On the fertile prairies and slopes of Kansas young HASKELL found natures demonstration of the absurdity of this "dismal" assumption and her refutation of the logic by which this impious assault on the goodness of God had been enforced. The proof Kansas furnished the seemingly sterile slopes and hills of Colorado corroborated. Observation taught him that neither individual immigrants nor colonies ever settle first upon the best lands of the country into which they go as pioneers. These lands have ever been. as they now are. the bottom lands. which can not be adapted to the uses of social life till population and capital have accumulated in force and power sufficient for their adequate drainage and the application of other costly prerequisites to healthful occupation. primitive settlement always takes place on uplands. which natural drainage prepares for human occupation. The study of the progress of the early settlement of the British Islands and of the topography of early British traffic and postroads would have saved Malthus and Ricardo from the amazing blunder of predicating their pretentious works on so glaring a fallacy.
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