MOORE’S RURAL NEW-YORKER: AN AGRICULTURAL AND FAMILY NEWSPAPER. 
NOV. 7. 
ascribed them to the gift of the god-, while oth¬ 
ers have •been hronght to the Knowledge ot the 
civilized world in the historical period, and others 
have been presented to mankind by our own con¬ 
tinent. No one can tell when wheat, hurley, rye, 
oats, millet, apples, pears, find plums, were first 
cultivated in Europe; but cherries and peaches 
were brought from the Black Sea and Persia in the 
time of the Roman republic; the culture of silk 
was introduced from the East in the reign of Jus- 
tinia; cotton and sngar became extensively used 
in Europe in the middle ages; maize, the potato, 
tobacco, cocoa, and the Peruvian bark, are the in¬ 
digenous growth of this country. Tea and coffee, 
though productions of the Old World, were first 
known in Western Europe about two centuries 
ago; and India rubber and gntta percha, as useful 
as any but the cereals, in onr own day. 
There is much reason to believe, as onr inter, 
course with Eastern Asia, Polynesis, and Australia 
increases, that new vegetable prod acts will become 
known to ns, of the greatest interest and impor¬ 
tance for food, medicine and clothing. Many, 
with which we are acquainted only in the writings 
of travelers and botanists, will unquestionably be 
domesticated. The most interesting experiments 
are in progress on the sugar-canes of Africa and 
China; and there is scarce a doubt that the most 
important additions will, in the course of time, be 
made to our vegetable treasures, from the latter 
country. China, like North America, forms the 
istera shore of a great ocean, with a cold north¬ 
western region in the rear. Its climate, nnder 
similar local conditions, closely resembles onr 
own; and there is reason to believe that whatever 
grows tnere will grow here. A somewhat carious 
illustration of this is found in the plant ging-aeng, 
to which the Chinese formerly attached—perhaps 
still attach such a superstitions value. Its bifur¬ 
cated root, as they thought, symbolized humanity, 
which, indeed, it does, as well as FalatafFs “ forked 
radish;” and hence the name ging-seng, or “ man- 
plant.” They called it "the pure spirit of the 
earth,” and the " plant that gives immortality.”— 
They deemed it the exclusive product of the cen¬ 
tral flowery kingdom,—a panacea for every form 
form of disease, cheaply bought for its weight in 
silver. A Jesuit missionary to China, Lafitau, 
being transferred to America, early in the last 
century, discovered the precious plant in our own 
woods, where, indeed, in some parts of the coun¬ 
try, it abounds. It began to be exported by the 
French to China, and after the commencement of 
our commercial intercourse with that country, at 
the close of the war of the Revolution, this mneh- 
prized root was sent in great quantities to Canton, 
and, much to the perplexity and disgust of the 
Mandarins, became literally a drug in the market, 
losing moat of its mysterious efficacy, in propor¬ 
tion as it was abundantly supplied by the outside 
barbarians. 
Bat, without wandering so far for additions en¬ 
tirely novel which may be expected to our vegeta¬ 
ble stores, I cannot but regard what may be called 
organic husbandry as one of the richest depart¬ 
ments of science, and one which is as yet almost 
wholly in its infancy. What wonders are revealed 
to us by the microscope in the structure and ger¬ 
mination of the seed!—the instinct, so they say, oi 
radicle and plumule, which bids one seek the 
ground, and the other shoot up toward the air; 
the circulation of the Bap, which, examined nnder 
a high magnifying power, is a succulent plant,— 
the Calla, for instance, —resembling a flowing 
stream of liquid silver,—a spectacle, in these days 
of “suspension,” to m*ke a man’s mouth water; 
the curious confectionary, that secretes sugar, and 
gluten, and starch, and oil, and woody fibre and 
flower, and fruit, and leaf and bark, from the same 
elements in earth and air, differing in each differ¬ 
ing plant, though standing side by side in the same 
soil; in a word, the wonders and beauties of this 
annual creation,—for such it is,—as miraculous as 
that by which sun, and moon, and star?, and earth, 
and sea, and man, were first formed by the hand 
of Omnipotence! 
