THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



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suggests unfavorable thoughts, and not [infre- 

 quently provokes remarks expressive of con- 

 tempt rather than of admiration. 



Whatever contributes to the comfort of a 

 family at a rural home, adds to its beauty, if 

 properly daeed and constructed. Thus, a well 

 arranged kitchen, with a wood-house, cement j 

 cistern for holding rain water, and many other 

 conveniences, are not only matters of interest, 

 but really increase the attractiveness of a fami- 

 ly residence. It is the judicious planning, 

 combination and management of all the affairs, 

 both in doors and out, on a farm, that make the 

 farmer's life happier than that of most other 

 men engaged in different pursuits. He has the 

 constant assistance of those wonderful powers 

 known as vegetable and animal vitality, to 

 multiply his agricultural wealth and beau- 

 tify his plantation. Groves of forest trees, or- 

 chards of fruit trees, as well as all the benefits 

 of the garden, are at his command. Parks, 

 lawns, and pleasure grounds he and his chil- 

 dren may indulge in, if their tastes appreciate 

 and enjoy such improvements ; and it is better 

 to cultivate a taste in this direction, than that 

 which seeks amusement by visiting distant wa- 

 tering places and the gaieties of cities. To the 

 owner and cultivator of the soil, home should 

 be the most agreeable place on earth. There his 

 best thoughts and efforts, his money and his 

 ambition, should find full employment. Ab- 

 senteeism is fatal to the Beautiful in Agricul- 

 ture. A farmer should not only stay, as a ge- 

 neral rule, on his farm, but live there, in the 

 best sense of the term. This idea does not 

 conflict with a reasonable amount of travel, 

 either for recreation, or to obtain additional 

 knowledge. Good books are now so cheap and 

 abundant, IbaJ a library composed, in a large 

 degree, of works on agricultural and horticul- 

 tural subjects, is found to yield both amusement 

 and instruction on both on better terms, and 

 of a better quality than the planter can obtain 

 from any other source. It is quite as easy to 

 acquire a taste for agricultural reading, as for to- 

 bacco, tea and coffee. Man is a creature of 

 habit ; and the best way to avoid bad habits in 

 our children, is to fix early in their constitu- 

 tions, pure tastes ; the gratification of which 

 will ennoble, not degrade them. To cultivate 

 the Beautiful in rural life has an elevating in- 

 fluence on society, and thereby prevents vice 

 and crime, poverty and suffering. 



Nature being the source of Beauty, we are 

 to study her admirable processes as they are. 

 made known in the Natural Sciences. Chem- 

 istry, Botany, Geology, Vegetable and Animal 

 Physiology, reveal to the human understanding 

 a thousand charms in the perfect harmony that 

 pervades every form and condition of matter, 

 and thus perpetuates all the beauties and bless- 

 ings which call into activity both the gratitude 

 ami the reasons of man. The powers within 

 lam, and the elements that surround him, act 

 m concert to force his growth in morality and 



knowle Ige, that he, may become in each sue- 

 eeedmg generation at once a happier and a wiser 

 being. In connection with our 'moral and in- 

 tellectual development, so natural and so de- 

 sirable, a higher degree of social and physical 

 comfort is clearly both attainable and suscepti- 

 ble of full enjoyment. It is not every person, 

 in whatever condition he may chance to be, in 

 reference to culture, who is capable of appre- 

 ciating either the Beautiful in Agriculture or 

 in Nature. Hence, in all nations just emerg- 

 ing from barbarism, husbandry, tillage, archi- 

 tecture, and all other arts, are prosecuted in 

 the rudest manner. Some rise more rapidly 

 than others in every attainment, but time is 

 necessary to the growth of every art and the 

 perfection of every science. 



It is humiliating to our pride as a free, self- 

 governing people, to know that in ancient 

 Greece the beautiful in agriculture and archi- 

 tecture ^was far in advance of our highest 

 achievements. A thousand years before the 

 birth of our Saviour, .Homer describes, in the 

 fifth book of the Odyssey, a landscape in which 

 four fountains of white (foaming) water, each 

 springing in succession, in perfect orderliness 

 sends the life of vegetation through a meadow 

 in different directions. At that early period, 

 agriculture was sufficiently advanced to have 

 irrigation and meadows properly appreciated 

 by the most civilized nations. We wish we 

 could say as much for the agriculture of our 

 own sunny South. But all must admit, that, 

 with us, neither irrigation nor meadows are re- 

 garded as worthy of public attention. It is 

 true, we know the value of hay, and consume 

 many a bale from the North, for which we pay 

 at least twice what it is intrinsically worth. 



Who needs to be told that luxuriant mea- 

 dows., pastures, and fine stock, add largely to 

 the Beauty, interest, and value of a plantation. 

 Irrigated meadows and pastures are an inex- 

 haustible source of manure for enriching the 

 tilled lafids on a farm. Where nature periodi- 

 cally irrigates river bottoms, the plough never 

 exhausts the soil. Running water being na- 

 ture's grand restorer in tillage and cropping, 

 why not use it to rejuvenate our old fields, and 

 thus render them at once both attractive and 

 profitable? None of them are so elevated that 

 water does not fall from above them, and run 

 off their surfaces. Properly considered, all the 

 moving water on continents is rain water. It 

 creates, as well as transports from one place to 

 another, the fertility of properly irrigated lands. 

 The fertilizing influence of water, when judi- 

 ciously applied to the earth, is well known. It 

 is, therefore, in skilful hands, an invaluable el- 

 ement of fruitfulness and beaut}'. More know- 

 ledge and higher art will one day use water in 

 tnis country as successfully in agriculture as 

 was ever done in Greece, Italy or Egypt. 



Next to irrigation, we regard the planting of 

 the seeds of all the more valuable forest trees 

 and fruit trees that will grow and prosper in 



