^28 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
On the contrary, the efforts of agricultural enterprise 
are, to a degree, desultory. Farmers live apart from each 
other. They cannot daily meet upon “ ’Change.” Asso- 
ciation is effected with more or less difficulty. Co-oper- 
ation is attended with inconvenience. The habits of agri- 
cultural life induce reluctance to change, either in 
opinion or practice. Hence, left to itself. Agriculture ad- 
v.ances, by comparison, slowly. It needs direction, in- 
citement, concentration. 
Notwithstanding the superior facilities of other pursuits 
(Over agriculture, in the control of capital and in power of 
concentrated effort for their own advancement, to many of 
ihese pursuits the State has freely given its aid. It has 
aided internal improvement. It has appropriated money 
Sti-open our rivers. It has built a great Railroad. It has 
assisted other Railroad companies. It has aided General 
Education. It has given largely to Mechanic and Col- 
legiate instruction. It has contributed to medical science. 
It sustains a military school. All these ends are worthy 
ihe assistance of the State. All of them would ultimately 
j'have been reached without governmental aid. But tedious 
years of private effort have been superceed by the power- 
fiul. impulse which the common wealth has afforded. 
impregnable precedent thus sustains our demand 
fof aid to Agriculture. The State cannot prefer the effect 
the cause— the less to the greater. Having aided 
eompgsties of her citizens in constucting roads for the 
ifansportation of crops, it cannot ignore the soil which 
j^oduces these crops. 
How can the State aid Agriculture 1 
1st. By means of her Railroad. It is a universally ad- 
mitted truth, that the use of Lime is the basis of improved 
agsiculture. The private Railroad companies in Georgia 
exhibit the most commendable liberality in the transporta- 
tion, of this and other manures. The State Road, in a 
naeasare, shuts out the State from the use of Lime for ma- 
uaure. The authorities of the Road are not to be blamed 
for this restriction. It has always been understood that 
tbs Superintendent, who makes the greatest annual 
money return to the coffers of the State, apart from other 
considerations, best answers the end of his appointment. 
Let there be a special enactment, by which the Superin- 
(3Qnt of the State Road is required to transport manures 
at a nominal rate. This is not the place to speak of the 
irast increase of our cotton crop by the free use of Lime, 
ox ths amount of taxable property through the appreciation 
in the value of land restored by liming. Throughout the 
North, wherever agricultural improvement has com- 
menced, and as it has advanced towards the South as far 
as Virginia and Maryland, in all cases everywhere the 
the prectirsor of the improvement. 
'fnd. The State can aid Agriculture by a Geological 
Survey of her territory. There are, doubtless, beds of 
marl existing of which the cotton planter is ignorant, and 
which, if made known to him, would be worth, to him, 
more than a mine of gold. There may be “green sand,” 
which has already given an almost fabulous value to the 
mce sterile plains of New Jersey. There may be apatite 
« natural phosphateof lime, than which, a more valuable 
manure does not exist There may be plasterer gypsum. 
There may be salt, of which strong indications are given 
in one part of the State. Every increase of consuming 
and non-producing population benefits the former. Mines 
and mechanical pursuits require large bodies of men. Our 
mineral wealth is yet unknown. Apart from the precious 
metals the sources of industrial occupation in our State are 
varied. Beyond those generally known, we have alum 
enough to supply this country. We have the material 
for the manufacture of sulphuric acid far beyond our com- 
mercial or agricultural wants. We have the material of 
copperas in equal abundance. This enumeration might 
de carried farther, but it is needlesss. All these sources 
of wealth will, in time, be discovered and used. A com- 
petent Geological survey would at once bring them 
in o notice. Capital would come in to use them, and in 
the increase of population agriculture would thrive, and 
the whole State derive that benefit which invariably fol- 
lows the adoption of a mixed husbandry, 
3rd. The State can aid agriculture by the establishment 
of an Agricultural School and Experimental Farm, with 
which an Agricultural and Economic Museum might be 
connected, an Agricultural and Scientific Library founded, 
and at which place the State Society might hold its an- 
nual meetings and dispense its annual premiums to ag- 
ricultural skill. 
We need an Experimental Farm. It is, perhaps, at this 
time the greatest need of Southern Agriculture. It is no 
experiment to go into the woods, cut down the timber and 
clear and wear out the land. But it is a matter of experi- 
ment, as to that which is the cheapest, most rapid and 
most permanent method of making the land good again. 
We are either to be informed as to this method or aban- 
don our homes. In regard to this subject we have almost 
everything to learn. And in no way can our Legislature 
so effectually do the greatest good to the greatest number 
of Georgians, as by teaching us this lesson in the shortest 
practicable time. 
We state a fact which we conceive to be of great im- 
portance to the land holders of the South. Their atten- 
tion is earnestly called to it. The fact is this : There is 
not a country in Christendom in which the artificial 
grasses are not cultivated in which land bears a high 
price. There is not a country in Christendom in which 
these grasses are extensively cultivated in which land does 
not bear a high price. Take, for instance, Spain in which 
land is low in value— it rises in France — it still ascends 
in Belgium — it is highest in Holland, which is almost an 
uninterrupted meadow. There are more than 200 of these 
grasses cultivated. Several of the foreign grasses have 
been tried unsuccessfully at the South. But the trial of 
one or one hundred of these grasses is by no means final. 
The other hundred remains to be tried. The subject is 
of sufficient importance to jusdfy the most pertinacious 
inquiry. In the present posture of our Agriculture it is 
in fact the great subject before the agricultural mind. 
The Flemish maxim, is inexorably true : “without grass, 
no cattle, without cattle no manure, without manure no 
The vTaole subject of the native grasses and 
crops. 
