The improvement of our landed estates is the enrichment of the kingdom; for, without this, how could we carry on our manufactures, or prosecute our commerce?  We should look upon the English farmer as the most useful member of society.  His arable grounds not only supply his fellow-subjects with all kinds of the best grain, but his industry enables him to export great quantities to other kingdoms, which might otherwise starve; particularly Spain and Portugal; for, in one year, there have been exported 51,520 quarters of barley, 219,781 of malt, 1,920 of oatmeal, 1,329 of rye, and 153,343 of wheat; the bounty on which amounted to 72,433 pounds.  What a fund of treasure arises from his pasture lands, which breed such innumerable flocks of sheep, and afford such fine herds of cattle, to feed Britons, and clothe mankind!  He rears flax and hemp for the making of linen; while his plantations of apples and hops supply him with generous kinds of liquors.

The land-tax, when at four shillings in the pound, produces 2,000,000 pounds a year.  This arises from the labour of the husbandman:  it is a great sum; but how greatly is it increased by the means it furnishes for trade!  Without the industry of the farmer, the manufacturer could have no goods to supply the merchant, nor the merchant find any employment for the mariners:  trade would be stagnated; riches would be of no advantage to the great; and labour of no service to the poor.

The Romans, as historians all allow, Sought, in extreme distress, the rural plough; Io triumphe! for the village swain, Retired to be a nobleman[2] again.

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] From the Universal Visiter, for February, 1756, p. 59.—­Smart, the
    poet, had a considerable hand in this miscellany.  The very first
    sentence, however, may convince any reader that Dr. Johnson did not
    write these Thoughts:  they are inserted here merely as an
    introduction to the Further Thoughts, which follow, and which are
    undoubtedly his.

[2] Cincinnatus.

FURTHER THOUGHTS ON AGRICULTURE[1]. [1] From the Visiter for March, 1756, p. 111.

At my last visit, I took the liberty of mentioning a subject, which, I think, is not considered with attention proportionate to its importance.  Nothing can more fully prove the ingratitude of mankind, a crime often charged upon them, and often denied, than the little regard which the disposers of honorary rewards have paid to agriculture, which is treated as a subject so remote from common life, by all those who do not immediately hold the plough, or give fodder to the ox, that I think there is room to question, whether a great part of mankind has yet been informed that life is sustained by the fruits of the earth.  I was once, indeed, provoked to ask a lady of great eminence for genius, “Whether she knew of what bread is made?”