And who Bhall limit the progress of science, and 
its application to the service of man, in this 
boundless field? The grafting of generous fruits 
on barren stocks is as old as European civiliza¬ 
tion; but the artificial hybridization of flowers 
and fruiis is a recent practice, which has already 
filled our conservatories with the most beautiful 
flowers, and our graperies and gardens with the 
choicest varieties of fruit. When reasoning man 
does with science and skill what has been hitherto 
left to the winds and the bees, the most important 
results may be anticipated. Modern chemistry 
has shown that the growth of the plant is not one 
simple operation, but that different ingredients in 
the soil, and different fertilizing substances, afford 
the appropriate nourishment to different portions 
of the plant. This discovery will, no doubt, be 
of great importance in the higher operations oi 
horticulture and pomology. 
The culture of the grape, and the manufacture 
of wine, have already become considerable 
branches of industry, aad afford great scope for 
the application of chemical knowledge. The vine¬ 
yards in the neighborhood of Cincinnati and St 
Louis, though limited in extent, already bear in 
other respects, a creditable comparison with those 
of Europe. All the processes of manufacture 
rival those of the province of Champagne and the 
Rhine, both in integrity and skill,—a remark which 
I venture to make from Borne opportunities of per¬ 
sonal comparison. Time.no doubt, will eventually 
bring to light a belt Of territory—probably in the 
interior, or in the Western portion of the conti¬ 
nent—(for we do not find wine in the eastern por¬ 
tion of Asia)—which will equal the most delicate 
vintages of Burgundy, Bordeaux, or Xeres. Nor 
iB it leBs probable that many vegetable products 
now imported from foreign countries will be nat¬ 
uralized here. It is but a century since the first 
experiments were made on the American conti¬ 
nent in the cultivation of rice and cotton; anil 
there is no reason to doubt that whatever the Old 
World produces will flourish within the same iso¬ 
thermal lines of this hemisphere. The recent 
agricultural reports from the Patent Office contain 
very important indications and suggestions on 
this branch of husbandry. 
The condition of onr native forests opensanother 
broad field of Inquiry in agricultural science, under 
three very striking aspects. The extensive prai¬ 
ries of the West, denuded of wood for an unknown 
length of time, and under the operation of causes 
not perhaps certainly made out, await from the 
settler’s skill and industry those plantations whloh 
add so much to the beauty and salubrity of the 
soil, and contribute so materially to the service of 
man. In the mean time it is a very important 
question, in a broad region of the West, whether 
anything cheaper and more effectual than the 
Osage Orange (Madura) can be found for fencing. 
In other portions of the country a condition of 
things exists the precise reverse of that just de¬ 
scribed; and immense tracts of native foresre, 
covering the land for hundreds of mileB with a 
matted, impervious, repulsive wilderness, form a 
very serious impediment to cullivatior, and con¬ 
stitute one of the great hardships which attend 
the pioneer of settlement. The opening of rail¬ 
roads through extensive districts of this descrip¬ 
tion, with the intense demand for land, caused in 
part by the unexampled emigration from Europe, 
will probably lead to new application? of steam 
power, machinery, and capital in the first clearing 
of the land; and thus materially facilitate the pro¬ 
cess of bringing it into cultivation. In the mean¬ 
time, in the older settled parts of the country, we 
have some backward steps to take. The clothing 
of the sterile hill-sides aud barren plains with 
wood is an object of great interest The work of 
destruction has been carried on with too little 
discrimination. Too little thought has been had 
of that noblest, spectacle in the vegetable world, 
plantations of trees for ornament and shade; too 
little consideration for a permanent supply of the 
demand for timber and fuel. 
Every topic to which I have thus hastily alluded, 
in connection with the vegetable kingdoms of na¬ 
ture, suggests inquiry for the naturalist, in some 
department of his studies, and forms the subject 
Of regular courses of instruction in some of the 
European Universities, especially those in Ger¬ 
many. 
