THE FARMERS' REGISTER. 



683 



judicious aid, miiihl be preserved to ihe end o( 

 lime. From all euch ciiliivalors may Heaven 

 speedily deliver our sufieriiiir state ; not, indeed, 

 by killini^ them ofF, but by eiilier ronvening iliem 

 into improvinsj larmers, or if that he utterly hope- 

 less, by inl't'ciing them with the budge-all-iiever, 

 belbre they cjuiie kill the lands which they now 

 occupy to the exclusion perhaps of those who 

 would take deliiilu in resiuscitaling their nearly 

 exhausted powers. 



It is deeply painful, .my long tried and worthy 

 friends, for an old man, like me, who knew our 

 good old mother Virginia, in her most palmy 

 days, when her Washington, and many of his 

 compatr'ots were living examples of what her 

 children ought to be, now to witness the fast de- 

 clininir love of so many of her sons, for so good 

 and worthy a parent. Unless it can be revived, 

 unless it can be speedily made to g'ow with all 

 its Ibrmer ardour and intensity — she, alas ! must 

 soon sink to the lowest grade among her sister 

 Btates, in the midst of which she formerly held 

 the first and highest rank. Why should this bel 

 Her soil has all the capacity for improvement 

 which it ever had — that, thank God, is not yet de- 

 stroyed, whatever else she may have lost. Her 

 internal resources are even greater than they were 

 ever suppo>ed to be. For many of them have 

 been much developed of late years, which, form- 

 erly, v/ere not known to exist ; whilst the power 

 of her people to use them beneficially has been 

 considerably increased by education, although 

 that is still far, very far from what it ought to be ; 

 especially such education as will best fit an agri- 

 cultural people for that profession which nature 

 herself has pointed out as the one that a great 

 majority of our population ought to pursue. Why 

 then, let me ask, should any of Virginia's sons 

 desert her? la she not as worthy as ever of our 

 regard, nay of our warmest afl'ection ? Is she 

 not more in need than ever, of the sustaining 

 arms of her children to support her? Both 

 shame and gratitude answer — yes, yes, verily, her 

 claims of every kind upon us are not only un- 

 diminished in number, but far stronger in degree 

 than they ever were, and imperatively demand 

 that we should acknowledge them by as great 

 devotion to her service, as our patriotic Ibre-fiithers 

 evinced for her in the darkest days of her revolu- 

 tionary struggles. 



I have reserved for the last — the notice of an 

 obstacle to our improvement in husbandry, which 

 I might, perhaps, as well have refrained from 

 mentioning, since there seems to be hardly the 

 most distant hope left, either of removing it alto- 

 gether, or of diminishing its power. Tlie cause 

 is the torrent like conversion of that large portion 

 of our female population, chiefly the wives and 

 daughters of our farmers and planters, who once 

 might justly be called, stay-at- homatives, into a 

 sort of nomadic tribe, or wanderers. Before their 

 conversion, they constituted the very file and soul 

 of every domestic establishment which had any 

 reputation for the abundance of its "creature 

 comforts," for the cordial hospitality with which 

 they were administered, and Ibr every thing which 

 made home delightful, not only to iheiiisHlves, 

 but to all the male portion of the family. But 

 since their lamentable change, go where you 

 will — north, south, east, or west, jou meet them 

 in countless numbers, many, even wiih infants in 

 their arms, fleeing to and fro, with (he vtlucity 



almost of sky-rockets, and apparently with little 

 more consciousness of the propelling power which 

 is thus incessantly driving them over the face of 

 the earth, and the great waters thereof, in search 

 of something, ihey often know not what, unless 

 it be to kill their great eneiiiy — Time, and to see 

 sights. The mighty agent of this learllil revolu- 

 tion is that gigantic power— steam, a power 

 which, among numerous other most marvellous 

 (eats, has nearly accomplished that modest wish 

 of two lovers in one of mad Nat. Lee's plays, who 

 besoutfht the gods to " annihilate both time and 

 i-pace." The instruments used (or accomplishing 

 this revolution are steam-boats and rail-road 

 locomotives ; and so constantly are they engaged 

 in the service of the new converts from the siay- 

 at-homative class, that should you wish to find 

 any of them, the particular spot which they 

 honor with the name of home, is one of the very 

 last places on the face of the earth in which you 

 should look for them, unless in the depth of win- 

 ter, when the enow and the ice preclude all tra- 

 velling, either by land or water. The almost in- 

 evitable consequence of the prevalence of this 

 absenteeism is, that when the females of the 

 homestead scamper off from it, their fathers am', 

 husbands, sons and brothers also must run with 

 them, either from an affectionate regard for their 

 safety, or, because they themselves have become 

 incurably infected with the wandering fever. 

 What follows 7 why the females abandon all 

 domestic duties, and the men give up their fiirms 

 during the busiest seasons of the year, to those 

 who have no other interest whatever in them thao 

 to use them exclusively fbr their own special be- 

 nefit. When the entire exhaustion of the wan- 

 dering fund compels the proprietors to a reluctant 

 return, they find, generally, that every thing has 

 gone wrong ; all their orders have been either 

 totally neglected or executed in such a way as 

 to do more harm than good. This state of things, 

 inevitably creates great disappointment, a few 

 renewals of which suffices to beget much luke- 

 warmoess, if not absolute aversion in regard to 

 agricultural occupations. Under such circum- 

 stances, improvements in husbandry are things 

 nearly as impracticable as the "extraction of 

 blood from turnips, or sun-beams from cucum- 

 bers,'' and it is almost folly to hope for any im- 

 provements, at least from our wandering farmers, 

 unless they and their families can learn once more 

 to resume the thrifty domestic habits of their 

 ancestors. But this resumption, I fear, will 

 prove infinitely harder on their part, than the re- 

 sumption of specie payments will prove on the 

 part of our banks; although the Ibrmer is still 

 more essential, if that be possible, than the latter, 

 to the permanent prosperity of agriculture. 



I might have extended my enumeration of the 

 obstacles to our improvement in husbandry to a 

 much greater length, had time permitted me. 

 And there was one especially, in regard to which 

 I had a eirong desire to add something more to 

 what I have of>en said on Ibrmer occasions, — f 

 mean the shameful neglect of our legislatures to 

 give any aid to agriculture. But the remedy for 

 this crying evil having been, at all times, in the 

 hands of the people themselves, if they do not 

 choose to exeit their curative power, it seems al- 

 most presumptuous in the few who see and deeply 

 feel this evil, to utter complaints against the It;- 

 gislative authors of it, 



