USA > New York > Albany County > Albany > The annals of Albany, Vol. VI > Part 16
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Life and Character of Jesse Buel.
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with clear, strong intellect, combined with conscientious- ness, a deep feeling of responsibility for the due exercise of their powers, in a manner the most advantageous to their fellow-men. God. has placed a double safeguard over the advancement of man, by leaving the means that conduce to it in charge both of the impulses that originate · from self, and of the promptings derived from his high moral nature.
The mind of Judge Buel fortunately had the sagacity to perceive both where his industry was the most re- quired and could be rendered the most available. Of the three great interests that divide between them the labors of men, viz., the agricultural, the mechanical and manufacturing, and the commercial, it is not difficult to perceive that the first has long been the most impor- tant, and the most neglected. The last, or commerce, is much dependent on the other two, and may always be ex- pected to flourish where either agriculture or mechanical and manufacturing arts yield their multitude of products. Between the other two, there is a mutual dependence; agriculture furnishing the supports of life, and the mechanic arts, in their turn, supplying the instruments of agriculture. Of these two, the mechanic arts had received relatively much the most attention. To advance them, man's ingenuity and inventive powers had been severely tasked; and science was required to furnish its contributions; and the devising and employment of labor saving machinery attested, in a variety of instances, the triumphs of mind over the inert materials every where abounding in nature. But while the mechanic and manufacturing arts were thus prospering, agriculture was allowed to labor on unaided, and unenlightened in the knowledge of itself. The new and virgin earth on this continent, that had been for ages rearing and receiving back into its bosom the tall tree of the forest, and the waving grass of the prairie, required, at first, in many places, but a small quantity of labor to ensure ample re- turns. When the soil began to give evidence of exhaustion, instead of attempting its restoration, new fields were
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brought under the dominion of the plough. The great mass of agricultural population, so far as their business was concerned, were little more than creatures of habit. Men lived, and labored, and trod the same paths, and performed the same circles of action, with scarcely a single well settled principle for their guide, except that the same field ought not to be taxed to grow two successive crops of flax. The principal, and almost the sole object in view, was to realize as great immediate returns as possible from the smallest amount of labor, without any regard whatever to the exhausted condition in which they might leave the soil; much like the traveler, who seeks the rapid accomplishment of a long journey, by driving so far the first day as to destroy his horse.
The new system of agriculture, with which the name and reputation of Judge Buel is essentially identified, consists in sustaining and strengthening the soil, while its productive qualities are put into requisition; in rendering the farm every year more valuable, by annually increasing both its products and its power of producing; like the traveler, who, instead of destroying his horse the first day, should so regulate his motion, and administer his supplies of food, as to enable him to make additional progress every successive day, until the completion of his journey. This new system-new I mean in this country-has been principally carried into effect by manuring, by draining, by good tillage, by alternating crops, by root culture, and by the substitution of fallow crops for naked fallows.
In testing the principles embraced in the new system, Judge Buel first made the practical application to his own farm. He compelled his sand-hills to stay at home, and be less obedient to commotions in the atmosphere. He was particular in observing the effect produced upon the soil by his mode of management. After satisfying himself by actual experiment, of the truth and advan- tages of the new system, he became desirious of rendering it as generally known as possible. With that view, the paper, now so well known as The Cultivator, was first
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commenced under the auspices of the State Agricultural Society, in March, 1834. A committee of publication, consisting of Jesse Buel, Doctor James P. Beekman, and James D. Wasson, were appointed by the society, and under their direction, Judge Buel being the real editor, The Cultivator first made its appearance, in the form of a small sheet, issued monthly, and at the very moderate price of twenty-five cents per year. So little, however, did it become known ; so very deficient was the taste for reading on agricultural subjects; and, consequently, so extremely limited was its circulation, that the same volume, which has since passed through three editions, and now reposes on the shelves of more than 24,000 American farmers, was found, at the end of the year, to have accumulated a debt, over and above its receipts, of nearly five hundred dollars. Entertaining, however, a thorough conviction of the utility of the undertaking, and never doubting its ultimate success, he made an arrangement with the society, by which he became sole proprietor of The Cultivator, assuming the payment of all its debts and liabilities. The superior merits of the paper soon began to render it more generally known. It was found necessary to enlarge it, and to increase the price to fifty cents per annum. Notwithstanding the in- crease in price, the subscription list for the fourth volume, published from March, 1837, to March, 1838, amounted to 23,000. It was then deemed expedient still farther to enlarge and improve, and accordingly in March 1838, upon commencing the fifth volume, a larger, more expensive and better executed sheet was issued at the subscription price of one dollar per annum. This increase in price, at first diminished, very considerably, the number of subscribers. They were, however, gradually increasing, and, at the time of his death, amounted to about 16,000.
