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J. S. SKINNER & SON, EDITORS AND PUBLISHERS,
81 Dock Street, Philadelphia.

POSTSCRIPT PREFATORY

VOL. I. OF THE PLOUGH, THE LOOM, AND THE ANVIL.

How rapid is the flight of Time, even -when mea-
sured in periods of years, as it passes swiftly away,
like natural objects in the retrospect of the steam-
home traveller ! It seems but as yesterday, that
the first number of the volume before us was thrown
upon the piablic at a venture, and behold we are
already summoned to write a preface — not to recall
or amend the irreclaimable year that has past, but,
in a review of it, to foreshadow the next. In doing
this, the first questions are, under what influence,
and with what views was the work undertaken ?
To the first, the ready answer is — under immediate
necessity to do something for an honest livelihood ;
and for the rest, the enterprise took its form from
an old and habitual desire to make our labours sub-
sidiary to the amusement and welfare of society.

But, says the reader, had we not already agricul-
tural journals sufficient to keep us advised of all
that is new in the practice of our art? Yes, truly,
and the low price at which they mvist be put — even
below the very dregs of the party press, in order to
gain a living support, showing that journals ex-
pressly designed to enlighten their proper vocation,
are, with agriculturists themselves, the last to be
demanded and the worst supported — is any thing but
creditable or auspicious for that community. What
then, says the reader, did you contemplate ? It was,
then, first, to prompt the cultivator of the soil to
think for himself, as to the bearing of all legislation
and action of State and Federal governments on the
landed mterest of the country : and, secondly, to aid,
in our humble way, in leading him to insist on the
esfahlishment of institutions, in which the sons of the
Planter and the Farmer mie;ht study the principles of
their prof ession. When we say to think for themselves,
we speak in reference to their undeniable habit of
yielding up, too generally, their own judgments as
respects the action and policy of government, to be
Moulded by professional politicians, generally law-
yers or political doctors, who, mostly with a better
education, but sometimes in a spirit of assumption,
(the usual concomitant of ignorance,) kindly volun-
teer to tell the Farmer and Planter not only what
they must think, but how and for whom they should
vote!

Not without much of personal observation do we
presume to speak in this matter. Up to early man-
hood were we reared in the country, seeing and par-
ticipating in all its labours and amusements. With
rural life are all our early associations, those that
endure and give tone to men's character and des-
tiny. Resident ever since in large cities, our thoughts
and predilections have yet constantly reverted
to our friends in the midst of their gardens and
orchards — their fields and their meadows — their
flocks and their herds — but truth compels the decla-
ration, that it is there that party spirit is most rife
and inveterate, and the sway of the demagogue most
prevalent and tyrannical. Where most space inter-
venes between the plough and the loom and tho
anvil — enhanciug the cost of exchanging the pro-
ducts of their industry, there will there ever be least
power of combination and least independence of judg-
ment. Wlo has not observed, that where popula-

tion is sparse and education imperfect, a few leadin;;
men marshal their respective parties and lead them
as the bell-wether leads the flock I

Now, although as to the political economy of agri-
culture we have our own theory, in which we fully
believe, our wish is not to dogmatise, but to inquire
— not to enforce an opinion, but to learn the truth ;
and hence to " hear both sides," as the reader haa
seen, has been not only our motto but -lur practice.
Yet have our arguments been denounced as " ab-
surd," in contending that the American cultivator
should enforce the establishment of a policy that
will compel the manufacturer to come and take his
place, as Mr. Jefferson said, by the side of the agri-
culturist, instead of importing from abroad those
commodities essenti.al to every nation's indepen-
dence, and the cost of which consists chiefly in the
consumption of the food produced by serfs and pau-
pers, whose whole wages for the year are not more
than would buy the Sunday finery of a thrifty slave
on a southern plantation — food produced by men
who live on pumpernicle, and twelve pence a day
for men, and seven pence for women in the field ;
but when the employer finds them, get but 3^ pence
in addition to his food. "On large farms," says the
Scotch traveller to whom we refer, " four pounds is
the annual pay of a farm servant — (white men.)
From this (the Dantzic) and the adjacent districts in
Germany, the greatest number of emir/rants jyroceMl
annually to America." Prince Esterhazy, on asking
and being told by an English nobleman, the number
of his sheep, remarked, " Why, I own a greater num-
ber of shepherds than you do of sheep !"

The doctrine maintained in the following pages is,
that the country, whose market is glutted by the
produce of such labour, can afford to the American
Farmer only an occasional and precarious market
in seasons of famine and pestilence, and when its
inhabitants can consume so little of our other great
staple as to sink it to a ruinous price ; and thus it
is that we witness the perpetual play of see-saw be-
tween the staples of the South and the West — the
one uniformly rising as the other falls.

Here then, reader, you have some of the leading
objects for establishing the work to which this in-
troduction is prefixed. With the public it is left to
say whether it shall go on increasing in circulation.
At present it barely pays its own expenses, which
is doing well at the end of the first year. For the
future we have nothing new to pi-omise — we adhere
to all our original purposes, engaging only that
each number of the coming volume shall be illus-
trated by engravings, not in the way of giving pio
tures to amuse children of a smaller or a larger
growth, but to render useful subjects more intelligi-
ble— and here we close this postscript in the fcirm of
a-preface-, soliciting support not only from the Farmer
and Planter, to whom we owe our first duty, but
from every friend of American Industry, for although
we are the advocates of specific protection, our Itv-
bnurs in favour of the cultivators of the soil must
incidentally benefit him at the loom and the anvil,
and all others who amsume the products of the
plough. J. S. SKINNEE,

81 Dock street, Philadelphia.

^\)t ipiotiglj, i\)t loom, miir t\)t ^uml.

Vol. I. JULY, 1848. No. I.

A DISCOURSE

ON THE KECIPROCAL RELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE AND THE OTHER
BRANCHES OF AMERICAN DOMESTIC INDUSTRY.

BY J. S. SKINNER.

[[The senior editor of this journal was some time since appointed, in his
absence, by the American Institute, and first named on a Committee, to make
report upon "the establishment of Colleges and Schools in the States of the
Union, for teaching both the science and the practice of rural economy;"
and was also called upon to prepare an address to be delivered, at such time
and place as might suit his convenience, by the New York Agricultural
Association.

At the time, he could not see the way clear to hope for leisure to accept
either of these invitations ; and as to the first, although for thirty years he
has steadily advocated the claims of agriculturists to pubhc provision for
instruction adapted to their profession, further reflection has convinced him,
that practical knowledge of the most approved systems of agriculture is not
the Jirsi and greatest ivant of the landed interest of this country. The
evils, as he feels persuaded, that occasion the decay of their husbandry, and
the dispersion of the children of the old States, he deeper and broader than
is their assumed ignorance of the best modes of culture ; and are referable
to other and very different sources.

These sources he has endeavored to develope and expose in the following
discourse. It was prepared in the midst of arrangements to purchase and
remove the Farmer's Library, and he has not even had leisure to give the
necessary notice, that arrangements might be made for its delivery, as origi-
nally designed, under the auspices of the highly respectable association be-
fore named.

What remains with him now is, to express his unaffected regret at the
want of ability to convey more forcibly his own conviction, that truly the
time, to use the words of Mr. Jefferson, in 1816, has "now come, when
we must place the manufacturer by the side of the agriculturist."

In changing the title of the work to which his labors will be henceforth
earnestly devoted, it is but fair and just towards all who may be kindly
disposed to patronize it, that they should fully and distinctly understand what
are the Editor's views, as respects the best and most p^rmnrfnt f^^nri^Y for

RELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE

an improving and prosperous agriculture : and these he has endeavored to
explain in the following discourse — to be carefully read, after reading the
Prospectus, as the more perfect after-culture follows the first plowing.

Those whose paramount wish is above all things to come at the true found-
ation for the welfare of the landed interest, however different may be the opi-
nions they entertain on the subject, will not, it is hoped, be deterred by its
length from giving to this discourse a deliberate and impartial consideration ;
— while, for those who would pass on to lighter and more entertaining and
practical matter, suffice it to declare that our great object is the same that has
engrossed our thoughts and anxieties from boyhood to the present time, to wit,
to discover, and, according to our poor abilities, to augment the means of
improving the character and profits of American Husbandry. Finally, we
are aware of the apprehension for the future, which may be created by the
length of this first article ; but let the reader taka comfort in the view of
almost fifty pages remaining for other subjects, to be read and digested, before
the appearance of the second number,]

In the state of its Agriculture is to be found the true test of the advance-
ment of a nation in all the useful arts, or, in other words, of the civilization
of a community. It is not the one by which it is usually tried, and it is not
improbable that many of my hearers may at first be disposed to doubt the
correctness of the assertion ; yet on further reflection I am inclined to believe
they will agree with me in regard to it. [f they will for a moment cast
their eyes over the world, they will see many reasons for giving to the subject
at least careful reflection, before they come to a final decision adverse to the
correctness of my assertion. They will see the highest civilization of Asia
in connection with the almost perfect agriculture of China, while they will
see a state of barbarism in connection with the ruined agriculture of Hindostan.
They will see civilization in highly cultivated Tuscany, and barbarism in
depopulated Sicily, once the granary of Rome. They will see -civilization
in highly cultivated Normandy, and barbarism in half-cultivated Auvergne,
whose power at one time was such that it gave to the son of France his title
of Dauphin. They will see civilization in the highly cultivated counties
of the North of England, and barn-burnings and poaching, and other marks
of barbarism 'in the half»cultivated South. They will see civilization in the
Lothians and other parts of the south of Scotland, and barbarism and depo-
pulation in the north. In this country they will see the most rapid advances
in civilization in New England, where cultivation extracts from a naturally
sterile soil vast supplies of food, while the best soils of South Carolina are
being abandoned by their owners, who fly to the west, there to perform the
same exhaustive process to which the inferior portions of their original lands
have already been subjected.

The business of the agriculturist is that of production; that of the manu-
facturer is to change the form of the products obtained in return for the
labors of the farmer; that of the merchant and trader is merely to change
their place and their owners. The first would seem to be the most import-
ant, for without him the others could have no existence. Arrest and put a
stop to the labors of the agriculturist, and the manufacturer and the mer-
chant would expire like mice in the exhausted receiver of an air-pump. The
science that the agriculturist cultivates would seem necessarily to be the one
that should first attain perfection, yet it is invariably the last ; and therefore

TO OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. 3

it is that if we desire to find the highest civilization we must seek it in those
countries, those states or provinces, in which the labors of the farmer are
blest with the largest returns.

Why this is the case may, I think, readily be accounted for. The farmer
labors in the field. In the early stages of a country's growth, exposed to the
dangers of war, civil or foreign, he is compelled to limit his labors to those
patches of land that are nearest to the protection of city walls, and is unable
to choose his soils. At brief intervals, his little farm is overrun, his crops
are carried off, and his implements destroyed by friends or foes, for in time
of war the first are frequently as dangerous as the last. In such times the
doctrine, that the end sanctifies the means, is universally acted upon, and
generals accumulate fortunes out of contributions extorted from fellow-citizen,
or fellow-subject, on pretence of promoting " the public good." The farmer
is most of all exposed to oppression of this description, because he lives
apart from his fellow-men, while others live together, and are enabled, by
concert with each other, both to protect themselves and to control the mea-
sures of government for their own advantage. Hence agriculture marches
in the rear ranks of civilization.

The manufacturer, on the contrary, labors within the city walls. War often
interferes with him, but without destroying him. The town may be besieged
for weeks or months, and he may suffer from want, but at the close of the
siege he still has a portion of his capitak unimpaired — his house, and his
tools, and his skill — whereas the lands around the city have been ravaged
and are left in a state of riiin. Before the farmer can recommence his work
he must obtain new spades and plows, new horses and oxen, and he must
build a new house, for that which he 'had occupied has been used for fuel.
So too it is with trade. That too is carried on under the protection of city
walls, and the trader is frequently enriched by the events of war, while the
farmer is ruined. In time of war, merchants travel in company, forming
caravans, and arming themselves for self-defence. Ships too are armed, and
ship-owners are often enriched by wars that bring to the farmers of the
country to which they belong nothing but ruin and desolation. The man Avho
cultivates the land is the only one who is necessarily defenceless, and there-
fore has it been and ever will be, that in times of barbarism agriculture
makes small progress. War, rapine, and glory, are then the chief pursuits of
men. By success in these, they win honor and distinction, and obtain power
over their fellow-men. Productive agriculture requires peace, and continued
peace brings civilization, and of all the evidences of growing civilization the
most certain is that which is exhibited in the application of intellect to the
promotion of the great science of production ; that science Avhich teaches us
the mode of compelling our great mother earth to yield in greatest abun-
dance the rich stores with which she is charged for the sustenance and com-
fort of all animated nature.

In a state of barbarism the first and great pursuit is that of the soldier.
The second is that of the merchant. The manufacturer then is little better
than a slave, while the tiller of the ground is absolutely a slave, and is often
sold, as still is the case in some of the least civilized parts of Europe,
with the land, or from the land, at the pleasure of his master. In such
countries, and in that state of society it is, that a modern traveller has
seen three hundred white vi^omen at wovk in the' field ' without cover-
ing of any sort for their heads or feet. With the gradual grdwth of civiliza-
tion, the order tends to become inverted! The trade of the soldier falls in
estimation as that of the cultivator rises. The niere exchanger of the pro-
ducts of the plough and the loom becomes less important than the manu-
facturer. With the highest civilization,' the producer will stand, as he de-

RELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE

serves to do, at the top of the list, and the manufacturer will stand second,
while the merchant will be the last, as the trade of the soldier will then have
ceased to exist. Warlike establishments, for which the republican people
of this country have paid eighty per cent, of their whole expenses for go-
vernment in time of peace, Avill be abridged or discontinued, and reason,
truth, and justice, will take the place of selfishness and force.

To that point it is that we are gradually tending, and that such is the case,
I need ask no better evidence than the assemblage now before me. It is,
however, but recently that such has been the tendency, for until the pre-
sent century agriculture has scarcely been deemed a pursuit Avorthy the
attention of the gentleman, or the man of science, and until now its human-
izing effects have been little appreciated. Everywhere we see reference
to the benefits conferred upon mankind by commerce. That "Commerce
is king" has passed into a motto ; but if we wish to see any thing in com-
mendation of agriculture we can but rarely find it, except in the works of
poets which are read by few, and are appreciated by but a small portion
of those who read them. To commerce is assigned, almost universally, the
first rank as a civihzer of man ; yet, if we compare its effects upon the
mind of man with those of agriculture, Ave cannot but be struck with the
difference in favor of the latter. The skilful farmer should be a man of
science. He should understand the composition of soils and the action of
manures. In the whole range of science there is scarcely any portion that
may not, at times, be useful to him. His labors are those of all others
Avhich are calculated to produce development of mind, Avhile they are of
all others calculated to produce repose of mind, happiness, and peace. He
l^rofits equally with his neighbors by favorable seasons, and he loses equally
with them in unfavorable ones. He has all to lose by AA'ar, and nothing to
gain, for he involves himself in neither speculations nor loans. His dispo-
sition is, therefore, always for peace. He produces most of the commodi-
ties he consumes, and his income is liable to httle change, other than that
which results from natural causes. He is, therefore, careful and economi-
cal. The first wish of his childhood is rural happiness, nor is it eA'er lost sight
of except Avhere some turbulent and resistless passion depraves and hur-
ries away the soul. In every period of life it animates virtuous and inge-
nuous minds. Such Avere the words addressed, more than fifty years ago,
to the Agricultural Society of NeAv York, by Hon. R. R. Livingstoi^, its
President. For ever respected and honored be his name and memory by
all the friends of the plough.

The trader, on the contrary, is required to knoAv nothing of the composi-
tion of the cotton or the avooI, the sugar or the indigo, that he buys or sells.
All that he seeks to knoAv has reference to the prices at Avhich they are
bought and sold, and the profit or loss resulting therefrom. In this, no mind
is necessarily developed, AA'hile he is exposed to perpetual agitation of mind.
He Avants no science, and he has no leisure to study science. He values the
telegraph, because it enables him to sell his cai'go before the neAvs is gene-
rally knoAvn, and thus shift upon his neighbor the loss that might have
fallen on himself; or his neighbor, better informed than himself, sells him a
cargo, and he is ruined. With war saltpetre rises, and his fortune is made.
Famine enriches him because he has speculated largely in corn, and he
magnifies the deficiency that he may obtain a better price. He bids for a
loan, and he is ruined. He passes through his hands A-ast property, Avhile
producing nothing. He is led to fancy himself rich, and hence result
habits of lavish expenditure that end in ruin. His life is one of perpetual
fever and anxiety. He has no time to study nature and her laAvs, Avhereas
the whole business of the farmer is improved in proportion to his knowledge

TO OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY.

of those laws. And yet, look where we may, we find commerce placed in
the first rank as the great civilizer of mankind.

If we look around us, even now, we see commerce carrying- Avar and deso-
lation into China. We see it promoting the slave-trade. We see in the
depopulation of India, by French and English armies, the effects of com-
merce. We may see it in Algeria and in Tahiti, wasted by French armies.
We may see it in the perpetual wars between England and France for
worthless colonies. We see it now in the unceasing changes and consequent
ruin of the British West Indies. That commerce between distant nations
is verj^ desirable, is not to be doubted. It is well that the man of Old Eng-
land and New England should have tea, and sugar, and coffee, and that the
man of Cuba and Brazil should have clothing; but that the inordinate love
of commerce manifested by Holland, England, and France, has tended to ad-
vance civilization, I am unable to perceive. The real civiHzer of the world is
agriculture, and the highest civilization will invariably be found where the
labors of the farmer are most aided by science, and where they are most
largely rewarded by our great mother earth.

The earth is a great machine, given to man to be worked and fashioned
to his purposes. It is the sole producer. In the words of Mr. Carey, in
his recent work, " The Past, the Present, and the Future," — not only recent
in date, but new and redolent of important truths in the politics of agricul-
ture— a work which might better have been entitled The Book of Revela--
tions of the True and Proper Relations of the Producer and Consumer :

" The earth is the sole producer. Man fashions and exchanges. A part of his labor
is applied to the fashioning of the great machine, and thus produces changes that are
permanent. The drain, once cut, remains a drain ; and the limestone, once reduced to
lime, never again becomes Umestone. It passes into the food of man and animals, and
ever after takes its part in the same round ■with the clay with which it has been incorpo-
rated. The iron rusts, and gradually passes into soil, to take its part with the clay and
the lime. That portion of his labor gives him wages while preparing the machine for
greater future jDroduction. That other portion which he expends on fashioning and ex-
changing the products of the machine, produces temporary results, and gives him wages
alone. Whatever tends, therefore, to diminish the quantity of labor necessary for the
fashioning and exchanging of the products, tends to increase the quantity that may be
given to increasing the ainount of products, and to preparing the great machine ; and
thus, while increasing the present return to labor, preparing for a future further in-
crease.

" The first poor cultivator obtains a hundred bushels for his year's wages. To poimd
this between two stones requires twenty days of labor, and the work is not half done.
Had he a mill in the neighborhood he would have better flour, and he would have almost
his whole twenty days to bestow upon his land. He pulls up his grain. Had he a scythe,
he would have more time for the preparation of the machine of production. He loses
his axe, and it requires days of himself and his horse on the road, to obtain another. His
machine loses the time and the marmre, both of which would have been saved had the
axe-maker been at hand. The real advantage derived from the mill and the scythe, and
from the proximity of the axe-maker, consists simply in the power which they atFord him
to devote his labor more and more to the preparation of the great machine of production,
and such is the case with all the machinery of preparation and exchange. The i^lougli
enables him to do as much in one day as with a sj^ade he coidd do in five. He saves
four days for drainage. The steam-engine drains as much as without it could be drained
by thousands of days of labor. He has more leisure to marl and lime his land. The
more he can extract from his machine the greater is its value, because every thing he
takes is, by the very act of taking it, fashioned to aid further production. The machint ,
therefore, improves by use ; whereas spades, and ploughs, and steam-engines, and all other
of the machines used by man, are but the various forms into which he fashions parts of
the great original machine, to disappear in the act of being used ; as much so as food,
though not so rapidly. The earth is the great labor savings' bank ; and the vahie to man
of all other machines is in the direct ratio of their tendency to aid him in increasing his
deposits in the only bank whose dividends are perpetually increasing, while its capital
is perpetually doubling. That it may continue for ever so to do, all that it asks is that it
shall receive back the refuse of its produce : the manure : and that it may do so, the con-

a2

6 RELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE

STjmer and the producer must take their places by each other. That done, every change
that is elTected becomes permanent, and tends to facilitate other and greater changes.
The whole business of the farmer consists in making and improving soils, and the earth
rewards him for his kindness by giving him more and more Ibod the more attention he
bestows upon her.

" The solitary settler has to occupy the spots that, with his rude machinery, he ca7i cul-
tivate. Having neither horse nor cart, he carries home his crop upon his shoulders, as i3
now done in many parts of India. He carries a hide to the place of exchange, distant,
perhaps, fifty miles, to obtain for it leather, or shoes. Population increases, and roads are
made. More fertile soils are cultivated. The store and the mill come nearer to him, and
he obtains shoes and flour with the use of less machinery of exchange. He has more
leisure for the preparation of his great machine, and the return to labor increases. More
people now obtain food from the same surface, and new places of exchange appear. The
wool is, on the spot, converted into cloth, and he exchanges directly with the clothier.
The saw-mill is at hand, and he exclianges with the sawyer. The tanner gives him
leather for his hides, and the paper-maker gives him paper for his rags. With each of
these changes he has more and more of both time and manure to devote to the prepara-
tion of the great food-making machine, and with each year the returns are larger. His
power to command the use of the machinery of exchange increases, but his necessity there-
for diminishes; for with each year there is an increasing tendency towards having the
consumer placed side by side with the producer ; and with each he can devote more and
more of his time and mind to the business of fashioning the great instrument ; and thus
the increase of consuming population is essential to the progress of production."

These are passages full, as it seems to me, of important truths, from a work in
which, for the first time, the superior advantages of labor apphed to agricuhure,
as compared with commerce, are fully shown, and to which I gratefully acknow-
ledge myself indebted for some of the views I now offer you. In a state of
barba,rism men live apart from each other, and the intervention of the trader
is needed for the performance of every exchange. The labor of transportation
is great, and of the value of the commodity, when it reaches its market, the
chief part consists in the freight and the charges of the trader. In a state
of advanced civilization, men live near each other, and perform their own
exchanges. Transportation is inconsiderable, and the cost of the commo-
dity to the consumer but httle exceeds the price that is paid to the producer.
In the first case, but a small amount of labor can be given to the earth, the
great machine of production, and men remain poor. In the second, nearly the
whole is given to the improvement of that great machine, and men become
rich, acquire command of time and means, and rapidly improve in all the
arts and amenities of civilized life.

We have here the secret of the productiveness of agriculture in China,
Belgium, Normandy, the north of England, the south of Scotland, and in
New England. The great machine is made to yield largely, because the
refuse of its produce goes back upon the land — the consumer and the pro-
ducer having taken their places by the side of each other. The cost of
exchanging has been diminished, and the whole labor is applied to the work
of production. If now Ave look at India, or Ireland, we see the reverse of
this state of things. The consumer and the producer are far from each
other, and the labor applied to the comparatively fruitless work of exchang-
ing exceeds that given to the production, while the manure is wasted on
the way, and therefore it is that they remain poor. Here we may find the
cause of the exhaustion of our southern States. Here, too, we m-Ay find the
reason why Seneca county, unsurpassed in natural fertility, has fallen in the
prodiVct of wheat, from twenty bushels to fifteen; Albany county down to seven
and a half, when, before the Revolution, it was upwards of twenty. Always
taking out of the meal tub, and never putting in, will soon come to the bot-
tom. The earth will yield largely if properly fed. She asks only to have the
refuse restored to lier, and if that be denied, she expels the man who thus
ill-uses her. Hence it is, that Virginia remains almost stationary in popula-

TO OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY.

tion, while other States increase rapidly, and hence it is, that the population
of South Carolina diminishes in amount. In the latter State the proportion
of consumers to producers, of traders, mechanics, and other non-producers
of agricultural products, compared with the agricultural producers them-
selves, is as 14 only to 19S ; whereas, in Massachusetts, where population
is constantly increasing, and growing richer, and rising in value, the case is
reversed, and the consumers who do not follow agriculture, but consume its
fruits, bear to the producers the large proportion of 87 to 125. From Carolina
almost every thing that is taken out of the ground is sent abroad, except so
far as is needed for the people who produce it, and hence it is that exhaus-
tion has been so universal, and that men are compelled to fly from each other.
It is not that planters lack intelligence in their profession. The Union can-
not boast a more accomplished body of landholders.

Few men have labored, I may safely say, more unweariedly for the dis-
semination of information in regard to improved modes of cultivation, and
the employment of manures, than myself, yet I have been somewhat
mortified to see, that with all my labors, and with all my endeavors, in co-
operation with abler minds, to make known the process and the results of
the best English and American experiments, production has steadily
diminished in many parts of the country : in parts too, in which the cha-
racter of the soils yet open for occupation and cultivation appeared to offer
the strongest inducements to exertion. Thus, in this State, with all the
patronage of the State through the State societies, we see the average yield
of wheat scarcely thirteen bushels to the acre, where formerly it was twenty ;
that of Indian corn only twenty-five, and of potatoes but ninety bushels.
In Virginia, notwithstanding all the advice bestowed upon her farmers,
within my personal knowledge, for thirty years, the process of exhaustion
has still gone on, and with it that of depopulation. In the middle and
lower sections of that State, the population, which in 1820 was 746,000,
was, at the last census, after a lapse of twenty years, but 783,000, and yet
that portion of the State abounds in marl, and shell lime, and other rich
resources, the abundance and value of which have been developed by
Ruffin, scientifically and practically, and in the highest spirit of patriotism.

In South Carolina too, to which the same patriot has rendered the same
service — containing millions of acres fitted to produce the finest grasses —
population diminishes, notwithstanding the labors and demonstrations, for
fifty years, of agricultural societies composed of the most eminent man of
the State — distinguished alike for patriotism and science, and feeling a
deep interest in the dissemination of agricultural knowledge. In North
Carolina agricultural philosophy has abounded, yet there, notwithstanding
the zealous and enhghtened labors of Jeffries and his associates, why is it
that agriculture has made so little progress ? It has not been for want
of exhibitions, cattle shows, prizes, papers, essays, &c., for they have
steadily increased. Nay, as our agricultural journals of New York have
increased, abounding as they have with practical instruction, the product
of her soil has diminished. Always full of anxiety for this great interest
of our country, these things, I confess, have puzzled me. They were a
riddle that I could not read.

Q,uite recently, however, the problem has been solved. In the work to
which I have already called your attention it has been shown conclusively,
in opposition to the commonly received opinions on the subject, that the
work of cultivation is invariably commenced on the poor soils, upland and
devoid of timber, that need not the expensive and laborious clearing, and
the deep drainage that the richest lands always do ; and that this is
done because of the necessity of the case, as men commence with small

8 RELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE

force and limited means, with axes that one can swing, felling logs that one
can roll, and canoes that one can paddle, before they proceed with saws
that require the force of two, and ships that demand many to build and
navigate them. The early settler »lmost invariably has small means, and
with them he can cultivate only the poorer soils, encumbered with little or
with a lighter o-rowth, but Avith improvement in his means and increase of his
machinery he is enabled to clear and cultivate the richer soils on which he
would starve if he possessed no other force or machiner}^ than that which
he could at first command. That such has been the commencement and
progress of agriculture in all nations and at all ages, is abundantly shown
by the author ; but I have just now met with new confirmation of it in the
transact-ions of the South Carolina Agricultural society, and am induced to
refer to it, because it is the State that of all others has most exhausted the
poor soils first cultivated, and in which the tendency to fly from the rich
soils most exists. One of the presidents of the society, distinguished for
his wide research, and for zeal as enlightened as it is untiring, Mr. Sea-
brook, in an address delivered in 1843, says, " The land which could most
readily be prepared, was invariably chosen ; the best, requiring a large'
expenditure of labor, neglected." He adds, that " only recently have the
swamps of some of the parishes and the immense tracts which lie along the
line where the salt and fresh water meet, attracted the notice of the cotton
grower." We need not however go to South Carolina for evidence of this
fact. A ride along the railroad from Albany to Buffalo will enable us to
see the richest soils, in vast abundance, uncleared and undrained, while, in
their vicinity, men are seen cuUivating originally poor soils, upon which
they and those who went before them have wasted their labors, during
almost half a century, and from which they are now flying, as from pesti-
lence, to recommence the work of exhaustion still farther west. I have
recently, on another occasion, and very deliberately, expressed the opinion,
that in the State of New York there is as much land needing to be drained,
and which, if drained, would be the best in the State, as Avould cover half
the State of Rhode Island.

The cause of this is, as it seems to me, easily explained : the early settler
is dependent upon distant markets, where alone his customers, the con-
sumers, are to be found, and all his modes of communication are imperfect
and bad. He therefore naturally applies himself to raising those commo-
dities which will bear transportation, being those of which the earth yields
little, and which, therefore, command a higher price in the market to which
he is compelled to look for the performance of his exchanges. An acre of land
yields two hundred pounds of clean cotton, or six hundred pounds of wheat,
and these may bear the expense of transportation, whereas potatoes and
turnips and Indian corn will not. He goes on to exhaust his originally poor
soil, sending oO'all its produce to be manufactured or consumed abroad, and
wasting on the road the manure yielded by the oats, the corn, the hay, and
the fodder raised for his horses and cattle ; and when at last it ceases to
yield a sufficient return, he transfers his labor to other poor lands, similar
to the first, neglecting the rich lands of the swamps and valleys, and he
does so for the reason that he can always obtain for SI 25 per acre, poor
lands that will yield two hundred pounds of cotton, or ten bushels of wheat,
whereas to clear and drain the rich swamp or timbered lands, would cost
him $30 an acre, and they are not worth that price for the raising of articles
of which the earth yields little, and that will therefore bear the expense of
carriage to distant lands. In order that they may be worth the cost of
clearing, he must be enabled to take out of them those commodities of \vhich
tne earth yields largely, and they will not bear carriage to distant markets.

TO OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY.

Acres of rich lands will yield tons of hay and potatoes, but they are
valueless unless consumed on the spot. Give him consumers within strik-
ing distance, and he may have the manure yielded by those tons, and thereby
enrich his originally poor soils, enrich himself, and keep his children around
him. Keep him dependent upon distant markets, and he must exhaust his
land and fly to new lands that he can get cheap, abandoning the rich,
undrained, and uncleared lands in his own neighborhood, and waste his
labor on that which yields only pounds of cotton, wheii he might have tons
of potatoes. The policy which thickens population makes the food come
from rich soils, while depopulation drives men back to the poor ones.

It is the common impression that the men who fly to the West, do so be-
cause they have exhausted the rich soils, and because they can recommence
the work upon other rich soils. Directly the reverse is the fact. It is be-
cause they have no market at hand for the commodities that would pay for
clearing and preparing the rich lands they leave behind. For want of force
and capital they commenced their work on the highest and most open lands,
which, as a general rule, are always the thinnest lands, and they fly to other
lands of the same sort, and therefore is it, that the average yield per acre,
in the West, is so small as we see it is. In Ohio the yield of wheat, in 1817,
was but ten bushels, and is steadily declining, because men are exhausting
the lighter soils, Avhich they found more easy and open to cultivation, and
are unable to clear and drain the richest ones. In the extract from the trans-
actions of the South Carolina Agricultural Society, which I have already given
you, we have seen that it was upon the poor soils of that State that cultiva-
tion was begun. Let us now see what are the soils from which men are
flying. Governor Hammond, a practical agriculturist of the first order, in his
address to the society, says, "that vast inland swamps, well suited for the
culture of rice, yet frown in barren gloom below the ridge, while many of the
up-country bottoms, which are destined at some future day to groan beneath
its harvests, are now only idle wastes, consigned to flags and rushes."
Again, he says, " that in many parts of the State, marl has been found in
great abundance, and at convenient points for water transportation," while
"in other parts limestone exists to an unknown extent." In others again
" salt marsh and oysters abound, while almost everywhere upon the rivers,
creeks, and branches, and in the swamps, are rich alluvial deposits, abun-
dantly fitted to recruit the exhausted cotton lands." Possessed of all these
resources, he thinks it would not be tedious or expensive to reclaim the worn-
out lands, yet each year shows an increase of emigration from these rich and
virgin soils to the poorer lands of Texas and Arkansas, for each settler in
those States occupies lands precisely similar to those which have already been
exhausted in South Carolina, neglecting, and precisely for the same reasons,
rich soils similar to those from which the people of that State are now and
have for many years been flying. Again, he says, " our climate has not
been found too warm for any species of domestic animals. English cattle
and sheep, as well as English horses, flourish even on our sea-board ; and our
mild winters enable us to keep all kinds of stock at comparatively little ex-
pense, for either food or shelter. Our swamps are covered with natural and
nutritious evergreens, and most artificial grasses have been found to succeed.
Carrots, beets, and turnips do well. Pindars and sweet-potatoes, more valuable
perhaps for stock than these, are peculiarly our products. With these two
articles, the luxuriant cow pea and the common grains, we can, for nine months
in the year, furnish, at a cheap rate, the richest and most abundant pasturage ;
and what country can do more ?" I answer, none. There are materials-
for clothing in abundance, and materials for food in abundance, Avhile in the
words of the same sagacious and profound observer, " an all-bountiful Pro-

VoL. I.— 3

10 RELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE

vidence has blessed this favored region with mineral wealth of incalculable
value," and given it water-power, " that may safely challenge comparison
with any part of the world." The State has, in fact, every thing to make it
rich and prosperous, except one, and that is population. By the last census,
with all these natural advantages of soil, climate, mineral resources, and water-
power, there were less than 20 to the square mile, and yet men are de-
serting the State, and flying in all directions, south, and south-west, while cold,
stony, and gravelly Massachusetts supports over 100 to the square mile.
In the last ten years prior to 1840, the increase, in South Carolina, so highly
favored by Providence, has been but 2.3 per cent.; that of Massachusetts has
been at the rate of 20.8.

South Carolina has every thing to make her one of the wealthiest States
in the Union, except the presence of a consuming- population, and until she
shall get that, the work of exhaustion and abandonment must go on. She
cannot afford to clear rich lands to raise cotton, because the cost of trans-
porting a bale from Mississippi or Texas produced upon land that cost $1.25
per acre, is trivial compared with the cost of clearing one of her rich acres,
that would give, when cleared, but 400 or 500 pounds. In order that such
lands may be cleared, she must make a market at home for hay and turnips
and potatoes, and Indian-corn, and cabbages, and milk, and veal and butter, and
until she shall do that, all the philosophy of agriculture will not avail her to
bring her richest lands into play, and to increase her population. Dispersion
instead of concentration will continue to be the order of the daj'. Throughout
the world, the condition of ag-riculture is good or bad in the ratio of consu-
mers to producers. In China, Tuscany, Belgium, Normandy, Lancashire,
the south of Scotland, and New England, consumers abound, and agricul-
ture and horticulture improve rapidly. Yet the science and principles of
agriculture are at least as well understood in Virginia and South Carolina
as in Massachussetts and Connecticut. In India, Sicily, Spain, the north
of Scotland, Canada, Virginia and South Carolina, consumers are few.
Labor and manure and time are wasted on the road, and the land under cul-
tivation is everywhere exhausted. In the first, population increases rapidly,
and the supply of food increases more rapidly than population, because of
the constant improvement in the powers of the great machine of production ;
whereas in the latter, population is stationary, even where it does not dimi-
nish, because of the constant deterioration of the machine. The great secret
of improvement is to be found in the habit of combined action. Two men
can carry logs that a thousand men, each acting separately, could not lift from
their places. Every man knows and feels this, and therefore it is that with
the progress of civilization there is a steady increase in the natural tendency
to combination of action, for the making of roads, the building of houses,
mills, factories, ships, &c. Nevertheless we see, throughout this country,
men running away from each other as from pestilence, and seeking Texas,
Iowa, Oregon and California, as if the great object of life was that of placing
between themselves and their neighbors as much space as possible. The
great pioneer of the West, Daniel Boon, complained that he could not breathe
freely when a squatter came within a hundred miles of him, and a somewhat
simikf feeling seems to exist among our countrymen generally. From north
to south, there seems to be a universal disposition to abandon old farms, old
homesteads, old churches, old friends, old comforts, and old associations of every
kind, to seek in the West new farms, upon which to build new houses, upon
poor soils, among woods that they cannot fell, and swamps they have not
the means to 'ditch or drain.

The existence of this tendency to depopulation in the old States has long
appeared to me to be most wonderful, but it is now explained. The richest

TO OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. 11

soils cannot be cultivated until the consumer takes his place by the side of
the producer, and when he does not do so, the poorer, lighter, and less en-
cumbered soils, which are first cultivated, are speedily exhausted, and men
are forced to fly to other poor ones.

The impression that the emigrant flies to rich soils is seen in every page
of the transactions to which I have referred. It is there universally as-
sumed that the decline and probable ultimate abandonment of the cotton
cultivation of South Carolina, is to be attributed to the superiority of the
soils of the Gulf States : yet if we trace the emigrant to Texas, we find
him placing himself on the thin soils towards the heads of the streams,
and not on the low rich lands near the mouth, — and they do this, not
from choice, but from necessity, as their predecessors did in South Carolina
and Virginia. The virgin soils of these States are the rich ones — those
which have been exhausted were the poor ones. So is it in New York,
which abounds in forests and rich low grounds, covering rich lands that will
never be worth clearing until a market for their products can be found upon
or very near the land itself.

It is this perpetual exhaustion of the land that prevents improvement in
agriculture. It is in vain that we attempt to teach the advantage of manures
while all the manure yielded by oats and hay, and fodder, is wasted on the
road to distant markets — in carrying away the cotton to be spun and the
wheat to be eaten in Lowell or Manchester. It is in vain that we lecture
on the qualities and value of artificial manures while men find themselves
compelled to fly from the rich soils of swamps and river bottoms, in which
manure has for ages accumulated. It is in vain that we talk of drainage of
rich alluvial soils, while men find it cheaper to fly from home to seek sub-
sistence from the cultivation of poor soils, because of the want of inducement
to clear and drain rich ones, there being no markets at hand to dispose of
their heavy products. It is in vain to hope for improvement until the con-
sumer of produce shall enable the farmer^to return to the great machine of
production the refuse of its products, and thus augment, instead of every
year exhausting, its powers of production, as now he does. If we desire
prosperous agriculture, we must place ourselves in the same condition v/ith
other communities in which agriculture is prosperous ; and if Ave look to
Normandy, or Belgium, or Lancashire, or Massachusetts, we shall see that
they have all of them provided a market on the land for the products of the
land. In the towns of Massachusetts, we are told that thirty-two tons of
carrots, and other root crops in proportion, are not uncommon. Compare for
a moment the manure yielded by such a crop, with that of fourteen bushels
of wheat.

In the natural course of things, the consumer takes his place by the side of
the producer, because it is much easier for the shoemaker and his lapstone
to come to the hides and the food, than for the hides and the food to go to the
shoemaker and the lapstone. The natural instinct of man tends to combina-
tion of action, yet here we see men who should be tanners and shoemakers,
tailors and hatters, spinners and weavers, consumers of food, flying to the
West, to become producers of more food, and leaving behind them thousands
of acres of rich soil still in a state of nature — that they may recommence the
Avork of cultivation on the thin dry soils of the hills, where the least clearing
is to be done, at a distance from tanners, and shoemakers, tailors, hatters,
spinners and weavers, and then wasting on the road the manure yielded
by those poor soils, besides expending a great part of the value of the pro-
duct itself, before they can reach those who are to manufacture and consume
them. To produce effects so unnatural, some powerful cause of disturbance,
must exist. It does exis^, and to the book to which I have already called

12 DELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE

your attention, and which should be in the hands of eA'^ery farmer, I for one
am indebted for the demonstration of its existence and its mode of operation.
I have already shown that aq-riculture is the last of all the pursuits of man
to attain development, and that in a state of barbarism the order and esti-
mation of his various pursuits is that of war, commerce, manufactures, and,
last of all, agriculture. Such has been the course of things in England, but
her insular position secured to her internal peace, the consequence of which
has been that war has been less than with any other nation in Europe, the
occupation of the people. Wealth grew, therefore, with greater rapidity
than elsewhere, and mind and wealth were turned to the second of the pur-
suits of man, commerce. It could not well do otherwise, for land Avas
hedged around by restrictions, in the form of rights of primogeniture, entails,
and tithes, that effectually prevented improvement, while the work of
cultivation was held in disesteem, being regarded as the proper pursuit cf
the serf. The thirst for commerce gave rise to navigation laws, and the
colonial system. With increase of wealth manufactures grew, and machinery
was invented, more and more perfect, and, to promote the interests of com-
merce, laws were passed forbidding the export of machinery, or the emigra-
tion of artisans, while colonists were prohibited from making even horse-
shoes, or from exchanging even among each other, except through the in-
tervention of English ships, English ports, English merchants, and English
machinery. The object of the whole system Avas to compel the world to do
that which they otherwise would not naturally or willingly do, in carrying
the hides and the food, year after year, to the shoemaker and his lapstone,
instead of at once transferring the lapstone to the food and the hides, and
thus for ever terminating the necessity for wasting on the road the manurfe,
the time, and the labor that might otherwise be bestowed on the land.
England desired to tax the world for the maintenance of her system. Such
was the policy of England, ft was injurious to herself, for it tended to divert
labor from productive employment to one that was comparatively unpro-
ductive— from the work of fashioning and improving the great machine of
production, where each step was but preparatory to a new and greater one,
to that of fashioning the products of other lands, in competition with the
laborer of other lands, when all that could be gained was simply wages.
In the work of preparing this great machine, says Mr. Carey :

" Each step is but preparatory to a new one more productive than the last : requiring
less labor and yielding larger return. The labor of clearing is great, yet the return is
small. The earth is covered with stumps, and filled with roots. With each year the
roots decay, and the ground becomes enriched, .M'hile the Jabor of plowing is diminished.
At length the stumps disappear, and the return is doubled, while the labor is less by one-
half than at first. To forward this process the owner has done nothing but crop the
ground : nature having done the rest. The aid he thus obtains from her yields him as
much food as in the outset was obtained by the labor of felling and destroying the trees.
This, however, is not all. The surplus thus yielded has given him means for improving
the poorer lands, by fiirnishing manure with which to enrich them; and thus he has
trebled his original return without further labor : for that which he saves in Avorking the
new soils suffices to cany the manure to the old ones. He is obtaining a daily increase d.
power over the various treasures of the earth.''

The policy of England produced results for which it was difficult to
account, and gave rise to the theories of Malthus and Ricardo, both going
to show that the earth is a machine of constantly diminishing powers
as regards food, and that population becomes necessarily redimdant. Both
assumed that man always commenced the work of cultivation on the rich
soils, and that, as population increased, he was forced to have recourse to
those of diminished power to remunerate labor; whereas Mr. Carey has
shown, and shown conclusively, that he always oommences on the poorer

TO OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. 13

soils, and that he cannot cultivate rich ones until the increased population
provides a market on or near the land, for the products of the land.

As a natural consequence of the system, we find in all the English books
a strono- tendency to the elevation of commerce and manufactures, at the
expense of agriculture. Thus Mr. McCuUoch says :

" There are no limits to the bounty of nature in manufactures ; but there are limits, and
those not very remote, to her bounty in agriculture. The greatest possible amount of
capital might be expended in the construction of steam-engines, or of any other sort of
machinery ; and after they had been multiplied indefinitely, the last would be as power-
ful and efficient in producing commodities and saving labor as the first. Such, however,
is not the case with the soil. Lands of the first quality are sjoeedily exhausted ; and it is
impossible to apply capital indefinitely even to the best soils, without obtaining from it a
constantly diminishing rate of j^rofit." j

There is no hmit to the number of grist-mills that may be built, and each
successive one will be more perfect than that which preceded it ; but of
what avail will it be unless the grain be first produced ? If no such thing
existed, the grain might still be converted into flour ; but if no grain be pro-
duced, the mill is useless. The only benefit derived from the existence of
the mill is, that it diminishes the quantity of time required for conversion,
and increases that which may be appropriated to production. So it is with
steam-engines, carts, wagons, ships and steamboats, and spinning-jennies
and looms. They are all valuable to the prfecise extent that they, by dimi-
nishing the labor necessary for the work of conversion and exchange, leave
a greater quantity of labor to be bestowed on the work of producing commo-
dities to be converted or exchanged. The great machine is that which pro-
duces the grain and the cotton. The secondary machines are these which
convert them. A grist-mill which costs $10,000, will grind all the grain

.produced upon farms that have cost many hundred thousands to produce
them in the form in which they exist. A factory that cost S100,000, will
work up all the cotton produced for export in a country that has cost labor
to the extent of millions, applied to the work of clearins:, ditching, draining,

. grubbing, enclosing, and that of building dwelhngs, and barns, and stables,
and gin-houses, and to the making of roads and other improvements. The
earth is the sole producer. It is the great machine, and all other machines
are valuable to the extent that they increase the time that may be applied to
bringing into s^reater activity and augmenting its powers of production, and
no further. Nevertheless, throughout the whole system of England, com-
merce and manufactures are seen to stand in the first rank, and agriculture in
the last, and the boast of that country has been the vast proportion of her popu-
lation that has been employed in the work of conversion and exchange, and
the small proportion in that of production. Her motto has been " ships, colo-
nies, and commerce," and hence it has been that agriculture has been, until
quite recently, in a state so deplorably backward. But half a century since,
England was described by a writer of the highest authority, as containing
more waste land, in proportion to its extent, than any country in Europe,
Russia not excepted ; and yet it was at that very period that Malthus was
engaged in preparing his book that was to prove the universal tendency of
population to increase beyond the power of the earth to afford food. She
has forced capital and labor into the unprofitable work of transporting and
converting the produce of other lands, while neglecting to improve the
power of producing at home ; and hence it has been that while perpetually
engaged in war for the acquisition of colonies that were to be compelled to
purchase the produce of her looms, so large a portion of her own people
went in rags. Her whole eflx)rt has been that of compelling the world to
use her machinery, when they Avould have preferred to use machinery of

B

14 RELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE

their own : and to this it is due that the profits of capital have been so small,
that wages have been so low, and that the laborer has experienced so much
difficulty in obtaining food.

There is no country in the world in which any given amount of labor is
rewarded by the production of so much food ; and yet, the agricultural
laborer works a whole week for nine shillings, and jeceives in pay wheat
at six or seven shillings a bushel. This is commonly attributed to the diffi-
culty of increasing the supplies of food ; but such is not the case. The
ability of England to improve her powers of production is now greater than
at any former period. Her increase in the average product of wheat per
acre, in the last quarter of a century, is equal to the whole average pro-
duct of the United States per acre. In every direction w^e see the ex-
penditure of five dollars, ten dollars, fifteen dollars, and even twenty
dollars per acre, in drainage and manure, attended with doubling, trebling,
and even quadrupling the product; until forty and fifty bushels are by no
means uncommon, and even eighty bushels have been reaped from an acre.
The labor that was expended to clear and clean the land, and to bring it
up to tAventy bushels, w^as fifty times greater than is required to increase
the product from that to fifty. The labor expended in this country by the
emigrant to the West, in the cost and time of emigration, and in clearing
and enclosing his land to obtain even a dozen bushels to the acre, the ave-
rage of Ohio last year, is far greater than in England is demanded to raise
the product from twenty to fifty bushels. England has yet to bring into
cultivation her richest soils — those which are to be produced by the proper
combination of the various elements given to man for the making of soils.
It is but recently that she has, to any considerable extent, combined the lime
with the clay, the marl with the sand. Other combinations are to be made,
and will be made, now that agriculture is deemed a science worthy the atten-
tion of gentlemen and of men who cultivate science.

It is to this course of operation that have been due the endless wars in
Avhich she was engaged. She wanted colonies for which she could make
laws, and that she could compel to purchase her manufactures, giving her
in exchange raw products of the earth, most of which she could have pro-
duced at home with half the labor that was required to obtain them in the
way in which they were obtained. She neglected her own agriculture, and
compelled others to cultivate poor soils, and then fly to other poor ones,
because of the impossibility of concentrating themselves for the cultivation
of rich ones ; for until the producer and the consumer come together, to
create a market for the bulky and perishable commodities to which the rich,
lands are best adapted, and which would pay for bringing them into cultiva-
tion, they must remain uncultivated. To this policy on the part of England
are due the exhaustion and poverty of Ireland ; the depopulation and poverty
of India ; the condition of her West India colonies ; the stagnation of
Canada ; the exhaustion and abandonment of Virginia and South Carohna.
It is her policy which forces the producer to rely on far distant, precarious
markets, and will not allow the consumer to come to the food.

It is to this course of English policy that the existence of protective tariffs
is due. The farmers everywhere Avanted markets on their ground, that all
his time and labor now expended in the work of exchange might be saved,
to give greater capacity and activity to his capital in the land ; but he could
not have his market near him while this great error in the English system
continued to exist. He desired to save the time, and labor, and manure that
were being daily Avasted ; and therefore AA^as it that he desired to shut out
the produce of the looms of England. These attempts at protective tariffs
have been but so many instinctive efforts at self-protection — instinctive efforts

TO OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. 15

to obtain the power to do that which would naturally be done all over the
world, but for the existence of great disturbing causes, felt to exist but not
understood ; turning labor from its natural and productive, into unnatural and
unproductive channels, and dispersing population and retarding its growth
and improvement, instead of allowing it to concentrate and realize the blessed
fruits of combination and civilization. These disturbing causes, hitherto
concealed, or seen as through a glass but dimly, are now for the first time
clearly explained, and Mr. Carey, himself an advocate of free trade, says,
that though he has alwaj's deemed such interferences erroneous, he must
now admit the error to have been with himself.

A southern man myself, never given to tariff doctrines, I confess to
have been convinced by his reasoning, and, thank Heaven, have not now to
learn the difference between dogged obstinacy and consistency. Ye gods,
give us but light, should be the motto of every inquirer after truth, but for
far different and better purposes than that which prompted the exclamation.
The work of Mr. Carey has enabled me to vmderstand why it is that men are
seen flying from their fellow-men and from the swamps and forests of New
York, the marl-beds of Virginia, the marl and the lime of South Carolina, to
make new homes in the woods, at a distance from towns, and cities, and steam-
boats, and railroads, and factories, and all those improvements that tend to give
value to labor, and by condensation to promote all the arts and enjoyments
of the highest civilization. It has enabled me to see, as I now think, why
agriculture makes so little progress — why the produce of wheat in New
York falls from twenty to less than fourteen — why the average of corn is
not more than twenty-five bushels, and of potatoes not over ninety, when
they should be four hundred — why even in Ohio the average product of
wheat is not twelve bushels to the acre. Thirty years of my life have been
passed, I may safely say, in anxious and almost daily contemplation of the
condition and prospects of American agriculture, and in studying the means
best adapted for its advancement. During all this time, the impression has
been, that almost every thing depended on a little knowledge of its processes,
and on the possession of the most improved animals and implements. The
scales have fallen from my eyes, and I have been led to see, as I believe
correctly, that the depressing influence which has been evidently weighing
on the agriculture of the old States, narrowing the sphere of cultivation, and
driving off their population and diminishing the value of their lands, not-
withstanding the excellence of their climate and the abundance and richness
of their natural resources, has consisted in the policy of governments, which
compels men to scatter instead of concentrating. The former, in the nature
of things, must be attended with loss of power over the resources which
nature places within our reach, and by deterioration of faculties which
need to be sharpened and improved by social attrition and social institu-
tions. Population, and the remunerating markets which population affijrds,
makes the food come from the rich lands, and depopulation drives men
back to the poor ones, and arrests the progress of agricultural improve-
ment. In this single sentence we have the truth and the whole truth,
and it is one that should be committed to memory, and repeated daily
and hourly by every man who has at heart the improvement of agricul-
ture and the promotion of the interests of the country at large. It is the
great law of agricultural economy, and for one, while resting under my pre-
sent convictions of its truth and its importance, I shall dedicate the residue
of my life to its propagation and its enforcement, feeble as is my infiuence
in comparison with the magnitude of the duty that prompts to exert it.
Until we can arrest the progress of depopulation in the old States, we can
dj nothing. Until then it will be of little use to discourse about manures

16 RELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE

to form societies, and to offer premiums for fat hogs and heavy crops — no
fatter nor larger after all than were produced fifty years ago. Correct our
legislation, and so modify it as to make it the interest of the manufacturer
and the consumer to come with their capital and their machinery as near
as possible to the theatre of production, and thus diminish the cost of the
work of exchange, and men will bring into activity the vast bodies of manure
with which our swamps and river bottoms are filled — and those swamps and
lagoons, sources of malaria and pestilence, will become sources of healthful
abundance, and each little neighborhood will be an agricultural society of
itself, abounding in all the means of self improvement. Accomphsh that, and
the natural demands for all the products of the field and the garden will
hold out to the farmer and the gardener natural and ample rewards for con-
stant exertion and improvement, far exceeding the hot-bed influence, and
spasmodic efforts that arise from all the paltry premiums we can offer to the
vanit}'^ or cupidity of individuals here and there : efforts that more nearly
resemble the tricks and stratagems of the gambler, than the well-grounded
results of causes of universal prevalence, and that are deeply rooted in a
wise national policy. In literature, the true Meecenas is the reading public,
and this is true in all the pursuits of life. Let the farmer have the con-
sumer near him, where the consumer, if let alone, would naturally sit down
for his own benefit. Then will the farmer be enabled to clear and drain
and cultivate the rich soils, and to enrich, with the manure yielded by them,
the poor soils he now cultivates, and he will himself grow rich. He will
then have schools at hand and means to educate his children. He will him-
self have leisure to study agriculture as a science, and then will agriculture
improve. Until that time shall come, little of any thing like general an4
radical improvement can be hoped for.

The question now arises, how are these consumers and producers to be
brought together? How is concentration to be made to take the place of dis-
persion? How are men to be enabled to clear, and ditch, and drain, and bring
into cultivation their richest soils, instead of flying to waste their lives and labor
on poor and distant ones ? The answer is to be found in these brief words,
"an efficient tarifl^ of protection:" a tariff adopted by the whole nation for
the express purpose of facilitating the transfer of the machines of Europe, and
the mechanics of Europe, to our shores — that they may here eat the food on
the ground on which it is produced, while converting into clothing the cotton
and the wool, and thus enabling the farmer to save the cost of transportation,
and to return to the great producer, the earth, the refuse of her products.

But, it will be asked, can we not manuflicture as cheaply as other nations?
We can. With the machinery now in use, and with the skill and industry
of our people, superior as they are to those of Europe, we can obtain in
return for a given quantity of labor larger quantities of cloth than are
obtained in England, and far larger than in any country of continental
Europe, and in a natural state of things no protection would be necessary.
The state of things against which protection is needed is that unnatural one
Avhich now exists in England. Peace at home has given her wealth, but
that wealth has been driven from the land by the laws of primogeniture
entails, tithes, settlements, and an infinity of contrivances of the most inju-
rious kind. Large estates are constantly in the hands of trustees, and
managed by solicitors. Driven from the superior employment of agriculture,
Avcalth sought the inferior ones of commerce and manufactures, and to find
an outlet for ships and cloths, it became necessary to have colonies, and wars
were made for colonies, which were valued only as they could be made to
subserve the purposes of the owners of British ships, and British looms. For
a century past has India been the scene of warfare, the only object of which

TO OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. 17

was to compel the poor Hindoos to buy cloth, and sell cotton that they would
naturally have preferred to convert, and might more profitably have converted,
into cloth on the spot where it was produced. Each successive province
added to that great empire has been exhausted, and the process of exhaustion
still goes on. But recently China has been the scene of murderous war,
ostensibly for reparation for opium that had been destroyed, but really to
compel the Chinese to open their ports to British manufactures, which they
would naturally have done, had their interests made it desirable so to do.

