But there has been some philosophy, some justice, and considerable
necessity, in the course that has been pursued. Subsistence is the first
desire; and, in new countries where forests are to be felled, dwellings
erected, public institutions established, roads and bridges built,
settlers cannot be expected, in the cultivation of the land, to look
much beyond the present moment. And they are entitled to the original
fertility of the soil. Europe passed through the process of settlement
and exhaustion many centuries ago. Her recovery has been the work of
centuries,--ours may be accomplished in a few years, even within the
limits of a single life. The fact from which an improving system of
agriculture must proceed is apparent in the northern and central
Atlantic states, and is, in a measure, appreciated in the West. We have
all heard that certain soils were inexhaustible. The statement was first
made of the valley of the Connecticut, then of the Genesee country, then
of Ohio, then of Illinois, and occasionally we now hear similar
statements of Kansas, or California, or the valley of the Willamette. In
the nature of things these statements were erroneous. The idea of soil,
in reason and in the use of the word, contains the idea of exhaustion.
Soil is not merely the upper stratum of the earth; it is a substance
which possesses the power, under certain circumstances, of giving up
essential properties of its own for the support of vegetable and
ultimately of animal life.
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