The insects and vermin injurious to vegetation 
present another curious and difficult subject of 
inquiry. A very considerable part of every crop 
of grain and fruit is planted, not for the mouths of 
our children, but for the fly, the curculio, and the 
canker-worm, or some other of these pesta of hus¬ 
bandry. Science has done something, and will no 
donbt do more, to alleviate the plague. It has al¬ 
ready taught ua not to wage equal war on the 
wheat fly and the parasite which preys npon it; 
and it will, perhaps, eventually persuade those who 
need the lesson, that a few peas and cherries are 
well bestowed by way of dessert on the cheerful 
little warblers who turn onr gardens into concert 
rooms, and do so much to aid us in the warfare 
against the grubs and caterpillars which form their 
principal meal. 
Agriculture is looking anxiously to science for 
information on the nature and remedies of the 
formidable disease which has of late years de¬ 
stroyed so large a portion of the potato crop. 
The naturalist who shall solve that problem will 
stand high among the benefactors of his race. 
Closely connected with this department of Agri¬ 
culture is another, in which the modern arts have 
made great progress, and in which inventive sa¬ 
gacity is still diligently and successfully employed. 
I refer to agricultural machinery, — improved im¬ 
plements of husbandry. This is a field in which 
the creative powers of the mind seem to be at 
work with an activity never before equaled, and 
which is likely to produce more Important results 
in this than in any other country. The supply of 
labor in the United States baa not kept pace with 
the demand, as it can rarely do in a new country, 
where strong temptations exist for enterprising 
attempts in every branch of industry. This state 
of things has furnished very powerfnl inducements 
lorthe introduction of labor-saving machinery and 
implements, and the proverbial ingenuity of onr 
countrymen has been turned with great success in 
that direction. Your exhibition grounds fully 
justify this remark. Even the good old plow 
has become almost a new machine in its various 
novel forms; and other implements of the most in¬ 
genious contrivance and efficient action have been 
invented. The cultivator, the horse-rake, the 
mowing machine, the reaper, and the threshing- 
machine, are daily coming into use in Europe and 
America, and producing the moat important 
economy in labor. Successful attempts are mak¬ 
ing to work them by steam. It was said long ago 
of the cotton-gin, by Mr. Justice Johnson of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, that it had 
doubled the value of the lands in the cotton grow¬ 
ing region; and the mowing machine, the reaper 
and the threshing machine, are destined, almost to 
the same extent, to alleviate the severest labors of 
the farmer’s year. The fame of the reaper is not 
confined to this hemisphere. At the great Exhi¬ 
bition of the Industry of all Nations, in London, 
in 1851, it mainly contributed to enable American 
art to hold up her bead iu the face of the civilized 
world.* 
But there is still another department of Agri¬ 
culture, which opens the door to research of u 
higher order, and deals with fiDer elements,—I 
• The first of the following extracts is copied from the 
Boston Traveler, of the 28d of September. 1857; the eec- 
cODd, from a recent number of the London Illustrated 
News. I have no means of verifying the accuracy of the 
statements. 
“ AORICOI.TOEE at TUB West. —The scarcity of labor, 
and the enterprise uf the emigrants and speculators, baa 
led to the introduction of more labor-saving machinery 
upon the farms iu our Western State, than anywhere In the 
world, A correspondent of the Cincinnati Daily Gazette 
sayr, among other improvements, steam power thrashing 
machined are Taat coming into use. The writer describes 
one he had ju.-t seen iu operation on the farm of Dr. Watts, 
iu OIlilUcDUte. The wheat fields on this farm cover, the 
present year, three hundred and eighty-seren acre*: which 
have produced some eight or ten thousand bushels of grain. 
He found the threshing ground v«-ry much like « village of 
straw-ricks, in the midst of which waa a puffing engine, 
malting the wheels of a machine fly, while men, horses, 
oxon and wagons were kept, busy supplying its wants.— 
The machine, and three men to tend It, ere furnished for 
five cents a bushel threshed. The consumption of wood 
is abont one and a q carter cords per day, at two dollars and 
a half per cord. The price of farm labor there ia now one 
dollar per day and board. 
