360 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



as it has and will the grazing on the level lands 

 best suited to the plough, will transfer the graz- 

 ing to the second rate lands of the country. 

 They, although too steep for constant tillage, 

 are rich and adapted to the grasses. The to- 

 bacco crop when resorted to for a year or two, 

 will remove the forest, and in the operation 

 afford a profit; leaving the lands in the finest 

 condition for the grasses. The herds and flocks 

 take the mountains and hills. The valleys and 

 plains are devoted to the labor of man in the 

 diversified crops of tobacco, wheat, corn and 

 vegetables. 



But, again, there are those mountains that 

 thus far have only impeded man's progress, or 

 arrested his career. He has approached them 

 with the hand of industry and labor, and 

 crowned them with verdure. Upon their brow 

 and around their sides "bleat flocks innumer- 

 able." In his power and dominion he has only 

 appropriated the things on the earth. His au- 

 thority is to subdue it. He obeys the com- 

 mand. He drives into the mountain, and there 

 is revealed to him the object and reward of the 

 injunction that is upon him. There he finds 

 in the gypsum, as you found in the marl-beds 

 of the East, an element and an agent for the 

 restoration of his soils, exhausted and impaired 

 by the years of cultivation to which he has 

 subjected them. No scrapings of cities, no 

 Northern manufacture, made up and shipped 

 round with the bill of costs, freight, insurance, 

 commission, exchange — " all accurately," " pro- 

 fessionally prepared," "on reasonable terms," 

 "and the shortest notice," for the "Southern 

 trade." No, gentlemen, but prepared in pu- 

 rity and abundance from the beginning of time 

 for the noblest and most enduring of all arts — 

 the art of agriculture. Philosophers and che- 

 mists may be unable to understand, or account 

 for the manner of its action. The purposes 

 for which it was designed are apparent in the 

 living verdure in which it clothes every spire 

 of grass, or of corn, or of wheat, or tobacco, 

 on which it is deposited. 



We anticipate important advantages from 

 the formation of agricultural societies in Vir- 

 ginia. We congratulate each other on the suc- 

 cess that has marked their progress, and we 

 confidently rely on their influence and power. 

 They are important and valuable agents for 

 the attainment of our objects. Their influence 

 will be in proportion to their extent and gen- 

 eral diffusion. 



I trust they may enlist in their service every 

 energy of our State. 



On what do we rely for the fulfilment of our 

 hopes and expectations? Can we reasonably 

 expect to find in our associations those, who, 



from distance and want of cheap and rapid 

 modes of transit, cannot reach your assemblies ? 

 Will they come to increase their knowledge, to 

 stimulate each other, to exhibit their specimens 

 of tobacco, and wheat and corn — their imple- 

 ments of husbandry, their mechanical skill and 

 invention, their live stock — at the cost of time, 

 trouble and money, whose interest will not be 

 promoted by what they see, and hear and learn. 

 It is in vain to hope for it. To improve your 

 agriculture, means to increase your wealth. 

 Your Society would be limited in its numbers, 

 its influence, in the benefits it confers, unless 

 the means are afforded of rapid and easy transit 

 of your members, and their contributions to 

 the capital of the State. 



These roads and canals that are penetrating 

 the State in every direction, are powerful, and 

 commanding agents in the improvement of our 

 agriculture in Virginia. They are the agents 

 that have rendered our organization so success- 

 ful. They have " opened the ponderous " gates • 

 of the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany, to close 

 no more. They are weaving us together in a 

 strong and durable fabric of interest, of power 

 and material wealth; nay more, they are 

 strengthening the chords of confidence, of re- 

 spect, of affection — those bands stronger than 

 iron, those moral elements that bind the world 

 together. 



Look for a moment at the proofs that are 

 before us. — See that noble Ox with his glossy 

 coat, reflecting the sunbeam like a mirror. 

 See his small limbs, his fully developed body, 

 his deep chest, his full ribs, his delicate neck, 

 his clear bright eye, chewing his cud in tran- 

 quility and repose, amid the din and bustle 

 that surround him — in all the perfection of his 

 nature, ready for the uses for which he was de- 

 signed, alas ! unconscious of the sad fate that 

 awaits him to-morrow. He has been, with a 

 day or two of alarm and watchfulness, trans- 

 ported perhaps from the Shenandoah, or from 

 the luxuriant pastures on the banks of the tri- 

 butaries of the Ohio. He has been borne 

 across the mountains through the extent of the 

 State, and now reposes on the "James" al- 

 most in sight of the Ocean; without fatigue, 

 without injury, without loss. 



But for these improvements, he would not 

 have been here. He would be struggling amid 

 storms, and rains, and snows, for some thirty 

 or fifty days to reach a market at Baltimore 

 or Philadelphia — exhausted, impaired, reduced 

 in value, in quality, in beauty — the profits of 

 his rearing greatly diminished to his owner, 

 and his value greatly impaired to the pur- 

 chaser. 



But further, when we look upon this im- 



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