VoL. IV. 
AUGUSTA, GA., MARCH, 1846, 
No. 3. 
1 
BY SI. C. M. HAMMOND, 
Delivered before the Burke County Central Agricultural 
Society, January i3, 18iG. 
We have arrived at an era in Agriculture. 
To the planters in this region, it is one ot ihe 
deepest intere.stand importance. Certainly not 
in our time, probably not in that of our fathers, 
and I am inclined to think, not since the settle- 
ment of thi-s country, has there been any period 
so critical to the rvhole agricultural class, and 
which demanded of them such earnest attention, 
such mature reflection, and such vigorous exer 
tion. 
From the time that our vast forests resounded 
with the axe of the settler, great staple produc- 
tions have been introduced, one after another, 
and each has poured its golden tribute into the 
lap ot Industry. R,<ce, Tobacco, Indigo and 
Cotton, have in turns, yielded rich rewards to 
moderate labor and ordina.yy foresight and eco- 
nomy. 
Those who have preceded us as tillers of the 
soil have occupied themselves almost altogether 
in opening fresh lands and procuring more la- 
bor, certain that the amplest profits would repay 
their efforts, and enable them still to continue 
clearing more land ana purchasing more slaves 
for the further increase of their fortune. The 
time has at length arrived when the entire as- 
pect of affair.s is ciianged. ft has fallen upon 
ViS to e.viraci from an exhausted soil, a staple, 
the production of v/hich scarcely affords to the 
most skillful, industrious cultivator of the most 
fertile lands, the lowest rate of, interest on the 
capital invested. The supply ol cotton exceeds 
the demand, and stringent regulations*of go- 
vernment everywhere increase the evil, by 
checking consumption. While these, the es- 
sentialcauses of our condition, continue to last, 
and they are likely to do so, at least for our day, 
there can be no prospect of permanent relief 
Flattering hopes from te.mporary advances are 
delusive. It may be truly asserted, that the cul- 
ture of cotton is yet in its infancy — that it has 
]ust attracted the civilized world to its consump- 
tion, while it is destined to clothe the naked bar- 
barians of the lower latitudes, to supersede .i- 
nen, silk, and perhaps all other fabrics in u.'e 
among the myriads of the globe, and in the 
course of time, to be applied to a thousand pur- 
poses of which we have now no conception. 
And th'3 means operating to accomplish 'these 
results, may likewise be apparent to ail. Com- 
merce, noLirishe'i by this great civilizing pro- 
duct, has at length penetrated the markets of 
our antipodes, and promises to dissipate their 
prejudices and awaken their interest* vvh lie it 
promotes our own. The power of steam mul- 
tiplies the facilities of communication, ami the 
grand R,ailroad, projected to connect the two 
oceans, and which, gigani ic as it mayapeear, 
will surely be constructed, and possibly in’ our 
time, will bring the “golden Indies” to our ve-^y 
door.s, tributary to the producer of cotton. 
But these broad streams of consumption are 
not the birth of a season nor of a generation. 
They spring up gradually and v.dll swell with 
the growth of time and the enterprise and ener- 
gy of man. 
Our great consumer, England, atthis moment 
has nearly a yearVs consumption on hand, u hile 
one-half the new i rop isyetat home. The crop 
has been almost stationary in amount for seve- 
ral years past, and still, the least apprehension 
ol an increase depresses the market. On the 
contrary, thesiightesl advance of price, and nu- 
merous temporary causes, m.ay occasion such 
fluctuation, that the hopes of the planter are ex- 
cited. Thousands of laborers are diverted from 
other channels into this, and consumption is 
again surfeited. Besides, the Southwest, in- 
cluding the vast domain of Texas, contains 
millions of fertile acres, with all their draw- 
backs of disease and insect, freshets and torna- 
does, much more productive than ours. It is 
blessed with a genial clime for the maturity of 
the plant, and is rapidly filling up with popula- 
tion from its own increase and by emigration. 
It will soon be competent, therefore, to supply 
the whole world with cotton, at rates which must 
bani.sh the competition of the East Indies and 
Eastern Islands, and indeed, that of all other 
cotton regions, our own it is to be feared inclu- 
ded, Tlius production can outstrip consump- 
tion, at any period we may anticipate, and thus, 
withoutgreal change among us, is our doom as 
cotton- growers sealed forever. 