The machine, when Iu active operation, threshed two 
bushels a minute, nod on an average threshes seven hun¬ 
dred bushels a day. This L the work of seventy men In 
the old way of threshing by flail. The proprietor of the 
machine hat* more applications than ho could supply, and 
hie next engagements were for fifteen hundred acres of 
grain, owned by five proprietors, nnd yet this is not one of 
the great wheat counties ot the State. A gricultural ma¬ 
chinery of all kinds is extending rapidly through the West. 
The county of Pickaway now employs three hundred aud 
fifty mowing and reaping machines. Some of the interior 
counties have grunt manufiieturing establishments for this 
machinery.'' 
“ A correspondent of the Chicago Tribune says that, be¬ 
ing in Rock county, Wisconsin, In tbe middle of August, 
1857, he wont up to the top of n hill called Mount Zion, six 
juilea from Janesville, and counted on the surrounding 
plain one hundred and fitly four horeo-power leaping ma- 
chines, busily' cutting down wheat. There w ere a thousand 
men, women and boys following, binding and shocking up 
the golden sheaves. It was a sight worth seeing to behold 
the grain falling and gathered np at the rate of two hundred 
acres per hour.” 
mean that which regards the domestic animals at¬ 
tached to the service of man, and which ore of 
Buch inestimable importance as the direct part¬ 
ners ol his labors, as furnishing one of the great 
articles of his food, and aa a principal resource 
for restoring the exhausted fertility of the soil.— 
In the remotest ages of antiquity, into which the 
torch of history throws not the faintest gleam of 
light, a small number, selected from the all but 
numberless races of the lower animals, were 
adopted by domestication into the family of man. 
So skillful and exhaustive was this selection, that 
three thousand years of experience—during which 
Europe and America have been settled by civil¬ 
ized races of men—have not added to the number. 
It is somewhat humbling to the pride of our ra¬ 
tional nature to consider how much of onr civili¬ 
zation rests on this partnership; how helpless we 
should be, deprived of the horse, the ox, the cow, 
the sheep, the swine, the goat, tbe ass, the rein¬ 
deer, the dog, the cat, and the various kinds of 
poultry. In the warmer regions, this list is en¬ 
larged by tbe llama?, the elephant, and the camel, 
the latter of which, it is uot unlikely, wiil be ex¬ 
tensively introduced in our own southern region. 
It may be said of this subject, as of that to 
which 1 have already alluded, that it is a science 
of itself. No branch of husbandly has, within 
the last century, engaged more of the attention of 
farmers, theoretical and practical, than the im¬ 
provement oi the breeds of domestic animals, and 
in none, perhaps, has the attention thas bestowed 
been better repaid. By judicious selection and 
mixtures of the parent stock, and by intelligence 
and care in the training and nourishing of the 
young animals, the improved breeds of the pres¬ 
ent day differ probably almost as much from their 
predecessors a hundred yesrB ago, as we may sup¬ 
pose the entire races of domesticated animals do 
from the wild stocks from which they are descend¬ 
ed. i here is no reason to anppose that the utmost 
limit of improvement has been reached in this 
direction. Deriving onr improved animals aa we 
generally do from Europe,—that is, from a climate 
differing materially from onr own,—it is not un¬ 
likely that, in the lapse of time, experience will 
lead to the prodnetion of a class of animals, bet¬ 
ter adapted the to peculiarities of our seasons than 
any of the transatlantic varieties as they now ex¬ 
ist The bare repetition of the words draft, speed, 
endurance, meat, milk, batter, cheese and wool, 
will suggest the vast importance of continued ex¬ 
periments on this subject, guided by all the lights 
of physiological science. 
