139 
effect produced by using the peat mud on grounds, when 
lirst taken out of the meadow, and that which is produced 
after fermentation, with stable manure, or by mixing it with 
lime. The ashes of peat have little or no perceptible effects, 
when used alone, but by mixing them with lime, they be¬ 
come a valuable manure. 
“ That our peat may possess other and different properties, 
which are in a greater or less degree injurious to plants, is 
highly probable. These can be detected and remedied only 
by the aid of science. It is to the agricultural chemist, that 
the practical farmer must look for a development of his re¬ 
sources, to remove the obstacles which impede his progress, 
and to impart that information which will give confidence to 
action, and a successful issue to labor. 
“ With an earnest desire that you may persevere in your 
useful labors, I am, dear sir, with the highest respect, your 
obedient servant, E. PHINNEY.” 
( To be continued.) 
Annual Address. 
Before the Kentucky State Agricultural Society—delivered at 
the Capitol in Frankfort, January 14, 1839, on the dignity of 
the profession of agriculture , and the propriety of legislation 
for its improvement. 
BY COI.. C. S. TODD, OF SHELBY. 
Gentlemen of the State Agricultural Society —In compliance 
with the invitation of our worthy President, I appear before 
you this evening, in behalf of the great interest which sus¬ 
tains every other interest in the community; and relying 
upon your indulgent feelings towards a cultivator of the soil, 
entreat you to forget, in the magnitude of the subject, any 
deficiencies of the advocate. 
In entering upon the duty assigned to me, I feel a con¬ 
sciousness of the difficulties which beset my path, arising as 
well from my own inadequacy to the task, as from the nature 
of the subject, which is generally considered not to be sus¬ 
ceptible of those illustrations and attractions, rendered so in¬ 
teresting in this age of improvement, by the exertions of cul¬ 
tivated intellect applied to the departments of law, physic, 
moral and political economy. All that I can hope then to ef¬ 
fect will be to lead abler minds to reap laurels in a field in 
which, as a pioneer, I shall be content if the public mind be 
directed to the subject. 
As the advancement of the cause of agriculture is the ex¬ 
clusive object contemplated in the formation of this society 
and of the annual meeting on this day, I propose upon this 
occasion, to examine this subject in two of its most interest¬ 
ing aspects—first, to present to my brother farmers some of 
the considerations which should lead them to form and act 
upon a more exalted estimate of the dignity of their profes¬ 
sion; and then, to offer some suggestions, which, it is hoped, 
may'have a tendency to stimulate the legislative councils to 
that encouragement of the cultivation of the soil, which an 
enlightened forecast deems to be so intimately connected 
with the public welfare. 
In the first place, as to the dignity which belongs to the 
pursuits of agriculture. The illustrious Franklin, whose 
eulogy was conveyed in such felicitous language by the elo¬ 
quent Mirabeau—“ Eripuit ccelo fulmen sceptrumque tyran- 
nis;” the sage, whose fame shed lustre on the age in which 
he lived, and who sustained towards his country the envied 
attitude of mechanic, patriot, stateman and philosopher, has 
pronounced “agriculture to be the most honorable of all em¬ 
ployments, being the most independent. The farmer,” says 
he “ has no need of popular favor, nor of the favor of the 
great; the success of his crops depending only on the bless¬ 
ing of God upon his honest industry.” The occupation of 
the farmer is not only honorable, as being the first pursuit of 
man, and as having engaged the attention of the most virtu¬ 
ous and illustrious men in every age, but it is the most hon¬ 
orable for the precise reason stated by Franklin—it is the most 
independent. The other pursuits of men, in all their diver¬ 
sified forms, depend in a greater or less degree upon the suc¬ 
cess of those who exert their energies in other avocations— 
the merchant depends upon the farmer and manufacturer— 
the mechanic upon the farmer and merchant, and the profes¬ 
sional man upon all of them; but Franklin, as well as the ex¬ 
perience of ages proclaims, that the farmer is independent of 
all save “ the blessings of God upon his honest industry.” 
Washington, the father of his country, has declared that 
“ he knew of no pursuit in which more real and important 
services can be rendered to any country than by improving 
its agriculture.” Socrates, one of the most eminent of the 
ancient philosophers, says, “ agriculture seems to possess an 
incontestible right to the title of parent and nurse of all other 
professions;” and the celebrated Vattel, of modern times, 
whose treatise on the Law of Nations is regarded as the stand¬ 
ard of international duty amongst the most enlightened states 
of the present day, says, “ of all the arts, tillage or agricul¬ 
ture is doubtless the most useful and necessary; it is the 
nursing father of a state; the cultivation of the earth causes 
it to produce an infinite increase; it forms the surest resource 
and the most solid fund of rich commerce for the people who 
enjoy a happy climate.” 
