372 



FARMERS' REGISTER— REVIEW OF THE MEMOIRS OF OBERLIN. 



tween 30 and 50. The people imagined that the 

 ground was in fault, but no m<^ans of remedying the 

 evil ever occurrfd to them. Oberlin, attributing the 

 circumstance to its true cause, pointed out to them the 

 means of recovering the crops, made them acquainted 

 with Parmentier's useful work on the subject, and pro- 

 cured some seed from Switzerland, Holland and Lor- 

 rain, to renew the species. The sandy soil of the 

 mountains being peculiarly favorable to their vegeta- 

 tion, abundance soon returned; and potatoes of a supe- 

 rior quality and flavor, soon became, and are to this 

 day, celebrated as the great production of the place, 

 furnishing not only a sufficient store for home con- 

 sumption, but also a profitable article of exporta- 

 tion. 



Believing that great advantages would accrue from 

 the cultivation of leguminous plants and productive 

 herbs, before unknown in that part of the countiy, 

 Oberlin's next attempt was to raise saint-foin; but, as 

 this plant strikes its root perpendicularly, and the soil 

 of the Ban de la Roche is not deeper than two feet at 

 most on the rocks and sandstone, it did not succeed, 

 though the flax, which he raised from seed imported 

 from Riga, and the Dutch clover, which he also intro- 

 duced, answered perfectly well, and considerably aug- 

 mented the resources of the inhabitants. 



This success was probably owing in part to the at- 

 tention he paid to the management of manure, which 

 constitutes a chief secret in agriculture. He not only 

 directed his laborers to the means of enriching it by 

 fermentation, but taught them also that all sorts of 

 vegetable substances, even the leaves of trees, the 

 stalks of rushes, moss and fir apples, might be convert- 

 ed into a useful compost. Acting upon his favorite 

 maxim, "-gather up the fragments, that nothing be lost," 

 he also instructed chihlren to tear old woollen rags into 

 pieces, and to cut up old shoes for this purpose; and 

 to facilitate their labors, he paid them sixteen sous for 

 a bushel, and one sou for the smallest quantity they 

 liked to collect." 



Obcrliii taught his parisliioners to convert their 

 unproductive pastures into arable land, and fee(i 

 their cattle in stalls. 



"This conversion of grass into arable land, in a coun- 

 try where rocks were piled upon rocks, and where in 

 some places large masses must be blasted, and in others 

 removed and covered with good soil, before the plough 

 could possibly be employed, required of course a great 

 deal of time and labor; but tlie industry and zeal with 

 which Oberlin himself began to put in practice every 

 scheme that successively occurred to him, had such an 

 influence upon the minds of hisparishioners, that, after 

 the prejudices of the few first y^ars had entirely sub- 

 sided, they seldom failed to ent.-r into his views, and 

 to imitate his example: the plan was tried, and answer- 

 ed his most sanguine expectations. 



In the year 1778, he formed, at the Ban de la Roche, 

 a little Agricultural Society, composed of the more in- 

 telligent farmers and the best informed inhabitants of 

 his parish; and, having invited the pastors of the adja- 

 cent towns and some of his friends to become mem- 

 bers, he connected it with that of Strasbourg, in order 

 to secure the communication of peinodical works, and 

 assistance in the distribution of prizes; and the latter 

 Society, wishing to encourage its interesting auxiliary, 

 entrusted to its disposal the sum of two hundred francs, 

 to be distributed among such peasants as should most 

 distinguis'ii themselves in the planting of nursery 

 grounds and in the grafting of fruit Irees. 



The good erl'ects resulting from this measure induced 

 Oberlin likewise to form a fand, supported by voluntary 

 contributions, for the distribution of prizes to the far- 

 mers of each commune, who should rear the finest ox. 

 A short time afterwards, with a view to prepare the 

 rismg generation for continuing the works which their 

 fathers had begun, and to give the opportunity of ac- 

 quiring useful information, he commenced the plan of 



devoting two hours every other Thursday morning to 

 a familiar lecture on the subjects of agriculture and of 

 useful science. 



Such, indeed, was his assiduity, that not a year 

 rolled away in which some astonishing improvement 

 was not eli'ected in the condition or the morals of his 

 peoplp; and the surrounding districts beheld with ad- 

 miration the rapid progress that civilization was con- 

 tinually making, in the once neglected and apparently 

 forsaken Steinthal." 



Oberlin established in the Ban de la Roche, an 

 admirable system of education. He in those se- 

 questered mountains was the first to adopt the fa- 

 mous Infant Schools. In each of five villages he 

 founded public schools; and once a week he in 

 person examined and taught all the children col- 

 lected together. He established a circulating li- 

 brary, and awarded prizes to masters and scholars. 

 He drew up an almanac, divested of astrological 

 stuff, and adapted to the wants of his people. 

 Among other things he taught them botany, and 

 explamed to them the uses of their native plants. 

 After he had lived in the Ban de la Roche thirty- 

 years, we have in a letter written by an English 

 visiter, the following sketch of the patriarchal cu- 

 rate, and his house. 



"The following morning we set off to return the visit 

 which he had paid us on the preceding day. We 

 found the worthy pastor in his morning gown; it was 

 plain, but whole and clean. He was just on the point 

 of concluding a lecture; his pupils had, like their mas- 

 ter, something soft, indeed almost heavenly, in their 

 look. 



"The house stands well, and has, from the garden 

 side, a romantic view; in every part of it that kind of 

 elegance, wliich is the result of order and cleanliness, 

 prevails. The furniture is simple; yet it suggests to 

 you that you are in the residence of no ordinary man; 

 the walls are covered with maps, drawings, and vignet- 

 tes, and texts of Scripture are written over all the 

 doors. ******* 



His study is a peculiar room, and contains rather a 

 well chosen, than numerous, selection of books in 

 French and German, chiefly for youth. The walls are 

 covered with engravings, portraits of eminent charac- 

 ters, plates of insects and animals, and colored draw- 

 ings of minerals and precious stones; it is, in short, 

 literally papered with useful pictures relative to natu- 

 ral history and other interesting subjects." * * * 



"I am writing this at his table, whilst he is busy pre- 

 paring leather gloves for his peasant children. His 

 family are around him, engaged in their different avo- 

 cations; his eldest son, Frederic, is giving a lesson to 

 some of the little ones, in which amusement and in- 

 struction are judiciously blended; and the dear father, 

 without desisting from his employment, frcqtiently puts 

 in a word. He took me this morning into his work- 

 shop, where there is a turner's lathe, a press, a com- 

 plete set of carpenter's tools, also a printing-press, and 

 one for book-binding. I assisted him in coloring a 

 q\iire of paper, which is intended for covers of school- 

 books. He gives scarcely any thing to his people but 

 what has been, in some measure, prepared by his own 

 or his children's hands. 



"He will never leave this place. A much better 

 living was once offered to him 'No,' said he, 'I have 

 been ten years learning every head in iriy parish, and 

 obtaining an inventory of their moral, intellectual and 

 domestic wants; I have laid my plan. I must have 

 ten years to carry it into execution, and the ten follow- 

 ing to correct their faults and vices.' 



"Pastor Oberlin is too modest and generous not to 

 bear testimony to the worth of his predecessor, who 

 had begun to clear this wilderness, and to raise the su- 

 perstructure, which he has so beautifully completed. 



