ipULTURE’J^ 
EXCELSIOR 
) 03.00 PER YEAR. 
( Single No., Eight Cents 
NEW YORK CITY AND ROCHESTER N. Y 
It Park Row, IVew York. 
82 Itultnlo 8t., Rochcutcr. 
FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, AUGUST SR, 1869 
I Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 13t», by D. D. T. Moore, in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern District of New Vork.J 
But the future of the race tends more to 
homogeneous development, in which the 
producer and not the destroyer will most 
be held in reverence. Let us, then, recall 
to our minds the lives and labors ol some 
early and conspicuous American agricul¬ 
turists and trace through them the advance¬ 
ment of agriculture on this Continent. This 
seems more appropriate, now that, peace 
reigns throughout all our borders, and the 
and minute a historian as Irving, that lie 
should neglect ill his life to give any just 
idea of his rural pursuits; and most, of the 
histories of him fail in giving any adequate 
impression of the man in the great, and loved 
occupation of his life. 
The first lessons of W isiiington, in rural 
life, were taken at sixteen, in surveying, for 
Lord Fairfax, a large tract of almost un¬ 
broken wilderness among the Alleghanies. 
fortune of thirty thousand pounds sterling, 
besides a landed estate, (possessing also an 
ample fortune of his own,) Instead of going 
to a city to spend his life iu elegant leisure, 
we find him, at the age of twenty-seven, on 
his farm, corresponding with his agents in 
London on the sale of his tobacco. He tells 
them how carefully he. has raised it, observ¬ 
ing the best modes of culture, and that, it 
should bring the highest price. These agents 
Eminent ^farmers 
er has peace dawned upon the little Revolu¬ 
tionary army than Washington takes leave 
of his scarred veterans, hurries before Con¬ 
gress and resigns his great trust, that he may 
again walk beneath the shade of his loved 
oaks and ha soothed by the sight of his flocks 
and herds. 
IIih Great PosseKNioiis. 
Besides his estate at Mount Vernon and 
his wife’s plantations, he held patents from 
Lord Dunmore for 
more than 82.QUO acres 
of land lying on the 
Ohio and Great Iveu- 
hawa rivers. These 
I ; immense tracts of 
laud are very fertile, 
being mostly alluvial, 
and he writes the Rev. 
. John Witherspoon 
that they are very 
suitable for clergymen 
and their purishoners 
A,, ‘ S to settle upon. 
Price of I.nbor. 
V There is a little rem- 
iniscencc on this sub- 
tfrYfject which will aston- 
jsli the farmer of the 
present day. lie writes 
seeing to much com- 
V sffflf riSIS'-'' l ,nu y, in “ plain, gen- 
^ 1,11 Ht > il3 be wants 
b) relieve Airs. \V r . 
from the drudgery ot 
ySgffi . WfVfC' ordering and seeing to 
\i 'ifT ' oHarapjjK- the table. He has paid 
JLnHiP 9 ’ per year, but he 
ufWM ■ - says, “ for one who uu- 
) WIU jt. dorstands the business 
iar as $125!” What a 
- change in times! when 
■/ tlio first man in the na- 
- ■ . •'< <■’, tion tliinks he goes to 
r the verge of extrava¬ 
gance iu proposing for 
an accomplished but¬ 
ler and steward a sal- 
"■ ary of $125 per year. 
. Improvements. 
Washington was 
a radical iu all his views of agricultural im¬ 
provement. He eagerly sought improved am-, 
chinery. Having conceived the plan of taking 
the mud from the bottom of the Potomac and 
composting it for manure, lie investigates the 
utility of Donaldson’s “Hippopotamus,’ 
(probably an attempt at a dredging ma- 
chine,) for this purpose. Afteri^-ds he ^in- 
posted large quantities of this rich mud and 
CELEBRATED FARMERS.—I, 
\\ iiii.e we move forward with great 
strides in the race of nations, developing our 
wonderful resources in the useful and pre¬ 
cious ores, aud fashioning these into all 
the thousand forms re¬ 
quired iu our physical 
progress, and, above 
all, our capacity to 
feed the world from 
the productions of 
our soil, receiving 
With, open arms the 
pilgrims from over- 
crowded and oppress¬ 
ed Europe, pointing 
each householder to 
our rich and virgin 
plains, v herd be may 
erect a cabin and hold 
one hundred and sixty- 
acres as an inherit¬ 
ance for himself and 
his posterity forever, ~ 
thus teaching iim in¬ 
dependence mid at¬ 
taching him and bis 
household to the tin-- ^ 
tunes of the Great Re¬ 
public—while the pi- 
oncers of agriculture . .. *3% ^ 
are advancing with ?g|jgb - 
the great railroad _ ■ b' 
across the Conthicnt, 
and founding States 
as rapidly as counties . 
and towns heretofore : 
—while machinery is 1 " 
relieving the bus- r^&m 
handman of the great 
drudgery by which bis 
and he is enabled to 
take his place among 
the educated of the 
land—let us pause for . :C ^f3fgjlIjSp 
a moment and retrace 
the steps by which ag¬ 
riculture has advanced 
from the rugged ways 
of our forefathers to its 
now pleasant and easy paths. Politics looks 
after and perpetuates the career of its states¬ 
men. Sanguinary war lias its chroniclers. 
