The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1872-08-06
evening state su,.rnat.
TUESDAY EVENING. AUG 6, 1872
The Bright Side.

The Bright Side. .'a
Thus far have been dealing with the
Enthusiastically laid on let me now,
with a finer branch, touch in the lights be-
fore my pictures. The chemical puzzels,
the disappointment, the isolation, the
fatigues, the chaffering bargainers do not
fully describe or give limit to the good old
profession of farming. And even when
these clouds -hindrances call them most
accumulate, the kindly sun flashes through,
warming all the fields before me into golden
green, and kindly air stirs all the poplars
into silvery plumes, and | am beguilded
into new and more admiring estimate
of country life. -.-..
. Arcadia with its sylvan glories comes
drifting to my vision, and the pleasant
Elan fields sloping to the sea. A stately
Greek gentleman, Henophon, who has won
great renown by his conduct of an army
among the Businesses Of Armenia, and on
the borders Of the Caspian, has retired to
his estates on the 1onian waters, and writes
there book of maxims for farm manage
ment, which are not without their signifi-
canoe and value to every farmer to-day.
And hitherward across the blue wash of
the Adriatic, in the midst of the Sabine
country, which is northward and eastward
of Rome, know Roman farmer, Cato,
who has been listened to with rapt atten-
ton in the Roman Senate, and who, CEN
turtles before the time when Horace was an
amateur agricnlturist, ana planted Soracte
and Lucretilis in his poems, wrote SO min
utely and with such rare sagacity, upon all
that relates to country living, and to country
thrift, that l might tomorrow, in virtue Of
his instructions only, plant my bed of as
paragus, and so dress and treat it always in
pursuance of his directions) as to insure me
for the product a prize at the county fair,
if indeed, the shooto did not rival those
famous ones of Ravenna, of which Pliny
speaks, weighing three to the pound.
.GI know poet, too, whose music float
ing over Italy, before yet the battle blasts
of her dircst civil strife were done, weaned
soldiers from their blood scent to the tram
gull offices of husbandry, and that melody
Of the Georges is floating still under all
the ceilings of oil the school-houses Of New
England. The most pretentious and the
most ambitious Of the later emperors Of
the East-Porphyrogenitus-ha left no
more enduring monument of his reign,
than the compend Of agricultural mstruc-
tons, compiled under his order, and bear
ing title of "Gecponica Geoponiconum. -
re- observe, too, in my card-basket, the
address of certain Pietro di Crescent,
who has come all the way from the four
teenth century Bologna to pay me visit
lin tight little surtout of white vellum
that smacks of the lores Of Bembo, or of
the wickedness of the Borgla, and who has
talked of horses and cattle, and wheat
growing, and vegetable raising, as familiar
ly as if he were justice of the peace in our
town. Lord Bacon has contributed to our
stock of information about garden culture,
and the elegant pen Of Lord Kames has IL
Illustrated the whole subject Of practical
husbandry. But do not cite these names
for the sake of making any idle boast of
the antiquity and dignity of the craft; we
ha We too must of that. think, in our agri-
CULTURAL addresses. d. ..5
e We i've in days when a calling
ever it may be-can not find establishment
of its value or worth in the echoes-howev-
er resonant and grateful--of what has once
belonged to it, or of the dead voices that
honored it. The charms of Virgil. and the
shrewd observations of Cato will 60 but
little way to recommend country life in
our time, except that life have charms in
itself to pique mans poetic sensibilities,
and lessons in every field and season to
tempt and reward his closest observation.
40 Yet it is very remarkable how nearly
these old authorities have approached the
best points of modern practice; and again
and again we are startled out of our varieties
by the soundness of their suggestions.
Rotation of crops, surface drainage, ridgng
of lands, composing of manurers, irrigation
and the pairing and burning of stubble-lands
are all limited if not absolutely advised, in
treaties written ten centuries ago. Nor
have / doubt, but that shrewed man
acting upon the best advices which are to
be found in the various books of the Geo.
ponica (the latest not later than the
sixth century,, and with no other instruc-
ltions whatever--save what regards the dex-
ferrous use of mplements--wound manage
"a graintield, meadow, or an orchard,
better than the half of their New-England
farmers.-Ike Marvel, IN my Farm of
Edgeaoood."