THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



227 



manner that Mr. Slick had taken to impress it 

 indelibly upon my own mind. 



Mr. Slick seemed wrapped in contemplation 

 of the scenes of the morning for a long time. — 

 At length he broke forth in one of his happy 

 strains. "The bane of this country, 'Squire, 

 and indeed of all America, is having too much 

 land — they run over more ground than they 

 cultivate, and crop the land year after year, 

 without manure, till it is no wonder that "it's 

 run out." A very large portion of land in A me 

 rica has been " run out," by repeated grain 

 crops and bad husbandry, until a great portion 

 of this great country is in a fair way to be ru- 

 ined. The two Carolinas and Virginny are co- 

 vered with places that are " run out," and are 

 given up as ruined, and there are a plagey site 

 too many such places all over New England, 

 and a great many other States. We havn't the 

 surplus of wheat that we used to have in the 

 United States, and it'll never be so plenty while 

 there are so many Nick Bradshaws in the 

 country. 



The fact is, 'Squire, edecation is ducedly ne- 

 glected. True, we have a site of schools and 

 colleges, but they an't the right kind. That 

 same Nick Bradshaw has been clean through 

 one on 'em, and 'twas there that he larnt that 

 infarnal lazy habit of drinking and smoking, 

 that has been the ruin of him ever since. I 

 wouldn't give an old fashioned swing-tail clock 

 to have my son go to college where he couldn't 

 work enough to arn his own living, and iarn 

 how to work it right tti. 



It actually frightens me when T think how 

 the land is worked and skinned, till they take 

 the gizzard out on't, when it might be growing 

 better every day. Thousands of acres every 

 year are turned into barrens, while an everlast- 

 ing stream of our folks are streaking it off " to 

 the new country," where about half on 'em af- 

 ter wading about among the tadpoles, to catch 

 cat fish enough to live on a year or two, actu- 

 ally shake themselves to death with that ever- 

 lasting cuss of all new countrys, the fever and 

 agur. It's a melancholy fact, 'Squire, though 

 our people don't seem to be sensible of it, and 

 you nor I may not live to see it, but if this aw- 

 ful robbin' of posterity goes on for another hun- 

 dred years, as it has for the last, among the far- 

 mers, we'll be a nation of paupers. Talk about 

 the legislature doing something, I'll tell you 

 what I'd have them do. Paint a great parcel 

 of guide boards, and nail 'em up over overy le- 

 gislature, church and school-house door in Ame- 

 rica, with these words on 'em in great letters — 

 "The best land in America, by constant cropping, 

 without manure, will run out" And I'd have 

 'em, also, provide means to larn every child how 

 to read it, cause it's no use to try to larn the old 

 ones — they're tu sot in their ways. They are 

 on the constant stretch with the land they have, 



and all the time trying to git more, without im- 

 proving any on't. Yes, yes, yes, too much land 

 is the ruin of us all. 



Although you will find a thousand more good 

 things among the writings of "The Clock- 

 maker," I hope you will not look for a literal 

 copy of the foregoing. And if ever this meets 

 the eye of the writer of the " Saying and Do- 

 ings of Samuel Slick," I beg him to excuse me 

 for the liberty I have taken with his own lan- 

 guage. 



I remain you agricultural friend, 



Solon Robinson. 



THE SCIENCE OF AGRICULTURE. 



The science of agriculture is yet in its infan- 

 cy. The art has been practised for 6, COO years. 

 But that art must be in a very imperfect state 

 which is not sustained by science; for what is 

 science, but a knowledge of general princi- 

 ples which serve to guide us in the practice of 

 an art ? These general principles can never be 

 obtained with certainty but from a knowledge 

 of all the facts, or as they are technically called, 

 [he phenomena, connected with a subject. Some- 

 times in the absence of such knowledge, inge- 

 nious guesses, properly called hypotheses are 

 formed, but it is not until all the facts are known , 

 and from them general principles and inevitable 

 laws are deduced, that a science can be said to 

 be established. In this sense we have as yet 

 no science of agriculture, and all we can boast 

 of are a few hypotheses, some of which are 

 very crude indeed. In truth, we have not yet 

 arrived at the facts which are the foundation, 

 and of course we cannot yet erect the edifice. 

 But the great difference between this and pre- 

 ceding ages, is, that in our day a spirit has been 

 awakened which leads directly to the investiga- 

 tion of agricultural phenomena, and from them 

 to the deduction of agricultural laws. 



But as we have remarked before, there is no 

 subject the phenomena of which are so myste- 

 riously concealed, or so slowly developed, as 

 those attendant upon agriculture: they are dis- 

 cernible only to the practical farmer ; and to 

 him only when endowed with powers of the 

 greatest patience and investigation. When we 

 reflect how many different statements are made 

 with respect to the simplest fact in agriculture, 

 all proceeding too from the most respectable 

 sources, we may see at once how far we are 

 from attaining yet a knowledge of the pheno- 

 mena, which must be clearly ascertained before 



