deavour to discover what helps it most and rapid communication, will bring imneeds. We must solicit the patronage of portant truths to light, dispel prejudice, rean enlightened public, aud the protection fute sophistry, excite patriotism, cherish of a wise government. We must rescue industry, and. above all, give to public opinion from the dominion of prejudice, opinion that expansive swell, that will harand enlist in our ranks, genius, know-monize with the rising tide of our country's ledge, and experience. Our activity prosperity. must depend less on the feelings of private It is not to one class, nor to one interest, interest than the more exalted sentiment that we address ourselves, but to the whole, of love of country. But when individual and each respectively. interest is blended with the general good, why should it not prosper?-how can it but succeed? We call on our manufacturing brethren, and artists of every description, to communicate directly, or through the medium of We must aim at acquiring extensive some affiliated Society, all such facts or knowledge of all useful facts that have re-information as may be subservient to the lation to our subject; the power of gener- prosperity of domestic manufactures in alizing will follow as of course. The arti- general, or of any in particular. ficer and philosopher must combine their efforts, and theory walk by the side of practice. Useful knowledge will thus be acquired and disseminated, like rays converged to one focus, and reflected wherev er their application may be wanted. The head that conceives, will soon find the hand that can execute, and nothing of the stock of intellect will go to loss. Inventions, already known, will be improved, and their use rendered easy and familiar. All the power of enquiry, experiment, and combination, will be in full activity. The embryo conception will not be chilled by neglect, but, cheered by timely attention, will exceed the hopes of the projector himself. If we have not a treasury to dispense pecuniary recompenses, yet, there are rewards more grateful to genius, because more worthy of its acceptance; and the most animating of all rewards to a free and noble heart will be the civic And you, agriculturalists, owners, and possessors of the soil, the standing pillars of your nation's independence, we conjure you, for yourselves, and for your country, to second us by all your energies. Explore, with new activity, and determine, by new inquiries, the nature and productions of your estates, and the adjoining territories. Every view, statistical, economical, geological, or topographical, is connected with this great national concern. You may find that you have been unconsciously walking upon hidden treasures, richer than the mines of Golconda. The three kingdoms of nature, may have been long tendering to your acceptance the willing tribute which you have heedlessly disregarded. Who can have so much interest as you in the opening of canals and roads, the increase of national industry and capital, with all its ramifications, which must reach you like irrigating streams of living waters, and enhance the value of your possessions? Our proceedings must be so squared with The great improvements that must follow the public as to be no more than echoes of in the train of national industry, are too the public wants and wishes. Servile far beyond ordinary calculations to be fashion, and all the baleful prejudices that readily conceived. You will have, not dedicate to foreign productions the tribute one, but a choice of markets for your proof their devotion, must fly before the ma- duce, of which wars, blockades, or the cajesty of the public voice, and the pride of sualties of foreign nations, cannot deprive national character rise on the ruins of pre-you. You will have speedy returns of judice. crown. Let nothing, then, check our onward march, nor the vigour of our efforts. Let genius and patriotism, from whatever quarter of the earth, be naturalized amongst us, and nothing be exotic in this generous Republic, that blooms and bears good fruit. And we now respectfully invite our fellow citizens throughout the union, to unite with us in this great national concern, to establish societies with as much promptitude as possible, and to correspond with us, and with each other. Such diversified whatever you may want, and your approxi mation to the mart of exchange, will put it in your power to be the controllers of your own fortunes, and the arbiters of your own concerns. Our southern agricultural brethren, in particular, would do well to reflect that Great Britain is now, and has been for some time, creating new sources for a supply of cotton, by encouraging its culture in India, on the Coromandel and Malabar coasts, Africa, Brazil, and other places; and will shortly render herself independent of any supply from this country. and probably prohibit the importation of seasons. You do not vote in the counselsAmerican cotton into her market. When of your nation, but your empire is everythis event, which is not far distant,shall take where where man