Hugh Bland
BLAND NAMED TO PENDLETON FARMERS SOCIETY
Agricultural leader Hugh Bland of Edgefield was recently installed as a member of the prestigious and historic Pendleton Farmers Society, according to John W. Parris, state director of public affairs for Agricultural Education in South Carolina.
Organized in 1815, the Society meets at the Farmers Hall constructed in 1828 and located on the square in downtown Pendleton. The building is the oldest farmers’ hall in continuous use in the nation. It was in this Hall that Thomas Green Clemson, the son-in-law of John C. Calhoun and a former president of the Society, first discussed plans for establishing a land grant institution which became a reality and known today as Clemson University.
The Pendleton Farmers Society was one of the most famous and certainly a pioneer in the struggle for organized instruction in agriculture. Thomas Pinckney, Jr., son of General Thomas Pinckney, was the first president of the Society. His Presidential Valedictory of June 1817 contains numerous references to the various research and improvements that were reported through Pendleton Farmers Society meetings. In this speech, Pinckney said “I hope and persuade myself that the views of the Society will encourage individual attempts to introduce grass fields as a regular rotation.” His last words at that meeting were “gentlemen, make hay”.
Bland is serving as the first director of Piedmont Technical College’s new Diversified Agriculture Program headquartered in Saluda. The program will offer an Associate Degree in Applied Science that will allow graduates to transfer to four-year universities including Clemson, Abraham Baldwin, the University of Georgia or Purdue.
“Mr. Bland is most deserving of this distinguished honor of membership in the 194 year-old Pendleton Farmers Society because of a life-time of dedication and leadership as a superb agricultural educator,” Parris said.