82 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



riculture will improve as little as they 

 have done, or are likely to do : but farm- 

 ing has improved. Any one who will look 

 at the teeming millions now supported, in 

 great P art > by the British Isles, and com- 

 pare this vast population with that of for - 

 mer times ; or who will look at the pres- 

 ent highly improved condition of many 

 portions of that country, and remember 

 the sterility which originally brooded over 

 them, must admit, I think, that the farmer 

 of England knows more about his business 

 than comes by nature — that he has learned 

 something about farming — nay, that he is 

 educated. Who that remembers the gul- 

 lies, the galls, the barrenness, which dis- 

 figured many parts of our own State half 

 a century ago, and drove our most enter- 

 prising citizens to the fertile regions of the 

 west and south, can deny that farming has 

 improved in Virginia too? that our farm- 

 ers have not been taught by nature alone? 

 Whether the politician and his condiscipu- 

 lary compeer in nature's school, have im- 

 proved or not, is a problem which I leave 

 for them to discuss — content to have shown 

 that the farmer is not like them— for 

 which let heaven be praised. 



Not only does farming not " come by 

 nature," but man by nature is averse to 

 farming. The true noblemen, in the school 

 of nature, are the hunter and the fisher- 

 man. A natural love of personal inde- 

 pendence that longing to cast off the re- 

 straint, of other men's presence, makes the 

 savage find delight in the pursuit of the 

 game of the forest and the fish of the 

 stream ; and l enders it difficult to wean 

 him from his wild state, and teach him 

 agriculture. Farming is the child of pro- 

 labor and born of know- 

 after man has shed the exuvice, of 

 savage life. When the forest is scant of 

 game and the river of fish, cometh neces- 

 sity, that stern and unrelenting mistress, 

 to whose inexorable laws man owes all his 

 excellence, and teaches him to till the 

 earth — makes him a farmer — and keeps 

 him one — in short, educates him for his 

 high destiny of civilization. But unfortu- 

 nately man, when put to school, is like fill 

 schoolboys ; he sighs for the pleasures of 

 the chase and the angling-rod ; and learns 

 no more of the lessons necessity sets him, 

 than he is compelled to learn — he half 

 knows this and half does that; and says 

 " it will pass, let it go." He fondly hopes 

 since the days of the ferule and the"cat- 



gress — begot of 



ledge 



o-nine are gone, that his teacher has no 

 rod in pickle for his delinquencies. But 



soon growing wants, increasing numbers, 

 and decreasing fertility of soil awake him 

 from his dream, and thuncer in his ears 

 his irrevocable doom — learn or suffer, till 

 the soil or starve. Admit that we know 

 enough for present purposes — does any *' 

 man suppose that our knowledge of farm- 

 ing will suffice for that coming day, which 

 casts its shadows before it, when twice as 

 many backs to clothe, and twice as many 

 mouths to feed will rise up in judgment 

 against us, and condemn our boasted know- 

 ledge — as antiquated ignorance? Away 

 with the notion, my friends. Our great 

 mother, the earth, lies before all her chil- 

 dren—scarred with a thousand unfllial 

 scars, and bleeding at unnumbered wounds. 

 She has honoured us with the call to nurse 

 her, and lead her back to health. If w r e 

 would heed the call, we must learn what 

 nature never has taught and never will 

 teach us — wo must learn agriculture in all 

 its multifarious and complicated branches, 

 cares and arts. 



I say, we must learn agriculture. Will 

 any man say " I know all about it ; 1 need 

 no teaching?" If such there be, then he 

 •will say more than any man has ever said 

 j before, or any modest man will ever say 

 j again. But, will this Mr. Know-all please 

 | to explain some of the mysteries of farm- . 

 ing which the rest of us do not know. For 

 I instance — I find in one of Gen. Washing- 

 ton's letters to Sir John Sinclair, the fol- 

 j lowing account of his experiments with 

 j gypsum — he says, "The experiment, to 

 | which I allude, w r as made eight or nine 

 I years ago ; at the rate of from one to thhty 

 j bushels of Plaster of Paris to the acre 

 I (among other things, to ascertain the just 

 ; quantum to be used.) I spread it on grass 

 'grounds, and on ploughed land — on the 

 latter, part of it was ploughed in ;— part 

 | harrowed in ; — part scratched in with a 

 I light bush ; — while another part lay undis- 

 turbed on the surface — all with oats in the 

 ! spring. But it had no more effect in any 

 | instance — then or since, than so much of 

 the earth it was spread over would have 

 had, if it had been taken up and spread 

 again." Now the experience of almost ev- 

 ery farmer who hears my voice will differ 

 from Gen. Washington. Why is this dif- 

 ference ? Moreover, many of us have 

 1 heard of land becoming " plaster-sick" ^nd 

 " clover-sick," and some of us believe we 



