The Beginning of Agricultural

CHAPTER 1

THE BEGINNING OF AGRICULTURAL

EDUCATION IN GEORGIA

(1732-1742)

From the founding of the colony in 1733 to the present time, Georgia has always been an outstanding agricultural state. The problems of agriculture have ever held a place of major interest and importance to most of the people of the state; and the struggles of Georgians to develop an adequate program of agricultural education as a means of solving these problems forms an interwoven strand running across the state’s entire historical pattern. As this strand is traced out and the findings recorded, we have the story of the struggles of farm people to attain a functional education in the agricultural setting. In this sense this volume is a history.

Of course, the history of Georgia cannot be told as a single story. This is true because so many Georgians have thought, said, and done so many different things since the day Oglethorpe with his little band landed at Yamacraw Bluff. All these things make the warp and woof of the fabric of out state’s history.

These strands of history are many and interwoven. As we trace them out one by one, we have many stories. If any one of these stories faithfully records the efforts, failures, and successes of those who helped to make that particular strand of the state’s fabric, it may well be called a history of Georgia.

The more knowledge we have of the individual threads that go to make up the total fabric, the better we understand our state.

It seems fitting, therefore, that this book should be devoted to telling the story of what Georgians have thought, said, and done to advance the cause of agriculture through educations, and to evaluating some of these efforts in light of historical perspective.

Oglethorpe Started Agricultural Education

Before James Oglethorpe set sail in the good ship Anne from Gravesend, England, November 16, 1732, he realized that the colonists who were to accompany him to America were going to a strange land covered with unfamiliar plants, growing on soils unlike those of the “Old World.” He also realized that every man, woman, and child must have assistance in adjusting himself to this new land where agriculture was to be the only means of livelihood. Oglethorpe, therefore, planned, more than a year previous to sailing for America, for a definite system of agricultural education amongst the colonists.

Oglethorpe’s plans for agricultural education provided for three things: (1) to make immediate use of the agricultural practices of the Indians who inhabited the coast of Georgia, (2) to establish an experimental farm for trying out new crops and finding effective cultural methods of producing all enterprises to be undertaken by colonists; and (3) to provide special instructors and training in agriculture for all of the colonists. Historians tell us that these three preconceived and well-formulated ideas had a large bearing upon the immediate success of the Georgia Colony.

The First Teachers of Agriculture

Before planting time, in the early spring of 1733, the Georgia Colonists reached the shores of South Carolina. In accordance with his plans, Oglethorpe made his way in advance of the colonists to the abode of Tomochichi—the 90-year-old Indian philosopher. Oglethorpe asked Tomochichi for advice and guidance in all matters pertaining to Indian agriculture. From that first visit, a lasting and helpful friendship was welded between the colonists and the local Indian inhabitants.

Tomochichi selected the land on which the Georgia Colony was established. He located the village (Savannah) on Yamacraw Bluff, a healthful spot with fertile lands stretching out in three directions. His tribe was skilled in hunting, fishing, and especially “in the cultivations of maize, beans, pumpkins, melons, and fruits of several kinds.”

During the planting season of 1733, “Tomochichi help daily conferences with Oglethorpe and his Colonists” and passed on to them the knowledge and practices in agricultural production accumulated by the Indian tribes of the Georgia wilderness through centuries of trail and error. The reports of the first year’s harvest show the results of the teaching of Tomochichi. There was an abundance of food and the granary contained 1,000 bushels of corn for export.

To make Tomochichi’s teachings more effective, General Oglethorpe employed Mary Musgrove, the Indian wife of a South Carolina planter and a former member of the Yamacraw tribe, to be his interpreter. Mary was an excellent interpreter and, therefore, played a great part in teaching the colonists the agricultural arts of the Indians. The records show that she received annually 100 pounds sterling ($485.00) for her services.

“Next to General Oglethorpe himself, no name appears more prominently in early Georgia history than the name of Tomochichi, Mico (King) of the Yamacraw Tribe.” Knight says he was, “A savage philosopher of the forest, and a great teacher, who deserves to be gratefully embalmed in the affections of the State.”

The First Experiment Station

The records show that early in the year 1732, the Trustees of the Georgia Colony “employed a skillful Botanist to collect seeds, drugs, and dyestuff from other countries of the same climate” and to sent them to America to be tried out in the Georgia Colony by experimental processes. To this end the Trustees established in 1733 an experimental garden of ten acres at Savannah.

The “Trustees’ Garden,” as it was called, was laid out near Savannah with crosswalks, alongside of which were planted rows of orange trees. The experimental plots were filled with mulberry trees and plants of may different varieties from many lands. Thus was the first agricultural experimental station in America inaugurated under the direction of trained scientists.

