1839] 



FARMERS REGISTER. 



Ihe most, ifliterate believe bookf? to be absolutely 

 necessary to the perlcctioa of every honest trade, 

 profession and calling, under the sun. Strange 

 then, most strange would it be, iC thai calling, 

 upon whose prosjicrity even human existence it- 

 sell' depends, should be the only one which can 

 prosper without books! The vainest Ibol that 

 ever lived, if he were not an absolute uliot, would 

 not fail to admit this, provided you could prevail 

 on him to think long enough to form an opinion. 

 How shameful — how disgraceful then is it, that 

 any of our I'raternity who are certainly not fools, 

 should ever be found among the idiotic declaimers 

 against the study of books on agriculture ! This 

 study would put him in possession of one fad, 

 which of itself should suffice to animate his pro- 

 fessional exertions lor the rest of his life. It is, 

 that all the greatest beneliictors of mankind have 

 been either practical agriculturists, or the devoted 

 friends thereof— that they have deemed agricul- 

 ture not only an art but a science, to the pertiection 

 of which the study of books is indispensable; and 

 moreover, that to the end of time, it will always 

 fall so far short of perfection, as to leave ample 

 room ibr constant improvement, even to the wisest 

 and most experienced of our prolession. To 

 strive therelbre with might and main after this 

 improvement, and with a zeal and perseverance 

 proportioned to its importance, should be deemed 

 the indispensable duty of every man who pre- 

 sumes to call himself a friend to the great, 

 the vital cause, of agriculture. All who give 

 it only lip service should be ranked amongst 

 its worst enemies, since the tongue alone is 

 worse than nothing, unless the heart, the hand, 

 and the purse, unite in its promotion : nay more, 

 unless tills union, in the case of us Virginians, 

 should so work as to obtain legislative aid to our 

 cause. But no man in his senses can hope it, as 

 our legislatures are now constituted, if he judges 

 by their undeviating neglect of agriculture, li-om 

 the end of our revolutionary war to the present 

 time; although strange to say, a large majority of 

 them have always been agriculturists ! Ot' this 

 there can be but one even probable ex()lanation ; 

 it is, that they must believe ^oar^j/ politics to be 

 much more deserving of their patronage than 

 agriculture. To cure them of this hallucination 

 there is only one remedy, and that, thank God, 

 is still in our power, although there is some doubt 

 whether we shall all be sufficiently alive to our 

 own interest, to apply it. This remedy is, either 

 to elect no more representatives without clear, un- 

 equivocal pledges to do something for agriculture, 

 or to instruct all who will not give such pledges, 

 that they must do something, or never again ex- 

 pect our suHrawes. Why this course has not 

 been pursued, after so many fruitless and deeply 

 mortilying applications to our legislatures, is to 

 me utterly inexplicable, but upon the supposition 

 that the majority of us are stone blind to the ob- 

 vious means of reliel ; or that those wlio can see 

 them and are fully aware of all their momentous 

 bearings, want the courage and perseverance to 

 combat that fearful and most formidable obstacle 

 to improvements of every kind, which consists in 

 a union of ignorance and asinine iiuliflerence rel- 

 ative to our best interests. We agriculturists 

 may and often do live so comfortably at home, by 

 industry and frugality, almost in spite of govern- 

 ment neglect, nay even of government hostility, 



that we remain ignorant of the vast extent to 

 which legislative enactments have benetited ag- 

 riculture in other countries, and might advance 

 our own, if we would only exert over them that 

 iiiHuence, that control, which our constitution has 

 secured to us. Should we much longer neglect to 

 do so. all argument, all persuasion, used lor any 

 such purpose, will be as entirely thrown away, 

 as an attempt to show how a dead man's hie 

 might have been saved had a certain nostrum 

 been administered while he was alive. Unless 

 we mean "to give up the ship,'''' in other words, 

 to abandon our good old mother, Virginia, to her 

 aboriginal inhabitants, the bears and wolves of 

 the lorest, and flee to " the far west," vve must 

 insist upon the establishment at public expense of 

 a board of agriculture, or an agricultural school, 

 or an agricultural survey of the state, or all three 

 together. One or all of these means are indis- 

 pensably necessary, if we would maintain among 

 our sister states that relative rank and importance 

 to which our soil, climate, natural resources and 

 population, so justly entitle us. * * * 



There is another of your improvements which 

 deserves a special notice, on account of the high- 

 ly important purpose, in a national view, to which 

 it is designed to contribute; I mean the establish- 

 ment of the silk-culture in the United States. 

 This improvement is the handsome building late- 

 ly erected io" a cocoonery. Like others destined 

 tor a similar object, which are now preparing in 

 various parts of our country, this house illustrates 

 the existence of a irioral phenomenon, lor which 

 no one, 1 believe, lias ever yet lieen able to ac- 

 count. It is the liability of our minds as well as 

 our bodies to certain untraceable diseases to which 

 the common name of epidemics has been given. 

 Such formerly in Holland, was the disease called 

 '■'■the tulip mania,'''' which, when at its height,, 

 caused single roots to sell from 2,000 lo 5,5()(> 

 guilders; a sum, that in our currency, would ex- 

 ceed iwo thousand dollars. And such, within our 

 own times, was, ^'the merino mania'''' in these 

 United States, with another of more recent date, 

 that shall be nameless. From the sheep mania 

 and its successor, I luckily escaped, by usino- 

 great precaution lo keep out of the way. But I 

 plead guilty to a voluntary exposure to what 1 

 will take the liberty to call the -^multicaulis fever'''' 

 — a disease which threatens to spread vastly more 

 than did the merino mania; because mulberry 

 bushes being far more divisible than sheep, and of 

 course much lower in price, manj' more persons 

 can afford to buy: adtl to which a thousand or two 

 per cent, profit, seems to be confidently expected 

 li-om each mulberry investment, whereas the me- 

 rino purchasers, I believe, rarely anticipated much 

 more than one or two hundred per cent. 



« * * # « # * 



But to be serious: I verily believe that although 

 this multicaulis business will certainly humbug a 

 multitude of those ever sanguine people who calcu- 

 late on amassing enormous fortunes by if, yet that 

 it may prove highly profitable to all who will be 

 prudent enouirh to sell at the market price, what- 

 ever it may be, immediately they have any trees 

 or cuttinsjs to dispose of. That this price will and 

 inevitably must be much less 12 months hence, I 

 think absolutely certain, notwithstanding all the 

 prophecies you have been flattered with to the 

 contrary. My reasons for this opinion are, that 



