28 



&!)c .farmer's ittontbto tlisitor. 



the author of die new-year's poetry." A morlest 

 denial of the authorship only confirmed our rev- 

 ered friend the better in his declaration and as- 

 surance, who urged as a compliment to our 

 blushes that we would he willing to own and 

 confess letter the truth when we should have 

 more experience. The quaintness of the first 

 lines of this poetry, without douht, deceived the 

 parson in his opinion : the two first lines were — 



'■ Though in my teens, unskilled in learned lore, 

 I claim sume sense, and humbly strive lor more." 



Years before this, while an instructor in one of 



the Boston schools, Mr. Everett had written the 



poetry published in Caleb Bingham's American 



Preceptor, which has since been spoken in school 



by thousands, embracing the lines — 



11 And where's the boy but three leet high, 

 Has made improvement more than 1 ? 

 * * # * * * 



These thoughts inspire my youthful mind 

 To be the greatest of mankind." 



From Amherst about the year 1808, Mr. Everett 

 returned to the practice of the law in Iloston : at 

 the time of his shooting young Austin in State- 

 street, Thomas O. Selfiidge was Mr. Everett's 

 law partner: afterwards we find by advertise- 

 ment in the Boston papers, David Everett and 

 Lemuel Shaw were partners in the practice. 



About the year 1808, Mr. Everett changed from 

 his neutral political ground. He look the Amer- 

 ican side in a controversy with Stephens, the 

 author of a British pamphlet entitled " War in 

 Disguise," in which the seizure of American 

 ships on the ocean, trading with France and its 

 allies was justified as lawful capture. The ans- 

 wer of Mr. Everett, containing a perfect refuta- 

 tion of the British pretension, blowing iis author 

 and his argument sky-high, and proving the 

 practice to be only privileged piracy {bunded in 

 the deepest injustice and violation of human 

 rights, attracted at the lime the attention and 

 commendation of patriots and civilians on both 

 sides of the Atlantic. The justification of British 

 aggressions by the federalists of New England 

 threw Mr. Everett on the side of Jefferson and 

 Madison in the lime of the embargo, when parly 

 spirit run as high in the country as it ever has 

 since. Mr. Everett, zealous to defend the ground 

 be had taken, established the Boston Patriot 

 within a few weeks of the time, when the age 

 of twenty-one years carried the editor from Am- 

 herst to Concord, anil placed him there at the 

 head of the New Hampshire Patriot, which has 

 been continued from that day lo this. 



In the library of Congress, as preserved and 

 filed with his own hand, is ilie first volume of 

 the Boston Patriot, directed to Mr. Jefferson. — 

 Recollecting that Mr. Everett, who knew n<- only 

 as a hoy before eighteen, had said something 

 favorable at the first start, we looked into the 

 volume ami found the article, the vanity of re- 

 publishing which, when an old man of nearly 

 sixty, our readers will excuse. It is as follows: 



From the Boston Patriot. May 18, 1809, 

 (in Library of Congress directed "Hon. Thos. Jefferson. ") 



" Foil many a zem of purest ray sirtnr 

 The deep unfa homed cave* of ocean bear: 

 Full mmy a flower i» doomed to blush unseen, 

 And vouete iU fragrance on the desert air '' 



From the great number of mushroom paper!! 

 nourished by the tilth of passion, in the hot-bed 

 of party, our metropolitan editors(not always tin- 

 most cool and discriminating of mortals] Bre apl 

 to overlook and fling aside, with the general 

 mass, many valuable productions from the coun- 

 try. We have, in some instances, (alien, unin- 

 tentionally, into the same error. 