That the system is unnatural, we need no better evidence than may be
found in the fact that wars, and fleets, and armies are necessary for its
maintenance. Were it one that tended most to the advantage of mankind,
it would prosper most with peace, and peace would bring cheap government.
Were it natural, it would benefit man, and it would take root and spread natu-
rally. It is unnatural and unjust, as is abundantly proved by the presence of
fleets and armies and guns and gunpowder, the emblems and instruments
of violence and injustice all the world over. The system tends to compel
the world to waste in the work of transportation the labor that should be
apphed to that of production, and therefore does it require to be forced, by
aid of a colonial system, under which subjects are compelled to make theii:
exchanges in the ports of Great Britain, and to consume, all over the world,
the produce of British looms : and therefore does it require the vast machinery
of war, supported by enormous taxes, that absorb one-sixth of the whole
product of British labor and machinery.

If we desire other evidence that the system is unnatural, it may be
found in the fact that it tends to compel the product of the great and perma-
nent machine, for whose preparation centuries of labor are required, to {(^U
low the inferior machinery produced with small labor, and capable of being
readily transported. It is a simple thing to bring the machinery of the grist-
mill to the place where the grain is grown, and once done, it is done fpr
ever. Not less simple is it to bring the shoemaker and the lapstone to the
hides and the food — the spinning-jenny and the loom to the cotton — the machi-
nery of the woollen factory to the place where the wool is grown, and once
done, the work is finished, and the labor of transportation is ended. One
grist-mill, costing $6000, that can be provided in a iew months, will grind
all the grain produced on many thousands of acres that have cost, perhaps,
fifty times the amount of labor, expended during a series of years. So it is
with the cotton-mill. It is the inferior machine, and the inexpensive one,
when compared with the great cotton producing one. In the natural course
of things, the inferior, hghter,and more portable machines go to superior ones ;
as the threshing-machine goes to the barn, and the "prize goes to the tobacco.
But England desired, and still desires, to compel the products of the supe-
rior one to go to the inferior. As well, comparatively speaking, might we
be compelled to carry our wheat there to be threshed, and our tobacco to be
prized. The land cannot, at any cost, go to the loom. The loom can, at
small cost, come to the land. Being unnatural, the system is subject to
perpetual change. At one time, prices are high, and soon again they are
low. Thus we have seen, during the last quarter of a century, four terrible
revulsions, by the last of which, every part of the British empire is at this
moment agitated. Their effects may be seen most fully if examined in her
colonies, which have been compelled to abide the changes of British policy,
totally unprotected. Ireland has been ruined. Her manufactories have
been prostrated, and her people are now perishing of famine and pestilence,
because the consumer of food has been driven from the side of the pro-
ducer of food and wool, by the perpetual variations of the British system.
India is in a state of ruin. Even at this moment we see the effects of vhe

Vol. I.— 3 b 3

18 RELATIONS OF AGRICULTURE

revulsion of 1847, in the downfall of dozens of great houses in Calcutta and
Bombay. The West Indies are ruined. Canada is stagnant. Every-
where it is the same. The colonies are the mere playthings of British
statesmen, and the attempt to establish manufactures, under such circum-
stances, would be followed by nothing but ruin. Throughout all the British
possessions, land is, therefore, valueless, and agriculture makes no progress.
To these variations it is due that tariffs of protection against British in-
terference are universal, wherever the power of self-protection exists.
England now desires free trade, but other nations cling more closely to their
tariffs, feeling that union at home is preferable to union toith foreign nations
and disunion at home. We have disunion — our people are forced to fly to
the west to cuhivate poor soils, when, if they could unite with their fellow-
men, they could eat the produce of the richer ones. Union cannot take place
until the consumer can take his place by the side of the producer, and
until he can do that, agriculture cannot flourish as it should do. Is not
then the establishment of a system of self-protection, on broad national
grounds, as a national, not as a party policy, worthy of the united efforts
of agricultural societies, made up of men who ought to be supposed to
understand best the interests of agriculture ? Yet, what of this do we
see or hear emanating from our State societies and from institutes, called
American ? Could such a system, rooted in the minds and hearts of
the people, once have been established, we should have seen agriculture
far in advance of the point at which it now stands, instead of retrograding
even in such States as New York and Ohio ; because the consumer would
have been, for years, in the pursuit of his best interest, distributing prizes
that would have been for the farmer the best stimulus for exertion in all
the branches of his operations, and not like the silver cup, which rewards
the fitful exertion of a few individuals nearest at hand, or most able to indulge
in wasteful outlay. With such a broad, well-rooted, national policy — rooted
in the convictions of the people — the farmer of the old States, whose chil-
dren are running away, and whose estates are going to ruin, would have
grown rich. He would have improved at once his land and his mind. If
we desire to see the effects of dependence on foreign legislation, we have
only to look around us at the moment. Last year iron was in demand in
England, because that country was largely engaged in making railroads.
It was high here, and various furnaces and rolling-mills were erected, and
thrice as many would have been, had there existed any confidence in the
permanence of the existing state of things. Now, without any change ivhat-
ever atnong ourselves, these furnaces and mills have become unprofitable.
Various persons connected with them have been ruined, and man}^ of them
will be closed. Next year iron may be high again, while in another year it
may be low. All the print works of the Union will be ruined, if not ruined
already. So thus does England go on, year after j^ear, and revulsion after
revulsion, destroying all around, because she is engaged in the eflx)rt to esta-
blish and maintain a system that is unnatural and unsound, and, therefore,
unsteady. If we look at the past times in this country, we shall see the
effect of British revulsions in the fact that almost every cotton or woollen
mill — almost every furnace or rolling-mill — almost every canal or railroad —
more than seven years old, that is to say, established prior to the last revulsion,
has ruined those concerned in producing it. I believe it would be safe to
say that nine-tenths of all of them have changed owners, under the pressure
of changes produced in England. In almost every case where men have
manifested enterprise, they have been ruined ; and ruined not because of
changes here, against which they could guard themselves, but changes
. broad, against which they could not guard. It is to guard against these

TO OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. 19

changes that protection is needed. In a natural state of trade they would
never occur. Cotton and woollen cloths, and iron, can be produced as
cheaply here as in England, but to prepare the machinery for the produc-
tion requires time and capital, and few are willing to incur the risk of find-
ing themselves ruined by changes such as those which marked the year gone
by. Every man wants something like certainty. Having that, he is con-
tent with small profits. Can there be any certainty under the existing sys-
tem ? There can be none.

Hence it is that we have had protective tariffs, notwithstanding the uni-
versal tendency throughout the whole country towards perfect freedom of
action, and to the existence of those tariffs it is due that to so great an extent
we have already seen the consumer take his place by the side of the pro-
ducer. Had they not existed, hundreds of thousands of acres of rich lands
that are now in cultivation, would still remain in a state of nature, and the
men who cultivate them, in Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, and New
Hampshire, and Vermont, would be now in Iowa, or Alabama, orOregon, or
Texas, working on the light, open, poor soils, upon which the poor settler
must always commence his labors. That the effect of concentration has
not been fully produced, has been due to the fact that the question of pro-
tection has, unfortunately, always been a party one, and not a national one.
Had the tariff of 1828 been adopted as the settled policy of the whole nation,
and continued to the present time, we should even now be the great manu-
facturers of the world, and tariffs would be no longer wanted. We should
be now the most zealous advocates of free trade, and the reason why we
should be is, that that tariff, made the fixed and determined policy of the
nation, would have caused the transfer to South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama,
Tennessee, and other States, in which cotton and food are cheap, of much
of the machinery of Manchester to which those States still send their cot-
ton to be twisted, and their food to feed the men who twist it — thus send-
ing the hides and the food to the lapstone and the awl, instead of forcing the
shoemaker to come with his lighter machinery to the cotton and the food.

It may be asked, if manufactures have brought with them the poverty of
England, why should not such be the case on this side of the Atlantic ? The
answer is simple. The man who takes his place by the side of the pro-
ducer of food and wool, aids the production of both by diminishing the quan-
titj' of labor and manure that has heretofore been wasted in the process of
exchanging, and thus enables the farmer to apply more of both to the im-
provement of his land, and to that extent the manufacturer is useful, but no
further. The less labor given to exchange, the more may be given to pro-
duction. England has driven labor from the work of production to that of
exchange, and her people have been compelled to neglect the improvement
of her soils to engage in competing with the poor manufacturers of Germany,
and India, and China, for their own markets, with the disadvantage of being
at a distance from the place at which was produced the food they were to
eat, and the cotton or wool they were to convert. The Englishman must
under-work the Hindoo, or he could not pay freight and then supplant the
Hindoo in his own market. In the endeavor to accomplish this, little chil-
dren have been forced to perform labors sufficient to exhaust the strength of
persons of double their age. Grown people have been forced to work
twelve or fourteen hours instead of ten, and flour has been made to fill the
crevices of cloths, in the "kianufacture of which but little cotton has been
used. England was determined, against nature, to be the workshop of the
world, and hence it has been that labor has been overtasked and under-paid,
and hence it is that her people are poor. She was determined to be the work-
shop of the world, and hence have arisen the frauds that distinguish . her

20 RELATIONS OF AGRICULTFRE

manufactures. The great object is to make her cloths look well, even it
they drop to pieces at the first Avashing; and her guns look well even if
they burst to pieces on the first fire. Such are the natural results of an
unnatural system. She has been determined to tax the world for the mainte-
nance of that system. Towards this country, that has been her policy from
the time of its first discovery to the present hour; and flatter ourselves as
we may with the idea of our independence of England, the independence is
in name, not in reality. Along with political and nominal independence, we
remain in colonial and real vassalage to the policy of England. In the
best, most careful, and exact account of the soil, climate, production, and
agriculture of the British Colonies before our Revolution, I lately noted
the following passage ; the policy it recommends has never been lost
sight of. The author is here treating of the soil, chmate, and productions
of the then colony of Georgia. " Wool," says he, " we take in large
quantities of Spain, because it is of a kind we cannot produce in England ;
cur colonies on the continent of North America, south of New York, pro-
duce wool entirel)' similar to the Spanish ; no staple they would produce
would, therefore, be more advantageous to Great Britain. It is well known
that a piece of fine broad-cloth cannot be made Avithout Spanish wool ; it is also
known that the Spaniards have of late years made great eflbrts to work up
their own wool; if they should succeed, or if they should by any other
means prevent the export of it, our woollen fabrics, though they might not
be stopped, would at least be burdened with a fresh expense and new
trouble, all which would be prevented by encouraging the import of wool
from America ; and at the same time that this good efl^ect was wrought,
another would be brought about in cramping the manufactures of the
colonies." In this respect England still treats us as colonies, and stiil
cramps our manufactures. The author makes similar observations as to the
policy of encouraging the growth of cotton in Georgia and other states, with
views always subservient to the interests of England, who, in ceasing to be
the mother country, has not ceased to be the step-mother. Her edict has
gone forth that " all the world shall be taxed." How far she has succeeded
is shown in the following passages from the work of Mr. Carey, to which I
have already referred, and with which cultivators and manufacturers can-
not be too familiar.

"The poor Irishman is, by the system, denied the use of machinery, and he obtains one
yard of cloth for the same quantity of grain or pork that would give him two, three, or
four, if he could place the consumer by the producer. He too cultivates poor lands, and
then he travels to England and spends half a dozen weeks in obtaining a fortnight's
wages. What is the extent of the indirect taxation here it would be dilTicult to calculate,
but it is quite sufficient to account for all the misery of Ireland.

" The planter in Tennessee sells his cotton for five cents per pound. By the time it
reaches Manchester, it costs eight. He buys it back again, obtaining one yard of cloth
for two pounds of cotton, whereas, if he had the consumer of food in his neighborhood,
he woukl obtain half the cloth yielded by his cotton, and would have three yards in place
of one. He would then clear and cultivate rich soils, and would obtain a bale to the
acre instead of half a bale, and would sell his timber instead of wasting it as now he
does.

" The farmer of Ohio sells his wheat, grown on land that yields ten bushels to the acre,
at seventy cents. By the time it reaches Manchester it is worth a dollar and a half, at
which i)rice, widi the addition of numerous charges, the farmer buys it back : the result
of which is, that he obtains for the produce of an acre of wheat ninety yards of cloth,
the produce of about thirty pounds of cotton, for which* the producer in Tennessee has
received a dollar and fifty cents, and which could be converted into cloth for as much
more. He cultivates poor soils, whereas, if he had the consimier by his side, he might
clear and cultivate rich ones that would yield forty bushels to the acre, and he too could
sell his timber.

"What is the extent of indirect taxation upon the people of the United States by means

TO OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. 21

of the system may perhaps be estimated if we take into consideration the following
facts : —

"I. The labor annually expended in the construction of carts, and wagons, and ships,
that would be unnecessary if the consumer and producer could be permitted to take their
place by the side of each other, would produce as many mills and furnaces as would
convert into cloth half the cotton and wool produced, and smelt the ore for making all the
iron used in the Union. To the carts, and wagons, and ships, may be added tlie labor of
horses and mules employed in the same wasteful work.

" n. The time lost by the persons employed in the work of unnecessary transportation
and exchange; by those who are idle in whole or in part for want of a regular demand
for labor ; and by those who are on the road seeking for new places of residence ; is
more than would be required for the work of converting all the wool into cloth, and all
the ore into iron.

" ni. The labor that is now given to the work of cultivating poor soils yielding ten
bushels to the acre, instead of rich ones that are capable of aflbrding tons of food by aid
of which poor soils might be enriched, would yield double the return could the consumer
take his place by the sitle of the producer, and thus save the manure that is now wasted.

"IV. The labor that is now wasted in making and repairing roads through new states
and territories, and among scattereil settlements in both old and new states, if applied to
the improvement of old roads would diminish annually, and largely, the cost of transporta-
tion of those portions of the products of the earth requiring to be exclianged.

"It may safely be asserted that the labor of man as now applied is, on an average, but
half as productive as it would be were it possible for the consuuier and the producer to
be near neighbors to each other, and if so, it follows that the indirect taxation by aid of
the colonial system is equal to the whole of the present product of the Union, which we
have estimated at two thousand millions of dollars. If we wish evidence of the extent
to which taxation is pushed by aid of this system, we need only to look to all the colonies
of England throughout the world, Ireland, India, the West Indies, Canada, Nova Scotia,
and South Africa, and we shall find exhaustion and depopulation universal, as it must
continue to be wherever the power of self-protection has no existence."

The first object of man is the procurement of food, and of the raw
material of clothing. The second is the conversion of both into clothing.
The last requires more combination of action than the first, because it is
secondary to the first. In all new countries food is abundant and the demand
for labor is irregular, and much of both is wasted. Food and labor build
mills and factories, but in such countries, no one person can command enough,
of either to accontplish such objects, although the combined efforts of a
neighborhood might readily do it. In such countries it is that combinations
of small capitahsts — of the little farmer, who has a cart and horse, that he
can contribute to the performance oPthe work, and a little grain not required
for his o^vn purposes — of the wagoner, who has his team at times unem-
ployed— of the shop-keeper, who can supply clothing to the men engaged
in the work — of the larger farmer, who has money that he can contribute
towards the purchase of machinery, &c. — are most necessary to bringing the
consumer by the side of the producer, and yet it is precisely in those
countries that exists the greatest hostility to the adoption of measures calcu-
lated to produce concentration and union. In Massachusetts and Rhode
Island, where wealth abounds, and where there are numerous individuals
who could of themselves erect factories and make railroads, men readily
obtain charters for enabling them to associate to trade in money, or to make
cotton goods ; and thus, says Mr. Carey —

" Little mills grow up, the property of one or two, and expand into large ones, in which
all the little capitalists of the neighborhood, shoemakers and sempstresses, farmers and
lawyers, widows and orphans, are interested: little towns, in which every resident has
his own house and lot, and is therefore directly interested in their good management, and
in all matters tending to their advancement; and each feels that die first and greatest of
those things is perfect security of person and property. The habit of association is seen
exercising the most beneficial influence in every action of life, and it is most seen where
population and wealth most abound : in the states of New England. There, we see a
network of association so far exceeding what is elsewhere to be seen as to defy compari
son. The shii>\vright, and the merchant, and the more advanced and less active capi-

22 RELATIONS OT AGRICULTURE

talist, unite with the master in the ownership of the vessel : and all unite with tlie crew
in ttie division of the oil which is the result of the cruise. The great merchant, the little
capitalist, the skilful manufacturer, the foundry-master, the engineer, the workman, and
the girl who tends the loom, unite in the ownership of the immense mill : and millions
of yards of cloth are furnished to the world by tliis combined effort on the part of indi-
viduals who, if they worked alone, could not have supplied thousands. The property
holder of the city, and the little capitalists, are everywhere seen combining their exertions
for the construction of roads and the building of steamboats, by the use of which the habit
of union is increased. In every relation of life, the same tendency to combination of
action is seen to exist. Everywhere, man is seen helping, and governing himself That
he may do this effectually, weakh is necessary: for men cannot live near each other
while forced to cultivate the worst soils. Wealth thus produces union, which is seen
most to exist where wealth most exists : more in the east than in the west, and more in
the north than in the south. Union in turn produces wealth, which grows more rapidly
in the north and east than in the west and south: and thus wealth, combined action, and
power of self-government, with a constant increase in the respect for laws which they
themselves have made : manifested alike by individuals and by States whose population
counts by millions : and corresponding increase in the return to labor, are seen constantly
advancing; each helping and helped by the other."

In the poorer States, those in which combination is most of all needed,
there appears to exist an exceeding hostility to association. In some of the
new States, the prohibition of association for trading in money is made part
of the constitution. In all the States, west and south, there prevails an, ex-
treme jealousy of banks — among the most useful of all the machinery of
exchange — while in Rhode Island and Massachusetts banks are made with
little more difficulty than is required for opening shoe shops. In those
States the currency is sound, because the trade in money is free. In other
States the trade in money is unsound, because the trade is trammeled. In
no part of the union has there prevailed so much jealousy of association as
in South Carolina. Yet there is none in which combination of action is so
much needed. If we desire to see the effects of that jealousy, as there
exhibited, we may find it in the fact that the population diminishes, and that
men fly from rich lands uncleared — from marl and lime — to waste their
labor on the poor lands at the head of the streams in Texas and Alabama,
that are more easily prepared for the plough, and do not need draining.

A hundred very small capitahsts, men scarcely above the class of laborers,
may build a small factory, at which labor, and food, and wool may be ex-
changed ; and such a work may be accomplished many years before the
same neighborhood will produce an individual possessed of the means for
the execution of such a work. Such men, where they are to be found, do
not combine, and the reason that they do not is, that they are not free to
combine at their pleasure, for want of general laws facilitating such com-
bination. They must seek charters — a work of labor and expense, often
fruitless. The day, I trust, is not far distant, when the right of every set
of men to unite on their own terms with each other, and to trade on their
own terms with those who see fit to trade with them, will be distinctly recog-
nised, and when association of dozens, or hundreds, will be formed as readily
as are now partnerships of two or three. I have seen it stated lately, by a
Cleveland (Ohio) editor, that the large establishment called the Cleveland
Iron Manufacturing Company, had lately been built there, " the first organ-
ized under the general manufacturing law of the state ;" and the editor
exults in the anticipation that " Cleveland will, at some day not distant, take
Tank as one of the Birminghams of the Union."

If we desire to see agriculture advance, but one course is open to us : we
must produce concentration for the cultivation of rich soils, and to that end,
the consumer and the producer must take their places by each other. To
use the language of Mr. Jefferson, in 1816, to Mr. Austin, of Boston, " We
must now place the manufacturer along-side of the agriculturist." For the

TO OTHER BRANCHES OF INDUSTRY. 23

accomplishment of that object, two things are needed. First, the adoption
throughout the Union of the simple and beneficial principle of association,
that has produced such wonderful results in Rhode Island and Massachusetts ;
and secondly, that of giving to the farmer and planter the protection — -for
protection is a planter's and farmer's measure — that is needed for bringing
to the neighborhood of the farm or plantation the machinery requisite for
the conversion of his food, his cotton, or his wool, into cloth ; or of his food,
his labor, his coal, and his ore, into iron. Population makes the food come
from the rich soils, and restores that which has been exhausted. The policy
that produces depopulation, scatters and drives men back to the poor ones.
Concentration brings with it wealth, because it enables men to bestow their
labor on productive soils. Deconcentration perpetuates poverty, because it
compels men to abandon rich lands, best adapted to the growth of articles
that will not bear transportation, such as the rich savannahs of Western
New York and of South Carolina, to fly off to poor soils on the frontiers.
We must arrest depopulation by giving adequate protection to the farmer,
and then will the rich lands of New York give forth their products, by aid
of which the soils already exhausted will be restored. Then will large
farms be divided into smaller ones, each yielding more than the large one is
now made to yield. Then will men come daily nearer to each other.
Then will each man profit by the experience of his neighbor, and then
will each be enabled, more and more, to devote his time to the study of the
laws of nature, because his labors will be lighter and his leisure will be
greater. With each step in this progress, the pre-eminence of the agricul-
turist will be more and more recognised. With each, it will be more and
more seen that his pursuit is the one that most requires mind, and that
best pays for it — that it is, par excellence, the pursuit of the gentleman and
the man of science.

We need an effective tariff. By that I do not mean one that would be
prohibitory. With an effective one, adopted by the whole nation, and after
due deliberation, a revenue abundantly sufficient for all the wants of govern-
ment, as at present administered, would be obtained. Such a tariff would,
by degrees, become prohibitory, because it would cause the transfer of vast
capital and labor to this country, and cloths and linens would be produced so
cheaply that their importation would cease. The revenue of the govern-
ment would by degrees diminish, and with each step of diminution, there
would be a diminution of the expense of government, which would be com-
pelled to make its election between economy on the one hand, and direct
taxation on the other. To the latter no administration would venture to resort,
and therefore every step towards the diminution of indirect taxation, by
means of which money is filched from the pockets of the people without
their knowledge, would be a step towards economy, and with each such
step, the wealth of the nation would increase more rapidly, and the de-
mands for the products of the farmer would increase, and with it his power
to effect the improvement of his farm.

How far economy is needed, is obvious from the following facts ;

The people of this country paid in the eight years which terminated in
1843, for their army and army establishments, $114,283,244; and for the
naval establishment, 849,053,473.

To keep up one Seventy-four for a single year, costs $220,000, or half
as much as have cost the 1,200,000 volumes now in the school libraries of
New York. The building and equipment of the Ohio 74, and her repairs
during three years, cost $834,845 ;* or more than would build almost thirty

* Sumner's " True Grandeur of Nations," which we commend, in the strongest terms,
to the perusal of all our readers,

24 NEW OXFORD SHEEP IMPORTED INTO DELAWARE.

furnaces, or a dozen cotton mills, or pay for 2,000,000 volumes for school
libraries.

A dozen such, at that rate, would cost as much as would build three hun-
dred furnaces, or above one hundred great cotton mills, or pay for 20,000,000
of books — one for every person in the Union — and good books, too ! The
maintenance of that dozen ships, after they were built, would cost as much
as would place annually in school libraries eight millions of volumes, or
build annually eighty or a hundred great furnaces, or fifty cotton mills, or
make a hundred miles of railroad. Concentration, that would result from
protection, would enable us to dispense with armies and fleets, and give us
peace and wealth.

Compare, I pray you, the advantage to be derived from these two modes
of operation, and determine whether your own interests and those of all the
farmers and planters of the Union, will not be promoted by a S5^stem that
has the effect of bringing the consumer to their sides, and thus enabhng
them to double their products, while diminishing their taxes. Diminished
they will be, if the power of indirect taxation be diminished. Diminished
they should and must be ; for $5,000,000 ought to pay all the expenses of
government : and $5,000,000 will do so when men shall come to learn that
the great pursuit of man is agriculture, and that all other of his pursuits are
valuable to him to the precise extent that they enable him to devote himself
to the improvement of the great machine, of which it is truly said, that " the
more you can take out of it, the more it is worth."

It is the great magazine of materials given to man : and it is the task of
the^;oor man to apply himself to that portion of it which yields least abun-
dantly, while requiring most labor. With each step in the way of improve-
ment it becomes less a task and more a pleasure, and with each he has
larger returns for less labor, for with each such step he cultivates richer
soils. With growing cultivation its labors will become lighter, and with
each step in its growth it will tend more and more to take its true position
— that of the highest and most honorable pursuit of man — that which, of all
others, tends most to the maintenance of peace among men, and most to
the development of the minds of men.

NEW OXFORD SHEEP IMPORTED INTO DELAWARE.

Mr. Clayton Reybold, in a spirit of enterprise worthy of all emulation,
made a visit in 184(5 to England, with general agricultural views, but par-
ticularly to look at all their breeds of sheep, and to bring home such as he
should conclude would be most useful in our own country. After careful
examination, he chose the New Oxfords, and accordingly imported some
of extraordinary weight, both of carcass and wool. Some of them were
taken to the State Fair at Saratoga last autumn, and although a premium
was awarded them, Ave do not believe that they were generally approved,
being considered by some too large. W^hether this impression Avas con-
veyed to the owner, we do not know, but we believe in its existence and
prevalence to a certain extent, and this prompts us to copy what follows,
from a late number of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of Eng-
land. It makes a part of the " Prize Essay," for which the Society offered
one of its liberal premiums, on the '■'■ management of sheep. ^* The writer
was one of that large family, to be found in all parts of the world where

NEW OXFORD SHEEP IMPORTED INTO DELAWARE. 25

the English language prevails, known by the name of Smith — Robert
Smith.

" The New Oxfords are termed long wools, but more from the circum-
stance of their not coming under the denomination of Leicesters, than from
their extra wool-bearing properties. They are bred principally in Oxford-
shire and the surrounding districts, particularly in the neighborhood of
Broadwell, the residence of Mr. Charles Large ; Charlebury, the residence
of Mr. Smith, and Sevenhampton, the residence of Mr. Handy, the most
eminent breeders, and to whom great credit is due for their exertions in
raising this valuable breed to its present high state of perfection.

" They are of large dimensions, and have a great propensity to fatten,
arising chiefly from their wide frame, quietude and open texture of flesh,
which is of quick growth, and consequently expands itself more rapidly
than flesh of other quahties ; but they do not possess that exactness of form
peculiar to smaller animals, though they have a better carriage. For many
years the male animals have been eagerly sought after, with a view to in-
crease the size and frame of other long-wooled breeds.^'

Such are the words of the author of an essay that took the prize in Eng-
land from all competitors. Still, it may doubtless be said that they are
not suited to poor land, poor pastures, and poor management ; and would it
not be lamentable were Providence to provide a breed of animals of any
kind, that would make a remunerating return to men of indolent habits, who
are content with poor land, and who prefer ignorance and sloth to dihgence
and activity of mind and body ?

In the last number of the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England, we have
an instructive comparison of the consumption of food by large and small animals, which
may be appropriately laid, in this place, before the readers of" the plough, the' loom, axd
THE AXviL." We give, accordingly the letter in which the facts are detailed, to Mr.
Pusey, with his remarks.

Dear Sir, — I was from home on the arrival of yours, dated 30th Sep-
tember, or I should have answered it earlier. The lambs which I men-
tioned to you as having wintered last year were both of the Hampshire breed,
100 in each lot. I will with pleasure repeat what I stated on Wednesday
last respecting the feeding and quantity, and also give you an account of
the cost of each lot as well as the proceeds of the sale when they were fat.
The two lots Avere fed at the same time, on the same food, and penned on
the same ground, but were kept separate from the commencement. I al-
lowed each lot when on turnips (because we did not slice the turnips, only
the swedes) the same sized piece per day ; and when on swedes, which we
began about Christmas, 33 bushels (sliced) per day, and 18 bushels of ex-
cellent clover-chaff to each lot ; and on" the 20th of February, 1847, we
gave them 1 lb. of oil-cake a day, on an average, until they were sold out.

Bought in the last week in October, 1846. £ s d

100 very large Hampshire Down lambs cost per head - - . - 2 1 0
100 Hampshire down lambs, weighing about 1^ stone less than above and

very nuich smaller, cost per head 1150

0 6 0
The latter were in much better condition than the large ones.

Sold out from 28th March to 10th May, 1847.

100 lambs which cost 41s. sold at Smithfield and Soiuhall markets, realized

on average with wool 313

100 lambs which cost 35s., sold at the same markets, realized on average,

with wool -..------..-290

In favor of large lambs • - - - 0 12 3
Vol. I.— 4 C

26 NEW^ OXFORD SHEEP IMPORTED INTO DELAWARE.

I ought to add that the markets were about 2s. per head in favor of the large lambs,
the trade for mutton being about that diflerence, or rather more, when the large lambs
were sold, which would leave 10s. 3d. instead of 125. 3d. in their favor.

Nothing would be more conclusive and satisfactory than a fair trial, in the
same manner, between 100 of Sussex and 100 of Hampshire Downs, both
lots of their breed of equal value ; that is to say, 100 of best Sussex against
100 of best Flampshire, kept on the same land and fairly tested out of doors,
as a farmer would wish to winter them.

Perhaps you will be able to get a fair trial between the large and small
breeds, and then publish the result, which would be more satisfactory than
mine.

With much respect, I am, dear sir,

Yours truly,

Geo, Shackel.
Heading, Oct. 4th, 1847.

Note by Mr. Pusey.

The above trial seemed to me well to deserve a place in the Society's
journal, as throwing hght upon the question whether large and small ani-
mals of the saine race do or do not consume food in proportion to their re-
spective bulk. This question is not merely interesting as a point of physi-
ological science, but also in practical farming. A large body of farmers
defend the Hampshire or West Down sheep, notwithstanding their plain
appearance, by saying that this plain breed comes to a greater weight, and
therefore makes a greater money return than the Sussex or true South
Down. The breeders of South Downs reply that, if their sheep are smaller,
more of them can be kept on the same farm. Here then the abstract ques-
tion has a practical bearing. In this second instance there was a very de-
cided difference between Mr. Shackel's two lots, yet the larger lambs were
satisfied throughout with an equal allowance of each kind of food ; and,
though of the same breed, made a better return by 4s. a-head than the
smaller sheep. This plain fact seems to warrant me in calling the attention
of practical men to this point of farming.

Ph. Pusey.

There is probably no source of national wealth more underrated, and therefore so little
availed of in proportion to its capability, as our resources for the production of mutton and
wool. Far otherwise is it in England. In an examination by a committee of parliament in
1833, to inquire into the state of manufactures, commerce, and navigation, Mr. Henry Hughes
stated, tliat the quantity of wool annually produced in Great Britain was about 995,000
packs of 240 lbs. each, or 238,000,000 ; and Lord Somerville, one of the most eminent
agriculturists, did not hesitate to assert in the House of Lords, that in estimating tlie
wealth of Great Britain, its lands, buildings, live-stock, public works and manufactures,
the sheep forms one-third / in the first place, by the quality and quantities of its dung, which,
in American estimates, is never brought into the account, (but which greatly multiplies in
England the productions of the plough, and of the whole vegetable kingdom :) by its flesh,
which serves for food ; and lastly, by its wool, skin, and fat, which form the staple of the
most important manufactures.

In twelve counties of Massachusetts there are about 150 woollen manufactories. How
many mouths to be fed, of course, by the products of the plough ! How many hands at
the loom, that would otherwise be at the plough to increase yet more its surplus products !

THE WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES. 27

THE WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES

AS THEY ARE CONNECTED WITH THE AGRICULTURE OF THE UNITED

STATES.

The reader's attention is particularly invited to the letter from Mr.
Samuel Lawrence of Lowell, (one of the most enlightened and extensive
manufacturers of this country,) and to the reflections to which its perusal
has given rise.

With so much waste land, particularly in all the States lying south of
the Delaware, from which the proprietors draw not one cent of revenue in
any form, and so eminently well adapted as these lands are to the growth of
sheep and wool, who can learn without surprise, accompanied with a convic-
tion that some serious error or evil exists in our management or legislative
policy — that " there is not wool enough raised in the country, by 10,000,000
of pounds, to meet the annual demands of the manufactories," according to
the declaration of a gentleman unsurpassed in candor and experience ?

" I can point," says Mr. Lawrence, " to articles made of wool, now
imported, that will require thirty millions of pounds of medium and fine
quality to supply the consumption !"

Here the reader will bear in mind, that according to the last census, 1840,
the entire clip of wool in the United States was but 35,802,114 pounds,
while the addition to our population, by natural increase and immigration,
is at the rate which will carry it, according to Tucker's "Progress of the
United States," very nearly to 30,000,000, in 1860. It is not known to
what particular description of goods Mr. Lawrence refers, as being "now
imported," and of which the manufacture will require 30,000,000 of pounds
of wool ; but let it suffice, for the occasion, to state, that in the year 1844,
of which the account is at hand, the whole amount of woollen goods,
exported from Great Britain to all parts of the world, was of the declared
value of £8,204,836, and of these, more than a fourth, to wit : £2,462,748, or
more than $12,000,000 worth, were exported to the United States! Now,
to return to the declaration of Mr. Lawrence, and looking at this question
in the only light in which it interests us — in its bearing on the welfare of
the American farmer — may we not ask, whether it be better for him that
these goods, requiring for their manufacture 30,000,000 of pounds of wool,
should be manufactured here, in our own country, by men, women, and
children, placed "along-side of the agriculturist," and demanding his wheat
and his corn, his fruit and his vegetables, his beef, pork, cheese, and butter ;
or that they should be fashioned beyond the broad Atlantic, by steam-power,
and by pauper operatives, nearly the whole of whose pay for labor is
expended for what they consume of the products of foreign agriculture ?
Which is better, in the long run, for the American farmer to send across
the ocean, or to buy of a neighboring manufacturer, even under the suppo*

28 THE WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES.

sition that he may have, in appearance, for it is only in appearance, to pay
a httle more for a particular article, while the machinery for its domestic
production is in the process of being transferred and transplanted to his own
immediate vicinity ? For has not the competition, which has always
followed encouragement and prosperity, invariably brought down the price
of the home-made article below that which had been previously paid for
the foreign fabric ? On the same, or nearly similar principle, that the lazy
and improvident young farmer, first postpones, and finally neglects, to plant
a vineyard or an orchard, you would be persuaded not to transplant to
your neighborhood the loom and the anvil — the tanner and the shoemaker ;
lest, for a short time, you might have to w^ait for the resulting advantages,
forgetting the infallible axiom — that concentration of population creates
demand for all that the soil can be made to produce, and begets improve-
ment of every sort, bringing the food out of the rich lands, and putting all
your capital into activity ; while depopulation begets devastation, impover-
ishment, and ignorance, and drives your children to the west, there to lead
a hard life of exposure and privation.

Three years since, Mr. Grahame, of a well-known and respectable pub-
lishing house in New York, put forth "statistics of the woollen manufac-
tures of the United States, by the proprietor of the condensing cards."
Though this account was in some respects defective at that time, and pro-
bably IS at this time still further from being exact, it approached accuracy
near enough to give us an idea of the number of woollen factories at that
period, and thus gratify the curiosity of the reader, desiring to know some-
thing of the progress of a branch of industry so directly and extensively
connected with the landed interest, as to warrant that interest, in requiring
it, to be looked after and cherished by public sentiment, and by national (not
paTty\ legislation.

There were then reported to be woollen factories : —

In Maine ----- 28
" New Hampshire - - - - 58
" Vermont - - ... 76
" Rhode Island .... 50

" Connecticut .... 120

" New York 327

" Massachusetts - . . .141

" New Jersey 10

" Pennsylvania - - . - 101
" Delaware ..... 4

" Maryland 16

" Virginia 18

In Ohio . - . . - - 79

" Kentucky .... 9

" Indiana ..... 6

" Michigan 6

" Illinois ..... 6

" Wisconsin ..... 7

" South Carolina .... 1

" Iowa - - - - - - - 2

" North Carolina .... 4

" Tennessee ----- 2

" Georgia 3

125
949

949
Making a total of 1074

But this must have been much short of the number, as it may be sup-
posed, since Professor Tucker, in his " Progress of the United States,"
where something hke order and philosophical deduction are brought out

THE WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES. 29

of the chaotic census of 1S40, puts down the number of woollen factories,
five years before the time when this statement was published by Mr. Gra-
hame, at 1420.*

In Connecticut, as we learn from the statistical report already referred to,
the Thompsonville Woollen Company alone consumed upwards of 1,000,000
of pounds, or 2500 bales of wool. The population of the village was
1400, and of these, 1000 were employed by this company; as thriving and
prosperous consumers, be it remembered, of the products of the farms and
the gardens, the orchards and the dairies, in their immediate vicinity; and to
whom the farmer and the gardener could sell, and with whom he could
make his exchanges, without losing half his time and manure, and spend-
ing a large portion of the value of his products on bad roads in search of
customers, as is the case where no manufactures exist.

The wages paid by this single woollen factory amounted to $125,000;
and when it is considered how large a proportion of the wages of every
class, and especially of the laboring classes, goes to pay (or food, is it dif-
ficult to see how inseparably is the welfare of those who follow the plough
interwoven with the prosperity of those who labor at the loom and the
anvil, at the lapstone and the needle, the coal-mine and the iron-foundery ?
We pray you, reader, let us repeat, to bear in mind constantly, that we ask
the question only in the light in which such questions are entertained by
us — that is, as they concern the interests of the planter and the farmer.

The Tariffville Woollen Manufactory, in the same little State of Connecti-
cut, (a perfect bee-hive, with a population of 300,000, on an area of 3,000,000
of acres,) consumed, in 1845, another 12,000,000 pounds of avooI, besides
168,000 pounds of cotton, and 60,000 pounds of flax annually, giving
constant employment to 1000 persons, men, women, and children, to
whom was paid $150,000, to be here again expended, in very large pro-
portions, among the farmers of the neighborhood for the products of the
plough; and here again, the one sells and the other buys, with scarcely a
fraction of the loss and expenses of transportation and exchange, in the
shape of freights, and commission, and long journeys over bad roads, leav-
ing the rich soils undrained, and the timber land uncleared, as must always
happen in States that turn their face against the policy and the institutions
that are indispensable to the healthy and prosperous growth of all the

*Here it may be remarked, that those who, as political inquirers, or for practical
objects, desire to become familiar with the whole subject of sheep and wool husbandry,
in all their bearings ; and especially such as desire to appreciate more exactly the yet
undeveloped capacity and resources of our country, to meet, profitably, the demands
foreshadowed by Mr. Lawrence, are earnestly referred, for the ablest, most original, and
comprehensive exposition, to the letters of Col. H. S. Randall, of Cortland village, N. Y.,
addressed, through the Farmer's Library, to Col. Allston, of South Carolina. These let-
ters, illustrated by numerous engravings, will soon be published, and on sale in a com-
pendious form, making a volume of some three or four hundred images, which ought to
find a place in the Ubrary of every American cultivator.

c3

so THE WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES.

branches of domestic industry — preferring to send their cotton to be spun,
and their wool to be wove, and their provisions, if sent at aJl, to be eaten
at Leeds and Manchester, with all the deductions from the value of their
own products, and all the additions to the cost of the manufactured articles,
which must be incidental to such a system. Would the reader believe,
that though three quarters of a century have elapsed since we proclaimed
our political independence of England, she yet holds us in colonial vassal-
age, so strict as that, though she may allow us to manufacture " hob-nails,"
she yet contrives to supply, and we submit to buy of her, her produce
and manufactures to the amount (in 1844) of more than $40,000,000,*
while for the production and manufacture of the very articles thus imported,
no country on the globe is better prepared than we are, in climate, in soil,
in water-power, and power of every sort — natural, physical, and intellec-
tual. Let the American farmer make for himself his own estimate of the
value of the products of the plough, which it would take to meet the con-
sumption of those who are employed in the manufacture of what we thus
import from a single country — a country so deserving, it is true, of renown,
for many of the most glorious fruits of civilization — and when he has made
the estimate, let him say whether, while we still go to her for slops, and
haberdashery, and copper, and brass, and cotton, and earthenware, and
hardware, cutlery, iron, steel, linen, silk, tin, pewter, woollen and other
manufactures, made by the labor of starving operatives, we ought not to
cease from celebrating the Fourth of July, and making a vain boast of our
" glorious independence !" Let him ask himself, whether it be not time
to act as a nation with one heart and one mind upon the opinion, as
declared by Mr. Jefferson, in his letter to Mr. Austin, in 1816, that "we
must now place the manufacturer by the side of the agriculturist !" Let
him compare the value of his farm with that of similar farms in the vicinity
of Thompsonville, or Tariffville, or Lowell, and satisfy himself if the dif-
ference is not due, solely and exclusively, to the fact that consumers and
producers are there in close connection with each other, and then let him
determine for himself what would be the value of his farm, if he could by
any means persuade the owners of machinery to build a Lowell in his
neighborhood. Having done that, let him estimate the amount of clothing
that he and his family would consume in the three or four years that might
be necessary to establish that home competition that would bring down the
price of clothing to the level of that of foreign cloths, and compare it with
the advantage derived from having on the spot a market for all the products
of his farm — his eggs, and milk, and veal, and beef, and potatoes — and for
the spare time of his family, and see if the real gain would not surpass
an hundred times the apparent loss.

Farmers and planters, you need not be told any more, that if you want
heavy returns of wheat, or of butter, you must take care to feed your land

• £7,93^079, according to Macgregor.

THE WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES. 31

and your cow. You need not be told, that one manure is good and that
another is better — but you need be told what policy will bring in nearest
proximity to your plough the loom and the anvil — the iron-monger and the
coal-heaver — the tanner and the shoemaker- — the brass-founder and sad-
dler— the hatter and the wheelwright ; in a word, what will draw men
together instead of dispersing them, that so their demands for consumption
may draw the produce from the rich lands, and leave you time to improve
the great machine of production. Thus it is that wealth will increase —
population will increase — intelligence will be diffused — education be pro-
vided for, and with it peace and good fellowship among mankind. War
will be banished from our republic, as the despicable relic of ignorant and
barbarous ages, and all the noble fruits of civilization be advanced and
secured. To this glorious end, let union, harmony, and mutual support,
and good fellowship prevail between the plough, the loom, and the anvil ;
then truly may we sing —

'• Firm united let us be,
Rallying round our liberty."

Rely on it, all our industrial interests — all the trades and manufactures for
which we have the soil — the climate — the water-power — the iron — the
coal — the cotton — the wool — the hemp — the rice — the sugar — the provisions
— all — all should join hands, in one bond of brotherhood, for all support, and
all are supported by each other, and all must flourish, or all decline together.

One of the grossest and most mischievous errors that ever misguided a
free people, has been the prevalent idea that agriculture, far from being
itself a manufacture, is of a nature entirely different, and to which all other
pursuits are naturally hostile. It is allowed that between all other indus-
tries there are friendly reciprocities of interests ; but, after all, what is the
production of wheat, and turnips, and corn, and cabbage, but another spe-
cies of manufacture, in the fabrication of which the earth stands the farmer
in the same stead that the loom does the weaver, and the forge the smith ?
If one wants wool, and oil, and wheels, and spindles, and the other wants
coal and iron, does not the farmer want seed, and manure, and horses, and
ploughs, and hoes, in his manufactory ? and if the weaver wants the farmer's
wool, and the blacksmith his corn and potatoes, does not he want the wea-
ver's cloth, and the blacksmith's ploughs and horse-shoes, and a little of their
money besides? Away, then, with this savage notion, that the farmer is a
sort of land-pirate, whose hand should be lifted against all the vrorld, because
all the world has its hand lifted against him. All are manufacturers, but of
different commodities. The farmer can no more manufacture a bushel
of wheat, or a bale of cotton, out of the one or the other, without the use
of the soil and the various tools and appliances, than the shipwright can
build and fit out a vessel, without timber, and iron, and sails, and cordage.

Some cry out for free trade, and tell the planter to sell in the country
where he can get most, and buy where he can buy cheapest. That might

32 THE WOOLLEN MANUFACTURES.

do for the general average interest of the world, if all countries were
united under one government, as all our States are under one confedera-
tion. But look at the effect, at this time, of dependence on the foreign
•market for the consumption of cotton. England is seized with a mania
for speculation in railroads — all her capital is invested in railroad stock —
a great crash ensues, and down goes the price of cotton, with ruin to our
planters. For a view of these ruinous fluctuations in the price abroad, of
cotton, sugar, wheat, and corn, see page 45.

Countries may be compared to a great fleet of ships. While all are under
one commander, their movements may be combined — all made to harmo-
nize and co-operate for mutual support and safety. But far otherwise,
when each ship is under an independent commander. Then each must
look out for itself, and harmony and identity of interests extend no further.
So with us — those who follow the plough, the loom, and the anvil, all belong
to the same ship ; the same stars — the same stripes — protect us all. Be
it then, the duty, and the action, of the commander — the government — to
make all dependent on each other, and independent of the world. We
have the soil and all the capacity to produce every thing, and to manufac-
ture every thing. Let us, then, compel those who would manufacture for
us to come with their capital and their machinery, and, as Mr. Jefferson
said, place themselves along-side of the agriculturist.

INTERESTING TO WOOL-GROWERS.
From the Vermont Patriot

"Lmcell, (Mass.) Feb. 10, 1848.

"My Dear Sir: — Your very kind and interesting favor of the 27th ult.,
duly came to hand, and should, if practicable, have received an earlier reply.
The business of wool-growing in this country is destined to be of immense
importance; and I am firm in the belief that within twenty-five years we
shall produce a greater quantity of wool than any other nation.

"You ask, 'Is the present home-demand supplied ?' There is not enough
annually raised in the country by 10,000,000 pounds to meet the demand
of the manvifactories.

"You ask, 'What countries can we export wool to?' &c. This country
will not export wool regularly for fifteen years, for the reason that the con-
sumption will increase as rapidly as the production. I can point out articles
made of wool now imported, which will require thirty millions of pounds of
a medium and fine quality to supply the consumption.

"The business of manufacturing wool in this country is on a better basis
than ever before, inasmuch as the character, skill, and capital engaged in it
are such that foreign competition is defied. A very few years, and all arti-
cles of wool used here will be of home manufacture.

"Now I beg of you to keep the wool-growers steady to the mark. Let
them aim to excel in the blood and condition of their flocks, and the day is
not far distant when they will be amply remunerated. I shall always have
great pleasure in hearing from you, and remain yours, most truly,

"Henry S. Randall, Esq., Cortland, New York." " Sam. Lawrence.

GROWTH AND MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR. S3

As the readers of this journal, interested in the wool trade of the
country, may often have occasion to know the state of the English mar-
ket, and to understand English accounts and essays on the same sub-
ject, it may be well that they should bear in mind the following table of wool
weight : —

7 lbs. avoirdupois make - - - 1 clove.

2 cloves or 14 lbs. - - - - 1 stone.

2 stones, or 28 lbs. . - - . 1 tod.

6^ tods, or 182 lbs. - - - - 1 wey.

2 weys, or 364 lbs. - - - . l sack.

12 sacks -- - - - - -1 last.

20 lbs. 1 score.

12 scores -------l pack.

THE GROWTH AND MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR,

AND THE DEMANDS OF THE SUGAR INTEREST OP THE UNITED STATES.

Boston, 21th May, 1848.

My dear Sir: — You have requested me to send you a communication
on the growth, &c., of sugar in this country. It is a subject of vast import-
ance, and demands a much more thorough investigation than I have leisure
to apply to it. Indeed had I not felt it an irresistible duty to hold out the
hand of help and fellowship to one who has so long and so ably devoted his
pen to the cause of agriculture in all sections of the United States, as your-
self, I should hardly have ventured to put on paper the following ideas, and
you will consider yourself at liberty to omit any portion of them at your
pleasure.

That government which constantly pursues an even-handed course in
encouraging equally the industry of those who live under it, and in sustain-
ing with its whole power the quiet, free, and unreserved enjoyment of the
fruits of that industry, is the best government in the world for the happiness
of the people. Now there is no difference in industry ; it is the same whether
applied to the loom, to the soil, to literature, or to any thing else — all is manu-
facture. Raising cotton is as much manufacture as spinning or weaving it;
raising wheat as much so as grinding it into flour; raising sugar as much so
as refining it. Nor can there be truly any difference in the effects of the
promotion of these various kinds of industry on the general welfare of the
country ; where all are employed, all hang together as links of the same
chain, are mutually dependent on each other, and the industry of each is
entitled to equal consideration.

What would be thought of the farmer who supplied Lowell with
vegetables, fruit or corn, petitioning for the free admission of cotton goods
from Europe, that he might purchase his shirts or his bed-linen a little
cheaper, and thus destroy the factories to which he sold his produce; or how
can we sweep to destruction one M'hole branch of industry without more or
less affecting many others? That country which exhibits its own industry
flourishing, when from causes over Avhich it can have no control all around
is destruction, exhibits the superior wisdom and the paternal care of its rulers.

I am fully aware of the argument, that it would be folly to raise grapes in
hot houses in the north, for the purpose of making wine, when a much better
article could be imported from France at one-tenth of the cost. Extreme
cases, however good for illustration, seldom have a practical bearing ; but even

Vol. I.--5

34 GROWTH AND MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR.

here if thousands of acres were under this glass cultivation, and a large
population of glass-makers, coal-miners, carpenters, farmers, gardeners, &c.,
would be suddenly thrown irremediably out of employment by the sudden
importation of cheap French wines, I think any body of men would hesitate
considerably ere they changed the course of a stream of industry, which
had by long and assiduous attention worked out its own quiet and prosperous
channel.

The depressed state of one of the staple products of this country, sugar,
has called forth these remarks, and I propose to make a very few observa-
tions on the cultivation of this article in the United States.

The first suggestion of common sense is to examine the state of the pro-
ducers of this article in other parts of the world, in order to discover whether
their superior means render our endeavors so hopeless as to determine an
abandonment of this branch of industry.

Jamaica and the British sugar colonies. — Since the manumission of the
slaves, the negroes work generally only four days in the week ; their wages
are from Is. Qd. to 2s. per day. The whole testimony lately given before the
House of Commons in England, making every allowance for interested views,
exhibits heavy losses connected with this production, even at the prices of
1847, and the total abandonment of many of the sugar estates appears highly
probable, unless the government applies some remedial measure, or specula-
tion with its giant lever raises the value of sugar considerably.

Cuba. — That the cultivation of sugar, up to 1847, must have been very
profitable is clear from the enormous increase of production, and the large
sums which have been laid out in improving the manufacture. But even
here it must be remembered that there has been a rise of nearly 100 per
cent, in the cost of labor, that is in the value of slaves, which, independent
of the low price of 1848, must check much farther extension.

In the small Danish Islands not much increase of consequence can be
expected.

In the French sugar colonies the same measure of the abolition of slavery
Avill unquestionably produce the same effect of decrease in production as it
has in those of England.

It is now necessary to take a glance at the production of sugar in the East
Indies and the China Sea.

In the former as well as in the latter, the largest proportion of the crop is
extracted from the cane by small holders of land. The process by which this is
effected is extremely rude, and the quahty very inferior. The sugar called
Khaur in the East Indies, is merely the juice, with all its feculencies boiled
down to a certain consistency. This Khaur is often imported into Europe, but
much of it is remanufactured in the country of produce by larger estabhsh-
ments. There, of late years, English capital has been engaged both in this
remanufacture and also in the cultivation of the cane, one company having
700 acres planted. The Dhobah Company invested £200,000 in this busi-
ness, and made profits at first, but in 1847 the balance of loss for the whole
period of their operations was about £30,000. It required 2^ cwt. of
Khaur to make 1 cwt. of the lowest Dhobah sugar. The average yield is
450 to 500 lbs. sugar per acre, the wages of the native laborer is 2^ cents
per day, but it requires six of these to do the work accomplished by one
negro. In Kajahmundry in the Madras Presidency, the capital required
would be only one-tenth of that required in the West Indies, the cost of labor
and buildings one-thirtieth. In 14 years — from 1833 to 1847 — 000,000 tons
were exported from the East Indies.

On reviewing a vast body of evidence on this subject, it appears that the
manufacture and production of sugar in the East Indies have resulted iu

GROWTH AND MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR. 35

severe losses, but it is clear that these arise from extrinsic causes, such as
high local revenues raised there in the shape of duties, rents, &c., imperfect
manufacture, and expensive managements.

In Manilla, as before stated, the main crop is collected from small pro-
prietors and remanufactured — but it is well known that when this rude
produce does not fetch above a certain price, the population employ them-
selves otherwise, in collecting hemp, &c. ; such is their position at the present
time. The freight from Manilla to this country for sugar must be calculated
from I to 1 cent per lb. It is chiefly, nay entirely, used for refining into
loaf sugar, and therefore hardly comes into competition with Louisiana sugar,
which under its present method of cultivation is not adapted for this purpose.

But in the Straits of Malacca, where the cultivation of sugar has com-
menced and seems increasing, it appears as if the article could be produced
at a very low rate. The land costs a mere trifle; the laborers employed are
chiefly Chinese. These men will do twice as much work as the negro, and
although great consumers of food, this consists chiefly of rice, which is very
cheap; they will eat besides any kind of vermin, rats, cats, or dogs. They
are very inteUigent and understand the process of sugar-making. Contracts
are often made with them to dehver sugar granulated but not drained at $14-
per picul of 133 lbs.

On the sugar cultivation in South America, I do not possess any data of
sufficient authenticity. Comparatively little comes to this country, nor is it
probable that any great increase in its production can take place, owing to
the increased ditliculties in procuring slave labor.

I have gone through considerable evidence on this part of the subject ; the
impression remains on my mind, that the cultivation of sugar in the southern
section of the United States is a legitimate and fair employment for industry,
and that it cannot fail to be generally prosperous and steady, if the govern-
ment will lend a fostering hand to protect it against frequent prostration by
sudden and unforeseen accidents or speculations in foreign countries. Fair,
steady competition it does not fear.

Sugar has now become a necessary of life; it is no longer a luxury, and
the importance of independence from other countries for a supply therefore
is undoubted. Nor should it be forgotten that in nurturing this branch of
industry, we are preparing it for the wants of a coming population of one
hundred instead of twenty-five millions, as at present.

There is however a second and more important view to be taken of this
subject. It is of the improvement in the cultivation of the cane, and in the
production and manufacture of sugar therefrom.

Now this cannot be accompUshed except by the application of capital, and
capital will not flow into this industry unless government place it in a state of
stability. From Avhat precedes, it must be seen that foreign competition
imperatively requires all the improvements of intellect to be applied to this
subject, and that those who neglect them will soon find themselves in the
back-ground.

It is needless for me to add to the considerations which you have so often
and so strongly urged on the subject of Colleges for the improvement of
agriculture; but it is impossible not to see that agriculture comprises the
growth of cotton and sugar as well as that of wheat or corn. What vast
steps have been made in production of improved varieties of wheat, of
maize, of barley, &c. — all grasses, like the sugar cane ; why have there not
been parallel improvements in this 1 is it not for want of the application of
knowledge ?

The cane, it is said, produces but little seed. This is the case with many
plants which are constantly propagated by cuttings, or suckers, or tubers.

36 GROWTH AND MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR.

Nature has provided two ways of propagation, by seed and by buds ; if the
latter is constantly in use, there is an inclination towards a dechne in the
production of the former.

This will be immediately understood by reference to the remark of the
farmer, who remembered the introduction of a favorite potato which he had
cultivated for twenty-five years. He stated that at first it used to produce plenty
of balls (seed), but that now scarcely any could be found on the plant. He
thought that this had something to do with the potato rot, Avhereas it arose
simply from the constant propagation by tubers (buds). Many other plants
could be named, from my own experience, which clearly exhibit the same
tendency. Now it is from seeds alone that improved varieties spring. A
farmer will select the finest and largest ears of wheat for his seed. A gar-
dener will select the pods of peas which contain the largest and the greatest
number of peas for his seed; and those which are the earliest in flower and
in pod one year will produce earlier than the others the next year; by follow-
ing this process through successive generations, highly improved and perma-
nent varieties are produced, liberal cultivation being always afforded. When
propagation by seed is recommenced, the inclination to bear seed quickly
returns, and thus cane seed may in a few years be had plentifully — it is only
by understanding the process by which nature works that we can force her
to attain the highest perfection.

The finest and most carefully selected seeds would in every probability
give rise to varieties of the cane better suited to the climate and surpassing
those in cultivation. This has been well exemphfied in the native seedhngs
of various fruits raised in the northern sections of the United States, such
as the apple, the pear, the strawberry, &c. ; nearly all the good seedlings
raised there are better suited to the chmate, and generally superior in quality
to those with high-sounding names imported from Europe.

In Tirhoot, in the East Indies, it Vv?as found that the Otaheite cane could
not be cultivated with success after the second year of production, and the
planters reverted with advantage to what is there called the native cane, and
this Avas done by a company with English capital, so that it could not be
referred to the prejudice or ignorance of the natives.

