"Ogni altra cosa ogni pensier va fore;E sol ivi con voi rimansi Amore!"
"Ogni altra cosa ogni pensier va fore;E sol ivi con voi rimansi Amore!"
And Violante, thus absorbed in reverie, forgot to keep watch on the Belvidere. And the Belvidere was now deserted. The wife, who had no other ideal to distractherthoughts, saw Riccabocca pass into the house.
The exile entered his daughter's room, and she started to feel his hand upon her locks and his kiss upon her brow.
"My child!" cried Riccabocca, seating himself, "I have resolved to leave for a time this retreat, and to seek the neighbourhood of London."
"Ah, dear father,that, then, was your thought? But what can be your reason? Do not turn away; you know how carefully I have obeyed your command and kept your secret. Ah, you will confide in me."
"I do, indeed," returned Riccabocca, with emotion. "I leave this place, in the fear lest my enemies discover me. I shall say to others that you are of an age to require teachers, not to be obtained here. But I should like none to know where we go."
The Italian said these last words through his teeth, and hanging his head. He said them in shame.
"My mother—(so Violante always called Jemima)—my mother, you have spoken to her?"
"Not yet.Thereis the difficulty."
"No difficulty, for she loves you so well," replied Violante, with soft reproach. "Ah, why not also confide in her? Who so true? so good?"
"Good—I grant it!" exclaimed Riccabocca. "What then? 'Da cattiva Donna guardati, ed alla buona non fidar niente,' (from the bad woman, guard thyself; to the good woman trust nothing.) And if you must trust," added the abominable man, "trust her with anything but a secret!"
"Fie," said Violante, with arch reproach, for she knew her father's humours too well to interpret his horrible sentiments literally—"fie on your consistency,Padre carissimo. Do you not trust your secret to me?"
"You! A kitten is not a cat, and a girl is not a woman. Besides, the secret was already known to you, and I had no choice. Peace, Jemima will stay here for the present. See to what you wish to take with you; we shall leave to-night."
Not waiting for an answer, Riccabocca hurried away, and with a firm step strode the terrace and approached his wife.
"Anima mia," said the pupil of Machiavel, disguising in the tenderest words the cruellest intentions—for one of his most cherished Italian proverbs was to the effect, that there is no getting on with a mule or a woman unless you coax them—"Anima mia,—soul of my being—you have already seen that Violante mopes herself to death here."
"She, poor child! Oh no!"
"She does, core of my heart, she does, and is as ignorant of music as I am of tent-stitch."
"She sings beautifully."
"Just as birds do, against all the rules, and in defiance of gamut. Therefore, to come to the point, O treasure of my soul! I am going to take her with me for a short time, perhaps to Cheltenham, or Brighton—we shall see."
"All places with you are the same to me, Alphonso. When shall we go?"
"Weshall go to-night; but, terrible as it is to part from you—you—"
"Ah!" interrupted the wife, and covered her face with her hands.
Riccabocca, the wiliest and most relentless of men in his maxims, melted into absolute uxorial imbecility at the sight of that mute distress. He put his arm round his wife's waist, with genuine affection, and without a single proverb at his heart—"Carissima, do not grieve so; we shall be back soon, and travelling is expensive; rolling stones gather no moss, and there is so much to see to at home."
Mrs Riccabocca gently escaped from her husband's arms. She withdrew her hands from her face, and brushed away the tears that stood in her eyes.
"Alphonso," she said touchingly, "hear me! What you think good, that shall ever be good to me. But do not think that I grieve solely because of our parting. No; I grieve to think that, despite all these years in which I have been the partner of your hearth and slept on your breast—all these years in which I have had no thought but, however humbly, to do my duty to you and yours, and could have wished that you had read my heart, and seen there but yourself and your child—I grieve to think that you still deem me as unworthy your trust as when you stood by my side at the altar."