We might naturally expect that a mind thus active and gifted, could not long continue to exercise its powers, without acquiring a more or less extended and solid reputation. The new and vigorous impulse he was giving to agriculture and horticulture, awoke to activity
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a kindred spirit in the breasts of his countrymen. This call to renewed agricultural efforts met with a corre- sponding response from many portions of the union. Societies, devoted to agriculture and horticulture, origi- nated in various sections of our country; and among their first acts has usually been the recognition of their obligations to Jesse Buel, by electing him an honorary member. As examples of this, and also to show the laudable efforts that have been made to form agricultural and horticultural societies, I would mention the fol- lowing :
In 1821, he was elected a member of the Massachusetts Agricultural Society ; in 1829 of the Horticultural Society of that state, in 1830, of the Monroe Horticultural Society at Rochester; in 1831, of the Charleston Horti- cultural Society, in South Carolina; in 1832, of the Hampshire Franklin and Hampden Society, in Massa- chusetts, and of the Hamilton County Agricultural Society at Cincinnati; in 1833, of the Tennessee Agricultural and Horticultural Societies; in 1834, of the Horticultural Society of the District of Columbia; in 1838, of the Philadelphia Society of Agriculture, and in 1839, of the Albemarle Agricultural Society. In 1838, he was chosen President of the Horticultural Society of the Valley of the Hudson. He has been several times elected President of the State Agricultural Society.
Distinctions, similar to those already mentioned, have been conferred upon him by foreign and transatlantic societies. In 1833, he was chosen a corresponding: member of the Lower Canada Agricultural Society; in 1834, of the London and New York Horticultural Societies. In 1830, he was chosen an honorary member of the State Society of Statisques Universelles, at Paris, and, in 1836, he was chosen a corresponding member of the Royal and Central Society of Agriculture, at Paris.
Let it, however, by no means be supposed that Judge Buel's mental efforts were confined exclusively to agri- culture and horticulture. In his view, man was born for higher purposes than merely to produce and consume the [Annals, vi.] 19
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products of the earth. The motto to his Cultivator was, "To improve the soil, and the mind." Of what- real utility are all the enjoyments of mere physical existence, unaccompanied by the higher delights of mental being? No man more fully realized the force of this than Judge Buel. His system of education, however, like his system of agriculture, was eminently practical; and like that, too, it would endeavor to strengthen the producing power while it developed its products. He would guide the effort of · muscle by the direction of mind. While cultivating the
land, he would enjoy the landscape. While caging the bird, he would not be 'insensible to its music. The numerous valuable hints and suggestions on the subject of education, that occur in his Cultivator and other writings, evidence the soundness and correctness of his views on that all important subject.
