34 
THE SOUTHERN CULTIVATOR. 
pie of intelligent and persevering exertion. Let 
there be a generous ambition and a constant 
stimulus to enterprise, in all the departments ot 
human industry and activity. When the heart 
beats, the impulse is felt throughout the Irame; 
find yoUj, cannot quicken the stream of life in 
pny one part, without apceleratipg the circula- 
tion through the whole body. Go on, then, try- 
ing to do better and better. The farmers have 
been too often the sport of the rest of the com- 
munity foi their sluggishness, their inditfeience 
to improvement, and their incredulity in respect 
to what has been done, where any thing extraor- 
dinary has been etfected. Injustice has often, 
but not always, been done to them in this matr 
ter. They should shake off this apathy. T hey 
should wake up. While every other art is ad- 
vancing in the career of improvement, almost 
with the speed of a locomotive engine, they 
should whip up their team, and not be distanced 
in the competition. There is a beautiful cir- 
cumstance connected with agiicultural emula- 
tion. In many of the pursuits oi life, one man 
gets rich by making another man poor. He 
climbs the ladder by putting his foot on another 
naan’s shoulder; or, he builds his own dwelling 
out of the fragments of his neighbor’s, which 
he has undermined. This is often a crying in- 
justice, and inflicts many bitter mortifications, 
or arouses vindictive and tiger passions. Emu- 
lation in agricultural improvement enkindles no 
such balel'ul fires. A man can make no im- 
provements in husbandry, without at once ex- 
tending the know'] edge and advantages oi them 
to others. The enlargement of capacities of the 
soil, and every increase of its productions, con- 
fers an immediate benefit upon the w^hole com- 
munity. 
I proceed to speak of the other sub- 
ject suggested; that is, the improvement of the 
lanns themselves. It wall be seen, from what 
has been said, that agriculture is a great art; and 
that its improvement demands the highest exer- 
cise of the highest powers of the mind. If there 
was ever a subject presenting food for intellect- 
ual inquiry, that subject is agriculture, involv- 
ing, as it does, the most subtle operations, and 
the deepest my'steries of nature. It is the mind 
w'hich constitutes the true dignity of our nature. 
Without it, man would be a mere machine; with 
it, he becomes a divinity. It is lor the farmers 
to come to a knowdedge of the true character of 
their great calling, and place it where it belongs, 
amopg the liberal prpfessions, and among the 
most exalted of sciences. Formerly, whenever 
there was a lame or deformed child in the famh 
ly, it was thought he would dc for a tailor or a 
minister; and if he were a dunce or a bloclf- 
head, he w'ould answ'er for a farmer. These 
prejudices are gone, and that stock is nearly 
worked out. Agriculture is assuming its pro- 
per place among the pursuits of men; and yield- 
ing to none under heaven in usefulness, ip hon- 
esty, and intrinsic respectability, let us seek to 
prove, that while it presents objects to call out 
and interest, it is every way worthy of the appli- 
cation of the most improved talents which ever 
fell to the lot of man. 
Agriculture is not a mere physical effort or 
labor. It is a science. It is a branch of intel- 
lectual philosophy; and its improvement and 
perfection, if ever it is to reach perfection, are as 
dependent upon the application and instrumen- 
tality of mind, intellectual perception, intellec- 
tual skill, knowdedge, I will add gepius, as any 
art or science, which is the subject of man’s 
power or attainment. 
I am aware that this is not the light in which 
it is usually regarded. The public sentiment in 
this respect needs to be reformed and strengthen- 
ed. Justice has not been done to this art. It is 
encouraging to belive, that in this matter, public 
opinion is undergoing a favorable change. I 
am anxious to see agriculture occupying the 
place among the humane, liberal and intellectu- 
al arts, which belongs to it. But if it would 
reach and maintain that station, it must prove 
itself deserving. It may be carried to the throne 
by acclamalion; but, as the public judgment is 
constantly becoming more enlightened and se- 
vere, it cannot maintain its ascendancy unless it 
is w'orthy of it. The laurels w'ill be plucked from 
its brow, if they are not the rewards of merit. — 
It can prove itself worthy to rank among the li- 
beral and enlightened arts, only by becoming 
itself liberal and enlightened. Study, inquiry, 
reading and knowledge, are as much* demanded 
foi the advancement and perfection of agricul- 
ture, as for that of any art .or science, W e may 
expect from science, inquiry and the efforts of 
genius, the same advantages here as in any oth- 
er place or objects where they may be applied. 
* f * * * =1: 
I proceed now" to the consideration of a means 
of elevating the agricultural profession of more 
importance, because of much more efficient in- 
fluence, than any to w'hich I have referred; and 
that is education, knowledge, intellectual im- 
provement. 