It is a question however yet to be resolved by careful experiment, whether
the cane preparing but a small quantity of seed would give more or better
juice than that preparing a large quantity of seed. In the manufacture of
sugar from Indian corn, it has been found advantageous to take off the fruit
soon after it has attained its form ; in that from the beet, the sugar of the root
disappears (is transformed) as soon as the flower comes to perfection ; yet it
seems « priori probable that a plant preparing a large quantity of seed should
prepare a proportionate large quantity of juices, but then the seed Avould have
to be sacrificed. These and numerous other experiments might be suggested,
tending to increase knowledge on this subject, and to improve the breed and
production of the sugar-cane, as well as to better its adaptation to the climate
of our southern sections.

Another important consideration is, the best kind of soil or manure for the
high development of the cane. The two first crops of sugar in the Straits
of Malacca, from marshy land of a saline character, imbibed so much of
these salts that the sugar always remained moist, and it was only after
draining and exhausting the land of these saline qualities that the sugar
would remain dry. It is suspected that something of this nature affects
much of the Louisiana sugar, and that its unfitness for refining does not
altogether depend on the w^ant of ripening the juice; but there is no evil of
this kind without its agricultural remedy.

The last, but by no means the least, important consideration I shall notice

GROWTH AND MANUFACTURE OF SUGAR. 37

on the subject of sugar is, the economy and improvement in the manufacture
from the cane juice. I have not time, and perhaps not the abihty, to dilate
much on the subject, but I can offer the opinion that I have examined the
latest publications on this branch with very little satisfaction or practical
utihty. It is well known that all vegetable juices, when first extracted, are
compounds of such unstable chemical combination, that a few hours in a hot
climate suffice to produce changes of great importance. Hence the necessity
of placing them, (particularly that of the sugar-cane,) without delay in a
stable, unchangeable state, by concentration with the application of the least
possible degree of heat, is quite evident. To attain this object, evaporators
of a novel and highly philosophical construction, manufactured by Walworth
and Nason, of Boston, have been introduced this season for the first time at
St. Croix, and they seem to have answered the most sanguine expectations,
both as to rapidity of evaporation and augmentation of product of a superior
quality. That part of the juice which is not sugar, and which is technically
termed the feculent matter, must be first separated, and the uncryslallizable
sugar or molasses must be afterwards got rid of by draining. In Cuba
much has been done to improve the old processes, but it is a subject which
is very far from being exhausted, for the ablest French chemists have proved
by analysis of fresh juice that nearly the whole is crystallizable sugar.
Science has been long and most assiduously at work on this branch of the
sugar manufacture, and has already accomplished much ; still, either from
want of capital, of faith, or of knowledge, man}'' of the improvements lie
dormant or are but partially put into operation.

The objects which have dwelt on my mind, and which I have endeavored
to show, however imperfectly, are —

That there is no good reason why the cultivation of sugar should not be
a prominent and a permanent branch of industry in the United States.

That beginning, as all such do in the United States, with moderate capital,
the government is called upon to protect it, in this its infancy — for in its pro-
gress it will render the coming immense population of America independent
of other countries for the supply of an article of necessity.

That great improvements have yet to be introduced into this branch, by
the careful application of science and agriculture, which require the employ-
ment of capital.

That the flow of capital in this direction can only be attained by the cul-
tivation and manufacture of sugar being protected by the government, and
thus rendered stable and productive.

On the means and method of applying this protection I will say nothing
at present, except that more solid and reliable information could be obtained
by the government, on all subjects of trade and manufactures, by the assist-
ance of a permanent commission, with proper powers, always sitting at Wash-
ington. Their pubhc reports, which might be ordered by Congress whenever
these objects came up for discussion, would soon show whether this Com-
mission contained the right men.

Yours most truly, J. G. Teschemacher.

To J. S. Skinner and Son,
Editors of the Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil.

38 NEW YORK CATTLE TRADE.

THE CATTLE TRADE OF NEW YORK,

WITH REMAKKS ON THE RULES THAT PREVAIL THERE.

The Cattle Trade of New York, though it makes no figure on 'Change,
forms quite an item in our city's business. The new market opened on the
Cth inst., and the number of cattle entered for sale since that time is as fol-
lows :

May 6 to May 8 1755

Week ending May 15 1747

» » 22 1089

We believe the larger numbers are unusual, and that 1000 to 1200 head
weekly is about the average. Very few remain over from one sale to
another. Monday is the great sale-day, on which nearly all the cattle
received up to that time are disposed of. What few remain over are gene-
rally sold during the week to chance customers, while the new ari'ivals are
held in hand for the next sale-day. The purchases are not made for our
city alone, but Newark, Paterson, Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford, Bos-
ton, &c., are regular buyers at these sales.

The various modes of computing the weight and value of the animals
sold which are employed at different markets, must often perplex and mis-
lead a reader not especially made acquainted with them. At each market,
cattle are reported as selling at so much per hundred weight, and Boston
prices are often if not generally lower than those of New York, though the
cattle sold at Boston (Brighton) are generally driven by, if not actually
bought here. The reason is, that here nothing but the naked beef — " the
four quarters" — is counted and paid for in the cattle market, the hide and
rough tallow being thrown in to the buyer ; while in Boston " the Jive quar-
ters" are counted ; that is, the hide and tallow are computed in the selling
weight, and so paid for by the purchaser. On the other hand, a New York
" hundred weight" is one hundred pounds avoirdupois ; in Boston, it is one
hundred and twelve. (In Philadelphia, we believe, "the four quarters"
only are counted, while there the " hundred weight" is one hundred and
twelve pounds.)

The cattle are sold alive, thus paid for and driven off by the purchaser,
though only " the four quarters" are allowed to enter into the computation.
The rule is, that one hundred pounds in the gross weight on the hoof will
give fifty-five pounds of beef, though the best cattle will of course exceed,
while the poorer will fall below this standard. Generally, however, the
parties agree on the weioht as well as the price in making their bargain, so
that few cattle are actually weighed out to the purchaser.

The spectacle afforded by the cattle market on a sale-day is an animating
one. Here are drovers from Kentucky, Ohio, Illinois, and Western New
York, who have been from three to eight or ten weeks on the road (driving
on long routes only ten or twelve miles per day.) They are generally well-
built, hardy, intelligent-looking men, fairly but not nicely dressed ; while
their boys, and other assistants in driving, manifest considerable originality
and entire independence in the matter of costume, though many of them
are paying their respects to the great city for the first time. The butchers
and their boys, who come to drive home the cattle they purchase, form a
distinct class ; and among them may be now and then a speculator on the
look-out for a rare bargain, or a neighbouring farmer looking for a drove to

NEW YORK CATTLE TRADE. 39

pasture for a day or so ; so that a sale-day draws together some one or two
hundred people — possibly more — by whom ample justice is rendered to the
substantial and inviting dinner served up at the hotel, at the unfashionable
but convenient hour of 1, p. m. The charges here, we beheve, are mode-
rate ; the guests, though many of them wealthy, being a class who visit
New York, not for show, but for substance ; not to waste money, but to
make it : and the number of their dri^'ers, and the indefinite duration of
their stay rendering economy desirable. We did not inquire on this point,
but we presume a drove from Kentucky, which sells for $5000 in our mar-
ket, will have cost nearly half that sum in travelhng expenses, from the time
the cattle are collected to that when the drover reaches his home again.

Nearly all the cattle in market at this season are bullocks and oxen.
There were very few cows and heifers on the ground yesterday. A great
majority were three-year-olds.

We cannot conclude without calling the attention of our citizens to the
imperative necessity of removing the slaughtering business from within the
compact portion of our city. It is a shame that this has been neglected so
long. The present practice is revolting to the senses and dangerous to the
health of our people. W^e know no other city which aspires to cleanliness
or exemption from contagion that tolerates the nuisance. Philadelphia, we
are sure, does not ; Boston never did, at least not within the memory of the
present generation. The banishment of slaughter-houses from Paris, and
their establishment in one place, at a proper distance from the city, is a
reform for which Bonaparte is still gratefully remembered. New York has
greater facilities, and at least equally urgent reasons for such a change.
The new concern might be located on one of the rivers, a few miles above
the city, so as to be thoroughly cleansed by a jet of the Croton daily, and so
that one little steamboat, plying thence frequently to all the chief markets,
might render the transportation actually less expensive than it now is. Why
should this wait ?

In the New York Register and Gazette we find the above remarks, on a
subject curious for the general reader, and of practical consequence to a
large class of agriculturists.

As to the various methods of weighing cattle, and other modes of comput-
ing their " heft," as they call it in New England, the reader is referred to
that most profound and valuable work, that, in our judgment, we have ever
seen, " Vox Thaer's Principles of Agriculture."

For the sake of having the English copy of it in our Library, we very
lately gave twelve dollars for one, in Boston ; yet the whole of it has been
re-printed, word for word, in the Farmers' Library, making one volume, and
may be had of the editors of this journal, one copy for one-fourth of the
above-named price, with the addition of Petzhold's lectures on Agricultural
Chemistry.

As to the weight of cattle. Von Thaer says, some persons profess to deter-
mine by the dimensions and measurements of particular parts of the living
animal; and the rules for doing so have been published again and again,
within our knowledge, for twenty-five years. But, says Von Thaer, truly,
supposing this method to be applicable, with tolerable certainty, to the greater
number of cases, the rules thus fixed upon could only be applicable to a par-
ticular and well-estabhshed breed ; so that every breed would require its
distinct formulae, to be practically determined after much experience. But
according to actual observation in England and in the United States, the
quantity of net " butchers' meat" may be estimated with sufficient accuracy
for fair and practical use, by ascertaining the weight on the hoof.

(

40 NEW YORK CATTLE TRADE.

B)^ net weight is meant what the beast weighs when hung up in the
shambles, with his head, fore legs, entrails, and suet removed. Still the
health and the condition of the animal is to be taken into consideration.

For the ox, not absolutely lean, but still not fatted, the following is the
rule of the trade :

Take half the whole weight of the animal while alive, and add to it four-
sevenths of the whole, and divide the sum by two ; the quotient will be the
weight of net meat. For example, suppose a hve ox to weigh 700 lbs.

Half of 700 - 350 "

Four-sevenths of 700 400 "

750 "
Half sum 375 "

In this case, every twenty pounds would yield ten and five-seventh pounds.
But when oxen are a little fatter, it has been found that twenty pounds
commonly yield eleven pounds of butcher's meat ; and when they are com-
pletely fattened, twelve or twelve and a half pounds will be yielded by
twenty pounds of live-weight ; for experience has proved, that as an ox gets
fatter, the proportion of his flesh to the refuse becomes greater.

Yet it does not follow that the meat becomes more palatable or wholesome,
nor does it justify agricultural societies in the ridiculous practice of offering
premiums for excessive obesity, that children and groundhngs may open
their eyes with wonder, exclaiming, " Oh! what a monstrous fat beast T^
Monsters may they Avell be called, but do they pay?

Finally, the rule of the New York market appears to be about the fair
thing between graziers and victuallers.

But we must on all occasions be true to our purpose, which is — what?
Not so much to indulge in vain and oft-repeated lectures to the farmer and
planter on matters of field practice, in the daily pursuit of their profession,
and of which they have little to learn ; our object and wish being rather to
incite them to study their position for themselves, tlieir social and political
condition ; to inquire and determine, calmly and dispassionately, whether any
thing, and what, can be done by the action of government, in our domestic
policy, and in our foreign relations, to increase and render more permanent
the profits on what they do make.

Leaving foreign markets out of view, and looking to the articles of beef
and pork, as they concern the American farmer, is it not better that all who
consume them — the hatter, the weaver, the tailor, the iron-monger, the
tanner, and the shoemaker ; in a word, all who bu}'- and consume the vari-
ous commodities which he does, or which he could, raise for sale, should be
as near to him as possible, even if, for any one or all of these productions,
the consumer should pay a little less than they would produce in the foreign
market ? The nearer the consumers are, and the shorter and less expensive
the transportation to them, the greater will be the variety of things he can
cultivate with a certainty of a remunerating demand ; his whole landed estate
acquiring, in fact, from that very circumstance, the additional value which
proximity to market never fails to impart. As his land cannot be moved,
the true policy of the landholder is to bring as near to it as practicable the
largest body of consumers, for, in proportion as he can do this, his pursuit
will partake more and more of the nature of horticulture, and thus yield
greater profits.

We lately passed a day, to us in a manner the most congenial and agree-
able, enjoying his hospitality and walking over his estate, with that exceed-

STEAM PLOUGHS, 41

ingly we]l-bred, well-informed farmer, Mr. E. Phinney, of Lexington, Massa-
chusetts. A dozen pages might be profitably filled with a detail of what
we saw, and what we learned. There were the cattle imported by the
Massachusetts Agricultural Society, North Devons and Ayrshires, with their
progeny, all well minded and well managed : but for this detail we have not
time or notes at hand. Suffice what follows in corroboration of the undeniable
axiom, that concentration is the thing to remove stones, clear up swamps,
drain bogs, and fell timber, and make poor land rich, and rich land richer.
Viewing with admiration, we may say with amazement, the difficulties
Mr. Phinney had encountered and overcome, in subduing his rugged in-
heritance, causing verdant meadows and fruitful orchards to flourish in place
of bogs utterly impassable, and where the ground had been covered with
stone, some of it in such large masses that from a great portion of his land
it had been blasted, and removed b}^ man and ox power, at the rate of more
than a ton to every six feet, " what," thinks I to myself, " would a southern
farmer say, if land were offered him for nothing, from which he had to re-
move a ton of stone for every six feet square before he could stick his plough.
in the ground ?" But what will not the presence of abundant and thriving
consumers do to give activity to landed capital ? In contemplation of all we
saw, surprise prompted the inquiry — " In the name of all that is wonderful,
my dear sir, where do you find remunerating returns for this vast amount
of labor ? Where do you find a market for your $2000 worth of apples, for
instance, taking, as you have done, sometimes eight barrels from a tree ?"
"Why," said he, "do you forget that besides Boston with its more than
100,000 thriving consumers, and the West India and the European market,
to say nothing of many other towns in this state, we have here in Lowell
30,000 //'ia'^ eaters V And this brought us to remember that there, in Low-
ell, with a water-power inferior to the falls of Potomac, and to many similar
unimproved sites in the South, a single woollen-mill employs 1500 persons,
male and female, manufacturing 119,000 yards of broad cloth, and 204,000
yards of kerseymeres, annually ; the pay for which goes out in very large
proportion to the neighboring farmers and gardeners, for food in every form
that the land can be made to produce it — for it is, after all, with food that
bricks are made, and saddles are made, and houses are built, and ships are
manned and rigged. Food, food, is the great material, and mother earth
the great machine of production : concentration always enriches — de-con-
centration always impoverishes her.

STEAM PLOUGHS.

PRESENT AND PROSPECTIVE USE OF THEM.

Mr. Wray, in his work oa the cultivation of the cane and the manufacture
of sugar, speaking of the steam plough in Demerara, and of the effect of
drainage on the quality of sugar, makes some remarks that may be worthy
of the notice of our friends "on the coast" above and below New Orleans.

"We all know the improvement in the quality of sugar that has re-
sulted from the use of the vacuum pan, and improved methods of evapora-
tion, «&,c. ; but few allow the full importance due to the improved system
of drainage, as now practised in Demerara. In former days the sugar

Vol. I.— 6 j> 3

42 STEAM PLOUGHS.

from this colony was of the most dark and inferior description, but recently
the use of the vacuum pan and the better drainage of the cane lands,
have, together, completely altered its quality, and raised its value to a high
standard.

" The planters are also said to have hit on a plan of ploiving their land
by the aid of a steam-engine, that is at once simple and effective. The
estates are usually about four hundred or five hundred yards in breadth,
and from three to five miles in length, with a canal running up the centre,
and a smaller canal or drain running with it, on either side of the estate ;
the engine is then fitted into a boat, which traverses the centre canal, and
gives motion to the plough by means of an endless chain or rope attached to
a wheel placed in another boat, which last takes up a position in one of
the parallel drains or canals, so that the plough is drawn backwards and
forwards between the two canals.

"As the plough arrives at the extremity of the field, the two boats move
on the required distance ; then the motion of the engine is reversed, and
the plough returns : so that by this simple arrangement, the plowing of an
estate is accomplished most expeditiously."

Mr. Wray goes on, contending, by a course of argument which we have
not time to transcribe, but which we will give in a subsequent number,
"that such an engine for plowing maybe serviceably employed on any
tolerably level estate, having roads, and which is not too rocky.

"What," says he, "the planter would like to avail himself of, is the
great power, unwearying labor, and nice precision of the steam-engine.
In the performance of such work as he would require of it, he would not
wish for speed, either when stationary or when moving about the estate.
However, this will be more intelligible after I have enumerated the chief
labors which the auxiliary engines may be expected to perform! These
comprise : —

" 1. Plowing.
' " 2. Harrowing and hainghering until well pulverized.

" 3. Plowing trenches six feet apart, for cane tops.

" 4. Cleaning, moulding, and first-banking young canes.

' 5. Bringing out cane from the field to carts and wagons in the road.

" 6. Drawing cane carts or wagons to the mill and returning with green
trash.

" 7. Distributing the green trash throughout a recently cut field.

"8. Leveling banks and covering up cane trash, &c.

" 9. Bringing manure carts to the field and distributing the same.

" 10. Bringing sand to the field, if required, and distributing the same.

" 11. Sanding the roads and rolling them, whenever required.

" 12. Pumping water for irrigation, when necessary.

" 13. Draining land whenever required.

" 14. Drawing carts to the wharf with produce, and returning with coals.

*' 15. Sawing up timber into boards and planing the same.

" Besides many minor performances from time to time arising."

Such are the uses to which this experienced and intelligent planter pre-

A WORD ABOUT MULES. 43

diets the power of steam will soon be applied. How instructive and sur-
prising to those who live in the retirement of the country would be an
enumeration of the various and wonderfully labor-saving purposes to which
steam is now applied, in such a city as New York, to mechanical purposes,
from the power of one up to that of a thousand horses, and with as much
minuteness and precision, and as perfect control, as the shoemaker has over
his awl and lapstone. It is ascertained that in Philadelphia alone, steam
is applied to save manual and other more expensive power, in more than
three hundred establishments, large and small.

What a pity that among agriculturists we have not many more of
mechanical genius, such as Whitney, or Arkwright, or Stevens, or Bogardus.
But, as Mr. Poinsett says, "agriculturists live apart and meet but rarely to
take into consideration their common interests, and, when they do meet,
remain together too short a time to originate or perfect any great measure
of general improvement." But even these disadvantages would be obviated
in a great measure by a system of instruction, which should secure for the
sons of farmers a practical education adapted to their profession, embracing
the sciences applicable to it — on the plan that the representatives of farmers
liberally provide for those to whom life commissions and high salaries are
to be given, and whose sole business is to keep their guns bright and their
swords sharp, in preparation for wars.

A WORD ABOUT MULES.

If this too much abused and derided hybrid could speak, as did one of his
far back ancestors, we should claim from them a vote of thanks, for what we
have said, and caused to be said, in favor of their value, and their claim to
kind consideration and treatment.

Many years ago, at our suggestion, for he needed no persuasion, the then
remaining survivor of the signers of our Declaration of Independence, the
venerable Charles Carroll of Carrolton, offered a piece of plate, with appro-
priate inscriptions, for the best essay on the mule, in comparison with horses
and oxen for farm labor.

An admirable essay, on which the prize was worthily bestowed, was written
by that inquisitive and active-minded observer and gentleman of various
knowledge, Willis Pomeroy of Massachusetts. Since then, we have on
various occasions embraced opportunities to vindicate the useful qualities of
the mule, even for the saddle, over rough and mountainous roads ; and in an
essay on " the natural history of the ass and the mule," written while
in the office of assistant P. M. G., we took further occasion to assert the
excellence and economy of this underrated animal, as a labor-saving opera-
tive on a farm. The reader will see that he occupies the front ground in the
design, which illustrates the title and purposes of " the plough, the loom,
AND THE anvil," but he would not know, if we did not choose to tell him, that
the place there noAv occupied by the mules had been assigned by the artist
to a pair of sleek horses ; on seeing which, we requested him to slick on u

44 COMBINATIONS AGAINST FARMERS.

longer pair of ears, and a smaller tail, and to otherwise modify the picture,
in such manner as should indicate our preference for them over horses, for
farm icork. In a fox-chase, it might be otherwise. They might not, under
the saddle, be so ready to go at timber ; but when worked hard all day
and turned out at night in a bare pasture to starve, as they sometimes are,
it is admitted they are not slow to get over or through a fence, by hook or
by crook — and who can blame them in such case ? As to the longevity of
mules, we find in a new work on the culture and manufacture of the sugar-
cane, describing and comparing the East and the West India systems, — beino-
the result of the author's sixteen years' experience as a sugar planter in
these regions, — the following: " We know that the average working period of
a steer, or heifer in Jamaica, under favorable circumstances, is ten years ;
but when a little extra care has been taken of them, we may safely reckon
on fifteen years, [is not that extraordinary?] whilst a mule, with common
care, will work for twenty, thirty, and even forty years. I have had four
mules, ranging of an age from forty-five to forty-eight years each, as proved
by the most undoubted evidence, and all of them at that age taking their
regular spells in turn."

COMBINATIONS AGAINST FARMERS.

THE COMPLAINT IS OFTEN UNFOUNDED.

Farmers are deceived and misled by the cry of combinations against them
— haud experientia loquor. We have been ourselves misguided by the
thought of combinations of other classes against them ; but, on reflection,
we have come to ask ourselves, what is more natural than for men to com-
bine for common good ? Is it not the foundation of all social organization
and improvement ? Why should not the iron-monger, and the coal-miner,
and the wool-comber, combine with the wool-grower, and the grower of sugar
and coffee, to secure a national policy, under which each shall have the
benefit of the custom, and the support of all the rest ? Above all classes,
who so much interested as the cultivator of the soil, in having, as near as
possible, as many as possible who are not cultivators, but whose thriving
condition and employment shall enable them to buy, and freely consume the
products of the soil?

Take the sugar-planter, and the wool-grower, for instance. If the latter
is ruined in hi i business, by the importation of untaxed foreign wool, can
he afford to throw sugar as freely as it would be palatable to do, not only in
his tea and coffee, but in his pies and puddings? On the other hand, if the
sugar-grower is protected from the rivalry of the West and East Indies, can
he not more freely clothe himself, and all about him, with the staple of the
wool-grower ? In place of a stupid jealousy, founded on the apprehension
of antagonist interests, neither true nor natural, let all true friends of the pub-
lic welfare inculcate harmony of action, for the welfare of all. Every man
who has any thing to sell, whether it be wheat, or rice, or sugar, or wool, or
corn, or cotton, or labor of any sort, is directly benefited by that course of
pohcy, and that state of things, which rears up in his neighborhood the great-
est number of wealthy people to be competitors for, and consumers of, all he
has to dispose of. This is common sense, and let every man of sense
beware of the demagogue, who would incite the envy and the malice of the
poor against the rich.

FOREIGN MARKETS.

45

The impulse of every good heart, and Avell-informed mind, would be this —
"Let me be as well-informed and as wealthy as I may, it is better for me that
all around should be yet better informed, and more opulent — for their loss must
be my gain — the tendency is ever to come to a level. Do not cities grow by
the rise of capital and industry, and do not lands rise — other things the
same — as they approach large cities ?"

FOREIGN MARKETS.

WHAT THE FARMER MAY EXPECT FROM DEPENDENCE ON THEM.

From the Cleveland (Ohio) Herald.

The following comparative table is mostly from Cook, Young, & Co.'s
New Orleans Price Current. The date employed for 1847, it will be per-
ceived, was before the time of high prices, when the tariff of 1846 was
operating in its full vigor : —

jlpril 24, 1848.

5ia 5J - -

1 50 o 1 75 -

jlpril 24, 1847.
lOJ

Cotton, middling, per lb. - - - 5^ a 5 J - - - 10^

Corn Meal, per bbl. - - - 1 50 o 1 75 - - - 5 00

Flour, Ohio, &c., per bbl. - - - 4 00 a 4 25 - - - - 6 00 a 6 12^

Wheat, per bush. - - - - 80 a 95 - - - 1 25 a 1 33

Oats, per bush. 23 a 28 - - - - 50 o 55

Corn, per bush. - .- - - 35 a 30 - - - 70 a 80

Gunny Bags 8 a 9 - - - - 26 a 27

Pork, Mess, per bbl. - - - 8 00 a 8 25 - - - 15 50 a 16 00

Pork, Prime, per bbl. - - - — a 7 00 - - - - 11 25 a 11 50

Bacon, sides, per lb. - - - 3^ a 4 - - - 3 a 3j-

Bacon, shoulders, per lb. - - - 2 a 23- ... 5 a 5|

Lard, per lb. 4a6--- 8a 9

Sugar, per lb. 1^ a 4| - - - 5| a 7^

Molasses, per gal. - - - - 15 a 19 - - - 26 a 30

The above is not, however, a fair illustration of the discrepancy between
the high prices which men predicted were to rule as the effect of the tariff
and those which actually do exist. We now present a comparative table of
prices more to the purpose, for which we shall not go out of our own
market : —

3Iay, 1848. June, 1847.

Flour 4 87i a 5 00 - - - - 7 00 a 7 50

Wheat 1 Ol| a 1 09 - - - 1 50 a 1 52

Corn 31 a 39 - - - - 65 o 66

Pork, Mess 8 25 a 8 50 - - - o 14 50

Lard 5a 5^ ... 8a 9

Great Britain and Ireland take the bulk of our exports of flour, meal,
wheat, and corn. — Here are the figures from September, 1, 1847, to the
commencement of the present month : —

FLOUR,

bbls.

MEAL,

bbls.

WHEAT,

bush.

corny,

bbls.

New York
New Orleans
Philadelphia
Baltimore
Boston
Other Ports -

137,085

15.544

1,563

770

- 704

33,343

24,997

25,121

1,796

3,900

177,934
33,194

4,010

1,064,101
970,025
166,145.

97,388
119,993

34,813

Total -
Same time last year
Falling off

155,666
1,685,734

1,530,068

89,157
•"^5,666
366,509

215,139
1,570,614
~1,305.475

2,452,921
11,245,775

8,792,854

46 COMPARATIVE VALUE OF PEAS AND CLOVER

ON THE COMPARATIVE VALUE OF PEAS AND CLOVER.

Connemara, April lO^ft, 1848.

My Dear Sir: — I hand you enclosed a note of my operations upon the
pea with plaster, and regret that circumstances beyond my control have delayed
it so long. I am so well satisfied of the great beneficial effects of the plaster,
that I have gone to a great expense of labor in preparing to grind the article
for myself; by this means I procure it at a cash cost varying from 18 to 20
cents the bushel. I have not entered at all into the argument of the supe-
riority of the pea fallow over one of clover; that will come more properly
from you, if you should agree with me in that superiority. Much in this
question depends upon the propinquity to markets. Clover may he, with a
good market for hay, butter, cheese, or the like, a more profitable crop than
the pea — but supposing all things to be equal, the points in which the pea
is superior to clover are —

1st. In the fact that it takes but two j^ears to come round to a hoe crop,
and of course this requires less land — a great advantage Avhere there is a
stationary supply of hoe hands.

2d. Clover generates several kinds of rusts, which are injurious to a re-
warding grain crop — whereas the pea leaves the grain more free from vermin
of all kinds than any other crop I know.

3d. When the ensuing crop is of a kind that ought to be kept very clean
in its early stages, clover is very objectionable, (this is especially the case
with the cotton crop,) whereas the pea cleanses the land better than any
other crop. It is destructive to the wire-grass, and I believe will be found
to be so to that nut-grass of which the Louisiana planter complains so much,
and the pecuhar name [Coco. — Ed.~\ of which I cannot at this instant recall.

4th. The pea crop is amazingly advantageous as a great stimulus (and a
very cheap one) to the supply of pork, which is a cash article.

But do not understand me as undervaluing the clover as an improver. I
believe it is exceedingly advantageous, and the perfection of hog raising and
fattening is to have good clover to put them on in May and June — good oats
to turn them to in the field, in order to let the clover take its sure growth,
and then good ripe peas to fatten them Avith, and with these appliances the
unmerchantable corn on an estate will make pork cheap and abundant, and
will save the Southern States a vast sum which they annually pay for that
article.

I fear you will think me extravagant, and even foolishly so, when I speak
of turning hogs upon an oat field — yet at a distance from market, so great as
to render the cultivation of so bulky an article very unproductive, I find
it to be a saving of corn and an improvement to the land, besides a great
saving of labor at an important period of the corn crop to make my hogs
harvest my oat crop.

I congratulate you on the very handsome manner in Avhich your petition
to the Senate was launched by Mr. Johnson of Maryland, and hope you will
meet with success, but I fear the reverse.

Whenever your convenience and pleasure permits, I shall be very happy
to see you at this place, 13 miles below Hahfax; and with reminding you of
your engagement to keep me out of print,

Believe me, very respectfully yours,

_ J. N. D.

There is another use of the pea, which I confess I began with great doubts,
and have continued from a conviction of its utility — viz. : when the corn is

SOUTHERN SENTIMENT. 47

ready to lay by, sow peas in it, and then do the necessary work of laying
by. In bad seasons and early frost, a failure of the crop is generally the
xesult — but even then the vine greatly aids the land, and if the season be a
usual one, in this climate it produces well, and I cannot see that it injures
the corn, although I feared it. I plaster the pea this season at the rate of
50 lbs. to the acre.

Notes on the above. — The above was courteously and kindly intended merely to envelope
the following communication that accompanied it, but while we know the writer will
excuse, we are equally sure the reader will thank us for sending both along together, as
they came.

In regions where clover will "take," as they call it in Maryland, it is hard to calculate
the value of it. A single crop in some parts of that State, Prince George, Anne Arundel,
and Calvert counties, for instance, brings poor land, that would not yield two barrels of
corn or one hundred pounds of tobacco, at once up to 6 or 8 barrels of corn and 800 or
1000 pounds of tobacco. There it is the poor, soft, and yellow-looking land, with broom
sedge, that is most quickly and magically improved by clover and plaster. The use of
these, in the region referred to, has, in hundreds of cases, raised the value and selling price
of lands from 8 and 10 up to 30 and 40 dollars in five or six years. But, strange to say,
in many, perhaps the larger portion of the State, they produce no such ellect. Now, if the
efficacy of plaster or sulphate of lime, acting on clover, were referable to its power of
promoting the growth of the latter by attracting moisture or ammonia, why should it not
possess THAT power, as well in one place as another? May we not then infer that it acta
on something in the land, converting it into food for clover, which something, whatever it
he, exists in certain soils and not in odiers? It is a remarkable fact about plaster of Paris,
that the least modicum of it seems to answer all the purposes of a larger quantity? We
once heard Mr. Tolbert. one of the most upright and exemplary planters in Prince George,
say, that he had known half a bushel to the acre have all the eflect of any larger quantity.

We may be allowed here to express our satisfaction in the belief, that Mr. D.
heartily unites with those who are persuaded that American agriculture is destined to
prosper and to find its surest and steadiest market in the prosperity of every other branch
of industry, prosecuted by those, in our own country, who manufacture the raw materials,
and consume the products of the American farmer. We do not know what may happen
to be the cast of his pohtics — for we can safely say, that in thirty years of study to know
how and in what way practical agriculture can be best advanced, and its rights and
claims most effectually asserted and maintained, we have never cared to know to what
party the man belonged, who could give us information that would enable us to add even
an iota to the stock of such knowledge as might prove useful to the practical farmer.
That Mr. D. has no interest to mislead others, or to be himself deluded on this great
question for the country, suffice it to say, that his annual stake in agricultural produce is to
the tune, we believe, of considerably over 100,000 bushels of corn annually!!

As to the Editor's memorial, in behalf of the plough, so kindly and so eloquently pre-
sented by Senator Johnson of Maryland, is it not enough that it sought some action of
government in behalf of the landed interest, to ensure it to be buried in the tomb of the
Capulets? Had it been a memorial praying for a military exploration or survey, or ana-
lysis of some substance for rfca//i-dealing purposes. Congress would have granted 10, ay
20,000 copies or maps at a breath, without hiquiry or hesitation — what, let us ask, after
more than six months' session of Congress, have the Military Committees said or done?
and echo answers — what?

SOUTHERN SENTIMENT

ON THE POLICY OF ENCOURAGING DOMESTIC INDUSTRY.

To those whose opportunities enable them to mark the progressive changes
of pubhc opinion, on great questions of national policy, nothing can be more
apparent than the spread of opinion in the Southern States, that the time
has arrived when, to follow up the declaration of Mr. Jefferson, in 1816,
" we must now place the manufacturer along-side of the agriculturist."
Of this fact, the proofs are numerous and conclusive. We have seen it
stated, it is believed, in that excellent journal, the Southerner, conducted, at
Richmond, by our friend J. M. Crane, with singular zeal and intelligence,

48 CULTURE OF THE GEORGIA, OR COW-PEA.

that upwards of ninety companies were incorporated by southern legislatures,
during the last wintersessions, for manufacturing, or for kindred purposes.

The subject is not otherwise particularly attractive for us than as it is in-
timately connected with the welfare of the cultivators of the soil. The senti-
ment of which we speak tends to the establishment in the old States of a
fixed populatino, not engaged in agriculture, but which will be consumers of
all that agriculture can produce; in a word, it shows that the time is coming
when public men will be forced to establish and maintain, as an American,
national policy, a system, under which we shall have concentration instead
of dispersion.

We have pleasure in preserving, as an evidence of the sentiment to which
we have referred, the following extract from a gentleman in North Carohna,
who, with the highest capacity to judge of what is best for the landed inte-
rest, unites the assurance of fidelity, to be found in the consideration that
his own interest is deeply and intimately connected with it : —

" The alteration that you propose maldng in the publication of ' The Far-
mers' Library,' I think a judicious one, and should you succeed in effecting
a purchase, I think that I can venture to promise as many as five or ten sub-
scribers. You shall have my good wishes, as well as my support, in your
efforts to induce the consumer and manufacturer to settle along-side of
the plough, believing that a tariff for the protection of the manufacturer is,
in effect, a protection to agriculture itself. The man who could induce our
southern agriculturists to vest their surplus capital in the erection of manu-
factories, sufficient to work up one-half of the cotton and wool that is pro-
duced in the Southern States, ' would deserve better of the southern country
than all the race of its politicians put together.' Could my friend and neigh-
bor, Mr. Thomas P. Devereux, be induced to give you the result of his expe-
riments in the pea culture, I have no doubt he would communicate results
that would surprise your Maryland friends.* Should business or pleasure
ever induce you again to cross the Roanoke, it would give me pleasure to
make the personal acquaintance of one, with whose writings and efforts in
the cause of agriculture I have been familiar from my boyhood. My father
(now no more) was for many years a subscriber to the American Farmer,
and whatever fondness I now have for such pursuits, was acquired from
reading that work. For your health and prosperity, I am, dear sir,

" Your ob't ser't, R. H. S."

ON THE CULTURE OF THE GEORGIA, OR COW-PEA,

AND ITS VALUE AS A FERTILIZER.

My Dear Sir : — I owe you an apology for the delay which has taken
place in the performance of my promise to give you some account of the
effect of the field-pea, or the Georgia pea, or the cow-pea, (as it is indifferently
called,) upon worn or exhausted lands. Accident brought before me, several
years ago, very strongly, its renovating power, when sown broadcast as a fallow
crop. I had known and valued it for years, but had no idea of the extent
of its effects until the time I speak of. Another accident suggested to me
the probability that as it was a papilionaceous plant, gypsum might have the
same specific effect upon it that it had on clover, and a slight trial induced
me to make a number of more accurate experiments, conducted as follows :
I laid off portions of several fields in squares of one acre each, and sowed
the whole with peas. About the time when they began to put forth their

• It will be seen that he has had the goodness to do so.

CULTURE OF THE GEORGIA, OR COW-PEA. 49

tendrils, I sowed each alternate acre with different quantities of plaster,
beginning with five bijshels, and going as low as one. The effect was appa-
rent, and about as striking as upon clover. But as my object was to ascer-
tain the effect upon ensuing corn crops, in the fall and after the pea vines
were dead, I sowed upon selected portions of the field similar quantities of
plaster ; I then had every thing plowed in, and suffered it to he until spring,
when the whole was planted in corn. The difference was striking from the
time the corn came up, and although the result varied as to the amount of
product, 1 was satisfied there was an increase upon those squares where the
plaster was sowed upon the growing pea, of about fifteen to nine. I could
not detect any difference between those squares where the plaster was sowed
upon the dry vine and the residue of the field. Being satisfied that the
improvement over-paid the expense, I began upon a larger scale, and the
following are the results of two crops, one of peas with plaster, and the other
of corn. I ought to say, that the number of acres, and the crops, were
not accurately measured. The first being ascertained by the number of
corn-hills, and the crop by measurement in cart-loads : —

1. A field, containing about 75 acres, worn by long cultivation in corn and
cotton, produced, in 1845, 750 bushels of corn, and in 1847, after the fal-
low crop of peas with plaster, the crop was 1(350 bushels.

2. An old field, containing 27 acres, which was cut down, plowed up, and
suffered to lie one year, was planted in corn in 1845, and produced 400
bushels. In 1847, after peas and plaster, the crop was 750 bushels.

3. On a field, containing about 160 acres, part worn, and part old field,
(No. 2 being a part of it,) the crop of 1845 was about 2500 bushels. This
was such a crop as I had a right to expect, compared with other lands, and
other crops upon the same land. The crop of 1847 was 4781 bushels.
This crop was stored to itself, and was delivered as a part of the sale crop,
and the result is strictly accurate. It would probably have measured more,
had it not been from a combination of accidents which prevented its being-
gathered until the 22d of January.

4. An old field, treated in every way as No. 2, but better land, containing
20 acres, produced, in 1845, 200 bushels of corn, and in 1847, 600.

No. 5. A field, worn out by akernating crops of corn and oats, and then as
pasture, containing 85 acres, produced, in 1845, 350 bushels of corn, and in
1847, 650. This land is not equal in natural fertility to any of the fields
above mentioned.

I ought to add, that in none of the above cases, was the land naturally
poor in its native growth — all but the last were very fertile ; that they had
all been greatly injured by hard cultivation, and that the maximum of their
yield could hardly have been as high as 50 bushels to the acre. It is not
my purpose to trouble you with a disquisition upon the mode in which plas-
ter acts, nor of the causes why it so signally fails upon some land, and acts
so powerfully upon others. My object has been to state nothing but facts,
and in execution of that I have to add that grass is the great enemy of the
pea when sown ; that weeds do not seem to injure it, and that there are
many sensible and well-judging men who contend that the crop is surer
when sown in the month of June, upon the corn-stubble, and then plowed in,
than when the land is first broken up with double ploughs, and the seed har-
rowed or plowed in. The cause assigned is, that the last method is more
favorable to an early growth of crop (crab) grass than the former. I ought
also to add, that I have been unable to perceive any difference upon the pea
where five bushels of plaster have been sown upon it, and where the quan-
tity was confined to a single bushel. I ought also to say, that the best
mode of harvesting the pea is to turn a stock of hogs upon them when

Vol. I.— 7 E

50 ELEPHANTS FSED FOR THE PLOUGH.

ripe ; that the preferable kind is the red pea, because it does not rot when
exposed to the weather, and that care should be taken to choose that variety
which combines productiveness of crop and luxuriance of vine.

ELEPHANTS USED AND RECOMMENDED FOR THE

PLOUGH.

In his work on the cultivation of sug^r, Mr. Wray says, "hundreds of
active young elephants can be procured at from 50 to 100 dollars each:
admirably suited for estates work of various kinds, but more especially for
plowing — one of these animals will close-plow a full acre of land during a
day, with the greatest ease to himself, and only requires to be attended by
his keeper, in addition to the plowman.

"To perform similar work, that is chankoling, (hoeing,) an acre of land
requires at least 50 Chinese laborers — which is a fact admitting of no denial.
Is it not evident, therefore, that we cannot hope for a knowledge of the lowest
price at which sugar can be produced in these settlements, until the plough is
brought into general operation ? Any one visiting Singapore can see a male
elephant, named 'Rajah,' working daily on the estate of J. Balestier, Esq.,
(the American Consul,) and although the animal is only five years old, he
will plow his acre of land a day with ease. I have repeatedly walked up
and down the furrow with him, and been delighted with his performance.
One man holds the plough, and another (the keeper) walks beside the animal,
and directs him in his duty. The docile httle creature obeys every word
that is said to him, and (although no doubt sorely tempted) will plough all day
between the cane rows without plucking a single cane. I am positive that
a less number than fifty Chinese laborers could not dig up the same quantity
of land that I have repeatedly seen this Uttle elephant plow^ in a day. But
independent of elephants, buffaloes and cattle abound, costing not more than
$10 each on an average. These animals, if properly fed and tended, are
excellent for plowing and other estates purposes. But above all other power,
a small auxiliary locomotive engine is that which is best suited to the wants
of the planter in these settlements — with it he could plow up his lands,
pulverize the soil, and perform all the work already specified." The author
goes on with details to show what would be the saving such an engine
would accomplish.

In further recommendation of the elephant, he remarks, "I consider ele-
phants of small size preferable to buffaloes on a sugar estate; and have no
doubt that one will do more work than five buffaloes. In plowing, the ele-
phant applies his weight to the draught in a peculiar and extraordinary
manner; maintaininq- a constant and very steady pull, instead of that quick
jerking motion so often imputed to him."

"They are better able to stand the heat of the sun than buffaloes, and I
do not think them near so susceptible of disease, for with ordinary care they
have been known to perform unabated service during upwards of fifty years.
In Upper India among the natives, they have been known to labor upwards
of eighty years."

Now it is quite probable that among our readers there may be not one
who can mzVe profitable application of what is here related, about elephants
in the plough: but what of that? Has the farmer no right to expect to be
provided with the curiosities of his profession, and with things that may be
useful, only in being entertaining ? Has he no relish for such things ?
If not, then are we mistaken in the character, as well as in the wants of our
readers.

THE HORSES OF PENNSYLVANIA. 51

THE HORSES OF PEXXSYLYAXIA.

HOW TO BE IMPROVED.

Does not the importance of the subject, and the number of farmers inte-
rested in it, commend to general consideration the question : How far the im-
pro%'ement of the breed and quality of horses ought to be made the subject
of legislative action ? Does it not amount to a great public nuisance, that
any lazy fellow, looking: out for some means to live without working, should
be allowed, at the first budding of the trees in erery spring season, to mount
on the back of any big, fat, logy stallion, and go ridinir round the country-, to
contaminate and deteriorate our stock of horses, in itself bad enough ? ^^ hen
it is considered that the same food and care that are employed in rearing
a worthless, heavy, straight-shouldered, splinted and spavined garron, would
suffice for a well-bred, sleek-coated, well-formed, high-mettled hunter, or
carriage horse, who can estimate the loss which ensues to the State, by neg-
lect of the quality of the horses appropriated to breeding?

In Pennsylvania there are not less than 400,000 horses, rsow does any-
body doubt that by a government regulation, condemning the use of stallions,
which a board of judges should proscribe as worse than worthless ; and licens-
ing only such as they would sanction, the whole stock of the State might
in a {qw years be so improved as to insure an average appreciation of $10
per head ;" which would amount to $4,000,000 \ As to any objection on the
score of power, the State government, representing the majesty of the whole
people, may surely do what is not constitutionally forbidden. Is not the
power which compels the farmer to submit his flour to inspection, and which
seizes his '* light" butter in the market, equal to the regulation of the quality
of a horse, which is to meliorate or to poison all he crosses ? So injurious, in
Enofland, has been the eflecl of reducing the weight and the distance formerly
observed in racing, that a qualified writer has lately asserted, " I am of opinion
that no one would undertake to contract to supply 500 well-bred, clean,
sound horses, under eight years, perfect as hunters and equal to fourteen
stone, (196 pounds.) with one month's notice, at 150 guineas (S750) each.

As it is incumbent on those who find fault to propose practical remedies,
I would sugsrest that memorials be gotten up in the different counties, to the
Legislature, ^to require all horses employed as stallions to be licensed under
a board of well-known judges of what constitutes a horse worthy of propa-
gating his stock. Let all vi-ho have horses for pubhc use be bound to pro-
duce them at the court-house of the county on a given day of each year,
say 4th of March. If not allowed to interdict, altogether, the use of blind,
spavined, and curbed beasts, with bull withers and weak loins, let it be the
duty of the judges to regulate the license by a sliding scale, making the
license fee loiver and lower, in proportion as the horse should be found to
rise in excellence, and let the proceeds of this license be added to the in-
famously mean salaries paid to the teachers, male and female, in our common
schools, not nearly equal, in many cases, to the pay of an orderly in the
army, who cleans the horse or the boots of an officer, with his life commis-
sionas lonsras he remains above ground, and pension for his surviving laniily.
If the Lecrislature, or municipal authorities, have power to tax dogs and
stills; why not tax horses, which, when inferior, cannot be used without
great prejudice to the larming interest I The eflect would be to lessen the
number of bad ones, and so to increase the support yielded to those of a better
kind, that their services niight be aflbrded at a lower rate, and as " hke be-

52 THE shepherd's dog VARIETY AND QUALITIES.

gets like," the general result would soon be visible, in the general improve-
ment and increased average value of the horses bred in Pennsylvania, to an
aggregate amount of some millions of dollars. If any such opportunity
offered for an equal increase of capital invested in manufactories or com-
merce, depending solely on an act of legislation, within the admitted com-
petence of the representatives of the people ; how long would it be before
they, the merchant and the manufacturer, Avould cause themselves to be
heard and heeded? But, as Mr. Poinsett says, farmers too rarely come to-
gether to confer for their general benefit, and when they do, wont stay long
enough to devise any effectual measures to obtain the relief and protection
which they have a right to claim. Hence does it not become the especial
duty of agricultural associations to look to the course of public legislation,
as it has been or may be made to bear directly on the landed interest of the
State? Finally, would not this and subjects like this, be highly proper for
the consideration of the Philadelphia Society (and all such throughout the
country) for the promotion of Agricultural Improvement? Let the agricul-
tural community see them thus moving in matters obviously calculated to
achieve practical results, and a sense of self-interest and of justice would
prompt them to seek the fellowship and membership of such associations ;
and we should no longer witness the (I Avas going to say scandalous)
spectacle of indifference on the part of the farmers of Pennsylvania to the
prosperity and success of an association of gentlemen formed exclusively for
the benefit of the landed interest, and animated by the purest and most
patriotic motives. A Friend of the Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil.

THE SHEPHERD'S DOG— VARIETY AND QUALITIES.

Ix the last of a series of admirable letters on Sheep Husbandry, closed in the last num-
ber of the Farmer's Lil^rary, for which they were written, by Col. H. S. Randall, of Cort-
land village, New York; and in which the general subject has been presented and ably
treated in all its ramifications — the Author gives an account of the various races of dogs
employed in the care of sheep in different countries, with descriptive engravings of three
of them.

Of these, the cut here used serves to represent what he calls the ^'■Spanish Sheep Dog"' —
and as many of the patrons of this may not have been subscribers to that work, those of
them who were will excuse us for repeating here a part of what is there said of a par-
ticular breed, of which this is the first account that we remember to have seen.

The shape is quite different from that of two large young Pyrennean sheep-dogs, sent
some years since by General Lafayette to Mr. Skinner, then of Baltimore, — difierent as
here exactly described by Col. Ramlall, — the latter being, though of equal weight, shorter
on the leg. and of fuller body, with a mild countenance and temper, at once courageous
and magnanimous, such as would lead them to spare the life of any fallen foe, except that
of a sheep-killer, without expecting reproach from any brave or generous master.

The Spanish Sheep-Dog. — Of the origin of this celebrated race, I do
not recollect to have seen any thing. I have observed them several times
spoken of, latterly, in newspapers and agricultural publications, as the same
variety as the Alpine Spaniel, or Bernardino dog. This, I think, must be
an error, though there may be a general resemblance between the two species.
Arrogante, on the next page, though a dog of prodigious power, decidedly
lacks the massive proportions, both in body and limbs, of several Bernardine
dogs, which I 1.^, je seen, of unquestionable lineage. The temper and dispo-
sition of the two species, too, seems to me to be essentially difierent.

Mr. Trimmer, and various other foreign writers, s^jeak in warm terms of

THE shepherd's DOG VARIETY AND QUALITIES. 53

the value of the Spanish sheep-dog, for guarding the migratory flocks of that
country from the attacks of wolves — staj'ing Behind to protect feeble and
lagging sheep, &c. In the Memoirs of the Pennsylvania Agricultural So-
ciety, there is a communication from the well-known John Hare P.jwell, Esq.,
of Philadelphia, from which the following are extracts : —

"The first importations of Merino sheep were accompanied by some of the large and
powerful dogs of Spain, possessing all the valuable characteristics of the English shepherd's
dog, with sagacity, fidelity, and strength peculiar to themselves. . . Their ferocity, when
aroused by any intruder, their attachment to their own flock, and devotion to their master,
would, in the uncultivated parts of America, make them an acquisition of infinite value,
by affording a defence against wolves, which they readily kill, and vagrant cur doss, by
which our flocks are often destroyed. The force of their instinctive attachment to sheep,
and their resolution in attacking every dog which passes near to their charge, have been
forcibly evinced upon my farm.''

Arrogante — A Spanish Sheep-dog.

Arrogante, whose portrait is above given with admirable fidelity, was
imported from Spain with a flock of Merinos, a number of years since, by a
gentleman residing near Bristol, England. His subsequent owner, Francis
Rotch, Esq., of this State, thus describes him in a letter to me, which, though
not intended for publication, I will venture to make a few extracts from:

"I have, as you desired, made you a sketch of the Spanish sheep-dog Arrogante, and a
villanous looking rascal he is. A worse countenance I hardly ever saw on a dog! His
small blood-shot eyes, set close together, give him that sinister, wolfish look, which is most
unattractive; but his countenance is indicative of his character. There was nothing affec-
tionate or joyous about him. He never forgave an injury or an insult: offend him, and it
was for life. I have often been struck with his resemblance to his nation. He was proud
and reserved in the extreme, but not quarrelsome. Every little cur would fly out at him,
as at some strange animal; and I have seen them fasten far a inoment on his heavy, bushy
tail, and yet he would stride on, never breaking his long, 'loping,' shambling trot. Once I
saw him turn, and the retribution was awful! It was upon a large, powerful mastiff" we
kept as a night-guard in the Bank. He then put forth his strength, which proved tremendous!
His coat hung about him in thick, loose, matted folds, dirty and uncared-for, — so that I pre-
sume a dog' never got hold of any thing about him deeper than liis thick, tough skin, which

54 THE shepherd's DOG VARIETY AND QUALITIES.

•was twice two large to fit him anywhere, ami especially around the neck and shoulders.
The only other evidence of his uncommon strenjith which I had observed, was the perfect
ease with which he threw himself over a high wall or paling, which often drew my atten-
tion, because he seemed to me wanting in that particular physical develo|nnent which we
are accustomed to consider as necessary to muscular power. He was flat-chested, and flat-
sided, with a somewhat long back and narrovir loin. (My drawing foreshortens his length.)
His neck, forearm and thigh certainly indicated strength. If the Spanish wolf and the dog
ever cohabit, he most assuredly had in him such a cross; the very effluvia of the animal be-
trayed it. In all in which he differed from the beautiful Spanish shepherd-dog, he was
wolfish both in form and habits.* But, though no parlor beauty, Arrogante was unquestion-
ably a dog of immense value to the mountain-shepherd. Several times, he had met the
large wolf of the Apennines, and without aid slain his antagonist. The shepherds who
bred him said it was an affair of no doubtful issue, when he encountered a wolf single-
handed. His history, after reaching England, you know."

Some portions of that history I cannot resist the temptation of narrating,
as illustrative of the character of this interesting breed, and commemorative
of the virtues of the stern, but honest and dauntless Arrogante. If his
courage was tinctured with ferocity, and sometimes instigated by a revenge,
going a little beyond the canon which permits bad debts to be paid in kind,
he did every thing openly! Fie made no sneakish, cur-like attacks, on the
heels of his foe. By him, as by Robin Hood and his merry men — com'
memorated by Drayton —

"Who struck below the knee [was] not counted then a man;"

and his spring was always at the throat of his quarry. But he made not
that deadly spring until he gave "warning fair and true," and never without
provocation.!

Soon after Arrogante's arrival in England, a ewe under his charge
chanced to get cast in a ditch, during the temporarj- absence of the Spanish
shepherd who had accompanied the flock and dog at their importation. An
English shepherd, in a spirit of vaunting, insisted on relieving the fallen
sheep, in preference to having the absent shepherd called, though warned by
his companions to desist. The stern stranger dog met him at the gate, and
also warned him with sullen growls, growing more menacing as he approached
the sheep. The shepherd was a powerful and bold man, and felt that it was
too late now to retract with credit. On reaching the sheep, he bent care-
fully forward, with his eyes on the dog, which instantly made a spring at
his throat. A quick forward movement of his arm saved his throat, but the
arm was so dreadfully lacerated that immediate amputation became neces-
sary. To save the dog, which had but done his duty, as he had been taught
it, from the popular excitement, he was shipped in a vessel which sailed
that very afternoon, from Bristol for America. He was sent to Francis
Rotch, Esq., then a resident of New-Bedford.

For a long time Arrogante would not pay the least attention to his new
master; the voice of the latter would scarcely arrest him for a moment.
After attempting, in vain, for several weeks, to obtain some recognition of
mastership from him, Mr, Rotch chained him securely to a tree, punished
him severely, and then, with not a few misgivings, released him. But he
submitted, for he well knew that the punishment came from his master, and
afterward gave a cold, haughty obedience to all required of him.

• I never have supposed, from the several conversations which I have had with Mr.
Rotch on the subject, that Arrogante was any thing less than a thorough-bred Spanish
shepherd-dog. Mr. Rotch here means that he was an ill-favored individual of the family
— and he thinks that this may be owing to a bar-sinister on his escutcheon, left there by
some wolfisli gallant. His temper was even less ferocious than Mr. Powell describes that
of his Spanish dogs.

■J- Was tliere any tiling wolf-like in all of this?

•*

THE JERSEY COW. 55

o:n" the jersey, misnamed alderney, cow.

BY COL. LE COUTEUR,
Of Belle Vue, in the Island of Jersey.

The breed of cattle familiarly known throughout Great Britain as the
Alderney, and correctly termed in the article Cattle, of the " Library of Use-
ful Knowledge," " the crumpled horn," was originall}^ Norman, it is con-
ceived, as cows very similar to them in form and color are to be seen in
various parts of Normandy, and Brittany also ; but the difference in their
milking and creaming qualities is reall}^ astonishing, the Jersey cow pro-
ducing nearly double the quantity of butter.

The race is miscalled "Alderney," as far as Jersey is in question; for
about seventy years since Mr. Dumaresq of St. Peter's, afterwards the chief
magistrate, sent some of the best Jersey cows to his father-in-law, the then
proprietor of Alderney ; so that the Jersey was already at that period an
improved, and superior to the Alderney, race. It has since been vastly
amended in form, and generally so in various qualities, though the best of
those recorded at that period gave as much milk and butter as the best may
do now.

Ten years have elapsed since the attempt was first made by fixed rules
to improve the form and quality of the Jersey cow. A few gentlemen, pre-
sided over by the then Lieutenant-governor, Major-General Thornton,
selected two beautiful cows, with the best qualities, as models. One of
these was held to be perfect in her barrel and fore-quarters ; the other equally
so in her hind-quarters. From these two the following points Avere laid down
to be the rule for governing the judges in all the cattle shows of the Jersey
Agricultural Society.

The accuracy of this arrangement is proved by the fact that no deviation
from it has been made, the experience of ten years having only added to the
scale the points for general appearance and condition.

Scale of Points for Bulls.
Art. Points.

I. — Purity of breed on male and female sides, reputed for having proauced rich

and yellow butter - - - - - - - -4

II. — Head fine and tapering, cheek small, muzzle fine and encircled with white,
nostrils nigh and open, horns polished, crumpled, not too thick at the base,
and tapering, tipped with black ; ears small, of an orange color within, eye
full and lively - - - - - - - -8

III. — Neck fine and lightly placed on the shoulders ; chest broad, barrel hooped

and deep, \vel[ ribbed home to the hips - - - - - 3

IV. — Back straight from the withers to the setting of the tail, at right angles to the

tail. Tail fijie, hanging two inches below the hock - - - 3

v. — Hide thin and movable, mellow, well covered with soft and fine hair of a

good color ---------3

VI. — Fore-arm large and powerful, legs short and straight, swelling and full above

the knee, and fine below^ it ...... 2

VII. — Hind quarters from the buckle to the point of the rump, long and well filled

up : the legs not to cross behind in walking - - - - 2

VIIL— Growth 1

IX. — General appearance - - - - - - - -2

Perfection - - - • - -28

No prize shall be awarded to a bull having less than 20 points.