is civilized. Let the place, you will be destitute of a vent for power of beauty add impulse to the springyour cotton, unless a market can be found ing fortunes of the land which you adorn; in our own country, by the establishment and let the charms of your persons be ever of domestic manufactures. associated with your country's love. To you, merchants, now sinking by these With this view of the past and present foreign importations to ruin and bank-we might conclude; but, may we not look ruptcy, we appeal; by your dearest inter-forward with anticipated delight to the ests, and those of your country, we con- prospect that bursts upon our sense: not jure you to contribute all the power of through the vista of a long perspective, your intelligence and enterprise, and to aid but which our children may enjoy in all its in counteracting those frauds upon your- splendour; when a territory, vast as the selves and the revenue, of which you, your European continent, shall pour its riches fellow citizens, and the government, are forth; when the protecting shade of equal common victims. A new and unforeseen laws, and the misery of another hemiscrisis has put an end to those delusions phere shall have increased our population which heretofore arrayed agriculture to the measure of our wide domain; when and commerce against domestic manufac- the genius of the Republic, towering like tures. It is now demonstrated, that what- the eagle on the Appalachian heights, shall, ever adds prosperity to either of these looking from the proud summit to either modes of industry, is beneficial to them all. ocean's wave, survey the wealth of every And of you, sons of science, who pos- soil, the fruit of every clime. Where the sess the rich treasures of cultivated intel-bear roams, and the wild-cat prowls, flocks lect, and can teach their application to the and herds shall pasture, and the savage's useful arts of life, we claim the lights you dreary repair out-bloom the gardens of can shed on this great subject. Too many Hesperia. There cities, towns, and villaof your former important communications ges, centres of intersecting orbits, through have been lost to the public, from the in- which domestic commerce will revolve, auspicious time in which they appeared, and have perished like seed sown by the way-side. We entreat you to come forth anew in the pride of intellectual vigour, to break the spell of ignorance, and emancipate the genius of your country. You, who redeemed your fellow citizens from the barbarian's yoke and foreign captivity, who, mingling the battle's thunder with the cateract's roar, made Niagara's falls the eternal record of the well-fought field; and you, citizen soldiers, who reechoed victory where Mississippi rolls her latest waves along-we invite you to participate in our civic triumphs. If your country's cause should call you forth hereafter, you will go girded with swords of native steel; and the arms you wield will be committed to you by the hands of your affectionate countrymen. shall rise and flourish. And whilst the plough shal! trace the silent furrow, the mill shall turn, the anvil ring, and the merry shuttle dance. The exhaustless stores of mind and matter shall be this nation's treasury. Adventurous man, triumphing over the obstacles of nature, shall search the recesses of the stubborn mountain. The sounding tools, and the voice of human speech, shall wake the echo in the vaulted space, where, from the beginning, silence and darkness reigned; and the rich ore shall quit its hidden bed, and sparkle in the upper day. Innumerable communications, by land and by water, shall bear, in all directions, the native produce of the soil and of its industry. Majestic rivers, enriched by their tributary streams, shall waft on their smooth tide the treasures of teeming abundance. And those proud And you, fair daughters of Columbia, cars to which magic genius has yoked the whose sway is most ascendant when the discordant elements of fire and flood, shorhearts of freemen do you homage, assert tening the distance of time and space, your dignity; disdain the fashions of fo- shall stem the mighty current. The imreign climes; let not the daughters of Bel-measurable coasts, with all their bays and gium, Austria, or Russia, exceed, in pat-inlets, shall invite the mariner to comriotism, the free-born fair; let your dress merce, or beckon him to shelter from the be national; let your ornaments be of your country's fabric, and exercise your independent taste in suiting the array of your toilet to your own climate and your own storm. Those inland seas, memorable by the victories of freemen, the classic scenes of future Muses, shall be studded with barks which national industry has set in Committee of Correspondence. motion; the white canvass, swelling to the JONATHAN LITTLE breeze, the ensign of freedom waving to THOMAS HERTTELL, the sky. One people, one tongue, one JAMES ROBERTSON, spirit, grappled by ten thousand relations THAD. B WAKEMAN, of interest or affinity-what factious de- ISAAC PIERSON, magogue, what ambitious usurper, will