Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1871-06-09
ARrfculture-SOmeO of its OeI1ghts-"EVhat
Know"-NOt by H G.

|
Know"-NOt by H G.
4 writer in the Cincinnati Times thus
| depicts some Of the trials Of our f.rmers,
| which OF course must be encountered if
We would win the crown of success. There
is no royal road for farmers any more than
there is fer any other calling. We musa
| dig our way through. This IL pleasant
railing, and will answer our agricultural
friends
The basest fraud of earth is agriculture.
The deadiiest 1gltS .fu!etns that ever gilt
err d 10 beguile and dazzled to betray is
agriculture.
l speak With feeling on this subject, for
I've boeh eittered and beguiled, aud daz-
| lied and destroyed by this same arch de-
| ceiyer.
She has made ne thousand promises,
and bruken every one Of them.
| She has promised me early potatoes, and
the rain has drowned them; late potatoes,
| q q the drought has withered them.
| she has promised me SIMMER sQuashes,
| and the worms have eaten them /; winter
sQuashes, and the bags have devoured
| them.
| She has promised cherries, and the cur
culio has stung them, and they contain
| living things, uncomely TO the eye and
uusavory to the taste.
She has promised strawberries, and the
young chickens have enve loped them, and
| the eye cannot see them.
She has promised tomatoes, and the old
hens lave encompass9d them, and the
| hand cannot reach them.
| She ha~ never promised me weeds, and
| 10 the land Is full of them.
I arose before dawn to sec out sweet po-
tatoes the ague seized me l had thirty
| cf,i G and thraa npcka' nf nStatOaS
toited IN the heat Of the day to cultivate
cabb@ ge | raised twenty-five bli3ters, but
nothing more. l labored with the latest
twilight to hoe my melons. 1 lost the
meloas, but found the rheumatism.
j No wonder Gin killed his brother. He
wss tiIler of the ground. The wonder is
that he didn't kill his father, and then
weep because he hadn't grandfather to
j kill 30 doubt his Early Rose potatoes,
{ for which he'd paid Adam seven dollars a
J barrel, had been Gus down by bugs from
the headwa3ers OF the Euphrates. His
Peunsy lvania wheat had wiuter-killed, and
: wasn't worth cutting. His Norway oats
had gone 10 straw, and wouldn't yield five
2 pecks per acre, ahd his black Spanish
: watermeIons had been stolen by boys, who
had pulled up the vines broken down his
] patent pIekei fence, and written scurrilous
doggerel all over his back gate.
No wonder he 4elt mad when he saw
; Abe! wnistii6g a:yng with his fine French
} meriuaos, worth eight dollars head, and
4 wool going up every day. No wonder be
8 wanted to XIII somebody, and thought he {
r practice on Abel.
f And Noah's getting drunk was not at al
- surprising. He had become an husband
man. He had thrown away magnihcen
3 opportunities. He might have had a mo
= nopoly of any profession or business. Hac
| he studied medicine there would not have
been another doctor within thousanc
3 miles to call him "Quack," and every fam
D lily would have bought a bottle Of ''Noah!
. Compound Extract of Gopher Wood ano
: Anti Deluge Sirup.' AS politician, h'
might have carried his own ward solid, anC
I controlled two thirds of the delegates il
I every convention. AS o lawyer, he woulC
g have been retained in every c8se tried q
: the >rarat Quarter Sessions, or the ole
9 Ark High Court OF Admiralty. But he
8 threw away all these advantages and took
: to agriculture.
0 For long time the ground was so we
Y he could raise nothing but sweet flag anC
q bull rushes, and these at last became drut
in the market. What wonder that whel
: at last he did get half peck of grapes tina
Il were not stuDg to death by Japhet'
q honey bees, he should have made win
& aud drowned his sorrows in O ''howlnl
q bowl"
is The fact is, agriculture would democrat
n ize saint. was almost saint when
y went into it. I'm demon now. I'm a
3, war with everything. I fight myself on
d OF bed at oclsck, when all my better ma
d ture tells me to lie till 7. I fight mysel
into the garden to work like brute, whe!
reason and instinct tell me to stay in tn
house and enjoy myself like O man.
fight the pigs. the chickens, the moles
the birds, the bugs. the worms, everythin
in which is the breath of life. fight til
docks, the burdocks, the mullens, the thil
ties, the weeds, the roots-the whole vegt
table kingdom. I fight the heat, the fros
the rail-, the hail-ln short, 1 fight th
universe, and get whipped in every battle
I have no more admiration to waste o
the father of George Washington for fol
giving the destruction of his cherry ire