566 



MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



ciples of culture, and of a refined taste in rural 

 architecture and plantations of trees and flow- 

 ers ? As to tliis feature in the plan of the F arm- 

 KRs' Library, it has always commended itself 

 in an especial manner to our esteem, bj' the 

 Iiope which it holds out that in this way we 

 may stimulate our young fanners, who are com- 

 ing on, to emulate the knowledge and the dili- 

 gence of those whose lives are thus commemo- 

 rated ; and hence we here announce with the 

 greater pleasure that, with a liberality well be- 

 fitting the inheritor of his partialities, his for- 

 tune and his virtues, the son of the late James 

 %V"adsworth has caused to be supplied, for 

 the Farmers' Lisrary, a well executed por- 

 trait of his father, from the easel and the graver 

 of two of the most eminent artists of the day. — 

 This we shall give in the July Number, there to 

 await the coming memoir, if we should not have 

 tlic good fortune to receive tliat in time to ac- 

 company the likeness. 



We had hoped that such likenesses and me- 

 moirs would adorn our pages at least every al- 

 ternate month, but, strange to say, of such quiet 

 and useful citizens few portraits are to be found ; 

 and their descendants seem to be too insensible 

 ta the importance of holding them up as shining 

 lights to the rising generation, and to the obliga- 

 tion which devolves on them, to aid us in doing 

 k — so that it may happen that 



" Even in their ashes shall live their iconted fires." 



We have been encouraged to hope that we 

 shall be enabled to preserve memorials, in this 

 way, of two eminent agriculturists of the South 

 — one an earlj' and powerful writer on Southern 

 Agriculture ; the other a well known, bold and 

 enterprising pioneer in the cultivation of the 

 two great staples that constitute so large a por- 

 tion of our national wealth — but there has been 

 so much backwardness — we have been so much 

 disappointed already on this point — that we are 

 chary of making promises for the future ; avow- 

 ing here, once for all, the readiness of the Ed- 

 itor and the liberality of the Publishers to do 

 their part. 



Were they military heroes, instead of peace- 

 ful cultivators of wool and bread " to feed the 

 hungry and to clothe the naked," we should 

 have no difficulty. Governments and City Cor- 

 porations would eagerly ask, " Will yoxt do ns 

 the honor to sit for your likeness ?" But what 

 Society or Public Authority seeks to procure 

 and display in its halls the likenesses of such 

 men as Pickerino and Lowell, of Mass. ; and 

 Chancellor Livingston, and B0el, of New- 

 York ; and Singleton, and Lloyd, and 

 MooUE, of Maryland ; and Taylor and Gar- 

 NETT, of Virginia; and Pinkney and Hamp- 

 ton, of South Carolina ? Ay ! as if to quicken 

 tiie-spirit of this inquiry, at the very moment of 

 (1226) 



writing thus fai-, and pausing to open a letter 

 from Utica — a gentleman there, in perfect sym- 

 pathy with our own feeling,?, referring to the 

 scheme of a great Librarj- at Washington as the 

 prominent feature of the bill to establish the 

 Smithsonian Institution, despondingly remarks : 

 " For one I have almost despaired of ever seeing 

 our Government, which is said to be based upon 

 the intelligence of the People, do anything of 

 moment for promoting, in an efficient way, a 

 knowledge of those pursuits which tend to Virtue 

 and Peace. Army and Navy! Te.xas and Ore- 

 gon ! cannon and muskets ! shooting deserters ! 

 &c. God have mercy upon us! " — And so we 

 say, amen ! 



If, however, while we thus profess, and offer 

 to give, decided preference to those whose 

 memoirs would illustrate the agricultural an- 

 nals of our own country, there be any who 

 would insinuate that, in holding up as models to 

 young Americans the lives and labors of foreign- 

 ers, which we find prepared to our hand in the 

 transactions of enlightened and public spirited 

 European Societies, we are betraying an anti- 

 American spirit, or fostering a sentiment of 

 homage to men or to things foreign, because 

 they are foreign, we shall only say that we hold 

 all such suspicions in contempt, and repose con- 

 fidently on the good sense of more liberal and 

 judicious readers. As Editor and as individual 

 we hold all countries to be alike — enemies in 

 war ; in peace, friends — except that we pretend 

 not to be above that natural, not to say fihal, 

 impulse which leads every one, we suppose, to 

 refer with peculiar pleasure, when it can be 

 done with justice, to the countrj- of his ancestors 

 for examples of all that is most worthy of imita- 

 tion and rivalry in arts that most contribute to 

 rural embellishment and felicity — arts by which 

 such men as Repton, and Loudon, and Audu- 

 bon, and Do^vNiNG, have contrived to open 

 some fountains and to plant some green spots 

 along the dreary joumej^ of life. 



In this case, we should think the space allot- 

 ted to these extracts from the life of Loudon 

 well appropriated, did it serve only to exem- 

 plify the conjugal devotion of the author, and 

 the share, however humble, which she faithfully 

 performed in the preparation of works which 

 have done so much to open the mind and the 

 heart of the world to the true principles of taste 

 and the countless beauties of Nature. 



To the last moment .she stood by the husband 

 whom she had taken " for better, for worse." as 

 well in sickness as in health — assisting him, 

 night and day, in his Herculean labors, until 

 that awful crisis for a wife, when, to use her 

 own words, " I had just time to clasp my arms 

 around him, to save him from falling, when his 

 head sank upon my shoulder, and he was no 

 more." 



