44 
SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR 
the relation of master and servant is founded in Nature, 
and has the God of Nature for its support. 
Man does not create the necessity that compels him to 
till the earth. Tiie whole dispute about the different 
forms of labor, when sified to the bot'om, is found to be 
more a controversy relating to shades of color than any 
solid matter. An impartial investigator will find each 
best in its proper place. It fully meets, and can alone 
fulfila natural want in society; and, therefore, it is that 
society perpetuates from age to age, the five, different 
kinds of productive labor which I have named 
Had ourCieator made ail men on a common level in 
capacity, and attainments, in industry, frugality atid 
economy, it is possible thatonly one classoflaitorers would 
have l)eeii known amorg mankind. But since no such 
equality of endowment exists, or can pos'iiily be made 
to exist; and since there is an infinite diversity of gifts, pro- 
pensities and habits, including millions witii whom idle- 
ness and vagabondism, with all their attendant evils, are 
almost incuiable maladies, there is a positive necessity 
for coercive labor. Such at least has been the decision of 
the best informed of our race in all ages of the world. 
In the pt ogress of time, important changes in society 
take place-; and the words s/arc and slavery are no long- 
er applicable to those held to service for life in the United 
Stales. 
When the savages of Africa engage in wars, and in 
place of pin ting prisoners to death, or killing their ene- 
mies in battle, make them prof erty, and sell them as 
such, long usage denominates them * slaves.” But where 
servants are born the property of another, who feeds, 
clothe!-, and protects them alike in infancy, sickness and 
old age, and who is bound by State laws to provide for 
all their wants through life, persons so held to service op 
proximate nearer to the condition of apprentices than to 
that of slaves, properly so called. This was the opinion 
of the framers of the Federal Constitution; and the same 
clause which enables a master to recover his negro ap 
prentice for life, who runs away from him from one State 
into another, has precisely the like force in authorising the 
mastt r of a white apprentice, who flees into another 
Stale, to capture him and take him back to serve out his 
time. In all hired and apprentice labor, it is expected that 
the emplfiyer as well asemployed will be benefitted. Each 
of ihese industrial relations is some times abused; but it 
is the purpose of sound public opinion and restraining 
laws to [trevent all abuses as far as practicable. Doubt- 
less something more will be done as the subject becomes 
better understood. The unexpired service of a man who 
is hired for a year and has worked only a few months of 
the time, and that of an an apprentice who is bound to 
serve his master seven years, or for life, have, from time 
immemorial been bought and sold as lawful property. 
Nothing more than this continuous right to service on the 
fulfilin!-nt of important and reciprocal obligations on the 
part of I he purchaser, is ever sold when a negro chaeges 
owners in ih's country. 
Viewed as a system of Apprentice labor for the gradual 
but certain improvement of an inferior people, giving 
them all the liberty they can bear without abusing it, 1 
see no good reason why Southern Agriculture carried on 
by this I inil of labor may not become as popular under a 
new, aii'i more appropriate name, as it is now un- 
popular fiom a name derived from a land of savage cani- 
bals 
No one can truthfully deny that as American appren- 
tices, wl'.ol some discipline, salutary restraint, and elevat- 
ing lain I hive worked wonders for these naturally stupid 
and .Nad y degraded people. Withdraw these advantage.s 
premaioielv. and ihMr relapse into barbarism is ascertain 
SHiiy fi lure event can be 
isoi.e thing to labor industriously, and quite a differ- 
ent thing to labor to the best possible advantage. No one 
who has not made agricultural industry a special .study, 
has any adequate idea of tlie amount of honest hard work 
annually thrown away by its misapplication. Every 
State in the Union loses more in this way than it would 
cost to give every child an excellent educatipn, including 
a thoi ough knowledge of the true principles of tillage and 
husbandry. It is by the absence of this information that 
the soil is every where deteriorated and impoverished by 
American cultivators ; and as tlie number engaged in tak- 
ing annual crops from the arable lands of the United States 
increases rapidly, it follows that the injury done to the 
soil also increases from year to year in a nearly equal 
ratio. It is true, no census, State or National, shows irr 
terms the damage done to a single acre of latid in the 
whole country ; but no well informeii person, wlm sees so 
many million acres ofabandoned old ficlJ.s, and .-o many 
still under the plow that yield diminished harvests, can 
doubt the fact tliat American agriculture is prosecuted at 
the expense of the natural resources cf the e irth. This 
being the most prominent feature in our system of tillage 
and farm economy, whether carried on by hired labor, by 
farmers working for themselves, or, by planters working 
apprentices for life, it becomes a question of paramount 
importance to know what are the positive resources of 
any square yard, or given quantity!- of earth, for the 
growth of agricultural plants I Do one hundred pounds 
of common soil contain ten pounds, one pound, or one- 
tenth of a pound, of the precise things which nature takes 
from the ground in forming cotton, corn or wheat? Mil- 
lions labor to produce these and other crops, without 
knowing their elements, or the scarcity, or abundance of 
said elements in the land cultivated. The mind that di- 
rects the planting of the seed is just as dark in reference 
to the food on which the young plant is to subsist as the 
place where the deepest roots hide themselves from the 
light of day. To remove this intellectual darkness, and 
make every cause of inlertility, plain both to the eye and 
the understanding, is the object of Agricultural Science. 
No form of muscular toil, no amount of hard work can 
possibly give to the mind what skilful teaching and study 
impart toil. Had physical labor been adequate to make 
one wi.se in reference to the principles of agriculture, all 
its principles would have been mastered before the Flood, 
and never lost to the world. But long experience proves 
that the principles of any industrial pursuit are rarely 
learned without uniting much critical research wilh the 
practice of the art, trade or profession. Hence, too much 
study and too little work, or too much work and too little 
study, may be equally incompatible with the most skill- 
ful appIicn*ion of manual labor. One who is expected to 
govern and direct the labor of others needs more informa- 
tion than one who simply has to direct his own muscular 
powers, and govern himself An overseer on a plantation 
is in duty bound not only to govern himself properly, bul 
all others under his charge. He should, therefoie, be bet- 
ter informed than a common man, who works by the 
month or year in the field. But one who owns the plan- 
tation and the persons that cultivate it, should be better in- 
fi>rmed in agricultural matters than his overseer; other- 
wise he is more in the power of the latter than prudenca 
warrants. The wise professional education of planters 
and farmers will do more to elevate society, by their ex- 
ample and personal influence, than any other measure 
which is equally practicable. They give employment to 
more people than all other classes combined. Whether 
these lahoi ing people are hired for wages, or serve as ap- 
prentices for life, it is the interest of the employer to in- 
struct them in all that relates to the best system of tillage 
and rural economy; for their hands and intelligence must 
carry into execution all the plans of the proprietor. Hii 
knowledge becomes' the common property of all under 
