The Planters' banner. [volume] (Franklin, Attakapas Co., Lou.) 1849-1872, 1853-11-17
AG RIC Z LIT Z r A L.
What the Arts Teach as TO Farming.
AN ADDRESS
BEFORE THE INDIANA AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY
AT its Annual Fair, Lafayette, Oct. l3, 1853,
BY HORACE GREELEY.
TConclude i e d.


old saw, which is very we'll in its place
but the truth contained in proverbs is
so cnrtly expressed that it often mis-.
leads more than it directs. Industry is
indeed essential to thrift, and farmers,
like other men. often need TO be re-
minded of it. When note one who is
overwhelmed with business" which
calls him away from home two or three
days in each week, and keeps him
hanging about the tavern or store while
his boys are at play and his potatoes
CRYING for the hoe, well know whittier
that farmer is tending, and can guess
about how long he will have any land
to mismanage. And | think that, in
the average, farmers waste more hours
than mechanics. They have more idle
time-not necessarily, but quite COM
monty so egarded-through bad wealth
er, severe cold, too much wet, &C.,
than falls to the lot of almost any other
class; and it is very easy to allure
many of them away to shoot at other
mems turkeys when they should be
growing food for their own. But while
many waste precious hours, quite as
much through heedlessness and want of
system as Incidence, | know another
class who slave themselves out Of COM
fort and out of thought by incessant,
excessive drudgery-who are so ab-
sorbed in obtaining the means of living
that they never find time TO live-who
drive through the day SO that their
bones ache and their minds are foggy
1f Irhf NJ rlyaI a . brpr nh
the week that they can neither wor-
ship God nor enjoy the society Of their
families on the Sabbath. These men
will often tell you they have no time 10
read, which is just as rational as for the
captain of a steamship 10 plead want
Of time TO consult his compass and
chart or keep reckoning of his ships
progress. No time 10 readi do they
not find time to plant and sow, to reap
and NOW, and even 10 eat and sleep?
If they do, then they may find time, if
they will, TO learn how TO apply their
labor to the best advantage as well as
to qualify themselves by rest and re-
freshment for working at alls | geRtpre
the assertion tnaI tnere are 20.00O tar
mers in Indiana who would have been
weaIthier as well as more useful, more
respected aud happier men this day, II
they had distracted ten hours per week
from labor during all their adult life,
and devoted those hours to reading and
thought, in part with a view TO i'm
provement in their own vocation, but
ii part also looking TO higher and no.
bier ends than even this. Some men
waste the better part of their lives IN
dissipation and idleness: but this does
not excuse in others the waste OF time
equally precious in mere animal effort
to heap up goods and comforts which
we must leave behind so soon and for
ever.
read very few old books-I can
hardly find time to master the best new
ones: but have no doubt that those
who do read the very oldest treatlses
on Agriculture which have survived
the ravages of time, will find Cato, or
Seneca, or Columella, or whoever may
be the author in hand, talking to the
farmers of his day very much as our
farmers are now generally talked to,
and inculcating substantially the same
truths: "Plow deeper, fertilize more
thoroughly, cultivate less land, and
cultivate it better r"-such, | have no
doubt, has been the burden of Agricul-
tural admonition and exhortation from
the days Of Homer and Moses. ltseems
incredible to modern skepticlsm that
millions of Hebrews could have for
ages inhabited the narrow and rocky
land of Judea; and it aUould be hard to
believe, if we we're ignorant of the Ag-
rarian law of Moses, under which, as
population increased, the inalienable
patrimony of each family became
smaller and smaller, and the cultiva-
tion of course better and better. Very
few of us are at all aware of the aver
age capacity of an arabic acre, if sub
jected TO thorough scientific culture
Many a family of Tour or five persons
has derived generous subsistence for
year after year from single acre
The story of a farmer who was COM
PEELED to sell of half his little estate of
eight or ten acres, and was most agree
ably surprised by finding the reward OF
his labor qnite as large when It was
restricted 10 the remaining half as when
- as oCStO6SQ Un SAAC WheAS, ?" % 'SAy
current in Roman literature two thou
sand years ago. Why il is that men
persist ia running over much land, in
stead of thoroughly cultivating little,
defying not only Science, but Expe-
rience, the wisdom of the freside as
well as that of the laboratory, can only
be accounted for by supposing that
men have q natural passion for annexa-
ti0n, pride 10 extended dominion, or
else . natural aepugnanee to following
good advice. Surely, if wisdom ever
cried in the streets, she has been bawl-
ine herself hoarse these twenty-five
centuries against the folly of maintain
inc fanoes and paying taxes on hun
dssd acres OF land in order 10 grow
crop that might havs been produced By
tan.
But the sinners Against light and
knowledge-ia our daF-haSo. far less
excuse than their remote ancestors or
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