Among the most promine. I desiderata, in what 
may be called animal husbandry, may be mention¬ 
ed an improved state of veterinary science in this 
country. While the anatomy of the lower animals 
is substantially tbe same as man’s, their treatment 
when diseased, or overtaken by accident, is left 
almost wholly to uneducated empiricism. It rare¬ 
ly, I may say never happens, that the substantial 
farmer has not considerable property invested in 
live-stock, to say nothing of the personal attach¬ 
ment he often feels for some of his favorites— 
horse, or cow, or dog. Bat when their frames, as 
delicately organized and as sensitive as onr own, 
are attacked by disease, or they meet with a seri¬ 
ous accident, they are of ^necessity in most parts 
of the country committed to the care of persons 
wholly ignorant of anatomy and physiology, or 
imperfectly acquainted with them, and whose skill 
is comprehended in a few rude traditionary ope¬ 
rations and nostrums. There are few of ns, 1 sup¬ 
pose, who have not had some painful experience 
on this subject, both in onr pockets and onr feel¬ 
ings. The want of Veterinary Institutions, and of 
a class of well educated practitioners, is yet to be 
supplied. 
This hasty survey of the different branches of 
agriculture, Imperfect, as practical men must re¬ 
gard it, has, I think, shown that it opens a wide 
field lor scientific research, and demands an ap¬ 
propriate education. It is, in tact, in all respects 
a liberal pursuit, and as aavh ought to be regard¬ 
ed by tbe community. It is greatly to be desired 
thatpublicopinioninAmericashonldBudregosome 
change in this respect There is no want of empty 
compliments to the “Independent l'eomanry ” at 
public festivals and electioneering assemblages.— 
When the popular ear is to be tickled, and the 
popular suffrage conciliated, the “ substantial 
farmer” is sure to be addressed in honeyed phrase; 
but the most superficial observation of society 
shows that the learned professions, as they are de¬ 
nominated, the various kinds of 11 buHineB?,” aB it 
is significantly called—as if people could not bum 
themselves to any purpose, except in some kind of 
traffic,—and in preference to both, or in conjunc¬ 
tion with both, political employment, are regard¬ 
ed as the enviable pursuits of life. It is not alto¬ 
gether so in the country from which the majority 
of the people of America are descended. In Eng¬ 
land the ultimate object of a liberal ambition is 
the ownership of a handsome landed property, and 
the actual management by the proprietor of a con¬ 
siderable portion of it Great fortunes, however ac¬ 
quired, are almost sure to be invested in great land¬ 
ed estates. Whether employed in the professions 
or In commerce, men escape from city life as from 
confinement, and the country seat is generally the 
family mansion. 
It would be absurd to deny the manifold impor¬ 
tance of great commercial towns in our social 
system. They are not tbe mere result of calcu¬ 
lation ; they grow np by an irresistible necessity. 
The intenscr life which springs from their stern 
competition, undoubtedly performs a moBt im¬ 
portant office in the progress of civilization. The 
faculties are sharpened by the direct contact and 
collision of kindred minds. The great accumu¬ 
lations of capital, whloh almost exclusively take 
place in commerce nnd the occupations connected 
with It, exercise an all-powerful influence in the 
commnnity, and arc felt iu all its enterprises.— 
The social sympathies gather warmth and force 
from the generous contagion of congenial natures. 
But society is in its happiest state when town 
and country act aud re-act npon each other to 
mutual advantage; when the simpler manners 
and purer tastes of rural life are brought to in 
vigorate the ruorai atmosphere of the metropolis, 
and when a fair proportion of The wealth acquired 
In the city flows hack and is invested in landed 
improvements; transferring cultivated tastes snd 
liberal art* from crowded avenues and ringing 
pavements t,o the open, healthful couutry, and con 
necting them with its substantial interests and 
calm pursuits. 
In acknowledging, as I do most cheerfully, tbe 
important relations of city lite arid commercial 
pursuits to the entire social system of the coun¬ 
try, Ileave of oourse out of the account,—I have 
no words but. of abhorrence,—for the organized 
conspiracies, swindling and plunder, which exist 
side by side with the legitimate transactions of 
the stock exchange. It is not one of the least 
perplexing anomalies of modern life and man¬ 
ners, that while avowed and thus far honest 
gambling (if I may connect those words) ia driven 
by public opinion and the law, to seclude itself 
from observation within carefully tyled doors, 
there to fool away its hundreds, perhaps its thou¬ 
sands in secret; discredited, infamous; blasted by 
the anathemas of deserted, heart-broken wives 
and beggared children, subject at all times to the 
fell swoop of the police, the licensed gambling of 
the brokers’ board is carried onin the face of day; 
its pretended sales of what it does not own, its 
pretended purchases of what it does not expect 
to pay for, are chronicled in the public prints to 
the extent of millions in tbe course of a season* 
for the ernel and dishonest purpose of frightening 
innocent third parties into the rninoua sacrifice 
of dona fide property, and thus making a guilty 
profit out of the public distress and the ruin of 
thousands. 
