Agriculture is the noblest and best occupation of man; and in a country like the United States, where land is plenty and labour scarce, it will always be pushed to the extent which a profitable market demands. Yet if none worked but those who laboured in the field, society could not exist long. We should perish with cold and hunger. It is by an association of the arts that we live—and our comfort materially depends on their respective perfections. Only about one fifth of a population are fitted for agricultural labours, in general. The other four fifths, if idle would consume the whole amount of value produced, and send the labourers supperless to bed. It is the capacity of production in the most numerous body that must be brought into action, if families and nations would prosper and be happy. If they purchase any thing which their lost time might be applied to the fabrication of—they might as well throw its cost into the sea.
In the course of our essays, which we expect to commence in two or three weeks, we shall endeavour to point out some of the chief things that require the protection of government, just as those of a well regulated family are managed; and shew that the well being of a nation depends upon a fair exchange of labour for labour, substantials for substantials, and even luxuries for luxuries. The man who exchanges wheat for ear-rings, unless those rings are manufactured in his country, wastes to the country the whole amount of the intrinsic value of the wheat over that of the ear-rings, which latter is only that of the metal composing them. A nation cannot be independent, if it looks to another for necessaries—it cannot be rich, if it exchanges necessaries for luxuries. And luxuries, especially, should not be received at all, unless things of the same class are remitted in payment for them. The effect of these on population and manners, will also be considered, and illustrated by many statistical facts—as leisure is allowed to arrange them.
FROM HUMBOLDT'S PERSONAL NARRATIVE.
The Coffee Plant.
The coffee tree flowers only the second year, and the flowering lasts only twenty-four hours. At this time the shrub has a charming aspect; seen from afar, it seems covered with snow. The produce of the third year becomes very abundant. In plantations well weeded and watered, and recently cultivated, we find trees bearing sixteen, eighteen, and even twenty pounds of coffee. In general, however, a produce of more than a pound and a half or two pounds cannot be expected from each plant; and even this is superior to the mean produce of the West India Islands. Rains at the time of the flowering, the want of water for artificial irrigations, and a patastic plant, a new species of coranthus, which clings to the branches, are extremely injurious to the coffee trees.
Sugar Cane.
Three species of sugar cane can be distinguished even at a distance, by the colour of their leaves; the ancient Creole sugar cane, the Otaheite cane, and the Batavia cane. The first has a leaf of a deeper green, the stem less thick, and the knots nearer together.—This sugar cane was the first introduced from India into Sicily, the Canary Islands and the West Indies. The second is of a lighter green; and its stem is higher, thicker, and more succulent. The whole plant displays a more luxuriant vegetation. We owe this plant to the voyages of Bougainville, Cook, and Bligh. Bougainville carried it to the Isle of France, whence it passed to Cayenne, Martinique, and since 1792, to the rest of the West India Islands. The sugar cane of Otaheite, the To of those islanders, is one of the most important acquisitions, for which colonial agriculture is indebted to the travels of naturalists. It yields not only one third more of juice than the Creolian cane on the same space of land; but from the thickness of its stem, and the tenacity of its ligneous fibres, it furnishes much more fuel. The last advantage is important to the West Indies, where the destruction of the forests has for a long time obliged the planters to use the canes deprived of their juice, to keep up the fire under their boilers.
But from the knowledge of this new plant, the progress of agriculture on the continent of Spanish America, and the introduction of the East India and Java sugars, the revolutions of St. Domingo, and the destruction of the great sugar plantations of that island, would have had a more sensible effect on the prices of colonial produce in Europe. The Otaheite sugar cane was carried from the Isle of Trinidad to Caraccas. From Caraccas it passed to Cicuta and San Gil in the kingdom of New Grenada. In our days its cultivation during twenty-five years almost entirely removed the apprehension, which was at first entirely entertained, that, transplanted to America, the plant would by degrees degenerate, and become as slender as the Creole cane. If it be a variety, it is a very constant one. The third species, the violet sugar cane, called Cana de Batavia, or de Guinea, is entirely indigenous in the island of Java, where it is cultivated in preference in the districts of Jupara and Pasuruan. Its foliage is purple, and very broad; and it is preferred in the province of Caraccas for rum. The tablones, or grounds planted with sugar canes, are divided by hedges of a collossal gramen; the latta, or gynesium with distich leaves.