"Trust!" repeated Riccabocca, startled and conscience-stricken; "why do you say 'trust?' In what have I distrusted you? I am sure," he continued, with the artful volubility of guilt, "that I never doubted your fidelity—hook-nosed, long-visaged foreigner though I be; never pryed into your letters; never inquired into your solitary walks; never heeded your flirtations with that good-looking Parson Dale; never kept the money; and never looked into the account-books!" Mrs Riccabocca refused even a smile of contempt at these revolting evasions; nay, she seemed scarcely to hear them.
"Can you think," she resumed, pressing her hand on her heart to still its struggles for relief in sobs—"can you think that I could have watched, and thought, and tasked my poor mind so constantly, to conjecture what might best soothe or please you, and not seen, long since, that you have secrets known to your daughter—your servant—not to me? Fear not—the secrets cannot be evil, or you would not tell them to your innocent child. Besides, do I not know your nature? and do I not love you because I know it?—it is for something connected with these secrets that you leave your home. You think that I should be incautious—imprudent. You will not take me with you. Be it so. I go to prepare for your departure. Forgive me if I have displeased you, husband."
Mrs Riccabocca turned away; but a soft hand touched the Italian's arm. "O father, can you resist this? Trust her!—trust her! I am a woman like her! I answer for her woman's faith. Be yourself—ever nobler than all others, my own father."
"Diavolo!Never one door shuts but another opens," groaned Riccabocca. "Are you a fool, child? Don't you see that it was for your sake only I feared—and would be cautious?"
"For mine! O then, do not make me deem myself mean, and the cause of meanness. For mine! Am I not your daughter—the descendant of men who never feared?"
Violante looked sublime while she spoke; and as she ended she led her father gently on towards the door, which his wife had now gained.
"Jemima—wife mine!—pardon, pardon," cried the Italian, whose heart had been yearning to repay such tenderness and devotion,—"come back to my breast—it has been long closed—it shall be open to you now and for ever."
In another moment, the wife was in her right place—on her husband'sbosom; and Violante, beautiful peace-maker, stood smiling a while at both, and then lifted her eyes gratefully to heaven, and stole away.
On Randal's return to town, he heard mixed and contradictory rumours in the streets, and at the clubs of the probable downfall of the Government at the approaching session of Parliament. These rumours had sprung up suddenly, as if in an hour. True that, for some time, the sagacious had shaken their heads and said, "Ministers could not last." True that certain changes in policy, a year or two before, had divided the party on which the Government depended, and strengthened that which opposed it. But still its tenure in office had been so long, and there seemed so little power in the Opposition to form a cabinet of names familiar to official ears, that the general public had anticipated, at most, a few partial changes. Rumour now went far beyond this. Randal, whose whole prospects at present were but reflections from the greatness of his patron, was alarmed. He sought Egerton, but the minister was impenetrable, and seemed calm, confident, and imperturbed. Somewhat relieved, Randal then set himself to work to find a safe home for Riccabocca; for the greater need to succeed in obtaining fortune there, if he failed in getting it through Egerton. He found a quiet house, detached and secluded, in the neighbourhood of Norwood. No vicinity more secure from espionage and remark. He wrote to Riccabocca, and communicated the address, adding fresh assurances of his own power to be of use. The next morning he was seated in his office, thinking very little of the details, that he mastered, however, with mechanical precision, when the minister who presided over that department of the public service sent for him into his private room, and begged him to take a letter to Egerton, with whom he wished to consult relative to a very important point to be decided in the Cabinet that day. "I want you to take it," said the minister smiling, (the minister was a frank, homely man,) "because you are in Mr Egerton's confidence, and he may give you some verbal message besides a written reply. Egerton is often over cautious and brief in thelitera scripta."
Randal went first to Egerton's neighbouring office—he had not been there that day. He then took a cabriolet and drove to Grosvenor Square. A quiet-looking chariot was at the door. Mr Egerton was at home; but the servant said, "Dr F. is with him, sir; and perhaps he may not like to be disturbed."
