SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
209 
Lyon, and, if tradition is to have weight, by every one 
who then lived in Wilkes county, where it occurred j 
Another one of those traditions by which the “ integrity | 
of history is so often falsifiied,'"’ is given by Antiquary — j 
which gives, as it is thouont, the year 1806 as the time i 
when the first saw gin was made in Wilkes county by j 
Edward Lyon. I have shown by a living witness that > 
ten years before, the copyist of Lyon had made one. j 
And Mr. Anderson mentioned that, besides the one j 
3IcCloud made for him, Hanson, of this county had one; | 
indicating that ten years before 1806 they were cornnjon ; 
in Wilkes county. ; 
All this shows the wisdom of the suggestions of W. H. ; 
D., that if any thing is to be said on this subject, let it be i 
done now while there are some living witnesses to many ! 
important facts. * 
.Mr. Bull, I have always understood, was a very enter- { 
prising and ingenious man (mechanic, I presume) and may i 
be entitled to the credit of inventing the cotton gin, and j 
from what Antiquary says, probably introduced the iron I 
screvv. I have seen the iron screws and taps lying about \ 
our streets until within a few years. It think it probable ! 
they will be Introduced again as wood becomes scarce'and | 
iron cheap. I have learned that the expense, when iron 1 
was so high: was the reason they were abandoned. An | 
old citizen — al.vays curious in such m.atters — fold me, a i 
few days sin -e, that the Gilberts of this place had one j 
which jjjcked two bass at a time, and cost, with its com- \ 
plicated ge ;ring, eighteen hundred dollars, and w'hich } 
they afterwards sold to some one in Augusta for one I 
thou.sahd dollars, _ • 
At the haz ird of boring you and your readers with the 
tediousness -cf my communication, as I am down with my 
pen, [ will mil all that I recollect to have heard about 
Whitney and his gin, though not to the credit of the j 
Empire Sta'e of the South.'"’ I understand from good j 
authority, ihat Whitney died poor; and, if not in bad j 
taste, or pro'ane, I would say, for our sakes he became | 
poor. It would have taken a crop of one of our largest i 
notion bag lords, at 14 cents per pound, to have withstood | 
the expense of his unsuccessful litigation in Georgia.! He ! 
lived and died bagless, though he has made more cotton | 
bags than has ever been grown on the soil of “ this glo- i 
rious empire of ours,” from 1795 to 1857. His descen- | 
dants are poor. Tennessee, Alabama, South Carolina, 1 1 
am informed, and perhaps other cotton States, have mani- 1 
fested their appreciation of his merits by material and; 
substantial aid, while the great and magnanimous empire | 
of his adoption has been worse than silent; for her juries 1 
when appealed to for damages for a violation of his pa- j 
tent, refused the verdicts for him, to which, I have under- | 
stood, from tradition, the judges decided he was entitled. I 
It is not too lute, through his posterity, to manifest our 
.gratitude to the great inventor. 
I have always lived in hopes that Georgia would, in 
some lucid interval, be moved by generosity, if not jus- ! 
tice, to discharge her great obligation, not to be barred by j 
any limitation of time. And until she shall have done so, i 
she should feel herself in an unenviable category, next to j 
the repudiating States of the Union. i 
Though the course of my remarks have led me to speak i 
of Whitney only, ihey’^ will also in a degree, apply to; 
Lyon and Ids descendants Suf^h men as these are the ! 
true benef.actor.s of m^inkiild. Wliere is the score r<f states- • 
men and warriors, mentioned i.n rlie hisfory of Georgia, j 
who'C services are to be mentioned in comparison with ! 
tbe>e. hum'de mechanics 1 "Were it possible to strike out I 
all which the former have done front the past, so uncer- ! 
tain are the consequences of State policy — that it is qup.s--j 
tinna'de whether' we shoul.I not be benefited by the| 
o'oliteration. But who so hardy as m doubt the blessing.>| 
■couferred by the latter 'I While piles of hard cash have | 
been directly and indirectly appropriated by way of emo- 
lument for the services of the former, while reams of un- 
sullied white paper have been defiled by stilted preambles 
and exaggerated resolves, recording their merits, and 
clouds of empty gas vomited forth by our orators in praise 
of the former, hardly one has risen up even to call the 
latter blessed, — hardly one so poor as to. do iliem re- 
verence. 
These views might by applied to the nation and the 
world still more appropriately, had I the space and time. 
I would be willing to name a dozen inventors aud dis- 
coverers, to whom mankind is more indebted, than to all 
the warriors and staies.men who have lived for a thousand 
years. And great as is the difference in favor of the 
former, in the magnitude of the services rendered, greater, 
if possible, is the difference in the rewards in favor of 
the latter. 
Hundreds of thousands are annually appropriated by 
Congress to foster a nest of the brass-button fledgelings at 
West Point; and like thousands were voted by that body, 
the other day, to increase the pay of the full-plumed, when 
a few coppers to furnish bed and board to some genius, 
whose talents and, ti^ste would prompt him to pursue a 
caterpillar till he could master its natural history, might 
benefit the nation more than millions annually appro- 
priated for other more imposing purposes. 
Garnett Andrews. 
Washingio7i, Ga., Ma.y, 1857. 
“DIVERSIFIED A GRICLETFRE— HOUSEHOLD 
Maaasement, &e. 
Editors Southern Cultivator — T am very much 
pleased at a scene in your May number, gotten up by 
“ L. J. S.” in writing (as he says) “ his first article for the 
Southern CuliixatorP He takes our Dr. Lee, Editor, pret- 
ty plainly to task for changing his policy of Lecturing 
Farmers “ strictly on Domestic Economy” to raise any- 
thing needed, so as to be independent, &c , and says the 
Doctor was, then, “in the right track.” But that he has 
'• now run into the popular breeze of the great cotton ma- 
nia” — “ the making of which has ruined Georgia lands, 
&c.” Dr. Lee in his remarks has been very pleasant, and 
sustains himself handsomely in answer to L J. S. when 
he says “ that all needful reforms in society are effected 
by slow degrees, and often more by appearing to sail with 
the popular current than to be forever toiling against it.” 
But after all, and on the whole subject of bettering the 
Agriculture of the South, I am ready to give the Doctor 
great and very great credit. The appearance of the 
^'■Southern Cullivator'‘^ found Georgia in adilemna. Her 
farmers ready to, and actually moving to other new coun- 
tries, where they might, by spending what they made, 
while wearing out one fine portion of country, wear out 
another equally rich, in making over again what they ne- 
cessaiily lost in the unholy movement. It cannot be de- 
nied that our farmers have grown wiser, in the appropria- 
tion of labor, by the Cultivator, and that the worn faces 
of our fields have put on different fronts — showing, 
that the country will again do to live in. I must stop, 
however, to give some credit to the contribution of our Mr. 
L. J. S., for that he furnishes Dr. Lee with scope and 
[il.-ice to appear before the agricultural public in the very 
best essay on Diversified Agriculture” J have ever read. 
It is also found in the May number, and 1 cannot too much 
commend it to public notice. But enough is here said by 
me on the subject of the right management to make mo~ 
ney The right of it is ready the important item ia 
Political Economy I mean the advancement of any peo- 
ple in wortli instead of show — in sohds instead of sti- 
pe, finally, in all the attributes tliat make com- 
munities de.sirable— the people more religious than hypo- 
critical; and tiie world a better world. 1 hope that thft 
