The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign: Why It Exists, and How It May Be ExtinguishedCarey, Henry Charles
History
The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign: Why It Exists, and How It May Be Extinguished
Carey, Henry Charles
Labor; Slave trade; Slavery; Slavery -- United States; Tariff -- United States; Working class
As a necessary consequence of this creation of a domestic market, the
farmer has ceased to be compelled to devote himself exclusively to the
production of wheat, or other articles of small bulk and large price,
and can now "have a succession of crops," says Mr. Howitt--
"Like a market-gardener. They have their carrots, poppies, hemp,
flax, saintfoin, lucerne, rape, colewort, cabbage, rutabaga, black
turnips, Swedish and white turnips, teazles, Jerusalem artichokes,
mangelwurzel, parsnips, kidney-beans, field beans, and peas, vetches,
Indian corn, buckwheat, madder for the manufacturer, potatoes, their
great crop of tobacco, millet--all or the greater part under the
family management, in their own family allotments. They have had
these things first to sow, many of them to transplant, to hoe, to
weed, to clear off insects, to top; many of them to mow and gather in
successive crops. They have their water-meadows--of which kind almost
all their meadows are to flood, to mow, and reflood; watercourses to
reopen and to make anew; their early fruits to gather, to bring to
market, with their green crops of vegetables; their cattle, sheep,
calves, fowls; (most of them prisoners,) and poultry to look after;
their vines, as they shoot rampantly in the summer heat, to prune,
and thin out the leaves when they are too thick; and any one may
imagine what a scene of incessant labour it is."--_Rural and Domestic
Life in Germany_, p. 50.
The existence of a domestic market enables them, of course, to manure
their land. "No means," says Mr. Kay--
"Are spared to make the ground produce as much as possible. Not a
square yard of land is uncultivated or unused. No stories are left
mingled with the soil. The ground is cleared of weeds and rubbish,
and the lumps of earth are broken up with as much care as in an
English garden. If it is meadow land, it is cleaned of obnoxious
herbs and weeds. Only the sweet grasses which are good for the cattle
are allowed to grow. All the manure from the house, farm, and yard is
carefully collected and scientifically prepared. The liquid manure is
then carried, in hand-carts like our road-watering carts into the
fields, and is watered over the meadows in equal proportions. The
solid manures are broken up, cleared of stones and rubbish, and are
then properly mixed and spread over the lands which require them. No
room is lost in hedges or ditches, and no breeding-places are left
for the vermin which in many parts of England do so much injury to
the farmers' crops. The character of the soil of each district is
carefully examined, and a suitable rotation of crops is chosen, so as
to obtain the greatest possible return without injuring the land; and
the cattle are well housed, are kept beautifully clean, and are
groomed and tended like the horses of our huntsmen."--Vol. i. 118.
The labours of the field have become productive, and there has been
excited, says Dr. Shubert--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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