AND H O R T I (' U I. T IJ II A L II E G I S T K K . 



pmiLISlIKl) BV JOSKPll BllKCK * CO., NO M NOKTH MARKET STIlKliT, (AoRiouiTO«At W*««iioi««.)-ALLEN PUTNAM. EDITOR. 



BOSTON, WEDNRSDAY KVKNING, DKCICMBKU 22, 1841. 



I .vo. -ta 



N. E. FARMER 



AGRICULTURAL ADDRESS. 

 The Formers' Register contains an AJdresg to 

 e .\gricultural Society of Cumberland county, 

 bv VV. S. .MiiKTOw, President of the Society, 

 he object of the ndilrosa is to show that mun, by 

 e laws of nature id doomed to labor, and that 

 )edionca to this law generally ensures success, 

 fler opening the subject in a happy aianner.lhe 

 tlior imagines a traveller making observations 

 tiio " Old Dominion.'" Similar sights may eoiiio- 

 mes be met with elsewhere : — 



Let oiir traveller now coma about the bonie- 

 ead, and he will find the dwelling-houso good, 

 d, or indifferent, as the case may be. The same 

 ay be said of the granary. The stable is apt to 

 J indifferent — in many instances »ery bod; with 

 wet and filthy floor, and sometimes with mire eo 

 p at tlie door, as to require some hunger to in- 

 jcc a horse to encounter the entrance. Perchance 

 3ar the door there may be piles of manure, long 

 nsed by the rains, not actually put there to 8|Joil, 

 it thrown out to prevent the horses from being 

 ilf buried, on lying down. This is admitted to 

 an extreme case, but (or its slovenliness and 

 uelty deserves rebuke. Imagine our traveller 

 ing at an animal which might have stood in 

 >ld relief among Pharaoh's lean kine, begrimed 

 ith filth, and covered with ice, its hollow eyes 

 ournfully turned towards the fodder-stack, with 

 hinder legs almost crossed, to present the sharp- 

 edge possible to the wind, while its fore ones 

 re stretched, with almost dying energy as props, 

 /ere he from Yorkshire, England, or our own 

 outh Branch of Potomac, he niiglil feel some 

 >ubt abi.'ji the species of this poor beast ; he would 

 cl certain, however, from its horns, its mournful 

 iring, and chewing its cud — if cud it had to 

 new — that it belonged to the genus " Bos." Such 

 picture as this, also, is very rare, but, I think I 

 ive seen something like it The owner of this 

 limal means to improve his stock when he gets 

 «dy. But what is that our stranger is inspecting 

 > narrowly ? Its face is sharp, and it is sharp all 

 /er. It looks as if it had just passed through a 

 lUing mill. lie has read of the opossum, and he 

 ould like to take a look at its pouch. It roots, 

 jwever, most furiously, and if it only had cars, he 

 ould suspect it must belong to the hog family. 

 lerhaps the owner of these animals sells corn, 

 ome few instances of such misguided, left-handed 

 sonomy may be found in our country, and as no 

 inishment can be inflicted on them except ridi- 

 ulc, they should have enough of that I am hap- 

 gentlemen, to feel assured that such extreme 

 ;s of mismanagement are not to be found in 

 vicinity, or among our members ; and to think 

 lat I perceive evidences of something like im- 

 rovcnient. Let us earnestly endeavor to make 

 much more manifest. 

 But let us introduce our traveller to the people. 

 he be fit to make observations at all, he has al- 

 idy observed that success in agriculture, or in- 



deed any thing else, depends much more upon 

 them, as agents, than upon any thing on which they 

 may operate. 



Permit inc to premise, that whatever reflections 

 may be made in relation to the young, arises from 

 no unkind feeling towards thorn, but from a deep 

 and mournful conviction, that their fiiults are pro- 

 duced mainly by errors of their parents and teach- 

 ers, and errors in public sentiment. 



The time was, when our boys were drilled in 

 the rudimen'.s of education, by sound scholars 

 among the Episcopal clergy. Afterwards, by well 

 qualified clergymen of other denominations. These 

 gentlemen rigidly inculcated on their pupils, that 

 while they were boys, they cartninly were not 

 men, and, when necessary, they made them sensi- 

 bly /tc^ the truth of this. The impression was BO 

 deep, that even after they became men, they could 

 hardly believe it. But the conviction of the truth, 

 in this instance, had a much better foundation in 

 reality than it would, had it been assumed in ad- 

 vance of the fact. 



In more modern times, somebody discovered that 

 the clergy had too much important business to oc- 

 cupy every moment of their time, to spend any part 

 of it in the education of youth ; even before any 

 safe and well ndjiistod scheme for their education 

 could be devised. 



Since this discovery, parents and teachers have 

 got together by advertisement, and every other 

 conceivable mode, except the right one, that of a 

 thorough knowledge of character. These teachers 

 have generally been knowing ones enough to find 

 that the best way to become jiopular and to get the 

 most scholars was, to electioneer among the boy-i. 

