26 



THE GENESEE FARMER. 



SOUTHERN ACiRICULTCEAL PROGRESS. 



Soox after the officers of the Southern Central Ag- 

 ricultural Suciety of Georgia were iuvited to co-ope- 

 rate with those of other State Associations for the 

 proTiiotion of agriculture, in the organization of a 

 National Society, a successful effort was made to form 

 v/hat is called, ^ye believe, "The Southern Agricultu- 

 ral Association." It was the design of the founders 

 of this association to embrace in its operations all 

 the slave-hulding States, and i\o more. Only a part 

 of them however have as yet joined in the movement; 

 although the society appears to be getting on very 

 harmoniously and successfully. It holds its meetings 

 semi-annually; the first was at Macon, in Georgia, the 

 second at Montgomery, in Alabama, the third is now 

 in session at Columbia, South Carolina, and it is ex- 

 pected that the next will be held next spring in Mis- 

 sissippi or Louisiana. We rejoice at this and all 

 oilitr systematic efforts to improve the agriculture 

 and hort'.culture of our common country, and de- 

 velop the s cial, moral and intellectual powers of the 

 masses. Lectures upon many subjects that properly 

 come within the range of rural affairs in the planting 

 States, are delivered before the association and pub- 

 lished. The task of writing an address to the slave- 

 holding States, which should set forth the spirit and 

 aim of the Association, was committed to Dr. "Wil- 

 liam C. Daxiel, of Georgia, a gentleman having the 

 talent, education and comprehensive views, to do jus- 

 tice to so grave a subject. As a part of the history 

 of agriculture in our own time, and especially as in- 

 dicating the advancement of public opinion in the 

 great cotton-growing region of this republic, we put 

 on record the following extract from said Address, 

 stating the objects of the Society: 



To improve our own agriculture, yielding peculiar pro- 

 ductions tlirough the agency of a normal labor, requiring a 

 distinct economy, and dependent on a climate of its own. 



To develope the resources, and unite and combine tlie 

 energies of the slave-holding States, so as to increase their 

 \\ ealth, power and dignity, as members of this confederacy. 



To establish and fortify a public opinion within our bor- 

 ders, in antagonism to that without, in relation to ourselves 

 and our institutions — the emanation of our own intelli- 

 gence, power and energies — a national sentiment — a great 

 truth, established by the exj>erience of the past, founded 

 on a sound morality, a broad humanity, and that Christi- 

 anity which especially inculcates a siucere humility and a 

 boundless charity. 



To enforce the growing sentiment, that those who are 

 to come after us and inherit our institutions, and the dan- 

 gers which threaten them, shall be reared at home and 

 educated in a full knowledge of rights, duties and respon- 

 sibilities — and to establish fully in the public mind the two- 

 fold value of a liigher standard of education, which will 

 impose such application on the part of the pupils, and de- 

 mand such qualitications on that of the teachers, as will 

 establish industrious habits in the former, and enable the 

 latter to instil and confirm in them a taste in after-life for 

 what has been learned in youth — thus supplying the two 

 most efficient agencies to prompt a career of usefulness 

 and honor — industry and cultivated and refined tastes — and 

 making our seats of learning effulgent centers of piety, 

 science, literature and refinement — illuminating and har- 

 monizing all interests, and blending all classes — the pride 

 and glory of the country. 



To enlist and foster those scientific pui-suits which reveal 

 to us the elements and character of our soils — instruct us 

 in the presence of those magines of fertilizers which Na- 

 ture has with so bountiful and considerate a hand provided 

 for the uses of the industrious and enterprising — and search 



out the histories and habits of the insect tribes whieli ae- 

 stroy (it is believed) annually a fifth of our crops, and sup- 

 ply us with a knowledge of them which may enable us to 

 guard against their future ravages. 



To promote the mechanic arts directly or indirectly aux- 

 illiary to agriculture — and by a generous confidence and 

 liberal patronage, raise those engaged in them to a social 

 position, always the just reward of intelligence, industry 

 and good conduct. 



To direct, as far as may be done, public sentiment against 

 the barriers which have been artfully raised to cut ott' (nir 

 commercial intercourse with dist;xnt countries, save through 

 Such outlets as are supplied by northern marts, exacting 

 tribute upon what we produce and consume. 



To e.vert an influence in establishing a system of com- 

 mon school instruction which will make Christians as well 

 as scholars of our children — which, in arming the rising 

 generation with the instruments of knowledge, will in- 

 struct them also in their proper uses — impressing ujKin 

 them, from first to last, that (especially under our form of 

 government) private worth constitutes the aggregate of 

 public good — ind tliat no one can disregard his duties to 

 those around him withnut positive injury to himself. 



To cultivate tlie ajititudes of the negro race for civiliza- 

 tion, and consequently Christianity, so that, by the time 

 that slavery shall have fulfilled its beneficent mission in 

 these States, a system may be authorized by the social con- 

 dition of that race here, to relieve it from its present ser- 

 vitufle without sinking it to the condition, moral, mental 

 and physical, into which the free negroes of the Northern 

 States and West Indies have been hopelessly precipitated, 

 by imposing upon them the duties and penalties of civili- 

 zation before they have cast off the features of their Afri- 

 can barbarism. 



It may be safely affirmed, that whenever the African, in 

 the instructive and wholesome pupilage to whicii ho is 

 subjected by his slavery, shall, in the course of many gene- 

 rations, reach a point of civilization rendering that pn)iil- 

 age useless to him, he will cease to be a slave as naturally 

 and certain as the training of a child merges gradually his 

 minority into manhood, and for a like reason. As all the 

 fruit do not ripen on the tree at the same time, no more 

 will our negroes become fitted at once for release from 

 slavery. But as they do become qualified they will be lib- 

 erated, as many already have been. In many slave-liuld- 

 ing communities we see negroes who have become free, 

 because, having acquired the essentials of civilization, by 

 an irresistable law which man cannot, if he would, defeat, 

 they are raised from slavery to freedom, without detriment 

 to the master or man. Such has been the operation of 

 slavery generally throughout Christendom — for there has 

 been a time in which slavery existed in each European 

 countrv, and history scarcely reveals when it terminated in 

 any of them — so natural was its death — expiring of old 

 age — dying out by insensible degrees. Thus is the death 

 to which slavery is doomed in the United States. This is 

 the only termination which it can reach, consistent either 

 with his own rights or with our duties to the African race 

 transplanted here, whose reasonable labors has enriched 

 the land, and whose subjection will have prepared it for 

 civilization, and consequently Cliristianity. In speaking of 

 the natural tern)ination of slavery, we connect it necessa- 

 rily with that civilization, the child and foster-parent of 

 Christianity, which has superseded the barbarisms and 

 idolatries of paganism — the civilization of modern times. 

 Other and inferior civilizations which have worn them- 

 selves out, did not and could not exercise so beneficent an 

 influence, for want of the elements of our lasting and pro- 

 gressive civilization. Inasmuch as our civilization is founded 

 upon Christianity, its essentials will be durable as that 

 faith, however it may become modified and improved in its 

 progress. Christianity is the first faith w hich has inculca- 

 ted, as a first duty, love to our neighbors, and the civiliza- 

 tion which has grown up under illuminating power is the 

 only one that the world ever knew, which has been estab- 

 lished upon a broad humanity. It is that humanity which 

 gives to it a vitality to lift all the races of men up to a 

 higher and higher condition, and to prepare them in tran- 

 sition for their new duties in their recent relations. 



