It is of little avail to propose, under the existing circumstances, the improvement of the condition of the agricultural labourers; for, being in daily fear of eviction by the effects of machinery and labour-saving modes of scientific farming, their very existence is at stake, and the praiseworthy ideas of those philanthropists who now endeavour to elevate the hard-worked, ill-paid, ill-fed, ill-clad tillers of the soil, may but too often see the object of their philanthropic vision to have vanished into nothingness. The greater number of agricultural labourers is doomed to non-existence upon the land where they were born, and which their fathers and forefathers had been tilling for generations past; where they lived in quiet simplicity and security until the mighty disturbers, the puffing steam-plough, the rattling drilling-machine, the whizzing thrashing-engine, and many other mechanical monsters, roused them from their pastoral somnolency, drove them from the land of their birth, and chased them in swarms of thousands and hundreds of thousands across the stormy Atlantic and into the impenetrable forests, unhealthy swamps, and endless prairies of America. O civilization! had Dante seen thy wrong-doings, he would have written another Inferno!

Such is the sad fate of all those who are overtaken by the destructive effects of machinery. Trades-unionism and cooperation even cannot save them when once brought under the wheels of the modern Jaggernauth; for they can do nothing when the ravages of the evil created by labour-saving appliances have entirely removed the object of redemption. The question of bettering the condition of the people of Ireland lost much of its importance, since of eight million inhabitants nearly four million have been driven into exile by the consolidation of farms, and the introduction of mechanical implements.

The depopulation of the agricultural districts, and the consequent over-population of towns, is, however, in no respect more to be lamented than in its evil consequences on the sanitary condition of the people.

That country life and labour in the open field are most conducive to health, and to the sound development of the human frame, can unmistakeably be inferred from the sturdy appearance of the still remaining portion of the agricultural labourers,

although their food and dwelling are not of a kind that can powerfully assist at the growth and strengthening of their bodies, which, consequently, must draw their stamina, health, strength, and ruddy faces from the pure air they inhale and the invigorating work they perform. So great is still the height of their stature, and the manliness of their appearance, that these sons of the soil furnish the finest men to the army and police, and that they are in great numbers employed as railway porters, not only for their fine appearance, but also for the greater reliance that can be placed on their honesty and perseverance.

The sanitary advantages of agricultural labour, the almost daily occupation in the open air, the greater variety of labour, the quietness of the work, are all inducements that render agricultural pursuits eminently attractive. The various seasons of the year have even a deeper meaning for the countryman than for the dweller in the narrow streets and dark lanes of cities; and the state of the weather and course of the heavenly bodies will be observed with much keener attention and interest by the husbandman than by the townsman.

*

Dr. Nichols, in his "Manual of Morals," says:-"The basiswork of all society is agriculture and gardening. As food is the first necessity of life, the supply of an abundance of healthy, nutritious, and delicious food is the most important work, and therefore the most honourable. The culture of fruit was the first occupation of man, and it is still the most useful and the most delightful. It is natural and right that men should love the land, and enjoy the processes by which earth, water, air, and sunshine become vegetables, seeds, flowers, and fruit."

Considering the charm of country life, and the invigorating and healthy nature of agricultural labour, it is highly to be regretted that out of a population of 20,000,000 only about 2,000,000 should remain located on the land, and left in the full enjoyment of good health and long life.

The author will, however, be able to devise means by which the country, in all its beauty, shall again become the happy

* Christopher Arnold, a peasant of Sommerfeld, near Leipzig, was the first in observing the comets of 1683 and 1686. He also obtained great celebrity by his observation of the transit of Mercury over the sun's disk in 1690.

abode of a great many more people than there are now dwelling in it; and he will even render this increase of the country population compatible with the most extensive application of machinery for all kinds of agricultural operations, as well as with the modern system of high farming on large fields.

The agriculturist of the future social order will not only stay in the country for the mere purpose of engaging in agricultural labour, but his sojourn there will rather be of a recreative nature; his labour in the field will not be a continuous one, and its frequent cessation will give him plenty of opportunities for healthy rambles in the country, or for the useful employment of his time in various domestic, industrious, and scientific pursuits, especially when the weather should compel him to stay indoors.

