FIRST AGRICULTURAL ASSOCIATIONS. 1 



As early as 1816, Mr. Jefferson had said: &quot;We must now place 

 the manufacturer alongside of the agriculturist.&quot; 



It must not be supposed that we would undervalue the-capac- 

 ity or the patriotism of the Southern land-holders. In no 

 part of our country has there appeared a more genuine attach 

 ment to the land, or a more earnest desire for improvement. 

 The first agricultural associations were formed in the South; 

 that of South Carolina was started in 1784, and is still in ex 

 istence. The Philadelphia society, in 1785; that of New York 

 City, in 1791; the &quot;Massachusetts society for promoting agri 

 culture,&quot; in 1792. The first Agricultural Exhibition was held 

 in Pittsfield, Mass., May 10, 1810. 



The South also took the lead in the importation of valuable 

 stock. Maryland was the first to establish agricultural journals, 

 and to ask the aid of government in behalf of agricultural edu 

 cation. In fact, Maryland ranks next to Massachusetts in the 

 traits which are required by a progressive agriculture. The 

 zeal and earnestness with which her noble sons her Calverts, 

 Caprons and others, addressed themselves to this work, is be 

 yond all praise. In 1824, John S. Skinner, who had in 1819 

 commenced the publication of the American Farmer, dis 

 tributed in Maryland a new and till then unknown fertilizer, in 

 the shape of two bushels of guano, received directly from the 

 Pacific, and accompanied it with translations from Huinboldt 

 and Ulloa concerning its nature and uses. 



Nor was the sunny-land wanting in model plantations, homes 

 and farms, adorned with everything which art and luxury can 

 add to the charms of rural life. Her temptation and her trial 

 lay in a direction better understood now than it was before the 

 war, in the distance of her market, and the cost of transporta 

 tion. Increase in the value of land, increase in population, 

 diversity of employments, tend toward freedom as certainly 

 as matter obeys the law of gravitation. In a Southern journal 

 of 1850, we read: &quot;If a demand for labor existed in the slave 

 States, consequent upon making a market on the land for its 

 products, the necessity for emigration would pass away, and 

 immigration would begin. The people of the South would not 

 then desire to go to California, nor would those of the North 

 deem it necessary to pass laws to prevent them from so doing. 

 All the discord between the different portions of the Union re 

 sults from a system which tends continually to depreciate the 



