The Athens post. [volume] (Athens, Tenn.) 1848-1917, 1855-11-16
GOLD AND CORN.


the gold of California and the gold of Agri.
culture, is from the speech of the Hon. Ed.
ward Everett, at the National Agricultural
! Fair, Boston, October 2Stl
The grains of the California gold arc dead.
inorganic masses. How they got into the
| gravel; between what mountain mistopcs,
whired Ivy elemental storm winds on the
bosom Of oceanic torrents, the auriferous
ledees were ground to powder; by what Ii
| tanic hands the coveted grains were sown
! broadcast in the glaciers, human science can
but faintly conjecture. We only know that
those grains have within them no principle of
| growth or reproduction, and that when that
! 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 alienation of
sccd-timc and harvest; each curiously, myste-
rlously organized; hard, horny, seeming life
less on the outside, but wrapping M in the
interior seminal germ, living principle
| Dropa grain ofCaliGornia gold into the Ground,
and there it will lie unchanged to the end of
time, the clods on which il fall not more cold
and liieless. Drop grain of our gold of our
blessed gold in the ground, and 10! mystery.
In lew days it soItens, it swes, il shoots
upward, it is a living thing. 1t is yellow
Itself, but it sends up delicate spre, which
comes peeping, emerald green, through the
SOIL; lteNpands to vigorous stalk, -cvcls in
Inc air and sunshine, it arrays itself more
| glorious than Solomon in its broad, nuttering
'eaty robes, whose sound, us the west wind
whispers through them, falls us pleasantly on
the husbandinans ear as the rustic of his
| sweethearts garment; still towers alolt, spins
its verdant skeins of vegetable floss, displays
| MS dancing tassels, surchargcd with tertiIizing
dust, ard ut last ripcns into two or three mag.
niilccnt batOns like this (an ear of Indian
corn,) each of which is studded with hundreds
of grains Of gold, every one possessing the
same wonderful properties MS the parent grain,
every one instinct with the same marvellous
reproductive powers. There are seven hun.
| drcd and twenty grains on the ear which
hold in my hand. And now say, sir, of this
transcendant gold of ours, the yield This wear
Will be ut least ten or fifteen times that of
| California.
But ii will he urged, perhaps, sir, in behalf
of the California gold, by some misery old
iogy, who thinks there is no music in the
world equal to the chink of his guncas, that
though one crop only of gold can be gathered
from the same spot, vet once gathered it lasts
to the end of time; while (he will manlaiu)
our vegetable gold is produced only to
| be consumed, and when consumed is zone
forever. But this, Mr. President would
he most egrcgious error both WAYS
1t is true, the California gold vii! last forever
unchanged, i.ils owner chooses; but while it
80 lasts II Is OF no use, no. not so much rs its
value in pig iron, which makes the best Of
ballast; whereas gold, while it is gold, is good
for little or nothing You can neither it eat
nor drink it, nor smoke it-you can neither
wear it, nor burn it us fuel, nor build house
with IL it is really useless till YOU exchange
it for consumabc, periahuble goods, and the
more plentiful it is the less its exrhangeaGlc
value.
Far different the case with our tluntic gold;
it does not perish. when consumed, but by Il
nobIcr alchymy than that of parlrcisus, IL
transmitted in CONSUMPTION TO II higher life
"PeriSliin consumption" did the old nisrr say.
Thou fool, that which thou sowcst is hot
quickened ercem il die. The burning pen ui
inspiration ranging heaven and earth for a
similtude 10 convey to our poor minds some
not inadequate idea of the mighty doctrine OF
the Resurrection, cannot find any symbol 50
expressive us bare "grain." 1t may chance Oh
wheat or some other grain. To day sense
less plant, 10 morrow it is human-bone md
I
ptg pulse, hcavng lungs, toiIing, ah! some
times over.toing brain. Last Jane il sucked
from the cold breast of the earth the watery
nourishmcnt Of its distcndng sap vessels, and
now it clothes the manly form with warm
cordial flesh, qulyers and thrills with the five
fold mystery Of sense, purvcys, and ministers
to the higher mystery Of thought. llcaped
up in your granarcs this week, the next it
will strike in the stulwart arm, and glow in
the blushing cheek, and flash in the beamng
eve-tilI we learn ut last to realize that the
slender stalk which we have seen bending in
the corn field, under the yellow burden OF
harvest, is indeed the ''staif OF lie" which
since the world began, has supported the toll
ing and struggling myriads OF humanity on
the mighty pilgrimage of being.
Yes, sir, 10 drop the allegOry, and to speak
without a figure, it is this noble agriculture
for the promotion of which this great compa
ny is assembled from SO many parts OF ibt
Union, which feeds the human race, and al
the humber orders Of animated nature de
pendent on man. With the exception o
what is Yielded by the fisheries and the chas,
, Ga limited though certainly not an nsignili
cant source Of supply) Agriculture is til,
| steward which spreads the daily table o
mankind. Twenty-seven millions Of human
beings, by accurate computation, awoke ihi
, very morning in the United States, all requr
ing their "daily Bread" whether they had tn
grace to pay for it or not and under Proyi
drnce all looking to the agriculture of tn
n country for that daily bread, and the food o
t the domestic animals depending on them;
, demand as great perhaps as their own. MI
( President, it is the daily duty of your farmer
d to satisfy gigantic appetite; to fill the mouth
u of these hungry milions--ol these starNin!
j. millions, might say, for if by any catastrophe
the supply were cut of for a few days tI'
life of the country-human and brule-wou'
= be extinct.
/. A BoorLEss NoTIcE.-Some stamphayn
.,Io, a., ,oir of hoots from the editorial snn(