CHAPTER IV.

OF THE OCCUPATION OF THE EARTH.

1. Limited power of man, in the hunter and the shepherd state. Movements of the isolated settler. Commences always with the poorer soils. With increase of numbers, he acquires increase of force, and is enabled to command the services of the richer soils -thence obtaining larger supplies of food. Gradual passage from being the slave of nature, towards becoming nature's master.

2. Mr. Ricardo's theory. Based upon the assumption of a fact that never has existed. The law, as proved by observation, directly the reverse of the theory by him propounded.

3. Course of settlement in the United States.

4. Course of settlement in Mexico, the West Indies, and South America.

25. Course of settlement in Great Britain.

26. Course of settlement in France, Belgium, and Holland.

27. Course of settlement in the Scandinavian Peninsula, Russia, Germany, Italy, the islands of the Mediterranean, Greece, and Egypt.

8. Course of settlement in India. Mr. Ricardo's theory that of depopulation and growing weakness; whereas, the real law is that of growing association, and augmenting power.

§ 1. MAN has everywhere commenced his career as a hunter, subsisting on the spoils of the chase and dependant entirely on the voluntary contributions of the earth, having been thus the slave of nature. In time, he is seen in the shepherd state, deriving food and clothing from the animals which he has subjected to his power.

In neither of these states can there exist more than the very slightest power of association. In the first, eight hundred acres of land are required for producing no more food than half an acre can be made to do with proper cultivation. In the second, the land and the flocks being in common, any failure in the supply of food compels the whole tribe to migrate, he who should refuse to do so running the risk of being butchered by other roving tribes. In this stage of society man is thus not only the slave of nature, but also of his fellow-man.

Absence of power in the minority to act independently, is, as we here see, a necessary consequence of that inability to command the natural forces used in the producing of food which we see so plainly testified by the imperfection of savage implements. Let the reader walk into the nearest museum, and he will see with astonishment the rude nature of the industrial machinery that, of necessity, was made to uffice for the wants of long series of generations.

For the purpose of studying the course of man in his efforts

to subjugate the various natural forces, and thus to comper them to contribute to the supply of his wants, let us now take a suppositious case. Let us imagine a settler and his descendants placed on an island, and then trace their operations through any period of time, years or centuries; and having thus ascertained what would be their course if undisturbed, we shall be prepared to examine the causes which so generally have made their careers so widely different.

He

The first cultivator, the Robinson Crusoe of his day, provided, however, with a wife, has neither axe nor spade. works alone. Population being small, he can freely select the land best suited to his purpose. The rich soils around are, however, covered with immense trees that he cannot fell, or they are swamps that he cannot drain; and there being no free circulation of air, the impurity of the atmosphere threatens loss of health if not even of life; while the luxuriant vegetation would again cover the patch he had cleared before he could reduce it to cultivation. He is forced, therefore, to commence on the poor soil of the hill slope, bare of trees, and upon which water cannot stand. Here, drilling a few holes with a stick, he drops the grain which, in due season, yields him a return of twice his seed; and pounding this between stones, he makes a sort of bread. While the earth thus labors for him, he has been trapping birds or rabbits, and gathering fruits. His condition is thus improved.

Sharpening a stone for a hatchet, he destroys the trees by the laborious operation of girdling; but, at length, finding a copper ore, he succeeds in burning it, and thus obtains a better axe with far less labor. Fashioning a rude spade, too, he penetrates to a deeper and better soil; and his seed, being better protected both from drought and frost, the produce is thrice increased. He finds a soil which yields him tin, and this mixed with his copper gives him brass; by aid of which he now proceeds more rapidly. While penetrating more deeply into the land first occupied, he is enabled to clear some portion of the richer soils around, undeterred by the fear that the shrubs exterminated may be almost at once replaced. His children, too, having grown, can now render him assistance, and he thus adds to the power already obtained over various natural forces, that which results from association and combination with his fellow-men. Next, burning a piece of the iron soil around, he obtains a real spade and axe, rude indeed, but much superior to those he had yet possessed. Removing, with the help of his grown-up sons, the

light pine of the steep hill-side, he thus extends his cultivable ground; while his spade enables him to penetrate still further beneath the surface, and to mix the sand with the underlying clay, obtaining thus a more productive soil. The aid of his sons and grandsons now enables him to attempt operations which had been impracticable to himself alone; and each of the largely increased family now obtains much more food in return to far less severe exertion.

