political revolutions nor severances affect;
which are handed down in the unwritten legends of family life in the
New World, as well as in the warp and woof of American literature
and history. Will the utilitarian and unsparing science of these
latter days, or of the days to come, shear away these beautiful
tresses, and leave the brow and temples of the Old Country they have
graced bare and brown under the bald and burning sun of material
economy? It is not an idle question, nor too early to ask it. It
is a question which will interest more millions of the English race
on the American continent than these home-islands will ever contain.
There are influences at work which tend to this unhappy issue. Some
of these have been already indicated, and others more powerful still
may be mentioned.

Agriculture in England has to run the gauntlet of many pressing
competitions, and carry a heavy burden of taxation as it runs.
These will be noticed, hereafter, in their proper connection.
Farming, therefore, is being reduced to a rigid science. Every acre
of land must be put up to its last ounce of production. Every
square foot of it must be utilised to the growth of something for
man and beast. Manures for different soils are tested with as much
chemical precision as ever was quinine for human constitutions.
Dynameters are applied to prove the power of working machinery.
Labor is scrutinised and economised, and measured closely up to the
value of a farthing's-worth of capacity. A shilling's difference
per acre in the cost of ploughing by horse-flesh or steam brings the
latter into the field. The sound of the flail is dying out of the
land, and soon will be heard no more. Even threshing machines
worked by horses are being discarded, as too slow and old-fashioned.
Locomotive steam-engines, on broad-rimmed wheels, may be met on the
turnpike road, travelling on their own legs from farm to farm to
thresh out wheat, barley, oats, and beans, for a few pence per
bushel. They make nothing of ascending a hill without help, or of
walking across a ploughed field to a rick-yard. Iron post and rail
fencing, in lengths of twenty feet on wheels, drawn about by a
donkey, bids fair to supersede the old wooden hurdles for sheep fed
on turnips or clover. It is an iron age, and wire fencing is
creeping into use, especially in the most scientifically cultivated
districts of Scotland, where the elements and issues of the farmer's
balance-sh