The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1852-04-29

Poultry, for instance, could multiply themseNe9
a million of times in the period Of twenty-five
years, in which the human race doubles itself
but once. So that the difference and discrep-
ancy instead of being against the interests OF
human life, are entirely the other way-that is
to say, subsistence is capable of more rapid
increase than arc the human beings that de-
pend upon it.
The supposed constant decrease of the pro-
duotivenoss Of the land, which it is further sup
posed no improvement in science and cultiya-
ton can entirely obvate rests upon still an
other assumption, to wit: that in the COM
mencement of cultivation when population is
small and land abundant, the best Soils those
capable of yielding large return to labor,
alone are cultivated, and that in the progress
of population land becomes less abundant and
there arises necessity for cultivating those
Welding smaller return ; and so on, in con-
tinually declining series until the use of the
poorest and worst is at last compelled, by the
increasing necessities of the growing population
There arises out of this assumption the further
consequences, that labor and capital must re-
ceiye continually less and less returns for their
investment that rent must rise and wages de-
cline, and all in the increase ratio of the grow
ing human necessities, until all proportion
ceases, and men must destroy each other If
the mature result were not prevented by those
ills which anticipate and graduate the mischief
by means of wars, famines, and pestilences,
happening in good time to keep things toler-
ably even and evenly tolerable.
The heavy end of the whole argument rests
it will be perceived upon the notion that in
the earliest stages of civilization, when the land
is open to free choice, men cultivate the better
and best soils only, and leave the poorer till
necessity presses them into use. This, if fact
is not quite answered by the argument of the
anti Malthusians-if false, the whole black
cloud of threatened ruin is swept out of the
perspective.
1t is utterly false and foundationless; and for
the demonstration and the consequent relief we
are indebted to our countryman, Henry c. Carey
The chapter entitled Man and Land, in his
PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE" first published
in 1s4s, refutes the allegation, and oyerturns
all the consequences dependent upon it, with
conclusiveness that has scarcely parallel in
controversial science We cannot supply, by
any sketch of ours, the variety and amplitude
of the evidence and reasoning which enters
into his mastery demonstration. We can but
say, that in his researches for the facts which
bear upon the point, he traverses the Settle
ment of Pennsylvania, beginning at Phladel-
phia, noting the history of every mile in the
survey till the northern and western bound
aries are reached; thence taking larger strides,
he surveys the Northern and Western States
in their turn, the Southern and Eastern, and
those of New England; and finds, in every in
stance, that the early settlers avoid the richer,
heavier timbered lands, and settle upon the
thin, light timbered, and easily subdued soils Of
the hill sides and at the heads of streams, in
variably leaving the moist soils, which demand
drainage, and the heavy bottoms, with their
heavy forest trees and rank luxuriance of
grasses, for the time when abundance of labor
and capital and superior machinery shall rem
der the enterprise of their reduction and cult.
walton feasible. But the survey is extended in
wonderful minuteness of detail over the cont
nent of America and thence guided by such
monuments and evidences as remain, through
out Europe, he gathers from every fresh field
of the inquiry additional proofs of his PROPOSE
ton. This is not all he proves it again ,by the
reverse method. Looking abroad at the in
stances of declining and destroyed prosperity
of which there are but too many in Europe
and India it appears that wherever wealth ant
population have declined men invariably aban
don the richest soils already under cultivation
and betake themselves to the hill sides and
poorer lands, as more available and amenable
TO their diminished means of cultivation. The
demonstration from the history OF England is
most striking and as solution OF the riddle
which the old style doctrines of the science lett
to puzzle the observers of her progress is well
worth the perpsal of his work
In regard to all the wants of man, except
that of food the possibility and growth of the
supply is admitted to keep, step for step, the
rate of progress that population requires
every added laborer, every increase of capital
employed, increases the quantity and the
cheapness of the commodity Iron, clothing,
water coal, houses ships roads are obtained
for less labor and at less purchase cost in the
exact proportion that population and wealth
increases. A bucket of water in Philadelphia,
a ward of muslin, an axe, and the grinding OF
bushel of corn, cost not the quarter Of the
labor, or of the price in the circulating medium
of the country, that they did fifty years ago,
when men and means of production were four
times less than now. In respect to all the pro-
ducts of mechanic art, this beautiful harmony
of circumstances and conditions with the life
and progress Of the race is acknowledged
Only in the matter of the prime and supreme
necessity for food it was denied until Carey's
book has silenced the controversy and vndica-
ted the system to which we belong in all the
principles of its economy, from the suspicion Of
conflict and confusion.
This great question of population and it,
laws is not settled by the new light upon thu
, point, but the unmanageable difficulty Of the
old controversy is wholly removed, and leaves
the facts open to hopeful explanation and
while it removes doubt, raises also a new pre-
SUMPTION. that the harmonies of existence will
be as manifest here as they are wherever the
whole of any other subject is certainly seen
or understood We welcome MIR. Carey's plea
for Providence for many reasons, but especially
for the confidence which it adds to the prophecy
of the good time coming. Ifprovison is really