138 
THE CULTIVATOR. 
templation of the varied phenomena of nature. His was 
that happy constitution of mind which finds 
“ Sermons in stones, tongues in trees, 
Books in the running brooks, 
And good in every thing. ;J 
“ Disqualified by these calamities from labor or active 
physical habits, 55 in the language of one who knew him 
well, “he devoted his mind to study; and although suf¬ 
fering under severe bodily affliction, deprived of the ordi¬ 
nary facilities for obtaining information, without teach¬ 
ers, and by the aid only of such books as he was enabled 
at that early day to collect, he became a ripe and sound 
scholar, and eventually one of the most able and powerful 
w T ,riters of our times. For more than twenty years he had 
been a regular contributor to many of the American 
Quarterly and Scientific Journals, and in several instances 
to some of the most popular Magazines in Europe. His 
contributions to the newspaper press of this country, on 
almost every variety of topic, literary, religious, scienti¬ 
fic, miscellaneous, and occasionally poetry, have been nu¬ 
merous and of the highest order of excellence. As a 
writer on all of these varied subjects, whether we regard 
the beauty of his style, the chasteness of his diction, or 
the invariable acc: v.cy of his facts, it would be difficult 
to find his superior. 
“ The versatility of his talents, the rapidity with which 
he wrote, and the great number of his productions, have 
excited alike the admiration and astonishment of his 
friends. 
“ But the most valuable part of his writings, and for 
which he will be longest remembered, relate to the pas¬ 
sion of his latter years—practical and scientific agricul¬ 
ture. In these departments he was thoroughly versed, as 
his contributions, commencing in 1833, to the old Genesee 
Farmer ami the Albany Cultivator, will abundantly attest. 
The services he has rendered to the farming interest of 
the country have been immense, and form a legacy which 
will endure to a late generation. He was eminently 
practical and judicious in all his views and recommenda¬ 
tions, and possessed a happy tact in communicating his 
impressions to others. To the readers of the Cultivator, 
and to the agricultural community, his loss will be irre¬ 
parable. 
“ Isolated and excluded as he was by physical infirmity 
and location, from a general intercourse with his fellow 
citizens, there are consequently but few who can justly 
appreciate his many social qualities. Thoroughly inform¬ 
ed on almost every subject of general or individual inte¬ 
rest, he was always ready, as it was his delight, to impart 
to others who sought his society, the rich treasures of his 
well stored mind. Those few and favored friends, will 
long and fondly cherish his memory. As a man. his phi¬ 
lanthropy knew no bounds. He studied and lab red em- 
phaiically for the benefit of mankind. As a h end, he 
was true and faithful; as a son and a brother, kind and af¬ 
fectionate. When a man of such gifted powers and uni¬ 
versal acquirements, in the full maturity of his intellect, 
and in the midst of his usefulness, is cut down suddenly 
and removed from among us, we may in truth mourn a 
public bereavement.” 
We add an extract from a letter of H. S. Ran tall, 
Esq: 
“Your associate and our friend, Mr. Gaylord, has join¬ 
ed the c innumerable caravan' 1 that people ‘ the silent 
halls of death. 5 How little was I prepared to hear it— ! 
or hearing, to realize it ! The ink is scarce dry on the 
last letter I received from him ! It was written in one 
of his most lively and felicitous veins, and closed play¬ 
fully with the oriental valediction, ‘may you live a 
thousand years, and your shadow never be less.’ How 
little did he dream when writing it, or I when reading 
it, that the last sands of his own last year of life were so 
nearly run out! 
“Mr. Gaylord was never in good health. To be free from 
racking pain was the nearest approximation to that boon 
ever vouchsafed to him. There can be no indelicacy now 
in alluding to that dreadful physical calamity which, in 
language which I borraw from one of his letters, ‘ cut 
him off from the great brotherhood of man.’ This, su- 
peradded to constant and oftentimes intense suffering, 
would have driven an ordinary mind to madness, or mo-! 
rose and querulous misanthropy. Not so he. Strong 
hearted, meek and enduring, he raised his voice among 
the gay and happy, and he even catched their tone. In 
his last letter 10 which I have alluded, after discussing 
history and fiction, commenting on Alison, Paul d’Kock, 
Eugene Sue, &c., he speaks of life, man, the litera- 
tuie and events of the day, in the tone of one who has 
seen the world only on its sunny side—of one whose sky 
has never known the presence of a cloud. Such was the 
uniform tone of his letters. 
