The Virginia Gazette

From the London Magazine, for September.

Praise of AGRICULTURE.

AGRICULTURE began with our World, and was the Employment of its first Inhabitant, who was to get his Bread in the Sweat of his Face:

When Adam dug and Eve span,
Who was then the Gentleman?

The second Parent of our Species enter'd upon the Renovation of it with an act of Husbandry and Planting. His Descendants, the greatest Princes and the wisest States, have ever made this the Object of their Inquiries, Studies and Injunctions: They practised it themselves, and made it a principal Point of their Politicks, to reward the Improvement, and punish the Neglect of it.

It is no wonder, Agriculture has been the Business and Amusement of the World in every Age and Part of it, since it forces itself upon us, on Account of its Necessity, in consequence of the divine Appointment. Other Arts and Employments may serve for the Establishment of human Life; this is requisite for the Support of it.

Happiness seems to have fixed her Seat in rural Scenes: The Assembly, the lighted Room, the Equipage, the Embroidery, do not sooth and entertain the Mind of Man in any Degree like the verdant Plain, the wavy Field, the artless Stream, the enamel'd Mead, the fragrant Grove, the melodious Bird, the sportive Beasts, the open Sky and starry Heavens. And the Ladies must excuse my Want of Taste or Manners, in thinking, the clean, tuck'd-up nimble Lass makes a more pleasing Figure, than the Dutchess who sweeps half the Mall with her enormous Petticoat; and that the industrious Housewife, who has made nine Thousand Cheeses, and bred up half a score lusty Children, is more amiable to the Eye of unprejudiced Reason, than the finest Lady, who has made two Millions of insipid Visits, and propagated Tittle-tattle from one End of the Town to the other.

The Labours of the Country Life will rise in our Esteem, if, besides their Agreeableness to our Nature and Frame, we consider them as the Source of all the Wealth of a Nation.

Trade and Commerce, which are esteemed the two great Fountains of national Wealth, Cannot have Place, but on the Foundation of this original and natural Employment.

Agriculture not only furnishes Wealth to a Nation, but Hands also able and willing to defend it, and is perhaps the best Nursery of a good Soldiery in the World. And the Country Life, which thus qualifies Men for necessary Defence, naturally introduces a Disposition, averse to civil Tumult, and offensive War: The Occasion over, their Swords easily convert into Ploughshares, and their Spears into Pruning Hooks.

Agriculture was, perhaps, the Parent of all those Sciences, Arts and Employments, which have since carried their Heads so far above her. But it rises still higher, and reads continual Lectures, not only in speculative, but practical Philosophy; it conducts to Morality and every social Virtue, and inforces a due Regard to and Dependence on the Supreme Being, in which consists the Essence of Religion.