I do not claim for agricultural life in modern 
times the Arcadian simplicity of the heroic ages; 
but it is capable, with the aid of popular educa¬ 
tion and the facilities of intercommunication, of 
beiDg made a pursuit more favorable than city 
life to that average degree of virtue and happi¬ 
ness to which we may reasonably aspire in the 
present imperfect stage of being. For the same 
reason that our intellectual and moral faculties 
are urged to the highest point of culture by the 
intense eompetiton of the large town, the con¬ 
tagion of vice and crime produces in a crowded 
population a depravity of character from which 
the more thinly inhabited country, though far 
enough from being immaculate, iB comparatively 
free. Accordingly, we find that the tenure on 
which the land is owned and tilled—that is, the 
average condition of the agricultural masses— 
decides the character of a people. It is true that 
the compact organization, the control of capital, 
the concentrated popular talent, the vigorous 
press, the agitable temperament of the large 
towns, give thorn an influence out of proportion 
to numbers; but this is far less the case in the 
United States than in most foreign countries 
where the land is held in large masses by a few 
powerful land-holders. Divided aa it is in this 
country into small or moderate-sized farms, 
owned, lor the moBt part, and tilled by a class of 
fairly educated, independent, and intelligent pro¬ 
prietors, tbe direct influence of large towns on 
the entire population ia far Icsb considerable than 
in Europe. Paris can at all tirneB make a revo¬ 
lution iu France; but not even your imperial me¬ 
tropolis coaid make a revolution in the United 
States. What the public character loses in con¬ 
centration and energy by this want of metropoli¬ 
tan centralization, is more than gained by the 
country, in the virtuous mediocrity, the decent 
frugality, the healthfulness, the social tranquillity 
of private life. 
I trust I do full Justice to tbe elegant refine¬ 
ments, the liberal institutions, the noble charities, 
the creative industries, the world-encompassing 
energy, of the cities; but the profuse expendi¬ 
ture of the prosperous, the unfathomed wretched¬ 
ness of the destitute, the heaven-defying 
profligacy of the corrupt, the insane spirit of 
speculation, the frantic haste to become rich, the 
heartless dissipations of fashionable life, the 
growing ferocity and recklessness of a portion of 
the public press, the prevailing worldliness of the 
large town?, make me tremble for the future. It 
appears to me that our great dependence, nnder 
Providence, must be more and more on the 
healthy tone of the population scattered over the 
country, strangers to the excitements, the temp¬ 
tations, the revulsions of trade, and placed in that 
happy middle condition of human fortune, which 
is equi distant from the giddy heights of aflluence j 
power, and fame, and the pinching straits of pov¬ 
erty, and as such moBt favorable to human virtue 
and happiness. 
While the cliy is refreshed and renovated by 
tbe pure tides poured from tbe country into its 
steamy and turbid channels, the cultivation of 
the soil affords at home that moderate excite¬ 
ment, healthful occupation, and reasonable return 
which most conduce to the prosperity and em 
ployment of man,—first in time, first in impor¬ 
tance. The newly-created father of mankind 
was placed by the Supreme Author of his being 
in the gardeD, which the band of Omnipotence 
itself had planted, “to dress and to keep it.”— 
Before the heavlDg bellowB had urged the fur¬ 
nace, before a hammer had struck upon an anvil, 
before the gleaming waters had flashed from an 
oar, before trado had hung np its scales or gauged 
its measures, tbe culture of the Boil began. 