J. R. B. RODGERS, then find a spot to insert the wedge to ED. P. LIVINGSTON. sever such a union? A thousand heartstrings must be rent, before the smallest On Motion, Resolved, That the foregoing member can be separated. address be approved, and that the CorresLet the world, then, in arms, assail ponding Committee cause 5000 copies to be this great Republic. Like a proud pro-printed; and that they transmit a copy to montory, whose base is in the deep, whose the President of the United States, to each summit strikes the clouds; the storms of of the members of Congress and Heads of fate may smite upon its breast, the fret- Departments of the General Government, ful ocean surge upon its base; it will re- and to the Governour and Members of the main unshaken, unimpaired-type of du- Legislature of the States respectively. ration-emblem of eternity! And who is he that is not proud of such THOMAS MORRIS, WILLIAM SAMPSON, Committee DANIEL D. TOMPKINS, President. PETER H. SCHENCK. do. Secretaries. N. B. Communications to the Society Correspon- will be addressed to any of the members of the Corresponding Committee. dence. gricultural Department. 66 AGRICULTURE-THE PRESERVATIVE ART OF ALL ARTS. ORIGINAL. WE sincerely hope that the ral pursuits, will grow as sleepy length of the Hon. NOAH WEB- in reading upon the subject, as STER'S address upon the all im- they would grow tired in pursuportant subject of Agriculture, ing the noble and dignified emwill not deter our readers from ployment of the farmer. But, let giving it an attentive perusal. It the professional man, whether Diimparts more instruction upon a vine, Lawyer, or Physician, the subject that "comes home to men's business and bosoms" in Connecticut, than any production of the whence comes the animal food kind that we have read. Many, that loads my table? The anwho are not engaged in agricultu-swer must be, from the far Merchant, Manufacturer, the Mechanic, and every body ask mer- Ed. Since the American revolution, money -Whence comes the wheat- furnished them from the pen of Mr. en and rye loaf?-from the farmer WEBSTER, and from the "AMERI-Whence comes the wholsome CAN SOCIETY."] vegetables that covers my board?-from the farmer-Whence comes has lost nearly half its former value. In the poultry that adds luxuries to the ordinary intercourse of our citizens with each other, this evil is less sensibly necessaries?—from the farmer.-felt; for the prices of provisions and labour have advanced nearly in the same propor Indeed, the farmer feeds the body, tion. When the farmer gives to the and the manufacturers and the bourer a bushel of rye for a day's work, it makes no difference to the parties, mechanics clothe it. And can we whether the nominal value of the rye and remain indifferent to those wri-real value is the same in both cases. The the labour is fifty cents or a dollar-the tings which show the importance of these two great pursuits? advance of price is no evidence of an advance in value; and if rye were to rise to ten dollars a bushel, and labour to ten dolfarmer and the labourer would be the same lars a day, the relative condition of the neither party would gain or loose by the advance. But the case is different with the clear deduction from the profits of our com That the mind needs food as well as the body we readily admit. Indeed, that which supplies its exporting merchant and manufacturer, who unbounded and never-satisfied send their produce or wares to countries in which silver and gold have not suffered calls, may be called celestial food. a depreciation. The merchant gives more, than he formerly did, for the produce of But is the mind to be satisfied this country, but he obtains no higher pri ces for it abroad. The manufacturer pays only by reading works of fancy and a higher price for labour and provisions at imagination? Are we forever home, but his wares bring no higher prices in foreign markets. In this case, the deto range in distant worlds and tri-preciation of money in our country, is a fle with our own? The votary of merce. So in regard to articles manufacfashion, the beau and the dandy, tured for home consumption; the manufacturer can make no profit, unless he can may well be excused from read-afford his wares, at as low prices as those ing any thing which relates to the substantial interest of our country, for they have no substance themThe principal source of this evil is to he selves. They may, like the but-sought in the number of our banking institutions, and the amount of notes which they issue. In the history of commerce, perhaps no parallel instance can be found, of such unceasing demands for the privilege of banking, and of such improvident compliances with these demands, without any regard to the pernicious effects of an unum, as have been witnessed in the United due augmentation of the circulating mediStates. Upon an application for a new banking corporation, the only question with Legislatures seems to be, whether it terfly, spread their wings to a summer's sun and pass away; but the real bone and sinew of Connecticut -the