"Another investigation led to the startling result, that of every hundred traders, but seven succeed in acquiring wealth. From such reverses the farmer is comparatively free. Of eleven hundred and twelve bankrupts who took the benefit of the bankrupt law in Massachusetts, only fourteen were farmers; and of twenty-five hundred and fifty bankrupts in New York, only forty-six were farmers. Less than two per cent. of the bankrupts belonged to the agricultural population, although that population so largely exceeds all the rest of the people, however classified.

"The large harvests in our young States ought not to blind us to the fact, that the fertility of those parts of the older States which once yielded as abundantly, seems to have been steadily diminishing for a long course of years.

"This fact is exhibited, not only in the wheat lands of New England, and other parts of the North, but on the tobacco fields of Virginia, and the cotton plantations of the South; and the subject undoubtedly deserves the most careful investigation.

"The deterioration of our soil is doubtless owing, in a great part, to a careless system of cultivation, common to new countries where land is cheap, and labor is dear, and the soil is naturally productive, and the individual cultivator is intent upon large immediate returns, thoughtless of the permanent fertility of his farm, careless of the interests of his successors, and regardless of the prosperity of the community at large. It has been suggested that every agricultural people run the same race of exhausting culture, shallow ploughing, a continuous course of impoverishing, with neither rest, rotation, nor sufficient manure; and that necessity alone can convince them that duty and interest both demand that land shall be so tilled as to increase rather than diminish in fruitfulness. Such a necessity in the lessening crops of the Atlantic States, and westward emigration in search of more fertile territories, already presents itself to the intelligent American agriculturist: and the reasonable belief that the same exhaustive system will soon begin to tell upon the most productive regions of the West, has led to the discussion in agricultural newspapers, and at farmers' clubs, of the philosophical causes of the exhaustion, and the best means of renovation.

"In some sections of the country efforts to restore exhausted lands have been attended with the most marked pecuniary success. Mr. Ruffin, of Virginia, estimates the increased value of reclaimed lands in Eastern Virginia, by marling and liming, from 1838 to 1850, at some thirty millions of dollars.

"The committee on drainage, in their report to the State Agricultural Society Of New York, in 1848, assert, that there is not one farm out of seventy-five in this State, but needs draining - much draining - to bring it into high cultivation. May we venture to say that every wheat field would produce a larger and finer crop if properly drained.'

"Yet another topic, closely connected with the interests of American agriculture, is the recent diminution of the proportion of the male population engaged in agricultural pursuits, as compared with the number engaged in commercial and other pursuits. * * * * "There is reason for believing that the proportion of the population devoted to agricultural pursuits is decreasing: and it is important that the schedules of the next census should be drawn with reference to the determination of this point with entire accuracy, and should develop whatever, facts may be essential to enable us to discover, and if possible to correct, the causes that may be diverting an undue proportion of American industry from the culture of the soil.

"The attractiveness of town and city life for the laboring classes may be lessened by a study of the tables of mortality, showing that the average duration of life is much" larger in the rural districts.

"The feverish anxiety for rapid gains in mercantile pursuits may be advantageously checked, by statistics showing the uncertain gains of commercial speculations, and the certain profit of enlightened agricultural toil.

"After a survey of the area, the population, the products, and the statistics of our great American farm, of its home resources, its foreign markets, and its probable future, we close with the thought, that for the advancement of this great interest, which supplies millions with healthful and profitable employment, and other millions with their daily bread, canals and railroads intersect our continent, extending westward towards the far Pacific; ships whiten the ocean, and steam labors in a thousand forms. That to supply its workmen with fitting implements, inventive genius is ever wakeful, and mechanical skill unceasingly active. That in their behalf chemistry, by the crucible and analysis, is extorting from nature her hidden secrets; and science, in all her forms, is lending her skilful aid to perfect, in this advanced and advancing age, the art that was born with the creation, in the garden that was given to man, to dress and to keep it.

"We close with the thought, suggestive of thankfulness and good will, that all these agencies are at work for the benefit of our universal brotherhood, to lighten the primeval curse, and to compel from our common mother, for the benefit of the children of a common Father, more varied and abund-ant.harvests, with greater certainty and with lessened toil.

"Let us also reverently remember, gentlemen, in our study of the laws of political economy by the guiding light of statistics, that the truths which we seek to discover are a part of that universal law whose seat is the bosom of God, and whose voice is the harmony of the world.

"Nor let us ever forget, in the contemplation of our unparalleled blessings, that the happiness and prosperity of a nation depends infinitely less on their material wealth, than upon the observance of those great rights and duties which our fathers solemnly recognized when we took bur place in the family of nations,"

Here is food for thought; facts which no one can gainsay, and reflections which all, including the most learned statesmen, may study with advantage.