We observe, with pleasure, the phoenix of the 



the late American Patriot at Concord, in the cen- 

 tre of our sister State. This paper is now owned 

 and edited by Mr. Isaac Hill, a young gentle- 

 man of prime talents and inflexible principles, 

 whose persevering industry, while an apprentice 

 with Air. dishing, in the office of the Farmer's 

 Cabinet, added to a good common education, 

 those higher qualifications, which enable him, at 

 this early period of life, to enter at once into an 

 honorable competition as an editor, with his in- 

 telligent and independent preceptor. The ability 

 with which these papers are conducted, and their 

 corresponding influence in the Stale, leaves us at 

 a loss whether Amherst, or Concord, is best en- 

 titled to the appellation of the '■ head -quarters of 

 good principles " in New Hampshire. In every 

 sense republican, they have some shades of dif- 

 ference in their political complexion ; but they 

 both exhibit the strong masculine features of 

 good sense, independence, and patriotism. 



David Everett was too sanguine, if not too ec- 

 centric and too erratic long to continue in a di- 

 rect track. When he became a partisan he went 

 into an election contest with the zeal bordering 

 on ferocity: like a desperate gambler, his fame 

 and his fortune were up to any stake. He lost 

 hundreds, and perhaps thousands, in reckless 

 bets when Gerry failed agaist Strong for Gover- 

 nor in 1809 and 1810. In 1812, he changed his 

 ground and ruined all his prospects for business 

 by sacrificing more than he was worth in a news- 

 paper called the Pilot, advocating DeWitt Clinton 

 for the Presidency. Under the high excitement 

 of disappointed hopes, he left his native New 

 England, and beyond the mountains, died at 

 Marietta, Ohio, at which place be had not even 

 the solace of his chosen partner for life to soothe 

 his dying hour. 



The editor of the "Genesee Farmer," (pub- 

 lished at Rochester, N. Y.,) while on a visit to 

 Augusta, (Georgia) writes under date of Jan. 

 1848, as follows: 



Southern Agriculture and Customs. 



Our readers will hardly credit the story that 

 potatoes are now brought to market which have 

 grown in Georgia within the lost three months, 

 in open air. Yet such is said to be the fact, and 

 ■a matter of no uncommon occurrence. Farmers 

 plough, plant, sow, and harvest, more or less 

 every month in the year. Barley, oats, peas, and 

 young clover are now growing in the middle of 

 January. How they contrive to escape death by 

 bard freezing, 1 do not understand. Every day 

 brings out some strange novelty. At first it 

 seemed very odd to see men driving oxen with 

 bridle bits, head-stalls and lines, precisely as 

 horses are driven at the north. In some cases 

 ropes are tied lo the horns of either ox to pull 

 him to the right or left. At Columbia, the capi- 

 tal of South Carolina, 1 was amused to witness 

 several very small oxen harnessed each single in 

 a cart, and driven with bits in mouth 20 miles lo 

 market, with two or three hundred pounds of 

 corn stalks and a few eggs. One need not go 

 out of ihe Union to find a people quite as primi- 

 tive in Ihe management of cattle as old Jacob, 

 who contrived lo breed so many that were "ring- 

 streaked and speckled." These animals fire so 

 hard at the South that they are mere dwafs, and 

 generally very poor at that. Sheep have long 

 legs and tails, long necks anil precious little 

 wool. To prevent its total loss in the thorny 

 hush wood, sheep are sheared or shorn twice a 

 year and never washed. Their fleeces are mat- 

 ted with burns, and worth next lo nothing. In- 

 deed tlicy are kept for mutton, not for their 

 wool. 



There are, I believe, more goats than sheep in 

 Georgia, and more dogs than goats and sheep 

 put together. Every negro is ambitious of being 

 the master of a doif, as he cannot be of himself. 

 1 have visited a good many plantations, ft-fu wo- 

 men plough, '-hop, grub trees, and how field la- 

 borers eat, drink and sleep in their huts. This i- 

 a branch of domestic economy, however, which 

 ran no more be discussed than my " Laconics," 

 or the rights of labor in the free' Slates. The 



re'/ulal" l.ihoi- Mini whnlpsooiM thiol ftf alnona -m-l 



selves and offspring, cause this class to multiply 

 with greater rapidity than any other in the world. 