Agriculture was the first avocation of man, Adam being 
directed to “ dress and keep” the garden of Eden. This 
was his duty in the days of primeval innocence; and after the 
fall, he was required to earn his bread by the “ sweat of his 
brown” The first valuable improvements in husbandry were 
made by Noah, who, though a preacher of righteousness, was 
called a man of the ground, because of his advancement in 
agriculture and his invention for subduing and fertilizing the 
soil. The divine command to the Jews, “break up your 
fallow ground and sow not among thorns,” is applicable to all 
the nations who live by the cultivation of the soil; and I in¬ 
dulge the hope that there is not a Christian farmer in our land, 
who, while he recognizes the spiritual beauty of the passage 
which has immediate reference to the cultivation of the heart, 
does not feel its literal force in calling upon him to adopt all 
practicable means of improving the soil committed to his care. 
And here it may not be impertinent to remark, that if the 
mass of my brother farmers w'ould “ indeed break up their 
fallow ground and sow not among thorns,” as well in rela¬ 
tion to their husbandry as to the cultivation of their minds, 
we should not be placed, as a profession, in the rear of other 
less worthy pursuits. 
The descendants of Abraham in Palestine, the Chaldeans, 
the Egyptians, the ancient Persians, the Phoenicians, the 
Athenians, and the Romans, including those in the highest 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
offices in each of those nations, manifested the highest regard 
to the pursuits of agriculture. Hesiod and Xenophon of the 
Greeks, and Cato, Varro, Virgil, Pliny and Columella, of the 
Romans, published treatise* on the subject—and the greatest 
improvement was made in agriculture during those periods 
of the ancient nations, when their institutions approached 
more nearly to the republican character. Xenophon, one of 
their historians, remarked that “agriculture is the nursing 
mother of the arts, for, where it succeeds prosperously, there 
the arts thrive; but where the earth necessarily lies unculti¬ 
vated, there the arts are extinct.” In the best days of the 
Roman republic, he was entitled to the highest praise who 
“ best cultivated his spot of ground,” and such should be 
now the tone of public sentiment. Montesquieu has observ¬ 
ed that “ countries are not cultivated in proportion to their 
fertility, but to their liberty;” and the conductor of the New- 
York “ Cultivator,” who unites in himself, more eminently 
than any other citizen of the republic, the rare qualities of 
scientific knowledge and practical experience with a polished 
pen, lays it down as almost a maxim, that “ the mental and 
moral condition of an agricultural district is in the ratio of 
its improvement in husbandry.” 
There is a moral beauty in the sentiment of Franklin, 
which maintains that the farmer is independent of all, save 
“ the blessing of God upon his honest industry.” Those 
who plough the land, as well as those who plough the sea, 
are under peculiar obligations to recognize a special and su¬ 
perintending Providence. The farmer has the promise of seed 
time and harvest; the seasons, the rain, the warmth of the 
sun, the growth of the soil, and all the operations of nature, 
admonish him, of the exertions of an Omnipotent energy. In 
ihe country he seems to stand in the midst of the grand thea¬ 
tre of God’s power, and seeing that the succession of heat 
and moisture constitutes the sources of production, he is led 
to feel in the action of the sun and the descent of dew and 
rain, his obligations to reverence that unsearchable sovereign 
without whose permission not a “ sparrow falls to the ground," 
nor a blade of grass springs up. The sailor, too, looks 
through the elements to the great first cause, and the man at 
sea must be insensible to all the high and holy motives of 
gratitude, who does not feel his own impotency, not less than 
a reverential awe of that Supreme Power whom the winds 
and waves obey. 
Ancient and modern poets have dignified the cultivation of 
the soil by the majesty and melody of their immortal songs. 
Virgil, the great Roman, has left an imperishable monument 
of his devotion to the cause of agriculture; and strange as it 
may seem to some of our modern farmers, some of whom af¬ 
fect not to need any instruction in the science upon whose 
successful application they depend for support, Virgil gives 
in his Georgies much of what constitutes the present mode of 
ameliorating the soil. An interesting extract which may be 
found in book I, line 79-80, speaks of the Roman practice of 
saturating the parched soil with rich animal manure, of scat¬ 
tering sordid ashes upon the exhausted lands, and of giving 
rest to their fields by a rotation of crops; to which if we add 
the later process of renovating through the introduction of 
the grasses and the application of marl, we shall have the 
present improved mode of farming as practised in our own 
country. Milton, the Homer of modern times, (both of them 
blind to natural, though touchingly alive to moral beauty) 
occupied his master mind in delineating the paradise which 
Adam was directed to “ dress and keep;” and Thompson has 
presented aftertimes with a surpassingly beautiful scene in 
his autumn, where he introduces among the gleaners of the 
harvest, 
“ The lovely young Lavinia, who once had friends, 
And fortune smiled deceitful on her birth.” 
