SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR 
205 
lage and Husbandry as unworthy of any assistance ; and 
unlike the President of the Virginia State Agricultural 
Society, it appears to regard ignorance as more valuable 
to the cultivator and owner of the soil, than knowledge. 
Everywhere these two great antagonist elements in hu- 
mnn society contend against each other. At the start. 
Ignorance has the advantage of possessing the mind of 
man by which it commands many an unwise vole in all 
deliberative bodies; but Knowledge is sure to win the 
day after the people become sufficiently enlightened to 
choose eniigkkned representatives. 
When we see agricultural colleges going into success- 
ful operation in Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, 
Pettnsylvania and New York, it is some satisfaction to 
know that our cheap fifty cent Genesee Parmer, long cir- 
<:u[aied widely in all these States, and when some of them 
were territories, and labored faithfully to bring public 
opwiif^ up to where it now stands on this question — 
Sotsebody ought to circulate Agricultural Tracts at the 
SouHti. All our efiforts far improvement are too narrow in 
conception, and too limited in execution, to bring forth 
immediate fruit of any considerable value. It is not pos- 
sible lor schemes so isolated to have more than a very 
feeble hold on popular sympathy. 1 he circulation of no 
dollar agricultural paper at the South has ever been one- 
half what it should be to awaken and keep alive a proper 
feeling in behalf of the agricultural interest. No matter 
what IS proposed lor the benefit of this immense Interest, 
nothing can be done without concert of action: and all 
experience in all countries goes to prove, that agricul- 
ral communities move much slower than either commer- 
cial nr mechanical ones Give, them their well attended 
societies, their well-read professional and other lihraries, 
their journals of large eireulation, and often issued, that 
mental activity may pervade the whole mass, and in- 
stead of being the mere hewers of wood and drawers of 
water for oilier classes, their superior wisdom would be 
looked up to by all, and govern every State as it ought to 
be govern'd. To have unlimited politieal power is noth- 
ing to t-inners, if they permit demagogues to use and 
abu^e It True nobility lies not in appearing to be s'rong 
and great, but in positive strengih duly and properly 
used to ai-iiieve noble ends. The owners of American 
farms and planiaiions have peculiar advantages for ele 
vaiing themselves and their posterity, and at the same 
^ time render a valuable seivice to all other classes by the 
general improvenn nt of ihe country. An expansion ol 
intellect and a deeper insight into the natural laws that 
pervade all [dams all animals, and all inanimate matter 
can only be a'Cjuir<d by an efbrt to enlarge one’s men 
tai treasures and powers. There is unrivalr^d happiness 
in study, provided one’s taste is early cultivated aright, 
and he is not surrounded by adverse influences calculated 
-to dwarf the intellect, m slead tlie affections, and corrupt 
the heart The nioial influence of rural sciences has not 
been sufficiently discussed before parents who have sons 
to < ducaie and settle in the world. 1’emptations to evil 
will be les-ened when sclumls and colleges are mainly lo- 
cated on large, (aim , and studenis are rsqiiirfd to wittifss 
and understand all the labors of the cultivator and stock 
grower, as well as woi k in the laiH)ralory. and reriie their 
lessons to ttache.rs. Tliey can be boarded fiotii chea[ier 
and betti r at ahrge and well managed establishment, 
wheie grain ami meats, fruiis and vegetables are grown 
in the b- St [io>sii)!e manner, than in any village or ciiy. 
A wt 11 cultivated, niglily productive faim is not to be run 
away from to get an education, as something degrading 
in its ru.-'iic naini e, but it possesses intrinsic advantages 
for inaiiitaiMing the fihysical and moral health of youth, 
and for their ctimforiablc suhsis'ence, wtiicli cannot be 
elsewhere foun I. Hence, wheihet we regaid the studies, 
or the associations of a strictly agiiculiural college, it is 
calculated to make good students, sound, and thoroughly 
educated men. Discarding pedantry, and the foppery of 
learning, and all evasion ot honest and faithful applica- 
tion to proper text books, surrounded by the beauty and 
freshness of Nature, improved by Art and Science, and 
removed from a thousand allurements to idleness and the 
neglect of study, which too often are met with in the pre- 
cincts of educational institutions, it is easy to see that 
virtue, thought, and industiy would be strengthened at a 
plantation college. Pure tastes, habits, thoughts and pur- 
poses, with their best fruits, may be fostered, cultivated 
and ripened, more successfully in rural retirement than 
amid the din, and strife, and recklessness of commercial 
towns, where vice and crime have almost unchecked sway. 
Already the best-informed denizens of cities are sending 
their sons into the country to be educated at farm schools; 
and nothing is likely to be more attractive than a well 
appointed agricultural college in any State of the Con- 
federacy. Thousands of merchants and other business 
men look forward to the time when they may retire to lit- 
tle farms, cultivate their huits and vegeialdes, rear their 
stock and poultry, and see everything flourish around 
their happy homes. 1 he men of ciiies at the North have 
hitherto been the most liberal patrons of agricultural col- 
leges — many of whom were born and bred in the coun- 
try, and command eminent success in business from the 
mental and moral power thus acquired in agricultural 
districts. In a word, agricultural colleges have become a 
grand necessity in the prognss of mankind to dtvelope 
aright the natural resources of the earth, and of humanity. 
MANUKE MAKING. 
Editors Southern Cultivator— There is nothing 
hazarded in a.sserting that among all departments, duties 
and labors of husbandry, there is none in which the plan- 
ters and farmers of the South are so amiss as in the pre- 
paration of nianures. No tillers of the earth are more in- 
dustrious — in no other country probably do they perform 
so much manual labor in the course of the year The farm 
work done in the Northern States, indeed in all grain and 
grass growing countries, bears no comparison to the 
amount of bestowed on our cotton and corn plantations. 
But in all the South, with here and there an excejited in- 
stance, very litile or none of this labor is given to storing 
lip manures and composts. Why sol Because we have 
been accustomed to plant on freshly cleared land, a\\d7iot 
accustomed to those methods of procedure by which, in 
older and more experienced States the barrenness of fields 
IS prevented, and those which have been permittee) to be- 
come barren, restored to lertility. As ever happens in like 
cases, ignorance occasions distrust in our aliility to ac- 
complish anyihing valuable, and in our despair, we make 
little or no etTort. It may be better to migrate to Texas, 
Kanzas or Arkansa-'-, plant fresh lands, breathe bad air, 
(iritdt bad water, rningle with a rude and depraved [lopu- 
laiion and meet an early death in a paroxysm of billious 
ffver, than remain at home in health and comfort, and en- 
counter the troulde of fertilizing our own fields; but that 
IS not my way of thinking. 
If tlie. fmners of New England, Pennsylvania and New 
.lersey had, as we have, ready access to the woods, the 
thousands ol loads of leaves which lie at convenient dis- 
tances, wou'd eveiy year be composted into first-rate ma- 
nure for corn and oihercrnps. Why would they do what 
1 we neglect') Only because they know by experience 
that the thing is quite [iracticalVe and that it pays belter 
than any other work. This we of the ^outh do not be- 
lieve. becaUiC we have never made trial of it. In the ig- 
norance of our inveterate haliits, we repaid the ferlilizaiion 
of our old fields a matter of itnpossiiuhiy — and so in tha 
hands of men who so think and act, it is. , 
