The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1882-10-27
Nliscell

OF BALTIMORE,
Delivered at the Ninth Annual Exhibition of the
| Hartford County Agricultural Society,
| Bel Air, october 18th, 1882.
Some Problems for the Maryland
Farmer.
Although man who has spent his life IN
| other pursuits cannot be expected to have any
special knowledge as to the detail operations
of agriculture, there are certain general laws
which control society and its developments
which concern all citizens alike, and which
the student of the institutions of the Com
monwealth must of necessity investigate and
ponder. So bound together is society in
reticulated ties, that there can be no healthy
prosperity or progress in one class it, with
out similar conditions in all. Commerce
may flourish; handcrafts may develop,
manufactures may prosper. They may ac-
cumulate to themselves the capital of money
energy and genius of the community, but if
agriculture is thereby impoverished, if it is
reduced to the condition of mere ignorance
and toll, then that State is in an unnatural
organization and is in the swift road to dis.
Indignation and ruin.
The status of agriculture, ofits proprictors
and laborers, is the sure test ofthe soundness
and pcrmanence of political institutions
Where the farmer and his men are free and
intelligent there free institutions, and intellig-
ence and honesty in the administration of
them arc most certain to be permanent, and
happiness and prosperity to result. When
the landholder is not bound to the soil by the
tie of interest and affection, and his laborers
are debased and badly paid, there beyond q
doubt, the process of decay has begun. The
forces of society are welded for the power,
the luxury, and the qualification of the few
The mass become an ignorant herd and civil
disintegration takes place by a law as certain
in its operation as the law of gravitation.
While the agriculture of Italy furnished
happy homes for the farmers and food for
Rome, she was free and powerful, and her
arts and arms swayed the world. When her
lands became the property of great proprie-
tors when their villas and palaces decorated
the slopes ofthe Apprentices, and the valley OF
the Tiber, and their peasantry were slaves,
then Rome was fed from Egypt, and swift
overthrow of her empire was the conse-
quence.
As the agriculture of the Middle Ages
slowly grew up, free institutions crystallized
about it and the greatest result ofthe French
| Revolution was the emancipation of the land
worker and the recognition of his rights and
power in society
In all times and in all countries, this
general law has operated and is operating
with the same inevitable force. The abject
condition of Ireland for the last five hundred
years is the result of the degradation of her
agricultural popuation--degradatio pro-
duced by ignorance and defiance both ofthe
absolute truth, that the happiness and pros
| perty and liberty of a State is absolutely de-
pendent upon the happiness, the prosperity
and the freedom of the owners and tillers of
the soil. And | am very much mistaken if
England herselfis not about to feel the ne
cessity for a radical change in the relation of
agriculture to the public veal.
The laws of Nature are memorable. The
same causes that produce the results we
| know ifin the Campagna, will ensure them
in Maryland. The disorders in society which
curse Ireland will be experienced in Hartford
county if the same reasons for them are per-
| mitted to arise. The operations of the law
are slow, obscure and remote Generations
may elapsc before their full effect is felt and
seen, but the operations will go on all the
same, and the ultimate result is certain. Ii
the agriculture of Maryland is permitted to
sink into the control ofseltishness and ignor-
ance; if all the genius, the energy and power
of society is to be absorbed by commerce.
trade or intellectual occupations, then we
may know that we shall have q brief and
splendid career of luxury and selfindulgence
development of taste, art and science; but
liberty, integrity and patriotism-the sole
foundations and guaranty of permanent hap
piness and prosperity--will be lost.
| If in the other hand, VIC now lay deep the
foundations of prosperous, intelligent and
happy agricultural institutions, we secure TO
ourselves and our posterity the certain
guaranty for permanent liberty, virtue and
happiness.
The causes that are operating upon the
condition of Maryland agriculture are wide
spread, far-reaching and powerful The imagi-
nation hardly takes in the agricultural future
of this American Empire. The States south
of the Potomac and east of the Rio Grande,
contain 900 square miles more than all
the Northern States from Maine to the Rocky
mountains.
Florida is as large as New York, New Jer.
sey and Connecticut. Texas is larger than
ali New England, New York, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania and Ohio. The unsettled North
west beyond Minnesota will make twelve
States as large as New York. All this terri
tory is virgin. There is more land belong
ing to the United States in Mississippi than
in Kansas, Nebraska or Minnesota. The
Southern country is less known than the new
territories. In old Virginia. within three
hundred miles of Washington, there are de.
posts of minerals and metals more abundant
more various and more valuable than in any
other equal area of territory on the continent
of which we now have knowledge. One
county there Of GOO square miles has no
wagon roads, and no wheeled vehicle has ever
been in it, unless such an one has been taken
there in the last twelve months. / venture
to say that the mountain REGION of North
Carolina, in soil, in climate, in diversified
wealth of mine and forest, is unexcelcd upon
this globe.
In the fine lands along the Virginia and
North Carolina line the labor of a single man
will produce from $4,000 to $4,000 worth of
tobacco, and in Mississippi, the market pro-
duct of one laborer in cotton is worth near
$4,000. This incalculable wealth of soil and
climate is offered to the labor of the world
almost for the asking. The toll ola single
year will provide man with free hold and
home
The result of this condition of things is
easily foretold. The printing press the
ocean steamer and the telegraph have drawn
all the nations of Christendom into a closer
relationship than Bel Air had with Baltimore
city three generations ago.
Every community has passing before it q
continual panorama of the actions of all the
world. We see the battle of Tel Ell Kebir
just after it occurs, and the floods of the
Gauges sweep daily before our eyes in solemn
and dreadful majesty. We hear the cries of
the starving myriads of India, and the shouts
of the mob before the police barracks in Dub
lin. We know day by day of the torrents
that swell the Danube, or the progress of the
disease that blasts the vines of France And
they know, hour by hour, and minute by
minute, of the paradise of liberty and home
which blooms for industry and virtue beyond
the Atlantic. Therefore, during the last year
one million of emigrants came to this cOlln-