A sentiment as descriptive of the benevolence which belong¬ 
ed to the period of harvest as it is illustrative of the career of 
thousands upon whom the sunshine of prosperity in early 
life has only dawnsd to render the gloom of adversity more 
conspicuous in their declining days. 
Ancient and modern patriots have been devoted to the cul¬ 
tivation of the soil. Cincinnatus, Dentatus, and Regulus, 
La Fayette, Washington, and our own Shelby, are illustrious 
examples of this interesting fact. They repaired from the 
plough to the defence of their country, and from the defence 
of their country returned to the plough; and although they 
were renowned warriors, we must suppose there was a re¬ 
deeming spirit in the nature of their avocations as cultiva¬ 
tors of the soil, which caused their love of country to be su¬ 
perior to all selfish considerations. Considered in this as¬ 
pect, their fame will live undimmed in the records of time, 
whilst the memory of the Cresars and Alexanders, the Bona- 
partes and lturbides will rot, like the “ memory of the wick¬ 
ed.” Of Csesar, nothing is left but his accomplished com¬ 
mentaries and his unhallowed ambition. Of Alexander, who 
shed tears because he had no more wmrlds to conquer, no mo¬ 
nument remains but the city of Alexandria in Egypt, once the 
pride of the world in its unrivalled library, and when it com¬ 
manded the commerce of the Mediterranean sea and the Ara¬ 
bian gulf, but now only a scene of magnificent ruin, since 
the discovery in the 13th century, of a new route to the East 
Indies by the Cape of Good Hope. In a few years posterity 
will only speak with approbation of Bonaparte as having left 
a valuable code of laws for France, and as having establish¬ 
ed agricultural societies and professorships, and the National 
garden; whilst the frequent and inexplicable revolutions in 
former Spanish America will only serve to proclaim the suc¬ 
cession of military tyrants, countenanced alone in countries 
where the system of religion prescribes the rights of con¬ 
science as well as the lights of knowledge. 
The most distinguished individuals in our country, includ¬ 
ing nearly all of our Presidents, have delighted in the pur¬ 
suits of agriculture. Washington, whose career presents the 
brightest example of true glory recorded in ancient or modern 
history, was impatient to retreat from the toils of war and 
the cares of state, to betake himself to the pure and unalloy¬ 
ed joys of rural life. Jefferson, whose fame is identified with 
the independence of his country, rejoiced in the opportunity 
of mingling the avocations of the farm with the sweets of po¬ 
lite literature. Madison, whose monument is found in the 
matchless constitution he contributed to form and which he 
administered in peace and in war, was always anxious to re¬ 
tire to the mellow pursuits of agriculture, as the most conge¬ 
nial in their influence upon the profound and classic efforts 
of his unrivalled pen. Monroe, who fought in both wars for 
the maintenance of his country’s independence, and whose 
career is signalized by association with the purchase of Lou¬ 
isiana and Florida; ihe heroic Jackson, whose fame will live 
as long as the waters of the father of rivers roll on to the 
ocean; our own eloquent Clay, the great unsurpassed of mo¬ 
dem statesmen, and our own veteran Harrison, whose patri¬ 
otic policy founded and whose skilful valor defended the 
vast North-West—these all have manifested a deep solicitude 
for the interest of the great cause which we have this day 
convened to promote. 
To descend to our own history as the first republic in the 
wilderness of the great west, we have many noble examples 
of our most distinguished citizens devoting themselves to the 
pursuits of agriculture. At an early period, Shelby, Nicho¬ 
las and Breckenridge were conspicuous in their efforts to ad¬ 
vance this great object. The first, renowned in the war of 
the revolution, and in the early as well as the after history 
of the state; the two latter, his equals in vigorous intellect 
and patriotic devotion, whilst they were scarcely excelled in 
the whole Union in their enlightened advocacy of the prin¬ 
ciples of constitutional law. In our own day we find the 
whole community in its civil, political and religious charac¬ 
ter, coming up to mingle its tears with ours over the graves 
of the lamented Garrard and Green, who, after signalizing 
their valor in the North-West, considered it their proudest 
claim to distinction in devoting their strong minds and patri¬ 
otic hearts to the great cause of agriculture. And passing 
from our own country and our own age, wrn may refer to the 
fact which is exhibited in bold relief in the history of every 
nation claiming to be civilized, that men of every profession, 
in all ages, have contemplated at some period of their career, 
to retire to the repose to be found only in the pleasures of 
rural life. The statesman, the civilian, the philosopher, the 
physician, the merchant, the handicraft tradesman, the county 
court pettifogger, the village constable and the heartless usu¬ 
rer, all fix in their minds some future day in which they hope 
to realize what their imaginations have depicted of the joys 
of retirement in the country. 
