What I am about to remark is not exactly relevant to my subject; but it is hard to "get the floor" in the world's great debating society, and when a speaker who has anything to say once finds access to the public ear, he must make the most of his opportunity, without inquiring too nicely whether his observations are "in order." I shall harm no honest man by endeavoring, as I have often done elsewhere, to excite the attention of thinking and conscientious men to the dangers which threaten the great moral and even political interests of Christendom, from the unscrupulousness of the private associations that now control the monetary affairs, and regulate the transit of persons and property, in almost every civilized country. More than one American State is literally governed by unprincipled corporations, which not only defy the legislative power, but have, too often, corrupted even the administration of justice. Similar evils have become almost equally rife in England, and on the Continent; and I believe the decay of commercial morality, and indeed of the sense of all higher obligations than those of a pecuniary nature, on both sides of the Atlantic, is to be ascribed more to the influence of joint-stock banks and manufacturing and railway companies, to the workings, in short, of what is called the principle of "associate action," than to any other one cause of demoralization.
The apophthegm, "the world is governed too much," though unhappily too truly spoken of many countries—and perhaps, in some aspects, true of all—has done much mischief whenever it has been too unconditionally accepted as a political axiom. The popular apprehension of being over-governed, and, I am afraid, more emphatically the fear of being over-taxed, has had much to do with the general abandonment of certain governmental duties by the ruling powers of most modern states. It is theoretically the duty of government to provide all those public facilities of intercommunication and commerce, which are essential to the prosperity of civilized commonwealths, but which individual means are inadequate to furnish, and for the due administration of which individual guaranties are insufficient. Hence public roads, canals, railroads, postal communications, the circulating medium of exchange, whether metallic or representative, armies, navies, being all matters in which the nation at large has a vastly deeper interest than any private association can have, ought legitimately to be constructed and provided only by that which is the visible personification and embodiment of the nation, namely, its legislative head. No doubt the organization and management of these institutions by government are liable, as are all things human, to great abuses. The multiplication of public placeholders, which they imply, is a serious evil. But the corruption thus engendered, foul as it is, does not strike so deep as the rottenness of private corporations; and official rank, position, and duty have, in practice, proved better securities for fidelity and pecuniary integrity in the conduct of the interests in question, than the suretyships of private corporate agents, whose bondsmen so often fail or abscond before their principal is detected.
Many theoretical statesmen have thought that voluntary associations for strictly pecuniary and industrial purposes, and for the construction and control of public works, might furnish, in democratic countries, a compensation for the small and doubtful advantages, and at the same time secure an exemption from the great and certain evils, of aristocratic institutions. The example of the American States shows that private corporations—whose rule of action is the interest of the association, not the conscience of the individual—though composed of ultra-democratic elements, may become most dangerous enemies to rational liberty, to the moral interests of the commonwealth, to the purity of legislation and of judicial action, and to the sacredness of private rights.
[38] It is impossible to say how far the abstraction of water from the earth by broad-leaved field and garden plants—such as maize, the gourd family, the cabbage, &c.—is compensated by the condensation of dew, which sometimes pours from them in a stream, by the exhalation of aqueous vapor from their leaves, which is directly absorbed by the ground, and by the shelter they afford the soil from sun and wind, thus preventing evaporation. American farmers often say that after the leaves of Indian corn are large enough to "shade the ground," there is little danger that the plants will suffer from drought; but it is probable that the comparative security of the fields from this evil is in part due to the fact that, at this period of growth, the roots penetrate down to a permanently humid stratum of soil, and draw from it the moisture they require. Stirring the ground between the rows of maize with a light harrow or cultivator, in very dry seasons, is often recommended as a preventive of injury by drought. It would seem, indeed, that loosening and turning over the surface earth might aggravate the evil by promoting the evaporation of the little remaining moisture; but the practice is founded partly on the belief that the hygroscopicity of the soil is increased by it to such a degree that it gains more by absorption than it loses by evaporation, and partly on the doctrine that to admit air to the rootlets, or at least to the earth near them, is to supply directly elements of vegetable growth.
[39] The vine-wood planks of the ancient great door of the cathedral at Ravenna, which measured thirteen feet in length by a foot and a quarter in width, are traditionally said to have been brought from the Black Sea, by way of Constantinople, about the eleventh or twelfth century. No vines of such dimensions are now found in any other part of the East, and, though I have taken some pains on the subject, I never found in Syria or in Turkey a vine stock exceeding six inches in diameter, bark excluded.
[40] The Northmen who—as I think it has been indisputably established by Professor Rafn of Copenhagen—visited the coast of Massachusetts about the year 1000, found grapes growing there in profusion, and the vine still flourishes in great variety and abundance in the southeastern counties of that State. The townships in the vicinity of the Dighton rock, supposed by many—with whom, however, I am sorry I cannot agree—to bear a Scandinavian inscription, abound in wild vines, and I have never seen a region which produced them so freely. I have no doubt that the cultivation of the grape will become, at no distant day, one of the most important branches of rural industry in that district.
[41] Les États Unis d'Amérique en 1863, p. 360. By "improved" land, in the reports on the census of the United States, is meant "cleared land used for grazing, grass, or tillage, or which is now fallow, connected with or belonging to a farm."—Instructions to Marshals and Assistants, Census of 1850, schedule 4, §§ 2, 3.
[42] Cotton, though cultivated in Asia and Africa from the remotest antiquity, and known as a rare and costly product to the Latins and the Greeks, was not used by them to any considerable extent, nor did it enter into their commerce as a regular article of importation. The early voyagers found it in common use in the West Indies and in the provinces first colonized by the Spaniards; but it was introduced into the territory of the United States by European settlers, and did not become of any importance until after the Revolution. Cotton seed was sown in Virginia as early as 1621, but was not cultivated with a view to profit for more than a century afterward. Sea-island cotton was first grown on the coast of Georgia in 1786, the seed having been brought from the Bahamas, where it had been introduced from Anguilla.—Bigelow, Les États Unis en 1863, p. 370.
[43] The sugar cane was introduced by the Arabs into Sicily and Spain as early as the ninth century, and though it is now scarcely grown in those localities, I am not aware of any reason to doubt that its cultivation might be revived with advantage. From Spain it was carried to the West Indies, though different varieties have since been introduced into those islands from other sources. Tea is now cultivated with a certain success in Brazil, and promises to become an important crop in the Southern States of the American Union. The lemon is, I think, readily recognizable, by Pliny's description, as known to the ancients, but it does not satisfactorily appear that they were acquainted with the orange.
[44] John Smith mentions, in his Historie of Virginia, 1624, pease and beans as having been cultivated by the natives before the arrival of the whites, and there is no doubt, I believe, that the pumpkin and several other cucurbitaceous plants are of American origin; but most, if not all the varieties of pease, beans, and other pod fruits now grown in American gardens, are from European and other foreign seed. See Appendix, [No. 8].