Francis Moore, in his “A Voyage to Georgia” (1736) says:

There is near the town to the east, a garden belonging to the Trustees, consisting of ten acres…. In the garden is a variety of soils; the top is sandy and dry, the sides of the hill are clay, and the bottom is black, rich garden mould, well watered. On the north part of the garden is left standing a grove of part of the old woods, as it was before the arrival of the colony here. The trees in the grove are mostly bay, sassafras, evergreen, oak, pellitory, hickory, American ash, and the laurel tulip…. The garden is laid out with crosswalks, planted with orange trees, but the last winter a good deal of snow having fallen had killed those on top of the hill down to their roots…. In the squares between the walks were vast quantities of mulberry trees, this being a nursery for all the province, and every planter that desires it has young trees given him gratis from the nursery.

Of course, the mulberry trees were used by the planters as food for silkworms. The production of raw silk became one of the principal enterprises in the Georgia Colony for many years.

In 1736 Hugh Anderson was appointed director of the experimental gardens and inspector of the Mulberry Plantations. In a “Report of the State of the Province of Georgia” dated June 10, 1740, Mr. Anderson made the first agricultural experiment station report written in America. This report showed that experimentation was not confined to mulberry trees.

There is a 10 acre garden of orange, mulberry trees, vines, some olives which thrive well, and peaches, apples, etc. It must be confessed that oranges have not so universally thriven with us by reason of severe blasts of frost in the spring…. Experiments are making, and we have discovered the kind of soil that agrees best (with oranges), and they flourish best when grown under frost-trees.

The “frost-trees” mentioned in this report were the wide-spreading live oaks. Under these trees oranges would survive the winter.

Special Teachers of Agriculture

The Trustees of the Georgia Colony and James Oglethorpe did not confine their efforts in planning and developing a program of agricultural education to the experimental farm. As early as 1732 the Trustees began to select and employ teachers of agriculture for the projected Colony. In that year the Colonial Records show that three Piedmontese (Italians) “were engaged to go and settle in Georgia and instruct the people” in producing raw silk. “For,” the Trustees pointed out, “there are good possibilities of succeeding, if proper measures are pursued, to instruct and encourage (the settlers) so that they will be likely to succeed” and “if experienced persons are at first sent to teach the people how to perform the new tasks.”

Nicolas Amatis, his brother, and on other Italian were employed April 3, 1733. The salary was 25 pounds (about $125.00) annually for a period of four years, and a tract of 450 acres of land was assigned to each teacher, provided at the conclusion of the teacher’s services, “the machines for winding silk and cultivating the land be left and designated persons taught how to use them.” It appears, therefore, that these teachers received annually one hundred twenty-five dollars and whatever each could make from the 450 acre farm.

These Italians were the first special teachers of agriculture employed in Georgia, and doubtless, they were the first such teachers of agriculture to be employed in this country.

Special instructors were also provided for the new enterprises of indigo production and grape culture. Abraham Delyon (De Leon) a Portuguese Jew (1738), and the brothers Peter, and James Bailleu are especially mentioned in connection with teaching grape culture and wine making in the Georgia Colony.

It seems that the instruction in silk culture was rather successfully carried out by the new teachers, for in May, 1735, Queen Caroline of England, celebrating her fifty-second (52nd) birthday, wore a gorgeous dress make of silk imported from Georgia. By 1842 Georgia silk had become an important export commodity.

Apprentice Training in Farming

There is another aspect of Oglethorpe’s program of agricultural education that should be mentioned in order to understand how fully it was planned and how well it was executed. Each group of teachers had a large plantation of 450 or more acres, and to their care were assigned selected apprentices. These apprentices were taught the methods of cultivation derived from the experiences of the Indians, the understanding of the teachers, and the findings growing out of the experimental gardens.

The Colonial Records of 1739 reveal the fact that a form of apprenticeship training in farming was going on in Georgia at that early date. For instance, a reference is made to teacher by the name of J. Lewis Camuse who found that the apprentices being taught on his plantation were either taking too much of his time from production, or costing more than he could bear. He, therefore, petitioned the Trustees of the colony for an additional 20 pounds (about $97.00) for each apprentice.

This report also indicates that Mrs. Camuse was supposed to aid her husband in teaching the apprentices to wind silk, but “she persisted in showing aversions to this task,” thereupon she was chastised. Teaching apparently was compulsory as well as attending classes. Certainly that was true on the Camuse plantation.

The records are clear in giving us a picture of the beginning of agricultural education in Georgia. This educational program was built around the experience of the Indians and the results of agriculture through teaching. The teaching was carried on by Tomochichi, Mary Musgrove, and special instructors imported from Europe.

