The Recorder

AGRICULTURAL.

The contempt in which the employment of tilling the ground is held by some people is the more strange, inasmuch as it not only feeds and supports the human family, but also, more than any other secular employment, distinguishes men from brutes. Several of the brute tribes are ingenious mechanics, while some of them are profoundly skilled in the arts and sciences. The Spider is a most curious spinner, and weaver: and from her, it is not improbable, that some ingenious woman might have first taken the hint to learn and practice those useful arts. The Ant constructs subterranean granaries, and has taught mankind to lay up food securely, in summer and autumn, against the season of winter. The Beaver has knowledge of architecture. He cuts down timber, and, being destitute of sleigh or waggon, conveys it to the proper place by water, and builds himself a convenient house. Savage man, perhaps learned of him to build his hut. The little Nautilus, that scuds along upon the water by the help of a thin membrane, which he extends in the form of a sail, might, it is possible, have communicated to mankind the first idea of sailing, instead of rowing. Bees, Ants and Beavers, seem to understand the social compact, and the science of government. The Bee is an excellent geometrician. The cavities in her comb are constructed by the exactest rules of geometry, such as Newton himself would not have been able to improve upon. The Dog is a good logician, and knows how to make a good syllogism. Report says, that, when following the track of his master, if he comes to a place where the road divides into three branches, he has been seen to smell, first at one branch of the road, then at another, and finally to pursue the third branch, without smelling at it. This was as much as to say, "My master, I perceive, has not gone this road nor this; ergo, he must have gone in that." No learned academician could make a sounder syllogism than this is. Parrots vie with men and women in the art of speaking: and there are several classes of birds, that, in music, which is reckoned among the fine arts, equal, if not excel, even the Italians. Men have been in a great pother about finding longitude; and Mr. Harrison, while he immortalized his name, received twenty thousand pounds sterling of the British Parliament, for the invention and workmanship of a curious watch, which was intended to assist mariners in their longitudinal courses; yet geese and some other birds of passage, have known longitude from time immemorial. Without the help of Harrison's time piece, without a compass or quadrant, they make a voyage, sometimes, of more than a thousand miles in a direct line, and seldom fail of finding the little island, or the rock in the ocean, which had been their wonted resting place. Monkeys, as well as men, have hands, and if they knew how, might become farmers. They are imitative creatures, and often mimic the actions of men; but though they live upon the fruits and vegetables of the earth, no monkey was ever known to become a planter, or to attempt any kind of agriculture. This business belongs exclusively to man, who is lord of the lower creation. And as tilling the ground, more than any other worldly employment, distinguishes the human from the brutal nature, it also distinguishes the civilized from the savage man. It is not till men have attained to no inconsiderable degree of civilization, that they begin to cultivate the earth. Whoever, therefore, despises the employments of agriculture, is a ninny, and deserves to be despised himself.