Cooper's Clarksburg register. [volume] (Clarksburg, Va. [W. Va.]) 1851-1861, 1855-10-24
a9rlrnlttlral aa6 Dpulpatfr.
FARMERS EDUCATE your SONS.

FARMERS EDUCATE YOUR SONS.
Even I, the desee ndant of a poor line
of cultivators, stretching back, very like
", to him who through his own blindness
and faulty lost the situation OF head gar
dener in Eden-eVen feef the all-pree
Vailing impulse towards Improvement and
reform. I,csn never be a scientific farm
er-I am too old and too heavily laden
with duties and cares FOR that-but my
son, il he lives. shall be. The little I can
teach. him shall at least inspire him with
a craving for more, and set him on the
right track to learn it.
If any man in, the community may be
presumed to understand fully, and to be
imbued thoroughlyawith the progressive
spirit of the age, thatman is Horace Gree
y. With his peculiar political and social
views and feelings, we have nothing TO
do; but with the noble, energetic spirit
he has ever displayed, and, with the i'm
mense influence he has for years welded
with such prodigious effect, everything
The extract which We give above is strict
" characteristic Of the man, and embodes
sentiments which we should like to be-
lieve Pervade the breast of every farmer
in the land. It is useless to attempt
concealment of the great fact, that the
spirit of progress has laid her hand upon
almost every tiller of the soil, and that
slowly, but certainly, the slumbering spirit
Of the giant agriculture is awaking to
consciousness of its own immense impor-
lance. One By one the old fashioned pre-
JUDGES of by gone days are thrown aside,
and those who few years since indig.
naptly discarded the idea of making a sim
gle step in advance of " daddy's plan of
farming" are either conforming in full to
the onward movements Of the age, or
gradually adopting improved implements,
seeds, and methods of tillage. But there
are very many, who like Horace Greedy,
feel the all perVading impulse towards
improvement" but who are too old and
too heavily laden with cares and business
duties to devote themselves to scientific
farming. To such we say, educate your
sons, and educate them with special refer
ence to the profession which you intend
they shall pursue in after life. Do not
be afraid that in filling their minds with
the great truths of science you unfit them
for the physical duties of life. The man
who tills the earth understandingly-wh
is acquainted with the character of the
soil he culLivates-the manures he applies
the seed he sows, and the harvest he
gathers-surely such a mans daily toll
is materially lessened by the fact that
every department of it is conducted intel
ligently. Every plant and leaf and blos>
som is to him subject of the deepest in
terest, because n thorough knowledge of
each, so far enables him to prosecute it
more easily and more economically
Where the farmer doggedly attributes his
want of success to the weather, or to
Providence, the educated man, knowing
that nature is rarely in the wrong, inves-
tigates the cause of the failure, and gen.
orally succeeds in tracing it to its proper
source. Forewarned, forearmed," is a
trite but truthful adage. The educated
man provides against a recurrence of the
failure, while the ignorant one, without
out the reasons why he failed in particu-
lar direction, " trusts to luck" and sues
ceeds no better than at first.
Ye that are skepticat in regard to pro-
gressive farming, look around you for a
single moment, and if the SHOWS of forty
winters have. fallen upon you, go back
twenty years only, and compare the farm
ing of that day with the farming of the
present day. Look at the farms which
in the period of twenty years have been
improved most, and our word for it, they
were those, the cultivators of which were,
if not highly educated men. at least those
who did not condemn book farming as
humbug. They were men, who if they
had not, as the farmers Of the present day
have, access 10 reliable agricultural infor
nation in the form of periodicals without
number, and newspapers at mere nominal
prices, were possessed Of an indomitabIe
spirit of inquiry and energy-the men,
in fact, to whom we are most largely in
debted for the facilities the present gen
Grafton of farmers enjoy for cuItivating
the soil intelligentIy, pleasantly, and pro-
ftRbly