 They will soon number ten millions in the Uni- 

 ted States. Nor can you prevent their rapid in- 

 crease, except by the most inhuman mutilation. 

 It is the whites, the physically inferior race, not 

 the blacks, who are the sufferers by the impor- 

 tation of so many wild people from Africa, by 

 the commercial traders of Old and New England, 

 previous to the year 1808, when the slave trade 

 was abolished. 



Compare the condition of the natives now in 

 Africa with the negroes of the South, and every 

 one must see that the latter have gained immeas- 

 urably by being transplanted from a land where 

 civilization has not advanced one inch in four 

 thousand years, to the heart of a christian nation. 

 The great truth is not to be denied that no other 

 people have advanced so much in an equally 

 short period as have the children of the men 

 and women who were stolen from Africa, many 

 of whom are still living to teach their masters 

 and the children of the lalter, an African dialect. 

 In a rural population where there are seven ne- 

 groes to one white person, and the blacks nurse 

 the whites as well as their own offspring, what 

 language, think you, the child will learn from its 

 nurse and playmates? 



It is the European, not the African race that 

 have, and must long" continue to suffer by the 

 presence of 3,000,000 of negroes, who, being at 

 the bottom in the scale of humanity, must una- 

 voidably pull down to their level the smaller 

 number with whom they associate, unless the 

 latter draw them up to a common platform. 



The great and crowning evil in all so-called 

 christian nations is "the love of money." In 

 that regard there is not a particle of difference 

 between slaveholders and non-slaveholders which 

 I can discover. All are alike willing to chew 

 and smoke slave-grown tobacco, eat slave-grown 

 rice and sugar, and wear slave-grown cotton, if 

 these things are only sold a little cheaper, so that 

 the consumer divides with the planter the profits 

 of unrewarded labor! The constant cheapening 

 of productive toil in the \'vee. States, in Europe, 

 and the slave States, I regard as a wrong which 

 a just God will not fail lo punish. But those that 

 think they profit by gelling from their fellow- 

 beings more than they give in excfiange, will not 

 tolerate a discussion of the lights of labor in any 

 country, so I dismiss the subject. 



It is much to be regretted that agriculturists 

 do not navel more anil see how their brother 

 farmers manage things in distant quarters of this 

 nation of thirty States. Travel will cure a thou- 

 sand prejudices and eirors which every man un- 

 consciously falls into. It will enable the best in- 

 formed to impart most valuable information to 

 ihose who are fanning precisely as their great 

 grandfathers did a century ago. Some of the 

 implements used by this class of cultivators are 

 truly curiosities. Railroads and steamboats 

 ought to mingle the citizens of every Stale with 

 ihose of all ihe others. 



This is a good country for poor northern men, 

 if they tire only steady and industrious. Labor 

 is not looked upon as disreputable. On the con- 

 trary, white laboring men are more esteemed 

 here than at the North. Mechanics are scarce, 

 and command high wages. I have heard more 

 said in favor of home manufactures at the South 

 than 1 ever did in Rochester and Buffalo. The 

 spirit of improvement has taken a strong hold of 

 the public mind, and great and salutary changes 

 will soon be witnessed. Any people can achieve 

 almost any amount of good, if they will. All 

 should aim to improve their system of farming a 

 little every year. The planters of the South 

 heal the fanners of the North in ditching side- 

 hills. These ditches go around Ihe hill at a 

 small inclination, (six inches in a rod) by which 

 all surface water alter rains is carried off genily 

 so as not to wash ploughed land. On pretty 

 steep bills the ditches are more than 40 or 50 

 feet apart. They are not crossed in ploughing. 



Considering their long life, and their powers 

 of endurance, mules are far more economical 

 for farm work than horses. Here, too, northern 

 fanners might lake a useful lesson in this region. 



Potato Disease. — This disease has been 

 known for several years tit Bogota, in South 



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