In the country will also be situated the places of retreat for the aged, for the humane purpose of receiving as their inmates the 113,000 old men and women returned by the census of 1861 as being from 80 to 100 years old. The educational establishments and schools will likewise be spread all over the country, and all scholars placed in them will have, combined with their other branches of learning, agricultural instruction, not only theoretically in the schoolrooms, but also practically in the field. The number of young persons and children under 20 years of age is, according to the census, no less than 9,100,000; and when 1,710,000, representing those under five years, are deducted, there remains the still large number of 7,390,000, which would be the number of scholars in the new social state. This large number of persons will then not only acquire the necessary skill and knowledge of agricultural labour, but they will also be obliged to make it useful and productive for the benefit of the nation at large by freely and arduously participating in all kinds of farming labour. This will especially be required of all students from 10 to 20 years of age.* They will all be strictly kept not only to a theoreti

* Mr. Ruskin lately proposed to the undergraduates of Oxford University, who are now given up to the unproductive and unornamental amusements of cricket, boat-racing, and other frivolous pastimes, that they should devote their superfluous time and strength to the cause of labour and usefulness. His idea, to begin with, is that a band of undergraduates should provide themselves with spade, pick, and shovel, and set to work

cal study of agriculture, but also to its practical application in the field; and, as the number thus available is not less than 4,000,000, the quantity of work done by them will be very considerable, and will in so far ease the labour of the adult agriculturists.

The author proposes, however, another great extension of the diffusion of enjoyment derived from the charm and healthy nature of country life. He suggests that the whole of the adult population, consisting of

6,147,000 persons of 20 to 40 years old.

shall in rotation pass through the charms of country life, and participate in the blessings of agricultural labour. Every individual of the grand total of these three ages, amounting together to 11,025,000 persons, will, according to his plan, pass the fifth part of his active life in the country; which would occupy a period of twelve years, as the whole time of a man's real activity is sixty years, beginning with the age of twenty and ending with that of eighty. The twelve years thus allotted to the participation by every person in agricultural labour may be spent in six, four, three, or two intermittent periods, every one of them to begin with a time of probation or initiation. By this allotment of twelve years' stay in the country to each individual, 4,000,000 people out of 20,000,000 inhabitants will be located in the rural districts, and will give place to other 4,000,000 at intervals from six, four, three or two years, according to the voluntary adoption of any of these periods by each separate individual or family. The alternate transfer of 4,000,000 people into the country instead of the present number of 1,650,000 agriculturists will, however, not necessitate on their part an equally proportionate increase of agricultural labour; on the contrary, the 4,000,000 will even have to do less labour in the fields than the 1,650,000 agricultural labourers are performing now. Moreover, it must be considered that the new agricultural population will consist of at once to clear roads and beautify the country about Hinksey, so as to transform it into a neighbourhood suited to the loveliest town in England."

8,000,000 people, including 4,000,000 of adults from the ages of twenty to eighty, and 4,000,000 of scholars from the ages of ten to twenty. The presence of so many million people in the country will again fill with life and animation the present desolate and lonely regions of the agricultural districts, and their hills and dales will again resound with the cheers and merriment of a happy and contented peasantry. Their work will be light and of a recreative kind; for not only will its burden be lessened by the great number who take part in it, but also by the extensive application of machinery to all agricultural operations. Ploughing, harrowing, drilling, reaping, mowing, and thrashing being everywhere done by machinery, the gigantic scale of those operations, and the enormous enlargements of the fields they will necessitate, must everywhere produce a reduction of irksome hand-labour.

Taking those vast proportions not only in the number and power of engines and implements employed, but also in the extent of the fields cultivated, agriculture will then be directed by some central authority, acting under the control of the ministry of agriculture.

The hand-labour required in the vast fields cultivated under the direction of the State will be drawn from the surrounding districts and neighbouring agricultural homesteads, the occupiers of which are simply labourers in the service of the State, and not managing farmers for themselves; for they will neither own land nor take it on lease, nor will the entire direction and management of their holdings be put exclusively into their own hands.

The agricultural homesteads of the future social state will, however, be surrounded with extensive gardens, nurseries, hothouses, poultry yards, etc., and in these the agriculturist will find plenty of opportunities to exert both his physical and mental energies. The use of the spade in the garden will be a more invigorating exercise to his body than the walking behind the plough and the harrow, or plying the sythe and sickle, work that will chiefly be executed by the steam-plough the reaping and mowing machine, with the addition of but little hand-labour.

The creation of extensive garden operations, where the spade will be the principal implement in use, and where the people