146 



Prince George Agricultural Society. 



Vol. XII. 



Prince George Agricultural Society. 



We make the following extracts from an Address 

 delivered by Thomas F. Bowie, on the 15th of Tenth 

 month last, before the Prince George County Agricul- 

 tural Society, Md. We find the Address in the Marl- 

 borough Gazette. — Ed. 



The most important improvements which 

 have taken place in the practice of husband- 

 ry, within the last few centuries, may indeed 

 be justly ascribed to the formation of Agri- 

 cultural Societies! The progress of Chris- 

 tianity and the consequent advance of civil- 

 ization may, it is true, be claimed as the 

 prolific parents of every melioration which 

 has taken place in the condition of the hu- 

 man race. Their prominent and controlling 

 influences are no less seen in reforming the 

 habits and softening the asperities of crude 

 and unregenerate nature, than in the pro- 

 gress of science, and in the general diffu- 

 sion and increase of knowledge among men. 

 To these, as the remote causes of every 

 blessing which has been vouchsafed to man, 

 we yield our willing assent. But as the 

 faithful chroniclersof truth we must remem- 

 ber, that Christianity and civilization flou- 

 rished for more than twelve hundred years, 

 before any visible improvement took place 

 in the pursuit of agriculture. It had existed 

 to be sure, from the earliest period of which 

 we have any account, both with savage and 

 civilized nations, as one of the most useful 

 and important of human occupations, but its 

 practice was unaccompanied by any other 

 knowledge than that derived from mere ex- 

 perience, and was confined for the most part 

 to the simple process of exhaustion, unaided 

 by any acquaintance with those principles 

 of re-invigoration, which later years have 

 so successfully developed. The ancient 

 Chaldeans and Egyptians were skilful in 

 practical husbandry. The Egyptians as- 

 cribed the invention of tiie art to their god 

 Osiris; and such was th^r veneration for it, 

 that they actually worshipped animals that 

 were employed in tilling the earth. The 

 ancient Chinese were also well versed in 

 the practice of it ; and to them has been as- 

 cribed the invention of drill husbandry, which 

 is now so successfully practiced both in Eng- 

 land and in this country. Mago, the cele- 

 brated Carthagenian general, wrote no less 

 than twenty-eight books upon the subject of 

 agriculture, which. Columella informs us, 

 were translated into Latin by an express de 

 cree of the Roman Senate. The ancient 

 Romans thought it the most honourable em 

 ployment of life, and that the highest civic 

 honours belonged to him who cultivated well 

 his own lot of ground. Cufo the great, 

 wrote a large treatise on agriculture, and 



was the first Latin author on the subject. 

 He was followed by Varro and Virgil. Colu- 

 mella, who lived in the reign of the Emperor 

 Claudius, wrote twelve books on the subject 

 But from his time to the reign of Constan- 

 tine IV., agriculture seems to have declined, 

 when it was again revived by that Emperor, 

 who made a large collection of the most use- 

 ful practices and precepts which he caused 

 to be extracted from the best authors, under 

 the name of Geoponics. From the time of 

 Constantino IV., however, down to the six- 

 teenth century, agriculture was much ne- 

 glected and seems to have sunk into great 

 disrepute. It was not until about the six- 

 teenth century, when agricultural associa- 

 tions began to be established, that the pur- 

 suit of agriculture assumed a more elevated 

 rank in England. At this period, men of 

 genius and of science devoted their attention 

 to the subject, and in a short time it received 

 an impulse from their philosophical research- 

 es, which soon placed it among the most de- 

 sirable and interesting pursuits of life. 



Among the first in England, who invested 

 the subject of agriculture with a charm, 

 wholly unknown to it before, was Sir Antho- 

 ny Fitzherbert, an eminent Judge of the 

 Court of Common Pleas. His writings on 

 the subject not only stimulated men in the 

 highest walks of life to the pursuit of it, but 

 they unfolded a fund of knowledge concern- 

 ing the growth of plants, the nature and 

 properties of soils, and the various kinds of 

 aliment required for the different vegetable 

 productions of the earth, which gave to the 

 pursuit of agriculture, all the elements of a 

 refined taste, and of strict philosophical re- 

 search. These, together with the writings 

 of Sir Hugh Piatt, and of Gabriel Pluttes, 

 at a somewhat later period, the two latter of 

 whom treated more particularly on the sub- 

 jects of manuring and of draining, worked 

 an entire revolution in the whole system of 

 husbandry, which before that time had been 

 practiced in England. What had once been 

 considered a low and menial pursuit, became 

 now, one of the most prevailing among men 

 of rank and of education; and Peers of the 

 realm, as well as country gentlemen, whose 

 fortunes had been impaired by the political 

 violence of the times, found it necessary to 

 seek rehige from distress, by engaging in 

 agricultural employments. These results 

 necessarily lead to more extended inquiry 

 after that sort of information which could 

 only be derived from the experience of prac- 

 tical men, as well as to more thorough ex- 

 aminations into the nature and properties of 

 the various ffinds of stimulating substances, 

 which might be supposed to possess the qual- 

 ities of fertilization. What could not be 