The slayers of man find enthusiastic biogra¬ 
phers and eager applause as heroes; but the 
peaceful worker of the soil, who repairs the 
waste of war and makes the founding of 
States possible lias few lines devoted to him; 
even if, like Cincinnatcs, he comes from 
his plow to defend the liberties of his coun- 
TIIE WjYSMI]SrGr r rOIsr manskjn, j\iou>tt vkunojst 
L the East and Hero, with an occasional settler, surrounded 
each other in by Indians, in the grand old forest, with its 
Ivancement. It magnificent, panorama of mountain, river 
urce of cncour- and valley, he completed his task so thor- 
rt study of the ol| ghly and systematically that he was ten- 
mers who have ( b' re< -l and accepted an appointment as pub- 
ili find here, as be surveyor. This post lie held for three 
at those who by years, spending most of his time in the w 11- 
have conferred derness, exposed to many hardships, now 
i, are often, also, swimming swollen streams, now floundering 
in achieving or through swamps, again camping upon the 
f the people. drenched earth; but all this seemed con¬ 
genial to his strong and healthy nature— 
INGTON. the broadest landscapes, the most rugged 
L drawn to this mountains, the wildest gorges, the rushing 
in the group of rivers, filled him only with delight. 
iers, not because Hit I.owiniui Beauty.** 
ous patriot and Some passages in his letters, at this period, 
because being a show that, like other hoys, he was suscepti- 
agriculturc with ble to the tender passion; for, somewhere, in 
1 with a method a secluded vale, surrounded by wild flowers, 
1 lbr his time, lie he found blooming his “ Lowland Beauty," 
lace in a review whose bright eyes were irresistible to his 
gs ol our Agri- young heart. But this Interesting episode 
in his youthful life is shrouded in mystery, 
mied to think of as there is no clue to it save these few pas- 
istume, studying sages written to a friend. Where was this 
men; or as a Interesting spot, in which he had dreamed 
i effect of politi- of “ love in a cottage,” we shall never know, 
lan welfare; but in* Rural Tn»t«N. 
im as the pains- Perhaps lliis wild and rugged life is what 
it mind given to so imbued him with a love of rural pursuits; 
fertilizers, ot ro- for after being commander-in-chief of the 
arm machinery, Provincial militia and passing through the 
s the basis ot French and Indian war, amid almost incredi- 
h bio hardships, and then marrying the beau* 
a of so accurate tiful Martha Custis, who brought him a 
seem to have been a sore trouble to him af¬ 
terward, as he complains often of their sell¬ 
ing under price; and finally, in 1765, he tells 
them if they do no better the next year, he 
shall be obliged to change Ills agents, and he 
gives them tills notice, that he may not be 
charged with “ fickleness 
Hu Takes n Premium. 
He has just begun raising hemp aud flax, 
and sent a sample forward to 
know the price in London. He ^ 
must, have had success in raising 
hemp, as he received a premium 
of £10.8s. from the State of Vir- 
The Poacher. 
At this period he was fond of 
all rural sports, and to defend his 
own covers of game from the -gSffiSp 
depredations of a desperate 
poaching vagabond across the 
Potomac, after many warnings, 
he took the hold resolution of 
riding into the water and seiz- 
ing him in his boat as he was de- 
parting, and paying no attention ; ' 
to ins threat of shooting, lie drew 
him ashore and gave him a sharp 
horse-whipping, which is said to 
have cured him of his thieving 
propensity. 
We next see him leaving his rural pleas¬ 
ures, which he so dearly loved, and entering 
the long and bloody drama of the Revolu¬ 
tion. We shall not follow Him in this fear¬ 
ful struggle for liberty, hut wait till he 
emerges on the other side of victory. No soon- 
the old family vault. 
try in the front of battle, lie is chiefly known 
in his capacity to slay his enemies and dc- 
stioy, rather than as the philosopher of pro¬ 
duction and the exemplar of industry. The 
noble Cato is known better as the Consul 
and the Censor than as the father of the Ro¬ 
man agricultural writers. 
THE NEW VAULT. 
applied it to liis crops with decided advan¬ 
tage. 
I.el.ters to Arthur Voting. 
It was in 1780 that his famous correspond¬ 
ence with AbtouR Young began. The 
radical of the old world found a disciple in 
the radical of the new. Arthur Young, 
Er jEt 
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