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FARMERS' REGISTER— WRITINGS OF JOHN TAYLOR. 



a year, which I give to the mower, together with 

 half a dollar ibr his trouble: so you see I don't 

 make much by this branch of" my rural economy. 

 In the sunniier mornings and cvfternoons, when the 

 grass is shaded, my children play their gambols on 

 it, while I sit under my piazza like a patriarch, 

 smoking a segar, and enjoying their pastimes. In 

 the centre of the grass plot, are two beautiful and 

 luxuriant moss rose bushes, on which I have 

 counted two liundred roses and opening rose buds, 

 banqueting on the dews of the morning at one 

 time. But every thing in this belligerent world 

 has its peculiar enemy, and my rose bushes are 

 every spring assailed by certain moss-trooping 

 worms, that eat into the buds, and blight their 

 opening beauties. Against these I have declared 

 open and exterminating war. But what could 

 even the great Gulliver do against an army of 

 Lilliputians? As fast as I dislodge one enemy, 

 others appear in its place — for it would seem that 

 the more worthless the animal, the more rapid its 

 reproduction, li' any of your numerous corres- 

 pondents will favor me through the medium of the 

 Register, with a treatise on the art of warring 

 against caterpillars, he shall have the first rose of 

 the spring, and my thanks besides. 



But I liave reserved my most valuable posses- 

 sion for the last. It is a magnificent trumpet 

 creeper, which runs up and completely hides from 

 view the gable end of a three storied house that 

 adjoins my premises. In the season it is covered 

 with Bowers three inches long, and here I have often 

 counted a dozen humming birds, extracting the 

 sweets with their long billB, and all at once sud- 

 denly darting at each other, ibr no possible provo- 

 cation that I could conceive. Like almost all little 

 folks, they seem exceedingly pugnacious about no- 

 thing, and I have often seen a couple of these di- 

 minutive prize fighters ikW to the ground clinging 

 to each other with most alarming ferocity. Wliere 

 they come from, or whither they go, I cannot con- 

 ceive, for they appear and disappear lik'e the 

 glances of sunbeams. In front of my house I 

 have a row of plane trees planted close to each 

 other, so that their limbs interlock, and being suf- 

 fered to grow low towards the ground, hide from 

 view the opposite buildings, and give a rural air 

 to my residence. Looking out of my front win- 

 dows, I see nothing but green trees, and if I go 

 into the back parlor, nothing but vines and shrubs; 

 so that were it not for the racket in the streets, I 

 should almost realize the country, in the midst of 

 a great city. 



Thus have I given you a sketch of my city 

 plantation, and rural system of economy. I trust 

 you will give me the credit of being a capital ag- 

 riculturist, and most judicious exjierimenter, since 

 I can assure you on my veracity, that though I lay 

 out money every year in improvements, I never 

 receive any in return. This is what I should call 

 being a gentleman farmer. 1 have studied Tay- 

 lor's Aral or, as you will perceive from this confes- 

 sion, with more pleasure than profit. 



By the ^vay, I have a book from the same hand, 

 called "An inquiry into the [)rinciples and poli- 

 cy of the government of the United States," which 

 I consider the most profound political work this 

 age has produced. I wish to heaven our states- 

 men would study it a little more than I suspect 

 they do, for to my mind, it would be worth more 

 to them than all the precedents in English history, 



and all the examples of Greece and Rome. I de- 

 sire to know a little more of this John Taylor than 

 I have been able to learn, and caimot but think 

 that a sketch of his life would be peculiarly appro- 

 priate to the columns of the Farmers' Register. 

 As an experienced farmer, and a most efficient 

 champion of the agricultural interests, against the 

 inroads of paper money and paper phantoms, he 

 deserves a biography nmch more richly than nine- 

 tenths of the mushroom maggots of the past, pre- 

 sent, and future. Pray call upon your correspon- 

 dents to do this last act of justice to old Arator. 

 Virginia owes him this act of duty and gratitude. 



J. K. PAUI.DING. 



[We accord entirely v.itfi the foregoing opinions re- 

 specting Jotin Taylor, of Caroline. While we fiave 

 heretofore expressed our dissent to some of his leading 

 doctrines on the improvement of soils, we have always 

 held and expressed the opinion, that agriculture in Vir- 

 ginia — indeed the commonwealth of Virginia — owes 

 more gratitude to John Taylor, for vakiable and endur- 

 ing services, than to any other individual whatever. 

 It is not merely on his merit as an instructor in the art 

 of agriculture that our estimate of his services is 

 founded — great undoubted as was his merit in that re- 

 spect — but still more on his able and more efficient 

 maintenance of the rights and interests of agriculture, 

 without which, all increase of products and profits are 

 nothing to the tillers of the soil — for the toil will be 

 theirs, and the rich harvest be seized and devoured by 

 others. Holding these opinions, we have wished, (and 

 had already taken some steps for the attainment of the 

 object,) to be enabled to publish a biographical sketch 

 of the life, and a review of the writings of John Tay- 

 lor, as an agriculturist and defender of agricultural in- 

 terests: and if the task is not performed by some one 

 better qualified, it will at some future time be attempt- 

 ed by our pen, though bringing no other requisites for 

 the performance than veneration for the individual, and 

 zeal for the maintenance of the objects which he first 

 advocated. The Inquiry into the principles and policy 

 of the government oj the United States, which is refer- 

 red to above by our correspondent, is decidedly the 

 great work gf Taylor — one which contains enough of 

 new and important truths to supply with matter twenty 

 other works — or to make the stock in trade, and per- 

 haps the political fortunes of one hundred (soi disant) 

 statesmen. It deserves indeed to be termed the Phi- 

 losophy of Free Government. Yet this work has been 

 so little read and noticed, that it may almost be said to 

 have fallen dead from the press. Eut the time must 

 come when it will be properly valued, though perhaps, 

 like the prophecies of Cassandra, when too late to pro* 

 fit by its warnings. Besides other circumstances which 

 concurred to condemn this work to general neglect, a 

 principal cause was the unfortunate obscurity of the 

 written language of the author — for which he was as 

 much distinguished as for his profound and original 

 thinking. In both these respects, he may well be com- 

 pared to the great Bentham, whose works required to 

 be translated into the French of Dumont, to be made 

 intelligible to his Emclish readers. The Americau 