56 THE JERSEY COW.

Scale of Points for Cows and Heifers.
Art. Points.

I. — Breed, on male and female sides, reputed for producing rich and yellow

. butler ...-----. 4

II. — Head small, fine, and tapering; eye full and lively. Muzzle fine and en-
circled with white ; horns polished and a little crumpled, tipped with black ;
ears small, of an orange color within - - - - - 8

III, — Back straight from the withers to the setting of the tail ; chest deep and nearly

of a line with the belly - - - - - - - 4

IV. Hide thin, movable, but not too loose, well covered with fine and soft hair,

of good color - - - - - - - -2

v. Barrel hooped and deep, well ribbed home, having but little space between

the ribs and hips ; tail fine, hanging two inches below the hock - - 4

VI. Fore legs straight and fine, thighs full and long, close together when viewed

from behind ; hind legs short, and bones rather fine ; hoof small ; hind legs
•not to cross in walking - - - - - ■ -2

VII. — Udder full, well up behind; teats large and squarely placed, being wide

apart; milk veins large and swelling - - - - - 4

VIII.— Growth 1

IX. — General appearance - - -- • - " -2

Perfection for Cows - - - - 30

Two points shall be deducted from the nmnber required for perfection on heifers, as
their udder and milk veins cannot be fully developed. A heifer will therefore be con-
sidered perfect at 28 points.

No prize shall be awarded to cows, or heifers having less than 21 pomts.

The evil Avas, and still exists, that most Jersey farmers, like many others,
never thought of crossing with a view to improvement, conscious of possess-
ing a breed excellent for" the production of rich milk and cream — milk so
rich in some cows that it seems like what is sometimes called cream in
cities— and cream so much richer that, from a verdant pasture in spring, it
appears like clouted cream. But the Jersey farmer sought no further. He
was content to possess an ugly, ill-formed animal with flat sides, wide
between the ribs and hips, cat-hammed, narrow and high hips, with a hollow
back.*

She had always possessed the head of a fawn, a soft eye, her elegant
crumpled horn, small ears, yellow within, a clean neck and throat, fine bones,
a fine tail; above all, a well-formed capacious udder, with large swelling
milk veins. .

Content Avith these qualities, the only question in the selection of a bull,

•Some time since, we were called on bv Mr. Stetsox, of the Astor House, to go with
him and look at an Alderney he had just imported at a high figure. She was of white
color, fine, with rich yellow skin, red ear, and crumply horn, but so much higher an.l better
formed, so much more nearly resembling die '' improved short horn," than any Alderney
we had ever seen, that, not 'aware of the degree of improvement described and illus-
trated in this paper, we were half-persuaded she could not be a genuine Alderney; but
if this account of the improved Alderneys be well founded, it re-e?tabhslies her claim to
legitimacy. And if, in the process of the melioration of shape and properties here spoken
of and exhibited, there has been no sacrifice or impairment of the milking properties
peculiar to the original Alderneys, all we have to say is, that the art of animal modifica-
tion has been carried to a higher point than we knew of, though such things have
been with us a passionate study for thirty years. _

We well recollect that many years ago, there was a lot of genuine Alderneys imported
in Baltimore, by the means and agency of that then wealthy, and tJien much courted and
always enlightened and patriotic merchant citizen, D. A. Smith. This choice herd was
distributed through the neighborhood, and traces of dieir fine qualities for butter may yet
be seen in the products of the Waverly, the Hampton, and other dairies, on the breakfast
tables of the hospitable citizens of Bahimore. ,, „ , •,.!,.,„

The points of the improved cow in this case, were she not labelled, might be taken
for an Ayrsliire or short-horn in miniature. — Eds. P., L. & A.

THE JERSEY COW.

57

among the most judicious farmers was, " Is the breed a good one ?" mean-
ing, solely, had its progenitors been renowned for their milking and cream-
ing qualities ? But the mere attention to this was one of primary import
ance in a circumscribed spot like Jersey: it may have been quite sufficient
to establish an hereditary superiority in the most needful quality.

It may also have established it with a rapidity that could not have been
obtained in a wide-extended country like France. Hence, perhaps, the
present superiority of the Jersey over the French breed.

Some idea may be given of the difference in the form of the ancient and
the improved breed by the following sketches :

The Old Jersey Cow, from ISOO to 1830, still to be seen in some pastures. The fol-
lowing points would be taken from her : — cheek large, 1 — ewe neck, 1 — hollow back, 1 —
cat ham, 1 — flat side, 1 — not ribbed home, 1 — hind legs crooked, 1 — general appearance,
1. In all 8 : these deducted from 26, the number less the pedigree, leaves 18, which was
about tlie average number the best cows had at the formation of the Society.

1843, Portrait of " Beatttt," a prize cow, 4 years old, bred by Colonel Le Cotttextr,
at Belle Vue. She has already produced 11 lbs. Jersey, or 11 lbs. 13 oz. imp., of rich
yellow butter, weekly, in May, from 19 quarts of milk daily. She was awarded 27 points,
as a 2 year-old heifer.

Vol. L— 8

58 THE JERSEY COW.

The Jersey cow is a singularly docile and gentle animal ; the male, on the
contrary, is apt to become fierce after two years of age. In those bred on the
heights of St. Ouen, St. Brelade, and St. Mary, there is a hardiness and
sound constitution that enables them to meet even a Scotch winter without
injury ; those bred in the low grounds and rich pastures are of larger carcase,
but are more delicate in constitution.

Of the ancient race, it was stated, perhaps Avith truth, that it had no ten-
dency to fatten ; indeed some cows of the old breed were so ungainly high-
boned, and ragged in form, Meg Merrilies of cows, that no attempt to fatten
them might succeed — the great quantities of milk and cream which they
produced probably absorbing all their fattening properties.

Yet careful attention to crossing has greatly remedied this defect. By
having studied the habits of a good cow with a little more tendency to fatten
than others, and crossing her with a fleshy, well-conditioned bull of a race
that was also known to produce quality and quantity of butter — the next ge-
neration has proved of a rounder form, with a tendency to make fat, without
having lost the butyraceous nature.

Some of these improved animals have fattened so rapidly while being
stall-fed, from the month of December to March, as to suffer in parturition,
when both cow and calf have been lost ; to prevent which it is indispensable
to lower the condition of the cow, or to bleed in good time. Such animals
will fatten rapidly. Their beef is excellent ; the only defect being in the
color of the fat, which is sometimes too yellow. It is now a fair ques-
tion, whether the improved breed may not fatten as rapidly as any breed
known?

Q,uayle, who wrote the " Agricultural Survejr of Jersey," states " that the
Ayrshire was a cross between the short-horned breed and the Alderney."

There is a considerable affinity between these two breeds. The writer
has noticed Ayrshire cows that seemed to be of Jersey origin, but none of
them were said to have produced so large a quantity of cream or butter ;
nor w^as the butter in Scotland of nearly so deep a tinge of yellow as the
most rich in Jersey. One Jersey cow that produces very yellow cream will
give a good color to butter produced from two cows afifording a pale-colored
cream.*

It is not doubted that crosses from the Jersey breed have taken place.
Field-Marshal Conway, the governor of this " sequestered isle," as Florace
Walpole termed it, and Lieutenant-General Andrew Gordon, who succeeded
him, nearly half a century back, both sent some of the best cattle to England
and Scotland. If pains were taken, the race and its consequents might be
distinctly traced, which might lead to important results in breeding.

In the " Farmers' Series," at the article " The Angus Breed," a portrait
of a beautiful heifer is seen ; she is said to have been " out of a very small
cow, with a remote dash of Guernsey blood in her." Her dead weight was
estimated at 130 or 140 stones. She sold for 50/., after having obtaineii
several medals, and had been publicly exhibited.

The grand desideratum is to discover a breed that will be useful to the
grazier, the dairyman, and the small farmer. In so small a spot as Jersey,
it is difficult to cross the breed essentially — a great step towards it is gained
by crossing the cattle bred in the low rich pastures with those of the

* The senior editor of this journal had, many years since, on a farm, near Baltimore, a
single Alderney in a herd of eight cows, and well remembers, that an honest Irish dairy
woman begged that that cow might not be sold, as her milk served to color the butter of
all the rest.

THE JERSEY COW. 59

exposed hills on the western or northern coast : these being smaller, finer
boned, of a more hardy constitution, and feeding on a short, rich bite, impart
strength of constitution and hardihood to the larger and more dehcate ani-
mals of the sheltered low grounds.

It is believed that cattle are generally more healthy and free from epi-
demics here 4han in most countries. This may be attributable in some
measure to the saline particles which, being so frequently in suspension
over the island, are afterwards deposited on the herbage, and tend to its sa-
lubrity.* After heavy gales, it is frequently found that the grass all across
the island has a strong saline flavor. So partial are cattle to this flavor, that
they will greedily devour grass which has been watered with sea-water
Avhich they previously rejected. Two pipes per acre, spread from an ordi-
nary watering-cart, or from a pipe which may be made to pour into a long
deal-box perforated with holes, Avill be found of great utility where sea-water
or salt can be obtained at small cost.

The Jersey farmer treats his cow with gentleness and care ; it might be
more correct to say that his wife does so. On good farms she is usually housed
at night after the end of October to the end of February, if heavy rain, hail,
or snow prevail. It is deemed to be healthful to give a cow a short run
daily through the winter, excepting in stormy weather. At this season,
which is usually several degrees warmer than in the mildest part of Devon-
shire, she is fed with a certain portion of straw, from 10 lbs. to 20 lbs. of hay,
with about 10 lbs. to 20 lbs. of parsnips, white carrots, turnips, or mangel-
wurzel.

The small portion of grass which she may pick up in the winter, with the
above quantity of food, enables her to produce a rich and well-colored sample
of butter till within six -weeks of parturition.

At this period, which is usually regulated to take place about the month
of March or April, just when the cow being in full milk may soon be placed
on the fresh spring pasture in April or May, she is an object of extreme
care. On calving, she is given a warm potation of cider, with a little pow-
dered ginger. Q-uayle hints that pet cows are further indulged with a toast
in their caudle.

The calf is taken from the cow at once, and fed by hand. It may be well
to advise that, on the first occasion of calving, the calf should be allowed to
draw the cow fully ; for no milking by hand will so completely empty the
udder, nor cause the milk-veins to swell to their full development, as will
the suction of the calf.

Some of the early meadows produce rich grass in March ; but the ge-
neral flush of grass, Avhich comes on generally late in April, is the period
to which the Jersey farmer looks forward with anxiety. The cow is then
tethered to the ground by means of a halter 5 or 6 feet long : this is ap-
pended by a ring and swivel to a chain which encircles her horns, closed
by a ring and bar ; the other end of the halter is fastened to a chain 6 or
8 feet long, which is connected by a swivel and ring to a stout iron stake a
foot long ; this is driven into the ground by means of a wooden mallet. The
cow having this circular range of 12 feet or more, is compelled to eat it clean.
She is usually moved thrice a day, and milked morning and evening, on
many farms at midday also. Under this system, the writer has owned four
cows that produced eight-and-forty pounds Jersey, or above 51 lbs. imperial,

* We believe in this from our own observation. How well young cattle thrive and
grow in our own country, that are driven in spring Irom the forest down into tlie " salt water
country !'" — Eds. P., L. & A.

60 THE JERSEY COW.

weight of rich yellow butter per week, in the month of May and part of
June.

In very hot weather in July or Aug-ust, it is advisable to shelter the cow
from the heat and flies ; otherwise these tease cows to such a degree, by
forcing them to run about incessantly, that they have no time for repose
or for chewing the cud ; they, in consequence, afford much. less milk or
cream .

It was anciently thought that cream from the Jersey cow Avas too rich for
making cheese. Mr. Le Feuvre of La Hogue, who has a fine breed of cows,
tried the experiment two years since, and succeeded to admiration. It was
made from the pure milk, cream and all, as it comes from the cow. It was
found that the quantity of milk that would have produced a pound of butter
afforded I5 lb. of cheese.

From the quantity of milk which produced a cheese of 20 lbs. weight,
the drainings of the curds and whey, on being churned, yielded 4 lbs. of
butter. This butter was of an inferior quality when eaten with bread, but
was superior to any other for the making of pastry ; it was peculiarly hard,
and of excellent texture for such use in hot weather. The writer has tasted
cheeses from Mr. Le Feuvre's farm, quite equal in quality to the richest
double-Glo'ster.

On one or two farms besides General Fouzel's, butter is made from clouted
cream in the Devonshire mode ; but as this is not peculiar to Jersey, it is
not noticed further than that 10 lbs. of butter are usually made in five mi-
nutes by this process. The usual way of procuring the cream is by placing
the milk in pans about six inches deep — the glazed shallow earthenware
having taken place of the unglazed deep vessels.

It is admitted that the richest milk and cream are produced by cows
whose ears have a yellow or orange color within. Some of the best cows
give 26 quarts of milk in twenty-four hours, and 14 lbs. of butter from such
milk in one week. Such are rare. Good cows afford 20 quarts of milk
daily, and 10 lbs. of butter weekly, in the spring and summer months.
Butter is made every second and third day.

Lactometers indicate the degrees of richness, or cream, which the milk
of any cow affords, with great nicety. This varies with different food. The
mode is to fill the lactometer up to zero with the first milk that is drawn
from the cow in the morning ; then, when the udder is nearly emptied, to
fill a second lactometer with the residue of the milk, throwing a little out
of the lactometer, to refill it to zero with the very last drops which can be
drawn from the cow : these will be nearly all cream. The lactometer filled
with the first milking may only indicate 4 degrees of cream, while that filled
with the last milking may indicate 40 degrees of cream. Then, by divid-
ing the sum total, 44, by 2, we have 22 degrees of cream, which a very
good cow will produce ; others so little as 10 or 15.

Jersey butter, made when the cows are partially fed on parsnips, or white
carrots and grass, in September and October, when salted and potted will
keep till the following spring, preserving as well as Irish butter, with a
much less rank flavor.

The present price of the best Jersey cows, including points and quality, is
from 20/. to 30/.; and up to 20/. is given for the best heifers. Yearling
bulls, of the best breed and points, from 10/. to 15/.

MISCELLANEOUS SCRAPS.

61

MISCELLANEOUS SCRAPS.

Tlie Hatching of the Eags of Poultry. —
The following table will show that there is
a great difference in the period of hatching,
according to the mother bird employed, and
other circumstances.

Period of incubition.

Ejgs of the

Shortest. Mean. L invest.

Hen hatched by a turkey

17

24

28

Duck do. do.

24

27

30

Turkey do. do.

24

26

30

Duck hatched by a hen.

26

30

34

Hen do. do.

19

21

24

Duck do. do.

28

30

32

Goose do. do.

27

30

33

Pigeon do. do.

16

18

20

Composition of Butter. — Butter, says Dr.
Thomson, contains, as usually obtained,
foreign matter, consisting of water, and curd
or casein. One hundred parts of butter
produce

Casein 0.94

Oil 86.27

Water 12.79

To the casein and water is owing the tai7it-
ing of butter. To render butter capable of
heina kept for any length of time in a fresh
condition — that is, as a pure solid oil — all
that is necessary is to boil it in a pan till the
water is removed, which is marked by the
cessation of violent ebullition. By allowing
the liquid oil to stand for a little, the curd
subsides, and the oil may then be poured off
or it may be strained through calico or mus-
lin into a bottle and corked up. Bottled
butter will thus keep for any length of time.

Transit of Live-Stock. — [One could wish
that the Statistical Society of Philadelphia
would cause inquiry to be made as to the
expense of live-stock travelling on the great
thoroughfares to this city: similar to the
following which we find in an English paper.]
On an average three fat bullocks weigii one
ton. On the road a fat bullock travels on
the average 15 miles in one day, costing per
day Is. or id. per mile. About 5^ lean bul-
locks weigh one ton; these travel from 15
to 20 miles per day, say 17 miles, costing on
an average of seasons 3s. 6d. per 100 miles,
say id. per mile. On an average there are
four ordinary horses to a ton : travelling on
the road from 14 to 20 miles per day, say on
an average 17 miles, costing per day 4.'!., or
say per mile 2-9d. Twenty fat sheep weigh
on average a ton: on a road they travel
about 11 miles per day, costing say per score
(this differs, however, very materially, ac-
cording to season and locality) 6d., or per
mile about id. Sixteen pigs on an average
weigh a ton : they travel on the common
road about 21 miles a day, costing per score
about 9d., or per mile per score id. — Joui:
Stat. Soc, vol. 9, p. 113.

Salt. — For sixteen years after I came to
this farm I was every year more or less sub-
jected to great loss by the cob-worm or grub,
particularly the oat crop after lea or grass
land of one year old ; and being now on this
farm upwards of thirty years, I have made
use of salt for these seventeen years bygone,
at the rate of two to three cwt. per acre,
which only costs trom 4s. to 5s. per acre, and
not one cob or grub has, during that long
period, set its face in one field of this farm ;
and this year, although many of my neigh-
bors round about me have suffered most
severely from the cob, the fields on this farm
are as free from it as if there was no cob in
the country. I may mention that I sow the
salt broadcast eight to ten days before sow-
ing the oats. — E. K.,Fi7iglassie. — Gardeners^
Chronicle.

[We have understood that salt has been
used with very decidedly good effects, on a
considerable scale, applied to the turnip crop,
by Mr. George Williamson near Baltimore,
and would like to know the particulars, both
as to the time and mode of application, the
result, and particularly the cost ! — Ed.]

Experiments on Depths of Sowing. — Oct.
23 — rlanted, at 3 inches distance, 16 seeds
of wheat, taken from one fine ear. Two
were deposited at exactly 1 inch deep ; two
at 2 inches deep ; two at 3 inches deep ; two
at 4 inches deep ; two at 5 inches deep ; two
at 6 inches deep ; two at 7 inches deep ; and
two at 8 inches deep. The land was in good
heart, and finely pulverised or meliorated 1
foot deep, on purpose for the experiment ;
the situation facing the south, and in the
middle of an open field. At harvest, the
result was as follows, viz. : — Those deposited
at one inch deep were almost turned out of
the ground, had tillered very little, and the
ears were few, and the grain lean. Ditto
deposited at 2 inches, tillered largely, and
stood upright on the ground, were well filled,
and excellent grain. Ditto deposited at 3
inches deep, tillered more largely, and had
stronger straw and larger ears, ripened well
and seasonably. Ditto deposited at 4 inches,
nearly the same. Ditto deposited at 5 inches,
did not tiller so much as those deposited at
4 inches, neither did they produce such
strong stalks, nor so much grain. Ditto de-
posited at 6 inches deep, tillered less, and
did not ripen so well as the above. Ditto
deposited at 7, produced only one stalk ; it
shrivelled to nothing before midsummer.
Ditto deposited at 8 inches deep, never came
above ground. The result of this experi-
ment, and a variety of others, made at differ-
ent times on different seeds, and in different
soils, the particulars of which I shall not
here trouble you with, give me reason to
conclude, that from 2 inches deep to 5 is the

62

MISCELLANEOUS SCRAPS.

greatest latitude which this operation admits
of. The lightest soils and driest seasons re-
quire the greatest depths to be used; and
wheat, of all the grains, admits of being de-
posited deepest. When the soil has been
lately broke up, and rich, or is a very fine
sandy loam, &-c., full of manure, (and withal
a dry seed time,) I have found 4 inches the
best depth ; but, in general, 3 inches, in my
experiments, has answered best. — Clarke's
Theory of Husbandry, 1781.

Westphalia Hams. — The following com-
pound will give to any common ham the
taste so much appreciated in that sold as
"Westphalia; and is recommended to them
who prefer that flavor. In one hundred parts
of water dissolve four parts of salt, two parts
of brown sugar, one part Barbadoes tar, and
one part spirits of wine. After it has been
well mi.xed and stood for several days, three
table-spoonfuls may be mixed with the salt
necessary to cure an ordinary ham. — English
paper.

[Talk as we may of Westphalia hams,
but give us the pea-fed ham, such as are
reared and fattened on Georgia or cow-peas
in North Carolina. We have always stickled
for corn-fed pork, but that was, with the
mind's eye, on the still-fed hog of the west,
and the slop-fed or dairy and pumpkin-fed
hog of the Eastern States.

We were lately honored with a present of
a barrel of hams, esteemed the higher as
they came from a gentleman to whom we are
personally a stranger — we expect to have a
particular account of the breed of the hogs,
the fattening and curing process, &c. In
the mean time, we must not delay to say,
that the jury (and a Maryland jury at that)
pronounced the only one yet put on trial,
fully equal to the best ham they had ever
seen or tasted. The hog had been almost
entirely fattened on peas. Let the reader
conceive every requisite of excellence, and
the unanimous verdict of the jury was, they
•were all combined in this ham.

To sum up all in a few words, it was equal
to a Montgomery county Maryland ham,
from among the Waters, the Stahlers, and
the Brooks, and other Friends ! — Ed.]

Can't he Beat. — Our quondam friend. Dr.
Baynr, will not be outdone in raising fruit.
On Wednesday he sent us a quantity of his
unequalled Strawberries. Some of them
nieasurcd upwards of 4-i inches, and the
doctor writes us that he gathered on Monday
morning 330 quarts, and could have pulled
100 more. The berry has not, he says, been
80 large with him this season as usual, owing
to protracted ill-health preventing him

giving his personal attention to his horticul-
tural operations. We are glad to learn that
his health is much improved. The lot of
Cherries sent by him excelled any we have
ever seen. — Marlbro' Gazette.

[What does friend Wilson mean by his
quondam friend Br. Bayne ? We hope the
doctor is still living, and that his friendship
survives for Mr. W., as was in fact most
agreeably demonstrated by the present above
mentioned. The doctor's merit is not so
much in the excellence of his horticultural
productions, remarkable as that is, but in
the value of his example, in a region where
it stands out in bold relief, by the force of
contrast.

When such men as Dr. Bayne come to be
respected and honored in just proportion to
the beneficent tendency of their tastes and
their labors, we may begin to hope that agri-
cultural societies will desire to make their
shows attractive, rather by an advertisement
and an exhibition of red heets, or red cows,
than — red collars ! — Ed.]

Harvesting Carts : saving of Animal La-
bor.— Considerable discussion has, to this
end, recently taken place, as to the superior
economy of employing, on many farms, one-
horse carts in preference to wagons. Mr.
E. Loonies finds that a one-horse cart is
capable of carrying much more than one-
half of what can be carried on a two-horse
wagon ; or (Jour. S. A. S., vol. vi., p. 398) —

One-horse cart. I Two-horse wagon.

Wheat sheaves 172 Wheat sheaves 207

Corn, cake, S:c. 25 cvvt. Corn, cake, &c. 45 cvpt.
Bones - - - 60 bush. | Bones - - - loo bush.

In du7ig carting, o7ie-horse carts appear to
have a decided advantage. Mr. Love has
given a table of the economy of both one and
?w!o-horse carts {Jour. E. A. S., vol. 7, p. 225.)
In this, each boy driving is counted as the
fourth of a man tipping. A man is reckoned
at 2,'!., and each horse 3s., per day of nine
hours.

One-

Two-

One-

Two-

horse

faorse

horse

horse

carts.

carls.

carts.

carls.

Distance in fnrlonirs - -

3

3

3

3

Time of travelUng a revo-

lution ------

15

15

15

15

Number of horses- - -

3

3

5

5

Number of carts - - -

3

2

5

3

Men filling the carts - -

2

2

4

4

Tune of lilUnff - - - -

10

15

5

74

Men tiiiping and driving

H

1

1}

H

Time of tipping- - - -

5

7i

S

'i

Tot.al time to each revolu-

tion -------

30

. 37i

25

30

Number of loads drawn

54

29

108

54

Number of yards drawn

54

43i

108

81

.. d.

t. d.

t.ri.

«. d.

Expense of horses - -

9 0

9 0

IS 0

15 0

Expense of men - - -

6 6

6 0

11 6

10 6

Total day's expenses - -

IS 6

IS 0

26 6

25 a

Exi)en8e of carting 30

yards ------

8 7

10 2)

1 H

9 S

SaviuK by one-horse carts.

per acre - - . . -

1 7i

—

20J

—

MISCELLANEOUS SCRAPS.

63

Indian Corn, (f-c. — The following table
gives the amount of nutritive matters con-
lamed ill 100 lbs. of various cultivated crops
(J. F. Johnston's Elements of Chem., p.

227) :—

Indian corn - - -

Oats

Barley - - - - -
Rye

Wheat-flour - - -
Peas ------

Beans - - - - -

Potatoes - . - -
Turnips - - - - -

Starch, Gu
and buga

Gluten, Albu.
men, & Casein.

14,1

2 to 4
2i to 3
2i to 3
i

Cutting the Flowers off Spring Bulls. —
Can you decide this point between my
gardener and myself? There is a notion that
cutting the flowers off spring bulbs, such as
Hyacinths, Narcissus, Crown Imperials,
Scillas, &c., prevents their forming good
bloom in the year following, but tends to the
formation of oflsets ; what is your opinion ?
or what is the experience of your correspond-
ents on this matter ? I think in Holland
there is a prejudice against cutting the
flowers of bulbs. — Dodman. [It will in ail
probability have the eflect of causing an
excessive production of oflsets.]

.. A Cotton Factory in the South. — The Pen-
sacola Gazette describes the Arcadia Cotton
Factory, which is now in successful opera-
tion. It is worked entirely by slave labor,
runs twenty-four looins, and turns out 1000
yards of cotton a day.

[Now is it not obvious that in this case
the social proximity of the plough and the
loom is mutually advantageous. May not
the planter, the manufacturer, and the con-
sumer of the produce of both, divide among
them the expenses for freight, commissions,
transportation, &c., by land and water, that
would be incidental to sending this same
cotton to Manchester to be spun and wove
by men and women, who never, except in
case of extreme scarcity or famine, would
consume the products of the American
plough, or orchard, or dairy, or garden ?

Tiie ink is hardly dry with which we ex-
pressed our surprise that the obvious fitness
of Montgomery, Alabama, for the establish-
ment of cotton manufactories was not availed
of — and here we see that the suggestion has
been anticipated. — Ed.]

We learn from the Montgomery Journal
that Messrs. J. S. Winter & Co. have
nearly ready at that place an extensive estab-
lishment for manufacturing purposes. It is
their intention to combine several important
branches of manufactures, including woollen
and mixed goods — something which is en-
tirely new in Alabama.

Horticulttiral Exhibition. — There was a
fine display of the productions of the gieen-
house and conservatory at Horticultural Hall,
Boston, on Saturday morning. Pot plants of
fine growth and rare kinds were exhibited by
Messrs. Wilder, Hovey &. Co., Bowditch,
Col. Perkins, by Mr. Quant, O.H.Mathers,
Warren, Nugent, Miss Russell, Miss Ken-
rick, Barns, and others ; and cut flowers of
open culture by Messrs. Breck &. Co.,
Richards, Copeland, &c. The pot plants
were Pelargoniums, Ericas, Cactus, Fuch-
sias, Stocks, Lilies, Azeleas, Cinerarias,
Roses, &c., and many well-grown specimens
were on exhibition. The hall was rendered
odorous with the fragrance of the flowers.

[There is not in the Union a town nor a
village, where such exhibitions might not be
made, without detracting one iota from the
profitable industry of the inhabitants ; nor
one where such exhibitions could fail to im-
prove the character and even the value of the
property of the citizens. How easy would
it be for half a dozen ladies and gentlemen
in all our country villages, to put this ball in
motion ! Why do not the resident clergy
encourage, as they might, the cultivation of
flowers and the establishment of horticul-
tural societies, and a taste for natural history
generally among their flocks. A taste for
such studies and pursuits would greatly aid
them in banishing gaming tables and the use
of the bottle !— Ed.]

Bones for Grape Vines. — Much has been
said respecting tne advantage and disadvan-
tages of mixing bones (unbroken) with the soil
in which Vines are planted ; the following has
been my experience. Two years ago I planted
my Vines and Orange trees upon a quantity
ot bones (the bones of horses and cows.)
The border in which they were planted was
thoroaghly well made, the soil excellent,
with good drainage. The plants never flou-
rished, and at length they appeared in a
dying state. I have just taken some of them
up ; I found every part of the roots svhich
had come in contact with the bones com-
pletely decayed, and the roots were covered
with an offensive white powder, which was
also attached to the bones. I have no doubt
that if the plants had remained much longer
in the vicinity of these bones, they would
have died. — A Subscriber, April 27.

Nitrate of Soda. — A steady demand is
kept up in England for this article, and lull
prices paid for the use of it as manure. By
the last accounts, the market was firm at
14s. 'id. to 14s. Gd. per hundred pounds. For
Guano, the demand kept pace with the
supply, and this after very extensive use and
ample experience of its cost and results. In
prices there is not much variation ; Peruvian,
9Z. to 9Z. 10s. ; Patagonian, 5/. to 11. ; Sal-
danaha Bay, 51. ; Egyptian, 8i. ; Ichaboe,
81. per ton.

READINGS FOR MOTHERS AND CHILDREN.

If there be, according to our observation, 1
any one thing more than another lamentable
in rural domestic habits and management in
our country, it is the too general failure on
tlie part of the father and master of the
houseliold to provide an adequate stock of
fresh and suitable reading for the ditierent
members of his family, such as blends
amusement widi more or less instruction.

If it were not so notorious, and so almost
universal, one might be tempted to ask, whe-
ther it be possible that thousands of gentle-
men in the country make no regular provi-
sion for a systematic and constant supply of
refreshing and healthful food for the mental,
as well as the jihysical, wants of their wives
and children — as if one \vere not as in-
dispensable and as obligatory as the other?
The Bible, the almanac, some old stereo-
typed school-books, and a few old musty vo-
lumes, that chance may have saved from
the " wreck of ages," in too many cases,
constitute the entire library of a man, with
an hundred or more acres of land, out of
debt, and independent and well to do in the
world — his own reading consisting too fre-
quently and chiefly in an eager perusal of
his party newspaper, that he may the better
judge of the chances lor and against those
for whom he has been told he mvist vote.
Oh that farmers and planters, of all par-
ties, would learn to think for themselves,
and measure out their support of men by
their success in honest, useful pursuits, and
by their capacity and determination to
understand and support the landed interest
of the country ; for, when that is best pro-
vided for in the policy of the government,
all other interests are cared for ; so true
is it, that all, when well understood, will be
found hanging together like a bunch of crabs
that cannot be rudely separated, without
maiming and injury to some material part
of the concern. But the point on which
we meant to teach and argue in favor of
Thorough reform, is the failure to keep up
lor the mother and the children the means
of a constant accession of knowledge, useful
and appropriate, by means of entertaining
and instructive reading.

As far as that may l>c done in a portion
of one y>eriodical, dedicated mainly to the
staple interests and pursuits of the master
over all, we shall endeavor to accomplish it
in "The Plough, the Loom, and the An-
TiL," under tlie heading we have chosen
64

for this portion of each number, to wit :—
" Readings for Mothehs and Children ;'
and here we may repeat, that, in our hum
ble judgment, those who have undertaken
to address themselves to housewives and
mothers, have been too much disposed to
regard them rather in the light of upper
servants, who only need to be taught in
the round of the coarser household and cu-
linary offices, than as our intellectual part-
ners, placed in positions of the highest
moral responsibility ; for is it not on them
that devolves chiefly the task of amusing aa
well as instructing all the younger members
of the family, at the very time of life that
they are most curious to learn, and most
susceptible of moral impressions? And ia
it not the height of injustice — nay, is it not
cruel to expect the mother to discharge thi?
high and exalted trust, and yet withhold
from her all the means of its performance*
To what nobler distinction can a raothe)
aspire, than to have the eloquent and dis
cerning biographer, when a son rises to emi
nence among men, attribute his renown, in
good measure, to maternal influence ! What
better omen for the son than respectful
attention to the teachings of the mother!
but how can she teach, to whom the means
of teaching, and, perhaps, the blessing of a
good education for herself, has been denied ?
"The child of seven years," (says Professor
Everett, in his admirable " Eulogy on the
Life and Character of John Quincy Adams,")
" who reads a serious book with fondness,
from his desire to oblige his mother, has entered
the high road of usefulness and honor."

Little did the mother of the departed sage
of Quincy, probably, dream at the time of
the iiosthuraous honor she was earning, to
have it written of her, and delivered before
the whole body of the representatives of
Massachusetts, in funeral and solemn as-
sembly convened, and that by one of the first
and most distinguished scholars of the age: —

" And here I may be permitted to pause
for a moment, to pay a well-deserved tribute
of respect to the memory of the excellent
mother, to whose instructions so much of
the suljsequent eminence of the son is due.
No brighter example exists of auspicious
maternal influence, in forming the character
of a great and good man. Her letters to
him, some of which have been preserved
and given to the world, might almost be
called a manual of a wise mollier's advice.

READINGS FOR MOTHERS AND CHILDREN.

65

The following passage from one of her pub-
lished letters, written when her son was
seven years old, will show how the minds
of chiklren were formed in the revolu-
tionary period. 'I have taken,' she says,
' a very great fondness for reading Roilin's
Ancient History since you left me. I am
determined to go through with it, if possible,
in these days of my solitude. I find great
pleasure and entertainment from it, and
have persuaded Johnny to read a page or
two every day, and hope he will, _/»-owj his
desire to oblige me, entertain a fondness for
it.' In that one phrase lies all the philoso-
phy of education. The child of seven years
old, who reads a serious book with fondness,
from his desire to oblige his mother, has
entered the high road of usefulness and
honor."'

* » » • * »

"The counsels of the faithful and affec-
tionate mother followed him beyond the sea.
In one of the admirable letters to which I
have referred, written during the visit to
France, she says ; — ' Let me enjoin it upon
you to attend constantly and steadfastly to
the instructions of your father, as you value
the happiness of your mother, and your own
■welfare. His care and attention to you ren-
der many things imnecessary for me to write,
which I might otherwise do. But the inad-
vertency and heedlessness of youth require
line upon line and precept upon precept,
and, when enforced by the joint efforts of
both parents, will, I hope, have a due influ-
ence upon your conduct; for, dear as you
are to me, I would much rather you should
have found your grave in tlie ocean you
have crossed, or that an untimely death
should crop you in your infant years, than
see you an immoral, profligate, or graceless
child.'"

In supplying this department of our jour-
nal, far from confining ourselves to recipes
for killing vermin, and compounding soap
and sausages, we shall better indicate our
views of the studies and the duties that be-
come the mother and the children of every
household, by the latitude of choice we shall
exercise in the selection of topics for their
department of our journal. These will em-
brace moral essays, the more useful and re-
fined branches of horticulture, with sketches
of natural history, biography, &c. We hold
it to be impossible for any one to read a
work on natural history, such as tlie Rev.
Gilbert White's Natural History of Sel-
borne, Gleanings by Edward Jesse, &c.,
without reflecting how many facts come
within the personal observation of every
boy who leads an active life in the country,
tliat if noted down would serve to throw light
on the natural history and habits of animals,

Vol. I.— 9

birds, &c. It cannot fail to strike the mind
of every elderly reader — what an accumu-
lation of such facts he might have stored up
in his own days of giddy and thoughtless
youth, if he could have imagined to what
account such things might be turned in the
hands of amiable and accomplished natural-
ists, such as those to whom we have referred.
Let then, all parents who perceive the just-
ness of what we have said, place, as they
may at very trifling cost, in the way of their
children, books that will entertain and inspire
them with a habit of extracting something
interesting from every thing that lies on the
way-side to dieir snares and traps, to their fish-
ing grounds, or on that saddest of all roads,
the one that leads to the country school-house.

Another inducement to the prosecution of
this study, (natural history,) says the amiable
and pious Jesse, "is the added pleasure
which it gives to every hour we pass in the
country, to every walk, and to every ride,
whether alone or in society. An incurious
person has. as it were, his eyes closed to the
animal world around him, while an atten-
tive observer, and a lover of nature, has his
time and his thoughts delightfully occupied
in the contemplation of every insect which
crosses his path, and of every bird which
he sees near him. He endeavors to find in
them something heretofore unnoticed, he
adiTiires the beautiful symmetry and elegance
of their appearance, and he studies their
different manners and modes of living.

" It is a study not only delightful in itself,
but tending to promote good and kind feel-
ings, and to raise our afiections to fliat Being
by whose infinite power and wisdom all
things were made. Indeed, the more mi-
nutely we search into the history, habits, and
economy of birds, animals, and insects, the
more reason shall we have to admire the
inefiable wisdom of the Creator, in the order
and harmon)^ the utility and beauty, which
are apparent throughout the entire range of
animal life."

How deeply then is it to be lamented that
to the millions of young people growing up
in the country, so many sources of intellectual
enjoyment, such inexhaustible stores of know-
ledge, and of pleasure, should be closed for
want of that key to unlock them, which
would be placed in their hands, by education
even a little improved!

But let us forbear vain regrets, and essay
something towards that reform, to which the
humblest mind animated by an earnest will
may contribute something; begging the read-
er to be persuaded how trite it is that

"■^^'ho studies nature's laws,
Sincerest pleasure from the country draws ;
And while the arts his friendly aid receiye,
Tor him, and him alone, does nature live."

r3

66

ORDER OF PROVIDENCE.

STUDY OF NATURE.

"There are still in thee,
Instructive Book of Nature! many leaves
■Which yet no mortal has perused.''

To note the liabits, instincts, and peculiari-
ties of the aiiinial creation has long been a
favourite pursuit with me. It is a study, not
only delightful in itself, but tending to pro-
mote good and kind feelings, and to raise
our atfections to that Being by whose infinite
power and wisdom all things were made.
Indeed, the more minutely we search into
the history, habits, and economy of birds,
animals, and insects, the more reason shall
we have to admire the ineti'able wisdom of
the Creator, in the order and harmony, the
utility and beauty, which are apparent
throughout the entire range of animal life.
We are led to see that from the most stu-
pendous to the most minute things in nature,
all are appointed for some good end and
purpose, and that "Deity is as conspicuous
in the structure of a fly's wing, as in the
bright globe of the sun itself The follow-
ing passage from Derham's Physico-Theolo-
gy is both delightful and instructive. Speak-
ing of the formation of insects, he says, '■ It
is an amazing thing to reflect upon the sur-
prising minuteness, art, and curiosity, of the
joints, muscles, tendons, and nerves neces-
sary to perform all the motions of the legs,
the wings, and every odier part : and all
these things concur in minute animals, even
in the smallest mite and animalcule ; and
having named these animals, why shovdd I
mention only one part of their bodies, when
we have in that little compass a whole and
complete body, as exquisitely formed, and
(as far as our scrutiny can possibly reach)
as neatly adorned, as the largest animals ?
Let us consider that there we have eyes, a
brain, a mouth, a stomach, entrails, and
every other ]mn of an animal body, as well
as legs and feet, and that all those parts have

each of them their necessary apparatus of
nerves, of various muscles, and of every other
part that other insects have, and that all
is covered and guarded \vith a well-made
tegument, beset with bristles and adorned
with neat imbrications, and many other fine-
ries.'

It appears impossible that any attentive
observer of this exquisite workmanship
should not be compelled to acknowledge
that it is produced by, and is worthy of, a
great, all-powerful, and benevolent Creator,
who had some good and wise purpose in
every thing he did : and, surely, when this
conviction is once firmly impressed upon
the mind, it will find infinite pleasure and
gratification in searching out the works of
Nature ; and the further these inquiries are
carried, the more shall we be led to acknow-
lege that '' the hand which made them is divine."

Another inducement to the prosecution of
this study, is the added pleasure which it
gives to every hour we pass in the country,
to every walk and to every ride, whether
alone or in society. An incurious person
has, as it were, his eyes closed to the animal
world around him ; while an attentive ob-
server, and a lover of Nature, has his time
and his thoughts delightfully occupied in the
contemplation of every insect which crosses
his path, and of every bird which he sees
near him. He endeavors to find in them
something heretofore unnoticed, he admires
the beautiful symmetry and elegance of their
appearance, and he studies their difierent
manners and mode of liring. It is the ol>
ject of the following pages, to give the
youthful mind an early bias to contempla-
tions and inquiries such as these ; which, I
am convinced, will be found conducive not
only to health and cheerfulness of spirits,
but also to the purifying and the elevating
of the jiiiiid.

ORDER OP PROVIDENCE.

AxiMALS which prowl, or move about
much in the dark, are furnished with pro-
jecting hairs or whiskers from the upper
lips, which guide them in their passage
through holes or narrow openings in hedges.
These hairs serve as /cc/ers. and are of such
a length, that the body of the animal will
pass through an opening which these pro-
jecting hairs just touch on either side. They
are very sensitive, and if they are ever so
slightly touched while the animal sleeps, it
is instantly aware of it. Hares very often

make' their runs or mews between two
strong uiiright sticks in a hedge which will
just allow them to pass through, without
being sufficiently large to admit the passage
of a dog, should it be in pursuit. This is
a very extraordinary instinct, and shows a
great foresight of danger. In passing through
such a passage at night, these fcckrs must
be of great service to the animal, who with
out them would probably run against objects
which might injure it. Horses have these
strong hairs both on the upper and lower

ORDER OF PROVIDENCE.

67

lips, but with them they are designed for
another use; probably that of keeping flies
and insects from annoying them by getting
into their nostrils wliile they are grazing.
Tliey are sufficiently close together for that
purpose ; and, moving as they do while the
horse is feeding, serve to brush away any
thing offensive. Some animals are not fur-
nished in this manner, but then they have
some other means of protection from a simi-
lar annoyance. The elephant, for instance,
has a sort of valve placed at the extremity
of his proboscis, which he carefully closes
when he is not using it, to prevent any thing
getting up his trunk which might injure him.
His eyes are small : but, if they were in pro-
portion to his size, he could not, with his pe-
ctiliar formation, protect them so readily
from injury in countries where insects are
very formidable. He is, however, furnished
with large pendent ears, which serve him as
flappers to protect his head from flies. Indeed,
there are few, if any, animals, which are not
provided with sufficient means to guard
themselves from injuries from those crea-
tures who may annoy but do not prey upon
them. They have also some instinctive or
actual properties, which enable them in
some degree to secure themselves against
the attacks of stronger animals, M'ho in their
turn, in order to obtain their food, are obliged
to use great watchfulness as well as strength.
We see this in every gradation in the animal
world, and it is a striking instance of that
order in nature which serves to keep up a
due proportion of each created thing, with-
out sutiering any one species to be extermi-
nated. This would be the case if too much
facility were afforded to predatory animals
of securing the weaker ones whenever they
pleased. A lion or a tiger has to wait long
in ambush, and to exert much patience and
watchfulness, before it can find an opportu-
nity of springing upon its prey. This is the
case with the cat, Ibx, and some other ani-
mals, and occurs also amongst amphibia and
even insects. What is wanting in swiftness
is made up in cunning; so that, in some
cases, even a semblance of death is put on
for the purpose of securing food more rea-
dily.

I have entered into these remarks, be-
cause I have always considered the subject
worthy of attention. How much would our
actual enjoyment and comforts in this world
be dimini.shed if any one of the various
species of quadrupeds, birds, or insects,
which we see about us, ■were suffered to
increase in too great a proportion ! We can
hardly form a calculation of the greatness of
the evil either to ourselves or to other created
beings. At present, however, every thing
is most beautifully ordered and arranged,

and no one species predominates disadvan-
tageously over another. Those which are
most useful to man multiply in a much
greater proportion than otliers which are
noxious. But even the latter have their
appointed use, and in the hands of a superin-
tending Deity are made instruments of good.
To a contemplative mind it is often a fear-
ful consideration to reflefct on the various
modes of existence, and the different bodies
wherein it has pleased God to cause life to
dwell: many of which are subjected to
great suflerings, and especially from one
part of the creation preying upon another.
What, however, many have brought forward
as aiU argument of the want of mercy and
justice in the Almighty is, on the contrary,
a proof of his goodness and benevolence.

The means which Nature takes to secure
every race from becoming extinct is to pro-
duce them in superabundance. The only
way, therefore, of preventing them froni
overrunning the earth is to produce enemies
who shall prey upon and keep them within
due limits. These difierent races, unless
they were killed by their enemies, would
increase beyond the supply of their food,
so that the ordinary course of death amongst
them would be the most painful one that
can be imagined, namely, starvation. The
real effect, therefore, of what may appear a
disorder and cruelty in Nature, is, in point
of fact, mercy; as the individuals are taken
oft^ by a sudden death in the height of their
vigor, instead of being subject to a lingering
and protracted one, which a want of food
must have occasioned.

"How admirable are the works of God!
how excellent the operations of his hands !

'■ I consider plants and animals ; four-
footed beasts, and creeping things ;

" In all was manifested infinite wisdom,
and an excellent workmanship that I could
not comprehend.

" Yet so much was made known unto
me, as declared the power and goodness
of God; and the continued agency of the
Great Creator, and Lord of all things.

" Wherefore have we eyes to see ? and
hearts that we may know and understand?

" O Lord, make me to contemplate thy
glorious works: and that which I know not,
teach thou me !"'

It has been justly remarked that there is
nothing done by men worthy of commenda-
tion, but God has imprinted some imitation
of it even in brutes and insects. We see
this in various instances. Beavers are not
only an example of great industry, but the
manner in which they perform their opera-
tions in making their dams or embankments
according to existing circumstances, in a way
which one would almost have thought mere

68

LANGUAGE OF INSECTS.

instinct could not have taught them, proves
them to be possessed of a faculty which
might be considered as only belonging to
man. If we want instances of fidelity, at-
tachment, and sagacity, we have them in
the dog ; and all that we know of the ele-
phant proves him to be capable of imitating
some of the best faculties which are found
in rational beings. His trunk serves him
instead of a hand, and with that member,
added to the great share of sense and doci-
hty with which he is endowed, he is capa-
ble of performing various actions, which
man, in a state of ignorance and barbarism,
would not have attempted. If we want to
see beautiful architecture, we should watch
the operations of the bee and other insects ;
and the weaver might take a lesson from
tlie web of a spider. The persevering in-

dustry of the ant has been held up to us for
imitation, not only by Solomon, but by the
ancient poets.

" Majpii formica laboris,
Ore trahit quoilcunque potest, atque addit aeervo
Quern struit, haud ignara ac noa incauta futuri."

Horace.
"As the small ant, for she instructs the man,
And preaches labor, gathers all she can,
And brings it to increase her heap at home,
Against the winter, which she knows will come."

Creech.

Pope has beautifully expressed these
thoughts in his Essay on Man : —

"Thus, then, to man the voice of Nature spake —
Go, from the creatures thy instruction take ;
Learn from the birds what food the thickets yield ;
Learn from the beasts the physic of the field;
Thy arts of building from the bee receive;
Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave;
Learn of the little nautilus to sail,
Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale." '

LANGUAGE OF INSECTS.

Mr bees are a constant source of amuse-
ment to me ; and the more I study them,
the more I am led to admire their wonder-
ful instinct and sagacity. Few things, how-
ever, surprise me more than the power
M'hich they possess of communicating what
I can only call " intelligence" to each other.
Tills I observe to be almost invariably the ease
before they swarm. Some scouts may then
be observed to leave the hive, and for a time
to hover round a particular bush or branch
of a tree, after which they return to the
hive. In a little while the new swarm quits
it, and settles on the branch which had been
previously fixed upon by the explorers.
The same power of communication may be
observed in the ant. I IrAve often put a
small green caterpillar near an ant's nest: it
is immediately seized by one of the ants,
which, after several inetleetual efforts to
drag it to its nest, will quit it, go up to an-
other ant, and they will appear to hold a
conversation together by means of their an-
tennae; after which they will return toge-
ther to the caterpillar, and, by their united
efforts, drag it where they wish to deposit it.

1 have also frequently observed two ants
meeting on the path across a gravel- walk,
one going froin, and the other returning to
the nest. They will stop, touch each other's
antennte, and appear to hold a conversation;
and I could almost fancy that one was com-
municating to the other the best place for
foraging: this Dr. Franklin thouglit they
have the power of doing, from the following
circumstance. Upon discovering a number
of ants regaling themselves with some trea-
cle in one of his cupboards, he put them to
the rout, and then suspended tlie pot of trea-

cle by a string from the ceiling. He im-
agined that he had put the whole army to
flight, but was surprised to see a single ant
quit the pot, climb up the string, cross the
ceiling, and regain its nest. In less than
half an hour several of its companions sal-
lied forth, traversed the ceiling, and reached
the depository, which they constantly revi-
sited until the whole of its contents was con-
sumed.

Huber says, "that Nature has given to
ants a language of communication by the
contact of their antenna? ; and tliat, with
these organs, they are enabled to render mu-
tual assistance in their labors and in their
dangers ; discover again their route when
they have lost it, and make each other ac-
quainted with their necessities. We see,
then," he adds, " tliat insects which live in
society are in possession of a language ; and
in consequence of enjoying a language in
common with us, although of an inferior de-
gree, have they not greater importance in
our eyes, and do they not embellish the very
spectacle of the universe ?"

What I have said respecting the power
of communicating intelligence to each other,
possessed by bees and ants, applies also to
wasps. If a single wasp discovers a depo-
sit of honey or other food, he will return to
his nest and impart the good news to his
companions, who will sally forth in great
numbers to partake of the fare which has
been discovered for them. It is, therefore,
I think, sulliciently clear that these insects
have what Huber calls an "antennal lan-
guage,"— a language, we can have no doubt,
that is perfectly suited to them, — adding, we
know not how much, to their happiness and

LOVE OF FLOWERS.

69

enjoyments, and furnishing another proof I contemplation, that we may see him in all
that there is a God, — almighty, all-wiso, and | his works, and learn, not only to fear him for
all-good, — who has "ornamented the uni- j his power, but to love him for the care which
verse" with so many objects of delightful | he takes of us, and all his created beings.

LOVE OF FLOWERS.

Why shovild we dwell on this elegant re-
source, for the cultivation of which the rural
residence would seem to offer peculiar if not
exclusive facilities, were it not to deplore the
fact, as we have often done, that in our
country the pursuit of the " almighty dollar,''
and the habitual restlessness and anticipa-
tion of change that seem to characterize our
people, would a])pear to forbid encourage-
ment of tastes that every one admits to be at
once the signs and the promoters of civiliza-
tion.

If anywhere more than another in the

United States, the population is more stable

and more cultivated, it is in Boston —

" Where mortals dare
To vanquish nature, and correct the air."

And there it is that we see the cultivation of
fruits and flowers carried to the highest per-
fection. For this high honor, the connnunity
is indebted to a more d illusive and a higher
grade of education ; and, avaihng of that, to
the enlightened exertions and beneficent in-
fluence of the Horticultural Society of Massa-
chusetts, animated and directed by such men
as Dearborn and Marshall. Strange, and
lamentable as strange, however, it must be
admitted, that in many parts of our country,
there exists in the towns more of this evidence
of refinement which flowers afford, than
in tlie country. In many of our cities may
he seen a greater variety of shrubbery and
flowers, on little spaces of a few square feet,
than is to be found on thousands of farms of
several hundred acres, and that too where
there are — what we would hardly infer —
ladies in the farm houses ! How inuch to
be deplored, that daughters should be reared
without any cultivation of a taste at once so
natural and so chaste — that they should be
brought up with a feeling of insensibility to
the very " smiles of God," as flowers have
been aptly called.

Among other of the nameless charms
which are said to characterize and render so
bewitching the women, even the grisettes of
Paris, this love of flowers is an universal
passion — almost a monomania — if there be
no exaggeration in the folloM'ing, from the
pen of an "American in Paris," from
whose work it was kindly transcribed at
our request by a fair young lady, and what
is still better, as good as she is fair.

" Quite contrary to the great Parisian lady,
who only loves flowers when she has no-
thing else left to love, the Parisian grisette
loves flowers before she begins to love any
thing else. The latter commences, as the
former finishes. There is not, in all Paris,
in the melancholy heights, in the sloping
garrets — where the house-sparrow hardly
ilares take his flight lest he should be giddy
— a single girl, poor and alone, who does
not come, at least once a week, to this flower
market, to enjoy the spring and the sky.
The poor girl in Paris, who gains her living
by the hardest labor, from whom an hour
lost takes a portion of her day's bread, has
not time to go very far in search of verdure
and the sun. And as neither verdure, nor
the sun, nor the brilliancy of flowers, nor
the song of birds, comes to seek her in the
frightful corners where she conceals her
sixteen years, it is she herself who goes in
search of them. Nothing is more delightful
to see than this poor, half-clad child, coming
to buy a whole flower-garden in one single
pot. She stops a long time, fearful, unde-
cided, and curious; she would fain see, and
smell, and take away all. She admires their
forms, their colors, their indescribable per-
fume ; she is delighted ! However, she must
at last conclude, by maki)ig this long-coveted
purchase. The poor girl advances with a
timid step. ' Madam," says she, ' how much
are your flowers?' Your flowers! It is
generally a pot of mignonette, which gives
but little hope of thriving. At these words
the flower-woman smiles good-humoredly.
Of all the honest people who gain their liv-
ing by buying and selling, the flower-woman
has, without contradiction, the most upright
conscience, and the most sincere good faith.
She sells at a high price to the rich, but a
very low one to the poor. She thinks she
ought to encourage so good a passion, and
that it is much better for this young girl to
buy a flower to ornament her wretched lit-
tle room, than a ribbon to adorn herself.
Thus she sells her pot of mignonette or
sweet peas almost for nothing. And then
the young grisette goes away more happy,
and more triumphant, than if she had, in the
presence of a notary, purchased a whole
domain. See her light step, as she carries
off an estate in her arms, singing as she

70

THE OLD PLAY-GROUND.

goes ! And for a week she experiences the
greatest deliglit. She waters the sweet
plant, morning and evening; she sings to it
her choicest songs ; she seeks for it some
nice Uttle corner upon the roof, by the side
of the chimney, which protects it from the
north wind. At the tirst ray of sun which
penetrates those melancholy walls, the flower
is exposed to the pale and trembling hght ;
at the first whistle of the north wind, the
flower is carefully shut up in the room, and
then the amiable girl does for her flower
what she has never done for herself — she
prevents the air from intruding through the
ill-joined door, the half-open window, or the
chimney, which has neither fire nor flame.
Vain, but delightful efforts ! At first, the
humble plant, grateful for so much care,
throws out here and there a few scrubby
leaves, which cheer the heart of the happy
proprietor of this estate of half a foot ; after
the leaf, the flower sometimes appears — not
the flower itself, but the hope of one. Then
tlie grisette claps her hands : ' Come,' she
says to her neighbors, ' come and see how
my periwinkle is flowering!' But at these
first announcements of spring, all this hope
of fertility usually stops ; night and cold are
more powerful than the zeal of the young
girl ; after a month of struggling and sufler-
ing, the flower fades, languishes, and dies ;
it is only the shadow of a shadow. She
weeps over it ; she thinks, this time, she
really will give up such vain delights. But
bow can hope be stifled in young hearts ?
When she has had a long fit of weeping,
she again makes another attempt, fruitless
as the former, until at last, this honest pas-
sion is replaced by one far less honest.''

The following piece we extract, as appro-
priate to the subject in hand, from a volume
entitled "Tams Fortnight Ramble," pub-
lished by Carey & Hart, Philadelphia :

OUR LITTLE GARDEN.

WiTHiff the crowded city,

Where life has scarcely room,

I have a little garden

Where simple flowers bloom.

There grows the morning-glory,

With many a varied hue ;
Its flowers are pink and purple

And virgin-white and blue.
The four-o'clock each evening

Unfolds its scented cup ;
And from a nook the violets

With diflidence peep up.
The marigold and rose-bush

Have each a fitting place ;
And there the yellow jasmine

Expands with modest grace.
The blue-bell and geranium,

The beauteous balsaniine,
The pink, the lady's-slipper,

The tender cypress vine.
The brilliant-hued nasturtion

Is climbing up the wall;
And there the tall sun-flower

Looks proudly on them all.
I have some rarer flowers ;

Of these I will not tell,
Though 1 find many reasons

To love them all full well
The hinnbler plants are dearer

And give me deeper joy ;
They tell me of my mother, —

And M'hen I was a boy.
She loved such simple flowers,

And tended them with care ;
These many years in Heaven,

She tends the flowers there.
And we now teach our children

To love such flowers too, —
To pattern by her virtues, — .