"What, is your master ill?"
"Not that I know of, sir. He never says he is ill. But he has looked poorly the last day or two."
Randal hesitated a moment; but his commission might be important, and Egerton was a man who so held the maxim, that health and all else must give way to business, that he resolved to enter; and, unannounced, and unceremoniously, as was his wont, he opened the door of the library. He started as he did so. Audley Egerton was leaning back on the sofa, and the doctor, on his knees before him, was applying the stethoscope to his breast. Egerton's eyes were partially closed as the door opened. But at the noise he sprang up, nearly oversetting the doctor. "Who's that?—How dare you!" he exclaimed, in a voice of great anger. Then recognising Randal, he changed colour, bit his lip, and muttered drily, "I beg pardon for my abruptness; what do you want, Mr Leslie?"
"This letter from Lord ——; I was told to deliver it immediately into your own hands; I beg pardon—"
"There is no cause," said Egerton, coldly. "I have had a slight attack of bronchitis; and as Parliament meets so soon, I must take advice from my doctor, if I would be heard by the reporters. Lay the letter on the table, and be kind enough to wait for my reply."
Randal withdrew. He had never seen a physician in that house before, and it seemed surprising that Egerton should even take a medical opinion upon a slight attack. While waiting in the ante-room there was a knock at the street door, and presently a gentleman, exceedingly well dressed, wasshown in, and honoured Randal with an easy and half familiar bow. Randal remembered to have met this personage at dinner, and at the house of a young nobleman of high fashion, but had not been introduced to him, and did not even know him by name. The visitor was better informed.
"Our friend Egerton is busy, I hear, Mr Leslie," said he, arranging the camelia in his button hole.
"Our friend Egerton!" It must be a very great man to say, "Our friend Egerton."
"He will not be engaged long, I dare say," returned Randal, glancing his shrewd inquiring eye over the stranger's person.
"I trust not; my time is almost as precious as his own. I was not so fortunate as to be presented to you when we met at Lord Spendquick's. Good fellow, Spendquick; and decidedly clever."
Lord Spendquick was usually esteemed a gentleman without three ideas.
Randal smiled.
In the meanwhile the visitor had taken out a card from an embossed morocco case, and now presented it to Randal, who read thereon, "Baron Levy, No. —, Bruton St."
The name was not unknown to Randal. It was a name too often on the lips of men of fashion not to have reached the ears of anhabituéof good society.
Mr Levy had been a solicitor by profession. He had of late years relinquished his ostensible calling; and not long since, in consequence of some services towards the negotiation of a loan, had been created a baron by one of the German kings. The wealth of Mr Levy was said to be only equalled by his good nature to all who were in want of a temporary loan, and with sound expectations of repaying it some day or other.
You seldom saw a finer-looking man than Baron Levy—about the same age as Egerton, but looking younger: so well preserved—such magnificent black whiskers—such superb teeth! Despite his name and his dark complexion, he did not, however, resemble a Jew—at least externally; and, in fact, he was not a Jew on the father's side, but the natural son of a rich Englishgrand seigneur, by a Hebrew lady of distinction—in the opera. After his birth, this lady had married a German trader of her own persuasion, and her husband had been prevailed upon, for the convenience of all parties, to adopt his wife's son, and accord to him his own Hebrew name. Mr Levy senior was soon left a widower, and then the real father, though never actually owning the boy, had shown him great attention—had him frequently at his house—initiated him betimes into his own high-born society, for which the boy showed great taste. But when my Lord died, and left but a moderate legacy to the younger Levy, who was then about eighteen, that ambiguous person was articled to an attorney by his putative sire, who shortly afterwards returned to his native land, and was buried at Prague, where his tombstone may yet be seen. Young Levy, however, continued to do very well without him. His real birth was generally known, and rather advantageous to him in a social point of view. His legacy enabled him to become a partner where he had been a clerk, and his practice became great amongst the fashionable classes of society. Indeed he was so useful, so pleasant, so much a man of the world, that he grew intimate with his clients—chiefly young men of rank; was on good terms with both Jew and Christian; and being neither one nor the other, resembled (to use Sheridan's incomparable simile) the blank page between the Old and the New Testament.
