0 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVAT OR. 
coining delicacy as to have become the tt ump- 
eter ot our own lame. If has been done that, 
by ihe contemplation ot ths benefits our asso- 
ciation has already conferred, and its enlarged 
resources and capabilities lor good, we might 
become alive to its true dignity and the useful- 
ness of its proper aims, and in future he en- 
couraged to extend its operations and exert us 
powers on a more ample scale in the accom- 
plishment of its objects, I have deemed it the 
more excusable too, in view ot the fact, that 
many of the staunchest friends, even many ot 
the most zealous members ot this club, have be- 
er -m - d.'couTaeed at the prospect before us. 
Grt-rt fears nave been entertained that the 
(ail this year would be a failure^ that owing to 
the fai.ure of tbepremi.im crops, consequent 
upon the oryness ot the y< ar, the general be- 
lief that there would oe no exhibition of stock, 
the display of our fairmustnecef-sariv (all short 
of the past, and that discouragement .r suing, 
our club must in consequence cease to live.-- ■ 
Our enemies, too, have been busy— -those 
croakers who are ever ready to presage evil to 
every laudable undertaking — they being too 
wise themselves to improve, or, as that inimi- 
table writer, Sam Slick, more happily ex- 
presses it, “ too sot in their ways to larn,” and 
tm selfish to allow others to do so— have been 
pro’ hesying (or years, that our club would 
fiou'ish whilst it possessed the charm ot 
novelty; but when divested of this, or an un- 
favorable year occurs in which there was a 
failu e of premium crops, and farmers had 
not c rn to throw away in fattening si#ck for 
our lair, the Planters’ Club of Hancock would 
die and be numbered with the things that were. 
Tliere is another class ot farmers, though I 
am happy to say they are neither so numerous 
nor helpless as the one 1 have just mentioned, 
who nevertheless serve to clog and impede the 
march ot improvement. They are those who 
are never able to do anything. Go to them 
when you will and ask them to give you a 
dollar and to take the Cuhivator, and they will 
tell you they believe the Cultivator to be a very 
good sort of a thing, very useful and all that, 
but they are not able to take it, haven’t the 
money to spare; ask them to pay their dollar 
and become members of the Planters’ Club, and 
they give you the same answer. All such clod- 
hoppers (for they don’t deserve the dignified 
appellation of farmer,) forcibly remind me of 
the anecdote of the man “who held the six- 
pence so close, that he could not see a dollar at 
arm’s length. With all such I have nothing to 
do, upon “ the present occasion ; for verily they 
are too sot in their ways” to improve. 
But I put it to the sober wisdom and enlight- 
ened patriotism of the members of this Club, 
and to the community generally to determine, 
whether they will allow an associaiion to be 
dissolved which has exerted, as 1 think I have 
shown, such a satisfactory influence in eleva- 
tingand improving the agriculture of this county. 
No, gentlemen, for myself I have no fears 
that such wil! be the fate of this club. Your 
patriotism, your character, your prid", your in- 
terest all forbid it. You are too deeply imbued 
with the spirit of the age to permit your seal in 
the cause of agricultural improvement to abate. 
The power of an association and concentration 
of eflfort to the accomplishment of thisgrealend, 
has been too deeply felt, and is too highly ap- 
preciated by you, to allow you again to relapse 
that apathy and careless indifference, which 
has too long characterised the farmers of Geor- 
gia. 
There is, perhaps, no instrumentality ever 
yet employed either by God or man, which has 
exerted such a wonderful influence over the des- 
tinies of the world, as this power of association. 
It is this principle of association which distin- 
guishes the present from all other ages of the 
world; it is this which has done so much to 
humanize and christianize the world— which 
has sent that blessed book, the Bible, the bjst 
of all God’s gifts toman, into every land and 
country — which has planted the standard of the 
Redeej^ier’s Cross in the remotest isles of the 
sea, and raised men, in thousands of instances, 
from that state of ignorance and moral degrada- 
tion which is “of the earth earthy,” and pointed 
his soul to a higher and brighter immortality 
beyond the grave. It has stricken down the 
thrones of tyrants, and is at this time shaking 
to their foundations some of the old dynasties 
of Europe. It has dragged science from the 
secret chambers ot the scholar, and made it snb- 
servient to the common business purposes ol 
life. It has stripped art ol itsempiricism, and is 
last hurrying man on lo that state of perfection 
which is to be his ultimate destiny. The agri- 
cultural classes, though they are the most im- 
portant, the most useful, and the most numer- 
ous in all countries, seem to have been the last 
to perceive arid apply this principle. A bright- 
er day has at last, however, da wmsd upon the 
farmer. 
Scotland, the first to perceive and apply this 
powerful agency to the improvement of her 
agriculture, has acted as a pioneer, and now 
leads ibe van in the march of improvement; 
England soon followed in her wake — and our 
more sagacious and industrious countrymen, 
the Yankees, ha e not been slow to imitate their 
example. Among ihese the States of New 
York and fviassachusetis stand pre-eminent. 
Tnrough their agricultural associations they 
have succeeded in arousing ."nd diffusing a spi- 
rit of impruvement which has been felt and at- 
tended with the. best results in every part of 
those States. 
