Daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, Va. [W. Va.]) 1859-1865, 1860-02-24

SG1uAy 10Gn4!44st : siSO.s g. -
..si1I9FIonItnTaI Progress "a tins sgstIOll
. NJ. C6nntry-The Model Farm Of
george W. smiEh.
WINS George Rapp was alive, and had
his colony up at Economy, in Beaver
county, Pa, in full tide of successful ope-
ration, Il became place of great resort
for curious agriculturists and griculturally
disposed persons from all this surround
ing country. We can recollect seeing peo-
nile 40 in little parties of half a dozen, for
the pleasure of ride through the beauti-
full country between here and there, and
for the satisfaction Of seeing intoth ways
and means by which Rapp had made his
farm the model farm of all the county
He was the first one in the Upper Ohio.
valley to reduce farming to. a thoroughly
scientific basis, and to. throw around the
rugged. pursuits of the plough, the bar
row, the rake, the spade the-scythe, the
sickle, the hoe, that .Arc6dtan element of
romance that old .TyEps and MOelibnus,
responsi3ely ,chgnted in the days of tho
Caesars. :. . -
Rapp's greatsGceess, next to his own in
domifable will and executive talent, was
found to be in his minute subdivision of
farm labor. he had omen of all work.
He had man or men for every sphere of
farm labor, and he made more spheres of
labor on his farm than any man ever
did before or since in this section
He had his captains, his lieutenants, his
corporals and his priyates, and he issued
his orders each morning US does the Com
mander1in-Ch Chief of AN army, to his sub
ordinates-who in turn again communi-
cute- them to the people under their re-
specttve charges. His people moved to
and from their work almost with the pre-
.cision of military drill, and in this way
accomplished rnorework at greater COM
fort to themselves than any similar num-
Der of men ever did before in these parts.
But George Rapp was a foreigner, and
he had foreign employees, and both he
and they were pretty much ignorant of the
language and the customs of the country.
They had come from a land where men
were little better than working machines,
who knew only to do as they were told,
!. and who, having never enjoyed from their
youths, the free use and possession of
their own minds or bodies, were easily
fashioned and disciplined into phaIans-
terry like that which made George Rapp's
model farm the talk of all the coun-
I try. Both in the life time and after,
the death of Rapp, the same system
80 ~. .+t,ar. a ~; uJturoIiets In the
surrounding sections, but always with
but Indifferent success, and most gener-
ally with no success at all. The scheme
was not in harmony with the American
idea. It had Europesuism about it
that was altogether distasteful to the easy
habits of the Americans, and even of.those
who, though not American born, yetspoke
the Language, and were Unfortunately with
American notions 1t wouldn't work, and
SO the system, as it was begun and carried
on by Rapp, like the work of many anoth-
er genius, ended with his own career
Yet there was no doubt that there were
salutary effects left behind Rapp's expert
ment. It caused an awakening as to the
true theory and practice of agricultural
pursuits, that has been felt for good on
both sides of the river between here and
Pittsburgh, and, indeed, in many other
parts of the country. Since his death,
we have had many of what may be relative
Y called model farms-that is, farms on
which Rapp's system has been adopted, so
far as it was conformable at all to our
feelings and habits as a people. The
labor on many farms has been divided
more than it hsed to be into what we may
call specialize IS, and men of all work, NOV.
ing clumsily from one branch of labor to
another, with each recurring day, are not
near so common on. our. farms. as they
used tobe. Wenow have more shepherds,
:, whose exclusive business it is to attend to
their focks-more teamsters, whose ex-
elusive business it is to attend to their
teams-more dairymen, whose only BUSH
Il ness it is to attend to the cows and calves
more hedgers and ditcherss and post and
= rail fence men, whose Office it is to keep
I up the boundaries and, divisions of5the-
farms in perfect repair-more horticul-a
turaiists, whose business It is to keep in
order the green houses, and the shrubbery,
and TO graf and to bud thertrees, and to
take them up and set them out at the right
time and in the proper kind of soil. In
s deed, through the agency of George Rapp,.
and others. who got their hints from him,
!, farming has been universally affected for
the better, all through this upper Ohio
country, Here in this Panhandle sec
+, ton. of !. our State, and in Western
Pennsylvania and Eastern Ohio, farm,