THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



105 



support, and a good education, all of which to 

 be provided by the institution. Here would be 

 a field large enough for all experiments in plants, 

 stock, implements connected with farming and 

 gardening, and our boys would diffuse over the 

 State, in a few years, improvements and habits 

 that would astonish the most sanguine. The 

 other department should be under the control of 

 the best science that money could buy — the best 

 chemist — mineralogist — geologist and botanist; 

 they should lecture to the apprentices a part of the 

 year. They should survey every county in the 

 State, and every part of every county ; keep an 

 accurate record and publish, as might be deemed 

 advisable. They should also lecture, a part of 

 the year, to a class, if one should attend, on 

 these sciences as they may best promote the end 

 in view; keep a diary of the weather — the 

 quantity of rain, and all such things, and let 

 the institution be the head of the husbandry of 

 the State, where all statistics may be preserved. 

 These scientific persons should find out what is 

 in our soil, and let us know ; they should have 

 no other business until every part of the State 

 had been thoroughly explored, and its soil an- 

 alyzed. Of course, if it were thought best, there 

 might be an Eastern and a Western farm. 



These are mere suggestions — I have no pride 

 in the thing ; let any one criticise them as much 

 as he pleases, provided he will suggest some- 

 thing better. 



After discussing and considering the subject, 

 let us settle on something, and get petitions from 

 the counties to the next General Assembly, and 

 demand an endowment of an institution which 

 is able to do " the State some service." 

 Yours, very respectfully, 



E. B. Hicks. 



Lawrenceville ) March 29, 1845. 



ECONOMY. 



Perhaps the most marked trait in the charac- 

 ter of the Southern farmer is the want of eco- 

 nomy. Many reasons have been assigned for 

 the depressed state of agriculture in the South. 

 That our country enjoys the most unrivalled ad- 

 vantages for the prosecution of agricultural pur- 

 suits, is undenied, and undeniable: that the im- 

 provements in this art have not kept even pace 

 with other departments of science, is universally 

 admitted. The inquiring mind, which seeks for 

 reasons for every fact, has been engaged in the 

 explanation of this phenomenon. Some have 

 declared that the light of science was wanting 

 to the pursuit of agriculture ; some have attri- 

 buted the stationary character of this pursuit to 

 the existence of a slave population, &c. &c. 

 Vol. V—14 



That the science of agriculture is in its nature 

 one of the most complex and intricate, a little 

 consideration must satisfy the most careless ob- 

 server; and the fact that a season is required to 

 test an experiment, proves that experience, which 

 is the foundation of true knowledge, is more 

 difficult of attainment in this than in any other 

 art. But this is true of agriculture every where, 

 and only accounts for the retarded progress of 

 the art when considered in relation to the world 

 generally. It has been asserted, however, that 

 in the southern part of the United States, the 

 portion of the whole globe perhaps best adapted 

 to the pursuit of agriculture, improvement lan- 

 guishes most. Whilst we are not prepared to 

 admit this charge to its fullest extent, we will 

 confess that agricultural improvements encoun- 

 ter peculiar difficulties in their progress through 

 the Southern States ; not, as some imagine, for 

 want of knowledge of the scientific discoveries 

 in agriculture, for they, we believe, in truth, are 

 very few, and are as well known to the enlight- 

 ened farmers of the South as to any other por- 

 tion of this Union. But the fact is, that amongst 

 the highly favored, wealthy farmers of the South, 

 a state of financial embarrassment prevails, that 

 offers an insuperable bar to agricultural improve- 

 ment. It is not uncommon to find a Southern 

 farmer with real estate and negroes worth fifty 

 thousand dollars, sadly embarrassed with a debt 

 of twenty thousand. Our Northern friends will 

 wonder how a man with fifty thousand dollars' 

 worth of property can be seriously embarrassed 

 with a debt of twenty thousand, but a Southern 

 man will readily understand the feelings and 

 sentiments which make it so distasteful to part 

 with that peculiar kind of property in which a 

 large portion of our funds is vested. But un- 

 less he sell his slaves, the farmer cannot part 

 with an acre of his ground, which is, in his 

 opinion, hardly sufficient to keep them employed. 

 Thus it is, that the debt is not only retained, but 

 perhaps from the same cause from which it ori- 

 ginated, it is increased, and to provide for the 

 interest alone, absorbs all the funds and much 

 of the time of the improvident farmer. It were 

 bootless to look to the origin of this state of 

 things ; it could perhaps be traced to the fact of 

 expensive habits derived from a wealthy ances- 

 try, whilst the enormous profits that justified 

 them in former years, has altogether ceased in 

 later times ; for whilst there is no difficulty in 

 expanding your expenses in prosperity, the con- 