As she once did, to do.
So, when they have no mother,
And when their father's fled,
They'll have some sure memorials,

To tell them of the dead ;
Some humble, blooming flower

(Which God renews each year)
To bid them in their duty

With faith to persevere.
When they to cares of manhood

And womanhood attain,
The lessons flowers teach them

They'll find are not in vain.

AN HOUR AT THE OLD PLAYGROUND.

It will not be often that we shall take
space for poetical etfusions, but the following
will strike a chord in the bosoms of so many,
who have been educated in the countr}^ that
we cannot refuse it a place. We should like
to know hvw many eyes it will meet of
those, who, more tlian forty years ago, were

at school in Calvert county — or at Charlotte
Hall — or at Queen Anne in Maryland?

Some years since we met with one of
these old school-fellows on the banks of the
Mississippi, after a lapse of twenty years,
who, to his dying day, called us nothing but
"John." Overcome with joy and surprise,

VAUIETIES.

71

he gave vent to his feelings in alternate
laughing and crying hysterically, until after
midnight. How many, many luckless rab-
bits had we, together, on Saturdays and holi-
days, tracked to their last forms in the snow ?
How many gay squirrels had we brought
down from the topmost boughs of the ma-
ple and the hickory 1

I sat an hour, to-day, John,

Beside the old brook stream,
Where we were school boys in old times,

When manhood was a dream ;
The brook is choked with falling leaves,

The pond is dried away ;
I scarce believe that you would know

The dear old place, to-day.

The school-house is no more, John,

Beneath our locust trees,
The wild rose by the window side

No more waves in the breeze ;
The scatter'd stones look desolate,

The sod they rested on
Has been plough'd up by stranger hands,

Since you and I were gone.

The chestnut tree is dead, John,

And, what is sadder, now,
The broken grape-vine of our swing

Hangs on the wither'd bough ;

I read our names upon the bark,
And found the pebbles rare

Laid up beneath the hollow side,
As we had piled them there.

Beneath the grass-grown bank, John,

I look'd for our old spring.
That bubbled down the alder path,

Three paces from the spring;
The rushes grow upon the brink,

The pool is black and bare.
And not a foot, this many a day.

It seems, has trodden there.

I took the old blind road, John,

That wander'd up the hill —
'Tis darker than it used to be,

And seems so lone and still;
The birds sing yet upon the boughs,

Where once tlie sweet grapes hung,
Bat not a voice of human kind,

Where all oiu voices rung.

I sat me on the fence, John,

That lies as in old times.
The same half-panel in the path.

We used so oft to climb;
And thought how o'er the bars of life

Our playmates had pass'd on.
And left me counting on the spot

The faces that are gone.

Jt Table to Calculate Wages. — Put down, first
of all, the nominal wages received by your
servant, which by calculation you will find
to be the exact half of twice as much. Then
subtract the fresh butter from the pantr}',
and the product will show you how often
tlie best Dorset will go into the tub of kitchen-
stuff. Then work out the sum : as the parlor
Stilton is to the Dutch cheese, so is the cold
meat to the young man who stands outside
the area of an evening. Divide the contents
of the tea-caddy into what you use yourself,
and what is used for you, and the quotient
will be as one to six. Write these several
results upon a slate, and by adding them up
carefully you will be enabled to calculate
how much your servant costs you. — Punch.

Phillips, in his entertaining "History of
Fruits,' says, that England had procured
from America, 2345 varieties of trees and
plants. There is one good fruit, that we
might have derived from our conquests in
Mexico — the transplantation of some of their
vegetables, trees, and animals, if they had
been pushed in the spirit of Roman con-
quests. We have heard however of but
one — and that by a gallant officer of en-
larged and liberal views. Corn. Stockton, as
we should have predicted, has taken mea-
sures to have brought the noble race of Cali-

fornian Horses on which Fremont and Gilles-
pie performed such wonderful journeys.

Knitting Stockings by Steam. — A number of
influential inhabitants of Ipswich have in-
troduced into that town an important branch
of industry, likely to give employment to a
large number of persons. In Carr-street,
machines are now at work in knitting stock-
ings by steam. The work is done with beau-
tiful accuracy. One young person can attend
to three machines, and each machine will
knit one stocking in three hours.

French Sewing Machine. — Late French ex-
changes say that Jean le Capelin, petit, or
little John Capelin, has invented a sewing
machine that makes 210 stitches per minute,
which by the turn of a screw are changed
from line to coarse in a moment. It will
sew, stitch, and make edgings by the same

movement.

*

Benefit nf Towns to the Couniry. — Tlie nearer
the cultivator is to a city, the more his opera-
tion runs into horticulture and the more pro-
fitable it becomes. It is computed that more
people find employment and subsistence
within ten miles aroiuid Philadelpliia, as cul-
tivators of the soil, than exist in the nine
counties of the eastern shore of Maryland.

72

RECEIPTS.

RECEIPTS.

French Cement. — Tliis cement is designed
as a paint for the roofs of houses. It an-
swers all the purposes of common paint,
and also protects the roof from fire. Those
who are erecting new houses, or are about
to paint the roof of old buildings, would do
■well to try it. The expense of painting a
roof in this way, would be much less than
in the common method. The cement be-
comes very hard and glossy, and is said to
be more durable than the best kind of paint.

Take as much lime as is usual in making
a pail full of whitewash, and let it be mixed
in the pail nearly full of water ; in this put
two and a half pounds of brown sugar, and
three pounds of fine salt; mix them well
together, and the cement is completed. A
little lamp-black, yellow-ochre, or other co-
louring commodity, may be introduced to
change the colour of the cement to please
the fancy of those who use it. The gentle-
man who furnished us with the recipe for
making it, observed, that he had used it with
great success, and recommends it particularly
as a protection against fire.

How to Pickle Walmits. — Scald slightly,
and rub off the first skin of a hundred of
large walnuts, before they have a hard shell:
tliis may be easily ascertained by trying them
with a pin. Put them in a strong cold brine,
put new brine the third and sixth days, and
take them out and dry them on the ninth.
Take an ounce each of long pepper, black
pepper, ginger, and allspice; a quarter of an
ounce of cloves, some blades of mace, and
a table-spoonful of mustard seeds: bruise
the whole together, put into a jar a layer of
walnuts, strew them well over with the mix-
ture, and proceed in the same manner till
all are covered. Then boil three quarts of
white wine vinegar, with sliced horse-rad-
ish and ginger, pour it hot over the walnuts,
and cover close. Repeat the boiling of the
vinegar and pour it hot over, three or four
days, always keeping the pickle closely co-
vered ; add at the last boiling a few cloves
of garlic, or shalots. In five months they
will be fit for use.

To Prevent Vermin from. Infesting Poultry
Houses. — Have the roosts and the nests made
o[sassafras wood. This is recommended by a
lady of great integrity and experience, who
says she knows the fact, though not ihe philo-
sophy of it — any more than does she knovr
wliy cedar-wood, or tobacco, or camphor will
keep the moth out of woollen cloths — but
the fact is so, that vermin, or, she says, to
use plain country house-wife phraseology,
chicken-lice, will not trouble a poidtry-house
where sassafras wood is thus used.

It is well known that certain insects are
repelled by the odor of certain plants. Every
one in the country knows, or ought to know,
that if you rub pennyroyal about the head
and ears of your horse, the pestiferous horse-
fly won"t come near him ; while the flavor of
pennyroyal is for us quite agreeable. So true
it is, what's food for one is poison for another.

Sassafras makes excellent ox-yokes, being
light and tough.

To Cure Beeves' Tongues. — Rub the tongues
with salt, and let them remain a day to take
out the blood — then rub them well with
saltpetre and put them in brine — after they
have been there three or four weeks, take
them out and wash them well ; let them
smoke a day or two, and hang them up in a
dry place to keep.

To Clean Paint. — A recipe for cleaning
paint, which has been repeatedly tried with
success : 1 pound of soft soap — 2 ounces of
pearl-ash — 1 pint of sand — and one pint of
table-beer.

Simmer the above in an earthen vessel ;
be particular that the ingredients are well
mixed ; put a small quantity on flannel ; rub
it on the wainscot ; then wash it off" with
warm water and afterwards dry it thoroughly
with a linen cloth.

C it re for the Gapes in Young Chickens and
Turkeys. — Set fire to tobacco in a large iron
pot, put the chickens or turkeys in a common
white-oak basket, and place that on the top
of the pot. Then throw a blanket or other
close covering over the whole. The tobacco
smoke passes into the basket, and when the
chickens or turkeys are nearly sufibcated and
overcome, turn them loose in the air; this
several mornings repeated will effect a cure.
When turned loose they are quite drunk and
unable to walk — we have often seen some
die away and never revive — but the more
they are affected the sooner they are cured
— provided they are not entirely killed.

A certain Cure for a Tetter Worm. — Tak6
a lump of rock salt, size of a common hicko-
ry nut ; the same quantity of alum and cop-
peras— burn them separately on a shovel
and ])ulverize them together — then put them
in a bottle and pour in half a pint of strong
vinegar — and every night, on going to bed,
wash the j^art affected with a soft rag.

€l)e |3lottgl), tl)e loom, mitr t\}t ^noiL

Vol. I.

AUGUST, 1848.

No. II.

THE ANTHRACITE COAL TRADE OF PENNSYLVANIA:

HOW IT AFFECTS THE FARMER AND THE PLANTER.

Is 1820 there were shipped 365 tons.

1825

—

—

34,893 "

1842

1829

—

—

112,083 «

1843

1834

—

—

383,547 "

1844

1837

—

—

881,026 "

1845

1838

—

—

739,293 "

1846

1839

—

819,327 «

1847

1840

—

—

865,414 "

In 1841 there were shipped 1,108,899 tons.

— — 1,118,001 «
_ _ 1,263,539 «

— — 1,631,699 «

— — 2,023,052 «

— — 2,343,992 «

— — 2,982,309 "

The chief object of this journal being that of promoting the interests of
the planter and the farmer, we now submit the above statement of the growth
of the anthracite coal trade of Pennsylvania, with a view to call the attention
of both to the important influence it has already had upon those interests.

The price of a ton of coal at the place of shipment on the canal, or at the
railroad depot, is about two dollars, of Avhich one portion goes to the men
who open the mines and prepare them for being worked : another to those
engaged in the preparation of the machinery : a third to those who raise the
the coal : and a fourth to the men and horses engaged in transporting it to
the railroad, or canal, depot. The head operator has a small part, which in-
variably goes to the preparation of new machinery, and is thus divided
amongst workmen. The land-owner takes a small part as rent, but the ag-
gregate expenditures of the owners of land in the making of roads and other
improvements are greater than their aggregate receipts — so that, taking the
whole price of the coal, it may be assumed that every dollar received for it
is paid out to miners, laborers, and other workmen employed in its produc-
tion. If, now, we could trace the money that is thus paid out, we should
find that nearly the whole of it goes to the farmer. The food of the work-
men and their famihes absorbs a large portion of their earnings, and much
of the balance goes towards the building of houses, by which is afforded to
the farmer a market for the timber by which his best lands have been en-
cumbered. He now sells, instead of destroying it. His wagon and horses,
and his sons, are employed in hauling it to market, at intervals when they
would otherwise be idle, whereby his land is cleared and he obtains the
means of enclosing and improving it. Another part of their wages goes to
paying for cloths and shoes, which represent little more than the wool, and
the hides, and the food of the men employed in their conversion — and thus
the farmer absorbs nearly the Avhole proceeds of the coal mine, which is a mere
machine for the conversion of his products into a form to fit them for market.

By the time the coal reaches the place of consumption, the average price
is about four dollars per ton. Two dollars are thus added, and a similar
examination will show that of this nearly all goes to the farmer A part is
for the tolls on canal or railroad, most of which is again expended in the pay-
ment for labor in repairing and extending those works, and that labor
represents chiefly the food consumed by those who perform it. The horse
that draws the boat, and the men who manage it, are large consumers of food.

Vol. I.— 10 G 73

74 COAL TRADE OF PENNSYLVANIA.

The schooner by which it is transported again represents a vast amount of
labor, and the wages of ship-builders and sailors go chiefly for food for
themselves and families. The value of the three millions of tons of coal sent
to market last year being taken at twelve millions of dolJars, we may, we
think, safely assume that ten of those millions went directly to the farmer in
payment for food and other of his products. If so, it follows that the market
directly afforded to the farmer by this trade, still in its infancy, in the last
year, was equal, if not superior to the average exports of food to all the
world, from 1840 to 1846.

This, however, is but the first and smallest of the effects upon the agri-
cultural interest, produced by the existence of this trade, yet, as we have
said, and as we beg the farmer to observe, in its infancy, and capable of being
increased to an almost indefinite extent. We would ask him now to look to
the numerous furnaces that have grown up since railroads and canals have
rendered accessible the coal mines of Eastern Pennsylvania, and to recollect
that every ton of iron that is produced, represents chiefly the food consumed
by the men employed in its production. Let him then look to the numerous
mills and factories that have grown up in towns and villages where no water
power existed, and where, without this fuel, such action would have been
impossible — to the thousands of steam-engines in Philadelphia, New York
and Boston, engaged in the conversion of iron into other engines, of food,
and cotton into cloth, of food and rags into paper, and finally into newspapers,
and thus facilitating the further application of labor to the conversion of his
products into the various forms required to suit the tastes of those who desire
to be consumers, and his customers — and above all let him look at the won-
derful demand for sailing and steam-vessels, and particularly of the latter,
since the employment of cheap fuel has enabled their owners to carry pas-
sengers at such low rates that everybody travels, and to transport grain and.
flour, and peaches and apples, at rates so moderate that the farmer obtains
on his farm nearly the same price that is paid by the consumer in New
York, Philadelphia, and other cities — and let him then determine if the
indirect gain to him b}^ the existence of this trade is not far more than that
which he realizes from supplying food to the coal-miners, and laborers, and
others directly engaged in the production of the coal itself, although that
alone furnishes him a market for probably ten millions of his products.
Having made this examination, let him determine for himself if he is not the
chief gainer by the trade. He can scarcely fail to see that every ton of coal
that is mined tends to increase the price of his great product, food, while
increasing the facility of clearing and cultivating his better soils — nor can
he fail to see that every ton that is consumed tends to diminish the labor
required for producing spades and ploughs, and harrows, and clothing, and
all other of the commodities required for his consumption, and that thus he
gains on all hands by the creation of this great market for food.

Is this, however, all the farmer gains 1 It is not. Did not this coal trade
exist, the men who are now producers of coal and consumers of food would
be 2:)roducers of food. Instead of customers, they would be rivals. The
men who now work coal mines, and smelt iron ore, and convert pig metal
into bars, and make steam-engines, and build steamboats, and get out stone
and lumber for building factories, and those who run those engines, and man
the steamboats, and work in the factories, would now, to the extent of pro-
bably a hundred thousand able-bodied men, be raising food in Ohio or Illinois,
Iowa or Wisconsin, and thus the diminution in the market for the pro-
duets of the farmer would be attended by an increase in the supply of those
products and diminution in their value. It can scarcely be doubted that the
production of coal, and the power which it has given for the advantageous

COAL TRADE OF PENNSYLVANIA. 75

application of labor in a variety of ways, have made a market for far more
than fifty millions of dollars' worth of food and lumber, and other agricultural
products. Let, then, the farmer calculate what would be the effect of the
closing of such an outlet for the commodities that he has to sell, and let him
add thereto the further effect that would result from an increase of the supply
by reason of the conversion of miners, and mechanics, and all the other,
persons who owe their employment to the existence of this trade, and then
endeavor to estimate the advantage that he derives from it. Let him see
if he would not have more transportation to perform, while wasting more
manure, and getting smaller prices at the end of his journey.

Were it closed, there would be an instant deterioration in the value of his
farm, and in the price of food, all of which, wheat, and rye, and corn, and
pork, and bacon, and cheese, would then, assuredly, be cheap enough for
export. If he doubt this, let him look to see which are the countries that
now supply cheap food, and he will see that they are those which have
made no marAe^ on the land for the products of the land — Poland, Eastern
Germany, and Southern Russia. Let him then look to see what is the value
of land in those countries, and he will find it almost valueless. Let him
next look to see Avhat is the value of labor in all those countries, and he
will see that the laborer is little better than a slave. As travellers relate, you
may see hundreds of white women in the fields, at work, without bonnet,
shoe, or stocking.

Abolish coal mines, and iron furnaces, and close the factories now depend-
ent upon coal for a supply of power, and the farmers of this country may
at once become competitors with the poor people of Germany, and Poland,
and Russia, for the ever-varying market of England, the securing of which
is deemed by many of our politicians as the first and greatest object of all
legislation. Abolish those markets for food, and we can have that one, so
highly coveted, but the farmer will obtain less for his food, and he will waste
on the road to distant markets the manure that now goes back upon his farm,
and he will lose the market for his timber, and he will exhaust his poor soils
in raising bushels of wheat, because unable to clear rich ones that would
yield tons of potatoes, and then he will fly to other poor lands that are to be
again exhausted.

But, it will be asked, why talk of abolishing the coal trade ? It has grown
up and established itself so fully that it cannot be abolished. Nothing would
be easier. That trade is dependent for its prosperity upon the prosperity
of the farmer and the planter. Let them reject the aid that is even now
afforded them by the tariff of 1840, insufficient as it is, in the effort to seduce
customers to come with their looms and their anvils to the side of the plough,
and they will become poor, and scatter themselves over the west, and their
demands for iron, and steam-engines, and clothing, will diminish, and the
coal trade will languish, and the difficulty of maintaining the roads and canals
by which the coal is transported to market will be increased, and if the trade
do not absolutely die, it will linger on in a miserable existence. It grew
under the tariff of 1828. In 1829, the quantity sent to market was 112,000
tons. In 1837, it had risen to 881,000 tons, and farmers, and manufacturers,
and coal-miners Avere prosperous. The rapid reduction of the tariff after
that period ruined the manufacturers and depressed the farmers, and in
1842, six years afterwards, notwithstanding the application of coal to steam-
boats, the quantity sent to market was but 1,018,000 tons.

With the passage of the tariff of 1842 the demand began to rise, and with
each year from that period to 1847, there was an improvement in the prospects
of the farmers, the manufacturers, and the miners, who, in that year, sent to
market nearly three millions of tons. The tariff of 1846 has now become

?6 COAL TRADE OF PENNSYLVANIA.

fairly operative, and furnaces have ceased to be built, while factories are
being closed. Coal is a drug in the market, and so are likely to be wheat,
and corn, and oats, and hay, and potatoes. The potatoes, and corn, and hay,
are commodities of which the earth yields largely, and, therefore, they will
not bear transportation. If the market on the ground be lost, the farmer
must cease to raise them, and such must be the result, if he will insist upon
driving those who are now consumers of food to the west, there to become
producers of food. Let him do this, and he will exhaust his land, and then
run away himself.

The planter will, however, say, that how true soever this may be, as re-
gards the farmer of Pennsylvania, he himself can have no interest in the
coal trade — that he sells no food to miners, or to furnace men, or to builders
of steam-engines, and that it is all the same to him whether they use an-
thracite or Liverpool coal, and that his cotton Avill sell for as much in the one
case as in the other. How far this is true, we may now inquire.

The world is divided into producers of agricultural products and con-
sumers of them. The larger the proportion which the consumers bear to the
producers, the higher will be the prices of his products, and the more profit-
able will be the labor of the farmer, and the more valuable will be his land.

The planter is a producer of food and cotton. If the price of food be low,
the larger will be the proportion of his force that he must apply to the pro-
duction of cotton, and the smaller will be his production of food. If food be
high, he will raise more of it and less of cotton.

The larger the proportion of his force that is appHed to the production
of cotton, the greater will be the demand for ships, the higher will be
freights the larger will be the quantity of cotton in market, and the lower
will be its price. The less he is compelled to devote himself to cotton, the
lower will be freights and the higher will be prices.

The diversion of labor from the production of food to that of cotton, to the
extent of 100,000 bales, will, at a very moderate calculation, lower the price
of the whole crop one cent per pound, which, upon the present crop, is equal
to 10,000,000 of dollars. The diversion of labor from cotton to food to the
extent of producing a reduction of the crop, 100,000 bales, will raise the
whole crop to a similar extent, and the gain to the planters will be 10,000,000
of dollars, in addition to the further gain from the increased price of the
food they Imve to sell.

These propositions being admitted, as we think they must be, we may
now inquire into the effect of the coal trade on the planter's interest.

That trade even now affords, directly or indirectly, a market for more
food than we have ever exported — more even than we exported last year,
to all parts of the world. In addition to this, it affords a market for labor,
which, if applied to the production of food, Avould add immensely to our pre-
sent large product. The surplus for which markets would be needed in
case of the abolition of the coal trade, would be more than three limes
as great as it is even at present, and the direct effect of such a mea-
sure would be an enormous fall in the price of food, the production of which
would cease to remunerate the planter, who would then raise less food and
more cotton. Large crops would make high freights, while prices abroad
would be low, and the planter would be ruined.

If such would be the effect of a total abolition of it, it must be obvious that
every reduction of it, however small, tends, in the game direction, to reduce
the value of southern property, and to reduce the power of the planter to im-
prove his condition and that of the people whom he employs; while every
increase, large or small, tends in the opposite direction : that is, to add to
the value of southern property, and to increase the power of the planter to

COAL TRADE OF PENNSYLVANIA. 77

improve his own condition and that of his people. Such being the case —
and that it is so we entertain no doubt — it is obvious that the planter is di-
rectly interested in every measure that tends to place the consumer by the
side of the producer, whether at the mines of Pennsylvania, or in the factories
of Massachusetts or Rhode Island, because every such measure tends to
diminish the necessity for emigration to Iowa or Wisconsin, there to become
producers of food. Every man is either a custotner to the farmer or a
rival to him. Hundreds of thousands who are now rivals, and whose com-
petition is now keeping down the prices of food and cotton, would have
remained at home to become customers, had the farmers and planters of the
country understood that protection to the loom and the anvil was, in fact
and in truth, protection to the plough.

Throughout the whole Union, properly considered, there is no real differ-
ence of interests. Every measure that tends to increase the number of
consumers in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, tends to diminish the neces-
sity for over-stocking the markets of the world with cotton and tobacco ; and
every measure that diminishes the consumers in those States, tends to render
niscessary the application of more force to the production of those staples,
with diminished returns.

By politicians — the class of men who live by the labor of others, and are
paid, either directly or indirectly, out of the taxes they impose — the people
of this great Union are divided into northern and southern, eastern and
western, all with opposing interests, but the only true division is into that of
producers of food and cotton, and consumers of food and cotton. The one
has corn and cotton to sell, while the other has labor to sell, and corn and
cotton to buy. The more buyers of corn and cotton, the greater will be the
demand, and the higher will be the prices. The more sellers, the less will
be the demand, and the lower will be the prices. The nearer the loom and
the anvil can be brought to the plough, the more numerous will be the
buyers, and the larger will be the quantity of cloth or iron obtained in
exchange for a given quantity of labor. The more distant they are, the less
will be the value of labor estimated in cloth or iron. The nearer they are,
the less will be the loss of manure, the better will be the soil cultivated, the
inore valuable will be the timber, the larger will be the crops, the more re-
gular will be the demand for labor, the more industrious will be the laborer,
the more valuable will be his time to himself and to his employer, and the
greater will be the power of union for the purpose of building houses, mills,
or railroads. The more distant they are, the greater will be the waste of
manure, the poorer will be the soil that can be cultivated, the less valuable
will be the timber, the smaller will be the crops, the more unsteady will be
the demand for labor, the more difficult will it be to obtain labor in harvest,
the less valuable will be the time of the laborer, either to himself or to his
employer, the less will be the power of union for any purpose of improvement,
and the greater will be the tendency to fly from each other. Population
makes the food come from the rich soils, and facilitates the further growth
of population because of the increased facility of procuring food. Depo-
pulation compels men to abandon rich soils, and fly to poor ones, because of
the increased difficulty of obtaining food. Between the planter and the
farmer, the manufacturer and the coal-miner, then, there is no opposition of
interest. The owner of the plough, whether planter or farmer, is, on the
contrar}'', above all, interested in the measures necessary for bringing the
loom and the anvil to his side.

"Man »H?<sf everywhere commence with the poor soils, and the richer
ones cannot be cultivated until the consumer and producer are brought to-
gether. Whatever foreign interference tends to prevent this union, tends

6 2

78 NINETY TONS OF STRAWBERRIES AND MILK.

to compel men to scatter themselves over poor soils, to prevent increase in
the reward to labor, and to prevent advance in civihzation : and resistance
to such interference is a necessary act of self-defence. The article of chief
consumption is food, of which rich soils would yield larger quantities in
return to half the labor required on the poor ones ; and half the difference
would convert into cloth all the cotton and wool produced, and make the
iron used, in the Union. Such being the case, the exports required to pay
for English labor are so much absolute loss, while the great machine itself
suffers in the loss of labor that would double it in product and in value."

Under the influence of political causes so obvious, must it not be appa-
rent to every farmer of Maryland and Virginia, and every planter of the
Carolinas and Georgia, that they and their children are directly concerned
in, and that they ought to keep vigilant watch over, the legislation of
State and Federal Governments, to see that no obstacles are created, or al-
lowed to exist, which stand in the way of such associations of capital and
means as will promote the growth in our own country of healthful and use-
ful industry, in every department of human employment ? And would it not
much better comport with the true objects and duties of agricultural socie-
ties to promote the investigation and establishment of truth, in reference to
questions of such vital importance, than to waste their time in the repeti-
tion of mere expedients which have been practised again and again for the
last fifty years ? Some farmers, high in public estimation, and as high in
individual merit, are heard to say — " These are matters we must leave to
others to discuss !" — but what said Hercules, when called on by the wa-
goner ? First put thine own shoulder to the wheel. All the world over it
is true — that if you want a thing done, leave it to others — if you want it
well done, look to it yourself.

NINETY TONS,

NOT QUARTS, NOR BUSHELS, BUT NINETY TONS, OF MILK AND STRAW-
BERRIES TRANSPORTED IN A SINGLE DAY, ON THE ERIE RAILROAD,
INTO THE CITY OF NEW YORK.

With the contemplative farmer, whose interest and inclination alike
should prompt him to investigate the true foundations of prosperous agri-
culture, what a train of reflection must follow the perusal of the above state-
ment, which occurs in a country newspaper, while he who looks habitually
at the surface of things, reads it with momentary admiration, and Avithout
ever dreaming that in this fact, more than in the force of a thousand isolated
premiums, is to be discovered " how to make poor land richV^ and then what
a volume of testimony does it present to the reflective mind, on the influ-
ence of the more perfect systems of internal improvement in meliorating the
practice of agriculture, and all the pursuits of civilized life ! Ninety tons
of strawberries and milk, which go so well together everywhere, passing in
one day over one out of a thousand channels leading to a single city, peopled
by half a million of men, women and children, laboring and prospering, in
the various arts and manufactures, trades and professions, that make up the
business of a great community — carpenters, bricklayers, tailors, shoemakers,
livery-stable keepers, printers, bookbinders, lawyers, doctors, women at the
loom, and men at the anvil, none of them rival producers of the farmer, but all
of them daily consumers of the products of the plough and the spade ! and yet
there are demagogues of narrow minds who would persuade the cultivator
of the soil to regard with envious distrust the followers of every industrial

NINETY TONS OF STRAWBERRIES AND MILK. 79

calling but his own : and to look on the well-doing of all other classes as
detracting from his own ! Be it, then, our duty as unaflected, we might
almost say sworn friends of the plough, to persuade him who follows it to
consider the numbers, the prosperity, and even the wealth of all other
classes as the best possible guarantee for his own ; as it is his most reliable,
nay, his only security for a uniform compensating demand, not merely for
a few of the principal staples of agriculture, such as corn and wheat, and
cattle and hogs, and cotton and rice and sugar ; but for commodities the most
bulky and the most delicate and perishable — even milk and strawberries
as we here see by the ton, and such as the most perfect and remunerating
husbandry only can produce ; and such moreover as will never pay, and,
therefore, never be produced by those who live at a great distance from the
consumer, and who has to travel that distance over bad roads to fluctuating
and uncertain markets. Had it been the policy of Virginia to favor a system
of domestic and of national legislation, that should force the foreign capitalist
to come with his money and his machinery, to use her own water-power
and her own coal-mines and ore beds, and to weave her own wool, then, too,
might Virginians, weeks in advance of the people on the Hudson, be send-
ing their tons of milk and strawberries to market. But, instead of that,
what is the melancholy fact ? Look here, at a paragraph we find in the
Colonial Herald :

Depopulation of Virginia. — The Petersburg Gazette informs us that upwards of seventy-
emigrants, a few days ago, passed through that town, from the Valley of Virginia, on their
way, with a large number of slaves to Missouri, and the remainder to Iowa. Thus, says
the Gazette, is Virginia peopling other states, when she ought to hold her own and attract
immigration from abroad.

It is a singular fact, that while the tide of population is rushing westward like a tor-
rent, there is an immense portion of the country, lying along and near to the Atlantic,
that is a waste. In Virginia and North Carolina, and South Carolina, tens of thousands
of acres remain untouched, and in Virginia especially, the annual increase of population
is so very trifling that in comparison with many other states, it is absolutely retrograding.
In the heart of Pennsylvania and New York, there are thousands of acres of land which
have never been settled, and it is strange that while crowds are turning their steps to the
far west, even to the distant Oregon and California, there should be a want of improve-
ment in those places which are near the greatest civilization, and quite as naturally capa-
ble of being made productive as any lands in the west.

While we cannot people such states as Virginia and North Carolina, and while the rich
lands of Pennsylvania and New York remain in any degree untouched, it seems the acme
of folly to be seeking after new territory.

To a great extent, the same observations might be applied to Pennsylva-
nia, where the study of her wiseacres, representing her landed interest, has
been and is, not how to attract wealth — not how to increase and concentrate
population by natural increase, and by holding out rewards to the immigrant
to settle with his little capital, and his skill and labor, within her borders,
but how she shall disgust and repel capital and immigrants by rendering the
union of capital as difficult and perilous as possible ! !

In these ninety tons of milk and strawberries, we see the undeniable
benefit of concentration instead of dispersion — and hence the wisdom of a
settled, all-pervading national policy, which would so increase the number
of artisans in our own country, that they would reward the farmer for mak-
ing tons of milk and strawberries in lieu of bushels of corn and oats.

Such a policy would encourage the capitalists of Europe — of France, of
Germany, and of England, to break up their establishments there, and come
with their Hghter machinery for fashioning the products of the earth, to
settle down near the great machine of production, — the earth itself, on
which the food is produced. By such a policy, better than all the premiums
that society can offer, we should make it the interest of the ironmonger and

80 NINETY TONS OF STRAWBERRIES AND MILK.

coal-heaver to come and delve and dig in our ow^n mines. Thus we should
draw the weaver with his loom, and the smith with his anvil, to come as
they are seen on the cover of this journal — to come and settle as nearly as
possible to the plouq-h ; and that not alone for the benefit of the weaver and
the smith, but yet more for that of the ploughman himself — so true is it,
that their interests are reciprocal and harmonious, Avhen left to follow the
laws of nature. Nature, common sense, common interest, instinct, would
draw men together for safety, for social improvement, for social enjoyment.
Nothing but the cunning and fraudulent devices of the politician sunders
and separates them. Can any thing be plainer than that when the cus-
tomers of the landholder are at a distance, in proportion to that distance he
can afford to go to them with few things ? — for if they consist of the bulky com-
modities of horticulture, which are most profitable, they will not pay for trans-
portation; and if lighter and more delicate, they must perish on their Avay to
market. On the contrary, when he instructs his representatives to establish
a system of uniform encouragement to American industry, he draws his cus-
tomers nearer to his plough, and when he has done that, the greater the num-
ber and variety of articles will their demands draw out of the soil, for their
strawberries and milk will go along with the corn and the flour, and yet the
greater will be the time at the command of the cultivator of the soil to
manure and augment the power of the soil, and to that increase in the power
of the soil, and of the owner of the soil, will follow every imaginable benefi-
cent consequence that can contribute to the civilization and happiness of the
human race.

See below the picture of these beneficent consequences, as described by
Mr. Care}^, in his Past, Prescrit, and Future, a work to which we cannot too
often refer the farmer in search of the true and only secret for insuring
solid, wide-spread, enduring improvement for American agriculture ! As for
accomplishing such general and continued advancement of agricultural
science, or increase of agricultural improvement and prosperity, by a system
of premiums, it is as idle as it would be in Col. Hampton in a dry time to go
over his 1500 acres of cotton with a common watering-pot. If you would
test the capacity of the soil, and keep that capacity fully to its power of pro-
duction, you must ensure a remunerating demand for its prodtice. It is
not a premium of $50 or $500 or $5000 for a crop of one hundred bushels
of corn to the acre, to be given by subscription to one corn-planter out of a
million, that will ensure fifty bushels of corn to the acre, through a state or
a county; but raise up mouths enough to be fed — and let the feeders be
close at hand and prosperous, and then you will get, not fifty bushels of corn,
but even strawberries at the rate of $600 to the acre, as they have been
produced in old sterile New England — where population brings the food by
tons out of the ground, naturally covered with stone, at the rate of a ton to
six feet square, as at Mr. Phinney's : —

If now we enter the home of one of these happy farmers, we find him also turning
his eyes inward. His wife, his children, his farm, his cattle, and his house, stand first in
liis thoughts. In these it is that he finds his happiness. We should, however, greatly
err if we supposed the man whose thoughts are thus concentrated upon his home to be
incapable of associating with his fellow men, or to be in any degree incapacitated for so
doing. On the contrary, it is because of his combination with them that he is enabled to
exercise the power of concentration. The miller is near him, and he is not obliged to
travel abroad with his grain when he desires to have it converted into flour. His near
neighbors are the tanner, the shoemaker, the hatter and the butcher, and he is in the habit
of daily intercourse with them. He discusses with them and with others of his fellow-
citizens, the laying out of roads: the arrangements of the little and growing town: the
building of churches; the institution of schools and little libraries for his children, and
tlie formation of a library for their own joint use: and he combines with them in all the
arrangements for the maintenance of perfect security of person and property; for the set-

THE SEVEN WONDERS OF NEW ENGLAND. 81

tlement of differences that may arise among their fellow-citizens: for the cti>llectionof the
contributions required for the making of roads and for other purposes ; and for a varst
variety of other matters interesting lo the commvmity at large. Combmation {ends to
promote security and the growtli of wealth, and wealth enables him daily more and more
to concentrate his thoughts upon his home, and its occupants: and this concentratiinn, in
its turn, promotes the growth of wealth, by enabling him daily more ami more t& reflect
upon the measures necessary to the advancement of the common go€>tl : to devote his
leisure in aid of those less fortunate than himself: to acquire knowledge T>7 the study of
nature, or of books: and thus still further to advance the interests of the society of which
he has the happiness to be a member. The labors incident to The perfcrmance of the
general business of the society are light, for they are divided among all; and they cost
little, for they are performed by the men who have themselves to contribute towards its
payment. All work and all pay, and hence the work and the pay faJl lightly upon
each.

What are the common observations of every southern man, as, for the firsE
time, he travels over the delightful roads of New England. Let us recount
them as they struck us on a first view of the country, a quarter of a cens-
tury ago, when we remember with pleasure to have been introduced on the-
same day, by the venerable Josiah Q,uincy, to two remarkable characters^
(with no irreverence to the first of them be it stated,) the then aged and
honorable John Adams, and the famous Oak^s cow J whose portrait and
lactiferous out-pourings we gave in the American Farmer, which we had
then not long established, in a determination that as long as we could raise
the means, agriculture should not decline for want of at least one advocBste.

THE SEVEN WONDERS OF NEW ENGLAND,

IN THE EYES OP A SOUTHERN TEAVELLER.

1. Every man living in a "bran spanding" new house, or one that looks
as if it had been painted as white as snow within the past week !

2. All the houses of wood, where all the fences are of stone, which in
some places he so thick as to require to be removed at the rate of a ton
from six feet square.

3. Wood for house and kitchen all sawed and split up into one uniform
length and size, and snugly piled away under cover of an open shed, so that
the work of house and kitchen may suffer the least possible interruption—
in a word, he sees a place for every thing, and every thing in its place.

4. The care obviously bestowed in the saving and preparation of manure
by accumulation and composting.

5. Universal attention to a good supply of fruit, adapted to the climate.

6. Not a poor or superfluous ox, cow, horse, hog, or sheep, the propor-
tion of the short-lived, expensive horse, being on every farm wisely and
economically small !

7. The seventh wonder is, after a day's ride, (twenty-five years ago, with
great uniformity in their stages at the rate of 7| miles an hour, now on
railroads at the rate of thirty,) where, in the name of all that is mysterious
and inexplicable, are these people's staple crops 1 What do they make for
sale ? Where are their stack-yards of wheat, straw, and fodder, and oats,
and rye 1 Where their tobacco-houses, and their gin-houses, their great
herds of cattle and swine, rooting in the swamps, browsing in the fields, or
reposing in the shade ? How is it that these people contrive to keep out of
debt, and yet never repudiate ? How do they go on improving their rocky
land, carrying tons of atun from the hills above to under-drain the meadows
below ? building school-houses in sight of each other, and expending millions
on education, while buying for themselves, one a little bank stock, another ^

Vol. I.— 11

82 THE SEVEN WONDERS OF NEW ENGLAND.

little railroad stock, and a little stock in a neighboring- factory, at which he sells
his milk and his apples, his carrots and potatoes, once in a while giving $100
an acre for a small farm in his neighborhood ? Dear reader, to explain all
these wonders of New England thrift and go-aheadtiveness in full would
make a long story, but if you will turn back to the first pao-e of the cover of
this journal, you will see at once the key to the riddle! There you see the
secret by which alone poor land throughout a country can be prudently and
economically made rich — for there you see the plough, the loom, and the
ANVIL, all close to each other, the first being the most prominent.

It is there, and there only, Avhere the cultivators of the soil have the wis-
dom to encourage all other branches of American industry, that you will
ever see or hear o[ ninety tons of milk and strawberries going by one road,
in a single day, to be consumed before the milk can sour, and before the
strawberries can sour, by weavers, and blacksmiths, and shoemakers, and
tailors, and churchmen, and laymen, and printers, and printers' devils; and
what is more, some of these perishable articles going in one night probably
at least 100 miles, to be eaten fresh the next morning for breakfast ! So
much for easy and expeditious channels of communication that concentra-
tion lays over the ground, to provide for the transportation of the food that
concentration only can bring out of the ground.

It is in this that we find the secret for " making poor land rich." It is
not all the premiums that can be offered, nor prize essays, though they be
spun out as long as the main-top bowline, that can convert a poor exhausted
country into a rich one, and cause a flourishing agriculture and a dense
population to take the place of barrenness and dispersion. With good seed,
good implements, abundant capital to buy manure, or time and skill to ac-
cumulate it, all accompanied with good tillage and good seasons, any one
may make poor land productive ; but that is not the knowledge that is
needed — we have had that illustrated in practice, and told on paper in a thou-
sand instances. Neither do we want militia musterings, nor martial music,
nor raree-shows of any sort, to attract gaping crowds of thoughtless specta-
tors. What the agriculture of old states needs, with their thousands of un-
drained and uncultivated land, or lands exhausted of their fertility and sta-
tionary in population, is, not the knowledge of how to make, but Avhere he
can find a market for what he could make, if there were people near, with
money in their pockets and mouths to be fed.

Where is the farm, in Maryland or Virginia, that might not produce its
bushels of strawberries, and tons of butter and cheese, and beets, and car-
rots, and potatoes, and cabbages, if there, as in New England, the plough,
the loom, and the anvil, the tanner, the shoemaker, and the butcher, were
all at work in the sight and sound of each other ? Nor does any thing con-
duce so much to general happiness as steady and habitual labor — where
labor is sure of its reward. All these results we should have throughout
the country, if we could have uniform, permanent, and just encouragement
of American labor, as the fruit of a general national conviction that Ameri-
can labor has a right to be protected against the over-tasked and under-paid,
and badly-fed labor of Europe ; and this is eminently due to the farmer, for
it is he who wants prosperous, well-paid, laborious consumers, close at hand,
tempting him and rewarding him for bringing the food out of his richest
lands. It is the farmer who is interested in carrying out the opinion of Mr.
Jefl!erson, that " now we must place the manufacturer by the side of the
agriculturist."

When that is done, and not until then, the fruits of the soil will pay for
the highest improvement the soil is susceptible of. Then will the farmer's
richest lands, which now he cannot afford to ditch and drain, be brought

AGRICULTURE OF THE EASTERN STATES. 83

under the plough, and afford the means of reviving the hills that have been
exhausted — then, in short, these old Southern States, vi^ith their vastly su-
perior soil and climate, would rival and surpass Connecticut, Vermont, and
Massachusetts, and we should cease to hear complaint of want of capital for
agricultural improvement, for they Avould spin their own improvement out
of their own bowels, as the spider spins his web.

Then might we witness in these Southern States what a southern man
would scarcely credit, w^ere it not related on authority so unquestionable as
Mr. Colman, who tells us in his Agricultural Survey of Massachusetts, that
in one county, to which was apportioned by the legislature of the state $2000
of the surplus money distributed by the general government, the county
commissioners decided that it should be loaned out at interest on good se-
curity to the farmers, but — southern reader ! would you believe it, not a bor-
rower could be found in the county ! In what community would such a
phenomenon occur, except where there is concentration. Where the plough,
the loom, and the anvil are working close together and prosperously ; where tons
of strawberries are accompanied by tons of milk, and tons of carrots and po-
tatoes are all borne along on the same road, to fill the bellies and bring back
the money of industrious and thriving consumers — non-producers of agri-
cultural produce. But we have said so much of New England, as exem-
plifying the benefits of union and concentration, and of simple contrivances
for associating capital to lend money and build factories ; and inasmuch as
many of our readers may never have seen their beautiful roads, their nice,
clean, new-looking houses, their everlasting stone-fences, their well-pruned
thriving orchards, their green meadows, and their fruitful gardens, their rich
dairies, and their country school-houses, it is time to adduce something in
exemplification of

THE AGRICULTURAL ECONOMY AND CONDITION OF
THE EASTERN STATES.

Under this standing head, Ave shall give, running perhaps from one num-
ber to another, many extracts from Mr. Colman's Report, passing to dif-
ferent subjects, pretty much at random, but always endeavoring to present
facts and statements, which may show invariably how the presence of
consumers will bring the food out of the ground; and how true it is, that if
you would improve the soil, you must seek for the means of bringing in
close proximity the plough, the loom, and the anvil — the miller, the tanner,
the shoemaker, the tailor, the hatter, and the butcher — the coal-heaver and
the ironmonger.

The first extract we shall make is one that, according to our plan, blends
a legion of facts with instruction in hay-making. We believe that farmers,
generally, in the south, are not aware of the loss they sustain, under the idea
that hay requires to be much more dried in the process of curing, than is
usually imagined. As Mr. Colman says, the danger comes, not so much
from the undried juices of the plant itself, as from external moisture.

The extract relates to the town of Deerfield :

An example has been given to me of the product of one of these low meadows in
Deerfield containing nine acres, at a place called Old Fort.

The first crop of hay was, 25,325 lbs.

" second crop, 15.120

40.445 lbs.

The hay was sold and delivered as soon as cured, at nine dollars per ton, 182 00

The fall feed sold for 4 50

$186 50

84

AGRICULTURE OF THE EASTERN STATES.

The whole labor was performed by contract at four dollars per acre for

both crops, 36 00

Leaving a balance in favor of the land, of --...- $150 50

The hay was considered as sold at a low rate. The same quality of hay in the fol-
lowing winter brought thirteen dollars per ton.

The land has been estimated at 100 dollars per acre. No manure has been put upon
the ground. The produce in this case was not more than an average crop. This yield
■was at the rate of 4,494 lbs. to the acre. First crop, 2,813 8-9 per acre; second crop,
1,657 7-9 lbs. per acre. This constitutes some of the best land in the meadows. There
is diat, however, which is deemed even more productive.

We shall now give some extracts from his survey of the county of Mid-
dlesex, in which are embraced the towns of Boston and Lowell, that the
reader may appreciate properly the friendly relations between the plough,
the loom, and the anvil.

Pursuits of the IxHABiTAjfTS. — The pursuits of the inhabitants are various, and
trade and manufactures greatly predominate over the agricultural interest. Property to
a vast amount is invested in the different manufacturing establishments, and especially
at Lowell and Waltham. Many persons engaged in trade and commerce in the capital,
have their residences in the vicinity in this county ; and though in general their occupa-
tions are on a small scale, yet their means give them the povi'er of free expenditure, and
their establishments do much to improve and adorn the country. The capital, with the
large towns in its vicinity, and the several villages and manufacturing towns in the in-
terior, afford a ready and quick market for all the products of agriculture. Tliis condi-
tion determines, in a great measure, the character of the agriculture of the comity — which
is confined rather to the production of vegetables, fruits, butter, and articles that find an
immediate sale in the towns, than to products on a large scale, to be sold in great quan-
tities or consumed upon the farm. Large amounts of hay are produced in many of the
tlistricts ; but of this, likewise, no small part is sold in the towns, at taverns, to stage and
wagon establishments, and not consumed upon the farms. In the immediate vicinity
of the capital, the cultivation would rather come under the designation of garden culture
than of field culture. In some parts of the covmty, this cultivation is carried to a high
degree of improvement. A considerable portion of the rural population are themselves
marketers, sending directly to Boston or other principal markets daily or weekly ; and
through every part of the county market-wagons pass at regular times, taking the pro-
duce of the farmers in butter, eggs, poultry, veal, &c., and selling it upon commission.

In addition to this, a large number of farms are devoted to the production of milk,
which is sent to Boston daily, in some cases a distance of twelve or fourteen miles; and
the small farmer, the keeper of four or six cows, disposes of his milk to the large dealer,
who receives it on his route, or to whom it is sent in order to be taken to market. It is
difficult to form an estimate of the amount exported, or the cash received in this way,
and from these innumerable and various sources of income; but it must be very large.
Sales of 1,500 dollars' worth of turnips from a single farm in one year; from another, of
more than 1,"200 dollars' worth of winter apples ; from another, 300 dollars' worth of
peaches ; and another, of nearly 800 dollars' worth of strawberries, and early potatoes to
the amount of GOO dollars from two acres, have been reported to me under circumstances
which do not allow me to doubt the truth of these statements.

Indian Corn is raised, to a greater or less extent, on every farm, but it is cultivated
exclusively for home consumption. It would be difficult, when all circumstances are
considered, to name a plant whose uses are more numerous, or whose value is greater ;
and the cultivation of it might be extended to great advantage. Crops of 116 bushels
have been produced in the county. Under good cultivation fifty and sixty bushels are
obtained, but the average yield is not more than thirty-five bushels. When it is seen
what can be done, and what ordinarily is done, it would seem as though the comparison
must have its natural etiect.

I shall give the statements of particular farmers as to the amount of their own crops;
probably in this case the highest yield is given.

In Chelmsford, 70 to 80 bushels per acre. In Tyngsborough, 50 bushels and 70
bushels; the average yield through the town is supposed to be 40 bushels. In Dun-
stable, 30 to 40 bushels. In Tewksbury, 35 bushels. In Shirley, 35 bushels. In Lex-
ington, 75 bushels. In "Westford, 30 bushels. In Framingham, from 40 to GO bushels.
In Marllxirough, 30 to 40 bushels; sometimes 50 bushels. In Pepperell, 40 to 50 bush-
els. In Groton, 50 bushels. In Towusend, 25 to 30 bu.'hels; sometimes 40 bushels.
These results are quite various ; but I must leave them as they are given.

AGRICULTURE OF THE EASTERN STATES. 85

1. In Groton, the expenses of cultivating an acre of corn, allowing, as in all other
cases, one dollar per day for labor, are given as follows :

Ploughing, 3 50; rolling and harrowing, 75, - - - - - • - $4 25
Compost manure, 15 loads, consisting of 3 loads of dung mixed with loam, clear

barn manure being not approved, - - - 12 00

One man and one yoke of oxen, 1 ^ day putting manure in the hill, - - 3 00

Seed, 25; first hoeing and horse, 2 50, 2 75

Second and third hoeing and horse, 4 00

Topping stalks, 1 50 ; cutting up and gathering, 2 00, 3 50

Husking, 3 50, - - 3 50

$32 50

Returns — Stover = 1 ton of hay, $12 00

50 bushels corn, - 50 00

62 00

Balance in favor of corn, $.29 50*

Of two of the largest crops of corn ever raised in the county, it may not be aimiss for
me to give the particulars of the cultivation.

The land had been used for pasture ground for nearly thirty years. In the fall it was
ploughed. In the ensuing spring it was again well ploughed, and planted with corn iu
the hills, in the common form ; but well manured in the hill with a mixture of horse-dung,
lime, and ashes. When the corn was fit for weeding, half a pint of unleached ashes
was applied to each hill ; a part, however, was left without any ashes. The difference
between the corn which had ashes applied to it and that which had none, was very
apparent. The corn had a slight ploughing when it was weeded, and was half-hilled
early on account of its rapid growth. After this, a plough was not suffered among it,
nor had it any more hoeing, except to destroy the worst of the weeds, and to stir in the
turnip-seed which was sown among it. The product of this corn was at the rate of 783-
bushels to the acre.

The same field was ploughed again in the fall afler the gathering of the crop ; and
again ^vell ploughed in the spring and harrowed out at a distance of four feet, leaving
each furrow one foot wide. The furrows were well manured with a compost of horse-
dung, lime, ashes, and dock-mud. The seed raised the last year was planted in the drill
on every farrow, making three rows to each. Care was taken to drop the seed about six
inches apart. When the corn was at a proper stage, it was carefully thinned ; and after
weeding, it was dressed with imleached ashes through each drill or furrow. It was half-
hilled early in the season on account of its rapid growth, being undoubtedly strongly sti-
mulated by the high manuring of the land the previous season. It had a slight ploughing
at this season; and soon after half-hiUing, the suckers or barren stalks were all carefully
cut off.

The corn was planted in the latter part of May ; the stalks topped the first week in
September, at which time most of the corn was dry enough for grinding. On the 13th
of October it was gathered, and a measured acre of this corn produced one hundred and
eleven bushels and one peck. The soil was deep black upon a yellow loam, and that
resting upon a gravelly and clayey pan. It will be found that, by this mode of planting
three rows to each furrow, there will be more than double the stalks of corn on die same
surface than if planted in the usual way.

I subjoin an account of the cultivation of another field of corn in the county.

The soil is a deep yellow loam. It was manured with ten cart-loads of green barn

* ]\Iany other cases are given, in all of which the reader would be struck with the
items of expense, and particularly with the easy and familiar way in which the surveyor
speaks oi large outlays for manure^ while in the Southern States, where anti-encouragement
of American industry sentiments and legislation prevail, you will see men hving thinly
scattered over the country, and in many cases keeping from 50 to 100 head of domestic
animals without saving as many bushels of manure. How apparent, and, to a superfi-
cial observer, how strange ! In one end of the Union, concentration of population, good
roads, numerous banks, steam-engines, busy factories, heavy proihiots, and prices that
justify an outlay equivalent to $32 50 per acre on corn, including $12 for manure. In
other parts of the same union, where false notions and mistaken vicious legislation repels
capital and scatters population, you behold bad roads, light crops, heavy expense of trans-
portation, for only a few old staples to distant customers, and land a drug ! Who has
made a nice calculation to show that in Maryland and Virginia, generally, the wheat and
the oats, and the corn, do not, in fact, cost more than they come to !

H

86 AGRICULTURE OF THE EASTERN STATES.

manure spread on the ground, and eight loads of compost manure put in the hills, and a
crop of corn taken from it. The ensuing year it was twice ploughed in the spring, and
twenty cart-loads of green barn manure spread on it. It was then furrowed in rows
about three feet and a half apart; and about twenty cart-loads of barn, hog. and slaughter-
yard manure were put in the rows : with the last manure was mixed a hogshead of lime.
The kernels were planted eight inches apart in rows. The corn was hoed three times;
all the suckers were pulled out in July; and in Augiist were taken away together with the
false and smutty stalks. On the 1st of September the stalks were topped; and on the 26th
the corn was harvested and spread on a tloor, under the roof of a long shed, that it might
dry well. On the 14th November, the whole was shelled: it measured one hundred and
sixteen bushels, and three and a half pecks of clear sound corn. Weight of the corn.
56 lbs. to a bushel.

The value of the stalks and suckers was considered equal to two tons of English hay.
The expenses of the cultivation were estimated as follows : —

Ploughing, 2 50: manure, 25 00; seed, 0 50, 28 00

Furrowing and planting, 4 00; hoeing, 4 00 8 00

Suckering and topping, 4 00; harvestijig, 4 00, 8 00

$44 00
This, it must be admitted, is an extraordinary crop, but the account is well attested.*
Oats are frequently made the second crop in the rotation. They are not grown to
much extent, compared with the population and demand, though nearly one hundred and
three thousand bushels are given as the annual amount to the Valuation Committee. The
crop is rated upon an average at forty bushels to the acre. The price is generally about
three-eighths the price of Indian corn. This is almost always above their intrinsic value,
but the convenience in using and transporting them, and the constant demand for them
in livery stables, secure a large price.

They are generally taken as a second Qrop, after corn or potatoes, the manure being
applied to the previous crop.

1. The subjoined is one estimate of the cost and returns of cultivation.

Ploughing, 2 00; seed, three bushels, 1 50, 3 50

Cradling and harvesting, 2 00

Threshing, 3 00

8 50
Iteturm — 40 bushels of oats, 20 00; straw, 7 00, 27 »0

Balance in favor of oats, $18 50

2. In Dunstable, the charges of cultivation are as follows:

Ploughing, 1 50; 3^ bushels of seed, 1 75, 3 25

Sowing and harrowing, 0 75

Cradling and stocking, 150; threshing, 4 00, 5 50

9 50
Returns — 40 bushels of oats, ..... --20 00

Straw, one ton, --8 00

28 00

Balance in favor of oats, $19 50

3. In Tyngsborough, the cost is thus given. The crop is taken after corn.

Splitting corn hills, sowing and harrowing, 2 50

Seed, two bushels of oats, - - - - - - - - ■ -100

Cradling and tying up, 1 00; threshing, 2 00, 3 00

6 50

Returns— 40 bushels of oats, - - , 20 00

1 ton of oat straw, - - - - • - - -8 00

28 00

Balance in favor of oats, $21 50

This is very light cultivation; and the land is ploughed once only for the whole course.

The seeding too is small ; very few farmers allow less than two bushels to an acre.

Crops of sixty bushels and more are frequently raised, where the land is in high condition.

In Worcester county, I have the assurance of the present Governor of the Commonwealth,

* The New York State agricultural society gave its highest premium, $20, to a crop of
64 bushels last year.

AGRICULTURE OF THE EASTERN STATES. 87

that he has produced one hundred biishels to an acre; and in Berkshire county, a crop of
eight acres has averaged ninety-six b^ishcls to the acre. The general yield through the State,
however, does not exceed forty bushels. Two kinds of oats are cultivated in the State, —
the connnon oat, with a branching and spreading top, and the Tartarian or horse-mane oat,
so called from the seed hanging together in clusters on one side. The plants ripen at
different times, and it is therefore inipro[)er to mix them in sowing. Tlie Tartarian oat
is generally of stouter growth than the common oat, and is about equally productive, the
•crops of one farmer within my knowledge, who has cultivated it for several years, ave-
raging sixty bushels to the acre. His cultivation throughout, however, is of the best
character, and his other crops correspondent.

MASfGEL-WuHTZEL, &c. — Of Other vegetables raised in the county it cannot be neces-
sary to go into a particular account. The usual varieties are produced in all parts of the
county; and the market in Boston is supplied with some of its earliest and best vege-
tables from the gardens in Middlesex. It would be interesting and useful to point out
the particular modes of cultivating and forwarding these different varieties, but this would
occupy more time and space than I now feel at liberty to devote to it. The details in
these cases would excite surprise ; and it might stagger the credulity of some persons to
tell them that horse-radish, to the amount of sixty dollars, has been annually sold from
two rods of ground; and that the cultivation of the common dandelion is a source of con-
fiiderable profit. Many statements of this kind, which have been made, demonstrate how
much may be accomplished by minute, concentrated, and well-directed labor.

