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Florida, Louisana and Texas proffer to your 

 taste the golden apple of the Hesperides, with 

 flits, lemons and bananas. It would be exceed- 

 ingly tiresome to enumerate the entire catalogue 

 of what is grown in our Southern States ; the 

 range is as extensive as the wants of the most 

 civilized people can require ; somewhere a lo- 

 cality will suit your desires. 



There can be found in Tennessee cattle, horses, 

 sheep and hogs of the most fancy and purest 

 blood. More money is invested in them than 

 ever before, and the taste for first class stock 

 grows daily. Some eminent breeders, as Gen. 

 Wm. G. Harding of my state, have established a 

 wide reputation, and there are some younger 

 men of indomitable pluck and energy, who will 

 figure largely in the future of Tennessee. Major 

 C. Brown, Thomas Gibson, the brothers B. F. and 

 M. S. Cockrill and many others, 



It is not expected that at this time we can 

 boast that our system of economy and modes of 

 production approach anything like perfection. 

 It must be confessed that there is not that en- 

 lightenment among the generality of our people 

 which the rays of science pour upon her votaries 

 in some more necessitous countries ; yet a stand- 

 ard has been set up, and the diffusion of useful 

 knowledge spreads more and more everv day. 



More than fifty years since, the labors of the 

 most eminent planters of Maryland and Virgin- 

 ia were addressed to the grateful task of dis- 

 seminating useful knowledge, and improving 

 methods among their fellow laborers of the 

 field. Baltimore enjoys the honor of the publi- 

 cation of the best agricultural paper of the 

 times, by Mr. John S. Skinner, one of the sin- 

 cerest and most praiseworthy gentlemen that 

 ever labored in the cause of American agricul- 

 ture ; a reference to the files of the American 

 Farmer will justify this mention. The art of ag- 

 riculture found in him and his eminent contri- 

 butors, able, earnest and enthusiastic ministers 

 at her altar, which they raised high above all 

 selfishness. New inventions of agricultural im- 

 plements were introduced to the notice and ap- 

 proval of the farmers ; their uses and designs 

 carefully elaborated ; and trials and experi- 

 ments instituted, and results made known. All 

 manures were analyzed, sea- weeds, the mud of 

 ponds, rivers and marshes, of barn-yards, sheep- 

 folds, fish, plaster, lime, ashes and bones, and a 

 long list were satisfactorily tested. In fine they in- 

 vaded the animal, fossil and vegetable kingdoms, 

 by their energies and study. 



To the worn lands of the older states, all this 

 was necessary; but the South and Southwest 

 did not as yet feel a necessity for such inquiries 

 and additional farm labors. Our virgin soils al- 

 most spontaneously yielded a superabundance, 

 in the absence of great national highways of 

 trade and commerce. Our fathers are content 

 to clear away the forests, lay out new planta- 

 tions, gather and rear slaves, and were satisfied 

 with a wealth of possessions in land, cattle and 

 slaves, without (save exceptionally) the display 

 of ostentation. The love of letters and learning 

 being the peculiar province of what our people 

 term the liberal professions the lawyer and his 

 alter ego, the politician, the priest, and the mer- 

 chantthese esteemed it a duty to themselves 

 to lead their.agricultural neighbors; and it is but 

 just to say that among them might be found the 

 most patriotic and illustrious of my country- 

 men. The larger planters and well-to-do farm- 

 ers reflected some of their light, but the great 

 body of the farmers was scarcely felt or known 

 out of their neighborhoods. 



The old field schools could boast many a sim- 

 ple, honest pedagogue, and an occasional mas- 

 ter. The rude log huts in which they presided 

 have been the scene of the early efforts of men 

 whom the nation has delighted to honor. It 

 could not be expected that much emulation 

 would spring up among a people so easy going 



and satisfied with their surroundings. The youth 

 who felt the glow of faith and burned with am- 

 bitious ardor to distinguish himself, secured 

 with dilligenee his " license " to practice law, 

 then with courage sought new countries to es- 

 tablish his fame and family, and how many of 

 my Tennessee compatriots essayed it ? Go wher- 

 ever you will, their hospitable hands and hearts 

 are open to receive you. Our people want noth- 

 ing of natural endowment ; the rays of science 

 have heretofore fallen obliquely upon them; but 

 the season has advanced, and this sun is evidently 

 about to pass vertically over our heads ; a new 

 impulse is imparted, when newer and greater 

 forces are introduced ; it is a happy fact that the 

 prejudices inseparable from ignorance, and the 

 bias that is natural to sectional policy, seem to 

 be passing away under our system of free 

 schools and liberal endowments of libraries, col- 

 leges and universities by public and private lib- 

 erality ; by the example of the foremost citi- 

 zens, and that corps of editors and writers, cleri- 

 cal and secular, who are daily educating our 

 people up to a high standard in morals and phy- 

 sics, and a better appreciation of the forces sur- 

 rounding them. More children attend school 

 than ever before, more books, papers and maga- 

 ziues are in the hands of the people, and knowl- 

 edge is generally sought for. The farmer class, 

 notably, has felt the new impulse. It remained 

 for the grange to proclaim its objects and aims, 

 and set up its banner in the South ; the effect 

 was instantaneous ; as in the Northwest our 

 people listened and imbibed new hope of their 

 labors, and the call secured to them, struggling 

 under every embarrasment, a cry of succor ; 

 with the speed of the wind it flew from county 

 to county ; it enrolled under its banners the 

 best and worthiest men of the field ; there was 

 a period of amazement, and some thrifty men 

 might be seen to seek its altars, but these, 

 though baleful, could not check the torrent of 

 its overflow; wherever the principles of faith 

 and charity, duty and fraternity, consultation 

 and co-operation, of right and justice, were un- 

 folded, there were the converts to be found, and 

 they were our best men and least bigoted citi- 

 zens ; they exercised the God-given right to pro- 

 tect themselves and families against the ma- 

 chinations of usurers, sharpers an ' wits ; yet 

 they extended to all other classes a just liberality 

 of sentiment. 



This influence, then, has been at work to im- 

 prove our Southern agriculture ; it represses 

 turbulence and disorder, guards public justice, 

 discountenances illegalities, it stimulates new 

 experiments in the productions of the soil ; new 

 inventions, when better, are sought and applied 

 to cultivating, harvesting and securing crops ; 

 inquiries flash amongst us as the fire-fly lights 

 up with his frequent luminations our summer 

 nights; the agricultural aspect has changed and 

 daily advances in improvement. 



The modes of cultivation among our people 

 vary according to the degrees of their taste and 

 reading ; some are incapable of continuous ef- 

 fort, cling to the lunar superstitions, and follow 

 the narrow paths blazed by their fathers; others 

 are full of inquiry, engaged with eagerness in 

 the discussion of what relates to their profes- 

 sion, and read, and write for agricultural pa- 

 pers, of which class of literature the South, I 

 say it with pride, can exhibit some among the 

 best in the United States, the Rural Sun espe- 

 cially, published in Nashville ; and it is to be re- 

 gretted that there are farmers who fail to sub- 

 scribe for, read and file them. 



The best implements (as an evidence of Ten- 

 nessee progress) find a wide sale in our state ; 

 four or five large firms in Nashville supply Mid- 

 dle Tennessee, and North Alabama in part, 

 and are kept on the QUI vive by outside competi- 

 tion. 



I think these general remarks will cover the 



