r the improved system of cultivation of
his own country into a kingdom at least a century behind the former. As
far us his own manual labour goes, as far as he will take the plough,
the harrow, and the broadcast himself, so far may he procure the
execution of his own ideas. But it is in vain to endeavour to infuse
this knowledge or this practice into French labourers; you might as well
put a pen in the hand of a Hottentot, and expect him to write his name.
The ill success of half the foreign purchasers must be imputed to this
oversight. An American or an Englishman passes over a French or German
farm, and sees land of the most productive powers reduced to sterility
by slovenly management. A suggestion immediately arises in his mind--how
much might this land be made to produce under a more intelligent
cultivation? Full of this idea he perhaps inquires the price, and
finding it about one-tenth of what such land would cost in England,
immediately makes his purchase, settles, and begins his operations. Here
his eyes are soon opened. He must send to England for all his
implements; and even then his French labourers neither can or will learn
the use of them. An English ploughman becomes necessary; the English
ploughman accordingly comes, but shortly becomes miserable amongst
French habits and French fellow-labourers.

In this manner have failed innumerable attempts of this kind within my
own knowledge. It is impossible to transplant the whole of the system of
one country into another. The English or the American farmer may
emigrate and settle in France, and bring over his English plough and
English habits, but he will still find a French soil, a French climate,
French markets, and French labourers. The course of his crops will be
disturbed by the necessity of some subservience to the peculiar wants of
the country and the demands of the market. He cannot, for example,
persevere in his turnips, where he can find no cattle to eat them, no
purchasers for his cattle, and where, from the openness of the climate
in winter, the crop must necessarily rot before he can consume it. For
the same reason, his clover cultivation becomes as useless. To say all
in a word, I know not how an English or an American farmer could make a
favourable purchase in France, though the French Government should come
forward with its protection. The habits of the country have become so
accommodated to its agriculture, that they each mutually support the
oth