The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1877-1885, 1878-05-16
Continued

serious drawback TO the progress
and profit of agriculture.
THE GREAT EXPENSE OF OUR
FENCES.
The annual cost to the State IN
labor and the destruction OF timber,
of this item alone, amounts TO an
incredible aggregate, and | n
yite this Society to the investigation
of this whole subject of fences and
hedges. 1t is only a question OF
time when it shall be taken up,
and the sooner it is done the bet
ter. One other point claims atten-
ton here, as a very important
cause of the wretched state OF agrl-
culture among us, and that IS,
THE Low ESTIMATION IN WHICH
THE BUSINESS OF FARMING Is
HELD.
Ineed not tell you that there Is
an almost universal disposition
among our people to crowd into
other avocations and to regard
farming as a last resort. Our
Young men are abandoning the
farm almost en- masse, and pressing
into clerkships, into rail road, ex-
press and insurance agencies; into
law, mediclne,-any thing and
every thing but agriculture. And
the farmer himself, as well as all
other classes, recognizes and en-
courages this state of things.
When his boys go to college and
get a little education, often very
little indeed, he considers his own
vocation entirely too narrow a field
for the range Of their genius and
the breadth of their requirements,
and assigns one to the law, another
to medicine, and so on, leaving
only the dullard and the sluggard,
who can't LEAN or won't, for the
farm. Fit for nothing else is fit
for the farm, is the motto. Now
this state of things is both a cause
and a consequence of the condition
of our agriculture, and the two
evils powerfully tend to perpetuate
one another. And yet there could
not be a greater error or mlsfor-
tune than the existence and contin-
uance of this false estimate and
these false relations of things.
But it is time we should turn
our attention to some reasons why
these things should not be so, and
the means by which the desired
changes are to be effected.
First and chief among these may
be place dour
ADVANTAGES OF SOIL AND CLIMATE.
If YOU turn the State of North
Carolina on the map, sc that the
length of 1t lies north and south,
you will see that it would extend
from South Carolina to New York.
Now, on account of the great ele-
walton of the western end of the
State, climate has just about
the range which that geographical
change would give us. And the
variety of III soils is equally re-
m~arkable, extending from the COM
bustible, peaty accumulations of
Hyde to the drift beds of Bun
combe. And these two circum-
stances together, give us a range of
vegetable products, and of agricul-
tural occupation, greater than is to
be found IN any territory of the
same extent on the continent. As
to the character of these soils, it is
to be admitted that we have a very
large extent of poor land in the
State, but in so large a territory
there is rich land enough to cover
the whole State Of Massachusetts,,
and nearly all our poor lands are
very capacious and retentive of I'M.
provement, much more so than the
drift soils of New England. Blu
it is apt to be supposed that, the
range Of products being SO great.
then quality is necessarily inferior
1t is not so, however. There is re
better rice than that grown on til,
Cape Fear. And no better whea
grows any where than in some o
Our midland and piedmont coun
ties. The superintendent of tn
largest steam bakery in New Yorl
City informed me some years ag,
that he could not produce his bes
qualities of bread at all withou
North Carolina flour, and that h
always kept it on hand to mi.
with his New York and wester,
brands. And | would undertak
to match the best samples of whea
in the Agricultural Office at Wash
ington, obtained from the World
Fair at Paris, and brought from a
parts of Europe, with just as goo
from the Chestnut Ridge in Surry
Cherry Mountain in Rutherford
and a dozen other localities. Yo