A crop of iwangel-wurtzel obtained in Charleston deserves particular observation.
The soil on which this crop was grown, is described as a black loam with a clay bottom,
on a gentle slope to the north-east. The year previous to the crop of mangel-wurtzel,
three-fourths of the land was planted with potatoes, with a moderate supply of manure
in the hills; the residue was in mangel-wurtzel and grass. Early in May, in the suc-
ceeding year, there was spread on said land about eight cords of compost manure, and
ploughed to the depth of eight inches, and harrowed in the usual way. About the 20th
of May, the seed was sown in rows about twenty-two inches apart, and the plants, when
about the size of a goose-i|uill, were tliinned to about eight or twelve inches apart. The
thinning would have been done earlier, but the crop was threatened with wire-worms.
The soil was kept loose about the roots, and the land clear of weeds. The under-leaves
were frequently cropped, from which much excellent food -was obtained for swine and
cattle, and the sun and air were freely admitted to the roots. It was desirable to do this
by the middle of September, that the crown of the roots might have time to heal. They
were harvested in the third week in October. The crop produced 1433 bushels, or
86,961 lbs., or 43 short tons, and 9G1 lbs. The actual expense of producing the crop
was thirty-five dollars. The cost was not quite two and one half cents per bushel. The
quantity of land, one acre.

Beets are often a very profitable crop. They are raised in considerable quantities;
are packed in barrels and shipped to the south. One dollar and a half is a common
price for a barrel containing two and a quarter bushels. The farmer giving this state-
ment has often produced 600 bushels to the acre. They are planted on ridges about four
feet apart, in double rows; and the intermediate spaces are often sown with turnips.
The ridge planting is decidedly preferred here for all vegetables of this kind. In my
opinion, and so far as my own experience goes, which has not been small, it would be
better to make the ridges about twenty-seven inches apart, plant the beets in single rows,
and cultivate them with a i)lough. A very useful machine for planting beets is a wheel,
set like that of a wheelbarrow, with pins projecting from the rim two inches, and placed
eight inches apart, which is passed along on the top of the ridge, and the seeds dropped
by hand into the holes marked by the pins. They may then be covered by drawing a
rake-head along the top of the ridge. Too much care cannot be taken to perform all
operations in planting, where the vegetable is afterwards to be cultivated, in straight
lines. The work is by this means greatly facilitated.

Since making the above account, I have received a statement of a crop of sugar-beets
grown this season on Nahant, Essex county, by Frederick Tudor, which I have no hesi-
tation in laying before the agricultural community, though it may seem out of place. I
shall give the account w^ith which Mr. Tudor has favored me in his own words.

"In the spring of 1S40, I caused about an acre of land of the pasture lands of this
place, (Nahant,) to be fenced in and trenched twenty inches deep. The ground had
never before had an agricultural instrument of any kind in it. It was a pasture of in-
different soil, with many stones in and upon it.

"The trenching consisted in reversing the soil for 20 inches in depth ■with, the spade,
and afterwards putting in all the stones (which were found) in the bottom; three inches
of muscle-mud were put on them, followed by the turf and best of the soil ; then two

88 THE SHEEP.

inches of Tock-weed and kelps fresh from the shores, or cut from the rocks ; then the less
rich part of the soil and more muscle-mud — the top left with the poorest and most gra-
velly soil. In all, there were about eight inches in perpendicular height of manure added
to the soil, which, when pressed, might have been five to six inches in perpendicular
height; so that the land had been moved with the spade a depth of little more than two
feet. In the spring of 1840 it was sown with sugar-beets, but did not do very well, the
top-soil being extremely poor. In the spring of 1S41 I had it ploughed about six inches
"deep, but the plough did not reach any of the richer parts of the soil below, exhibiting
little n>ore than yellow loam and gravel. I caused 93 rods of this to be again sown with
sugar-b&et seed this spring; and after the beet seed had come up, had the land dressed
on die surface, merely spreading it on, with fifteen cords of rich cow-yard manure. This
.caused the young plants to grow greatly. There has been no particular care given them,
.and indeed several patches in the ninety-three rods were to be seen where the seed had
failed, and which should have been filled with plants if the object had been to try the
utmost possible. During the dry weather in August, the tops of several of the rows were
cut otf for fodder for the cows. My own belief is, it would have been possible to produce
on the same piece of ground, if much care had been taken, sixteen hundred bushels.

"I think the crop on my land has not been caused by trenching, but by the looseness
of the soil and the top-dressing of rich manure of which I have spoken. The usefulness
of a top-dressing, more especially in a dry season, is undoubtedly great."

The whole crop was carefully weighed and sold by weight. The amount, 42,284 lbs.
This would be at the rate of 36 tons 74G 63-100 lbs. net weight to the acre, or about 1300
bushels per acre at 5G lbs. per bushel. One of the roots, cropped and cleaned, weighed
31 lbs.

This is a highly interesting experiment and result. I have long desired an opportimity
•of witnessing, on actual trial, the beneficial effects of a thorough trenching; — but have
never seen it except in the case of asparagus beds formed after the prescriptions of former
times. The practice of subsoil ploughing is in fact trenching. I am much better satisfied
with Mr. Tudor's result, than with the philosophy of his explanation. I believe much is
due to the trenching of the soil, whereby it was rendered permeable to air, moisture, and
warmth. The ]>artial failure of the first crop after the trenching, may be in a degree
accounted for by the fact, that the subsoil had been so recently brought to the surface, that
it had not been acted upon and enriched by atmospherical agency. The deposit of the
stones at the bottom in a kind of bed, served to draw ofi' and to retain the moisture, which
had its effects upon the growing crop. The bed of manure, though buried as deeply as
described, since the earth above was light and porous, undoubtedly, in the evolution of its
gases, contributed its full share to the growth of the crop. The top-dressing certainly was
not without its great advantages, not only in supplying the necessary nutriment to the
plants, but likewise, as is suggested, in protecting the soil from the severe drought.

It will be questioned by some whether so expensive a cultivation can be aflbrded.
The price of manure is not given. If it were not overvalued, the first crop, even at five
dollars per ton, or more than ISO dollars to the acre, would undoubtedly pay the expenses
of culture and leave a large profit; but in the next place it is to be remembered that the
land is now in condition for at least six or eight years' profitable crojaping without any
additioijal manuring.

THE SHEEP.

Let us survey a few of the valuable facts with, regard to sheep, which
have been noted during the past year. Mr. Pawlett, of Beeston, from a
series of careful examinations, concludes that the general opinion is correct,
that the sheep goes with young longer with males, than with females. He
found that the longest time that any ewe went with Weeks. Days.

A Ram Lamb, was ...--.--- 22 4

The sliorti'st 210

The longest with an Ewe Lamb ...----22 2

The shortest 20 4

He says, "Cabbages planted out in April or May are the best food to make
lambs fat that I ever met with; but they are expensive, and would scarcely
pay any one to grow for sheep in a general way." Next to cabbages, white
turnips he thinks are the best for lambs in September and October, and pre-
ferable to swedes, if they are not too old, and are cut by a machine. In a

THE SHEEP. 89

careful comparative experiment, he found that in a month, eight lambs fed on
cabbages and clover chaff gained each 11 lbs.; eight fed with swedes and
chaff gained 8| lbs. Washing the food of the lambs he found to be preju-
dicial. During the month of December, 1836, he fed two lots of lambs with
carrots and swedes. The lot fed with the unwashed, gained in weight each
7k lbs.; the lot fed with the washed, gained only 4| lbs. He approves of
the early shearing of sheep; he says, "I am convinced that the sheep thrive
much faster during the summer if their wool is taken off on the 1st of May,
than if it were left on until the first or second week in June." From some
careful experiments of Mr. Bruce, with linseed cake and other substances
in sheep-feeding, he concludes that "mutton can be produced at a lower rate
per lb. upon liberal use of foreign keep along with turnips, than upon turnips
alone, taking of course the increased value of the manure into account;"
that of this foreign keep, "linseed is the most valuable, and beans the least
so; but that the mixture of both, forms a useful and nutritious article of food."
The urine of the sheep, "so valuable as a manure for every kind of crop,"
has been carefully analyzed under the direction of Professor J. F. Johnston.
(Trans. High. Soc, 1846, p. 309.) 10 gallons of the urine contain 7 lbs.
of dry fertilizing matter. The dry matter contained, in 100 parts —

Dry organic matter, containing nitrogen ....-- 71-86

Inorganic or saline matter ..-...- 28'14

The saline matter or ash contained, in 100 parts —

Sulphate of potash .......-.- 2-98

" soda ....------- 7-72

Chloride of potassium .....---.- 12'00
" sodium 32-01

Carbonate of soda - - - - - - - - - - 42-25

« lime 0-82

" magnesia ..-.--.--- 0-46

Phosphates of lime, magnesia and iron ....--- 0-70

Silica - 1-00

The urine of the sheep, therefore, contains only a very small quantity of
phosphoric acid in combination Avith lime and magnesia. It agrees very
closely in this respect with that of the ox and the horse, in which no trace
of phosphate has yet been detected. It abounds also, like the urine of these
animals, in salts of potash and soda. It is especially rich in common salt,
and in soda, which in the ash is in the state of carbonate, but which in the
urine is no doubt combined with some organic acid. If it be natural to the
urine of healthy sheep to contain so much soda, we may find in this one
reason why they relish salt so highly, and thrive so much better when it is
abundantly supphed to them. The organic portion of the urine contains
in 1000 parts —

Water 928-97

Urea 12-62

Organic matter soluble in alcohol ........ 33-30

Organic matter soluble in water, insoluble in alcohol ..... 3-40

Organic matter soluble in weak potash, insoluble in water and alcohol - - 0-10

Organic matter insoluble in any of these liquids - - - - - -O'lo

Inorganic matter consisting of—
Sulphate of potash ........-- 0-5P

« soda 1-32

Chloride of potassium- ....--... 2-05

Common salt ........... 5-47

Sal ammoniac ..-t-.---.. 300

Chalk " 0-14

Carbonate of soda .----..... 7-22

" magnesia .......... 0-08

Phosphate of lime and magnesia, with a trace of phosphate of iron - - 0-12
Silica, with trace of oxide of iron • • - - • - • -O-IS^

Vol. I.— 12 h 2

•20-09

90 INFLUENCE OF AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES.

For the Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil.

ON THE INFLUENCE, ACTION, AND DUTIES OF AGRI-
CULTURAL SOCIETIES.

From a period anterior to tlie Revolution, up to the present time, we have
had Agricultural Societies, coming and departing like the ghosts in Hamlet.
They have seemed to possess all the elements and materials that could be
desired to ensure the results for which they were organized; members full
of zeal, intelligence, and practical knowledge, and the public favor — and yet,
after all, the question arises with observing men, what has been the average
increase through the country, in the product of labor applied to agriculture?
and how much of that increase, where it has occurred, is to be attributed to
these associations? and in what mode of action has their influence proved to
be beneficial ?

To me, it seems obvious that agricultural societies have relied too much
on the mere effect of premiums offered for particular objects, the attainment
of which, in most cases, developes nothing new, either in principles or in the
application of principles. These premiums lead, it is true, in many cases,
to the accomplishment of extraordinary results — to the production of a heavy
crop of grain or vegetables, on a small piece of ground ; or to the exhibition
of an animal, a hog or a horse, remarkable for size and sleekness ; but do
they teach the Farmer, in ordinary circumstances, how such crops can be
made, and such animals reared, by some new and economical method, within
the means of farmers generally; and by means which it would be prudent
and profitable for such farmers to adopt ? For that seems to me to be the
true question ! If such were the effects of the proceedings of agricultural
societies, should we not witness a general improvement in the face, and a
general increase in the productions of the country ? Should we not, instead,
of dispersion and depopulation, and impoverishment, witness concentration
and increase of population and wealth ? and with these the multiplication of
schools, general improvement in the systems of education, and a higher
degree of intelligence and civilization from year to year?

These premiums for fat sheep and heavy bullocks, and heavy crops on
small patches, serve to stimulate, here and there, some rich or dilettante young
farmers, to expend, in the particular cases, more than the object is worth,
but, after ail, what useful end is obtained that had not been reached before ?
The gentleman carries home his silver cup, or his diploma, to show to his
good lady and his friends, but does it lead to a general or increased diffusion
of useful knowledge — knowledge by which profitable ends may be generally
reached by more profitable means, thus advancing the general prosperity of
agriculture? — for, after all, that is the great and the only desideratum. Let
the directors of these associations give us the measure of any given crop, or
the weight of any particular animal, for which they have awarded a pre-
mium at any time, since the establishment of the American Institute, or the
New York State, or any other society, and my life upon it, I can go back
and show from agricultural annals, that as large crops, and as large animals,
have been exhibited five and twenty or five and fifty years ago ! Be it then
repeated — have the average products of the land in the States, within the
influence of these societies, been increased ? Are population and wealth aug-
menting? Is education more diffused and ameliorated? Are the useful arts
more flourishing? Is civilization advancing? Is public utility becoming more
and more the standard of esteem and honor for men and men's actions? Is
the sight of Christian blood shed by Christian hands becoming more gene-
rally offensive and horrible ? Are- the people more ready to look on war,

INFLUENCE OF AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES. 91

and the authors of war, with detestation, for all these results should be ex-
pected as the legitimate fruits of improved agriculture, as improved agri-
culture can only be the fruit of improved intelligence and higher civilization.

Is it, do you suppose, Mr. Editor, for any want of knowledge, how to
make poor land rick, or for want of silver cups, awarded by societies, that
you read in a Petersburgh paper, a few days since, that people are moving
off in scores from such a country as lower Virginia, with its water facilities,
its marl, its undrained swamps, its lime to be had for five cents a bushel — a
country flooded with light shed by such a pen as Edmund Ruffin's ?

True, however, and it is admitted with great pleasure, visible improvement
has taken place, in many parts of the country ; but to what are they to be
traced? To the effect of the premiums offered for the same objects, for the
last fifty years ? By no means — these improvements have been achieved
by the mind, labors, and zeal of scientific men, applying to agriculture the
sciences, which are as essential to its success, as science is essential to pro-
gressive improvement in any other art or pursuit under the sun. Thus, who
has given us the best dissertation and illustration on the principles of the
mould board of the plough? — the most important part, of the most import-
ant implement ever invented for the use of man, except, perhaps, the
printer's type? Mr, Jefferson, derided by fools for his "book knowledge."
Who invented the system of hill-side ploughing, and the hill-side plough
itself? Governor Randolph, Mr. Jefferson's son-in-law. Who may be said
to have almost discovered to us the use of that cheapest and most diffused
of all fertilizers, plaster of Paris ? Judge Peters, laughed at by fools for
his want of "practical" success as a farmer. To the action of mechanical
genius, too, applied to the wants of agriculture, are we indebted for the great
improvements attributable to better and more labor-saving implements.
Thus has it been, not to agricultural premiums, offered and repeated for fifty
years, for large crops, but to the genius of Prouty, that we owe the greatest
improvement ever yet effected, in the application of the centre draft to that
king of implements ; as we owe the revolving rake, not to a premium framed
to elicit the invention, but to the general demand for labor-saving machinery,
for agricultural purposes, acting on the plain useful mind, of the unpretending
peaceable Quaker Pexnock. Yet do we hear of societies bestowing honors
and medals — do agricultural societies, or agricultural committees in Congress,
call on the representatives of the people, while they are givmg medals, and
swords, and pensions, for "brilliant" success in the slaughter of the human
race, do they call for honors or emoluments to such benefactors as Prouty or
Pennock? or such farmers asCapron, who teaches the moneyed man how he
can profitably and honorably employ his capital in agriculture; or to such
farmers as Havler and his neighbors in Montgomery, who teach the world
how men without means majs in process of time by skill and industry, make
poor lands enrich themselves.

If then, says the reader, the admitted zeal and good intentions of agricul-
tural societies have been misdirected and fraught with no proportionate
benefit to agriculture, what would you have them do? And to this I would
respectfully answer, that they should so use their influence and means as
to put into activity, by all the high and powerful motives that could be
brought to bear upon them, the minds of ingenious mechanics to invent,
for the farmer, some decidedly new and valuable agricultural implements or
machines; and in the same manner, by the offer of adequate recom])ense,
they should stimulate men of science to useful discoveries in the applicaticjn
of science to agriculture and horticulture, in a way that every year some
new principle might be developed, or some known principle made useful

92 INFLUENCE OF AGRICULTURAL SOCIETIES.

by a novel application, productive of remunerating' results. Hear Liebig
himself declare, in so many words, that " for the future, agriculture is to be
indebted to the application of the appropriate sciences for all material im-
provement^— and yet we behold such an institution as the American Institute,
with its high-sounding name, accumulating its thousands annually, procuring
itself to be puffed all over the country, with its imposing array of "Com-
mittees of arts and sciences," &c., dribbling out its stereotyped diplomas,
(for which the winner pays more than they cost,) for best hats, and shoes,
and specimens of best soap and candles. Instead of offering hundreds for
some new and valuable invention connected with agriculture and the useful
arts, and for the best dissertations on questions admitted to form great desi-
derata in the prosecution of various industries, they offer, again and again,
their old stereotype list of old premiums for old objects, making their place
of exhibition a mere museum or show shop, for the convenience of mecha-
nics and merchants to advertise their " goods, wares, and merchandise," and
where women and children may be lightly taxed for seeing what it would
cost them much trouble to see, but what they might find by going from shop
to shop.

But, Sir, above all things, is it not incumbent on agricultural societies to
inquire into, discuss, and understand; and according to their understanding,
to bring all their power to bear on the action of the governments, state and
federal, so far forth as that action is, or can be made conservative of the
landed interest of the country, for the welfare of which such societies pro-
fess to be organized and to have their existence ! Look at all other classes,
with what keen, sharp-sighted sensibility they watch every action of the
lawgivers of the land ! Suppose a new duty is proposed to be imposed or
an old one to be modified, don't you see the manufacturers, and the mer-
chants, and the mechanics, repairing straightway to their "Halls" and their
" Chambers of Commerce," as busy and as bristling, and as ready for self-
defence, as a disturbed hill or hive of ants, or bees, or hornets ? But how
is it ivlth Farmers^ and Planters^ societies? Not only too insensible to feel
and too timid to speak, but actually impatient at being called on to rouse up
a)id think for themselves! It is not doubted, for instance, that a lai-ge
majority of those who may have been, if any have, tempted to follow the
writer so far, would much sooner have read some sixteenth edition of a case
of a cow yielding twelve pounds of butter in a week, or a piece of poor land
being made to produce sixty bushels of corn, by the application of ashes and
stable manure, and bone-dust and guano, than to be thus called on to exercise
his mind in attempts to discover what agricultural societies can do, more
than they have done, to be really useful.

For what are societies formed ? Is it not to achieve, by union, what cannot
be effected by individual strength or influence ? As it takes two men to lift
a log on the house, that one can easily roll to the place of building? How
feeble is the voice of an individual imploring the ear of Congress, but let
societies unite and demand attention, and the so-called Representative, by an
instinct of self-interest and the love of place and power, will prick up his
ears and be all attention. You, Mr. Editor, ventured in a memorial to each
house, months since, to call upon Congress to do for instruction in the great
business of agriculture, some little in proportion to what is done to gather
and diffuse knowledge, by schools, and surveys, and maps, and charts, con-
nected— not with the art of feeding but of bleeding mankind! And what
have you heard of your memorial since ? True it was presented in the
Senate with force and eloquence by Senator Johnson. He, like a patriot and
a man of some conscience and feeling, showed himself alive to the dignity

DOMESTIC ECONOMY. 93

of agriculture, and to the indignity with which it is treated by Congress ;
all that a faithful sentinel could do he did — but what has been done by the
committee expressly appointed to watch over the agricultural concerns of the
country, as far as they are liable or susceptible of being affected by legisla-
tion ? These gentlemen have seen voted away, and have themselves voted
for thousands and millions for the sword, but apparently dare not whisper
the claims of the plough, or the loom, or the anvil. To return to the spirit
— the animus, that should guide agricultural societies in the use of their
means, and their influence, there is not one in the Union that ought not
to have made itself heard and felt, years ago, on the very topics presented
in j'^our memorial.

Finally, may we not hope, now that the war is ended, and a state of thino-s
seems to be approaching, that party ties are likely to be broken up, and
farmers may begin to think for themselves ; — may it not be hoped that instead
of party meetings, we may have agricultural clubs formed all over the coun-
try, in which farmers may discuss, not only the means of practical improve-
ment, but that on which, above all things, practical improvement depends —
that is, the influence of the laws on the industrial pursuits of the country ?

Garnett.

DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

EXAMPLES OF, IN NEW ENGLAND.

In some parts of our country, the idea prevails, that no young man can
set up for himself, as a farmer, on less than three hundred or more acres of
land, with a certain number of cattle, sheep, horses, implements, and other
force and materials; and thus it happens that fathers not being able to bestow
such means of beginning life, the son hangs on in a state of decjradino- and
miserable dependence, without industry to labor, and destitute of the means
of living without labor.

The great blessing of being reared, where to swing the axe, to handle the
scythe, or to follow the plough, carries with it no inference of ignorance or
debasement, but the contrary, is, that in such a country, personal integrity
constitutes respectability, and health alone is necessary to independence ;
for in such countries young men are of all things most ashamed to be seen
idle! and on a few acres, frugality and personal industry, with good sense
to despise non-essentials, will make any man independent.

In one of the "Agricultural Surveys of Massachusetts," elaborate
and valuable in our judgment, as we have always thought, far beyond Avhat
they have credit for, Mr. Colman gives us the following sketch from real
life, of the '^'^ domestic economy'''' of New England.

We think him too fastidious in withholding the names of such exemplars
of what is most worthy of imitation and admiration. We can see no good
reason why such instances of excellence in what is most useful to society,
should not be as broadly proclaimed, and public esteem and homage be in-
voked for those, individually, and by name, who practise such virtues, as is
done all over the world, and nowhere more than in this our Republic, for
men of whatever grade, who have success in fields of blood, and to whom
honors are measured in proportion to their success in the barbarous trade
of human butchery.

Hence is it that we see men first selected and educated at West Point, at
the expense of the farmers, chiefly, — to these when they graduate, a sword

94 DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

is given, and on the point of it hangs a commission for life, beginning with
a salary, equal at least to a thousand bushels of Avheat, and bound to be
increased as the officer lives and is promoted in peace or in war; and what
then ? Why, for the very reason that he has served his time in the military,
enjoying a high salary and life-commission, for that very reason his son is
preferred for the same favor. That these favors have been to a certain de-
gree hereditary, for one generation at least, need not be denied — but what
it imports the farmer to ask, and for agricultural societies to ask, is, whether
it was ever yet known that a favor like this was claimed from the govern-
ment, on the score of the highest possible excellence in the practice of the
far more beneficent use of the plough?

Yet why ? Can any man give a plausible reason why government prefer-
ence should not be in like manner bestowed on the sons of such men as
Wilder, and Lowel, and Phinney, and Whitney, and Ruffin, and Taylor,
Doctor Thompson of Delaware, and Jones, and Pennock, and Prouty, and
Hill, and Bowie, and Poor of Massachusetts — improvers of horticulture and
of agricultural implements; and winners of prizes offered for best cultivated
farms, in their counties and states respectively? and would not this be done,
were agricultural societies to watch, as they should do, to enlighten public
sentiment and to guide the action of the government in reference to the
landed interest.

"Historians generally," says the classical Historian of Fruits, "seem to
dwell with enthusiasm on the splendid achievements in which the cannon, the
sword, and the bayonet, are chiefly instrumental, — we however regard these
implements of destruction with far less reverence than we bestow on the
spade, the rake, and the pruning-knife, which enhance the beauties of the
spring and the luxuries of the summer, make our vats overflow in autumn,
and secure us comforts for the winter. Not that we are insensible to the
merits of the brave defenders of our country, but we Avish to see those whose
talents and industry have so greatly enriched these kingdoms bj'- their at-
tention to horticulture, partaking of the admiration and gratitude of a people
who are daily enjoying the fruits of their labours. Has the most splendid
campaign which our history boasts, secured the nation a treasure equal in
value to the potato plant ? or would we renounce the possession of ten of our
best adopted fruits, to double the acquisitions of the last ten years by war ?
For it is not (says the elegant Bernardine St. Pierre) upon the face of vast
dominions, but in the bosom of industry, that the Father of mankind pours
out the abundant fruits of the earth."

In travelling over New England, one is frequently struck with examples of thrift,
comfort, and humble independence, the direct results of industry, sobriety, and frugality,
as instructive as they are beautiful. A benevolent mind always contemplates them with
unmingled pleasure. They present themselves often in circumstances to ordinary view
the most inauspicious. The conditions, which appear most unfriendly to success, seem
to constitute the very grounds or occasions of it. The courage is kindled and the resolu-
tion strengthened in proportion to the difficulties to be met; and, in a manner die most
encouraging to honest labor and strict temperance, they sliow the power of man, in a
high degree, to command his own fortune. Massachusetts is fidi of these examples. I
do not know that they are not as conmion in odior places. It is impossible however that
they should exist but in a condition of freedom, where a man has a freehold in tlie soil;
where, unawcd either by overgrown wealth or oppressive power, he wears the port and
has the spirit of a man; and where, above all things else, he has the voluntary direction
of h.is own powers, and a perfect security in the enjoyment of the fruits of his own toil.

It will not be without its use, if it does no more than present to the imngination a
charming ])icture of rural comfort and independence, if I refer particularly to one instance
which strongly attracted my attention. In one of diose beautiful valleys in which the
county abounds, where the surrounding hills in June are covered to their summits with
the richest herbage and dotted over with the rejoicing herds, at the foot of the hills, near

DOMESTIC ECONOMY.

95

a small stream which here and there spreads itself like a clear mirror encased in a frame
of living green, and then at other places forces its gurgling waters through some narrow-
passes of the locks, you may find an humble unpainted cottage, with the various appur-
tenances of sheds and styes and barns around it. Three or four stately trees present
themselves in front of it. The door-yard is filled with flowers and shrubs; and the
buildings seem to stand in die midst of a flourishing and full-bearing orchard, the trees
of which are clothed with living green, with no suckers at their roots, unadorned with
the nests of the caterpillar, unscathed by the blight of tlie canker-worm, and with their
bark clean and bright, indicating alike the health of the tree and the care of the pro-
prietor. Every part of the premises exhibits the most exact order and carefulness. No
battered axe lies at the wood-pile ; no rotten logs, no unhoused sled, no broken wheels,
no rusted and pointless plough, encumber the roadway ; no growling sow, with her
hungry and squealing litter, disputes your entrance into the gate; no snarling dog stands
sentry at the door. The extended row of milk-pans are glittering in the sun ; and the
churn and the pails are scrubbed to a whiteness absolutely without a stain.

The liouse is as neat within as without; for such results are not seen but where har-
mony reigns supreme, and a congeniality of taste, and purpose, and character, exists among
all the partners in the firm. The kitchen, the dairy, the bedrooms, the parlor, all exhibit
the same neatness and order. The spinning-wheel, with its corded rolls upon its bench,
keeps silence in the corner for a little while during the presence of the guest. The
kitchen walls are hung round with the rich ornaments of their own industry — the long
tresses and skeins of yarn, the substantial hosiery of the family, and the home-spun linen,
emulating the whiteness of the snow-drift. The floors are carpeted, and the beds are
made comfortable, with the produce of their own flocks and fields, all wrought by their
own hands. The golden products of the dairy ; the transparent sweets of the hive,
obtained without robbery or murder ; the abundant contributions of the poultry-yard, the
garden, and the orchard, load the table with delicious luxuries. There are books for
their leisure hours ; and there stands too the reverend bass-viol in the corner, constant
like its owner to appear at church on Sundays, and kind always to assist in the chant of
the daily morning and evening hymn. Better than all this, there are children trained in
the good old school of respectful manners, where the words of age, and gray hairs, and
superiority, still have a place ; enured to early hours and habits of industry, and with a
curiosity and thirst for knowledge, stimulated the more, from a feeling of the restricted
means of gratifying it. There is another delightfid feature in the picture ; the aged
grandmother in her chair of state, with a countenance as mild and benignant as a sum-
mer evening's twilight; happy in the conviction of duty successfully discharged, by
training her children in habits of temperance and industry; and receiving, as a kind of
household deity, the cheerful tribute from all, of reverence and atfection.

Some may call this poetry ; it is indeed the true poetry of humble rural life, but there
is no fiction nor embellishment about it. The picture is only true ; and if it were not a
violation of the rules which I have prescribed to myself to mention names in such cases,
and that I might offend a modesty which I highly respect, I would show my readers the
path which leads to the house, and they should look at the original for themselves.

The owner, when I visited him, was forty-five years old. At twenty-one years old, he
was the possessor of only fourteen dollars, and with the blessing only of friends no richer
than himself His whole business has been farming and that only. He married early ;
and though he did not get a fortune with a wife, he got a fortune in a wife. They have
comforted and sustained their parents on one side of the house. They have brought up
three children ; and, with the co-labor of the children, they have given them a substantial
and useful education, so that each of them, now of sufficient age, is capable of keeping a
good school, as they have done, with a view to assist their own education. He began
with thirty-five acres of land, but has recently added fifty-five more to his farm at an
expense of nearly Uiirteen hundred dollars, for which there remained to be paid five
hundred — a debt which, if health continued, he would be able to discharge in two years.
The products of his farm are various. He raises some young stock; he fattens a con-
siderable amount of pork for market, and occasionally a yoke of cattle. He sells, in a
neighboring village annually, about one hundred dollars' wordi of fruit, principally apples
and peaches. Such a situation may be considered, in the best sense of the term, as inde-
pendent as that of any man in tlie country.

Now what are the causes of such success? Persevering industry; the strictest and
most absolute temperance ; the most particular frugality and always turning every thing
to the best account ; living within his own resources ; and above all things, never in any
case suflering himself to contract a debt, excepting in the purchase of land, which could
be made immediately productive, and where of course the perfect security for the debt
ftould neither be used up, nor wasted, nor squandered.

96 ON THE rSE OF THE DRILL.

ON THE USE OF THE DRILL.

Neglect of the Interests of their Constituents, by Members of Congress. Interesting extract from
a letter from a Delaicare Farmer.

The advantage of drill husbandry over the old, slovenly, and wasteful
mode, is clearly established in Delaware, some of your correspondents to
the contrary notwithstanding. As an instance you saw, when at my house,
a field of eighty acres drilled with eighty and a half bushels of wheat, the
yield of which was nineteen hundred and twenty bushels. Yet more favor-
able results from this method of seeding can be shown. Mr. Kibler, a neigh-
bor, drilled ninety bushels on fifty acres, on land that was better than my
own, by at least one heavy dressing of marl. He reaped twelve hundred
and twenty bushels. The mere saving in seed, when wheat is sold as it
was last year, at $2 15 per bushel, is something ; but when you add to this
an increase of one-fifth in the entire crop, as Dr. Noble's experiments prove,
the drill becomes an important acquisition. Besides, it looks more syste-
matic and farmer-like — where will you find, throughout the whole Union,
such improvement making in wheat culture, as in Newcastle county, Dela-
ware ? We have some three hundred thousand acres of land in this county.
If it were divided into farms of one hundred acres each, and each farm pos-
sessing a drill, the improvement would be great in increased production, as
well as in the saving of seed. The culture of wheat will extend — for let
Avho will be President, the loom must come to the plough.

My dear sir, we want a larger share of practical farmers in Congress.
Neither the committee on public lands or that on agriculture have ever
given to them the attention required by their importance, nor will they, until
the practical farmer, the hard-fisted interested man himself is sent there to
defend his calling. No man should ever be sent to Congress, (nor ever shall
by my nomination,) who has not shown some tact at attending to the real
business of the nation. The majority of those from the learned professions,
as soon as they get to Washington, manoeuvre in every way to prolong their
stay. If in favor with the powers that be, they besiege the White-house for
a fat office for themselves, or for some or all of their kin ; they entirely lose
sight of the purpose for which they were sent there, i. e., to legislate for the
good of the whole nation, and particularly for that of their own constituency.
Delaware has sent several delegates, whose names it is not necessary to
repeat, who all abandoned the State as soon as we dropped them as politi-
cians. These were all professional men, not interested like ourselves in the
soil, and they all took care to make their principles chime with their own
interests, caring only for our votes I In fifty years of legislation, to my
knowledge, the price of grain has not improved. I remember going, in
1798, with my widowed mother to sell her crop. She got four shilling cur-
rency for corn, and ten shilling currency for wheat.

The committee on public lands have never yet discovered, that if they
would establish looms in the valley of the Mississippi, to use up all the wool
and cotton that are now, or to be hereafter grown there, the government
lands in their charge would become as valuable as are the lands about
Lowell, or at least those on the Brandywine ; instead of which, of some
twenty millions of acres of lands in market, but two millions are sold at the
low price of $1 25 per acre ; a large proportion of which again reveit to
the States in which they lie, being sold for taxes. Much of the public
land, too, is "S(iuatted" on by unprincipled men, and the government has
not the nerve, if they have the ability, to remove them. Bowie knives are
too sharp. The same culpable neglect of duty is chargeable on the agri-
cultural committee. They have never made any report on the general agri-

BOOK KNOWLEDGE OF FARMERS. 97

culture of the country. They have never attempted to explain the cause
of the frequent revulsions in the value of produce and lands.* What a
glorious chance for distinction would a practical man find in drawing up
either of these reports !

As an evidence of the darkness in which the anti-loom, and anti-anvil
party are kept, I Avill state, that a week or two since, I sent an article to a
leading paper of our own State, showing, that the building of a locomotive,
at Newcastle, that cost $10,000, was of more advantage to the vicinity,
by the increased demand for provisions to be consumed by the operatives
engaged upon it, than was the commerce of France and Russia, in the year
lb41. In that year, France and Russia together took but six thousand
seven hundred bushels of wheat, and sixty-seven bushels of potatoes, al-
though, as an inducement, we took from France alone $10,000,000, and
from Russia $603,570 worth of goods, duty free. The paper referred to,
for reasons best known to its editor, refused to pubhsh.

[Farmers must expect their business to be neglected, and their interests to be abused,
as long as they themselves manifest neither sense of wrong nor impatience at the neglect
of their representatives. Even agricultural societies dare not whisper complaint, and
thus things go on from bad to worse, as they always will, as long as men suffer themselves
to be sheared hke so many sheep, by their party leaders for party uses. Sloth, ignorance,
and pusillanimity never yet saved any man or class of men from being ridden and ruined!
—Edits. P., L., <^ A.]

\

BOOK KNOWLEDGE OF FARMERS :

DERIDED BY WHOM ?

With a man of any reflection and honest care for progress in all the arts
and employments of useful industry, there are few things more trying to his
patience than to hear men, sometimes even gentlemen, who have some pre-
tensions to education, and who therefore ought to know better, denouncing
book knowledge, as affording any guide in practical husbandry. Now, to
all such, and especially to practical men who succeed Avell in their business,
and who have always something useful to impart, as the result of their own
personal experience, does it not suffice to say — " I am obliged to you for what
you have told me ; your integrity assures me that it is true, and your suc-
cess convinces me that yours is the right rotation, and yours the proper pro-
cess, since I see that while you gather heavy crops, your land is steadily
improving ; but now, my friend, let me ask you one question further. What
you have imparted is calculated to benefit me personally, and unless com-
municated again by me to others, with me its benefits will rest. Now, sup-
pose, instead of the slow and unsocial process of waiting to be interrogated,
and making it known, to one by one, as accident may present opportunities,
you allow me to have recourse to the magical poiver of types, which will
spread the knowledge of your profitable experience, gained by much thought
and labor, far and wide throughout the land, that thousands may enjoy the
advantages which otherwise I only shall reap from your kind and useful
communication. Will not that be more beneficial to society, and is it not a
benevolent and a Christian duty not to hide our lights under a bushel?"
Doubtless such a man, if not a misanthropic churl or fool, would say Yes.

• Our correspondent is impatient. He ought to remember that these patriotic people-
loving committees, have only been in a state of incubation for eight months. Let us wait
another, and see what the regular period of time will bring forth. — Edits. P., L., ^ A.

Vol. I.— 13 I

98 WASTE OF FOOD IN FATTING CATTLE.

Bolls.

Pecks.

47

10 per acre.

10

2

21

1

25

12

34

6

31

4

34

6

43

12

Yet the moment, by means of types, such knowledoe is conwiitted to paper,
it becomes the (by fools only derided) book knowledge. Such as follows :

Enyeriments with Mamires on Potatoes and Turnips. By Lord Blantyhe. (Cotnrnuni-
catcil to the Pliilosopliical Society of Glasgow by Dr. R. D. Thomson.)

Experiment I. — On Potatoes — Cow Park of Porton Farm — Soil poor and light-;— had
been siibsoihjd previous autumn, after being drained and ploughed for oats from old'gras3
in 1842. One drill, each plot for experiment with each different rate of manure bemg
about one-thirtieth of an acre.

No 1. — Dung at the rate of 30 tons per acre

2. — Nothing .....

3. — 3 cwt. Guano per acre

4. — 4 cwt. . . . . -

5. — 6^ cwt. . . . -

C— 7i cwt. ....

7.-8 cwt. ....

8. — Dimg at the rate of 30 tons per acre -

The boll is the Renfrewshire boll of five cwt. The wheat of this year (1844) appears
inferior on the portion of the field where the above experiments with guano were tried.

ExPEUiMENT II. — On yellow turnips — South-west field of Porton — Soil light. This
field was not in very poor order, from liaving been in potatoes, dunged in 1841, wheat
and barley in 1842. The other parts of the field not experimented on were dressed witli
bones, 30 bushels per acre, with 5 tons of ash dmig. The crop was good.

Tons. Cwts. Qrs.
No 1. — Bones and dung as above, (30 bushels bones,

5 tons dung,) - . - - gave 23 17 0 per acre.

2. — 3 cwt. guano ....

3. — 4 cwt. " - - -

4. — 5 cwt. " -

5.-6 cwt. " . . . .

6. — 7 cwt. " -

7.-8 cwt. " - - -

8.-9 cwt. " -

9. — 10 cwt. " - - - -

10. — Calcined bones, 30 bvish. per acre
11.— " 45

12. — Animal charcoal, 30 " - -

13.— " 45 «

The calcined bones were the riddlings of bones used in a china manufactory. The'
animal charcoal was got from some of the stigar refiners, called exhau.<ted animal char-
coal.— From Proceedings of the Philosophical Society of Glasgoiv, 1844, 1845.

26

2 2

27

6 2

28

16 2

29

8 0

31

9 0

27

6 2

28

16 2

31

0 0

25

8 0

24

12 0

25

0 0

25

8 0

WASTE OF FOOD IN FATTING CATTLE, &c.

So trifling is the interest that we take in the present rage for exhibitions
of fat cattle, that we might be supposed to be disqualified, by this very asser-
tion, to offer observations on the subject ; but it is because but little judgment
is shown, and so much wasteful error is committed, that we would draw
attention to the evil, although we may acknowledge ourselves disqualified to
enter the lists with breeders and falters of kine and swine.

We have for some years past been so much disgusted with the rank, melt-
ing, oily state of the flesh of " show beasts," that it never is allowed to come
to "our table during the mania which pervades society about Christmas time,
and while the Baker Street Bazaar extravaganza in London, is being exhi-
bited to the gaping public.

Waste of food is essentially wrong ; it therefore becomes a duty for all
those who look on and grieve over the folly of " fatters," to point it out to
those owners of stock whose intellects are too obtuse to discover for thera-

WASTE OF FOOD IN FATTING CATTLE. 99

selves the monstrous and unqualified mischief they are committinof. It is a
trite axiom, " Enough is as good as a feast ;" yet, in the very fac;e of a
truism, in which so much is conveyed, our magnates of the land, our dilet-
tante breeders and farmers, persist in gorging the creatures intended for our
sustenance, to the very verge of that state in which they become unfit for food.

"There is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous;" and of a
truth a beast stuffisd to repletion, and wearying under a cumbrous load of
bloated fatness, has taken that step — that last step in its " ill regulated life,"
and is henceforth a scandal to its feeders, and a thing to be eschewed by all
who have the fears of indigestion before them. One of the causes of the
increase of illness during the Christmas consumption of show and prize
animals, is doubtless to be attributed to the undue quantity of fat in a rank,
unnatural state, which is at that season especially taken into the stomachs
of the fond public. Chemistry, with its glorious powers of investigation,
has shown the nature of fat, and its operation on the human frame ; yet, in
the face of its incontrovertible truths, this silly public crowds to the bestial
shows in gaping spurious delight, and gloats over future feasts, of a nature
so rank that the gorge of an Esquimaux would rise at them.

Cattle-shows Avere instituted, as every one is aware, ostensibly to submit
the finest specimens of domesticated animals to the view of judges to im-
prove our breeds of stock, and to excite emulation. The origin of all insti-
tutions is good — alloy is introduced by degrees ; and in the course of time
the cupidity and other bad passions of man supervene, and excellence be-
comes merged in corruption.* We unhesitatingly assert, that cattle-shows,
in their present degenerated condition, have arrived at this state ; and ought
to be, if not abolished, so altered and remodelled that an entirely new order
of things should be instituted.

That man must be a sorry physiologist who can suppose that fat consti-
tutes health ; that the genus alderman is a specimen of physical vigor ; that
the flesh (muscle) of an over-fatted animal, (however the coarse feeder may
doat over the marbling of a prize sirloin,) can be in fit state for human food.
Excess of fat is disease. The present aim of the race of fatters appears to
be to produce the greatest quantity of tallow, the largest amount of dripping,
and to establish themselves the kitchen-maids' best friends.

They who undertake the difficult and onerous duty of preparing stock
for the food of man, ought to be able to bring to the task powers of mind of
no common order. Any one can gorge a creature, but few can calculate the
exact proportion of food at each meal to lay the largest portion of healthy
flesh upon the bones of animals short of repletion, which is a state that
should never be attained by man or beast ; by the former, because his men-
tal and bodily vigor would suffer ; and by the cattle in his byre, because
their comfort would be compromised and their value lessened.!

• This happens in more countries than one. — Ed.

■[■With the exception of the Smithfielcl Club, we believe no agricultural society now
bestows premiums for, and therefore encourages the exhibition of over-fed oxen. The
Highland and Agricultural Society relinquished the practice many years ago; and now
that the capabilities of our native breeds of cattle and sheep to become fat, absolutely
and comparativel)', have been proved to demonstration, there seems no use of wasting
time and food merely to ascertain to what degree particular animals may be overloaded with
superabundant fat. The objections to over-fattening suggest a comparison of the fitness
of byros and hammels, that is, confined houses, and small open courts with sheds, for
fatting oxen in. In byres the animals must take the Ibod as it is given them, in quan-
tity and in time, and when under constraint it is quite possible for tliem to feel hunger at
one time and be filled to repletion at another; while in hammels, the animals being free
to choose both their food and the time when it should be eaten, eat and rest as it suits
their incUnation, and no a/ttliul ttmt Imit itijjiod. at command will eat to repletion. — ^Ed.

I of • '

lP£^lMSYLVA^g^^

I l(2e> A. rx

100 A NOVEL PROPOSITION.

A NOVEL PROPOSITION BY DR. EMERSON,

TO THE PHILADELPHIA SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING AGRICULTURE ; WITH

SUGGESTIONS GROWING OUT OP IT — Currente Calamo.

At the last June meeting of the Philadelphia Agricultural Society, a
proposition, as useful as it was singular, was submitted by Dr. Emerson, the
learned editor of the Farmer's Cyclopedia, to have a committee appointed to
confer with the seedsmen of Philadelphia, and otherwise to inquire and
report the best and most practicable system for an early and effectual im-
portation and trial, in the United States, of whatever is discovered and
brought into cultivation and use in Europe, with the promise of economy
and benefit to agriculture and horticulture, as soon as possible after the
discovery, trial, and announcement of them abroad.

At first view it might be supposed, that this, too, is one of the things
which might safely be left, as indolence and procrastination would leave
-every thing, to take care of itself — under the common impression that the
vigilance of self-interest, and the competition and benign effects of '■'•free
traded'' will take care that no time be lost in securing for the country what-
ever it is the interest of American agriculturists and horticulturists to
possess. Now, plausible as this laissez nousfaire, this let us alone theory
juay be ; nothing in practice can be more illusory. Of the truth of this, no
annals abound in so many proofs, as those of the two kindred occupations,
farming and gardening, to which we have referred. Paradoxical as it may
seem, the very persons who are most deeply concerned, and whose peculiar
employment it is to look after all that is new and promising m their hne, are
often the last, if not to discover — still they are the last to give the order for
importation and tried. Vigilance and activity are virtues that are certainly
not exclusively dug up and appropriated to themselves, by those who dig
1;heir living out of the ground. Generally speaking, they are rather of the
talking breed — they have, for the most part, " a great mhuV^ to do this,
^nd to try that, but, alas ! they ultimately fall into, and swell that great
class that belongs to every country, and especially to warm ones, to the
laissez-nous-faire school.

We might string together a long list of such practicable cases of doing
good to agriculture and horticulture, as Dr. Emerson seems to have in view,
which fall within our notice, in a somewhat Avide range of reading in that
direction, and which are often overlooked for a long series of years, unless
they happen to attract the notice of some public-spirited, enterprising citi-
zen, very apt not to belong strictly to either of those two departments of
practical industry — as, for example, we might instance, and will hereafter,
or in another place, give a full account of " a variety of Italian rye grass,''^
lately brought into vogue in England, and which, last year, yielded on good
authority, for soiling purposes, having been top-dressed with liquid manure,
*' nine or ten crops of excellent green food, between March and December,"
being earlier than either lucerne or common rye. How long before the
practical man will send for that ? Perhaps, the vigilance of self-interest, and
that all-sufiicient alacrity which we are told is the invariable accompaniment
of perfectly " free trade," may have already secured for us, and if so, Ave
should like to be informed where can be had some of the seed of a Gigantic
German Green. There was growing, (as we are told in the Journal ot
agriculture of the Highland AgricuUural Society,) in 1842, in the garden of
Mr. John Murray, Easter Newport, Fife, a plant of German greens, of
extraordinary dimensions. It was planted about four years ago, in the ordi-

7

— 3

7

— 6

10

— 0

7

— 2

6

— 0

3

— 0

A NOVEL PROPOSITION. 101

nary way, in a corner of a plot, and at the time above specified, had attained
the following size. It covered an oblong piece of ground, twenty-seven feet
in circumference. It sent forth seven main branches, which supported
other sixty-one branches, five of which bore seed in 1842, and in September
of that year, the entire plant was in a healthy, growing condition.

The 1 branch bore 11 stems, which measured 9 feet 9 inches in length.

3 — 13 — —

4 — 15 — —

5 — 3 — —

6 — 10 — —

We might name also, the " Chevalier barley,''^ that in Scotland, in 1845,
yielded sixty bushels to the acre, and weighed fifty-seven pounds eight
ounces to the bushel. Has any barley grower of Glo'ster county, in Virgi-
nia, or western New York, or elsewhere, imported that?

The average produce per acre of barley in New York, in 1845, was but
sixteen bushels. The State is interested in its quality, since its quantity is
more than three millions of bushels a year. Yet, has any one ever heard
of an attempt by the American Institute, so liberally patronised by the State,
to import that, or any other improved grain, seed, or implement? But can
any duty be more appropriate for agricultural associations than that of vigi-
lance in search of all such means of meliorating the productions of the
plough and the spade ?

We might again name the Tussac grass, sent to Lord Stanley, in 1844,
from Governor Moody, of the Falkland Islands, who says of it : — " Under
our present imperfect system, allowing the cattle to roam and graze at will,
pulling out, wasting, and trampling as much as they eat, the rough irregular
patches of Tussac on 'Long Island,' amounting together to about one hun-
dred and fifty acres, keep in good fat condition for six months, (the cattle
are kept on Long Island, only during the winter months,) two hundred and
fifty cattle, and seventy horses. Under proper management, it is my opi-
nion, that the same quantity of land would be found to maintain three times
that number throughout the year. The grass rises high above the snow,
is fresh and green all the M'inter, and, from its height, completely shelters
the horses and cattle lying among it,"

Governor Moody, perhaps, meant by "proper management," either con-
fining the cattle and horses to small spaces at a time, or that the grass should be
cut and soiled. In either case, his supposition is, that this grass which comes
out in winter, " high above the snow," might carry more than/o^o' head of
cattle and horses to the acre. Now, is it not befitting and proper, that the
seed of such grass should be imported, and tried at once, in the reasonable
hope that it might prove an invaluable acquisition to the sea-board salt water
districts of the United States? Yet is it Hkely to be done by your practi
cal farmer or your seedsman, under the all-improving influence of free trade ?
Why has not some disciple of the laissez-noiis-faire school ordered a thimble
full of the seed, at least, for that woukl do for an experiment.

We shall say nothing here about new implements and machinery, of
which we have occasional notice, for we have already extended these re-
marks suggested by Dr. Emerson's proposition, beyond the limited dog-days'
patience of most readers; but may it not be, that there is something pecu-
liar in the kind of cucumber, mentioned in the following, which we find in
the London Gardener's Chronicle, that might remunerate the very little
trouble that would ensue, if for such cases we had some systematic arrange-
ment for importation. It is to such cases as these, that we may presume
Dr. Emerson referred :

I 2

102 THE TRACTICAL MAN,

Expcditioits Culture of the Manchester Hero Citrumher. — From two seeds sent me under
tliis name, I grew two plants, and on the :i9tli of March, I made a bed and planted them
out in a small two-light pit, having metallic lights. On the 19th of April, I cut three fine
cucumbers; one IC inches long, another 14, and one 13. On the 26th of April, I cut
one 18 inches long; on the 27tli, do., one 13 inches long; and on the 29th, do., seven cu-
cumbers, in order to strengthen the plants, measuring altogether 4 feet 2 inches. On May
the 2d, I cut one fruit 12 inches long, and one 14 inches. The plants were turned out
of 5-inch pots; they showed fnnt at the time, and swelled at the length of 3 or 4 inches.
I cut them off, thinking they would weaken the plants. The j)it is 8 feet by 4 j, and close
boarded 3 feet from the lights, to prevent steam from entering. I placed rough boards,
about 4 inches above the close boards, and on the rough boards, I put about 15 inches of
dung; I then soiled the bed, and turned out the plants without wailing for the soil to get
warm. The pit is worked by linings, and the soil was warm by the morning; the pit
stands on piers about 3^ feet high. I once gained a first prize for cucumbers, in the be-
ginning of April, and in a short time after, I threw the plants away, and planted out
melons, which gained a first prize on the 30th of Jvme, at Cirencester. I adopted the
same plan with my cucumbers, throwing away plants that had been growing all the
winter; I their took the soil and dung out of the pit, and put in fresh, planted out the
plants, and the above is the result. I have used the pit for nearly twenty years, and have
found it answer well in every respect: it is also an excellent place for striking cuttings
in, plunged in sawdust or coal-ashes, near the glass. — Thomas PoUhigton, Erudicell-grove,
Oxfordshire, May 5.

After all, it is quite probable that some of our well-disposed and intelli-
gent seedsmen would willingly give orders through their agents, for what-
ever it might be supposed would be an acquisition to our horticulture ; and
only wait suitable suggestion and understanding? on the subject, properly
sanctioned, such as would probably grow out of Dr. Emerson's proposition.

But we must not close these remarks, without protesting in our own jus-
tification, that we mean no disparagement, by any thing we have said, of
" practical men" in any department of industry. Wliat would become of
the world and its concerns, without such men — we only mean to contend
that they do not lead the way always when acquisitions are to be made that
demand inquiry, hazard, trouble, expense, and sacrifice. They are the only
safe depositories of good things, after they are found, but are not apt to be the
first to go out of their way to find them ? Let us see.

ON THE CLAIMS OF THE "PRACTICAL MAN,"

TO BE REGARDED AS THE FIRST PROMOTER OF IMPROVEMENT IN
AGRICULTURE AND HORTICULTURE.

Let us look at the few cases, such as most readily occur, to see how far
great improvements have been effected and valuable importations of rare
fertilizers, animals, fruits, &c. imported, and the knowledge and use of them
diffused, by your exclusively hard-fisted, money-making practical men — for
some men, wise beyond our own day and generation, would teach us to
despise the services of all others. How lontj, for instance, should we have
been comparatively ignorant of the virtues of that great universal fertilizer,
plaster of Paris, had it not been for the inquiries and writings of Judge
Peters, who was, as we are told, among the worst of practical farmers.
A quarter of a century elapsed, after the senior Editor of the Plough, the
Loom, and the Anvil, distributed and told, from Ulloa and Humboldt, all about
the virtues and uses of Guano, without another dust of its being imported,
until, within the last four years, when, with his indomitable energy in doing
good things, Mr. George Law, of Baltimore, ensured success to the enter-
prise of the importers of the first cargo into Baltimore and New York.

THE PROMOTER OF IMPROVEMENT. 103

Yet Mr. Skinner and Mr. Law have personally and pecuniarily little or no
connection with practical agriculture.

And again : How long should we have remained ignorant or doubtful of
the superior qualities, the fine shapes, and the early maturity of the improved
short-liorned cattle, had it not been for the perseverance of Doctor Mease,
in calling attention to the subject, by proofs from English agricultural annals,
and the yet more tc^ngible and convincing evidence adduced by Colonel
Powell — a gentleman of taste and fortune, not depending upon practical
farming, and who, on personal inspection of the most celebrated herds of
England, imported at great cost many of the finest specimens to be had there,
and thus diffused their blood over the whole country ?

When would the beauty and the excellence of the same breed have been
displayed and acknowledged in Maryland, had it not been for the importation
of Champion, and Shepherdess, and White Rose, into that State in 1822,
by Mr. Skinner, merely to witness himself, and to demonstrate their excel-
lence, which had been vehemently questioned by the largest if not the best
practical farmer in Maryland; who, nevertheless, in twenty minutes after he
saw them, gave $1500 for the three — about what they had cost; the agri-
cultural society, on the motion of the late sagacious and well-known George
Calvert, of Riversdale, voting three beautiful and costly pieces of plate to
the importer, as a compliment for the service he had rendered in exhibiting
living and incontestable proof of the high point to which the art of breeding
had been carried in mother England — and this was all more than a quarter
of a century after the public exhibition of the famous Durham ox tbat was
computed to give 1400 pounds of net beef at three years old.

Was it, again, to the unfailing sharp-sightedness of individual interest —
to the patriotic instinct of the practical man — which so many would have
us believe, if left alone, would do all the good that need be done in the world —
that we owe the importation and use of the pure and beautiful North Devon
cattle, sent by the Earl of Leicester to the late patriotic merchant-citizen
W. Patterson of Baltimore? or was it not rather to the winning manners of
his magnificent daughter, the Marchioness of Wellesley, through whom they
were presented to the father by the great Norfolk farmer, always ready, as
he was, to evince his partiality for our country?

Was it to the enterprise or even the suggestion of your plain anti-book
knowledge practical farmer, that was due the importation of the famous
Tuscany breed of cattle — so patient of heat and so active in the yoke ; and
whose blood is yet discernible in their descendants on the estate of the late
John Middleton of South Carolina ? or was it not rather to the public spirit
of the gallant Commodore Bainbridge, and his friend, that quiet practitioner
of all the social and neighborly virtues. Purser S. Hambleton, of Talbot
county, who jointly brought them to the United States ?

And by whom was the country made authentically acquainted with their
pecuhar excellence for the yoke ? Was the information the result of the inqui-
ries and active patriotism of one of your money-making practical men, who
are cracked up to us on all occasions for their instinctive sagacity and use-
fulness, independent of all book-knowledge ? or was it not rather by the
following extract of a letter from the gallant captor of the Frolic — Commo-
dore Jacob Jones, that we were made acquainted with their great activity in
the yoke and their constitutional adaptedness to hot regions ? The letter was
in reply to one from Mr. Skinner, the senior editor of " the Plough, the
Loom, and the Anvil" — who had been appointed by the Albemarle Agri-
cultural Society, under the presidency of the pure and patriotic Madison, to
represent that society as its agent for the importation of a pair of Andalusian
horses. Look, reader, at its date, and see how zealously and how long we

104 THE PRACTICAL MAN,

have all been laboring to bring up agriculture to greater productiveness and
perfection — and, alas! to how little purpose! — because the tendency of our
policy and legislation has been to keep us in colonial vassalage to the capitalists
and the policy of England, and to scatter instead of concentrating our own
population — to produce dispersion instead of the union of all — of the capital
and the energies of all — for the benefit of all ; but this aside — let us proceed.