Evaluations and Comments

The historical facts show that there were definite and detailed plans made for agricultural education at the very beginning of the Georgia Colony. These plans reveal ideas and procedures that are worthy of emphasis and consideration because they are as applicable today as they were in the days of Oglethorpe. Three of these ideas are selected for special emphasis: (1) The recognition of survival values in local agriculture; (2) The experimental approach to the improvement of agriculture and agricultural teaching; and (3) Teaching based upon these survival values and experimentations.

Survival Values: Because the State of Georgia is large and has a wide range of soil types and climatic conditions that tent to limit the adaptability of plant life, it seems that Oglethorpe’s idea of beginning agricultural improvement with a thorough study of local practices is a sound one. This does not mean that all local practices will be labeled good. It does not mean, however, that a local study will reveal some local practices, which have survived for long periods of time in specific situations on given soil types, are better than others.

The Experimental Approach to Change: The Georgia Colony was not founded to carry on Indian agriculture. The Trustees hoped to establish enterprises in the Colony that would produce certain commodities needed in England. Silk, indigo, and wine were especially in demand by the Mother Country. Therefore, while clinging to the survival values in Indian agriculture, experimentation was inaugurated to find ways and means of effecting changes in local agricultural patterns looking to the future.

Oglethorpe’s idea of using controlled experimentation as the basis for guiding changes in the local pattern of agriculture seems to have attained wide acceptance in America. Every state no has one or more agricultural experiment stations, yet the question may well be raised, “Are these experiment stations reaching out to enough local situations to make them of the greatest service to the state’s agriculture?”

The problems of agriculture in Georgia are many, varied, and often local in nature. To be of the greatest benefit to education, experimental findings must be widespread in their coverage of the problems of agriculture in the state.

Teaching: The organization of agricultural teaching in the Georgia Colony should have favorable comment. The teaching materials were developed from two local sources: information from the Indian agriculture; and information derived from experimentation. The teachers applied this information to the actual problems confronting the colonists in producing the several enterprises that made up the farming of that day. The actual pattern of agricultural instruction of that day is unknown, but it can be understood fairly well by the kind of teachers employed and the on-the-job experiences of the learners.

The selection of land and the cultural practices borrowed form Indian agriculture were taught by the Indians themselves by employing a competent and attractive interpreter. Teachers for the new enterprises, like silk growing and winding, were men and women who had carried on these skills in the European setting. They were well acquainted with the details of the problems they taught. The actual organization of teaching was on an apprenticeship basis. This was true whether it was setting mulberry trees or operating silk winding reels. The apprenticeship method of teaching was also brought directly from the Old World.

There is much in these early beginnings of the teaching of agriculture in Georgia to challenge the thinking of modern educators who are striving to find adequate procedures and methods in agricultural education.

Questions:

1. When was the colony of Georgia founded?

a) 1736, b) 1789, c) 1733, d) 1761

2. When did James Oglethorpe set sail for America?

a) 1789, b) 1732, c) 1733, d) 1744

3. Which one of the following was not one of the plans that Oglethorpe had made towards agricultural education?

a) Provide special instructors and training in agriculture for all of the colonists

b) Present the new colonists with a tract of land for farming

c) Establish an experimental farm

d) Make use of the agricultural practices of the Indians

4. Who was the Indian in which Oglethorpe sought help from pertaining to Indian agriculture?

a) Tomahawk,b) Tomochichi, c) Tiny Horse, d) Pocahontas

5. The Georgia Colony was established on a healthful spot with fertile lands known as:

a) Yamacraw Bluff, b) Yellowman Bluff, c) Yukon Bluff, d) Crawfish Bluff

6. Tomochichi’s tribe was skilled in all of the following except:

a) cultivation of maize, b) fishing, c) hunting, d) basket weaving

7. During the planting season of 1733, Tomochichi held daily conferences with Oglethorpe and his Colonists and passed on to them the ______and ______in agriculture production accumulated by the Indian tribes of the Georgia wilderness through centuries of trial and error.

a) patients, knowledge; b) knowledge, practices;

c) practices, willingness; d) none of the above

8. The reports of the first year’s harvest show the results of the teaching of Tomochichi. How many bushels of corn were available for export that year?

a) 100, b) 10000, c) 1000, d) 10

9. Who did General Oglethorpe appoint as his interpreter for the Yamacraw tribe?

a) Mary Moose; b) Marylynn Musgrove; c) Musgrove Mary; d) Mary Musgrove

10. The records show that Oglethorpe’s interpreter received annually ___ pounds sterling for her services.