d his is indeed an agricultural era, most try- 
ing to us now, and exciting the deepest anxiety 
for the future. We have no hope of discover- 
ing a new staple which shall be necessary to 
the existence or comfort of mankind, the culli 
va-tioriof which we can monopolize longenough 
to restore our fortunes, and throw it upon fu- 
ture generations, to struggle through that revo- 
lution in agriculture, which, however protract- 
ed, must come at last. There are, indeed, vir- 
gin soils still open to us in the West, to which 
I have already alluded, where we might shun 
the work which would inevitably await our 
children here. But if we have no afachment 
to the graves of our fathers, and the scenes ot 
our childhood — if the family mansion, the broad 
fields, the lolly forest, the lamiliar siream, all of 
which has been Homr to us from our first recol- 
lections, possess no charm to bind us here, we 
may well doubt whether the difficulties we 
should have to contend with, as adventurers 
among adveniureis, in a strange, wild, and for 
the most part unhealthy region, might not be at 
leastequal to those which surround us here — 
and whether it is not the manlier part to strug- 
gle with the ills of Fate upon the spot where 
God has placed us, than to attempt to shun his 
visitations by inglorious flight. To many, the 
most ol us, ho v/ever, even this alternative is not 
left. We cannot well go. Whatever betides, 
whether from compulsion or choice, far the 
larger part must remain w'hcre we are. 
The question then, is, what are wm to do? 
The answer might be gi\en in the words of the 
Sacred Book, “that which our hands find to do,” 
and do it with all our might. Let the intelli- 
gent planter survey his own premises alone, and 
it will bring ample conviction of the work 
which is allotted him. Let him look around 
upon the plains with their scanty herbage and 
compacted soil — upon the red hills with their 
skinless backs and skeleton sides ribbed with 
gullies ! The first thing to be done is, to restore 
all these to their original fertil ity, and to carry 
them indeed beyond it, as has been done a thou- 
sand times in as many different countries by 
people far behind us in intelligence and energy. 
The next thing will be, so to diversify their pro- 
ductions as to gratify more human wants, and 
avoid, as far as possible, the over-supply of any. 
And lastly, we must so change our habits of 
life that we shall become as we should be, a 
simple, home-loving, pain-'-taking, hard-work- 
ing people, as wise and polished as we can be, 
and as becomes our age and country. Here is 
what we have to achieve, and it must be accom- 
plished, or we are a ruined people, impoverish- 
ed, fallen, degraded, ready to succumb to the 
first tyrant who waves his strongarm over us — 
to sink into the degeneracy of modern Italy and 
Greece, or rush into the wild anarchy of South 
American mobocraciss. 
No candid and intelligent mind can fail to see 
the work we have to perform, and no one, I trust, 
will want courage to nddre^ himself vigorously 
to the task before him. Yet, the means of its ac- 
complishment are various, and many honest and 
earnest differences ot opinion in relation to them 
may exist. Hoxo are xoe to restore our exhausted 
lands? Hovj arexoelo diversify our productions? 
These are the points I propose loconsider. How 
we shall alter our modes ot life so imperiously 
demanded by our altered circumstances, is a 
cjuestion I shall refer to the good sense of each 
individual to answer for himsell. 
The renovation of exhausted land is a matter 
which has occupied the minds of men from the 
earliest periods of which we have any account, 
for profane history does not carry us back to a 
point when the earth, kind and generous as she 
is to all her sons, did not demand of them a fi- 
lial regard for her own wants. The Chaldeans 
irrigated at vast laborand expense. TheEgyp- 
tians used machines to insure the full benefit of 
the waters of the “ blessed Nile.” The Chinese, 
models for the agriculturist, tor a thousand years 
planiedno land not highly enriched; and industri- 
ous in collecting and preserving all nutriment to 
vegetation, were so sensible of its value, as to 
have passed laws anciently against the waste of 
manure. In periods more recent, the Flemish 
have reclaimed and fertilized a barren waste. 
The English within our day, have nearly dou- 
bled the produce of their land, by draining, im- 
proved plowing, and immense contributions of 
manures, some ot which were transported thou- 
sands ot miles across the deep. AndourNorth- 
ern feilow-ciiizens also, struggling with a bleak 
climate, and gravelly, and for the most part po- 
vert}^ stricken soil, are performing great things 
in the improvement of land and in agriculture 
senerally. Alcdern chemists are now turning 
their attention to the subject, with a zeal which 
promises the srandest results, and we may ftel 
sure, that Science, which has accomplished 
wonders for agriculture in the last few years, 
will achieve tor us as much in the longrun as 
she has done for all the other practicaf profes- 
sions of mankind. It is of primary impor- 
tance tliat we should not turn a deaf ear to her 
kind and salutary admonitions. In this intelli- 
gent community, let the man be scouted, who, 
resorting to the hackr.ied ultraisms of an age 
gone by, presumes to ridicule or denounce 
“ book learning” among planmrs. Conceited 
ignorance, hastening to its own ruin, may in- 
dulge in grimace when scientific ideas are ad- 
vanced, which are entirely beyond its compre- 
hension, but the man of sense is not only weak, 
but criminal, who does not look with contempt 
upon the jibes of clodpoles, who, though they 
may have walked their three score years and 
ten, upon the bosom of the earth, know nothing 
of the history ot its formation, its elements, its 
wants, or even its capacit}'. The same system 
of labor taught us byour fathers, if pursued by 
