266 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
the natural setting of the earth. Your tree being now 
planted and furnished with a two years’ supply of food 
immediately within its reach, the after-culture may be as 
follows:— The first spring, early, plow and cross-plow the 
young orchard with rooters, keeping beyond the holes in 
which the trees are planted, and carefully avoiding all 
injury to the trunk or branches. Sow Coiv Peas in 
drills in the open spaces between the trees, and keep the 
earth loose and mellow about the roots with a pronged hoe^ 
If material can be obtained, apply it thickly, 
after the first hoeing, as far as the roots of the trees extend. 
This will obviate the necessity of any further working for 
the season. When the Peas ripen, pick and save them, 
turning the vines under and sowing another crop, to be 
gathered in the same manner. These repeated plowings 
and cross-plo wings, with the abundant supply of nutritive 
matter furnished by the decomposing Pea vines, will in- 
sure the most vigorous and healthy growth of the trees, 
and force them into early and prolific bearing. Other low 
crops, such as Sweet Potatoes and Pindars, may after- 
wards be grown profitably in the orchard, and the vines 
returned to the soil as above recommended. We confi- 
dently recommend a trial of this plan to those who desire 
the quickest and most satisfactory return for their labor in 
Fruit Raising, and who have no old land elevated enough, 
or otherwise suitable. November and December are the 
best months for planting trees. 
THE EDUCATION OF YOUTH— MORAL, MENTAL 
AND PHYSICAL. 
Address delivered at the Commencement of “ Woodland 
Female College f Cedar Toivn, Ga., July 2, 1855. 
BY COL. R. M. JOHNSTON, OF SPARTJl, GA. 
What IS Education '? Man was, at his creation, sin- 
ess, pure and wise in all the learning which it was neces- 
BEijforone only a “little lower than the angels” to know. 
Before him, the monarch of the Earth, beast and bird, 
creeping thing and fish, passed in their turn, and their 
names and natures were known to him by an intuition 
which came fresh Irom God. For him no poisoned air 
came upon the gale, no deep pit lay hid in depths of the forest 
into which his straying feet might fall. The untamed 
ferocity of no wild beast endangered his security, as he 
went abroad in pleasant paths. The wisdom of all sub- 
sequent ages was not like the w'isdom of him — only he 
had not the knowledge of Good and Evil. How beauti- 
ful the first life ! How blest were man now, if like his 
first father he could could spring into life by the breath of 
God, and receive into his mind at once the knowledge ol 
the wisdom of earth ! but could only forbear to know the 
difference between the good and the evil of the world ! 
But Adam fell, and the curse of his posterity was that 
they should be brought forth in pain and agony ; that the 
earth should receive them in a state of utter ignorance and 
helplessness ; that they should depend upon the exertions 
of their parents in all generations to be preserved in the 
feeble lives which were bestowed upon them, and should 
be left to their own free will whether to choose the good 
or the evil of life, the knowledge of which they come so 
soon to learn, but that at last — though it cost the death of 
a God to secure it — they might by patient toil and the en- 
during of daily temptations, succeed to happiness and 
immortality. 
Man, then, is born in a state of utter helplessness. Go 
to the chamber whence we but now heard the wail of 
woman’s great and unspeakable anguish. Go when the 
note is changed, and the mother’s smiles, shining amidst 
tears, tell that her travail is no more remembered for the 
joy that a man is born into the world. See that puling, 
helpless babe that lifts its feeble wail upon its very entry 
into the world, with a knowledge even less than the 
feeblest of all animated beings, and scarcely the instinct 
to draw its nourishment from the breast of the weak crea- 
ture, scarcely stronger than it, who languishes upon 
yonder couch. How powerless, how helpless ! Leave it 
alone, and without power to lift itself, it droops and dies 
ere its eyes have beheld the light of heaven. But leave it 
not alone;- lift it up softly, put its little velvet lips to the 
mother’s breast; clothe it in soft raiment, tend it gently 
by day and by night, watcli over its infancy and child- 
hood, admonish it of the evils wliich may beset it long be- 
fore it has to meet them in the way, and when twenty 
years are come and gone, behold him erect and stately, 
listen to his proud tread as he goes forth to meet his des- 
tiny, and we remember no more the helplessness of in- 
fancy in admiration of the matured strength of manhood. 
Again let us look to the eyrie upon yonder mountain. 
In it lies the young eaglet, which yesterday broke its shell. 
How powerless the young fledgling ! It can only lift 
its beak and receive into its throat whatever the parent 
bird may find wherewithal to feed it. And how* sweet 
this labor of love ! How forgetful of all else but the help- 
' less creature which is to renew her youth ! How more 
fierce than when in search of prey, those eyes, when the 
rash intruder scales those heights and pries into the se- 
crets of that mountain home ! Weeks pass. On some 
bright day, with the first rays of the morning sun, long 
before they descend upon us hei’e, the young bird sits 
upon the crag, and spreads its wings in the warm sun- 
light. He looks far away down upon green fields and 
feeeding flocks, eager yet dreading to fly. Playfully the 
parent hops from one to another circumjacent crag, anon 
diving into the depths below and anon rising to the 
heights above. And now the broad sun is far up in the 
heavens. Its beams ravish the young strength of those 
pinions eager to try their maiden flight. Look into the 
fire of those eyes as, unblinking, they gaze upon the glori- 
ous king of day ! Listen to one long loud and joyous 
scream and the noble bird’s pupilage is past, aud he is 
cleaving his way through the skies ! 
These are illustrations ofeducation. As applied to the 
human race, education is leading forth of mankind out of 
the helpless condition in which they are - born, until they 
have arrived to that age when, by the teachings they have 
had, they may^ be able to get on of themselves in the ad- 
vancement of their ov/n being. This native helplessness 
is three fold, physical, intellectual and moral. The ob- 
ject ofeducation is to lead him out of all these helpless- 
nesses ; and a system which bestows however much at- 
tention upon one or two of those conditions to the neglect 
of the others, is imperfect, and those who practice it are re- 
sponsible for the consequences which such neglect is sar.e 
to impose. The duty to bestow this tripartite education 
uffon youth is entire and indivisible. One part can scurc.e- 
ly be said to be superior to another, because ail its parts 
are of the utmost possible binding obligation. 
I propose to notice a few of what seem to me imperfec- 
tions in our systems of education. We are all wont to dis- 
tinguish between the different necessities of our children. 
Some of us there are who bestow the utmost attention to 
their physical and intellectual wants, to the neglect of their 