United Slates ship Constitution, Gibraltar, September 16, 1822.
Tlie cattle that I have seen in tspain, appear to be nothing superior to ours; nor have
I seen anywhere on tlie coasts of the Mediterranean any that appear better than those
in America; except a race of white cattle at Naples, used for tiie draught. I was in-
formed by a gentleman, who, in supplying the government with timber, had used thirty
yoke of them for two years, that during that time, they had constantly travelled front
twenty to twenty-five miles a day, excejiting Sundays and the holidays — the place from
whence he drew the timber being from forty to fifty miles distant from Naples. He said
they were the offspring of the Spanish Bull and Hungarian Cow, or the Hungarian Bull
and Sioanish Cow. They are generally fifteen hands high, their bodies long, thin and
deep — legs long — a small light head, a sharp muzzle, resembling the deer^-color entirely
white, except a black nose, ears, and the tuft of the tail. They are most frequently worked
in the thills of a cart, and are spirited and walk as quick as a horse, and ajjpeared not to
suffer from heat more than a horse.

Let US now turn from cattle to the dairy. Is it to the practical dairy-man
that we must refer for the best dissertation to be found, on the preparation
of the famous Farmesan cheese? or is it not rather to that non-money mak-
ing book farmer, the author of our Declaration of Independence, (never yet
fulfilled,) who while Minister to France, thought his time not misapplied in
visiting the most celebrated cheeseries in Parma ; there to watch and note
the whole process from sun to sun ? and do we not owe to the same inqui-
sitive temper and fruitful pen, the most philosophical exposition of the true
mechanical principles to be followed in the construction of the most important
part of the most important implement of man's invention, (the mould-board
of the plough,) the printers' types excepted ?

Let us now turn to fruit culture, and the meliorating love of trees, and
vegetables, and floivers ; with which, as to give it a more romantic finish,
Byron invests the character of his great Pirate — Lambro.

A taste seen in the choice of his abode,

A love of music and of scenes sublime,
A pleasure in the stream that flow'd

Past him in crystal, and a joy in flowers,

Bedew'd his spirit in his calmer hours.

"VYas it a practical nursery-man who planted the ivy that creeps over and
clings to the venerable towers of Lagrange, for ever consecrated as the resi-
dence of the pure and patriotic Lafayette ? Not at all ! For ages to come
will that type of true friendship, which clings to the object of its attachment
even in its ruins, associate with its history the name of Charles James
Fox, (the illustrious rival of Pitt,) who planted it. And again, one of our
best vegetables and one of our choicest flowers were brought from South
America, by Mr. Poinsett, much better known for literary taste, travels, and
scholarship, than for his practical knowledge as a Planter.

In very truth, if the truth must be told, it ought to be allowed that your
exclusively money-making and most successful practical men are not very
apt to entertain any decided penchant for the literature and refinements of
their profession, or much of that sensibifity to the beauties of nature which
invests the simplest flower or the humblest insect with something of interest,
and that can hallow even an old tree with ordinary associations — such a tree
for instance as the old poplar on St. John's College-green at Annapolis. It
was not of a practical farmer, but of Passienus Crispus, a famous orator, who
was twice consul of Rome, and afterwards married the Empress Agrippina,

THE PROMOTER OF IMPROVEMENT. 105

of whom we read that he was so much attached to a beech tree in a grove
near the city of Rome, and carried his enthusiasm to such a pitch, that he
not only reposed under it but sprinkled it plentifully with wine, and would
even embrace it.

It was not the practical Farmer, but the Poet, who thus inculcates the
practice of the beautiful and conservative art of grafting.

" graft the tender shoot,

" Thy children's children shall enjoy the fruit."

VlRGIl.

It was Catharine, Empress of Russia, who so far encouraged the fruit cul-
ture as to send every year to England for the "Pippin d'Or," and that she
might have them in the greatest perfection, ordered each apple to be sepa-
rately enveloped in silver paper, before they were shipped.

The Horse Chestnut, so judiciously recommended by Mr. Cresson to be
planted around the Pennsylvania Hospital, was not introduced in Europe,
whence we derive it, by a professional nursery-man, but by a man of letters,
Clusius, a botanist, who derived it not from a nursery-man, but from the Im-
perial ambassador of the Porte, together with a considerable variety of trees,
new to Europe. The oldest trees of that family, from the leaves whereof
the first of mankind "made themselves aprons" — that are now growing in
England, are said to have been planted by Cardinal Pole, who brought them
from Italy during the reign of Henry the Eighth.

The Green-gage Plum, properly the Reine Claude, was introduced into
France, not by a practical gardener, but by Queen Claude, wife of Francis
the First of that country : — and thus we might go on with an endless list
of fruits and vegetables, showing how they have been first transferred from
one country to another, by men of science — ambassadors, divines, professional
men, and cultivated navigators; and not only not generally, but not even at
the suggestion of practical men — but by your much-derided book men!
They have been such men as Doctor Muse, and Doctor Thompson, and
Doctor Bain, and Doctor Darlington, and Doctor Brackenborough, and
Doctor Birkhead, and Doctor Wilkins, and Doctor Emerson, and Doctor
Bachman of Charleston, and Doctor Cartwright of Natchez ; and men whose
minds have been enlarged and refined by cultivation, to whom the world
owes the promotion of free commerce, and wide-spread cultivation and enjoy-
ments of the fruits of a refined horticulture, and even many mechanical
inventions.

Having referred to Mr. Cresson in connection with the Horse Chestnut
tree, we may take the further liberty to say, by a letter which does him
honor, in a late number of the Colonization Herald, that he has prevailed
with twenty of his friends to subscribe $30 each, for planting entirely around
the Pennsylvania Hospital, outside of the wall, a row of shade trees, in anti-
cipation of the final decay of the noble old sycamores now there, &c., and
which came from the estate of his great-grandfather nearly a century ago.
Now, without having been long enough in Philadelphia to speak from personal
knowledge, we will venture to say that the list of these amiable right-hearted
contributors does not consist of your money-making practical farmers, wor-
shippers of the almighty dollar, with whom on all appeals to their better
feelings, the first, and the last, and the only question is too apt to be — ^'■what
shall I make by it?" Furthermore, we will venture, without the pleasure
of knowing one of them, that they are not 7nen of blood.' men who think
it wise in a republican people to bestow all their honors upon, and to pay
eighty per cent, of their taxes for supporting military men, and warlike and
war-making establishments, us do the people of the United States. Here
ib a fist of the gentlemen who gave $30 each for planting shade trees, that

Vol. L— 14

106 WHEAT.

may perchance shelter the sick and aged and way-worn from the scorphing
rays of a noon-day mid-summer sun, and greatly serve to beautify that part
of the city ; but which in all probabih'ty will never put a dollar in the pockets
of the contributors or anybody else^s pocket. We choose to record their
names in our fleeting annals, because it is almost an idiosyncracy of our
constitution, to do honor, in our poor ineffectual way, to men of such bene-
volent and refined, though it may be non-money-making tastes.

The subscribers agree to pay the sums affixed to their respective names, [$30 each,] for
the purpose of planting around the Pennsylvania Hospital a belt of forest trees to
encompass the entire square. Such a promenade will secure to our fellow-citizens
healthful recreation, while it promotes the beauty of our metropolis.

Elliott Cresson, David Jayne, Jacob T. Bunting,

William R. Lejee, R. W. Sykes, John Siter,

John Farnum, M. W. Baldwin, John I'owne,

W. Chancellor, Caleb Jones, Samuel Rhoads,

John B. ]Meyers, F. Fraley, Wm. E. Hacker,

James Gibson, Adam Eckfeldt, Thom.as P. Cope,

C. E. Spangler, Robert F. Walsh,

Philadelphia, May 21, 1847.

Though ready at all times, then, to do justice to practical men, without
Avhom the guns could not be worked in battle, nor the sails be reefed in a
storm, they are not always the most skilful to stand at the helm, nor the most
intrepid to go aloft. A man may heave the lead, that cannot by a long shot tell
you the latitude and longitude of the ship, and so it is, that according to our
reading and observation, it has happened as well in other fields as in fields
of agriculture and horticulture, as well in mechanics as in physics, the most
valuable discoveries and importations have been made by men whose minds
have been relieved of the yoke of habit and of prejudice, and animated by
cultivation and travel, and by extensive intercourse with books and with the
world.

WHEAT,

ITS CULTURE AND MANAGEMENT.

Could any thing new be said on this subject so important to so many
people, now would be the time ; but the farmer would be much more obliged,
by Ijeing told where he is to find a remunerating market, and how such a
market is to be rendered steady and reliable, from year to year, than to have
suggestions for increasing his crop.

As to the markets, in the new view we have taken, of what our duty and
the interest of the farmer demands, we shall throw what light we can on
that subject ; and as we began, so we repeat, that the farmer should promote
a policy that will bring the consumer to the side of the producer — one that
will bring the loom and the anvil, the saw and the lapstone, nearer and
yet nearer to the plough.

In a practical point of view, as respects this noble grain, the question is
not settled, how far and under what circumstances the very first operation
is to be accomplished — by the drill or b}-- broad-casting; there are warm ad-
vocates for each, in comparison with the other, in England. There, how-
ever, many circumstances affect the question that do not apply in this
country. There, we apprehend the crop is liable to be impaired by a
stronger growth of weeds than with us, and this results either from the
superior strength of the land, or from their lands being infested with various
kinds of weeds that we have not ; and again, our dryer summers may be
fatal to weeds that are almost indestructible in their moister cHmate.

WHEAT. 107

Drill husbandry of grain, in England, is always spoken of in connection
with the use of the hoe, horse-hoe, or hand-hoe, or frequently both. If we
had room we would give a list of the weeds injurious to crops in England,
that the farmer might judge how far we are liable to, and how far exempt
from the same pests. One of them, described by Holdich in his pamphlet
on " The Weeds of Agriculture," we take to be the vile " coco grass,''^ so
much and so deservedly dreaded and hated by the sugar and cotton-planter;
we give its portrait, that our friends on the Mississippi may tell us if they
recognise it as the same.

"Tall, oat-like, soft grass, [Holcus avenacetis.) This is the knotted-
rooted couch-grass, which though admissible in pastures, is a sad plague in
corn, [small grain.] It grows in tufts, the stems rising as high as the grain,
and the roots, consisting of strings of round tubers, by which the plant pro-
pagates itself, as every one of which, if broken off by the plough or harrow,
becomes a new plant. The best way of extirpating this weed, is by dig-
ging up the tufts of roots out of the stubble, making a pile of, and consuming
them with fire." This remedy would seem to be almost as troublesome
and hopeless, as the Frenchman's prescription for getting rid of fleas.

In the United States it is evident that labor is too expensive to admit the
culture of wheat with the hand-hoe ; but is it so clear, that something like
Davis's shovel-plough might not be profitably employed in wheat culture ?
" We only ask for information."

It would seem to be conclusive, on the testimony of Major Jones of
Wheatland, Doctor Noble, and others, and there need be no better, on the
score of judgment and candor, that the experiments in drilling wheat in
Delaware have been attended with decided advantages ; and besides, it
should weigh heavily with every farmer, mindful as every farmer should
be of his professional character, that, as Major Jones says, it looks " more
farmer-like.'^

It will be seen, however, by an experiment lately in England, that the
same quantity (2k bushels to the acre) sowed broad-cast, yielded over that
which was drilled at 9 inches, a superior crop in quantity and quality, both
of grain and straw.

Not knowing what better appropriation we could make of our space at
this season, we shall give as much as we can find room for, which may
appear to have any chance of being new; for we confess to a profound
dread of over-doseing — we might say, over-dozing our readers with what
has been oft-times repeated, in substance, though it may be in ditferent
words, as baits are variously gilded to catch gudgeons.

Mr Dear Sir, — In reply to your request that I would communicate my views relative
to tlie drilling wheat, I shall limit myself to a few observations, the subject having been,
amply treated in the agricultural periodicals, and standard works, with wliich you have
been instrumental in filling the book-cases of our most intelligent farmers. The practice
of sowing wheat with drill machines has been so long and extensively practised in Eng-
land, that the results of experience there, would seem conclusive upon the subject. Still
some English farmers are to be found, who think that more wheat can be raised by the
old broad-cast method. I would particularly call your attention to the impropriety of
making European experience in farming, too strict a text of what is most advantageous
for the United States. The sowing of wheat in rows about nine inches apart, admits of
cultivation by the harrow, and especially of hand-weeding, a very important considera-
tion, where the frost is not so intense as to destroy almost every thing but the wheat itself.
Here, then, is an advantage gained by the English farmer, over what we might expect in
the wheat-growing parts of our own country. The same intense frost which kills most
American weeds, contributes to crack the ground and denude the roots of the wheat,
often doing extensive injury. It is a common opinion among farmers, that wIk at does
better when sown on ground left rough and cloddy, than when the earth has been most
carefully pulverized by means of frequent harrowing and rolhngs. I ascribe tlie fidyaJJr

108

WHEAT.

tage gained by sowing on rough ground, to the pulverization of the clods during succes-
sive freezings and thawing, which thus contribute to cover the roots, that would in
smoother ground, remain exposed until destroyed. Now, one great advantage derived
in the United States irom the practice of drilling wheat, is from placing the young growth
in a hollow or furrow. This not only serves to guard the wheat in some degree from
the frost, but where the roots become exposed, the earth crumbling from the sides soon
covers and protects them. Drilling is extensively practised by many of the best farmers
in the flourishing counties of Lancaster, Chester, Permsylvania, as well a? in Dela-
ware. Its rapid extension is pretty good evidence that some important advantages are
gained from it. In England, the higher price of grain makes the saving of the seed by
drilling, a primary consideration. But in the United States, the saving of wheat is a
secondary object, and not of itself sufficient to compensate, if other advantages are not
added.

There is one important advantage to be obtained through the adoption of English Drill
Husbandry, to which I have not yet adverted, and that is, the facility afforded of apply-
ing concentrated manures at the same time of sowing the grain, with which it is covered
in. A comparatively small amount of manure, such as finely ground bones, guano, pow-
drette, etc., covered in with the seed, can be made to produce the effect of heavy dress-
ings, a most important consideration in the economy of the farm. None of our drill-
makers, so far as I know, have yet adapted manure chests to their machines. We hope
to see this complaint speedily removed, and it would afford us very great satisfaction to
see a fine drill, like tliat of the Messrs. Pennocks, for example, at the next exhibition of
the Philadeljohia Agricultural Society, with a well-adapted manure chest. Such a ma-
chine is an important desideratima for our farmers, who are now learning the proper
value of concentrated fertilizers. I remain yours, very truly,

Philadelphia, July 1, 184S. G. E.

Doyle, in his Cyclopedia, says .

Wheat is sown on naked fallows (manured), (see Fallowing,') or after manured fallow
crops, such as potatoes, turnips, or beans, or on clover leys. The different modes of sow-
ing, whether in drills or broad-cast, maybe thus described: If in drills, the ridges sliould
be of such a corresponding breadth with that of the drill machine,* as to leave no surplus
space after the turnings, two or more times according to the breadth of the ridge, which,
for this grain, should not exceed twelve feet.

The seed being deposited from the hoppers, is covered by a double or single turn of
light harrows drawn lengthways. If there be no drill machine, a small common plough,
divested of its mould-board, answers the purpose, and the seed may be sown broad-cast
from the hand ; the harrow moving lengthways, as in the other case, throws the earth
which has been ribbed up by the plough back again, and covers the grain which comes
up in parallel rows.

By the drill machine, the intervals between the rows of wheat can bo easily made at
nine inches, which is the usual distance — by the common implement, they cannot well
be made narrower than twelve or fourteen inches; and this, besides the loss of horse-
labor, is a serious objection to those who prefer the narrow drill. But many excellent
farmers are of opinion that even a wider interval than twelve or fourteen inches is pro-
fitable, as this allows the horse-hoe to work effectually between the drills, admits of
deeper pulverization, more horizontal expansion to the fibres, and greater tillering, be-
sides aflbrding more circulation of air.

Fallowing is, no doubt, the best preparation for wheat; but it is not an economical
mode, and will not succeed Avithout some animal manure or calcareous matter. If the
soil be perfectly drained, or naturally absorbent, wheat will bear a great deal of severe
weather in winter; nor will any frost materially injure it, particularly if it be protected
by snow ; but the cold winds in spring, when of long continuance, are more or less in-
jurious, and the more so if rolling be neglected.

The hand-hoe can be used freel/ between the rows at nine inches; it serves to cut
away weeds, and is in some degree conducive to the tillering of the plants; but it does
not cut deep enough to give tliat extension of movement which the horse-hoe affords to
the fibres — we, therefore, on the whole, prefer twelve-inch rows and the small horse-hoe.

• Cook's improved drill machine is the best, and of most general application. The
Norfolk drill is larger in its scale, and constructed to sow a breadth of nine feet at once.
According to the breadth required between the rows, will be the number of drills sown
by this machine, the hoppers of which should be movable and easily adjusted, so as to
have the rows at seven, nine, ten, or twelve inches apart.

Pennocks' improved drill is considered superior to any English drill for sowing wheat;
its cost is i

WHEAT.

109

It is deemed proper to give here the particulars of an experiment in
broad-casting and drilling, which we find in the (Quarterly Journal of Agri-
culture ; and once for all we would estop the stale objections to reference to
English authority, on the ground of difference of climate, by observing, that
we hope our readers have generally too much good common sense, (for that
is all that is needed,) not to be able to allow for that circumstance. But the
principles of every science are the same everywhere ; and would it not betray
the height of ignorance and absurdity, to conclude that because, in England,
there is more moisture and less frost than in the same latitude in this coun-
try, therefore there can be no analogy in any particulars, nor any applica-
tion of rules and principles, that, in the nature of things, are fixed, eternal,
and of universal applicability ? We have too much respect for our patrons,
to suppose them destitute of the common powers of discrimination.

The following is the result of some experiments which I made last year, in order to
ascertain the relative merits of thin and thick sowing wheat, drilling, dibbling, and by
broad-cast. They were conducted with great care upon five acres of level land of uni-
form quality, being a good deep loam on a chalk subsoil, following a clover ley folded by
sheep. The land was ploughed about live inches deep, as it was not thought desirable
to bury the sheep-dressing below that depth. The seed was put into the ground about
the 7th of December, 1843, and the wheat was hoed in the spring of 1S44, except the
acre sown by broad-cast, which was harrowed instead of being hoed. The jslants in
Nos. 2 and 3 (thin sowings) were by much the strongest, and looked the best through-
out the season, until the approach of harvest, when it became evident that the quality of
ilie grain and straw was inferior, more particularly on No. 2, which appeared to have
suliered a little from mildew.

Samples of the ditierent lots were submitted to an eminent miller, and the value of
each determined by him ; the straw was valued at the market price.

AccocNT OF EXPEKIMEKTS On the relative Merits of Thin and Thick Sowing, Drilling, Dibbling, and Broad-cast,
conducted on Eiistvvick Fiirni, in the County of Surrey.

Quantity of
Seed us«i per
Inip. acre.

2k bush'ls

1 bush, and
S peckti

2i bu^sh'ls

System
pursued.

bash.
Drilled 9 Head . 34
inches apart Tail

Drilled 12 iHead
iiichea apart Tail

Dibbled 12
inches apart

Dibbled 9
inches apart

Sown
broiul-cast.

Head . 28
Tail . 3

Head
Tail

Head
TaU

"«'='" Straw
Bufhel. P'-'^l""''

Lbs.
64|

62i

63}

Trusses
70

Head at 7s.
per bush.
Tail at fo.

Head at 6j. 6d.

TaU at 5». 6d.

7i. 19«. 6d.

12 16 0
. per bush.

Head at 5». 9d. per bush.
Tail at 5». 9d. "

Head at 6j. 9(f. per bush.
TaU at 5s. 9d. '•

Head at 7». per bush.
TaU at 6». "

Value of Straw

At 36.». per load
31. IOj.

At 30s. per load

At 33s. per load

At 33s. per load

At 36s. per load

£

s.

d.

3rain

12

16

0

Straw

3

10

0

Grain . 7 19 6
Straw .226

10

2

0

Grain

in

6

a

straw

2

17

9

13

4

0

Grain

12

6

9

Straw

3

6

0

Grain . 13 17
straw . 4 4

The results of these experiments are very remarkably in favor of thick sowing, and
particularly of the old broad-cast system ; and if not conclusive against the doctrine of
thin sowing, so strongly, and, I may add, so ably advocated in the present day, should at
least induce caution on the part of fanners before they depart from the practice of their
forefathers. Indeed, it is dilficult to believe that so great an advantage as the saving of
a bushel or a bushel and a half of seed per acre can have been overlooked for so many
generations. It seems more reasonable to suppose, that long practical experience has
taught the farmer the more prudent course of a liberal supply of seetl. It may, how-
ever, be contended, that had the ploughing been deeper, and the seed put earlier into
the ground, the result would have been different : this is not improbable, and it is pes-

K

110 EXAMPLES OF HONORABLE ZEAL.

sible the deficiencies in the quality and quantity of thin-sown wheat and straw might
have been less observable, but the large differences vvliioh my experiment indicates
could hardly, I think, have been njade up. I have this year repeated the trial of thin-
sowing, having drilled one acre on the 26th of October last, (tlie land having been deeply
ploughed,) with one bushel of seed, the rest of the field having two bushels per acre.
The result I shall be happy to communicate if desired.

We must conclude all we have room to say about wheat, with the follow-
ing extracts from a prize essay on its management by Edward Roberts, (not
our friend Edward P. Roberts, nor, we will venture to say, by a better man,)
postponing for the present what may be as well said hereafter, on the treat-
ment OF CROPS IN SPRING THE TIME OF CUTTING, AND ON THRESHING AND

DRESSING. Before another season, we hope to have more extended and satis-
factory accounts of Hussey's, and other mowing machines.

P. S. — These extracts must be postponed, for want of room, to our next
number.

EXAMPLES OF HONORABLE ZEAL

IN THE PURSUIT OF AGRICULTURAL KNOWLEDGE BY YOUNG
AMERICANS.

With well-constituted minds, Avhat impression so agreeable as that which
accompanies a consciousness of increase of our stores of useful knowledge ?
Such as results from the perusal of a truly original essay or address, like
one we have lately read, by the Hon. Mr, Marsh, in Congress, from Ver-
mont, delivered before an Agricultural Society of that State ; and which,
as well for its philosophy as its rare scholarship, we shall be glad to preserve
in our columns. Such, too, is the satisfaction one derives from new and
powerful books, like Carey's Past, Present, and Future, that makes us feel
as we pass from page to page, that something sticks, to make us a little
wiser, and, perhaps, a little better ; for is it not true, that knowledge is
virtue as well as power ?

In perusing the following paper from one of our young countrymen, lau-
dably pursuing agricultural studies abroad, the pleasure it affords results,
perhaps, not more from the valuable suggestions it contains, practically in-
structive and important as these are, than from the fact it discloses that some
progress is actually making in agricultural literature in the United States,
too ; and that some of our most promising young men are seeking honor
and fame, by qualifying themselves to apply to the cultivation of the soil
those sciences, which are as necessary and as embelHshing to agriculture, as
to any other pursuit under the sun.

But here again, let every reader, at all mindful of the rights and interests
of agriculture, note the difference in the action of the government, (and that,
too, under the sanction of the so-called representatives of the landed interest,)
in its treatment of those whose ambition and pursuit it is, to multiply the
comforts of life, and those whose profession it is to destroy it! Our go-
vernment, in its practical operation, under all parties, labors under no Avant
either of power or inclination, to send our militan/ young men abroad,
to pay all their expenses, and to place them in all respects under the most
favorable auspices for studying, at the best and most expensive schools, the
art of war ! In Congress, we see almost every day, thousands on thousands
voted away, for military surveys, and maps, and roads, and expeditions, even
to the " Dead Sea" — when no other place or pretext can be found ; but not
a dollar can it give for agricultural surveys, or for the support of agricul-
tural schools, or for young men to go, like Mr. Norton, of Connecticut, and

EXAMPLES OF HONORABLE ZEAL. Ill

Mr. Summer, of Carolina, to study, under able professors, and in the best
appointed laboratories abroad, the application of the appropriate sciences, to
the more civilizing, fruitful, and beneficent art of terraculture. Nor is one
whisper of remonstrance or expostulation heard from committees appointed to
watch over the rights of the planter and the farmer ; and they themselves
submit without a murmur, and as patiently as sheep to be shorn, while the
government, under all administrations and parties, takes eighty per cent,
of the taxes they pay, to support its military establishments in time of
2Jeace !

P. S. Will some one give us the names of the members of the agricultu-
ral committees in Congress, that we may hold them up to the admiration of
the country, and the gratitude of posterity, for their extreme vigilance and
energy — for the wide range of their inquiries, and the profoundness of their
reports, on the condition and wants of the plough ; and how the landed in-
terest is, or might be affected, /or good or for evil, by existing or by needed
legislation'^ Surely, the marks of their service will endure as long as
writings on l^e sand-beach at low water-mark.

From the South Carolinian.

SUGGESTIONS AS TO THE SUCCESSIVE CULTIVATION OF COTTON AND
INDIAN CORN — ROTATION OF CROPS, ETC.

BY THOMAS J. SUMMER.

Mr attention was directed to tlie necessity of a correct understanding respecting the
constituents of tliese two important crops, by the planters of South Carolina, from read-
ing Boussingault's Analysis of Indian Corn, and I hope to show scientific causes, sufficient
to render this necessity apparent to interested readers. I will commence by merely call-
ing their attention to the amount of phosphoric acid abstracted from an acre of fertile
land, in producing one bale of cotton. We take it for granted, that an acre will yield one
bale of cotton, which will give 875 pounds of cotton seed, which, according to my ana-
lysis, recently finished, and sent you by last steamer, ^vill yield 35 pounds of ashes ;
these 35 pounds of ashes contain 12 pounds of phosphoric acid, 10 of potash and com-
mon salt, while the remaining parts are composed of lime, magnesia, &c. The most
common application of cotton seed as manure, has been on the small grain crops, for
which they are admirably adapted — containing as they do all the constituents necessary
for the nourishment of these crops. It seldom occurs that wheat is planted after cotton,
consequently, the soil which produced the cotton seed does not receive them again, and
we have 12 pounds of phosphoric acid, taken directly from this soil, which will, proba-
bly, not be sown in wheat, till the following season, when, perchance, it may receive the
seed grown upon it. It is customary after cotton, to cultivate a crop of India.u corn,
which is followed by small grain, in what has heretofore been the planter's system of
rotation. We see thus two crops, which are the most powerful exhausters, taken from
the soil, before we return, directly, any of the constituents taken away in the form of cot-
ton seed. To show, conclusively, the injudicious and impoverishing practice of cultivat-
ing cotton and Indian corn, as successive crops, I will cite the analysis of M. Boussingault,
who says, that 100 pounds of the ashes of the grain of Indian corn, contain 50 pounds
of phosi)horic acid. Now, suppose that one acre planted in this crop will yield 30
bushels — which will be equivalent to 1350 pounds of corn. If tliese 1350 pounds of
grain be reduced to ashes, we have a fraction over 97 pounds, wliich contain 50 pounds
of phosphoric acid, and 30 pounds of soda and potash — making for the production of the
two crops of cotton and corn, the enormous amount of 02 pounds of phosphoric acid, and
40 pounds of common salt and potash. Then, suppose, the third year, we sow wheat
after corn. This crop requires about the same constituents as does the cotton crop. If
we return to the soil the usual quantity of cotton seed devoted to this crop, we give it
back only one-fifth part of the phosphoric acid, &c.. which was taken from it in cultivat-
ing the two preceding crops. When such are the facts, what reliance can be placed in
the generally received and popular practice of cultivating corn immediately after cotton?
How long has it been argued, that such a system of rotation was beneficial to the soil ?
The reverse is the fact, for, in harvesting 1350 pounds of corn, we take a fraction over
four times as much phosphoric acid, than we do in producing one bale of cotton. The
three crops most extensively cultivated in South Carolina, are those which consume tho
most valuable constituents of the earth in their production, and our planters should at
once be awakened to the necessity of remedying the evils, resulting from incorrect sys-

112 EXAMPLES OF HONORABLE ZEAL.

terns of culture, before it is too late. The first step, is to adopt a better system of manur-
ing, and by the institution of economy in saving, preserve to the crops much that is lost to
them, by reason of the non-application, or the more general want of knowledge, respect-
ing the availability of many substances found on the farm.

As the greatest quantity of these constituents are found in animal bones, the easiest
method of restoring them would be to carefully collect all these, and make them subser-
vient to the wants of these crops by converting them into powder or ashes. Bones con-
tain an immense amount of phosphoric acid. My far-famed preceptor, that world re-
nowned chemist, Liebio, says, that a single pound of bone-dust contains as much phos-
phoric acid, as oiie hundred jyounds of ivlieat. From this we can easily perceive, that there
are bones wasted on every farm in the State, sufficient to manure the entire wheat crop.
This, to many, will doubtless appear strange, but it is nevertheless true, and if we do not
arouse ourselves to a better system of farming, we will find our State, in less than fifty
years, in a more deplorable state of impoverishment than were the outworn lands of our
sister State of Virginia, before the industrious farmers, who are now working such mira-
cles on them, took hold of them for improvement. The first colonists of Virginia found
a soil similar to our own. Abundant harvests of wheat, corn and tobacco, were obtained
from one and the same field, for near a century, without the aid of manure. But nature,
exhausted, at last refused to repay the laborious toil of the husbandman, and whole dis-
tricts were suddenly converted into arid and unfruitful pasture lands, which, without
manure, will now produce neither ■wheat nor tobacco, and the desolati(^ of w^hich is
only heightened by the miserable herds and flocks, which find a scanty sutniner subsist-
ence on these bleak wastes. This is not strange, when we state, that in the production
of the standard crops, in the space of one hundred ycnrs^ there was removed from every
acre, fully 12,000 pounds of alkali in leaves, grain, and straw. It necessarily became un-
fruitful, because that small portion, which, during each sivceeding year, was rendered
soluble, was not sufficient to satisfy the natural demands of the plants. With such an
example, why shall not South Carolina make the attempt to preserve her already im-
poverished fields from a similar fate"? We possess over her many, advantages, and still
in many parts, aided by science and industry, she is renewing the bare bosom of mother
earth, by a deep covering of mellow artificial soil, which sustains the rich gifts of Ceres.
We possess, as a peculiar advantage over the Virginian farmer, a larger amount of forest
to supply leaves and litter, to be converted by a little pains-taking into good manure;
and, secondly, the amount of the constituents of the soil, exported in our cotton, does not
come in the same fearful ratio, as they do in the Virginia products — small grain and to-
bacco. This is truly an important advantage : as we consiune the cotton seed and small
grain on our farms, very little is exported, and consequently, these self-sairie constituents
are obtained again, in the voidure of such animals as are sustained on them, and their
constituents are re-delivered to the soil, in the shape of manure, in as large quantities as
they were originally taken from it, and ■when combinetl with vegetable substances, in the
shape of composts, even in larger quantities, the appiicntion of which, results in the speedy
and certain improvement of the land. But, to all these means, the farmer in South Cf»ro-
liiia — where extent of acres is not measured by price — has a third means of remedying
the evil of an improper succession of crops. This is fully demonstrated by Liebig, in
the example which he cites in his Agricultural Chemistry, of the condition of the country
around Naples, which is famed for its fruitful corn land. The humblest villages are
situated from eighteen to twenty-four miles distant from each other, and between them
there are no roads, and. consequently, no means for transporting manure to any distance
from the residences of the laborers. Now, corn has been grown on these lands for thou-
sands of years, without any portion of the constituents which have been annually re-
moved from the soil being artificially restored to it. The method of culture, however,
satisfactorily explains the cause of this wonderful and permanent fertility — and though
the system appears a very bad one in the eyes of our agriculturists, it is, nevertheless,
tlie very best that could be adopted. A field is only placed under tillage once in three
years, and in the intervening two years fiu-nishes a sjiarse pasturage lor cattle and sheep.
The soil undergoes no actual change in these two years, during which it thus lies f illow,
farther than being exjiosed to the influence of the atmosphere, a fresh portion of the allcalis
contained in it are again set free, and rendered soluble. The amount of constituents in
two years, thus placed by nature at the disposal of the crop of one season, being gene-
rally greater than the crop demands, this patient system of rotation without alternation
has preserved the fertility of the soil. It may appear to those who do not reflect, that
the dropjiings of the aninjals jjastured on the land inight have an improving effect, Imt
this is not the fact, for they yield the soil nothing which they did not drain from it. The
grass and weeds, upon which they live, spring from the soil, and that which they return
jn voidings, must, according to the laws sustaining animated nature, be less in quantity
fhan the amount originally derived by them. The fields, therefore, under tliis system of

HORSEOLOGY. 113

grazing, can gain nothing; on the contrary, the soil must have lost some of its constituents.
Experience, as in Virginia, has shown that wheat should not follow wheat, or tobacco a
crop of tobacco; for these are crops which speedily exhaust the constituents of the soil.
If we take these constituents from the soil, wo should return them before we again tax
it to ruinous production, by artificial manuring, with such manures as would most readily
and cheaply etiect the object, or, if this cannot be done, why, there is still a sutFiciency
of land unoccupied, untilled, and lying waste on every plantation to allow it to lie, at
least, one year fallow. Why do not our jilanters do these things, and preserve the rising
generation from raising the cry of " Westward Ho !'' A country like South Carolina, pos-
sessing a climate suited to nearly all the cultivated crops, deserves to be fostered and im-
proved. The present age inust nrake the beginning, else we will entail the horrid curse
of national poverty upon those who follow us. With the proper energies, and the appll
cation of the proper principles to her agriculture, we can make her the garden spot of
the world — and such she should be. When I return home, I intend to devote myself to
analysing every cultivated crop of South Carolina, and will feel sufficiently re^'arded, if
my labors only produce the result of stimulating the beginning of a reformation in the
agriculture of my native ami beloved State.
University of Giessen, Germany, jipril 16, 1848.

HORSEOLOGY.

Saddles — the importance of a good one — antiquity of— first xcomans-xactdle — hunting saddle
described. Spur — I he use of by the ancients, and as used at present — preferable to the
whip in racing. — By Niinrod.

Saddles and bridles form no unimportant feature in the equestrian art, as
well as in the establishment of a sportsman. Nothing sets off the appear-
ance of a horse and his rider more than a good saddle and bridle, nor does
any thing contribute more to the comfort and safety of the latter than a well-
made roomy saddle, with spring bars for the stirrup-leathers ; stirrups rather
heavy than otherwise, and sufficiently large for the feet. Some persons, not
contented with the spring bars, require spring stirrups as well ; but, in our
opinion, no man can hang in a common stirrup, provided he do not wear thick
boots nor use small stirrup-irons. Of the various sorts of bridles, the snaffle
is most in use on the turf, and the curb for military horses, hunters, roadsters,
and coach-horses. Not one hunter in twenty has a mouth good enough for
a snaffle only ; although there are a few horses in every hunt that will not
face the curb. Some, however, go very well on the snaffle up to a certain
period of a run, when all at once they require the assistance of the curb.
Such horses should be ridden with a double bridle, so that the rider may
have recourse to the curb-bit, when wanting. ^

There is often great nicety required in fitting a horse with a bridle, if irri-
table in his temper, or a very hard puller. If the former, he must have a
bit of just sufficient severity to control him, and not any thing more. The
^ one called the '' Pelham," is well adapted to horses of this description, as it
partakes of the double properties of snaffle and curb. With very hard
pulling horses, the curb to a severe bit must be used ; but the evil of this is,
that, after a certain time, the mouth, thus acted upon, becomes "dead," as
the term is, and the horse is unpleasant to ride and difficult to turn. To
remedy this, three players should be attached to the port of the bit, which
by hanging loosely over the tongue, keep the mouth alive. A bridle of this
description, very long in the cheek, is known in the hunting world as the
'•Clipper bit," being the one in which that celebrated horseman, Mr. Lindow,
rode a horse called the Clipper several years over Leicestershire, in which
far-famed county he was supposed to be the best hunter going. If a horse
rushes at his fences, a moderately tight nose-band is useful, as also to prevent
his opening his mouth, and snatching at his rider's hand. The less a horse
opens his mouth in his work the better, as it tends to make it dry ; whereas
it cannot be too moist for his own good. Bits very high in the port are of
Vol. L— 15 k 2

114 HORSEOLOGY.

course the most severe, owing: to the increased purchase ; but with every
description of bits, care should be taken that they are sufficiently wide for
the mouth, so as not to press against the horse's cheeks, and that the head-
stall is sufficiently long to let the bit drop well into the mouth.

As we read in the 'Z2d chapter of Genesis, 3d verse, that "Abraham rose
up early in the morning, and saddled his ass," saddles of some sort must
have been used in very early days ; but few things appear more extraordi-
nary to those persons who look into ancient history, than the fact of saddles
with stirn(j)S being a comparatively modern invention. Although a French
translator* of Xenophon, by an oversight, makes a governor of Armenia hold
the stirrup of the Persian king when he mounted his horse, — "II lui tenoit
Vetrier lorsqu'il montoit a cheval," it is well known that the ancients had no
stirrups, but that men of rank among them were accompanied by a person
Avhose office it was to lift them into the saddle, whom the Greeks called
df'a,3oXfv{, and the Romans strator. There is no mention of stirrups in any
Greek or Latin authors, no figure to be seen in any statue or monument,
nor any word expressive of them to be met with in classical antiquity. In
the celebrated equestrian statues of Trajan and Antoninus, the legs of the
rider hang down without any support, whereas, had stirrups been used at
that time, the artist would not have omitted them. Neither are they spoken
of by Xenophon in his two books upon horsemanship, in which he gives
directions for mounting; nor by Julius Pollux in his Lexicon, where all the
other articles belonging to horse-furniture are spoken of. The Roman youth,
indeed, were taught to vault into their saddles,

"Corpora saltu
Subjiciunt in equos;'j-

and in their public ways, stones were erected, as in Greece also, for such as
were incapable of doing so. As another substitute for stirrups, horses in
some countries were taught to bend the knee, after the manner of beasts of
burden of the East ;J and in others, portable stools were used to assist per-
sons in mounting. This gave birth to the barbarous practice of making
captured princes and generals stoop down, that the conqueror might mount
his horse from their backs ; and in this ignominious manner was the Roman
Emperor Valerian treated by the Persian king Sapor, whooutraged humanity
by his cruelty. The earliest indisputable mention of stirrups is by Eusta-
thius, (the commentator of Homer,) about six hundred years back, who uses
ihe word stabia.

Although the history of the saddle has not exercised the learned Avorld so
much as the antiquity of the stirrup, a good deal has been written and said
about it. Like all other inventions, it appears to have been suggested by
the necessity of making the rider sit easily upon his horse, and some kind
of covering, consisting of cloth or leather, (skins or hides, perhaps,) was
placed on the animal's back. These coverings, however, became afterwards
extremely costly ;§ they were made to hang down on each side of the horse,
and were distinguished among the Greeks and Romans by various names.
After they became common, however, it was esteemed more manly to ride
without them; and thus we find Varro boasting of having ridden bare-backed
when young. Xenophon also reproaches the Persians with having placed

• D'Ablancourt. f Virgil, JEneid xii. 287.

^ See Silicus Ittilicus, lib. x. 4r)r), —

"Inde Inclinatus collum, submissus et arnios
Do more, inflexis pra'bebat scandere terga
Cruribus."
§ See Virgil, ^neid vil. 27G; viii. 552 ; Ovid, Metam., lib. viii. 35. Also Livy, lib. xxxi
cap. 7, who speaks of a man who dressed his horse more elegantly than his wife.

HORSEOLOGY. 115

as much clothes under their seats, on their horses' backs, as they had on
their beds. It is certain that no coverings to the horses' backs were for
a k)no' time used in war; and, according- to Cassar, the old German soldiers
despised the cavalry of his country for having recourse to such luxuries. In
the time of Alexander Severus, the Roman soldiers rode upon very costly
coverings, excepting at reviews, when they were dispensed with, to show
the condition of their horses. But we should imagine we must look to later
times for the costly trappings of the horse. In his description of the city
of Constantinople, the author of the Letters of the Turkish Spy says, "the
next thing worthy of observation is the Serayan, or house of equipages,
where are all sorts of trappings for horses, especially saddles of immense
cost and admirable workmanship. There cannot be a more agreeable sight,
to such as take pleasure in horses and riding, than to see four thousand men
here daily at work in their shops, each striving to excel the rest in the cu-
riosity of his artifice. You shall see one busy in spangling a saddle with
great Oriental pearls and unions intermixed, for some Arabian horse, belong-
ing, perhaps, to the Vizier Azem ; another fitting a curb or bit of the purest
gold to a bridle of the most precious Russian leather. Some adorn their
trappings with choice Phrygian work ; others with diamonds, rubies, and
the most costly jewels of the east."

But to return to the history of the saddle, its invention, and general use,
the latter a point very difficult to be ascertained. The Avord ephippium, by
which the ancient Romans expressed it, being merely derived from the Greek
words £rti, upon, and irtrtof, a horse, leads us to conclude that, by degrees,
the covering spoken of was converted into a saddle. The Greek word t^pa,
used by ancient authors, is believed to have been to express a saddle, and is
more than once used by Xenophon, in his Be Be Equestri; and Vegetius,
who wrote on the veterinary art nearly 400 years b. c, speaks of the saddle-
tree. Perhaps the clearest proof of the use of any thing approaching to the
form of the modern saddle, is the order of Theodosius, (see his Code,) in the
year 3S5, by which such persons as rode post-horses in their journeys were
forbidden to use those which weighed more than sixty pounds ; if heavier,
they were ordered to be cut to pieces. What would the people of those
times have thought if they could have seen one of our Newmarket racing
saddles, weighing under four pounds, but giving the rider a very comfortable
seat ? The order here alluded to, doubtless applied to something resembling
a saddle, although of rude workmanship, as its weight bespeaks. Every
traveller, we may conclude, was provided with his own saddle ; and about
this time the Latin word sella more frequently occurs. In the fifth century,
again, we find articles bearing something of this stamp, and made so extra-
vagantly magnificent as to call forth a prohibition by the Emperor Leo I.,
against any one ornamenting them with pearls or precious stones. The
saddle-tree is also mentioned by Sidonius ApoUinaris, a Christian writer, Avho
was born, A. d. 480; and in the sixth century, the saddles of the cavalry,
according to Mauritius, who wrote on the military art, had large coverings
of fur ; and about this period the Greek word ofXa (sella) is used. It is con-
sidered probable, however, that the merit of the invention of saddles may
be due to Persia, not merely from the circumstance of Xenophon's mention-
ing the people of that country as being the first to render the seat on the
horse more convenient and easy, by placing more covering on their backs
than was common m other parts, but also because the horses of Persia were
made choice of for saddle-horses in preference to any others. That the word
saddle is derived from the Latin word sedeo, to sit, may fairly be presumed.
That the proper saddle itself, however, was unknown in England until the
reign of Henry VII., we have good reason to believe ; and in Ireland, from

116 HORSEOLOGY.

the absence of any representation of it on their coins, it may be conjectured,
not till many years subsequent to that period. The woman's saddle, called
by us the side-saddle, first appeared in Richard the Second's time, when his
queen rode upon one ; but from the pictures of men and women's saddles
used in England's early days, we find they were miserable apologies for our
modern saddles. Indeed, at the present time, Great Britain is the only
country in which proper saddles are made. Hunting saddles should have
their pannels well beaten and brushed to prevent sore backs ; and no sports-
man, even if light, should use a short saddle — i. e., under sixteen inches
from pummel to cantle.

The antiquity of the spur does not appear to have much excited curiosity;
but the use of this instrument was known in the very earliest age of which
we have any satisfactory history. At least we may presume that it was so,
from the Hebrew word signifying horseman, (Pavash,) appearing to be de-
rived from a Hebrew root signifying to prick or spur. So at least says
Buxtorff; and he adds, that the horseman, or spurrer, was so called on this
account : Eques quod equum calcaribus pxmgut; and he quotes Eben Ezra
in confirmation of his opinion : A calcaribus qiix sunt in pedibus ejus.
Spurs occur but seldom on seals, or other antiques, in the eleventh century,
but in the thirteenth they are more frequent. As it is necessary that a horse
should obey the leg as well as the hand, all mihtary and parade horses are
ridden in spurs ; and, as Ave have already said, they are very useful to the
sportsman in riding across a country, particularly in the act of opening gates;
also all race-horses that will bear them are ridden with them, because, should
punishment be wanting in a race, it is more easily inflicted by the heel
than by the hand ; add to which, these horses not only require the jockey's
two hands at the same time, but are apt to swerve, or shut up, if struck
severely by the whip.

PojTY — remarkable improvement upon by attention — its exetnption from hmieness in the feet —
its great powers of endurance.

A horse is called a pony when under the height of thirteen hands, four
inches to the hand. It is difficult to account for this diminutive breed, unless
Ave believe it to have been imported from countries farther north than Great
Britain, Avhich appears probable from the fact of ponies being found in
greater abundance in Scotland and Wales than in any other part of the island ;
the effect, no doubt, of climate. In Ireland they are very rare.

There is no animal that improves in form and character so much as the
pony does from the efltct of good grooming and high keep. A real Welsh
mountain pony, in very good condition, especially if not castrated, is a perfect
war-horse in miniature, uniting almost every good property his species pos-
sesses. As a proof of one essential quality, we can state upon authority,
that the Earl of Oxford had a mare pony, got by the Clive Arabian, her dam
by the same horse, out of a Welsh mare pony, Avhich could beat any of his
racers four miles at a feather weight. Ponies, too, have properties which
should attract the notice of the hippopathologist, among the most prominent
of Avhich are the following : They are never lame in the feet, or become
roarers. A broken-winded pony is a very rare sight, and they live to the
extreme of old age,, if not unfairly treated. They are also very little sus-
ceptible of disease, in comparison Avith other horses ; Avhile their poAvers of
endurance stagger belief. A rare instance of the latter excellence is furnished
by the pony, Sir Teddy, only twelve hands high, accompanying the royal
mail from London to Exeter, and arriving in that city fifty-nine minutes
before it — distance 172 miles, in tAventy-three hours and tAventy minutes !
It may scarcely be necessary to state, that he carried no weight, being led
between two horses all the AA^ay ; nevertheless, it Avas a task that we think

HILL-SIDE PLOUGH AND PLOUGHING. 117

no full-grown horse would have perforined. A correct likeness of this pony
was painted by the elder Marshall, of Newmarket. In 1784, a Shetland
pony, eleven hands and a half high, carried a rider, weighing five stones,
from Norwich to Yarmouth, and back, forty-four miles, in three hours and
forty-five minutes. As a proof, also, of their powers in crossing a country,
the fact may be stated of the late Sir Charles Turner riding a pony ten miles
in forty-seven minutes, and taking thirty leaps in his course, for a wager of
1000 guineas with the late Duke of Queensberry, then Earl March. During
the drawing of the Irish lottery, the expresses from Holyhead to London Avere
chiefly conveyed by ponies, at the rate of nearly twenty miles in the hour.

The only bad use to which the pony is applied, is in what is called the
"pony chaise," or phaeton. The carriage itself is dangerous, by reason of
its extreme hghtness and shortness, by which it is so easily overturned; and
the lowness of the driver's seat prevents proper command over the animal
drawing it. It is too often the case, also, that "the pony" is a pet, and for
that reason pampered in the stable and not much worked. On the least
alarm, then, such as any unusual noise, horses galloping past him, or — and
there have been too many fatal instances from this cause — some part of the
fore-carriage touching his hocks in descending a hill, away he goes, gallop-
ing and kicking until he has rid himself of his load. The safest way of
using ponies in harness, is in pairs, in double harness, with the poll of the
carriage raised at the futchels, to prevent their kicking over it in their play.
The personal appearance of a Racing Jockey.

Previously to describing the proper seat of the jockey, we Avill now en-
deavour to exhibit him in the most likely form to acquire that seat. In height
he should be about five feet five inches. We are aware there are several
excellent jockeys under this standard ; but they do not look so well on their
horses, neither can they be so firm in their seat from want of a better clip,
which the firm grasp of a longer thigh gives them. He should be rather
long in the fork for his height, with low shoulders, rather long arms, mode-
rate length of neck, small head, and a very quick eye. He should be of a
naturally spare habit, to save the expense to his constitution by wasting ;
but he should have as much muscle in his arms and thighs, as his diminutive
form will admit of; in short, to ride some horses at such very light weights,
he should be a little Hercules. But there must be nothing like rigidity in
his frame. On the contrary, there should be a great degree of pliability
about his arms, shoulders, and back-bone, to enable him to be in perfect
unison with his horse. He should have very free use of his hands, so as to
change his reins from one to the other in a race, and to whip with the left,
as well as with the right, when occasion requires it ; he should possess much
command of temper ; and, lastly, he should have the abstinence of a Brahmin.

HILL-SIDE PLOUGH AND PLOUGHING.

HONOR DUE TO IMPROVERS OF AGRICULTURAL MACHIIvERY.
Among the highest obligations of agriculture, are those which it OAves to
men eminent in other arts and sciences, though many of them have proved
to be any thing but money makers, as practical farmers. The fact is that the
minds of such men are generally so thirsty for knowledge, and so much
absorbed in the pursuit of it — that filthy lucre is the last thing they think
of. Such men too are apt to be the least esteemed and honored in countries
like ours, where universal worship of the "almighty dollar" is the universal
sentiment. Hence the discoverer of a great truth in mathematical or physi-
cal science, or the inventor of a great contrivance to save time and labor, in
farming is looked on while alive as a great bugbear or bore ; and when dead

118 HILL-SIDE PLOUGH AND PLOUGHING.

is too apt to be stowed away in the memory of survivors and posterity, as
so mucli useless old lumber is stowed away in a g;arret. Ask one half of the
h'ttle great men of our own day, ay even practical formers, who g;row rich
by a sort of instinct for accumulation, — ask them who was the inventor of
the hill-fside plough, or of the revolving horse-rake, and it is ten to one they
cannut tell you the name of tha authors of these everlasting benefactions to
their own pursuit. Perfectly willing are such men to gather and consume
the precious fruit, without the least sentiment of care or respect for him who
planted the tree! Be it then a part of our duty, while we Hve, to denounce
such derelictions on the part of those for whose character as a body, as well
as for their success as individuals, we cannot repress an honest solicitude.

Ask these same men, and they can chronicle with exactness the names
of the heroes, and the fields, in which men have gained distinction and vic-
tory in political and bloody wars. Be it then, we repeat, the more especially,
the duty of Agricultural Editors, to hold up as worthy of infinitely higher
honor, the names and the memory of such men as Thomas Mann Randolph
and Pennock — the inventors, the one of the hill-side plough, and the other
of the revolving horse-rake. Governor Randolph married the daughter of
Mr. Jefferson, a lady of rare accomplishments ; mother of Thomas Jefferson
Randolph, of Albemarle, a very zealous and enlightened farmer, and of
Mrs. Trist, the wife of our late successful and ill-used Minister to Mexico—
who, if a little more contumacious, would have been sent home in irons, for
concluding a treaty which, good or bad, was approved by the Executive and
ratified by the Senate. But let us thank God that the flow of blood has been
checked on any terms, and that now the sword might and ought to be turned
into the pruning-hook and so for ever remain — for it is only as they affect
the great pursuit, over which we are standing as one of the humblest of its
sentinels, that we shall ever venture to refer or allude to political events.
All wars are repugnant to, and inconsistent with that high degree of civili-
zation, which belongs to the most improved state of the art of cultivation.

Mmitkelh, March 6, 181G.

Dear Sir — I liave to thank you for the copy of your discourse on agriculture which
you have been so kind as to send me. I participate in all your love for the art. We are
indebted to you for much of our knowledge as to the use of the plaster, which is become
a principal article of our improvements, no soil profiting more from it than that of the
country around this place. The return of peace will enable us now to resmne its use,
My son-in-law, Colonel Randolph, is perhaps the best farmer of the state; and by the
introduction of the horizontal method of ploughing, instead of straight furrows, has really
saved this hilly country. It was running oli'into the valleys with every rain; but by this
process we now scarcely lose an ounce of our soil.

A rafter level traces a horizontal line around the curve of the hill or valley, at distances
of 30 or 40 yards, wliich is followed by the plough; and by these guide-lines the plough-
man finishes the interval by his eye, throwing the earth into beds of six feet wide, with
large water furrows between them. When more rain falls than can be instantly absorbed,
the horizontal furrows retain the surplus until it is all soaked up, scarcely a drop ever
reaching the valley below. Some two or three years ago, I mentioned to Mr. Peale this
method of ploughing, and I think he has informed me of his having since practised it
with satisfaction. It is probable therefore you may have heard of it from him, if not
through some other channel.

Mr. Randolph has contrived also, for our steepest hill-sides, a simple plough which
throws the furrows always down-hill. It is made with two w^ings welded to the same
bar, with their planes at a right-angle to each other. The point and the heel of the bar
are formed into pivots, and the bar becomes an axis, by turning which, either wing may
be laid on the ground, and the other then standing vertically, acts as a mould-board.
The right-angle between them, however, is filled with a sloping piece of wood, leaving
only a cutting margin of each wing naked, and aiding in the olRce of raising the sod
gradually, while the declivity of the hill facilitates its falling over. The change of the
position of the share at the end of each furrow is effected in a moment by withdrawing
and replacing a pin. The little paper model enclosed may help out my description of
the share. Thomas Jefferson.

WHAT IS MESLIN? 119

WHAT IS MESLIN, OR MESLING?

STORY ABOUT AN OLD BOOK.

Laugh not, reader at this question — for if j^ou cannot answer it, it would
ill become you to laugh ; and if you can, it is more than a certain club of
distinguished agriculturists could do, with whom we had the honor, and the
great pleasure to dine, some time since, not a thousand miles from the
^^ Jithens of Jimerica.^'' Shall we tell you how the question arose ? Well,
to begin at the beginning, we had been for some years inquiring far and.
near, for an old Avork \vhich had been respectfully mentioned, we believe by-
Mr. Webster, on the Field-Husbandry of New England. Lately again,
being in Boston, and rummaging about in the " "^^uticjlTe Book Store," the
proprietor said he had succeeded in finding it, and accordingly produced an
old, smoke-dried volume of one hiindred and sixty-six pages, for which he
had the conscience to ask (and we were glad to pay even that to get it) $2,
saying, he could as easily get So as $2, from any one who would give any
thing for it. Feeling inwardly the truth of his remark, we seized the long
looked-for tract, which beareth the following title and brief sketch of the
author : —

Essays upon Field-Husbandry in New-England, as it is or maybe ordered. By Jaued
Eliot, M. A. Eccles. v. 9. ^ Moieovtr, the profit of the Earth, is for all ; the King himself
is seiTcd by the Field. Boston : Printed and i^oUl by Edes and Gill, in Qneen Sirci't. 176U.

The respectable author of this treatise, was the son of Rev. Jose])h Eliot, of Guilford,
(Conn.,) who was the second son of the ceiebr.'ited John Eliot, of Roxbury, ajjostle to the
Indians. Jared Eliot was Pastor of the church at Kiilins^worths, (Conn.) He w;is born
November 6. 1G85; graduated at Yale College 17U0 : died 1763. Hi.s agricidturul essays
have passed through several editions.

Considering the circumstances, and the condition of our country at the
time, more than a hundred 3'ears ago, that no agricultural societies had been
formed, and no instruction attempted upon the great subject of Husbandry,
to the author of this work may fairly be conceded claims to grateful and
honorable remembrance far beyond such as are awarded to men of less
usefulness and more pretensions. Some of the best habits of New England
Husbandry may still be traced to the rules laid down, and the information
imparted by the author. It may be said, that Tull and Eliot were, in their
day and countries respectively, what Sinclair and Ruffin have been in more
modern times ; and what measure of honor is too great for men who distin-
guish themselves as benefactors of a pursuit, which the wisest men of an-
cient and of modern times have regarded as the first in rank, of all human
employments?

