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.

With every operation connected with the fashioning of the earth, the
result is the same. The first step is, invariably, the most costly
one, and the least productive. The first drain commences near the
stream, where the labour is heaviest. It frees from water but a few
acres. A little higher, the same quantity of labour, profiting by what
has been already done, frees twice the number. Again the number is
doubled; and now the most perfect system of thorough drainage may be
established with less labour than was at first required for one of the
most imperfect kind. To bring the lime into connection with the clay,
upon fifty acres, is lighter labour than was the clearing of a single