that
most will be got out of the ground, that most revenue will be raised,
and that the other elements of national power will be most fully
developed. How can this encouragement be most effectually given?
Security for the farmer is essential--of what nature should the
security be? The phrase 'unexhausted improvements' is often used.
But should the legislature contemplate, or make provision for the
exhaustion of improvements? Is the improving tenant to be told that
his remedy is to retrograde--to undo what he has done--to take out
of the land all the good he has put in it, and reduce it to the
comparative sterility in which he, or those whom he represents, first
received it? Should not the policy of the legislature rather be to
keep up improvements of the soil, and its productive power at the
highest possible point, and make it the interest of the occupier
never to relax in his exertions? The rower will not put forth all his
strength unless he believes he will win. In other races, though
many start, only one or two can receive the prize. In this race of
agricultural improvement all competitors might win ample rewards. But
will they put forth all their energies--is it in human nature that
they should--was it ever done by any people, if the prizes are to be
seized, enjoyed, and flaunted before their eyes by others, who may
be strangers, and who never helped them by their sympathy in their
toilsome course of training and self-denial? It is because the
landlords of the county Down have been so often in the same boat with
their tenants, and with so much good faith, generous feeling, and
cordial sympathy encouraged their exertions, and secured to them their
just rewards, that this great county presents to the world such a
splendid example of what industry, skill, and capital can accomplish.
Is it not possible to extend the same advantages through the whole
island without wronging the landlord or degrading the tenant?

The stranger is at first surprised to see so large a town as
Newtownards, with its handsome square, its town-hall, its wide,
regular streets, its numerous places of worship, and a population of
9,500, in a place without visible factories, and without communication
with the sea, within eight miles of Belfast, and three miles of
Bangor, which, though a seaport, is but one-fourth of the size. But
although there are no great mills sending forth volumes of smoke,
Newtownards is really a manufacturing town. Those clea