Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1856-12-11
ADDRESS
OF
ALBERT P. JOHNSTON,
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
Indian Land Agricultural Society,
NOVEMBER 6, 1856.
NOVEMBER 6, 1856.

Fello,c Citizens
and Gentlemen Of the Society -
feel highly sensible of, and thankful for
the honor designed me, in the appointment
to be your first Anniversary speaker. You
could have selected many amongst our num-
ber better suited for the pleasing task than
myself. All, or most of you are aware, that
it has been mine for years past to have been
engaged in trying to teach the young idea
how to shoot rather than corn and cotton !;
and it may be excused if my mind might at
times, stray from corn and cotton fields, to
fields of fancy. Still, we are told, useful les
sons may be drawn from even fiction itself
But I feel prompted to the effort in the
thought, that the cause will not suffer, though
fail to do justice to the subject, or meet
YOUR expectations. I feel doubly assured,
in looking around me, on my right and left,
and before me, in beholding those venerable
farmers of this well cultivated Indian land
country. Yes, and those younger no less
energetic ones to the manor born, who are
even now almost leading the track. With
these guarantees [ proceed.
What then is tie cause for which We have
met? Why are we assembled here to-day q!
What interest to take into consideration =
In the light and common expressions of the
day, nothing but the farming interest What
does this nothing but farming iute, est mean?
1t means nothing less than the most impor-
tant temporal interest, about which this or
any other people can be engaged; one that
gives food aud clothing to the world. The
mechanic is intimately connected with, and
should have an apartment amongst us; the
merchant, the lawyer, the doctor, have all
necessary and useful professions, and | have
10 quarrel with any Of them, but [ must
claim that Agriculture stands pre-eminent.
1t is the handspring that gives motion to all
the wheels that revolve in societies and gov
ernments, or to use another figure, Agricul-
ture, together with the other yocations, form
a great system, Of which it is head and heart.
When in the human system, the heart sick
ems, throbbing pulsation is felt from head
to foot. Is the heart convulsed-then the
system suffers at every pore; does the heart
cease to beat, then the system is dead-so 1t
is in Agriculture; when it tsickens, the rest
feel tremors when it is convulsed the rest
feel throes; when it dies, how fares the rest?
Perish they will and perish they must. No
vocation so high, none so low, but that they
will be drifted backward and forward on its
ebbing and flowing. Can the merchant claim
an independence or deny that he too eats the
farmers bread, buys with and sells for the
farmers money? The doctor-the farmers
money made him doctor, and supports him
in his profession. The teacher, while he is
doing service worthy of his hire, and his pu-
pills are, or ought to be, profting by his la
bors, should recolect their old Pas are
sweating at the brow, to have things "push
along keep moving" The Preacher, the man
of God, can he even claim an exemption .?
The farmers bread-I speak it with all rever-
ence-is the Mamma sprinkled down for him
while he teaches the ways ofGod to man. |
mention these things not in contention, but
merely to show how we stand, least the rest,
like Joshua of old, might get fat and kick
up against their lords.
Time WIS when in this fair land of ours,
all we had % do was to SOW and reap. 1t
seems tc have been the spot which a kind
Providence had reserved for his special re-
gard, and in exemplifcation of the truth,
that all things are possible with him, that
even the lion and the lamb may harmonize
and lie down together. Here extremes of eli
mate are tempered and balanced, and . soil