Weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1858-1865, 1859-08-03
LORD NAPIER ON AMERICAN AGRICUL
TIRE

At the meeting of the United States Agricultural
Society, at Richmond, Va, the late English Ambas-
sador made speech, from which we take the fol-
lowing:
When rise to address the great assem- bly, which
has remembered my sovereign and my country, and
done me the honor of recognizing my presence at
this festival reflect with satisfaction that however
ignorant of the noble industry to which you are de-
voted and however incapable of justly approaching
the efforts and service which you are rendering in
its cause, may still rank myself though in sub
ordinate order among the true sons and votares of
the soil. l remember, with pleasure, that my ia
Their was an unsuccessful farmer, though success
full writer the art of farming. belong to class
whose interests and affections deeply rooted in
the land-a class whose active age is much bestow
ed on the business of Parliament or negotiation, or
civil government. or the profession of arms, but
whose thoughts in all the vicissitudes of life and
strife still repose upon the fields and sports, and
who ever dream of late return to the hereditary
home. Notwithstanding this foreign vagrancy and
diplomatic desertiOn, | remain a member of the
Highland Society of Scotland; and however incredi
BILE it may appear to you, | am President of the
Pastoral Association of my native country for the
improvement of the breed of sheep. With such
instincts and associations, you will believe that do
not feel altogether stranger, here and that l am
deeply gratifed by the hearty welcome that find
from the brotherhood of agricuturists, in which
claim to be an affiliated, though at present an I'M
fruitful member.
The husbandry of America presents in its vast
extension and rapid progress spectacle to which
no Engishman remain indifferent History of.
fers no example of this swift resistless unceasing
encroachment of skilled labor over the vacant and
fertile domain of the savage and the brute. It.
the first triumph of man, equipped with all the &C
cumulated powers of experience and invention over
atr,re in her larupSt limits and hnr prapiOuc
and bountifu conditions. In the agriculture of the
United States we see with exultation benifcent
and spontaneous profession of industry, of which
the field is the American continent and of which
the implement is the Ango-sazon arm.
While recognizing all the importance of the land
and the agriculture Of the United States to the So
cial welfare of the British empire, cannot deny
myself the pleasure of expressing to you the inter-
est which, as mere virtuoso in rural matters,
have taken in the external aspect of American hus-
bandry. In some respects the prospect is indeed
unsatisfactory to the English eye. In the new Parts
of the country the primitive graces of the landscape
are ruthlessy violated, while the artificial trimness
to which we are accustomed has not begun. We
mourn over the blackened and girdled giant of the
forest, each of which would be the sylvan honor of
an English homestead our fastidous taste COM
plains that the frrow is not straight that the wheat
is not clean that the swamp is not drained that the
sward bristles with obnoxious sumps; that there is
general absence of root or green crops and we dis
cover a great deficiency of sheep. In the regions
which have been longest under the pillow, the vital
forces of the soil seem to have been frequently over
taxed; the more valuable cereals are abandoned
and here and there the wilderness resumes its sway
It requires but little reflection to show that these
phenomena are the natural and transitory concomi-
tants of the first epoch of tlage, which is hasty
pitiless, and impoverishng. On the other hand,
/ remark that in many portions of the Union there
are extensive tracts which would be considered opu-
lent and we'll ordered in any European kingdom -
In the absence of turnps potatoes and mangelwurt-
EEL the English traveller is grated by the spectacle
of Indian corn, tobacco and the vine; and further
South by the Cotton plant the rice field and the
cane-all magnificent and lucrative productions, un.
known to British husban,lry. There is also great.
or abundance of fruit trees the breed Of horses
equal that Of the mother country, except think,
for the purposes of heavy draft; and the various
races of cattle, rplenishcd by importatons of the
best blood Of England will he propagated withou,
degeneracy and will be formidable rivals to the pa
| rent stock.
In country where human labor is exorb,an,ly
expensive the greatest ingenuity is exerted in the
Improvement Of tools and the invention of mechan
cal aids and substitutes, and in this respect the
triumphs OF American contrivances are not only pro
ttabe at home, but are recognized and adopted hy
foreign nations. Much, gentlemen has been &C.
complshed, and the future will furnish still higher
results. II we regard the dissemination Of intelli
gence, the diffusion of tastes for rual pursuits, the
increased application of capital the scientific nspec
ton of soils, the discriminating of manures the
development Of the home market, and the general
establishment ofcompetive exhibitions, wemay safely
affirm that American agriculture has entered upor
a period which will not only be reparative where
the past was exhaustive, but which will gradually
carry the land in every quarter to a high pitch O
productivcness and beauty.-Genesee Farmer
before the eager thousands at Bunker HILL on ar
occasion which must have agitated any common man
his wife regarding him from a distance observed t.