John Taylor on Agriculture
Posted by Bluegrass Endurance | Labels: Agriculture, John Taylor | Posted On Friday, February 24, 2012 at 8:00 AM
“A patient must know that he is sick, before he will take a
physick. A collection of a very few facts, to ascertain the ill health of
agriculture, is necessary to invigorate our efforts towards a cure. One,
apparent to the most superficial observer, is, that our land has diminished in
fertility. Arts improve the work of nature–when they injure it, they are not
arts but barbarous customs. It is the office of agriculture as, as an art, not
to impoverish, but to fertilize the soil, and make it more useful than in its
natural state. Such is the effect of every species of agriculture, which can
aspire to the character of an art. It’s object being to furnish man with
articles of the first necessity, whatever defeats that object, is a crime of
the first magnitude. Had men the power to obscure or brighten the light of the
sun, by obscuring it, they would imitate the morality of diminishing the
fertility of the earth. Is not one as criminal as the other?”
John Taylor (1753-1824)
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