232. AGRICULTURE, New cultures.—[continued].
Perhaps I may render
some service by forwarding to the [Agricultural]
Society [17]
[of South Carolina] such new
objects of culture, as may be likely to succeed
in the soil and climate of South Carolina.
In an infant country, as ours is, these
experiments are important. We are probably
far from possessing, as yet, all the articles of
culture for which nature has fitted our country.
To find out these, will require abundance
of unsuccessful experiments. But if, in a
multitude of these, we make one useful acquisition,
it repays our trouble. Perhaps it is
the peculiar duty of associated bodies to undertake
these experiments. Under this sense
of the views of the society, * * * I shall be
attentive to procure for them the seeds of
such plants as they will be so good as to
point out to me, or as shall occur to myself as
worthy their notice.—
To William Drayton. Washington ed. i, 554.
(P.
1786)
