The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20)Jefferson, Thomas
History
The Writings of Thomas Jefferson: Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20)
Jefferson, Thomas
United States -- Politics and government -- 1775-1783; United States -- Politics and government -- 1783-1789
he manures ill, or not at all. I suppose, that could the practice of
leasing for three lives be introduced in the whole kingdom, it would,
within the term of your life, increase agricultural productions fifty
per cent.; or were any one proprietor to do it with his own lands, it
would increase his rents fifty per cent., in the course of twenty-five
years. But I am told the laws do not permit it. The laws then, in this
particular, are unwise and unjust, and ought to give that permission.
In the southern provinces, where the soil is poor, the climate hot and
dry, and there are few animals, they would learn the art, found so
precious in England, of making vegetable manure, and thus improving
these provinces in the article in which nature has been least kind to
them. Indeed, these provinces afford a singular spectacle. Calculating
on the poverty of their soil, and their climate by its latitude only,
they should have been the poorest in France. On the contrary, they are
the richest, from one fortuitous circumstance. Spurs or ramifications
of high mountains, making down from the Alps, and, as it were,
reticulating these provinces, give to the valleys the protection of a
particular inclosure to each, and the benefit of a general stagnation
of the northern winds produced by the whole of them, and thus
countervail the advantage of several degrees of latitude. From the
first olive fields of Pierrelatte, to the orangeries of Hieres, has
been continued rapture to me. I have often wished for you. I think you
have not made this journey. It is a pleasure you have to come, and an
improvement to be added to the many you have already made. It will be a
great comfort to you, to know, from your own inspection, the condition
of all the provinces of your own country, and it will be interesting to
them at some future day, to be known to you. This is, perhaps, the only
moment of your life in which you can acquire that knowledge. And to do
it most effectually, you must be absolutely incognito, you must ferret
the people out of their hovels as I have done, look into their kettles,
eat their bread, loll on their beds under pretence of resting yourself,
but in fact, to find if they are soft. You will feel a sublime pleasure
in the course of this investigation, and a sublimer one hereafter, when
you shall be able to apply your knowledge to the softening of their
beds, or the throwing a morsel of meat into their kettle of vegetables.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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