54 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



For the Southern Planter. 



IMPROVEMENT OF THE SOIL AND OF 

 THE MIND. 



The late excellent Judge Buel has left us 

 much information upon the "improvement of 

 the soil and of the mind." If I forget not, he 

 generally had an essay on the improvement of 

 the mind, for the benefit of the rising generation, 

 both male and female. It is evident to every 

 observing man, that the improvement of the soil 

 and the mind must go together. Their influ- 

 ence acts reciprocally on each other. The wisest 

 of men, Solomon, says, " I went by the field of 

 the slothful, and by the vineyard of the man 

 void of understanding ; and lo, it was all grown 

 over with thorns, and nettles had covered the 

 face thereof, and the stone wall thereof was 

 broken down. Then I saw, and considered it 

 well ; I looked upon it and received instruction. 

 Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding 

 of the hands to sleep: so shall thy poverty come 

 as one that travaileth ; and thy want as an armed 

 man," (a sentinel, I suppose, who dare not leave 

 his post until relieved.) See Book of Proverbs 

 xxiv. 30-34. 



Again he says, " Seest thou a man diligent 

 in his business ? He shall stand before kings ; 

 he shall not stand before mean men." 



All nature is progressive, and man, the lord 

 of this lower world, by Divine appointment, is 

 commanded to grow in favor and knowledge 

 of his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. This is 

 done, by the works of creation, and revelation, 

 understood and obeyed. The Author of all na- 

 ture has given a constitution for the physical 

 universe, for his creature man, and for Christ's 

 Church. These are as immutable as his throne 

 and admit of no improvement or amendments. 

 Progressiveness is an essential attribute of all 

 beings except the Deity — its absence implies 

 either a state of absolute perfection, or an insus- 

 ceptibility to any improvement. The first state 

 is applicable to the Divine Being alone, and the 

 second applies not to man, physically, politically, 

 intellectually, or religiously considered. Pro- 

 gressive improvement — constant, uninterrupted 

 and perpetual, entered into the design of God, 

 in the formation of all organized bodies, whether 

 animate or inanimate, physical or mental. The 

 vegetable, animal, and intellectual world, when 

 "uninterrupted by the perversions of art, afford 

 constant, sensible demonstrations of the univer- 

 sality of this principle. The infant plant, in its 

 regular and rapid advances to a state of matu- 

 rity — the infant man passing gradually and re- 

 gularly from the cradle upwards, through the 

 gradations of boyhood, and manhood, to matu- 

 rity of stature and texture; the infant mind, 

 which is first limited in its capacities to the di- 

 rect objects of sense, but soon acquires the art 

 of reasoning and reflection, and continues to ad- 



vance to the stature of a powerful genius, all 

 tend to demonstrate this undeniable truth. The 

 arts, sciences, politics, and religion, have had 

 their infancy, and the various stages of their 

 progress and improvement make up their whole 

 history. 



How incompatible with the design of God, 

 are those authoritative and prescriptive creeds, 

 political and religious, which trammel the hu- 

 man mind, and set those narrow bounds to in- 

 vestigation and research ! What would be the 

 result, should some misguided cultivator attempt 

 to set physical bounds to his stalks of corn, be- 

 fore they arrive to maturity % or should some 

 capricious or fanciful parent invent some physi- 

 cal contrivance to prevent the further develop- 

 ment of his son's physical system and apply it 

 at the age of ten years, what would be the re- 

 sult ? Equally absurd is it to collect the agri- 

 cultural, political or religious sentiments of any 

 man or set of men of any age, and out of them 

 constitute a proscriptive creed for the prevention 

 of all further advances of light and truth : such 

 a course would be disastrous to the peace and 

 prosperity of society — and has been the cause 

 of much political and religious faction, and 

 is now rending and tearing the world to pieces. 

 This is the fruit of bigotry and intolerance pro- 

 duced by the demon of party spirit. 



Demosthenes, when asked the first requisite 

 to eloquence, replied, " action" — when asked the 

 second, he replied, " action"— -and the third, he 

 still replied, u action." Industry bears the same 

 relation to agriculture that action did to elo- 

 quence in the estimation of the Athenian orator. 

 With industry the farmer may accomplish every 

 thing, and without it, he can do nothing. Let 

 him study the value of time. Time is his 

 great capital, and should be well invested. The 

 wealth of the world, its high civilization, and 

 its magnificent improvements, have been created 

 and finished by the labor and industry of man. 

 The poorest soil and most unfavorable climate 

 are scarce impediments to an industrious and 

 energetic people. Look at Holland, reclaimed 

 from the ocean, fenced in by her embankments 

 and mud walls, literally a smiling garden, where 

 once there were nothing but bogs and ocean's 

 wave. Look at Switzerland, where an indus- 

 trious and hardy people, contending against the 

 avalanches of snow and ice, and the embank- 

 ment of mountain masses of rocks, falling and 

 crushing for miles square everything before them, 

 have cut the hills and mountains in terraces and 

 planted them with vines ; according to the ac- 

 count of travellers, lands which before were 

 worse than nothing, by this improvement sell 

 for ten thousand francs per acre. 



If there is one who may eat his bread at peace 

 with God and man, it is that individual who 

 has brought that bread out of the earth by his 

 own industry — it is cankered by no fraud — it is 



