262 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
which have banished the Yankee Boston Blue Mason & 
Buggies from our farms. No ofte can mistake it — the 
spirit of progress is here, and if the problem, whether 
slave labor can be made profitable and the value and fer- 
tility of the land cultivated at the sarr e time sustained 
and preserved (not to say improved) is ever solved, it will 
be done here. That is what many of us, who have firmly 
planted our hearthstones in old Hancock, are working for. 
We would be glad to learn that Oglethorpe and every 
other county, especially of this charming Hill country of 
Middle Georgia, had formed a league for the same holy, 
noble purpose. 
But whence came this spirit of progress amongst usl 
I am perfectly willing that any man here and elsewhere 
sh^ll answer this question for himself. I speak only for 
myself when I say that it is attributable to that little 
Society that began its existence some fifteen years ago 
with a very few members and that has now grown so 
large that it holds its meetings out of doors. This society 
brought planters together, and, when together, they will 
talk of farming, if it is only to brag. It liberalized their 
views. It made them think, and, not unfrequently, the 
error of one would suggest to another the truth in a mat- 
ter. I cannot recount the innumerable benefits of it. In 
its early history it was much scorned and ridiculed ; its 
members encountered jeers, epithets — “humbugs,” “book 
farmers,” “Corn Buyer’s Association,” were among the 
gentler terms applied to them. But it has survived it all. 
Many of its founders have rested from their labors — 
Burwell Wynn, Wm. Terrell, Richard Sassnett, Mark 
Gonder and Joel Crawford, and many of their co-laborers 
have gone home— but to-day there remains many proud 
witnesses to the truth that “their works do follow them.” 
The Planter’s Club of Hancock has become a fixed fact. 
In its earlier years it had difficulties. They all grew out 
of the error of attempting to sustain such an institution 
by levying annual taxes or contributions upon the mem- 
bers only for funds to pay its premiums and contingent 
expenses. It was at first looked upon as beneath the 
character of any Society, especially a society of farmers, 
to levy ten or twenty cents at the door from each visitor 
to its exhibitions. One of the stormiest debates the Club 
ever had was on a motion to chaige every man, woman 
and child, ten cents for admission to the Fair. The mo- 
tion was lost. But of late years we have adopted that 
policy, and we readily raise money enough to cover all 
expenses. Thus has our Club become a permanent in- 
stitution. Not only that, it has become an essential insti- 
tution among us. It is the great annual festival day and 
thanksgiving of our whole people. The fourth of July 
in its best days and a whig barbecue in the Harrison 
campaign ain’t a circumstance by the side of it. Come 
down and see the thing next October. If you wish to 
see our crops and tillage in full glory, why just drop me 
a line any time in the month of August or September, 
when to meet you at Union Point. You can take break- 
fast there and dinner at Babywake and spend what time 
you please in looking at the farms of Bonner, Harris, 
Whitten, Ponce, the brag farms of Shoulderbone, {I would 
not have you mention it on any account— 1 can beat the 
whole of them. In a half a day from here I can put you 
down at Dixon’s, and the general opinion is that you will 
not— need not — desire to go any further. There you’ll see 
the elephant. 
I think it essential, for the accomplishment of your ob- 
jects, that you should visit us. If ever, with the most 
graceful and graphic pen, I should attempt what you re- 
quest, there would still be much of important details that 
I should forget or fail to convey in such exactness of ex- 
pression as to give you the true impression intended. If 
I were to attempt description a of our agricultural tools, I 
should fail, because you must see the tool itself or a very 
perfect diagram in order to appreciate it. If I were to 
ride with you up to one of Dixon’s fields where his teams 
were plowing you would think that the man had import- 
ed a ship load of camels, and that his cotton sweeps were 
the old fashioned cow-catchers of the engines of the Georgia 
Railroad ; and when you saw the “glory of” David, you 
would feel like the Queen of the South when she saw the 
glory of Solomon, and exclaim that the half had not been 
tofd you. 
There is another section of an entirely different and 
distinctive geological formation from those mentioned — 
the part of the county on the waters of Buffalo. Its farms 
are highly valued by the owners. They, perhaps, talk 
less and do more than all of us. They don’t dream of sell- 
ing out. In fact, they say, whether they mean it or not, 
that they are already in “California.” It is in this section 
that the improved residences — Lancaster (Judge Thomas), 
Glenmary (T. J. Smith’s), and Joe Gonder’s, and others 
are found — and Smith’s is the place which makes two 
and a half cents better cotton than any upland ever sold 
in Savannah. 
There is still another interesting section of the county 
well worth visiting; and, though I have not lately seen it, 
I feel safe in saying, upon the authority of my neighbor, 
James M. Harrison, that the farms there are well worthy 
of honorable mention — I allude to the section in which are 
found the farms of Dr. Alfriend and Tuttle H. Audas, Esq. 
I am sure you would be pleased with them ; for as well 
as I can understand, they are conducted very much 
upon my system — ihe purely scientific. 
I ought to allude to the portions of the county which 
lie upon the Oconee and Ogechee Rivers respectively. 
They farm it upon the “still hunting” policy. They stay 
much at home — work diligently — sometimes we don’t 
see or hear of them till the Fair, and then they come up 
and get their share of premiums. This is especially the 
case with the Ogeechee section. Unfortunately for those 
of their fellow-citizens whom they leave behind them I can- 
not speak S 0 confidently as to Island Creek and the 
Oconee section, several of whose valaed residents have 
gone West, and many others, I hear, are preparing to 
leave, and still others desire to leave who have not made 
that needful preparation of selling out. The Western 
fever has been fatal, only in this section of our country. 
I cannot but pause to express the regret that the spirit of 
change should so invade one of the oldest, best, most 
moral and religious communities I ever knew. To one 
who, though not of them, has had many opportunities of 
partaking of the whole-souled hospitality of these people, 
it looks strange, indeed, that those who have, at any 
time lived within the high social influences that have pre- 
vailed there for half a century, and have inevitably formed 
the social attachments incident to such influences, can so 
readily consent to part asunder forever such blessed ties, 
and to execute, in advance, the inevitable decree that 
“the places which have known them shall know them no 
more forever;” I know it costs thein a struggle to bid 
adieu to that old altar at Island Creek, which has stood 
there long enough to have witnessed the conversion of the 
fathers as well as the children of the emigrants — and may 
all the blessings which good men deserve ever attend 
them. 
But I return from this unintended digression, only to 
repeat, that my friend, Mr. Robinson, must come to see 
me. If he will not and cannot, why, if he will make out 
and submit to me his “interrogatories,” with the names 
of the farmers upon whom he wishes them served, I will 
execute them— have them answered and returned to kim 
in quite a style— for, if he must know, I am 
considered, by my neighbors, quite as good a Lawyer as 
lam a farmer. 
I have thus, Messrs. Editors, attempted to relieve my- 
self from the very embarrassing position in which some of 
