; and why does he suffer his agriculturists to go on in the old beaten routine, since he must have re. sided long enough in England to learn that consecutive white grain crops, will exhaust any soil? He has certainly read enough to discover that the only chance which monarchy has of maintaining itself in Europe, is by endeavouring to emulate liberty in the blessings which it confers on nations. Without a zeal of that kind among kings, their authority will soon be discovered to be as useless as the lofty aqueducts of the ancients now are, to nations acquainted with the principles of hydrostatics.

The general division of the great estates of France has given an immense impulse to agricultural industry, and the forced division of property by the testamentary law has been hitherto very serviceable in diminishing the space which separated the rich from the poor. It is yet a problem, however, in French politics whether that law, though very equitable, may not in its turn

check the prosperity of the nation, since large farms are found to be most profitable when cultivation approaches perfection. That it will undermine the foundations of the social system of France there can be little doubt, nor is it yet ascertained here whether an equal division of property may not be as injurious to children as to parents. "Le vrai peut quelquefois n'être pas vraisemblable." Perhaps when estates are thus divided each child may expect to live as its parents lived, and hence may arise a ruinous prodigality; for that style which was justified by a whole fortune may be wasteful and extravagant when to be supported by a part of it. An overheated ambition to keep up appearances, to excel their neighbours in fine furniture, and to live in a style out of proportion to their means, may not only break up and squander away all large estates in three or four generations, but destroy simplicity of manners and all contentment with condition. It may become a great misfortune for young men to be reared with ideas above their circumstances, and to inherit just enough property to prevent enterprize and make them idle, without justifying an expenditure commensurate with their imagined necessities. A vulgar affectation of independence may come to characterize the behaviour of Frenchmen, and a spirit of violent dissipation to vitiate their tastes and moral habits. Let us cherish the hope, however, that these apprehensions may prove groundless, and that the same admirable and salutary effects which have hitherto resulted from that law, may continue to flow from it.

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Note. As the first part of this letter treats of the municipal system of France, it may not be improper, in confirmation of its suggestions, to compare the expense of collecting the taxes in England with that in France, from which the reader will observe the advantage of banks and freer regulations, whence the difference, in part, arises; ENGLAND-Customs, 7 per cent.-Excise, 4-Recording and Stamps, 7-Post Office, 11-Lotteries-Direct Taxes, 2-Total 31. FRANCE-Customs, 33-Excise, 20—Recording and Stamps, 9—Post Office, 45—Lotteries, 30-Direct Taxes, 15-Total 152. See Esprit des Associations, p. 581.

LETTER XXII.

Paris, April, 1820.

MY DEAR SIR,

In a former letter, I mentioned the exposition of the productions of French industry, which was made last year at the expense of the government, in the old, or as it should now be called, the new Louvre. The magnificent assemblage which was there displayed of all the creations of art, from the rudest necessaries of life, to the most exquisitely finished articles of taste, was very highly gratifying to the pride and vanity of this great people. Day after day, during the whole autumn, the long and spacious galleries of that palace were thronged by tens of thousands of spectators, attracted by the novelty and elegance of the spectacle.

In free countries, such manufactures as administer to the comfort and convenience of domestic life arrive soonest at perfection, in consequence of the demand which the wants of the mass of a society in easy circumstances necessarily create. In absolute governments, on the contrary, such objects as contribute to the luxury and voluptuous indulgence of the wealthy, are frequently brought to a high degree of perfection, whilst the articles of mere utility are left as rude and unfinished as in the earlier ages of invention. Thus it happened under the old government of France, that whilst her manufactures astonished the world by the richness of their silks, and the sumptuousness of their car. pets and gobelin tapestry, their productions in the simple necessaries of social life were uncouth and wretched in the extreme. Even to this day, the remains of the extraordinary contrasts which were then universal, are frequently visible; and the English or American traveller, on arriving in France, is astonished at the incongruous assemblage of furniture in the same apartments.— Nothing is more common here, than to see magnificent mirrors