The efforts of Judge Buel have greatly tended to make honorable, as well as profitable and improving, the pur- suits of agriculture. He clearly perceived that to render the farming interest prosperous, it must stand high in the public estimation. So long as it was conceded to be an occupation that required little more than mere habit to follow, and that it was indifferent to success, whether the man possessed great intellectual power, or a mind on a level with the ox he drove, it could not be expected that any would embark in it unless necessity compelled them, or the very moderate extent of their mental bestowment precluded any reasonable chance of success in any other. He taught men that agricultural prosperity resulted neither from habit nor chance; that success was subject to the same law in this, as in other departments of industry, and before it could be secured, must be deserved: that mind, intellectual power, and moral pur- pose, constituted as essential parts in the elements of agricultural prosperity as in those of any other; and all these truths he enforced by precept, and illustrated by practice. By these means he has called into the field of agricultural labor a higher order of mind; has elevated the standard of agricultural attainment; and has tended
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to render this extensive department of industry as in- telligent, respected, and honorable, as it ever has been conceded to be useful, healthy, and independent.
Thus gifted, esteemed, beloved, distinguished, and in the enjoyment of a reputation coextensive with the agri- cultural interest in this country, it would seem, that if life were a boon worth possessing, he had almost earned a long and undisturbed enjoyment of it. But the dis- pensations of God to man are full of mystery. Religion and reason here teach the same lesson : to observe, adore, and submit.
He had accepted invitations to deliver addresses before the agricultural and horticultural societies of Norwich and New Haven, Connecticut, on the 25th and 27th of September, 1839. About the middle of that month, he left this, city for that purpose, accompanied by his only daughter. On Saturday night, the 22d of September, at Danbury, Connecticut, he was seized with the bilious cholic. This was extremely distressing, but yielded, within three days, to the force of medical treatment. A bilious fever then supervened, unaccompanied, however, by any alarming symptoms until Friday, 4th of October.' His discase then assumed a serious aspect, and a change was obviously perceptible, particularly in his voice. He had occasionally, during his sickness, expressed doubts of his recovery, although his physicians, up to the 4th of October, entertained no serious apprehensions that his disease would terminate fatally. He retained throughout the full possession of his mental faculties, and expressed his entire resignation to the will of Heaven. He con- tinued gradually to decline from Friday until about three o'clock in the afternoon of Sunday, when, after faintly uttering the name of his absent companion, with whom he had shared the foils, and troubles. and triumphs, of almost forty years, he calmly. and without a groan or a struggle, canceled the debt which his birth had created, and " yielded up his spirit to God who gave it."
We involuntarily pause at the termination of the good , man's earthly career, and almost imagine ourselves en-
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titled to catch some feeble or imperfect glimpse of his departing spirit, as it speeds its way to the source of light and of love. He died in the very field of his labors; in the midst of his usefulness; in the full maturity of his mental faculties. No symptom of decline had evi- denced a waning spirit, nor had the touch of decay impaired the strength, or disturbed the harmony, of his mind.
He left behind him the companion of his earlier and latter years, and four children, to mourn their bereave: ment; an extensive circle of warmly attached and de- voted friends to deplore their loss; a whole community deeply to regret his removal; and an entire interest, constituting the key stone in our social and civil arch, to lose the benefits of his untiring efforts. Such a death succeeding such a life, occurring at such a time, and under such circumstances, most forcibly exemplifies. that beautiful sentiment of the poet, that
" Life lies in embryo, never free, Till nature yields her breath; Till time becomes eternity, And man is born in death."
All that remains for us is to cherish his memory; to imitate his virtues; and to avail ourselves of his labors. He was himself a practical illustration of republican simplicity. Always plain in his dress and appearance ; unassuming in his manners; unostentatious in the ex- treme; he was hospitable, without display; pious, without pretension ; and learned, without any mixture of pedantry. His was a character of the olden time, and formed on a noble model. With a proper estimate of what was due to others, he united accurate conceptions of what he was justly entitled to receive from them. His principles of politeness were not learned from the writings of Lord Chesterfield; nor were they derived from those higher circles in society. where, too frequently, artificial rules chill the warmth of social feeling, and the play of our faculties, which, beyond all other things, should claim exemption from restraint, is reduced under the worse
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than iron bondage of heartless forms; where a mistake in manners is even less pardonable than a fault in morals. His politeness flowed directly from his character, and was the natural expression of a happy combination of faculties. He was frank in his communications, because he was so constituted by nature, and had, in fact, nothing to conceal. Although more than three score years had passed over him, yet the consciousness of a blameless life removed all restraint upon the freedom of his inter- course.
