THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



81 



ADDRESS. 

 Gentlemen of the Society: 



T was invited, some weeks ago, by the 

 President, to speak before you to-night 

 about a " Professorship of Agriculture at 

 the University of Virginia." The subject 

 is a very important one, which at various 

 times has engaged the attention of some 

 of the truest and most enlightened friends 

 of agriculture in the State, and is still full 

 of interest to us and our children. It has 

 been brought to our notice on two former 

 occasions; and at this meeting both the 

 President and the Executive Committee, 

 in their annual reports to the Farmers' As- 

 sembly, have thought it worthy of their 

 especial commendation on one plan or 

 another. It well deserves our further con- 

 sideration among the various schemes for 

 the advancement of agriculture which 

 challenge our thoughts, our care, our 

 means. Heretofore when wise and good 

 men have advocated agricultural educa- 

 tion as the surest step in agricultural pro- 

 gress, the want of money has been the 

 obstacle in their way. Not so now; we 

 have the money in ample store. If we 

 have the will, we can accomplish a great 

 and good work, which our fathers attempt- 

 ed in vain. 



I proceed without further preface and 

 in a plain, conversational way, to state 

 some of the reasons why, for one, as a 

 farmer of Virginia, I desire to see such a 

 professorship established at the Universi- 

 ty of the State ; and, as a member of this 

 society, desire to see it done now, and 

 with our money. 



To educate a man for any business or 

 profession, is simply to prepare him by 

 proper training to apply his bodily or men- 

 tal powers to his contemplated work. Thus 

 carpenters, shoemakers, sailors, lawyers, 

 doctors, divines, and other tradesmen and 

 professional men are prepared for their 

 several parts in the great drama of life. 

 The first and most natural inquiries are, 

 does this professional education or train- 

 ing do any good ? Does it pay in other 

 cases ? If it does, will it pay in the case 

 of farmers ? Will similar advantages ac- 

 crue to our profession from 

 education ? 



The man who should seriously propose 

 to abandon proper training before putting 

 a youth to any business, trade, or profes- 

 sion of life, except farming, would be most 

 certainly and unceremoniously "written 

 i 6 



down an ass." All human experience 

 since human knowledge began, has estab- 

 lished the advantages of such educational 

 training. No man, in his senses, would 

 select another man to attend to any busi- 

 ness, because he knew nothing about it, 

 and had taken no pains to qualify himself 

 for it. The reason of the thing stands on 

 the same side with experience, and loudly 

 condemns professional ignorance, whether 

 we consider the interest of the practition- 

 er himself, or of society at large. Men 

 succeed in their undertakings, and the 

 welfare of society is promoted by their 

 success, in proportion to their previous 

 good training for their work, and the zeal 

 with which they have perfected such train- 

 ing by subsequent labour and practice. 

 This is self-evident and needs neither de- 

 monstration nor argument to prove it. 

 Ceteris paribus, the carpenter builds a bet- 

 ter house, the shoemaker makes a better 

 shoe, the sailor better steers his ship, the 

 lawyer better pleads his client's cause, and 

 the physician more successfully wars upon 

 the diseases our "flesh is heir to," who 

 has most carefully and most thoroughly 

 prepared himself for his business : 

 now can this be true of every other branch 

 of business, and false of farming only ? 

 Is the farmer so dull that education can- 



ngricultural 



not enlighten him? oris his business so 

 simple that the knowledge of its myste- 

 ries may be said to corne by nature ? 

 Surely no farmers will admit neither of 

 these ignominious taunts. Unlettered we 

 may be — and if so the fault is our own. 

 But it will be time enough to defend from 

 the charge of dullness the mighty host 

 which bears upon its Atlantean s houlders 

 the firmament of civilization, with all its 

 bright hopes, when such a charge shall 

 have been made in seriousness by any of 

 those who hang upon our skirts, and fat- 

 ten on our offal. If made, the slander 

 would be foreVer drowned in the swelling 

 anthems of peace and plenty which her- 

 ald the march of agricultural improvement 

 whenever it comes. By us, as far as it 

 may be said of any thing human, all other 

 men "live and move and have their be- 

 in**." The cornucopia of old mother 

 earth is in our hands, and all who hunger, 

 or thirst, or shiver in the cold, must ask 

 the solace of their ills from us. 



Whether farming, like politics and shoe 

 blacking, comes by nature or not, may 

 merit a moment's investigation.. If it 

 do, then the probability is, that a#- 



