Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 9.djvu/199

Rh been, generally speaking, more terribly racked by the dexterity of merciless agents from England, than even those who held under the severest landlords here. I was assured upon the place, by great numbers of credible people, that a prodigious estate in the county of Cork being let upon leases for lives and great fines paid, the rent was so high, that the tenants begged leave to surrender their leases, and were content to lose their fines.

The cultivating and improving of land is certainly a subject worthy of the highest inquiry in any country, but especially in ours; where we are so strangely limited in every branch of trade that can be of advantage to us, and utterly deprived of those, which are of the greatest importance; whereof I defy the most learned man in Europe, to produce me an example from any other kingdom in the world: for, we are denied the benefit which God and nature intended to us; as manifestly appears by our happy situation for commerce, and the great number of our excellent ports. So that I think little is left us, beside the cultivating of our own soil, encouraging agriculture, and making great plantations of trees, that we might not be under the necessity of sending for corn and bark from England, and timber from other countries. This would increase the number of our inhabitants, and help to consume our natural products, as well as manufactures at home. And I shall never forget what I once ventured to say to a great man in England, that few politicians, with all their schemes, are half so useful members of a commonwealth, as an honest farmer; who, by skilfully draining, fencing, manuring, and planting, has increased the trinsick