production must then become for a period the chief object, nothing can be plainer than that it has been settled, from the beginning of time, that small farming capitals must merge in large. It is not our present business to inquire what state of things will next succeed. Let us not leave the topic, however, under an impression that the state we are passing through is one of unmixed gloom and perplexity. Our agricultural population is in a very deplorable condition,— ill-fed, untaught, and driven by hardship to the very verge of rebellion; but these evils are caused by the inadequateness of ancient methods, and not by the trial of new ones. More food and other comforts must be found for them, and they must be instructed not to increase the pressure upon the supply of food. In the mean time, it is a decided gain to have discovered and to be discovering methods of securing a greater production at a less cost. If such discoveries go on, (and go on they must,) and our agricultural population grows wiser by instruction and experience as to the means of living, independence of spirit and of action will revive, (though there be no small farms,) virtue may take the place of mere innocence, and bands of labourers may be as good and happy in their cottages as ever farmer and his servants were when collected in the farm-house kitchen. They may meet in church as efficaciously when the bell calls them each from his own home, as when they walked, many at the heels of one. In one essential respect, there is a probability of a grand improvement on the good old times. In those times, the farmer’s eldest son too often followed the plough with little more sense of what was about him than the tiller he held. His much boasted innocence neither opened his eyes to the lights of heaven nor gladdened his heart amidst the vegetation which he resembled much more than he admired. Hereafter, the youngest child of the meanest servant of the farm will look and listen among God’s works with the intellectual eye and ear, with which the enlightened mechanic already explores the widely-different field in which he is placed. Whencesoever came the demon breath which kindled our farm-yard fires, they have flashed wisdom on the minds of our rulers, and are lighting the labourer’s path to knowledge. The evil, though deplorable, is calculable and remediable. Who shall estimate the approaching good? --------------