1836.] 



FARMERS' REGISTER, 



589 



tion. My firm conviction is, that the conservative 

 powers in Europe are at the bottom of it. There 

 are many very suspicious circumstances tending 

 to prove this. Amongst others, Sir Robert Peel's 

 extreme idiotic (impossible) ignorance of this 

 country and republicanism, in his late speeches, 

 (pretended ignorance of course.) I believe Thomp- 

 son is one of the agents, and Tappan, and others, 

 honest fanatics — of course, their tools. The 

 indemnity question is another part of the mischief 

 going on. We shall have something else to do, 

 by and by, than quarrelling with each other. 1 

 am not quite sure that Judge Lynch is not in a 

 great degree another agent — as General Lud and 

 other worthies were known to be agents of Castle- 

 reagh's and Sidmouth's administrations. When 

 mischief suddenly and simultaneously breaks out 

 in various parts of a country, sinister agency is al- 

 ways at work in such cases. There can be no 

 motive in the present times in this country for any 

 domestic agency of this kind — but there is a most 

 powerful one in Europe at this time. Don't let 

 us quarrel with each other — for rely upon it the 

 enemy is in the camp. 



GEORGE HENRY WALKER. 



LETTER SECOND. 



To the Editor of the farmers' Register. 



November 7th, 1835. 



You appear to have, been led to believe that I 

 keep a sort of agricultural school; God forbid I 

 should ever do any thing of the kind. I never 

 had more than six pupils at one time — and this is 

 three too many. I never wish to have more than 

 two. You ask for some, account of my method of 

 instruction. This is soon told — for I consider ed- 

 ucation a very simple and a very easy business. 

 First, I endeavor to take no young men but those 

 who have a decided talent and taste for the profes- 

 sion — (and here is the whole business and se- 

 cret oi education in every profession — for no one 

 can any more make a youth into a farmer, or any 

 thing else, who has no talent and taste for it, than 

 they can make turnip seed produce pine apples — ) 

 6et before them all I know — and force and cram 

 nothing — (for this will no more succeed with the 

 human, physical, and mental fauulties, than with 

 vegetation — ) make friends and companions of 

 them — and if they have the sense, zeal and am- 

 bition to ask and observe and learn the whys and 

 the hows, all will be right without trouble or diffi- 

 culty to either party. Of my success, if is impos- 

 sible yet to speak. My pupils are all yonng men; 

 and agriculture is a slow process; and several of' 

 them have not begun operations. * * * 

 * * * I most strenuously object to 

 all education apart from constant, direct and im- 

 mediate female society, care, superintendence and 

 control. For this, with other reasons, I consider 

 boarding and manual schools, colleges, orphan 

 asylums, &c. as the worst and most pernicious of 

 all systems and institutions; and the Girard Col- 

 lege so much lauded, as the worst of them all; 

 and the latter as wholly unnecessary in this coun- 

 try. I have now lour orphans in my house, and 

 am happy to get them — two boys and two girls — 

 the youngest only four 3^ears old. 



I think the less legislative action and interfer- 

 ence there is, in most instances, the better. Per- 



haps one of its most useful and legitimate duties 

 would be to reward those discoverers and invent- 

 ors, whom the benefits of patents, copy-rights, 

 and just and immediate profits, cannot reach. It 

 would greatly stimulate exertion and industry, and 

 be quite as just to individuals and beneficial to so- 

 ciety, as giving swords and grants to military men 

 only. The discoverer of any great law of nature 

 is generally the least, benefited by it. Arkvvright 

 and Watt, from peculiar and favorable circum- 

 stances, were exceptions. 



The education of the head and hands must al- 

 ways go together, or the health, strength, and ef- 

 ficiency of the physical and mental powers of man 

 can never be duly developed and maintained. 

 The education of the latter ought unquestion- 

 ably to take precedence of the former. As to time, 

 the morals of both and the education of the heart 

 to be attended to from infancy. Men whose heada 

 are educated, and not their hands, are too often 

 only upon a miserable par, in deficiency of com- 

 mon sense and power and capacity of action, with 

 those whose hands only cire educated. Mental 

 and physical education being kept apart — and the 

 latter often wholly neglected — render men and wo- 

 men as inefficient and useless, (as Franklin said 

 upon another occasion,) as a pair of scissors are 

 without the rivet. 



I think you rather hint an objection to connect- 

 ing agriculture and political economy. You must 

 permit me to write as it comes, or I cannot write 

 at all. Besides, we cannot investigate the highest 

 subjects without descending to the lowest and the 

 meanest results and operations. The finest build- 

 ing owes its strength and durability to paltry 

 nails and dirty mortar. So the sound, universal, 

 and permanent prosperity of a nation depends up- 

 on how many slices of beef, pork and mutton the 

 people eat with their bread and potatoes; and what 

 is the use ol discovering the best system of agri- 

 culture, without showing what is necessary to per- 

 mit its establishment? — and under what circum- 

 stances it can, and cannot be established — other- 

 wise this would be as mischievous as placing great 

 wealth in the hands of a man without educating 

 him in the proper enre of it. * * # 



G. W. WALKER. 



OLD PRACTICE3 AND NEW DOCTRINES. 



To the Editor of the Farmers' Register. 



Cypress Spring, Essex Co., ) 

 November 25th, 1S35. 5 



In your last No. I made some remarks relating 

 to the Twin Corn, and had intended measuring a 

 small lot which I had growing near my house, but 

 the fowls and four or five shoats, which were con- 

 tinually upon it, made such havoc, that I have de- 

 clined it. Suffice, however, to say, that I think 

 it will yield more to the acre than any corn I have 

 ever cultivated. 



In this, our enlightened day, it is surprising how 

 slow is the march of improvement in agriculture 

 in some parts of our county. Although there are 

 many, very many good farmers in our county, yet 

 there are those who do not in the least profit by 

 their example, and who are still following the good 

 old ivay of their fathers. 



Not. long since, riding in the field of one of my 

 neighbors, I saw his laborers engaged in spread- 



