MONTHLY 



JOURNAL OF AGRICULTURE. 



VOL. III. NOVEMBER, 1847. NO. 5. 



SOUTH CAROLINA AGRICULTURE. 



ADDRESS OF HON. MITCHEL KING.— CULTIVATION OF THE OLIVE. 



A YEAR has nearly rolled round since this learned and eloquent Address was 

 delivered before the State Agricultural Society of South Carolina, in the Hall of 

 the House of Representatives, by Hon. Mitchel King, and eagerly as we read 

 and much as we admire it, we have not had an opportunity to take of it the fa- 

 vorable notice deserved ; neither can we now. We would fain give it entire, but 

 there are hundreds sent, for which room cannot be found ; and there is the less 

 necessity for it as these addresses are generally preserved in pamphlet form, and 

 distributed in the local papers and preserved in the annals of societies, betore 

 whom they are delivered. It would fill the pages of any periodical less volumi- 

 nous than this, to record them all. 



We have on other occasions remarked on the erroneousness of the impression, 

 that the business and literature of Agriculture) we can hardly yet venture to em- 

 ploy the word Science) are less cultivated and understood in the South than in the 

 jSorlk or East ! A more erroneous impression could not well be entertained. Not 

 only is there, as we believe, a greater proportionate number of well-read agricultur- 

 ists in Virginia, South Carolina or Louisiana, than among the same number of land- 

 holders east ; but their field-work is as well executed on large plantations, as in 

 any part of the Union. But, there is not the same economy — the same attention 

 to, and exact amonnt of the out-goings and the in-comings. The Eastern farmer 

 has the prudence to take care of the pence, while the Southern planter spends 

 his pounds. We heard a venerable octogenarian judge in Virginia last summer 

 remark, that he had seen in the time of General Washington, (who was himself 

 passionately fond of the chase, and somewhat addicted, as an amateur breeder and 

 racer, to the sports of the turf;) that he had seen as many as four hundred (we 

 think it was four hundred) private coaches on the race-course at Fredericksburg, 

 at one time ; several with four horses and so?ne with six. But those times have 

 gone by. Temfora mutantur et nos mutamur cum illis. 



As to the formation of agricultural societies for intellectual cultivation and ad- 

 vancement of the great art of husbandry, many suppos? that it not only originated 

 in the North, but know not that in the South to this day any such manifestation 

 of sensibility to its rights and interests has taken place. Whereas we see in this 

 admirable Address, what was indeed not new to us, that 



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