Vulgar, some might call Mr Levy, from his assurance, but it was not the vulgarity of a man accustomed to low and coarse society—rather themauvais tonof a person not sure of his own position, but who has resolved to swagger into the best one he can get. When it is remembered that he had made his way in the world, and gleaned together an immense fortune, it is needless to add that he was as sharp as a needle, and as hard as a flint. No man had had more friends, and no man had stuck by them more firmly—as long as there was a pound in their pockets!
Something of this character had Randal heard of the Baron, and he now gazed, first at his card, and then at him, with—admiration.
"I met a friend of yours at Borrowwell's the other day," resumed the Baron—"Young Hazeldean. Careful fellow—quite a man of the world."
As this was the last praise poor Frank deserved, Randal again smiled.
The Baron went on—"I hear, Mr Leslie, that you have much influence over this same Hazeldean. His affairs are in a sad state. I should be very happy to be of use to him, as a relation of my friend Egerton's; but he understands business so well that he despises my advice."
"I am sure you do him injustice."
"Injustice! I honour his caution. I say to every man, 'Don't come to me—I can get you money on much easier terms than any one else;' and what's the result? You come so often that you ruin yourself; whereas a regular usurer without conscience frightens you. 'Cent per cent,' you say; 'oh, I must pull in.' If you have influence over your friend, tell him to stick to his bill-brokers, and have nothing to do with Baron Levy."
Here the minister's bell rung, and Randal, looking through the window, saw Dr F. walking to his carriage, which had made way for Baron Levy's splendid cabriolet—a cabriolet in the most perfect taste—Baron's coronet on the dark brown panels—horse black, with such action!—harness just relieved with plating. The servant now entered, and requested Randal to step in; and addressing the Baron, assured him that he would not be detained a minute.
"Leslie," said the minister, sealing a note, "take this back to Lord ——, and say that I shall be with him in an hour."
"No other message?—he seemed to expect one."
"I dare say he did. Well, my letter is official, my message is not; beg him to see Mr —— before we meet—he will understand—all rests upon that interview."
Egerton then, extending the letter, resumed gravely, "Of course you will not mention to any one that Dr F. was with me: the health of public men is not to be suspected. Hum—were you in your own room or the ante-room?"
"The ante-room, sir."
Egerton's brow contracted slightly. "And Mr Levy was there, eh?"
"Yes—the Baron."
"Baron! true. Come to plague me about the Mexican loan, I suppose. I will keep you no longer."
Randal, much meditating, left the house, and re-entered his hack cab. The Baron was admitted to the statesman's presence.
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 couldproduce 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?ThenI 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 uponthat, 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!"
Notes on North America, Agricultural, Social, and Economical.ByJames 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.)
"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 ourMechistsat 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 abandonit, 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 theNotes, 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 theEdinburgh Review, theEconomist, 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 thepresentwheat-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 theyoughtto 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 thewheatproduced 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 onlythreebushels 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 atfivebushels per annum; and thus, by a stroke of his pen, he reduces the average exportable surplus of the Union toonlythree 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, ofthe 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, andmusthave 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 beensteadily 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 isnot upwards, but downwards—a fact quite irreconcilable with the supposed rapid exhaustion of the wheat soils of the interior.
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. Butit 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 ofbastardyin Pennsylvania, some thirty years ago, by the fact—that the settlers at that timehad 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, theadvantages 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.
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 donotnecessarily, 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 ofnot 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 cultureis 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 thecum hocwith thepropter hoc, and come to regard an easily-raised food asthe causeof 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—