AGRICULTURE claims a pre-eminence above manufac tures and commerce, from its seniority and superior usefulness ; and, to use an expression of the celebrated SULLY, may be regarded as the breasts from which the state derives its support and nourishment. Manufac tures and commerce originally owed their existence to agriculture, and the people employed in carrying them on must constantly be fed by those who are engaged in the parent art. Agriculture, therefore, may be consider ed as of the first importance to mankind ; because their temporal welfare and prosperity depend upon receiving a regular and sufficient supply of the various articles cultivated by the agriculturist.
In an age like the present, when the utility of agri culture is so fully recognised, it would be unnecessary to insist at any length upon the advantages which every nation must enjoy, when that art is sufficiently under stood, and skilfully practised. The territory, possessed by any people, is the original property, or capital stock, from which they are supplied, not only with the necessa ries, but also with the comforts of life ; and in direct proportion as their territory is improved, their prosperi ty will be advanced. It is from the surface of the earth, that timber, cordage, and sails are procured for our navy ; and that flax and wool, hides and tallow, madder and other dye-stuffs, are obtained for home and foreign consumption. If we penetrate into the interior parts of the earth, we find either limestone, marl, or other sub stances for invigorating the surface, and rendering it constantly prolific. It is likewise from the bowels of the earth, that copper, lead, tin, iron, and coals, are pro cured, and employment given to another part of tl, community. But the remark, which of all others th serves attention, is, that it is only by cultivating the soil, and raising as large a store of provisions as possi ble, that labourers, manufacturers, and artisans, can li? comfortably, or proceed with spirit in their several oc cupations.
The utility of agriculture is also manifest. from following considerations :—In the place, where agriculture is neglected, population must be scanty, because the necessaries of life are wanting ; and the great body of the people must be miserable, because regular employment cannot be furnished to them. Per haps at no period has husbandry been more perfectly cultivated in Great Britain, than at the present ; henc( the lower ranks are better paid, better fed, better cloth ed, and in every respect more comfortably situated, than in former times. To territorial improvement may als,,
be attributed the increased and increasing strength of the British empire, and the capability of sustaining bur dens, which, not twenty years ago, would have ruined every description of its inhabitants. But, by the ex tension of agricultural improvement, by the meliorations made on the capital stock of the country, the numbers of the people have increased, manufactures have pros pered, and both inland and foreign commerce have been carried on with vigour and success.
In the second place, o ere not agriculture carried on a separate trade, and a quantity of provisions thereby raised, which exceeded the wants of agriculturists, every other art rr ould not only be at a stand, but every science, and every kind of mental improvement, would be neglected. In the first stages of cis ilization, the la bour of each individual is barely sufficient to procure a scanty and precarious subsistence for himself; and cir cumstances so adverse, not only form a bar to the in troduction of other arts, but also chill and render tor pid every faculty of the human mind. When these fa cultic:, are blunted by the cravings of nature, or wasted by the exercise of corporeal employment, nan discovers little of those rational powers, by which he is distinguish ed in the more advanced stages of society. It is only in situations, where the means of subsistence are am ple, where the labour of a certain part of the communi ty' is sufficient to provide the necessaries of life for the whole, and where a considerable proportion of the re maining population arc placed beyond the necessity of manual labour to procure these necessaries, that the powers of the mind develop themselves, and show what man is really capable of performing. Hence, since the art of agriculture came to be so well understood, and subsistence, of course, to be secured to mankind, with cut the necessity of bodily labour from all, the mind of man has expanded, other arts and sciences have been successfully cultivated, and man, from being not much above the irrational animals, now fills a dignified place in the scale of cree.ted beings.