These societies have wrung from their legis- 
latures large appropriations of money lor agri- 
cultural purposes. And it is believed, and has 
been confidenily asserted, that the State ol New 
York has been amply remunerated for every 
dollar thus expended, in the increased amount 
of revenue which has flow’ed into her treasury 
from the tolls on her canals, turnpikes and rail- 
roads, to say nothing of the increased amount 
of revenue from taxation, consequent upon her 
increased wealth. This Siate is still moving 
on with a firm and steady step, and with una- 
bated ardour, in the great business ot agricul- 
tural improvement. The editor ot the Albany 
Cultivator, in the last number of that valuable 
paper, says that the extraordinary interest 
which for a few years past has attended the 
agricultural fairs of that State was fully kept 
up at the exhibition of the Slate Agricultural 
Society at Utica in September, that iheie were 
no less than forty thousand persons in atten- 
dance — that nearly seven hundred head of do- 
mestic animals, all choice specimens of their 
kind,#vere brought upon the ground to be shown 
for premiums - that the collection of domestic 
fabrics, specimens of the mechanic arts, agri- 
cultural implements, &c., were no less Rumer- 
ous; all going to show the immense interest 
which the people of that Stale taken in the bu- 
siness of agriculture, and the immense influ- 
ence which has been brought lo bear upon its 
impruvement. 
With these examples before our eyes, gentle- 
men, what is to prevent Georgia from doing 
likewise. The people are ready and ripe for it. 
No more decisive evidence can he offered that 
agriculture, in its effects and consequences, is 
beginning to be belter appreciated and under- 
stood, and the means ol advancing it more fully 
realized in Georgia, than the number of new 
societies w'hich have sprung up in almost every 
section ot the Slate within the present year. 
The establishment too, of that excellent pe- 
riodical, the Southern Cultivator, and its exten- 
sive circulation among our farmers, has already 
aroused a spirit of improvement which only re- 
quires to be fostered and sustained to make 
Georgia what indeed she can and ought to be, 
one of the first agrioultural States in the Union. 
All that is now wanting is for the State to aiif 
in this business. A law similar in character to 
the law passed by the Legislature of New York 
in 1841, enacted at the next session of the Le- 
gislature of Georgia, appropriating some ten or 
twelve thousand dollars to be divided according 
t© population, among the several counties of 
the State, upon condition that each county 
should regularly organize an agricultural socie- 
ty, and raise a sum equal to the amount appro- 
priated by the Stale, would give an impeiur to 
agiiculture which could not fail lo do for Geor- 
gia W’hat it has done lor every other State whose 
Legislatures have had the wisdom and sagaci- 
ty lo adopt ihis policy. 
Such a law would be worili all the eighty 
thousand dollar appropriations to Monroe Rail 
Roads, and the thousand other appioprialions 
to sustain and keep up the credit of rotten banks 
which the Legislature could enact from now till 
doomsday. I regard the passage ot such a law 
aspailiculariy needed, and specially called for in 
the present juncture of the agricultural history 
of Georgia. As before remarked, quite a num- 
ber of the counties of the State have re- 
cently formed agricufural societies. li does 
not require the gilt of prophecy to fon tell that 
many ol these Societies must perish and go by 
the board, if left to rely alone upon the liberali- 
ty of individual contributions lo susiain them; 
but if they could receive a small donaiion from 
the State, of from one to two hundred dollars, it 
would serve as a nucleus, w’hich could hardly 
fail to render these societies permanent, and at 
the same time to extend the sphere ol their use- 
fulness, To illustrate this more foicibiy, gen- 
tlemen, suppose the proposition was made to 
you to-day, that the S*ate would place in the 
hands ot the officers of this club, the sum of 
$250, to be distributed in premiums, as the club 
in its discreiion might think proper lo direct — 
provided a like sum should be raised by the cit- 
izens of this county, and placed in their hands, 
to be disposed of in like manner. Think you 
there would be any difficulty in raising this 
amount, or in keeping the soul and body of the 
Planters’ Club together ? 1 suppose not; fori 
think you would plank ii up, every dollar of it, 
before leaving this house. Now these two 
sums, when added together, would make the 
sum of $500; a handsome sum to be applied to 
this purpose, and soon that would be made to 
tell most immediately, effectually and power- 
fully on ihe prosperity of the people of this 
county. There used to be an old adage which 
was very common before Temperance Socie- 
ties came about, that “ a spur in the head was 
worth two in the heel.” This, I ihink, would 
place a spur in the head, heels and.liandscf 
every farmer in old Hancock. 
1 am aware that ihe opinion pr''vails with 
many, and is used as an argument, that private 
cupidity and individual interest will prompt 
men to this, without taxing the community to 
lurnish ai tificial stimulants to incite them to do 
that which it is obviously to their interest to do 
without such incentives. Now what a practi- 
cal refutation of this argumciit does the every 
day conduct and practices of men furnish. I 
will only mention one among the thousands ot 
such instances that might be named. 
It is clearl}'^ to the interest ol every farmer in 
this county to prevent his land from washing 
away. It is geneially admitted by the best 
practical farmers in the county that this can be 
easily and effectually done at a very trifling cost 
of labor, by means of hillside ditches and hori- 
zontal cultivation . And yet how few planta- 
tions are there in this county that have been 
thoroughly and effectually ditched. Now, sup- 
pose this club had the ability to offer a stand- 
ing yearly premium for five years of $50 for the 
best hillside ditched pianialion in the county, 
w;ith SU' h cordiiions and restrictions as would 
admit of the greatest possible number ol com- 
petitors, what would be the effect'? Whv 
there would soon be miles of bill-side ditches 
cut, where thwe are not now rods. 
In five years time there would scarcely be a 
plantation in the county that would not have the 
requisite number of drains judiciously arrang- 
ed and constructed, with such strict conformity 
to hydrostatic principles as effectually to pre- 
vent the land from being injured by heavy 
rains. It seems to me, then, that every consid- 
eration ol public policy and enlightened patriot- 
ism should prompt the State at the ensuing ses- 
sion of the Legislature to lend its aia in eleva- 
