New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1858-01-14

be hong yre VIC reap the Of our pre.en, IMPROVE
dence. II is merely question Of time, and time will
solve the problem, in a most unmistakabs manner
What with earth-butch.ry and pyotigality we are
each year losing the intrinsic Of our vitality,
Our country has not yet grown feeble from this
loss Of its hfeblood but tie hosr ia fired rken If our
pyeseat system continue the last kro5 Of e ndtions
heart viHhape c1ased and ,ohen 1Reriea Greece aud
Rome, uiH stand together among the ruins Of the
past.
The question Of economy should be, not how much
do We annually produce, but how much of annual
productions is saved TO the soil. Labor employed in
Iobbng the earth If lie capital stock Of fertilzng mat
ter is worse than labor thrown away In the latter
case, il is loss 10 the present generaion-in the
former, it becomes Inheritance of poverty for our
successors. Man il but tenant Of the soil, and he is
guilty Of a crime when he reduces s value for other
tenants who are 10 come after him."
Waste, such s here described, Mr.. President, is
a crime, and IL finds its punishment in the natural,
moral, and political decline, TO which your attention
has now been called. Look, almost where the trav-
eer may, he struck with the wretched condition of
that which, in this country, is called agrcuurobut
which, in the civilized countries Of Europe would De
denoIuinGted pure and simple robbery OF the great
bank given by the Creator for the Use OF man; Its
effects are shown in the facts, that, in w-lorK,
where, eighty years since % to ~ bushels Oh ~heaI
an ordinary crop, the average is now only ~,
while that of Indian is but IS. In ONO, state
that but half century since was wilderness, tne av
erage fwheat is less than III and ,lImnlshes when
should increase Throughout the West the process OF
exhaustion going the large ofth
early period of settlement, being ioHoWeo n'aia-
bly,, by smaller ones in later years. In Virginia,
throughout large district Of country once considered
the richest in the State the average OF wheat Is less
than seven bushels while in North Carolina men cul-
vate land yielding little than that quantity OF
Indian corn. Tobacco has been raised in Virginia and
Kentucky, until the land has been utterly exhausted
and abandoned; while throughout the whole cotton
growing country meet with scene of exhaustion
unparalleled in the world to have been accomplished IN
so brief period. The people who raise cotton ana
49, l,.p
prices so low that they do not obtain one dollar Tor
every five destroyed and as man is always progress
i've animal, whether his course be upward or down.
ward we may now readily understand the cause
of the steady and regular growth of that feeling which
leads to regarding bondage as being the natural con-
don of those who need to sell their labor. The su
premacy Of trade leads necessarily TO such results;
and az the whole energies Of the country given to
the enlargement of the traders power and to the aug
mentaion Of the tax Of transportation, 1t is no matter
Of surprise that its people everywhere seen to be
employed i'll "robbng the earth of its capital stock"
Let the existing system be continued and "the hour
is surely fixed" when, in the words of the writer
quoted above, "America, Greece, and Rome will
stand together among the ruins of the past"
Allow me now Mr.. President, to call your attention,
once again, TO the diagram given in former letter.
Looking at it, you find at the left production small,
and the prices of the der products of the earth very
low indeed. Passing toward the right, you find, in
Massachusetts, production larger aud prices higher
the farmer obtaining greater number OF bushels,
un"3 ioi 'd'h punlicl; io Soi I"""'t Va i''i0y'
That is the road toward the Improvement in manners
and morals TO which attach the idea of civiliza
ton. The contrary road-from the right to the left
il the which leads to that state of
democrat cation, to which attach the idea
Of barbarism--the products Of the earth then
diminishing in quantity, with steady decline of prices
This last Mr. President is the road which, under the
guidance Of the central Government, we are travel
ing; and therefore it is that each successive year
brings with it new attacks upon the local powers and
new increase of the central power, with constant de
cline in the respect for the Constitution and in the
regard for individual rights. Men, Mr.. President, be-
come free and communities rise in the estimation of
the world in the ratio Of their development of real
agriculture. Both deteriOrae in the ratio i'll which
they find themselves driven TO the work of robbng the
coil This propose to show in another letter-re-
manning, meanwhile,
YoNrs very respectfully, HENRY c, CAREY.
PhHGdtPhid, Jan. II, 1858.