The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1876-01-01
PLANTATION TOPICS
HINTS TOWARD SUCCESSFUL FARMING
THE EXTENT OF OUR AGRICIuTIJRAI

TIE EXTENT OF OUR AGRICULTIJRA
, INDUSTRY.
Extracts from an Address by Colonel Richard Latl
ers, before the Decrficld Mass Agricultural \,
cioty, October, 1875.
; Not less than two thousand million
of dollars is our annual contribute,
to the national wealth, constituting til,
main support of its commerce ano
manufactures, and yet we cultivate bu
one-twelfth of our national territory
now embracing about three million
square miles. The contemplation OF
the future power and influence of agri
culture when our whole territory shall
be utilized and its whole productive
energy directed to the development of
our national industry and enterprise,
ought to impress us with becoming
zeal for participating in the great
march which agricultural develop
ment promises to the rising generation.
Already we have engaged in this
occupation eight million of horses. one
million mules, and nearly twenty
millions of horned cattle; Including
the value of farm implements and
machinery, we have Il money invest
ment of not less than one thousand
millions of dollars as a working capital
outside of the lands and the buildings
devoted to farming, which involves so
large an aggregate of capital as to call
for the utmost activity and enterprise of
our people to produce an adequate in
| come on an investment of so much
consequence.
1t is, however, to be deplored that
by reason of our extended territory
and sparse labor, and want of proper
ambition on the part of our young
men for agricultural occupation, that
we fall behind the productive energy
of other forms of industry in our own
country, and still farther behind the
agriculture of Europe. Our cities are
growing prematurely at the expense
of the rural districts, because our
young men have become restless on
farms, and seek that excitement in
over-occupied trades and professions,
and the more hazardous business of
speculations, which at this time is so
fearfully developing general bank
ruptcy and poverty in the cities and
towns Of our country.
THE NECESSITY OF AGRICULTURAL. |
EDUCATION.
The great want of our agricultural |
interest are schools for practical edu-
action, directed to the special cul-
tivation of farmers. The schools of
design elevated the manufacturers of
England and have measurably made
them rivals in taste and cheapness of
their French competitors i'm the mar
kets of the world, and our own pro-
gressive manufacturers have profted'
by the example. Our public schools
ignore agriculture, even
In rural districts, and while our colleges
are creditable to our national reputation
for literary requirements and profess
sional scholarship, we need system of
popular instruction devoted to the
rsIHIIHg ItTtcrCsI. IIsuTuuuIUIIS, HOT I'd
cram our live young men with the
dead languages and the revolving mys-
teries of heather mythology, nor to
make fine writers or eloquent declaim-
ers, but devoted to teaching only such
knowledge us shall be of scientific and
practical value on the farm. Instead
of Homer, Aristophenes, Horace, and
Torrance, let our young farmers be
made familiar with Newton, Lyell,
Playfair, Liebig, Silliman and Agas-
siz.
Instead of being learned in the in
trigues of the goddesses and the wars of
The gods of ancient times, let them ac-
luire mathematics, chemistry, geology,
mineralogy, grating, budding, fertil-
zing, and the history and practice of
connected with the pursuit
which affords occupation to SO large a
part of our working classes, and on
whom rests the responsibility and the
Lightly of producing the basis of our
subsistence, wealth and power.
Mr.. Fhischman, who was commits
stoned by the United States in 1915, to
visit Europe to obtain agricultural in
Informs us in his instructive
report that some three hundred and
fifty schools exist in Hungary and other
parts of Europe, where boys from
,welve to fourteen years are taught
practical knowledge of the whole bust
ness of farming, and also so much
mechanism as to be able to make or
mend every machine or implement
Ised in farming. The teachings tend
% make them thorough economists, so
hat the farm shall always continue to
They are not taught alb
tract science, but positive knowledge
soils, manures, rotation of crops,
he kind of work, number of men,
lorses and cattle required to cultivate a
,iven number of acres. M. Fleisch-
nan remarks that the perfection of
European farming is due to these insti-
utiOns.
The Importance of agricultural train
ne will be seen at once by comparing
he disparity of our productions with
hose of France and England. France
With but One-fifteenth of our territory,
md not so large as three of our medi-
Inn states, produces fifty per cent. more
wheat than we do on our fresh and fer
lie lands, and after subsisting a popu-
alton not much less than our own, ex- /,
'orts from the product of its soil dou-
lie the quantity we do, and the English
armer manages, by superior produc-
i've economy, to extract profitable re-
urns from lands burthened with an
mount of annual rental and taxes {
which equal the value of the acreage
lere in fee simple. l,
CAPITAL REQUIRED IN FARMING.
Much of our unproductive farming
rises, think, from a lack of capital
Too large a portion of the farmers |
means is in the land. In England, q
where taxes and the rent of land com =
,els the most rigid economy, as well as /
he utmost skill and industry to make it t
,ay, the farmer must have a sum of E
eady money quite equal to the cost of t
he same number of acres with which q
o stock, fertilize and cultivate it. l a
m confident thatif manyof our farm I
rs would dispose of half their acreage