I have already said that the glory of men is 
his mind. If his animal nature is curious, and 
wonderful and beautiful, his intellectual nature 
is transcendent apd divine, This places him at 
the head of the animal creation. In his mind 
as in the seed lie the undeveloped elements of 
moral grow'th, and the secret sources of that en- 
ergetic authority which subjects the most pow- 
erful elements of the physical world to his 
sceptre, and makes him “the monarch of all he 
surveys.” In ap art, involving many of the 
most w'onderfitl operations — and agricul.ure is 
that art — dealing in the most subtle agencies in 
nature, and presenting even to the casual obser- 
ver, in cultivation and in vegetable and animal 
growth, a succession of miracles, where is there 
moroe ccasion for the most subtle inquiries of 
philosophy^ 
To the careless observer the deposite of a 
seed in the earth, its germination, its after cul- 
tivation, its progressive growth and its ultimate 
maturity, are matters of such eveiy day occur- 
rence, that they create no surprise, and are sel- 
dom remarked. But they are all replete with 
wonders, which in their solution have hitherto 
defied to a large extent the most subtle search- 
ings of the most subtle minds. Where does 
life repose in this dried kernel, so small and to 
all appearance so utterly inertl What secret 
agency sw'ells and protrudes the germl By 
what power does it force its w"ay above the sur- 
face and gradually expand its leaves, and put 
forth its flowers, and mature its fruit? How 
and where does it gather and assort, and at its 
pleasure use or reject the various materials 
which go to form the stem, the leaves, the flow- 
er, the fruit? How does it construct its exqui- 
site cells and pierce its delicate tubes, and elab- 
orate its juices, and drink in the subtle gases 
that float around it, keeping that which it needs, 
sending back that w'hich it does not need, doing 
that by its own spontaneous energy, which the 
chemist deems the highest triumph of his skill, 
and framing its w^onderlul organism, and com- 
pounding its peculiar odors, and mixing in ex- 
act proportions its beautiful colors; and all this 
while, be the situation or soil, the appliances or 
manures, what they may, remaining true to its 
kind, so that the grasses do not change into the 
umbelliferous plants, nor the bulbotts roots trans- 
form themselves into the cereal grains? Be3’'ond 
all question all these operations go on according 
to fixed laws, perfectly simple in their operation, 
if we could but understand that operation;- and 
no more the effect of chance or accident, or di- 
rect interference of the divine artist than any 
other of the regular operations of the material 
world. But what are the influences and effects 
of seed and soil, of heat and light and electricity 
and gravity, of dew and rain, and air, and ma- 
nure, and culture, by what power exerted, by 
what circumstances controlled, all these are 
matters for philosophical inquiry, and as yet 
can scarcely be said to have been approached. 
The rearing and improvement of live stock, and 
the whole subject of comparative anatomy and 
animal physiology, are matters likewise coming 
directly within the province of the farmer, full 
of food for the inquisitive mind, and opening a 
wide field of inquiry. Is education then of no 
value to the farmer? Has knowledge no use to 
him? Is his profession a matter of mere servile 
and animal toil? Has the mind no w'ork to per- 
form here? Is this art to form an exception to 
every other? 
How far is the art in any country from hav- 
ing reached the highest point of productiveness? 
Where and when, indeed, has the actual capa- 
city of a single acre been tested? Is there no 
room for inquiry, for the exertion of the highest 
powers of the mind to determine this point? — 
The same remarks apply with equal force to 
the rearing and management of live stock. Any 
man who compares an improved Durham short 
horn, or a full-blooded Merino or Dishley sheep, 
with the common stock of the country, and dogs 
not perceive how much has been effected by the 
exertion of the highest measure of intelligence 
and skill directed by science, and how much 
more is yet to be hoped for by renewed and con- 
tinued efforts, seems doomed to a hopeless stu- 
pidit}". 
If at the same time ve lopk back to what 
has been gained in the actual increase of the 
products of agriculture, we shall see equal rea- 
sons to acknowledge the advantages derived 
from the application of mind to this art, and to 
take courage in view of Avhat may hereafter be 
gained. Ihat'e already touched upon this sub- 
ject. tialfa centuryago, fifty bushels of Indian 
corn to the acre would have been regarded as an 
extraordinary yield. A crop of a hundred bush- 
els is not now uncommon, and more than one 
hundred and seventy have been produced in this 
State. In Scotland a few years since, thirty 
bushejs of wheqt would have been bej'ond the 
average yield eA"en of the best culthm don. Un- 
der a system of under-draining and subsoil 
ploughing, sixty are not uncommon. It is not 
long since the system of leaving half the ground 
fallow deemed indispensable, in order to re- 
cruit the exhausted lands; noAV, by a judiciotrs 
rotation, alternating white and green crops, the 
land is kept uninterruptedly in production. 
Education may be considered in ttvo aspects; 
first as general, embracing all the common subr 
jects of reading and inquiry; second as specific, 
limiting itself to the particular objects of the ag- 
ricultural art. Both are equally conducive to 
the respectability of the profession. We see 
every Avhere, what an influence and standing 
the high cultivation of the mind gives to every 
man who has it in our community. No official 
station, no mass ot wealth so efeyales a man; 
and even if we were cursed with the aristocratic 
distinctions Avhich prevail in other countries, 
such is the .spreading influence of intelligence, 
that the cultivation of the mind would enable 
the man to overtop them all. To attain exceL 
lence in any art, the principles of that art re- 
quire to be made the objects of specific inquiry 
and study. But giving to these considerations 
all the prominence we may, success in any art 
or science will essentially depend, not merely 
and not more, upon the knowledge of the parti* 
cular principles or elements connected with it, 
than upon the strengthening and enlargement 
of the mind by general knoAvledge. 
We must likewise observe an obArious dis- 
tinction betAveen the knoAvledge of the practice 
of, and the knowledge of the principles of an 
art. Men may thoroughly understand the prin- 
ciples of an art, without knowing any thing of 
its manipulations. The philosopher may in- 
vestigate and explain with the greatest advan- 
tage to the common farmer, the principles of ve- 
getation, and the operation of manures, without 
himself haviqg even so much as reared a single 
flower, or stuck even a garden spade into the 
ground. In order to a successful practice, the 
art must be learnt as well as the science, the ex- 
ecution as well as the theor}". The best pros- 
pect of success is when they are united; when 
science directs the application of art, and art in 
its turn demonstrates the lessons, and shows the 
proper qualifications and necessary limitations 
of scientific principles. 
To render the profession as respectable as it 