“To dress the gaiden and to keep it,”—this 
was the key-note struok by the hand of God him¬ 
self in that long, joyous, wailing, triumphant, 
troubled, pensive strain of life-nnisio which 
sounds through the generations and ages of our 
race. Banished from the gardco of Eden, man’s 
merciful sentence — at once doom, reprieve, and 
livelihood—was “to till the ground from which 
he waa taken,” andjthis, in ita pruiitive simplic¬ 
ity, was the occupation of the gathering socie¬ 
ties of men, to this wholesome discipline the 
mighty East, in ihe days of her ascendancy, was 
trained; aud so rapid was her progress that, in 
periods anterior to the dawn of history, she had 
tamed the domestic animals, had saddled the horse, 
and yoked the ox, aud milked the cow, und shear¬ 
ed the patient sheep, and posaesBed herself of all 
tbe ceieal grains (with the exception of maize 
and that controverted), whloh feed maukind at tbe 
present day. I obtained trom the gardens of 
Chataworth and sent to this country, where they 
germinated, two apccimcus of wheat raised from 
grains supposed to have been wrapped np in 
Egyptian mummy-clothes, three thousaud years 
ago, and not materially varying from our modern 
varieties; one oi them, indeed, being precisely 
identical — thus affording us tho pleasing as¬ 
surance that the corn which Joseph placed in 
Benjamin’s Back before the great pyramid was 
built, was not inferior to the best Genesee ot the 
present day. 
Agriculture, I say, was the great pursuit of tbe 
primeval East Before, the intellectual supremacy 
of Greece was developed, which the Macedonian 
sword slept iu ils scabbard, before the genius of 
military domination was incarnate In the Roman 
legior, while the warlike North yet wandered in 
her pathless snows, the Persian traveled fur on the 
road to universal conquest and empire. From the 
Ionian Gulf to the Indus, from the Tanais to the 
Bonrcea of the Nile, a hundred and twenty seven 
satraps, in the name of the great kiDg, adminis¬ 
tered that law of the Medcs and Persians which 
never changed; and throughout this mighty mon¬ 
archy,—one of the most extensive that ever obey¬ 
ed one ruler,—next to war, agriculture waa the 
honored pursuit. On this subject the Greek his¬ 
torian Xenophon has preserved to us a chaiming 
anecdote. On a certain occasion, one of those 
half-mythioal Persian sovereigns, into whose per¬ 
sonal history the philosophers of Greece delight¬ 
ed to weave their highest conceptions of royal 
polity, Cyrus the Younger, received Lysander, tbe 
envoy of the Grecian allies, at Sardis; and con¬ 
ducting him into the royal ground?, pointed out 
the beauty of the plantations, the straight avenues 
of trees, their rectaugulBr disposition, and the 
fragrant shrubbery that shaded the walks. 
“Truly,” cried the Spartan warrior, nnnsed to 
these delightfal but manly refinements, “I admire 
the beautiful scene, but much more should I ad¬ 
mire tbe artist- by whose skill it was created.”— 
Cyrus, pleased with this commendation, exclaim¬ 
ed, “It was all laid out and measured by myself, 
and a portion of the trees planted by my own 
bands.” The astonished Lace<’temonian chieftain, 
looking np at Cyrus, arrayed, as was and is the 
fashion of the East, in royal purple, bis arms and 
fingers sparkling with rings and bracelets, and liia 
robes exhaling perfumes, exclaimed, “ You have 
plantled these trees with yonr own hands?” “ Ye?, 
by heavens,” cried Cyra?, “ nor do I ever go to my 
dinner till I have earned my appetite by some mili¬ 
tary or agricultural exercise.” The Spartan saw 
in these manly, Btrength-giving, life-giving gym¬ 
nastics, the Becret of the power which for tbe time 
had mastered the world, and, clasping the haudB 
of the virtuous prince, exclaimed, “Justly hast 
thou prospered, 0, Cyrus! thou art fortunate be¬ 
cause thou deservest to be.” 