 Since then, the boys have been knowing ones too — 

 have had their day — have been men — and some of 

 them great men at fourteen. And now, who does 

 not see that they, in a great measure, rule the 

 country ? 



It would be needless to give a detailed account 

 of female education, in this country, in former times. 

 Suffice it to say, that girls learned but very little 

 at school. They were taught to read, write, and 

 cypher a little, by a matronly lady, in the family 

 or at school in the neighborhood, while very young ; 

 after which their edui-ation was chiefly domestic 

 and maternal. The best of books were put into 

 their hands, and thny acquired a taste for them, 

 and such women as they made immeasurably greater 

 men than he who addresses you have told the 

 world. 



Our stranger in forming acquaintance, begins 

 with the young ladies. He first sees them at 

 church. He is struck with their mode of getting 

 there. He has somehow learned that their moth- 

 ers were not loo proud to ride to church, ^ico on a 

 horse. But now he sees a single sylph-like being, 

 who he could have easily imagined to have flown 

 there, issuing from a fine carriage, which cost her 

 father more money than he can leave her as a lega- 

 cy. Our traveller is a bachelor, and wishes to 

 lake the grand master's degree in life. He has a 

 great horror of carriages, as their introduction 

 brings with it all manner of luxury into ^ commu- 



nity. He begins to iliiiik this ih not tho country 

 for him, but, like a prudent man, reriolvea to Iook 

 further. Her dress probibly cost more than iier 

 mother thus expended in five years, or hor graiwl- 

 inolher in her life-time. Ho finds Uiat they all 

 come t» church in carriages, and thai lliero arc 

 more of these on tho ground than can be readily 

 counted. He thinks ho cannot settle in Virginia. 

 He must look further. On getting better acquaint- 

 ed, he finds that the ladies arc very accomplished 

 in novel-reading, know somolhing of grammar, ge- 

 ography, astronomy, geology, mineralogy, chemis- 

 try, in short, of almost every thing, except, per- 

 haps, self-denial in expenditure, the source whence 

 money comes, and tho art of hoiise-keoping. He 

 makes his augurigs of the future prospects of agri- 

 culture in our dear old dominion. ' What a pity,' 

 he thinks, ' that these fine girls have not been wtH 

 grounded in a thorough taste for the British clos- 

 sics generally, and especially such poets as Milton, 

 Thomson, Young and Cowper!' 



He turns to the boys. Many of these ha might, 

 have taken for young Indians, had their skins been 

 rod, and their persons wrapped in blankets. 'Ihcir 

 hair, dressed a la mode Cherokee, hangs down to 

 their throats. Their velvet hands arc covered 

 with silk or kid gloves. Their dress, of the most 

 costly materials, is fashioned in that style which 

 but a few years ago fixed upon those who had the 

 firm ha^HJlMLto assume it, tho appellation of dun- 

 dics^^^^^^^^rcilious glance and magnificent 

 striu^^^^^^^Rore loudly than words, 'ulio but. 

 we '-"^^P^^Me the lords cf creation !' .\nd 

 many of them carry out this Eontimcnt ; for they 

 rule all about them. Sii*li ina'ellous precocity 

 amazes our stranger. Bin ho p.-severes in his in- 

 vestigations, and finds that they really art men, 

 for they have their wine parlies, and card parties, 

 and sometimes spend more money in one of tiieir 

 nightly orgies, than their fathers make — as clear 

 profit — in a whole year. And that iJiey swejr in 

 onths as long and as senselessly arranged as their 

 own dishevelled locks. ' Whit are their calcula- 

 tions ?' he asks in amazement. Why, they expect, 

 as soon as they become legally men, they will, by 

 instinct, or in some oilier mysterious way, be per- 

 feet prodigies, and feeling that Ihcy have indeed 

 tasted of the tree of knowledge, they threaten, that 

 if the old mnn,aa the father is irreverently called, 

 iiiulertako to control them, they will march to .Ma- 

 bama or Mississippi, or be off to Texas. But how 

 comes such deep depravity at so early an age.' It 

 is found (oh horrid!) that these parlies are gene- 

 rally contrived by one or more older br ys with the 

 same profusion of hair on their head& either natu-. 

 rul or artificial, and a perfect mop of it on Iheir 

 faces and throats — and that all this is their diaboli- 

 cal work. Now, 08 to tho fashion of the hair, I 

 am not very particular ; but when it becomes so 

 perfectly the ra/^e, as to give an impress to charac- 

 ter, and exert on influence on morals, it deserves 

 rebuke. It is true, I have not learned that since 

 the days of Samson, length of hair had any con- 

 nection with strength, either of brawn or intellect, 

 and if one does not fall into some delusion on thii 