As a further illustration of the value which highly gifted 
men have attached to the pursuits of agriculture, I venture 
to introduce an extract from the essays of Dr. Johnson, who 
stands at the head of British literature. It is allowed that 
“ vocations and employments of vast dignity are of the most 
apparent use; that the meanest artisan or manufacturer con¬ 
tributes more to the accommodation of life, than the profound 
scholar and argumentative theorist; and that the public would 
suffer less present inconvenience from the banishment of phi¬ 
losophers than from the extinction of any common trade.” 
“ Some have been so forcibly struck with this observation 
that they have, in the first warmth of their discovery, thought 
it reasonable to alter the common distribution of dignity, and 
venture to condemn mankind of universal ingratitude; and 
what labor can be more useful than that which procures to 
families and communities those necessaries which supply the 
wants of nature, or those conveniences by which ease, secu¬ 
rity and elegance are conferred.” 
“This is one of the innumerable theories which the first 
attempt to reduce them into practice certainly destroys. If 
we estimate dignity by immediate usefulness, agriculture is 
undoubtedly the first and noblest science; yet we see the 
plough driven, the clod broken, the manure spread, the seeds 
scattered and the harvest reaped, by men, whom those that 
feed upon their industry, will never be persuaded to admit 
into the same rank with heroes or sages; and who, after all 
their confessions which truth may extort in favor of their oc¬ 
cupation, must be content to fill up the lowest class in the 
commonwealth, to form the base of the pyramid of subordi¬ 
nation and lie buried in obscurity themselves, while they 
support, all that is splendid, conspicuous or exalted.” 
Peerless woman, in all her high and holy influences, has 
contributed to give dignity to the pursuits of agriculture.— 
Throughout the succession of time in all civilized nations, 
she has been man’s solace in every condition of life, and to 
no class of men more eminently than to the cultivators of 
the soil.' It is in the domestic circle of the farmer, that wo¬ 
man shines in all her glory, guiding the distaff, or leading 
lisping infancy in prayer. But it is not to the farmer alone, 
that she is the richest of all temporal blessings—her hand is 
ever open as day to melting charity—her approbation gives 
rapture to the statesman and the philosopher—her love ani¬ 
mates the warrior on the field of battle—her heart is often an 
altar dedicated to the service of the living God, and her bo¬ 
som is as the balm of Gilead to the wounded spirit in the 
hour of trouble. 
But if the testimony of men of science and of patriots in 
all ages fails to recommends the pursuits of agriculture to our 
favorable consideration, there is intrinsic merit in the pro¬ 
fession itself to command our unqualified regard. It is the 
nursery of patriotism, of wealth and of strength to the state. 
All writers on political economy speak of the farmer as the 
“productive class,” and all others as the “unproductive 
classes,” and whilst he is creating materials, nearly all other 
occupations are employed on pre-existing materials. If these 
view^s of the general value of the agricultural interest be ac¬ 
knowledged, how much more impressive will they be re¬ 
garded in reference to our own state, where the products of 
the soil enter so pre-eminently into the sources of her pros¬ 
perity. We are in a latitude so peculiarly blessed as to unite 
the growths which belong to a northern and a southern cli¬ 
mate. The tobacco of the south is found by the side of the 
hemp of the north, and the grass of the north grow r s luxuri¬ 
antly by the side of the corn which flourished best in the 
south. This happy concurrence of climate meets upon a 
soil of unparalleled fertility and of irrepressible energy; pre¬ 
senting just the undulations in surface which protects it alike 
from baking or of washing in the cultivation. The corn and 
grass of this rich region contribute, in the character of pro¬ 
visions and live stock, mainly to the supply of the cotton 
planter of the south, who, in his turn, supplies the raw ma¬ 
terial to the manufacturer of the north, who, in his turn, with 
the merchant and the seaman taking it to market, is fed 
chiefly by the products of our soil; so that in the circuitous 
operations of labor and of commerce, Kentucky with the 
other states of the west, feeds all the operatives of the north 
and of the south. How dignified, then, should be the pur¬ 
suit, and how controlling the interest which effects these 
high objects. But with a soil and climate so inviting, we do 
not realize from our lands half the product which is found in 
the northern states, where the cold soil and rock surface 
is made to yield to the influence of scientific labor; and 
