THE 



JOURNAL OF RURAL ART AND RURAL TASTE. 



Vol. II. 



JANUARY, 184S. 



No. 7. 



The Culture of the Soil may be viewed 

 in two very different aspects. In one, it is 

 a mean and ignorant employment. It is a 

 moral servitude, which man is condemned 

 to pay to fields perpetually doomed to 

 bear thorns and thistles. It is an unmean- 

 ing routine of planting and sowing, to earn 

 bread enough to satisfy the hunger and 

 cover the nakedness of the race. And it is 

 performed in this light, by the servants of 

 the soil, in a routine as simple, and with a 

 spirit scarcely more intelligent than that of 

 the beasts which draw the plough that tears 

 open the bosom of a hard and ungenial 

 earth ! 



What is the other aspect in which agri- 

 culture may be viewed? Very different in- 

 deed. It is an employment at once the 

 most natural, noble and independent that 

 can engage the energies of man. It brings 

 the whole earth into subjection. It trans- 

 forms unproductive tracts into fruitful fields 

 and gardens. It raises man out of the un- 

 certain and wild life of the fisher and hunter, 

 into that where all the best institutions of 

 society have their birth. It is the mother 

 of all the arts, all the commerce, and all the 

 industrial employments that maintain the 

 civilization of the world. It is full of the 

 most profound physical wonders, and in- 

 VoL. n. 38 



volves an insight into the whole history of 

 the planet, and the hidden laws that go- 

 vern that most common and palpable, and 

 yet most wonderful and incomprehensible 

 substance — matter! There has never yet 

 lived one who has been philosopher enough 

 to penetrate farther than the outer ves- 

 tibules of its great temples of truth; and 

 there are mj^steries enough yet unexplain- 

 ed in that every day miracle, the growth 

 of an acorn, to excite for ages the atten- 

 tion and admiration of the most profound 

 worshipper of God's works. 



Fortunately for us and for our age, too 

 much light has already dawned upon us 

 to allow intelligent men ever to relapse 

 into any such degrading view of the aim and 

 rights of the cultivator as that first present- 

 ed. We have too generally ascertained the 

 value of science, imperfect as it still is, 

 applied to farming and gardening, to be 

 contented any more to go back to that con- 

 dition of things when a crooked tree was 

 used for a plough, and nuts and wild ber- 

 ries were sufficient to satisfy the rude ap- 

 petite of man. The natural sciences have 

 lately opened new revelations to us of the 

 hidden problems of growth, nutrition and 

 decay, in the vegetable and animal king- 

 doms. Secrets have been laid bare that 



