The attempt to amend our federal Constitution, which for some
time past hath engrossed the public regard, is doubtless become
an old and unwelcome topic to many readers, whose opinions are
fixed, or who are concerned for the event. There are other subjects
which claim a share of attention, both from the public and
from private citizens. It is good government which secures the
fruits of industry and virtue; but the best system of government
cannot produce general happiness unless the people are virtuous,
industrious and economical.
The love of wealth is a passion common to men, and when
justly regulated it is conducive to human happiness. Industry
may be encouraged by good laws; wealth may be protected by
civil regulations; but we are not to depend on these to create it
for us, while we are indolent and luxurious. Industry is most
favourable to the moral virtue of the world; it is therefore wisely
ordered by the Author of Nature, that the blessings of this world
should be acquired by our own application in some business useful
to society; so that we have no reason to expect any climate
or soil will be found, or any age take place, in which plenty and
wealth will be spontaneously produced. The industry and
labour of a people furnish a general rule to measure their wealth,
and if we use the means we may promise ourselves the reward.
The present state of America will limit the greatest part of its inhabitants
to agriculture; for as the art of tilling the earth is
easily acquired, the price of land low, and the produce immediately
necessary for life, greater encouragement to this is offered
here than in any country on earth. But still suffer me to enquire
whether we are not happily circumstanced and actually able to
manage some principal manufactories with success, and increase
our wealth by increasing the labour of the people, and saving the
surplus of our earnings for a better purpose than to purchase the
labour of the European nations. It is a remark often made, and
generally believed, that in a country so new as this, where the
price of land is low and the price of labour high, manufactories
cannot be conducted with profit. This may be true of some manufactures,
but of others it is grossly false. It is now in the power
of New England to make itself more formidable to Great Britain
by rivaling some of her principal manufactures, than ever it was
by separating from her government. Woolen cloaths, the principal
English manufacture, may more easily be rivaled than any
other. Purchasing all the materials and labour at the common
price of the country, cloths of three-quarters width, may be fabricated
for six shillings per yard, of fineness and beauty equal to
English cloths of six quarters width, which fell at twenty shillings.
The cost of our own manufacture is little more than half
of the imported, and for service it is allowed to be much preferable.
It is found that our wool is of equal quality with the English,
and that what we once supposed the defect in our wool, is
only a deficiency in cleaning, sorting and dressing it.
It gives me pleasure to hear that a number of gentlemen in
Hartford and the neighboring towns are forming a fund for the
establishment of a great woolen manufactory. The plan will
doubtless succeed; and be more profitable to the stockholders
that money deposited in trade. AS the manufacture of cloths is
introduced, the raising of wool and flax, the raw materials, will
become an object of the farmer's attention.
Sheep are the most profitable part of our stock, and the breed
is much sooner multiplied than horses or cattle. Why do not
our opulent farmers avail themselves of the profit? An experience
would soon convince them there is no better method of advancing
property, and their country would thank them for the
trial. Sheep are found to thrive and the wool to be of good
quality in every part of New England, but as this animal delights
in grazing, and is made healthy by coming often to the earth,
our sea-coasts with the adjacent country, where snow is of short
continuance, are particularly' favourable to their propagation.
Our hilly coasts were designed by nature for this, and every part
of the country that abounds in hills ought to make an experiment
by which they will be enriched.
In Connecticut, the eastern and southern counties, with the
highlands on Connecticut river towards the sea, ought to produce
more wool than would cloath the inhabitants of the state.
At present the quantity falls short of what is needed by our own
consumption; if a surplusage could be produced, it would find a
ready market and the best pay.
The culture of flax, another principal material for manufacturing,
affords great profit to the farmer. The seed of this crop
when it succeeds will pay the husbandman for his labour, and return
a better ground-rent than many other crops which are cultivated.
The seed is one of our best articles for remittance and
exportation abroad. Dressing and preparing the flax for use is
done in the most leisure part of the year, when labour is cheap,
and we had better work for sixpence a day and become wealthy,
than to be idle and poor.
It is not probable the market can be overstocked, or if it should
chance for a single season to be the case, no article is more
meliorated by time, or will better pay for keeping by an increase
of quality. A large flax crop is one most certain sign of a thrifty
husbandman. The present method of agriculture in a course of
different crops is well calculated to give the husbandman a sufficiency
of flax ground, as it is well known that this vegetable will
not thrive when sown successively in the same place.
The nail manufacture might be another source of wealth to
the northern states. Why should we twice transport our own
iron, and pay other nations for labour which our boys might perform
as well? The art of nail-making is easily acquired. Remittances
have actually been made from some parts of the state in
this article; the example is laudable, and ought to be imitated.
The sources of wealth are open to us, and there needs but industry
to become as rich as we are free.
A Landholder.