Farmers, Merchants, Manufacturers, and Mechanics, must be delighted as well as instructed, by the two addresses which we have of imported wares of a like kind—and this cannot always be done, on account of the high prices of labour and provisons in this country. ty. will accommodate the petitioners. The try. In almost every branch of business, far more important questions, whether the there is ample room for improvement, and money in circulation is not sufficient for those are the real benefactors of the comthe purposes of trade, and whether an aug-munity, who direct their time, and means, mentation will not depreciate its value, to multiply the sources of public prosperiand thus affect existing contracts, as well as the trade and manufactures of the coun- But let it not be imagined that valuatry, appear not to occupy a moment's at- ble improvements can be effected in a motention. The injuries resulting from this ment, or without encountering serious obinattention to political economy, are far stacles. Those who know the immense more extensive than a superficial view of power of habit, in governing the conduct the subject would lead men to suppose. A of the great mass of mankind, will presalary settled on a clergyman thirty or pare themselves to contend with numerous forty years ago, and then probably no discouragements. Men are not easily conmore than sufficient to maintain his family, vinced of the errors of their practice; and will now purchase little more than half when convinced, they will not always surof the commodities, and especially of our render their wills to their conviction. Add home productions, which it would at the to this, that sloth, negligence, and inattime of the contract. The property of a tention, often render the progress of imwidow or an orphan vested in stock, thirty provement extremely slow. The potatoe, years ago, has already lost nearly one half a native of America, was first cultivated its value. Innumerable losses of this, and in Europe. Nearly a century and a half of similar kinds, always result from a de- had elapsed, after its discovery, before it preciation of the current money of a coun- was introduced into New-England, and try. Men are apt to suppose that an in- probably men are still living who never crease of nominal value, is an increase of saw it, in their youth. The late Count wealth; which is often a great mistake. Rumford was the first to introduce it into The value of money or of estate, is deter- Bavaria, and to this day it is not univer mined only by what it will purchase. If sally cultivated in Europe. Yet beyond a five thousand dollars, forty years ago, question, this esculent root is one of the would purchase as much labour, and as most profitable and useful articles which many of the necessary goods and provisions the farmer can raise; particularly necesof life, as ten thousand dollars will now, sary to the peasantry of Europe; and one then the farm which was estimated at five of the best temporal blessings which man thousand dollars forty years ago, was has received from his Maker. worth as much as the farm now estimated at ten thousand. The owner of the former was as rich, as the owner of the latter. The increased price of lands, within the period mentioned, is owing to two causes; real improvements in agriculture, and a depreciation of money. That part of the value which proceeds from improvements, is an increase of real wealth -that which proceeds from depreciation of money, is merely nominal. The present depreciated state of our currency, is one of the greatest political evils now experienced in the United States; an evil which can be corrected only by more just and enlarged views of the operations of money, than the councils of the several states appear at present to possess. This is a single instance, selected from a multitude which might be mentioned, of the disposition of meu to rest satisfied with their present practice and attainments, and of the reluctance with which they meet every attempt to introduce a change, even for the better. Nor is this disposition confined to unlettered people; it is often found in men of erudition and science, and serves to continue, from age to age, the most palpable errors in opinions and practice. But the slow progress of improvement and the difficulties that attend it, are no good reason why it should not be attempted. The rational powers of men, are talents entrusted to them by their Creator, for the purpose of use and improvementand we are not authorized to keep them But without entering into discussions in a napkin. In regard to improvements which pertain to legislation, let individu-in agriculture and the arts, we are to conals and associations of men, en:ploy their sider that private interest will operate as time and faculties, in devising and execu- a stimulus to efforts, and that well-directed ting plans of improvement, in directing and persevering efforts will ultimately be and invigorating industry, and augment-crowned with success. ing the wealth and resources of the coun- In reviewing the history of the human Vol. I 29 |