The Middlebury galaxy. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1848-1850, 1848-07-25
NUMBER 10.


Southern planter, little to- admire in the tame mo-
notony of boundless prairie, and litte to entce
IN the rude domestic arrangements, the coarse
fare and the coarSer manners Of the Western squat
ter youth will not readily abandon the or
chard he has dressed, the towering shrubs which
he has aided his sisters TO rear the fruit or shade
tree planted on the day Of his birth, and whose
thrifty growth he has regarded with as much pride
as his own increase of statue; and who that has
been taught TO gaze with an admirins eve on the
unrivaled landscapes unf0lt.ed from every HILL
where lake. and island and mountain and rock,
and well-tilled field. and evergreen wood, and
purling brook, and cheerful home Of man are pre-
scented at due distance and in fairest proportion,
would exchange such scenes as these, for the mi
ry sloushs, the puny groves, the Shiny streams,
which alone diversity the dead uniformity of Wis
consin and illinois,!
have now shewn, hope, rather BY sug-
gestion than by argument, that the profession
of agriculture in this age and land is an hon.
orable, and in its true spirit, an elevated and
an enlightened calling; have adverrcd to its
Importance as an instrument of primary civil
lization, endeavored to Indicate its present
position as an art, and limited at its future
hopes and encouragements. 1t only remains
for me to say word on that other great branch
of industry, the promotion Of which is one OF
your leading objects, the arts Of coHre ysion,
namely, or as they are more generally called,
the mechanic arts
Although these arts are praetised to some
extent by the rudeSt Savagcs, rs said at the
outset, yet they do not in general attain TO any
considerable degree Of perfection, until aGri-
culture has made great advances and as thew
are the last Of the industrial arts to lie fully
developed, so are they the ultimate material
means, by which the power and wealth, and
refinement OF social man are carried 10 their
highest pitch. The distinction betwe, n arri-
culture and proper mechanic art may be thus
stated The one avails itself of the organic
forces of nature, for the purpose of sin pie 1e-
production and multiplication; the other en-
ploys the Inore powerful inorganic forces for
the conversion Of natural forms into artificial
shapes. The mechanic derives the raw mate
rial directly from the hand of nature, but ;he
form, character and properties of the final pro-
duct are determined BY human contr;yancc,
sometimes relying upon the plastic power Of
the hand, and at other times aided Nv natural
forces, which man has learned 20 guide and
contTol.-Out of mass of iron, the artisan
can forge at his pleasure, a sword or plough
share. He can fashion from block oi wood
a spinning wheel or heather idol With
flask ofmercury, he can silver mirror, sup
ply hospital with a months stock OF calomer,
or extract from ore and dross an ingot Of gold,
He can coin that same gold into republican
eagles, or royal soyereiEns, GID With II the
dome ola mosque or n eapitol, or draw It cut into
wire and twist it into a lady's necklace. lie
can convert bale of cotton into muslin that
shall rival the fneness OF the spiders web, can
vass and cordage for a ship of the line, or an
explosive substance, an ounce of which shall
rend that ship into ten thousand fragments.
He can hew from the dead marble chimney
piece for palace or 4 cottage, the mauso-
leum Of Napoleon, baptismal font, or the
speaking statue of a Washington. The whole
art OF the agriculturiSt on the other hand is
exhausted in the multiplication of certain rat
ural products all substantially like the origi-
nal. Here the seed from the storehousc of the
Sowcr becomes rs it were the raw material, or
rather the model, and nature is the artificer
whom man compels to repeat and reproduce
the works OF her own mysterious cunning.
The labors Of the agricalturist are confined to-
the production and slight Improvement of the
comparatively few natural forms which he has
learned to make subscrvicnt to his own uses;
the tolls and objects of the mechanic are as
diversified as the wants and the inventive ca
pacity of man.
But between these two great branches of
productive industry, diverse as are their OBJ
Jects and their processes, there is neither in
reference nor competition each depcn,lsup-
on and is in turn helpful to the other, and
prosperity has crowned no country, which las
adapted its legislation exclusively to the en-
couragement Of either. As general rule, it
may be said that mechanical operations absorb
a much larger amount of agricultural products
than atrrieulfura copcrr,a- of tl,,, ros,,I..
of mechanical labor, and therefore the hus-
bandman is directly interested in the prosper
ity OF the mechanic, who is his best customer
a single operative in almost any branch of
mechanical art works up vastly greater a.
mount of raw material than one agricultural
laborer can grow, and produces much larger
quantity Of the manufactured article than one
laborer can consume. Three thousand spin
ncrs, weaycrs, Overs and inshcrs, viii convert
into dressed cloth all the wool grown in Yer
mont. and the cloth they viii produce would
furnish two full suits a wear TO every male in
habiant Of the State. In the case of cottons,
the manufacture of which is simple, and re-
quires less manipulation, the disproportion be-
tween the quantity of raw material produced
bv one field laborer & consumed by one man.
is even greater; and similar rHlc
holds true, in general, of all the mechanic arts.
The obvious reason of this diSproportiOn be-
tween the results Of labor is, that the mechan-
ic performs the heaviest portion ofhis worISrby
mechanical contrivanccs, which press into his
service the inexhaustiblc inorganic forces OF
nature, and enable a single individual TO WELD
more than the strength of thousand, while
the agriculturist accomplishes his task by mere
bone and sincw, the unaided force of man and
beast, and looks to the comparatively feeble
and uncertain powers of organized nature, to
bring about the wished for result There is
another reason why the mechanic arts are of
great and perpetually increasing value to the
agriculturist. They are constantly discover
ing new uses, and thereby extending tho de-
mand for the raw material Who can COM
pute the increased value that the invention Of
paper has given to vegetable Gbrous substance,
or that Of explosive properties to cotton?
How many acres has the use Of starch in man
ufacturing added to the culture ofthe potatoe,
and how many field laborers find employment
in growing madden and the teszle? The
farmer is interested in the prosperity Of the
workshop, because it offers market for his
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