686 



FARMERS' REGISTER 



rNo.ir 



we complain. The system of hireling superin- 

 tendents became more mischievous by bringing 

 about a general impression that husbandry was a 

 menial pursuit — and hence, beneath the attention 

 of a gentleman. The mind of the state was se- 

 duced thereby from this noble pursuit. All rushed 

 to the learned professions. A general mania pre- 

 vailed through society. Every lad, with or with- 

 out capacity, was to make his living rather by his 

 wits than by his hands. Thes.e professions be- 

 came, in consequence, crowded to excess. The 

 weaker members went to the wall, and instead of 

 being useful cultivators, finished their career as in- 

 cumbrances to society. 



The place where \ stand admonishes fhf of the 

 delicacy of another branch of the subject, on 

 which I am now treating — but, to which it is my 

 duty to refer — the prodigal waste of mind and 

 time to politics. That eternal vigilance is the 

 price of liberty, is readily conceded: that liberty is 

 a prize of inestimable value, that may be weighed 

 against any other human blessing and accepted 

 as an equivalent, is a great truth that I not only 

 readily admit, but would most zealously inculcate. 

 To preserve our free institutions inviolate, is there- 

 fore our first duty; but it is not our only duty. 

 They are, or were so intended to be, means only of j 

 promoting the happiness of society — not the end. 

 Yet with us, politics, like Aaron's serpent, have 

 swallowed up every other object, and have de- 

 generated to the humble purpose of contending 

 who shall be our masters; tor at this day the old- 

 fashioned term "public servants," prevalent in the 

 simplicity of ancient manners, would be a cruel 

 mockery. Every other purpose is held insignificant 

 when compared with this. To the politician by 

 trade, agriculture, and all its great interests, are held 

 in utter contempt. He is engaged in the higher 

 pursuit of promoting, as he says, the interests of 

 the good — of the dear people — and if he succeed 

 in securing to himself some fat job, or triumphs 

 over a political rival, he satisfies himself that he 

 has achieved all that should be required at his 

 hands. Who can estimate the serious injury to 

 agriculture, and indeed to the general prosperity, 

 by these wasteful diversions of time and mind 

 from their proper pursuits? To reclaim them, and 

 give them a judicious direction, is an object of the 

 highest consideration. 



Another cause contributing to our depressed 

 condition, is the emigration of our people. That 

 this is in part to be accounted for by the restless 

 spirit of man — too frequently dissatisfied with his 

 present condition, and yielding himself up to 

 brighter prospects, often to be disappointed, which 

 prompts him to distant adventures, may be ad- 

 mitted; but that this emigration in part must be 

 placed to the exhausted condition of our country, 

 cannot be denied. Whatever of compensation 

 is acquired by the increase of elbow room to those 

 who remain, it is not to be disguised that it draws 

 after it in many respects disastrous consequences. 

 Virginia, for the last sixty years, has been the 

 great hive from which have gone forth numerous 

 swarms of emigrants to the south and west. The 

 very fact of removal to distant lands shows the 

 spirit of enterprize by which they are impelled. 

 They leave behind them those, too comfortable to 

 move, and who therefore will not go — and those 

 so poor they cannot. The head and tail of society 

 are thus left; the vital part attends the emigrants. 



I speak, of course, generally; thousands of excep- 

 tions may be found in those who go, and in those 

 who stay. With a large share of the enterprize, 

 the emigrants carry with them the capital for 

 which they have sold their property, and with- 

 draw it of course from the country left. This is 

 not all: how many thousands, for years before 

 their departure, in anticipation of their removal, 

 have pursued the destructive plan of taking the 

 scum of the land, by an unmitigated cultivation, 

 leaving the skeleton they have made to their suc- 

 cessors. These mischiefs, if confined purely to 

 husbandry, are great. But if (which Heaven in 

 mercy forbid, and against which I offer up nightly 

 my prayers,) the heavy curse is in store for the 

 American people, of a dissolution of the union, 

 and the consequent dependence of each state on 

 its own peculiar resources, then indeed the evils of 

 emigration will have been multiplied a thousand 

 fold. Although patriotism may deprecate this 

 great mischief, yet who can cast his eye over the 

 troubled scene, that does not read in the signs of 

 the times, shadowed forth amid the rockings of 

 the political elements, omens, boding great evils. 



Another cause of our wasted country may be 

 found in the exhausting crops so long cultivated 

 without an intervening one of melioration; and 

 these crops being exported. It may here be re- 

 marked, that a theory with many respectable ad- 

 vocates is gaining ground, that an exporting coun- 

 try is necessarily in a progressive stale of deterio- 

 ration, while the reverse is the case with an im- 

 porting country. The supporters of this theory 

 point to Sicily and Spain, the former granaries of 

 the lazy and insolent populace of Rome, and in 

 modern times to Poland and the countries washed 

 by the Baltic, once fertile and great exporting 

 countries, and all now reduced to great poverty — 

 while England, not originally to be compared, at 

 least to the former two, and as I think much in- 

 ferior to ours, has advanced to a state of improve- 

 ment, wdiose like, no eye in any age has seen, 

 and which is credible only to the beholder. With- 

 out discussing the justness of this theory, I would 

 fain hope, that it will not be true here, where our 

 means — so abundant in our fertilizing marls — and 

 our improvingcropsof clover,aided by the free use of 

 gypsum, furnish so efficient a restorative. 



In enumerating the causes of our agricultural 

 paralysis and general decline, the state of our 

 society cannot with propriety be overlooked. It 

 is now passing through, and has been fbryears, a vi- 

 olent revolution. Our ancient and wealthy families, 

 a once numerous class, have disappeared. Their 

 hospitality or prodigality, (according to the taste of 

 the audience,) with the coparcenary principle in 

 the distribution of property, have tended to this 

 result. Their's was the maxim to sell nothing 

 they could eat, in contradistinction to that of the 

 severe economist, who eats nothing he can sell. 

 Young men raised in this luxurious indulgence, 

 incapable of enterprize, stick like suckers to the 

 parent stock, till they have exhausted it, and all 

 have gone down together. Too proud and too 

 lazy to beg or to dig, and having lost their caste, 

 they occupy a false position, alike fatal to them- 

 selves and to the society of which they are mem- 

 bers. For, to this in great part is to be ascribed 

 that present plague-spot on the body politic — an 

 universal craving after office; a craving so intense, 

 that, as in the hunger of Esau, they are willing 



