Thomas Jefferson Key

Notes:

THOMAS JEFFERSON KEY
First Editor of the Southern Agriculturist

Sixty-one years ago a young Confederate soldier started a little farm paper in Corinth, Mississippi. He was then only three years removed from the battlefield, where he had seen his full share of hardship, done his full share of fighting, and received his full share of honors. He had come home to find Southern farming demoralized, a new era of confusion in the place of the old orderly beauty of plantations and homes, hopelessness and loss and unexampled privation where there had been happiness and plenty.

The old order had been overturned. New plans must be made. Men who had never thought much about their soils and crops except for the pleasure they got out of them had to turn their minds to farming for a living. It was all that was left them to do. And they didn't know how.

Having served his country to the best of his ability in one way, he saw, with characteristic foresight, how to serve it still better, in a greater and more enduring way. He would print a paper which should be a real teacher of farming. He would take this broken and hesitating South that he loved, and help it back to wealth and happiness through its one great resource, the soil.

"MODEL FARMING" IS ESTABLISHED

In the spring of 1868, "Model Farming" was established at Corinth by the young soldier and student, Major Thomas J. Key. His whole fiery heart and crusading soul went into it. Armored by his own great vision, he set his face determinedly toward the only future of hope he could see for his beloved land.

From its first issue something of this spirit got into the pages of the little farm paper. Its readers began to have more faith in themselves, and in the years to come, just because Major Key had this faith, and because his careful good sense was finding out practical ways of justifying it. The bruised South took heart, and turned to its fields and its pitiful remnants of stock with new hope.

Thomas married Helen Palmer in 1852. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]