covers the surface; or he returns to the clay and sinks into the limestone, by aid of which he doubles its product. He is all the time making a machine which feeds him while he makes it, and which increases in its powers the more he takes from it. At first it was worthless. Having now fed and clothed him for years, it has acquired a large value, and those who might desire to use it would pay him a large rent for permission so to do. The earth is a great machine given to man to be fashioned to his purpose. The more he works it, the better it feeds him, because each step is but preparatory to a new one more productive than the last--requiring less labour and yielding larger return. The labour of clearing is great, yet the return is small. The earth is covered with stumps, and filled with roots. With each year the roots decay, and the ground becomes enriched, while the labour of ploughing is diminished. At length, the stumps disappear, and the return is doubled, while the labour is less by one-half than at first. To forward this process the owner has done nothing but crop the ground, nature having done the rest. The aid he thus obtains from her yields him as much food as in the outset was obtained by the labour of felling the trees. This, however, is not all. The surplus thus yielded has given him means of improving the poorer lands, by furnishing manure with which to enrich them, and thus has he trebled his original return without further labour; for that which he saves in working the new soils suffices to carry the manure to the older ones. He is obtaining a daily increased power over the various treasures of the earth.