THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



83 



have seen it so. Will they who know all 

 about agriculture tell us about this— give 

 us a diagnosis of this terrene disease, and 

 a prescription which will cure it now, and 

 keep it off hereafter ? Again there is mys- 

 tery upon mystery in the whole subject 

 of manures. One man applies them to i 

 his grasses, another to his hoe crops-— one 

 prefers long, another rotten manures— one 

 favors top-dressing, another says plough 

 in the manure — will friend Know-all tell 

 us the right and the wrong of these ways, 

 and the reasons for the same ? What a 

 diversity of opinions has arisen about 

 guano too ! and this touches our pocket- 

 nerve. We spendmillions of dollars eve- 

 ry year in guano. Some say it pays, oth- 

 ers say it does not. Will they, who know 

 all about agriculture, and need no teach- 

 ing, please to enlighten us about this thing, 

 and save us our money, if we are throw- 

 ing it away. Liebig says a farmer may 

 bring home from market, in his breeches 

 pocket, minerals enough to repair all the 

 mischief done to his soil by growing a 

 load of wheat. Now that would make 

 farming a very safe business, and I would 

 like to know if it be true. Will Mr. Know- 

 all please to tell me. And so of a thous- 

 and other .things, which I do not know, 

 would like very much to know, and think 

 I would be a better farmer if I did know. 

 The great majority of my brother farmers 

 are like myself, I expect, and could enu- 

 merate many subjects on which they 

 would be thankful for information. Agri- 

 cultural education affords the only sure 

 means of supplying the information the 

 farmer desires. 1 shall not contend that 

 the establishment of a professorship at the 

 University will roll back the clouds of ig- 

 norance and doubt which hang like mid- 

 night around so many branches of the art 

 of husbandry, and shed at once meridian 

 light over the whole science of agriculture. 

 Far from it. Such a result must be the 

 work of time and toil, But we do not re- 

 fuse to enjoy the beams of the noon-day 

 sun, because he first comes to us with the 

 soft rays of rosy morn ? We must begin, 

 and when better than now ? 



Permit me to call your attention to some 

 branches of science of which the know- 

 ledge would be useful to the farmer, par- 

 ticularly the young one ; and to point out 

 some other sources of advantage even to 

 us veterans in the establishment of a pro- 



fessorship of agriculture at the University. 

 And first, of the scientific branch of the 

 subject. 



Science, in these latter times, has cqme* 

 forth from the closet of the student, and 

 is " walking to and fro in the earth," dis- 

 pensing blessings in* every department of 

 human enterprise. Is it only when she 

 enters the domain of agriculture that her 

 progress shall be inhospitably staid ? The 

 dyer, the hatter, the tanner, the cloth-ma- 

 ker, the gold-digger, the iron-monger, all 

 owe to science unext^nguishable debts of 

 gratitude. The world is indebted to her 

 for the steam-engine, the power-loom, the 

 mariner's compass, the telegraphic wires, 

 and numerous other magic-working ele- 

 ments of modern civilization. Why have 

 men grown wiser than they used to be, if 

 it be not because science has wrought for 

 them with Briarian hand, and given them 

 rest and leisure to improve ? Time was 

 when it took more hours to spin, weave 

 and sew a coat, than it takes minutes wow. 

 What may not the man of toil learn in the 

 spare moments ? 



To what does the world owe^'the won- 

 derful increase of books and knowledge in 

 the last half century, but to this, that men 

 have leisure to read them ? and whence 

 the leisure, if not from the time science 

 has saved the labouring man ? We eat and 

 wear, not simply as much, but more than 

 our forefathers did, while we toil not half 

 as hard to get our food and apparel. Man 

 has time to be happy and wise. If we 

 treasure the length of" life by what may be 

 acbomplished in a lifetime, our octogena- 

 rians are older men than Methuselah. We 

 can sail around the world while Methuse- 

 lah was getting ready to visit the shanty 

 of his next door neighbour. In vain have 

 the weird sisters learned to clip the thread 

 of human existence ere half its length is 

 spun, when science twists into every coil 

 of it a thousand sparkling gems o'f thought 

 and action. Who w r ould exchange our 

 three score years and ten, in every mo- 

 ment of which new ideas and new deeds 

 tread on each other's heels, for the. dead 

 centuries of Patriarchal life? A new day 

 is dawning in the world. Science has al- 

 ready marked the eastern sky with streaks 

 of glorious light. Will the farmer alone 

 chaunt no matin song, to welcome its ap- 

 proach ? Are the dim candles of night to 



