NUMBER OF AGRICULTURISTS IN BRITAIN.

201

improved systems of agriculture is given by M. Passy, of France, in his late work (Système de Culture). He states, as the result of careful investigation, that in those countries of Europe in which agriculture has improved, "the soils that in past times were regarded as too poor to merit continued and regular cultivation are now regarded as the best ;" and after describing the course of things in this respect in Belgium and France, says that "in England it is an established fact that in various counties the lands denominated good are farmed at twenty-two to twenty-five shillings per acre, while those formerly regarded as poor let for thirty to thirty-five shillings."

According to the census of 1851, the total population of Great Britain is 20,959,477-in round numbers, 21,000,000. In the "Return of Occupations," one half of this entire population is found under the family designation-such as child at home, child at school, wife, daughter, sister, niece, with no particular occupation attributed to them. They are important members of the State; they are growing into future producers, or they preside over the household. comforts, without which there is little systematic industry. But they are not direct producers. Of the other half of the entire population, about one fifth belong to the class of cultivators, namely, 1,779,003 men; 229,678 women.

This total (in which we omit the farmers' wives and daughters, amounting to about 240,000) shows that one fifth of the working population provide food, with the exception of foreign produce, for themselves and families and the other four fifths of the population. Such a result could not be accomplished without the appliances of scientific power which we have described in this chapter.

The census of the United States for 1850, shows that nearly the same ratio exists in this country between the number of persons engaged in agricultural pursuits and the

202

NUMBER OF AGRICULTURISTS IN BRITAIN.

entire population as in Great Britain-the entire population of the United States being 23,263,483, and the number of agriculturalists, 2,400,583.

In the early stages of society, a very small proportion of labor could be spared for other purposes than the cultivation of the soil. It has been held that a community is considerably advanced when it can spare one man in three from working upon the land. Only twenty-six per cent. of the adult males in Great Britain are agricultural-that is, three men labor at some other employment, while one cultivates the land. During the last forty years the proportion of agricultural employment, in comparison with manufacturing and commercial, has been constantly decreasing in Great Britain, and is now about twenty per cent., whereas in 1811 it was thirty-five per cent. of all occupations.

CHAPTER XIV.

PRODUCTION OF A KNIFE.-MANUFACTURE OF IRON.-RAISING COAL.-THE HOTBLAST-IRON BRIDGES.-ROLLING BAR-IRON.-MAKING STEEL.-SHEFFIELD MANUFACTURES.-MINING IN GREAT BRITAIN.--NUMBERS ENGAGED IN MINES AND

METAL MANUFACTURES.

WE have been speaking somewhat fully of agricultural instruments and agricultural labor, because they are at the root of all other profitable industry. Bread and beef make the bone and sinew of the workman. Plows and harrows and drills and thrashing-machines are combinations of wood and iron. Rude nations have wooden plows. Unless the American farmer made a plow out of two pieces of stick, and carried it upon his shoulder to the field, as the toil-worn and poor people of India do, he must have some iron about it. He can not get iron without machinery. He can not get even his knife, his tool of all-work, without machinery. From the first step to the last in the production of a knife, machinery and scientific appliances have done the chief work. People that have no science and no machinery sharpen a stone, or a bit of shell or bone, and cut or saw with it in the best way they can; and after they have become very clever, they fasten it to a wooden handle with a cord of bark. A member of a civilized community, examines two or three dozens of knives, selects which he thinks the best, and pays a quarter, or a half a dollar for it, the seller thanking him for his custom. The man who has nothing but the bone or the shell would gladly toil a month for that which does not cost an American laborer half a day's wages.

204

MANUFACTURE OF IRON.

And how does the civilized man obtain his knife upon such easy terms? From the very same cause that he obtains all his other accommodations cheaper, in comparison with the ordinary wages of labor, than the inhabitant of most other countries-that is, from the operations of science, either in the making of the thing itself, or in procuring that without which it could not be made. We must always remember that, if we could not get the materials without scientific application, it would be impossible for us to get what is made of those materials-even if we had the power of fashioning those materials by the rudest labor.

Keeping this in mind, let us see how a knife could be obtained by a man who had nothing to depend upon but his hands.

Ready-made, without the labor of some other man, a knife does not exist; but the iron, of which the knife is made, is to be had. Very little iron has ever been found in a native state, or fit for the blacksmith. The little that has been found in that state is gathered up by the mineralogist and prized as a rarity; and if human art had not been able to procure any in addition to that, gold would have been cheap as compared with iron.

Iron is, no doubt, very abundant in nature; but it is always mixed with some other substance that not only renders it unfit for use, but hides its qualities. It is found in the state of what is called iron-stone, or iron-ore. United with oxygen, it is often combined with silica, or the substance of flints, often with clay and other earthy substances. Another common and valuable ore of iron, is one in which the iron is com

SULPHURET OF IRON.

MANUFACTURE OF IRON.

205

bined with sulphur; it possesses a bright yellow color, and is often, by the inexperienced, mistaken for gold-so little has it the appearance of iron. In short, in the state in which iron is frequently met with, it is a much more likely substance to be chosen for paving a road, or building a wall, than for making a knife.

But suppose that the man knows the particular ore or stone that contains the iron, how is he to get it out? Mere force will not do, for the iron, the oxygen, and the silica, or other substances, are so nicely mixed, that, though the ore were ground to the finest powder, the grinder is no nearer the iron than when he had a lump of a ton weight.

A man who has a block of wood has a wooden bowl in the heart of it; and he can get it out too by labor. The knife will do it for him in time; and if he take it to the turner, the turner with his machinery, his lathe, and his gouge, will work it out for him in half an hour. The man who has a lump of iron-ore has just as certainly a knife in the heart of it; but no mere labor can work it out. Shape it as he may, it is not a knife, or steel, or even iron—it is iron-ore; and dress it as he will, it would not cut better than a brickbat-certainly not so well as the shell or bone of the savage.

There must be knowledge before any thing can be done in this case. We must know what is mixed with the iron, and how to separate it. We can not do it by mere labor, as we can chip away the wood and get out the bowl; and therefore we have recourse to fire.

In the ordinary mode of using it, fire would make matters worse. If we put the material into the fire as a stone, we should probably receive it back as slag or dross. We must, therefore, prepare our fuel. Our fire must be hot, very hot; but if our fuel be wood we must burn it into charcoal, or if it be coal into coke.