Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1855-12-26
Gold and Corn--an Eloquent Parallel.


= don't pay.
Gold and Corn--an Eloquent Parallel.
The Hon. Edward Everett was n leading
speaker at the recent Agricultural Fair ig
Boston, and in the course of his reEnarks, he
made the following contrast between the gold
of California and the gold of Agriculture:
ssThe grains of California gold are dead in
organic masses. How they got into the grave; !
between what mountain millstones, whirled by
elemental storm-mills on the bosom of oceanic
torrents, the auriferous ledges were ground to
powder in what Titanic hands the coveted
grains we're sown broadcast in the placers, hu-
man science can but family conjecture. We
only know that those grains have within them
no principle of growth or reproduction, and
that when the crop was to be put in, Chaos
must have broken up the soil. How different
-the grains of our Atlantic gold, sown by the
prudent hand of man, in the kindly alteration
T of seed time and harvest, each curiously, mys-
teriously .organized-hard, horny, seeming life
| less on the outside, but wrapping up in the IN
terror a seminal germ, a living principle Drop
grain of California gold into the ground, and
there it viii lie unchanged to the end Of time,
! the clods on which it falls not more more cold
aud lifeless. Drop a grain of corn, of cur
blessed corn, in the ground, ani 10! mystery.
In few days it softens, it swells, it shoots up
wards, it is living thing. 1t yellow itself.
| but it sends up a delicate spire, which comes
peeping, emerald green, through the soil; it ex-
pands to vigorous stalk. revels in the air
| and sunshine, it arrays itself more glorious
|
whose sound, as the west wind whispers thro'
| them, falls as pleasantly on the husbandman's
! ear as the rustic of his sweetheart's garment,
still towers aloft, spins its verdant skeins OF
vegetable floss, displays its dancing tassals
surcharged with fertilizing dust, and arfast ri
/ pens into two or three magnificent batons Ike
| this Gan ear of Indian corn), each Of which is
| studded with hundreds of grains of gold, eve-
! ry one possessing the same wonderful proper
ties as the parent grain, every one instinct
with the same marvellous reproductive pow
ers. There are seven hundred and twenty
grains on the ear which / hold in my hand
And now I say, sir, Of this transcendant gold
of ours, the yield this year viii be at least ten
or fifteen times that OF California.
But it will be urged, perhaps, sir, in behalf
| Of the California gold, by some n,iserly old TO
gy. who thinks there is no music in the world
equal to the chink of his gui meas that tho one
crop only of gold can be gathered from the
spot, yet once gathered it lasts to the end OF
time while {he will maintain) our vegetable
gold is produced only TO be consumed, and
when consumed is gone forever. But this
would be a most egregious error both ways
1t is true the California gold will last forever
unchanged, if its owner chooses; bat while it
so lasts it is of no use; not so much as its val
ue in pig iron, which makes the best of ballast,
whereas gold, while it is gold, is good for lit
tie or nothing. You can neither eat it. nor
| drink it, nor smoke it. You can neither wear
it. nor burn it as fuel, nor build a house with
it; it is really useless till you exchange it for
consumable, perishable goods; and the more
plentiful it is, the less its ezchangeable value.
Far different the case with our Atlantic gold;
IT does not perish when consumed, but by
nobler alchymy than that of Paracelsus, is
transmitted in consumption to higher life
.ePerish in consumption" did the old miser
say? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not
| ouickened except it die. The burning pen oi
inspiration ranging heaven and earth for 81
Multitude to convey to our poor minds some
not Inadequate idea of the mighty doctrine Of
the Resurrection, can find no symbol so ex-
pressive as grain. 1t may chance of wheat or
some other grain. To-day a senseless plant,
| tomorrow it is human-bone and muscle.vein
and artery. siuew and nerve: beating pulse,
| heavins lungs, toiling, and sometimes over
/ toilina brain. Last June it sucked from the
cold breast of the earth the watery nourish
ment of its distendng sap vessels, and now it
clothes the manly form with warm cordial
flesh. auivers and thrills with the ive-fold
mystery of sense, purveys and ministers to the
higher mystery of thought. Heaped up in
your granaries this week, the next it will
strike in the stalwait arm, and glow in the
blushing cheek, and fash in the beaming eye
till we learn at last to realize that the slen-
der stalk which We have seen bending in the
corn-feld, under the yellow burden of the har-
vest, is indeed ssthe staff of life, which since
the world began, has supported the struggling
and toiling myriads of humanity on the Nigh
, ty pilgrimage of being
Yes, sir. to drop the allegory, and 10 speak
without figure, it is this noble agriculture
. for the promotion of which this company is as
sembIed from so many parts of the Union
/, feeds the human race, and all the humber or
+ ders of animated nature dependant on man.
With the exception of what is yielded by the
fisheries and the chase, Ga limited thu
an insignificant source &C
: is the steve
of - -1as