344 MONTHLY JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



to the existence of the oats, barley, wheat, corn, tobacco, potatoes, flax, or what- 

 ever the crop may be, must diminish in that pro-portion the power of the soil to 

 produce future crops ; and thus he would learn his first great lesson, to wit : that 

 to sustain the fertility of his land, and insure himself a remunerating return for the 

 labor and capital employed in its cultivation, the exhausting effects of vegetation 

 must be compensated by suitable additions from some source. A well-quali- 

 fied, well-paid, competent instructor — such as, before many years, ought to be in 

 the management of every country school — and might be, if legislators would do 

 their duty — would soon make any boy of common capacity understand that, in 

 the words of an able writer, in those few and simple propositions is contained 

 the clue to the most refined and successful systems of Agriculture ; and that 

 the objects of the philosophical agriculturist, as well as the most effective 

 means of practically advancing husbandry, consist in — 



1. Studying the composition of the Soil ; 



2. Studying the action of Plants upon it. 



But surely we should be wasting time in arguing farther that the farmer needs 

 instruction in the various branches of knowledge that are allied to his pursuit, 

 and that such instruction will give additional efficacy and profit to his labors, as 

 much as it does to that of any other profession or employment. Instead of this, 

 what have we taught to all the youth of the country, until they are singled out 

 and favored, by the pleasure of a single individual, with a warrant that insures 

 them a highly finished education and support for life, or until they are designated 

 for one of the so-called learned professions? Why, generally, the ultima thule 

 is, to be taught to read and write, and there, it is at this point, the edu- 

 cation of the great mass of boys stops — mistaking that which constitutes only the 

 means of acquiring knowledge for knowledge itself. Will somebody give us a 

 list of the books generally employed now in the country schools ? In our own 

 time, in Maryland, they were — Dilwortli's Spelling Book, the New and Old Tes- 

 lament, and Scott^s Lessons or the English Reader. High prognostications were 

 ventured in those days in favor of the promising lad Avho could come before an 

 admiring Fourth of July audience, and pronounce with ease and confidence, " To 

 be or not to be," *' My voice is still for umr," " My name is Norval," or " All the 

 world 's a stage," — neither pupil nor master, perhaps, understanding anything of the 

 men or the times for which these speeches had been written. To get by heart these 

 fictitious orations of Pagan orators, and to pronounce them with the requisite de- 

 gree of self-confidence and flippancy, was, and for aught we know is still, thought 

 to be a sure sign that the boy would rise to great eminence not as a planter or 

 farmer, (for the idea is that any dunce has sense enough for that .') but as a doctor 

 or a lawyer ! And the parents — good, easy people — saw in their applauded son an- 

 other Patrick Henry, or Pinckney, or Rush, or Wistar, at least. And this was 

 and is yet called education for an agriculturist ! 



Now in lieu of the speeches of Cicero against Vcrres, or Adhcrbal's to the Ro- 

 man Senate, or Antony's oration over the dead body of Ca;sar, we propose what 

 will be found in the two following chapters aS Fourth of July recitations, at an 

 exhibition such as we remember in our youthful and joyous days in the country, 

 when, with our dear school-companions, the Grays, the Wilkinsons, the Chews, 

 the Reynolds and the Dukes, each in his turn, dressed out in his holiday clothes, 

 we stepped out on the platform, under one of those fragrant, sweet-smelling, rude, 

 rustic arbors, recently shaded with the fresh boughs of the chestnut and the beech. 

 We only wish we had room for a few more of these agricultural .speeches ; but, 



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