Copyright Notice: This article is from the Encyclopedia of North Carolina edited by William S. Powell. Copyright © 2006 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher. For personal use and not for further distribution. Please submit permission requests for other use directly to the publisher.

Masthead of The Arator.
Masthead of The Arator, 1855-1857.
Arator, or the Plowman, was an agricultural periodical published monthly by its editor Thomas J. Lemay from 1855 to 1857. Lemay had been prevailed on by the North Carolina State Agricultural Society to start the magazine as its official publication, although the Arator was never accorded that designation. Lemay had previously owned and edited the North Carolina Farmer and the North Carolina Star.

Like other agricultural journals of the day, the Arator aimed to educate farmers as well as provide them with up-to-date information on all phases of farming. It also included information to appeal to housewives and young farmers-to-be. The readership was never large, and the decline of Lemay's health along with his financial assets ended the Arator's short life.

Reference:

Richard Bardolph, "A North Carolina Farm Journal of the Middle Fifties," NCHR 25 (January 1948).

Additional Resources:

Lemay, Thomas J. The Arator 1-3. Raleigh, N.C.: 1855-1857. https://archive.org/stream/aratordevotedtoa13lema#page/n7/mode/2up.

Ruffin, Thomas. The Papers of Thomas Ruffin Volume 2. Raleigh, N.C.: Edward Broughton & Co. 1918. http://books.google.com/books?id=8gI9AAAAIAAJ&lpg=PA457&ots=1YAUml8Cih&dq=arator%20lemay&pg=PA465#v=onepage&q=arator%20lemay&f=false.

Image Credits:

Masthead of the Arator, Lemay, Thomas J. The Arator 1-3. Raleigh, N.C.: 1855-1857. https://archive.org/stream/aratordevotedtoa13lema#page/n7/mode/2up.

Citation

Anderson, Jean B. "Arator." NCpedia. Encyclopedia of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Press. Accessed on February 11th, 2025. https://www.ncpedia.org/arator.