The character and general habit of his mind was, in the highest degree, practical. The value and importance he attached to a thing, were deduced from his estimate of its uses; and those uses consisted of the number and importance of the applications which he perceived could be made of it, to the common purposes of life. He regarded life as being more made up of daily duties, than of re- markable events: and his estimate of the value of a principle, or proposed plan of operations, was derived from the extent to which application could be made of · it to life's every day matters. He presented the rare occurrence of a mind originally conversant with the most common concerns, arising, by its own inherent energies, from them to the comprehension of principles, and coming back and applying those principles to the objects of its earlier knowledge.
As a writer, the merits of Judge Buel have already been determined by a discerning public. It is here worthy of remark, that he never had but six months' schooling, having enjoyed fewer advantages, in that re- spect, than most farmers' and mechanics' sons. He, however. had the good fortune to possess a mind that could improve itself by its own action. Although, there- fore, he lacked the advantages of that early education, which can polish, point, and refine good sense where it happens to be found, and endeavors to supply its absence by some imperfect substitute, where it is wanting; yet by dint of study and practice, and of strong original en- dowment, he succeeded in the attainment of a style
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excellently well adapted to the nature of his communica- tions. It consisted simply in his telling, in plain language, just the thing he thought. The arts of rhetoric; the advantages of skillful arrangement in language; the abundant use of tropes and figures; he never resorted to. He seemed neither to expect or desire, that his com- munications would possess with other minds any more weight than the ideas contained in them would justly entitle them to. With him words meant things, and not simply their shadows. He came to the common mind like an old familiar acquaintance; and although he brought to it new ideas, yet they consisted in concep- tions clearly comprehensible in themselves, and conveyed in the plainest and most intelligible terms.
His writings are principally to be found in the many addresses he has delivered; in the six volumes of his Cultivator; in the small volume (made up, however, principally or entirely, from materials taken from the Cultivator ) published by the Harpers of New York; and in the Farmers' Companion, the last and most perfect of his works, containing, within a small compass, the embodied results of his agricultural experience, a rich legacy to which the great extent of our farming interest can not remain insensible. This work was written ex- pressly for the Massachusetts Board of Education, and constitutes one of the numbers of the second series of that truly invaluable district school library, now issuing, under the sanction of that board, from the press of Marsh, Capen, Lyon & Webb of Boston; which, for the extent of the undertaking, the great caution exercised in selecting the material, the talent enlisted in furnishing it, and the durable manner in which the books are executed, so richly deserves the patronage of the whole American nation. I deem it really the most fortunate circumstance in his life, that he should have been per- mitted, so immediately previous to his departure, to furnish just this volume, for just this purpose; and I shall confidently expect that the coming generation will be better farmers, better citizens, and better men, from
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having had the formation of their young minds influenced, to some extent, by the lessons of experience and practi- cal wisdom, derived from the last, best, most mature production of this excellent man. The several district schools throughout our state, will, undoubtedly, feel it due to the important trusts they have in charge, to secure this among other valuable publications, to aid in com- posing their respective district school libraries, from which so much good is expected to be derived.
The example of Judge Buel affords practical instruc- tion, as well as his works. There is hardly a situation or condition in life, to which some incident, event, or portion of his existence, does not apply with peculiar force, and afford much encouragement. To the wealthy, those who by successful industry have accumulated com- petent fortunes, it teaches the salutary lesson, that continued happiness can only be secured by continued industry; that the highly gifted mind must feel a re- sponsibility for the legitimate exercise of its powers; and that, when the requisite capacity is possessed, the one can be the most effectually secured, and the other satisfied, by communicating to the minds of the young the results of a long experience, of much varied observation and accumulated knowledge, and many original and pro- found reflections upon men and things.