Increased power of association now brings with it division of employment, one portion of the little community performing the labors of the field, while another develops the surrounding mineral wealth. They invent a hoe, by means of which the children are enabled to keep the ground free from weeds. Extending their operations down towards the lower grounds, they burn the brush to let the air circulate, and now girdle the larger trees. Having tamed the ox, they next invent a rude plough, and attaching him to it with a piece of twisted hide, they find themselves enabled to improve and extend their cultivation. The community grows, and with it wealth that exhibits itself in the forms of improved machinery and larger supplies of food and clothing. The dwelling, too, is better. At first it was but a hole in the ground; subsequently it was composed of such decayed logs as the first settler could succeed in placing one upon the other. Windows and chimneys being unknown, he had been forced to live in smoke, if he would not perish of cold; and if the severity of the weather obliged him to close his door, he was not only stifled, but passed his days in utter darkness. His time, during a large portion of the year, was thus made unproductive, while his life was liable to be shortened by reason of foul air within, or severe cold without, his miserable hut. Now, however, the increase of population and wealth, resulting from the cultivation of better soils, and from his increased mastery of the great natural forces having increased the power of association, they are enabled to fell the heavy oak and pine, and construct better and more healthy dwellings. Employment becoming more diversified, and individuality become more and more developed, a part of the increasing population is now employed in the field, while another prepares the skins for clothing, and a third fashions implements with which to aid the others in their labors. The supply of food increases, and now, relieved from all fear of famine, they find a surplus to be stored away as provision against failure of future crops.

As cultivation extends downward towards the richer soils of the river bottom, the community are now enabled to engage in the work of drainage, and thus to obtain more copious harvests. Enclosing a meadow for the use of the oxen, they now obtain with diminished labor, larger supplies of meat, milk, butter, and hides. To the flesh of the hog, which lived on mast, they now add beef, and perhaps mutton, the lands first cultivated being abandoned to the sheep.

Numerous generations having now passed away, the younger ones, profiting by the wealth already accumulated, apply their labor with constantly increasing advantage, obtaining as constantly increasing returns to less severe exertion. Calling new powers to their aid, the water, and even the air, is made to work, windmills grinding the grain, and sawmills cutting the timber. The little furnace now appears, charcoal being applied to the reduction of iron ore, and the labor of a single day becomes more productive than that of many weeks had been before. Population spreads along the hill side and down the slope, becoming more and more dense at the seat of the original settlement; and with every step we find increasing tendency to combination of action for the production of food, the manufacture of clothing, the construction of houses, and the preparation of machinery for aiding in all such operations. Marshes are drained, and roads are made between the old settlement and the newer ones that have sprung up around it, thus facilitating exchanges of corn or wool for improved spades or ploughs, for cloths or blankets.

As population increases, with still further development of wealth and power, leisure is acquired for reflection on the experience of themselves and their predecessors, and mind becomes more and more stimulated to action. All being better fed, clothed, and housed, all are incited to new exertions, while with the power of working in or out of doors, according to the season, they can apply their labor with greater steadiness. Thus far, they have found it difficult to gather their crops in season. Harvest time being short, the whole strength of the community has been insufficient to prevent much of the grain from perishing on the ground. Labor has been superabundant during the rest of the year, while the harvest produced a demand that could not be supplied. The reaping-hook and the scythe now, however, take the place of the hand, and the cradle and horse-rake follow, all tending to facilitate accumulation, and increase the power

of applying labor to new soils which require embankment as well as drainage. The clay is found to be underlaid with lime, which latter needs to be decomposed, a work that is much facilitated by the road, the horse, and the wagon, which enable the former to procure supplies of the carbon-yielding soil, called coal. Burning the lime and mixing it with clay, he now obtains a soil yielding larger crops with constant diminution in the severity of exertion. Population and wealth farther increasing, the steam-engine assists the work of drainage, while the roailroad facilitates transportation of the produce to its market. The cattle being now fattened at home, a large portion of the produce of the rich meadow is converted into manure to be applied to the poorer soils, and he obtains from the market their refuse in the form of bones to be applied to maintaining the powers of his land. Passing thus, at every step, from the poorer to the better soils, the rapidly increasing population obtain from the same surface a constantly increasing supply of the necessaries of life, with constant increase of power to live in connection with each other. The desire for association grows with the power to satisfy it, labor becomes more productive, and the facilities for commerce increase, with constant tendency toward harmony, peace, and security at home and abroad, and constant increase of numbers, prosperity, wealth and happiness.

Such has been the history of man wherever wealth and population have been permitted to increase. Everywhere he is seen to have commenced poor and helpless, and consequently the slave of nature. Everywhere, as numbers have increased, he is seen to have become, from year to year, and from century to century, more and more her master, every step in that direction being marked by rapid development of individuality, increased power of association, increased sense of responsibility, and increased power of progress.

That such has been the case with all nations, and in all parts of the earth, is so obvious that it would seem almost unnecessary to offer any proof of the fact, nor could it be so but that it has been asserted that the course of things had been directly the reverse-that man had always commenced the work of cultivation on the rich soils of the earth, and that then food had been abundant-but that, as population has increased, his successors had found themselves forced to resort to inferior ones, yielding steadily less and less in return to labor; with constant tendency to over-population, poverty, wretchedness, and death. Were this really so, there could