“Of Mr. Gaylord's early education I know little. I infer 
from declarations in his letters, that he was what is usual¬ 
ly styled a c self-taught scholar. 5 His reading was lite¬ 
rally boundless. He was as familiar with the natural sci¬ 
ences, history, poetry, and belles-lettres, as with agricul¬ 
ture, and nearly . if not quite as well qualified to discuss 
them. It was difficult to start any literary topic -which 
you did not at once perceive had been examined by him 
with the eye of a scholar and critic. In one of my let¬ 
ters, half sportively, yet in a serious tone, I asked him 
‘ what he thought of the German Philosophy? 5 In his an¬ 
swer, Kant and Fichte, and I think Schelling and Jacobi, 
were discussed with as much familiarity as most scholars 
would find themselves qualified to make use of in speak¬ 
ing of Locke, or Stewart, or Brown! In commenting 
on that report of mine, (on Com. School Libraries,) al¬ 
luded to by him in the last Cultivator, he betrays an ex¬ 
tensive knowledge of parts of the literature of nearly 
every nation in Europe. 
“As a writer, the public have long been acquainted with 
Mr. Gaylord. He wrote on nearly every class of topics 
connected with human improvement; in papers, maga¬ 
zines, and not unfrequently in books. But it is as an agri¬ 
cultural writer that he is best known. Here, taken all in 
all, he stands unrivalled. There are many agricultu¬ 
ral writers in our country who are as well or better 
qualified to discuss a single topic, than he was. But I 
deem it not disrespectful to say that for acquaintance 
with and ability to discuss clearly and correctly every 
department of agricultural science, he has not—he never 
has had an equal in this State. He was every way fitted 
for an editor. Placable and forgiving in his temper, 
modest, disinterested, unprejudiced, never evincing a 
foolish credulity, above deception, despising quackery,, 
with an honesty of motive that was never suspected, his 
advice to the farmer was sound, discriminating and safe. 
“Mr. Gaylord's styleas a writer, was peculiarly chaste- 
intelligible to the meanest and most illiterate capacity, it 
charmed the scholar by its grace, its perspicuity and its 
flexibility. It was marked by an utter destitution of all me- 
retriciousornament. As has been before said, he was essen¬ 
tially a modest man. His most decided convictions w r ere 
expressed without dogmatism or assurance,, and his sug¬ 
gestions came as from a fellow-learner, rather than from 
an instructor. In epistolary writing he was peculiarly 
felicitous. With him I had corresponded for years. 
There is a charming simplicity and freedom from as¬ 
sumption in his letters, anil he had the rare and happy 
faculty of discoursing on elevated subjects without stiff¬ 
ness—on learned ones without pedantry. His extensive 
correspondence, were it collected and published, would 
form a valuable volume; infinitely more so than many 
highly extolled similar publications. Such a collection, 
wfith a selection from his other -writings, and a memoir 
of his life, should be published, and placed in every agri¬ 
cultural library. 55 
At a meeting of the friends of Agriculture, held in the 
State Agricultural Hall, on the evening of the 2Sth March, 
John P. Beekman, Esq., President of the State Agricul¬ 
tural Society, announced the decease of Mr. Gaylord in 
the following just and appropriate language: 
The President said that he had just received intelli¬ 
gence which would be heard with regret by every indi 
vidual familiar with the agricultural movements of the- 
times. The mail just arrived from the -west announces 
the death of Willis Gaylord. The judgment of every 
intelligent farmer in the State will respond to the asser¬ 
tion that to no man whatever—excepting perhaps Judge 
Buel—is the agriculture of the State more indebted than 
to Mr. Gaylord. 
The character of Willis Gaylord was in all respects 