To those who have sustained losses, been unfortunate in business, and had the slow accumulations of years suddenly swept away by accident, misfortune or fraud; it teaches the important truth, that,
"In the lexicon of youth, which fate reserves For a bright manhood, there is no such word As fail;"
that undaunted resolution, rigid economy, close calcula- tion, prudent management, aided by renewed application and well directed, persevering industry, can never fail, except in cases very uncommon, to retrieve their circum- stances, restore their condition, and by the excellent habits they create, to send them forward on the mutable course of life, with fresh assurance, renewed hope, and more confident anticipations.
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To the youth who has just commenced threading the devious paths of young existence; who is beginning to open his senses and his faculties to the appreciation and enjoyment of the aliment with which God has furnished them; it speaks a language at once impressive and invit- ing. It presents the instance of one from among them, born in poverty, having all the hardships, obstacles and disadvantages so frequently occurring in early life to contend with; with no other inheritance than a sound mind in a sound body, working his way onward and up- ward to the esteem, respect and confidence of his fellow men. There have been no peculiarly favorable combina- tions of circumstances to contribute to his progress and advancement. No miracle has been wrought in his favor, nor arts of magic enlisted in his aid. Nothing whatever has contributed to remove his case out of the empire of that same cause and effect in subjection to which all the phenomena of life are evolved. It is the obvious case of · distinction and a high reputation acquired and earned by the most persevering industry ; the most scrupulous re- gard for right; the exercise of superior intellect; the practice of every virtue; and its plain, practical language to the youth of our land is: " Go thou and do likewise." You are supported by the same soil; overhung by the same heavens; surrounded by the same classes of objects, and subjected to the action of the same all pervading laws. Would you possess the same good? Acquire it by a resort to similar means.
To all, it addresses a consoling language, in the fact that we here see industry recompensed; unobtrusive merit rewarded; intellectual action accomplishing its ob- jects; high moral worth appreciated; and the unostenta- tious virtues of a life, held in due esteem, respect and consideration. This tends to create a strong confidence in the benignity of the laws that regulate human affairs; to inspire a higher degree of respect and reverence for the constituent elements of human nature; and to give birth to that sentiment strongly embodied in the language, God, I thank thee that I am a man.
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JOURNAL OF REV. JOHN TAYLOR.
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[In the year 1802, the Rev. John Taylor undertook a missionary journey through the Mohawk and Black River country. Such portions of his journal as relate to the vicinity of Albany will be found below. See Doc. Hist. N. Y., iii, 110", et seq.]
July 21st, 1802 .- I this day passed thro' the affecting scene of' parting with my family, for the term of three months, to journey into the Northern counties of New York and to perform the duties of a missionary. I expected to have obtained some information respecting the north- ern country from the Revd Mr Field of Cherlamont, but was disappointed, as he was not at home. Proceeded from Cherlamont, on the turnpike, over Housic mountain. Having passed down the mountain I came into the town of Adams, which is remarkable for limestone. 5 miles - from Adams is Williamstown-The College consists of about 90 scholars-a president and 4 tutors. There are 2 eligant buildings-standing on elevated ground about 40 rods from each other. I put up with Dr Fitch-a valuable man-and has an agreeable family.
Travelled this day about 40 miles. Found a letter at the Revd Elipht Nott's, directed to me, from the Revd Joseph Lyman, Hatfield. Mr Nott being on a journey to Ballston Spring, the boxes of books which I expected to find with him were still in the possession of the proprietors of the stage. Was charged for the transportation of the books at the rate of a passenger, which was $2.47. Paid, also, 2s. Penny Post, for letters sent by the Post Master to Mr Nott's. The boxes appear to be sound, having sustained no damage.
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