The Persian sank beneath the sword oi the Ma¬ 
cedonian, whose short-lived empire fell with its 
youthful founder. Had Alexander the Great plant¬ 
ed trees in the intervals of hta wars, and drank 
water, like Cyrus, he might have lived to estab¬ 
lish the most extensive empire which the world 
has yet seen. But a new portent of conquest was 
springing np in the West, on the frugal acres of 
Etrnria and Latium. That Cincionatns who drove 
the iEqui and Volscl from the gates of Rome; that 
Panins iEmllins who led the last king of Macedo¬ 
nia with his family in triumph up the steps of the 
Capital; that Seipio who, at Zama, forever broke 
the power of Carthage; those iron-handed, iron- 
hearted consuls who conducted the Roman legions 
over degenerated Greece, and fiery Atrica, and ef¬ 
feminate Asia—in the intervals of war and con¬ 
quest tilled their little Latian farms. That stern 
censor, who first made the name of austere frugal¬ 
ity synonymous with Cato, wrote a Ireatise on tbe 
cultivation of tbe soil; and so sure was a great 
Roman chief, in the best days of the republic, to 
he found at his farm, that the sergoants-at-arms 
sent by the Senate to summon them to the com¬ 
mand of legions and the conquest of nat ion?, were 
technically called viatores, “ travelers.” 
At length the Roman civilization perished, and 
anew one, resting on the morality of the Lospel 
and the hardy virtues of the northern races, took 
its place, and has subsisted, with gradual modifi¬ 
cations, to the present day. Its first political de¬ 
velopment was in the land tenures of the feudal 
system, and it still rests on the soil. Notwith¬ 
standing the great multiplication of pursuits in 
modern times, the perfection of the useful and the 
tine arts, the astonishing expansion of commercial, 
manufacturing and mechanical industry, agricul¬ 
ture has kept pace with the other occupations of 
society, and continues to he the foundation of the 
social system. The tennre, cultivation, and pro¬ 
duce of tbe soil still remain the primary interests 
of the community.* The greatest political phi¬ 
losopher and most consummate statesman of mod¬ 
ern Europe, Edmund Burke, who saw further than 
his countrymen into the cloudy future which hung 
over the close of the eighteenth century, at the 
meridian of his life, and while moBt engrossed in 
public business, purchased a large farm. “I 
have,” says he, in a letter written to a friend in 
that most critical year of English politics, 1769, 
“just made a push with all I could collect of my 
own and the aid cf my friends, to cast a little root 
in the country. I have purchased about six hun¬ 
dred acres of laud in Buckinghamshire, about 
twenty-four miles from London. It is a place ex¬ 
ceedingly pleasant, and I propose, God willing, to 
become a farmer in good earnest.” This his pur¬ 
pose be carried into effect, and adhered to it to 
the end of his life. Those immortal orations, 
which revived in the British Senate the glories of 
the ancient eloquence, were meditated In the re¬ 
tirement of Beaconsfleld; and there also were 
composed those all but inspired appeals and ex- 
postnlationp, which went to the heurt of England 
and Europe in the hour of their direst peril, and 
did so much to expose the deformity and arrest 
tbe progress of that godless philosophy,—specious, 
arrogant, hypocritical and sanguinury, — which, 
with liberty and equality on its lips, and plunder, 
and motder, and treason, in its heart, waged dead¬ 
ly war on France and mankind, and closed a pro¬ 
fessed crusade for republican freedom by the 
establishment of a military despotism. 
A greater than Barke ia this country, our own 
peerless Washington, with ft burden of public care 
on bis mind such as has seldom weighed upon any 
other person — conscious, through a considerable 
part of his career, that tho success not only of tbe 
American Revolution, but of the whole great ex¬ 
periment of republican government, was dependent 
in no siuiiU degree upon his course and conduct— 
yet gave throughout his life, in time of pence, more 
of his time and attention, as he himself in one of 
his private letters informs us, to the superintend¬ 
ence of his agricultural operations, than to any 
other subject. "It will not be doubted,” says he, 
iu his last annual message to Congress— 7th of 
December, 1796—“that, with reference cither to 
• “That description of property (landed property) is in 
itg nature the firm base of every stable governne!^."— 
Burk t's Letter a on a Regicide Peace . 