Socrates makes this noble encomium on agriculture : — " It is," says ho,
"an employment the most worthy of the application of man, the most an-
cient and the most suitable to his nature ; it is the common nurse of all per-
sons, in every age and condition of life ; it is the source of health, strength,
plenty, riches, and of a thousand sober delights and honest pleasures ; it is
the mistress and school of sobriety, temperance, justice, religion, and in
short, of all virtues, both civil and military."

To return to our author, and to the question, ivhat is mesling?

We had read, in the morning, the following quaint passage : " I per-
swaded one of my Neighbours to make trial of this Method of sowing Mes-
ling this last sowing season." Not knowing what mesling was, and sup-
posing it to be some kind of grain or crop, we were honored that day with
an invitation exactly to our taste, to meet some certain members of the an-
cient and honorable agricultural society of , who had been in the

120 WHAT IS MESLIN?

habit, for many years, of dining together, at a certain place, on a given day
of every month — with but one rule for the caterer of the day, and that is, to
have on the table the best leg of mutton to be had that day in the market —
and truly a noble leg of mutton it was. Nor was it washed down, as the
reader would imagine would be the case in that land of " steady habits,"
with water alone ! for if wit sparkled around, something else sparkled " on
the board."

He, by the by, who lives some degrees nearer the equator, is deceived or
deceives himself, if he believes that these " Yankees" are always cool and
calculating. In their counting-houses or on 'change, they are business men
— quick, but systematic — cool, but upright. For a matter of right and prin-
ciple, stickling for the ninth part of a hair ; but in matters of public spii'it
that require forecast to discern how the thing will Avork, and when approved,
liberality and energy to carry it out, it is hard to say whether they have been
best fitted by climate or education. Look at their churches, from the spires
of which you can telegraph with a pocket-handkerchief from one to another,
all over the country, east, west, north and south ! Lock at their railroads,
webbing the country in all directions ; and their noble colleges and schools
without number, all growing out of that sagacity which has taught them to
facilitate the union of capital for the employment of labor, whereby labor is
kept at home and rewarded, and capital is kept at home and accumulates,
and men get rich at home, instead of flying to the frontiers to drive back
the miserable savage and the howling wolf, while they take their place to
subdue the wilderness or starve. Even their ice-ponds are melted into gold ;
but if they have ice to be melted, they have hearts as well ; for if they know
how to make, they know, too, liow to give! Go to one of these rich
''Yankees," and tell him, sir, we want to encourage a taste for horticulture,
and to build a floral temple that shall do honor to our citj', and he does not
tell you to "call again, when the subscription comes down to $2," or a "single
copy" — not he — but he just quietly opens his book, and fills up a check for
a cool $1000, and turns again to his business; and when his affairs are
despatched, he calls and takes the stranger to look at all that is worthy of
regard around the city. Such is the disposition, and thus is acquired the
ability, to be courteous and hospitable, where men encourage domestic in-
dustry, and make it the interest of the consumer to eat the food, and the
manufacturer to fashion the raw material here in our own country ; to place,
in a word, the loom and the anvil, as we represent they should be, close to,
and next to, and subordinate only to the plough. But we have forgotten —
let us back to our leg of mutton dinner-party.

Suffice it to say, that to us it was a rare enjoyment to find ourselves in
the midst of gentlemen — quiet, intelligent, hospitable, and habitually ad-
dicted to inquiries and tastes at once so virtuous and so useful. Agriculture
and horticulture being the principal themes of conversation, we mentioned
the good luck we had had in finding a copy of the " Essays," and took the
opportunity of being relieved, as we hoped, of our doubts as to — IVhat is
Mesling?^ But, tell it not in Gath — publish it not on the housetops, what
was our surprise to find, that we were not alone in our ignorance — for, not a

member of the Agricultural Society of , present, could tell ; various

Avere the conjectures, but all were as wild and as wide of the mark as some
of them were curious and laughable. All this may seem ridiculous to him

* In his edition of the Farmer's Cyclopedia, we now find, for we have just got com-
mand of our library, Dr. Emerson defines Meslin thus: — "A term applied in New Eng-
land to the crop of peas and oats when sown together. Meslin corn, a term applied to
wheat and rye produced in a state of mixture."

WHAT IS MESLIN? 121

who knows all about it, as the most abstruse and undivinable. thing seems
plain enough when explained. Meslin or mesHng, then, it will be seen from
what follows, meant a mixed crop of different grains sowed together, and to
be reaped together, and ground and fed together — and on reflection, we have
no doubt the word is a corruption of the French word melange — which
means a medley or mixture. In the old French it was spelled meslange —
hence, meslin or mesling. The custom which then prevailed in New Eng-
land still prevails in the neighborhood of Lebanon, New York, where we
remember Mr. Hall, the model farmer of the neighborhood, sowed oats and
barley in the same field, to be gathered and ground together for his hogs.
We are not aware that this practice has extended to the south, nor prepared
to say, whether it might or might not be done to advantage ; but in reading
Mr. Colman's report, we came across the following, which at once revealed
the meaning of meslin. We invite to it the attention of our friends when

next they meet over their best leg of mutton to be had in , and

may we be there to partake of it. The extract is given in full, to show
the southern reader the New England estimate of the expense of cul-
tivating a crop of oats — $10 50 per acre. On this, certain reflections
suggest themselves. New England estimates approach much more nearly
to facts than they do in the south — for example : when they say, plough-
ing an acre for oats — $2: sowing oats and dragging in, $1 — they mean
that for these operations they have to pay these sums down in cash,
when the work is done ; or what is the same thing, that for the same
amount of labor they can command these amounts in money. In the south,
such exact calculations are not practicable, and if practicable are rarely at-
tempted. The possession of the force with Avhich the work is to be done,
and which is to be supported any how, whether employed or idle, renders
such calculations any thing but habitual or exactly practicable ; and might
we not ask the oat-grower of the south or even of New York, what would
become of him if he had to pay for them $10 25, or their equivalent, per acre ?
In New York, the average of oats is twenty-six bushels per acre, or less than
$9 at 331 cents per bushel per acre. And after all, it is well worthy of in-
quiry, whether, if they could make the exact calculation, and dare look the
facts in the face, they do not actually cost them also $10 25 per acre in most
of the states, while the crop does not net $8 per acre in the market ; and whe-
ther it be not this wilful neglect of arithmetical calculation — this fear of look-
ing the truth in the face, which is secretly and unceasingly gnawing like a
worm at the root, and undermining the independence of old families, impo-
verishing the father, and driving away the son to the far west, as men natu-
rally stand from under falling trees.* Rely on it, reader, it behoves you to
ponder these questions, and to bethink yourself, whether it is not only where
the moneyed and social institutions of a state have a tendency to keep people at
home, and to promote increase and condensation of population ; to draw to-
gether the plough, the loom, and the anvil — the miller, the tanner, the shoe-
maker, and the schoolmaster, the hatter, the carpenter, the wheelwright, the
bricklayer, and the butcher ; whether it be not in such states and such com-
munities only, that farmers can afford to pay $10 50 for sowing and harvest-
ing an acre of oats, for there only can they improve their lands to average

* Will some gentleman have the goodness to send us, if to be l)ad, the address of Mr.
Bruce, one of the largest slave-holders in Virginia, to an agricultural society in one of
the lower counties, wherein he enters, as we have been told, upon a calculation to ascer-
tain the real bona fide cost and profit of sZare labor. When men begin to shy the truth,
and avoid strict inquiry into their own condition, for fear of being led to unwelcome re-
sults, they may be assured that they are standing on a slippery foundation.

Vol. I.— 16 L

122 A NEW CARRIAGE.

thirtj'^-five bushels to the acre ; then only can they command fifty cents a
bushel for the grain, and $7 an acre for the straw on the spot !

Pease and Oats or Mesliit. — The prevailing custom among the Deerfield farmers
is to sow pease and oats together, so as that the crop shall be in the proportion of one
quarter pease to three quarters of oats. The pea customarily sowed in these cases is a
green pea from Canada, which ripens about the time of the oats, and for which, while
growing, the oats act as supporters. Pease and oats are usually ground together as feed
for their fatting cattle, and are deemed valuable, though not so good or so much relished
as Indian meal without mixture.

I have only two estimates of the cost of cultivating oats, and these where they come in
in the rotation the year after the corn.

Expense of cultivating an acre of Oats.

Ploughing, 2 00

Sowing oats and dragging, , . . . . . . , . . . 1 DO

3 bushels seed, ' 1 50

Gathering, 4 00

Tlireshing, 1 75

$10 25
Return.
Straw, more than one ton, . . . . . . . . . . . 7 00

35 bushels oats at 50 cents, 17 50

$24 50

Balance in favor of the oats, . . . $14 25

Another farmer gives the following account of a mixed crop of wheat and oats in the

proportion of half a bushel of wheat with two bushels of oats. This is thought to make

an excellent feed for animals. Some of the hiunan family have no absolute distaste

for it.

Ploughing, 2 34

Seed, half bs. wheat, $1 00 ; seed, two bs. oats, $1 00, 2 00

Sowing and harrowing, ........... 50

10 lbs. clover, 1 00

Cradling, $1 50; threshing by flail, $2 00, 3 50

$9 34
Retu/rn.

Straw, 3 00

35 bushels at 75 cents 26 25

$-29 25
Balance in favor of the crop, . $19 91

^ New Carnage. — The Worcester Telegraph describes a new two-
wheeled carriage, called a " Woosteree," recently invented and patented by
Mr. Isaac Woodcock, of W^orcester : —

"The advantages which it possesses over a common built carriage, consist
in the compact combination of a chaise or buggy-body, with an axle, pair
of shafts, and half-elliptic springs, so arranged that the entire weight of the
body and its load is suspended to the axle, neither resting upon or fatiguing
the horse, and so also that the motion of the body of the vehicle is kept per-
fectly steady, and is prevented from violent jerks or vibrations, however
rough or uneven the road may be. It is also constructed so as to pass the
weight tinder the axle, instead of over, as in the old way. Its balance on
level ground, bears upon the horse in ascending, and relieves him of the
weight in descending a hill."

Prolific Duck. — Mr, James Howard, farmer of Sollom, has a duck that
lately sat upon twenty-one eggs, from which she brought out twenty duck-
lings, eighteen of which are now living. Seven days after she had hatched
she commenced laying again. She is half-bred between the wild duck and
the tame.

DESTRUCTION OF THE PINE FORESTS. 123

DESTRUCTION OF THE PINE FORESTS OF NORTH
CAROLINA.

CAUSE OF AND REMEDT SUGGESTED, FOUNDED ON MUCH OBSEUTATION AND EXPEHIENCE.

We find the following in "77te County ShielcW^ published at Snow-Hill,
Maryland. We unite in the confidence expressed by the Editor in the in-
telligence and reliability of the writer, but if Forests are not to le worked
in May, June, July, and August, when can they be ? Is it not in these
months that the rosin is extracted?

The death of the trees is caused by boxing, chipping, bleeding or felling them in any
part of the forest, where the injured tree can touch any of the uninfected, in the months
of May. June, July, and August. In these months Pine Forests should never be worked
in. At this period a most fatal insect called the "Fire Fly" is attracted by the fresh
oozings or exudations, from the newly cut tree, and deposits a large quantity of eggs,
which in time hatch out numerous and most destructive white worms with black heads,
that soon commence their ravages, and never cease till they completely destroy the sap
part of the tree, or until frost overtakes them, and puts an end to their labors.

The '-fire fly'' is very small, and can use its wings only with great difficulty. It flies
slowly, and cannot go far, unless it is enabled to slip along slantingly, or if I may so
express myself, on an "inclined plane.' Therefore the only method of ridding a piece
of woods of this insidious foe, is to fell all the trees that have been inoculated by it,
[which are generally those in the immediate vicinity,] in such a manner that they will
not touch any other tree that remahis uninjured. Or, if there should be several acres of
diseased trees, it is only necessary to cut those trees down, that are on the out-skirts of the
diseased timber, or such as are bordering on, or near those that remain green and uninjured;
but they must not be felled so as to touch the green uninjured tree, — to do which would
be like throwing a fire-brand in a sedge field.

If this plan is pursued, the fly can be destroyed in a very short time, but if suffered to
remain, they will soon increase and inoculate a whole forest. They seem to be generated
by the fresh sap or juice of the pine, in the months named ; as I have never seen them
or heard of their being present, except at such times and places as are mentioned. The
worm produced by them is very rapid and vigorous in its operations, and may be heard
distinctly, whilst boring its way into the tree, upon which it has fastened itself, — this is
however more particularly observable on the tree that has been felled for a few days.
It is supposed these worms finally ibrm a Chrysalis and reproduce the " fire fly."

I have had much experience in this matter in the course of my life, and am quite well
satisfied that the recent destruction of turpentine trees in the Carolinas, proceeds from no
other cause than the " fire fly." If you think these hasty suggestions will reach and
benefit any who are suffering from this curse, you are welcome to publish them.

Yours, &c., Parker Selbt.

Poplar Grove, near Snow-Hill, Maryland, June 28, 1848.

We are personally acquainted with the author of the above article, and know him to
be a man of much intelhgence, close observation and great experience. He is now in his
74th year, and any thing he would suggest upon such a subject would be practical, and
would i^ossess the merit of having been tried. The foregoing may be relied on in good
faith, and we trust it may " reach and benefit" those who are suffering from the effects
of the " fire fly."— £rf. Shield.

THE NEW YORK ANNUAL STATE FAIR,

Under the auspices of the State Agricultural Society, will take place at
Buffalo, on the 5th, 6th and 7th days of September next, and the chances
are that, in the number of people and of things exhibited for premium and
for sale, it will exceed any of its predecessors.

We observe that Mr. Sherwood, who has been President of the society,
and who is, therefore, ex-offi.cio member of the executive committee; and
Mr. Allen, who has been of the executive committee, and, being now the
President of the society, will remain, ex-officio, member of the executive
committee, both advertise large herds and flocks of cattle and sheep for sale
at the Fair. Their position and judgment offer assurance of "good things."

124 CHESHIRE CHEESE.

We are not aware of the difference, but observe that Mr. Allen advertises
*^ about SO thorough-bred short horns," ^'■also 80 thorough-bred Durhams
of hke description." True there may be cattle from the County of Durham,
that are not " thorough-bred short horns," but we were not aware that any
such had been imported.

The "improved short horn" we had taken to be the designation for the
highest bred cattle of that race.

The exhibition will doubtless well repay the time required for the trip.
The railroad will, it is presumed, carry to and fro all animals strictly and
properly intended to be exhibited for premium, and all implements carried
there for the same purpose ; but all the friends of the society and the cause
are bound in honor to prevent, as far as they can, all imposition from being
practised in attempts to take advantages of the liberality of the company,
to get things transported under pretence of exhibition for premium, which
are really and truly designed to be exhibited for sale, without any chance
of a prize, or any excellence to entitle them to one. All abuses of that sort
have a tendency to bring about a forfeiture of the privilege, and to make the
innocent suffer for those, if any, who would meanly take advantages.

P. S. It is to be hoped the society has dispensed with oaths to prove the
truth of statements by competitors for crops. Could a more degrading stigma
be cast on any class of people, or be sanctioned by higher authority? and
besides, are not men as apt to make false statements about horses, and cattle,
and sheep, as about crops! One would suppose that in a community of
honorable men, such as any man would feel it safe to live in, the infamy
that would follow a false or even equivocal statement, would be so inevitable
and so everlasting, that as a matter of cold, mean, selfish calculation, to say
nothing of the instinct of honor, no man would run "the hazard of the die."

CHESHIRE CHEESE.

For quantity and quality, Cheshire is said to go ahead of any county in
England, in the production of cheese. The fame of it goes back at least to
the reign of Henry I. in 1100, when the Countess Constance, though the
Avife of the king's cousin, kept a herd of milch cattle, and was celebrated
for her cheese.

In our early numbers, we shall give an essay with all the details of Che-
shire cheese-making, so full and satisfactory, that the Royal Agricultural
Society awarded their prize to the author, Henry White, land-agent and
surveyor. In the mean time, we take from it the following recipe — to cure

THE MAW-SKINS, OR STOMACHS OF SUCKING CALVES, FOR MAKING RENNET.

Procure the skins fresh from the butcher the year previous to their being
wanted ; clean out the chyle matter, and every other apparent impurity ;
the inside is then turned outward on a table, and salted ; the skins are then
laid, one upon another, with a layer of salt between each, in a deep earthen-
ware vessel, similar to a cream-mug; they are then covered over Avith salt,
and have a lid of slate or flag placed on the top. They are taken out as
wanted, about a month previous to being used, and the brine drained from
them. They are then spread on a table, and fine salt is powdered on each
side. In this state, they are rolled with a paste roller, distended with a
splint of wood, and hung up to dry.

Cheese-making is another branch of husbandry which will inevitably
make its way into the fine grazing regions in the mountain portions of IVIary-
land, Virginia, the Caroh'nas, Tennessee, and Kentucky, to be again, in a
measure, superseded by butter, when these mountains shall have been pene-
trated by railroads.

MR. VAIL's improved STOCK. 125

THE WATER OF SPRINGS AND RIVERS.
" All these waters," observes Professor Johnston, " contain a sensible, and
in many of them large proportion of silica, in a state of solution ; all, there-
fore, are capable of more or less fully supplying this food of plants. As a
general rule it may be stated that the value of a water for the purposes of
the irrigator, depend, first, upon the quantity, and, secondly, upon the
qtmlUy of the solid matters it contains. As regards both these properties,
the sewage waters of large towns combine them for the purposes of irriga-
tion in the largest proportion." " The quality of irrigation water," remarks
Mr. J. E. Dennison, when describing the valuable water meadows formed
by the Duke of Portland, at Clipstone, [Jour. R. A. S., vol. i., p. 302,) "is
very important. Soft water is the best, mineral water, and water from peat
mosses and bogs are found to be injurious. After strong rains, the washings /
of streets and sewers of the town of Mansfield, which discharge themselves
into the Mann, give great additional efficacy to the water. It will some-
times deposit a sediment in one watering, of the thickness of a sheet of
paper." "To place the agricultural value of the at present wasted sewer
water in another point of view, I have ascertained," observed Mr. Smith of
Deanston, {Report Town's Comm., Par. paper 1 1, p. 328,) " that the quan-
tity of sewer water due to a town of 50,000 inhabitants, amounts to about
l,i90,0S0,0if) gallons per annum : which quantity will yield an annual ap-
plication of 17,920 gallons to an extent of 66,410 acres. Taking a general
view of the subject, we may assume a clear revenue from the sewer water*
of all towns at £1 from each inhabitant."

IMPROVED STOCK.

We know of no case in which a want of liberality and public spirit is so
glaringly and universally evinced, as in the failure, by the agricultural com-
munity, to give any thing like fair support to those who have incurred great
expenditure both of care and money, in importing and keeping the most im-
proved breeds of domestic animals. This has been, we were going to say,
shamefully exemplified, in what we have witnessed in regard to the im-
proved short horn, as we will take some early opportunity to illustrate and
dwell upon. Were this the result of experience, proving that race to be
devoid of the merits ascribed to them, no one would have a right to com-
plain— but that is not the fact. If it were, how does it happen that they
command the prices they do in England, where their excellence in various
important points has been maintained, as have the high prices they fetch, for
half a century ? Of this, too, we will give some recent proofs.

Of the improved short horns, the largest and best herd probably in this
county, certainly on this side of the mountains, is that of Mr. Vail, near
Troy, N. Y. To the fine animals, descended from, and connected with the
best stock in England, already on his estate, he has lately added the choice
animals which were reserved by Mr. Prentice for his own use, on the occasion
of his large sale near Albany. Thus will Mr. Vail be enabled to answer the
demands of those who desire to go at once to the fountain-head for what is

• Our attention was called last summer to a very remarkable instance of the quantity
of extraneous matter contained in running water. The stream of a mill, which belonged
to the then postmaster of New Market, Virginia, (since dead,) had, in a remarkably short
time, deposited, in passing over the wheel, so much lime or marl, that the wheel was per-
fectly incrusted, and large flakes might be taken oft" which incased the arms of the wheel,
as if it had been <lone with sheet-iron. It was his custom to let off the water from the
pond, occasionally, and to cast out tJie sediment whi«h had been left at the bottom of it,
to fertilize adjacent fields. — Eds. P., L. & A.

l2

126

ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL STATISTICS.

pure. We hope to have an early opportunity of inspecting his herd, that
we may be better enabled to answer the inquiries of the curious, and to fill
the orders of persons wishing to buy. In the mean time we would earnestly
recommend all persons having choice stock, and any thing else that is ex-
cellent of its kind, and that farmers are likely to need, to advertise it on the
cover of the Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil. None other will be adver-
tised, nor would any other justify the expense of advertising in this journal ;
and this not from ixny self-interest, for we have placed ourselves beyond that
suspicion, having surrendered the use of the advertising sheets to the pub-
lishers of this work.

STATISTICS OF ENGLISH LAND, AND ITS PRODUCE.

There must often be occasion for tliose whose agricultural inquiries extend beyond
their own horizon, to be familiar with, or, at least, to have the means at hand to refer to
the facts stated below.

If, in all our states, farmers were as attentive as their representatives are unmindful
of their true and substantial interests, in lieu of the hundreds of tiiousands expended ibr
surveying far distant possessions for military ends, we should have surveys of all the re-
sources that exist in, and that might be developed and applied to the old states.

The necessity for, and natural advantage of obtaining more accurate in-
formation upon the statistics of agriculture, is a rapidly spreading conviction.
In the absence of more coinplete returns, we have collected the following
tables, constructed from recent calculations and inquiries. From these we
find that the number of square miles, acres, parishes, inhabited houses, popu-
lation per square mile, and acres to each person, and the number of persons
to a house, in England and Wales, are as follow : [McCullocV s Brit. Em.,
vol. i. p. 401.)

Square miles, .... . - -

Statute acres, ....••--
Parishes, ....-----
Population, .-..-..-

Population per square mile, ..-•--
Inhabited houses, .....--
Acres to each person, ..-•---
Persons to each house, ......

The extent of land in England and Wales, under the principal descrip-
tion of crops, the average produce per acre, total value, &c,, are calculated
to be as follow : [Ibid., vol. i. p. 549.)

Engl.and.

Wales.

50,367

7,425

32,247,(380

4,752,000

9.942

838

i4,99r.,i;i8

911,003

297,599

122,774

2,755,710

188.229

2,150

5,212

5,441

4,843

Acres iu crop.

Produce per Acre.

Total Produce.

Total Value.

Qrs.

Qrs.

£.

Wheat- . . .

3,800,000

4

15,200,000

32,571,427

Barley . . ,

1,500,000

4i

0,375,000

8,190,420

Oats and rye

2,500,000

5

12,500,000

10,714,288

Beans and peas

500,000

3|

1,875,000

2,410,714

Potatoes, turnips,

and rape

2,000.000

) £7 per )
J acre J

23,100,000

Clover ....

1,300,000

Fallow . . .

1,500,000

Hops ....

50.000

£15 per acre

750,000

Gardens . .

1 50,000

£15

2,250,000

Total . . .

13,300,000

35,950,000

79,092,857

The annual value of the produce of the grazing and wood-lands of Eng-
land and Wales is thus estimated by Mr. McCuUoch : [Ibid., vol. i. p. 550.)

PATRICK W. TOMPKINS. 127

Cattle, 1,200,000, at £12 Os. each, £14,400,000

Calves, 200,000 "30" 600,000

Sheep and lambs,

6,800,000 " 1 10 « 10,200,000

Wool, 300,000 pks. at 12 0 " 4,320,000

Swine, 555.000 at 1 16 « 1,000,000

Horses, 200,000 " 15 0 « 3,000,000

Poultry, eggs, rabits, &c. 1,344,000

Meadow and grass 13,000,000

Dairy produce 12,000,000

Wood 1,750,000

£61,614,000

The produce of pasture and wood-land he estimates at an average of
£S, 12s. per acre.

• • I

THE POOR FARM BOY, HOW HE ROSE.

About forty years ago, somewhere in the woods near the line between
Tennessee and Kentucky, in a log-cabin sixteen feet by eighteen, which,
was already occupied by a brood of ten or twelve children, was born a
youngster, the hero of our sketch. In his infancy he was fed on corn and
hominy, bear meat, and the flesh of such " wild varmints" as were caught
in the woods. At twelve years of age he was put out to work with a neigh-
bor as a farm-boy, and drove oxen, hoed corn, raised tobacco in the summer,
cured it in the winter, till he was seventeen years old, when he took to
making brick, to which he added the profession of a carpenter ; and by
these successive steps in mechanical arts he became able, by his unassisted
skill, to raise a house from the stump, and complete it in all its parts, and to
do it, too, in a manner that none of his competitors could surpass. His
panel doors are to this day the wonder and admiration of the country in
which they continue to swing on hinges. He never saw the inside of a
school-house or church till after he was eighteen years old. By the assist-
ance of an old neighbor, he learned to read and Avrite, when a farm-boy.
Having achieved these valuable acquisitions by the aid of another, all his
other education has been the fruit of his own application and perseverance.
At the age of twenty-two he conceived the idea of fitting himself for the
practice of law. He at first procured an old copy of Blackstone, and hav-
ing, after the close of his daily labors, by nightly studic^s over a pitch-knot
fire in his log-cabin, mastered the contents of that compendium of common,
law, he pursued his researches into other elementary works. And having
thus, by great diligence, acquired the rudiments of his profession, he met
with an old lawyer who had quit the practice, or whose practice had quit
him, with whom he made a bargain for his secretary library, for which he
was to pay $120 in carpenter's work, and the chief part of the job to be
done in payment of these old musty books was dressing and laying down a
floor or floors, three dollars per square often feet. The library paid for, our
hero dropped the adze, plain, and trowel, and we soon after hear of him as
one of the most prominent members of the Mississippi bar, and an able states-
man and orator. "I heard him one day," says one, "make two speeches
in succession, of three hours in length each, to the same audience, and not
a movement testified any weariness on the part of a single auditor, and dur-
ing their delivery the assembly seemed swayed by the orator, as weeds
before the wind."

That poor farming boy is at present at Washington, a member of Congress
from Mississippi, and was a prominent member of the recent whig national
convention at Philadelphia. His name is Patrick W. Tompkins, He is a
self-made man, and his history shows what an humble boy can do when he
determines to try. — Saturday Rambler.

128 ADVANTAGES OF STEAMBOATS.

BUSINESS AND RESOURCES OF SNOW-HILL, AND ITS
VICINITY, IN MARYLAND.

ADVANTAGES OF STEAMBOAT COMMUNICATIONS.

We are glad to see, by the by, in " The County Shield," proper evi-
dences of activity and thrift in that region, such as vessel-building, timber-
getting, the establishment of steamboat and other lines of communication,
with Baltimore, New York, &c.

" It is rumored," says that respectable journal, "that Captain John T.
Turner, the former polite and popular commander of the steamers Osiris and
Cambridge, is preparing a steamboat to run between this place and Baltimore.
His enterprise would be handsomely sustained, and both himself and boat
would be welcomed universally by our citizens. There is no better route
for a steamboat than this, on the Chesapeake Bay, at the present time."

No one who has ever taken passage with Captain Turner, but can testify
to the justice of the compliment paid him, and truly, what a difference it
does make in comfort, to the passenger, (who can't help himself,) between
the gentleman-like urbanity of some captains and hotel-keepers, their stew-
ards and bar-keepers, and the coarse, vulgar, self-sufficient speech and
deportment of some others, puffed up with the pride of a little "brief
authority." How easy is it for the reader to instance for himself examples
of the two characters. Of the former and the better, there need be none
more exemplary than Captain T., and others we could name. We should,
indeed, make not more than two or three exceptions on the Chesapeake
Bay.

In respect of steamboats, they would ultimately prosper and do well, on
many routes where they have never been tried, or where they have too soon
given it up as a losing concern, if they could afford to persevere a little longer.
This was the case v/ith the first attempt at West River, now among the most
profitable routes, and it took many an unrequited line by these three fingers
to persuade them back to another trial. It is in the nature of things, that
railroads and steamboats should make business for themselves, bringing a
thousand things out of the ground that would otherwise never be produced,
because they cannot bear long and distant transportation, by slow con-
veyances !

If the legislatures would compel railroads, before thej^ grant them charters,
(and under the penalty of forfeiture for non-compliance,) to stipulate to pro-
vide cars and depots, and all the requisite facilities for transportation of every
species of agricultural and horticultural, and dairy, and poultry-yard produce,
all the lands, for instance, along the Washington, and 7\.nnapolis, and Cum-
berland Railroads, would enjoy the same advantages that those do which are
near the large cities. Thus it is Avith the railroads in the Eastern States,
and thus it is that we see ninety tons of milk and strawberries going pro-
bably one hundred miles on the Erie Railroad, into New York. So too on
the Albany and Boston road; a farmer has no hesitation nor difficulty in
sending a lamb, or a pig, or a dozen eggs, or a pound of butter, for one hun-
dred miles, fresh into the Boston market, and gets his return at one of the
very mimeroi/s depots along the road, he remaining at home the while, im-
proving his estate, which constitutes, in fact, a part of the suburbs of the city.

In this case of the proposed steamboat, for example, from Snow-Hill to
Baltimore, as soon as it should be ascertained that one would be continued
on the line, the travel would begin to turn from its old, into this new and
more convenient channel, and what a change would soon begin, and uUi-
mately be established, in all the courses of rural industry, to accommodate

ADVANTAGES OF STEAMBOATS. 129

themselves to the new facilities which such a quick transportation to large-
markets would afford ? Bulky and perishable vegetables, and delicaJre
fruits, and butter, and lamb, and veal, and a thousand other things not now
cultivated or produced, and which would bring a better return to labor and
capital, would take the place of the two or three old everlasting staples, Avhich
are now grown from the shores of the Chesapeake to the foot of the Rocky
Mountains.

But to insure these new branches of productive industry to take root, and
to realize the fruits of such new facilities, must be the work of some time,
even of a few years. Anew industry cannot spring up, like a mushroom, in
one night; and hence again the necessity and the advantage of a vni&n of
means and capital, and of a public sentiment and course of legislation that
shall encourage, instead of forbidding such associations, to create banks,
and build factories, and railroads, and steamboats. The loss, for example,
that a boat might sustain for a year or two, might be but illy borne by such
a man as Captain Turner, or other one or two individuals, however pmbhc-
spirited, when divided among a company would hardly be felt, until the very
presence of this new facility would gerierate business for itself, and ulti-
inately prove profitable.

Not only the travel which now takes other routes, would gradually turn
itself into this new channel, but from the light warm soil of that region, the
great and growing markets of Baltimore and Philadelphia wovild soon be
supplied with fruits, vegetables, lamb, butter, veal, poultry, eggs, and very
many other things not now produced, because they won't bear transportation
by slow conveyances to distant markets, and thus it is that such regions,
on navigable water, so blessed with genial climates and early vegetation, lose
the advantages God and nature intended they should enjoy, if not improved
with intelligent vigilance.

Could such a boat be kept for a year or two on the line, the good people
of Worcester would soon begin to realise what it is the leading object of this
journal to insist on, as the first great element of agricidtvral and horti-
cultural prosperity, namely, concentration; or what is the same thing,
bringing the consumers, with their machinery, the loom and the anvil, the
lapstone and the hammer, the furnace and the crucible, the mill and the
manufactory, near in point of time, and therefore virtually near in locality
to the plough. The Snow-Hill country ought to drug the markets of Balti-
more and Philadelphia with strawberries, and raspberries, and grapes, and
tomatoes, and potatoes, and peas, and beets, and cucumbers, and eggs, and
chickens, and melons, and all sorts of things, before they could be supplied
from the immediate vicinity of those cities. But, alas, what salvation is
there for people — ah, how lamentable to add, for \.\\e farmers, the yeomanry,
the bone and sineiv, and salt of the land, as they ought to be; who give
up themselves and their precious time to be ridden by demagogues, who
make them stalking-horses to climb on their shoulders into office ? What
but stagnation, if not going astern, for people who come together one-half at
a time, for party purposes? Who do not turn their thoughts upon their
own condition, and study how to improve it ; and who rarely read for amuse-
ment or knowledge, any thing but (he party paper of their own state? Has
any farmer of Worcester county, for instance, ever inquired of his represen-
tative in Congress, of whatever side, (for while Ave really happen not to
know which it is, ten to one that he '■'■ belongs''^ exclusively to one side;) has
he ever asked him, for example, if he can tell how much, what proportion
of the taxes indirectly levied on the people, (and for which he probably
votes,) is appropriated for the support of the military institutions of this
much-boasted model Republic ? What would his representative say, if told

Vol. I.— 17

130 PRIZE ESSAYS.

that the proportion, even in time of peace, has been, for many years, 80 per
cent, of the whole expenses of government ? Has the farmer of Worcester,
or any other county in Maryland, inquired of his representative whether he
has ever reflected on this question : How much of the food, consumed bv
the laborers employed in fabricating the forty millions we import from Eng-
land, is the produce now, not of American, but oi foreign ploughs? The
produce of countries where, labor being unprotected, the people are as poor
as we shall become, if we leave our trade with foreign countries to " regulate
itself," while they regulate all against us, and every thing for themselves ! !
Has he ever asked his representative how much of the produce consumed
by these foreign operatives, who make manufactures for our market, is pro-
duced by the labor of thousands of white women, serfs of Russia, Avho
labor in the fields without shoe or stocking, glove or bonnet ? Food that
would be the growth of our own country, consumed by labor in our own
country, were such goods manufactured in our own country, for which
nature has provided every facility. Such inquiries would soon lead him to
see how much more important than any possible crumb of pubhc patronage,
which he, or his, may happen to pick up around the tables of men in power,
would be the establishment of a policy that should place, as we have
arranged them, the loom and the anvil, in juxta-position with the plough.

Until the farmer and the planter make all these inquiries for themselves,
let them not complain of hard times, or even make pretensions to self-respect
and knowledge of their own rights. If our language is plain, we believe it
to be true, as we know it to be sincere ; and perhaps we ought not to con-
clude without adding, that it is equally applicable to other parts of our own na-
tive and beloved state, as well as to other states. What say you, Reader ?
for you must be the judge.

4 » » » »

PRIZE ESSAYS.
The Royal Agricultural Society of England consists of seven thousand
members. At its late meeting, the following schedule of the subjects, and
respective amount of the prizes, was unanimously agreed to.

The reader will readily see what a degree of research such essays require,
and how much valuable information they are calculated to bring forth.

^'^ Farming in Lancashire,''^ for example, means a complete survey and
report of the staples and course of husbandry, its domestic animals, imple-
ments, buildings, wages for labor, average products, &c., for that county,
and so of others ; making known all excellencies worthy of imitation, and
as frankly exposing all defects. How many of our institutes might follow
suit in measures like these, which go to develop mind and augment infor-
mation, instead of increasing fat, or paying for the application of a few
loads more of manure.

Farming of Lancashire, -------- £50

Farming of Sussex, 50

Farming of South Wales, ...---. 50

Laborers' Cottages, (Essay and Model,) . - ... 50
Laborers' Cottages, (second best Essay,) . - - . 20

Breeding and Management of Pigs, . . - . - 20

f Increasing the supply of Meat ..---. 50

Management of 13arley, -..-.-.-16
Agricultural Buildings, ....... 50

Breeds of Sheep for different localities, . - ... 20
Top-dressing soil with Marl, Clay, &c., .... 15

£390
The Council also agreed to offer £50 for the best Essay on the Destruction of the
Wire-worm, to be sent in to the Secretary on or before the 1st of March, 1850.

HORSEMANSHIP IN CHILI. 131

Now all these essays, for some of which, as will be seen, as much as
$250 are to be paid, we shall receive within two or three weeks after they
are published. But say some, they are English ; they don't suit us. Well,
Avould it not be strange if nothing worthy of notice could be found in essays
that describe the farm management of the most highly cultivated and pro-
ductive parts of the civilized world, except — the acre of land mentioned
lately by the correspondent of the National Intelligencer, which yielded
eight hundred bushels of potatoes, and the Lord knows how many turnips
and cabbages! But they grew under "the auspices" of the American
Institute, Is it likely that there is nothing to be learned from an essay for
which $100 is to be given, on Breeds of Sheep for different localities ?

TO DESTROY THE WIRE-WORM.
S. Davidson, of Greece, Monroe county, N. Y., states, in the Genesee
Farmer, that he successfully destroys the wire-worm, and other insects, by
covering the ground two or three inches with straw, where it remains two
or three weeks to settle. During this time the worms work on the surface,
under the straw. On a dry day the straw is burned, destroying worms and
eggs. This remedy was applied to a part of a field, " full of wire-worms."
Where the fire went, there has been no appearance of wire-worms ; on the
rest of the field they continued abundant.

HORSEMANSHIP IN CHILI.

The Guachos are well known to be perfect riders. The idea of being
thrown, let the horse do what it likes, never enters their head. Their cri-
terion of a good rider is a man who can manage an untamed colt, or who, if
his horse falls, alights on his own feet, or can perform other such exploits.
I have heard of a man betting that he would throw his horse down twenty
limes, and that nineteen times he would not fall himself. I recollect seeing
a Guacho riding a very stubborn horse, which three times successively
reared so high as to fall backwards with great violence. The man judged
with uncommon coolness the proper moment for slipping off^ — not an instant
before or after the right time ; and as soon as the horse got up, the man
jumped on his back, and at last they started at a gallop. The Guacho never
appears to exert any muscular force. I was one day watching a good rider,
as we were galloping along at a rapid pace, and thought to myself, " surely.
If the horse start, you appear so careless on your seat, you must fall." At
this moment, a male ostrich sprang from its nest, beneath the horse's nose;
the young colt bounded on one side like a stag, but as for the man, all thait
could be said was, that he started and took fright with his horse. In Chili
and Peru, more pains are taken with the mouth of the horse than in La Plata,
and this is evidently a consequence of the more intricate nature of the coun-
try. In Chili, a horse is not considered perfectly broken, till he can be brought
up standing, in the midst of his full speed, on any particular spot, for instance,
on a cloak thrown on the ground ; or, again, he will charge a wall, and,
rearing, scrape the surface with his hoofs. I have seen an arjimal bounding
with spirit, yet merely reined by a forefinger and thumb, taken at full gallop
across a court-yard, and then made to wheel round the post of a veranda
with great speed, but at so equal a distance that the rider, Avith outstretched
arm, all the while kept one finger rubbing the post. Then making a demi-
volte in the air, Avith the other arm outstretched in a like manner, he wheeled
round with astonishing force in an opposite direction. — Darwin's Researches^

132 STRUCTURE OF ICE-HOUSES.

STRUCTURE OF ICE-HOUSES ON LOW GROUNDS.

With much regret we learn the ice in the different ice-houses in town is nearly gone.
In several it has all melted. We have heard it suggested, that a number of our citizens
think of sending for a vessel load to Boston, or some one of the northern cities. We
hope it may be done — for it is quite indispensable in the fall sickness. — County Shield,
Snow-Hill.

We would recommend, not only our friends of Snow-Hill, but all those
residing on the flats of tide-water, and the river bottoms of the west and
south-west, to try the Chinese method of keeping ice, for it is not only
founded upon sound philosophical principles, but it is less costly than any
other.

ICE-HOUSES IN CHINA.

A short time before I left England, you published in the Gm'dener^s
Chronicle, a number of letters and plans for the construction of ice-houses,
but, as far as I can remember, nothing at all resembling the Chinese one,
which I shall now describe to you. On the left bank of the Ningpo river,
proceeding upwards from the town and forts of Chinghai, and in various
other parts in the north of China, I have met with these ice-houses. When
I inspected them for the first time last winter, (1843,) their construction and
situation differed so much fi'om what I had been accustomed to consider the
essentials of an ice-house at home, that I had great doubts of their efficiency ;
but at the present time, which is the end of August, 1844, many of these
houses are yet full of ice, and seem to answer the end most admirably. You
are probably aware, that the town of Ningpo is built in the midst of a level
plain from twenty to thirty miles across. These ice-houses stand on the
river sides, in the centre of this plain, completely exposed to the sun — a
sun, too, very difl^erent in its efl"ects from what we experience in England —
clear, fierce, and burning — which would try the efficiency of our best
English ice-houses, as well as it does the constitution of an Englishman in
China.

The bottom of the ice-house is nearly on a level with the surrounding
fields, and is generally about twenty yards long by fourteen broad. The
walls, which are built of mud and stone, are very thick, twelve feet in
height, and are, in fact, a kind of embankment rather than walls, having a
door through them on one side, and a kind of sloping terrace on the other,
by which the ice can be thrown into the house. On the top of the walls
or embankment, a tall span roof is raised, constructed with bamboos thickly
thatched with straw, giving the whole an appearance exactly resembling an
English haystack. And this is the simple structure which keeps ice so
well during the summer months, under the burning sun of China ! The
Chinaman, with his characteristic ingenuity, manages also to fill his ice-
house in a most simple way, and at a very trifling expense. Around the
house he has a small, flat, level field, which he takes care to overflow in
winter before the cold Aveather comes. It then freezes and furnishes the
necessary supply at the door. Again, in spring these same fields are
ploughed up, and planted with rice ; and any water which comes from the
bottom of the ice-houses, is conveyed into them by a drain constructed for
the purpose. Of course, here, as elsewhere, the ice is carefully covered
up with a thick coating of straw when the house is filled. Thus, the
Chinaman with little expense in building his ice-house, and an economical
mode of filling it, manages to secure an abundant supply for preserving his
fish during the hot summer months. This, I believe,, is the only, or at least
the principal purpose to which it is applied in this country, and never for
cooling wine, water, or making ices, as we do in Europe.

PATENT CENTRE-DRAUGHT PLOUGH.

133

THE GREAT IMPROVEMENT IN THE GREAT IMPLE-
MENT OF AGRICULTURE.

It is considered due to agricultural history, to preserve, in favor of a
great invention, the following testimony from one among the most intelli-
gent, judicious, and estimable cultivators of the soil, with whom we have
had the happiness to become acquainted.

In any country, governed as all countries shou]d be, in the nearest possi-
ble conformity to the pubhc interest, Mr. Prouty, for this invention, would
be placed by the public authority, and by the public esteem, far above any
inventor of the instruments of human destruction, as they are placed, among
barbarians, in advance of all others. But, alas ! they are not savages
only who give precedence to the art and the practice of shedding human
blood.

The Prouty & Mears Patent Centre-draught Plough.

Lexington, Mass., February 25, 1846.
To Mr. James Peddeii,

Dear Sir: — You ask my opinion of the " Cejtthe-dhaught Plough." I give it freely
and in a few words. If my opinion of its merits will, in any measure, induce my bro-
ther farmers to adopt this, in preference to any other plough now in use, I shall feel that
I have rendered an important service to tlie public, and, at the same time, contributed
my share toward the discharge of the debt of gratitude due to the inventor of this inva-
luable inijirovement, in an implement of so great importance to agriculture.

I have, for twenty-five years past, personally superintended my own estate, part of
•which I have annually had under tlie plough. I have tried English, Scotch, and every
variety of American ploughs, and presume I shall be excused for saying, that I consider
myself a competent judge of their relative value in the hands of farmers. The applica-
tion of the " Centre-draught"' principle to the plough, by Messrs. Prouty & Mears, is, un-
questionably, the greatest improvement that has been made in the implement since its
first invention. The remedy for the long existing evil of having the whole resistance on
one side of the line of draught, and the necessity of placing the centre of resistance
exactly on the line of draught, first suggested itself to the philosophical mind of David
Prodtt.

Mr. Prouty was a practical farmer. He saw the objections to the old-fashioned plough
— his ingenious mind set about devising means, whereby the power of draught might be
greatly lessened ; the liability to wear, in certain parts more than others, obviated ; the
labor of managing greatly diminished, and, at the same time, doing the work infinitely
better ; and well has he done it. And when this improvement shall be generally adopted
by farmers, and its merits justly appreciated, Mr. Prouty will be ranked among the
greatest benefactors of his age. And although some of his contemporaries may injure
him by unjustly interfering with his rights, and appropriating to themselves some of the
fruits of his ingenuity — they can never rob him of his well-earned fame — posterity will
do justice to his memory. And the approbation and magnificent testimonial of one of
the most powerful and enlightened monarchsof Europe, is but a foretaste of what he may
expect from his own countrymen, when the merits of his invention shall be rightly ap-
preciated.

I am aware that my strong convictions of the vast utility to farmers of this improve-

M

134 ANNUAL SALE OF IMPROVED STOCK.

merit in the plough, may lead me — in the minds of some — to speak in extravagant terms
of the merits of the inventor. But you liave known Mr. Prouty ; you have been familiar
with the operations, and can fidly appreciate the benefits of his invention ; and by you, I
presiune, I shall not be charged with bestowing vinnierited praise, in saying, that if the
farmers of his own state should appropriate to that object, but a single tithe of what this
improvement in the plough has saved them, in the cultivation and better condition of
their farms, it would raise a monument to his memory, which woidd not be transcended
in beauty, in grandeur and durability, by any that have been erected to the memory of
the greatest benefactors of mankind.

With great respect,

I am, my dear sir.

Very truly ai.d sincerely yours,

E. PmNMiT.

CLAYTON B. REYBOLD'S ANNUAL SALE OF LONG-
WOOLED NEW OXFORDSHIRE BUCKS,

Is advertised to take place near Delaware City, in the State of Delaware,
on Wednesday, the 2d of August. There will be offered about tAventy-five
bucks, which he believes to be superior in all points to those disposed of at
his former sale. The sire of the bucks to be sold, " took the first prize for
the best long-wooled sheep, at the Saratoga meeting, in the fall of 1847,"
and weighed alive, 15th of May, 1848, three hundred and sixty-one pounds.

Mr. Reybold will be pleased to see any gentleman who will favor him
with his company, on the day above mentioned, at his residence, Marsh
Mount, near Delaware City.

We shall endeavor to be there " or thereabouts," in person or by proxy —
the former would be far the more agreeable of the two. If landed men al-
ways draw their purse-strings close on these occasions, how can they expect
a supply to be kept up, of the best blood, to ensure general improvement?
Rely on it, gentlemen, it is true economy to "shell out," on such occasions.
With one male, you readily and quickly improve your whole flock or
herd. Colonel Lloyd, as we remember, warmly contended, before he saw
the real improved short horn, exhibited Avith the last finish that had been
given to them in England, that we had some as good cattle as Avere to be
found in the world; but when he saw Champion and Shepherdess and
White Rose, he did not hesitate to lay down $1500 for the three ; and as
soon after as there was time for Champion's blood to tell upon his numerous
herds, (for he owned fourteen farms,) he said he considered himself well
paid for his outlay, in one crop on his old stock ; which he had thought was
already first-rate. It is an obligation of duty and honor, as well as of in-
^ terest, to encourage the importation of the best to be had.

ANNUAL SALES OF IMPROVED STOCK PROPOSED.

Would it not be Avell, if Mr. Vail, for instance, and other breeders of
improved stock, would follow the example set by Mr. Reybold, to hold
public sales, every year, on a given day, where the flocks and herds, like
theirs, are sufficiently large and of sufficient purity and excellence to justify it.

How would it do to have at Saratoga, every year, say on the 10th of
August, a sale of improved sheep and cattle ? There would be few sold,
perhaps, at first, but it might soon grow into an affair of great consequence
and convenience to the public.

COFFEE.

135

COFFEE.

Nowhere does woman appear to greater
advantage than in dispensing tlie hospitali-
ties of her own house, and we confess our-
selves to be so old-fashioned, so far behind
the times, as to admire her more in the se-
clusion of that domestic circle, which owes
its chief charm and refinement to her, than
in the rostrum of a lecture room, or in the
prominent position of an officer of a " Tee-
total." Let our daughters cultivate the
literature of domestic economy, and the
elegancies of private life, leaving Utopian
schemes to those who court the glare and
the gaze of the world. As a specimen of
what we mean by the Literature of Domes-
tic Economy, we give here all that is known
about Coffee, and we are sure that our fair
readers will not dispense its nectar less
gracefully for being learned in the history of
this delightful beverage.

Coffee is named after CafTa, in Africa,
where it grows abundantly. This berry,
which affords such a wholesome and agree-
able beverage, is said to have been drunk
from time immemorial in Ethiopia, but for
this we have no satisfactory authority ; and
as the use of most plants lias been accident-
ally discovered, it is probable that the pro-
perties of coffee might have been first found
out in the manner related by Chambers,
who says that a goatherd observed that his
cattle, after browsing on this tree, would
wake and caper all night ; and the prior of
a certain monastery being informed of it,
first made use of the berry to prevent the
monks from sleeping at matins.

About the fifteenth century, the use of
coffee appears to have been introduced from
Persia by Gemaleddin, mufti of Aden, a
city near the mouth of the Red Sea. He,
finding it dissipate the fumes which oppress
the head, give cheerfulness, and prevent
sleep, without injury, recommended it to his
der vises, with whom he used to spend the
night in prayer. It was soon after this drunk
at Aden by all studious persons, and those
who travelled by night. It was progres-
sively used at Mecca, Medina, &c., and Grand
Cairo : hence it continued its progress to Da-
mascus and Aleppo. From the two latter
places, it was introduced into Constantinople
by persons of the name of Shems and He-
kin, in the year 1554, each of whom opened
a public coffee-house in that city. These
coflee-houses becoming a rendezvous for
newsmongers, who made too free with state
affairs, were suppressed by Caproli, the
grand vizier.

Rauwolfus, who was in the Levant in
1573, was the first European author who
made any mention of coffee ; but the first
who has particularly described it is Prosper
Alpinus, in his Medicina ^gyptiorum, 1591,
and in his History of Egyptian Plants, pub-
lished at Venice in 1592.

The Venetians seem to be the next who
used coffee. Pietro della Valle, a Venetian,
writes from Constantinople in 1615, inform-
ing his friend, that upon his return he should
bring him some coffee, which he believed
was a thing unknown in his country. This
beverage was noticed by two English tra-
vellers at the beginning of the 17th century,
Biddulph about 1G03, and William Finch in
1607. The former says, " the Turks have
for their most common drink, Coff'a, which
is a black kind of drink, made of a kind of
pulse like peas, called Coava.'' The latter
observes, " that the people in the island of
Socotora have, for their best entertainment,
a China dish Coho, a black bitterish drink,
made of a berry like a bayberry, brought
from Mecca, supped off hot."

Lord Chancellor Bacon mentions it in
1024 : he says, " the Turks have a drink
they call coffee, made with boiling water
from a berry reduced into powder, which
makes the water black as soot, and is of a
pungent and aromatic smell, and is drunk
warm."

M. La Roque, who published his journey
into Arabia Felix in 1715, contends that his
father having been with M. de la Haye, the
French ambassador at Constantinople, did,
when he returned to Marseilles, in 1644,
drink coffee every day ; but the same author
acknowledges that it was M. Thevenot who
taught the French to drink coffee, on his re-
turn from the East, in 1057. It was made
fashionable- and more known in Paris, in
1669, by Soliman Aga, ambassador from
Sultan Mahomet the Fourth, who gave coflee
at all his parties with great magnificence ;
and it could not fail to be prortounced an
agreeable beverage by the Parisian ladies,
after they had received it from his slaves on
bended knee. If it were a inatter of policy
with the Turks to get coffee introduced into
France, the ambassador's splendid porcelain,
equipage, and gold-fringed napkins, were the
best recommendation that could have been
given to a people who are so naturally fond
of show.

Two years af>er, it was sold in public at
the Foire St. Germain, by Pascal, an Arme-
nian, who afterwards set up a coffee-hous

136

COFFEE.

on the Quai de TEcolo ; but, not being en-
couraged in Paris, he left that city, and came
to London. However, soon after this, some
spacious rooms were opened in Paris for the
sale of coffee, and they soon increased to
upwards of three hundred.

It is said to have been first brought to
England by Mr. Nathaniel Conopius, a Cre-
tan, who made it his common beverage, at
Baliol College, at Oxford, in the year 1641 ;
but it must evidently have been a few years
prior to this date, as Evelyn says, in his
Diary, 1637, "There came in my tyme to the
Coll : one Nathaniel Conopios out of Greece,
from Cyrill the Patriarch of Constantinople,
who, returning many years after, was made
(as I understand) Bishop of Smyrna : he was
the first I ever saw drink coffee, w""" custom
came not into England till 30 years after."

The first coffee-house in England was kept
by one Jacob, a Jew, at the sign of the An-
gel, in Oxford, in 1650. Coffee was first
publicly known in London in 1652, when
Mr. Daniel Edwards, a Turkey merchant,
brouglrt home with him a Ragusan Greek
servant, whose name was Pasqua Rossee,
who understood the roasting and making of
coffee, and kept a house for that purpose, in
George Yard, Lombard street, or rather, ac-
cording to Mr. Houghton, in a shed in the
Churchyard of St. Michael's, Cornhill. This
seemed to give alarm to the ale-sellers, who,
taking advantage of Rossee's not being free
of the city, petitioned the Lord Mayor
against him ; but Mr. Edwards having mar-
ried a daughter of Alderman Hodges, the
alderman joined Bowman, his coachman,
who was a freeman, as a partner with Pas-
qua Rossee. The Greek was afterwards
obliged to leave the country for some misde-
meanor; and Bowman, by his business, and
the aid of a subscription of one thousand
sixpences, was enabled to convert his shed
into a coffee-house. The famous Dr. Harvey
used it frequently. Mr. Ray affirms, that in
1688, London might rival Grand Cairo in
the number of its coffee-houses, so rapidly
had it come into use ; and it is thought that
they were augmented and established more
firmly by the ill-judged proclamation of
Charles the Second, in 1675, to shut up
coffee-houses as seminaries of sedition : this
act was suspended in a few days.

The first mention of coffee in our statute
books is in 1660, (12 Char. H., cap. 24,) by
which a duty of fourpence was laid upon
every gallon of coffee bought or sold.
Ka^mpfer says, " that Mocha is the peculiar
region of coffee :" — " Kahwah ; qua; nullibi
terrarum quam circa Mocham Arabise felicis
colitur." (^Jlman. Exot. p. 123.)

Bruce, however, would trace it to Caffa,
«» the south province of Narea, whence it is

first said to have come." (^Travek, S^c, vol. ii.
p. 411.)

The Arabs seem to have been very jealous
of letting this tree be known ; and in order
to confine the commodity to themselves, they
destroyed the vegetable quality of the seeds ;
but Nicholas Witsen, burgomaster of Am-
sterdam, and governor of the East Lidia
Company, desired Van Hoorn, governor of
Batavia, to procure from Mocha, in Arabia
Felix, some berries of the coffee-tree, which
were obtained and sown at Batavia ; and
about the year 1690, several plants having
been raised from seeds. Van Hoorn sent one
over to Governor Witsen, who presented it
to the garden at Amsterdam. It there bore
fruit, which in a short time produced many
young plants : from these the East Indies
and most of the gardens in Europe have
been furnished. In 1696, it was cultivated
at Fulham, by Bishop Compton ; and in
1714, the magistrates of Amsterdam pre-
sented Louis the Fourteenth with a coffee-
tree, which was sent to the royal garden at
Marli. In 1718, the Dutch colony, at Suri-
nam, began first to plant coffee ; and in
1722, M. de la Motte Aigron, governor of
Cayenne, contrived by an artifice to bring
away a plant from Surinam, which, by the
year 1725, had produced many thousands.
The French authors affirm that it was
planted in the Isle of Bourbon, in the year
1718, having been obtained from Mocha.
This seems doubtful ; but it is ascertained
that M. Declieux carried the first coffee-
plant to Martinico in 1720.

This passage was long and dreary, and
fresh water being scarce in the vessel, made
it necessary to limit every one to a small
portion daily, to make it last out the voyage,
when this gentleman deprived himself of a
great part of his allowance in order to keep
these valuable trees alive. M. Fusee Aublet
states that one tree only survived in the Isle
of Bourbon, which bore fruit in 1720. From
Martinico it spread to the neighbouring
islands. Sir Nicholas Laws first introduced
it into Jamaica, in the year 1728, and planted
it at Townell Estate, now called Temple
Hall, in Lignanea : the first berries produced
from this tree sold at a bit each, which is
equal to 6d. In the year 1752, the export
of coflee from Jamaica was rated at 60,000
lbs. ; and it has continued regularly to in-
crease since that time, except when addi-
tional duties liave been laid on, which have
as regularly lessened the exports and the
revenue also ; an important proof, among
others, how frequently heavy taxation de-
feats its own purpose. In 1791, there were
607 cofiee plantations in Jamaica, employ-
ing 21,000 negroes. In 1808, the exports
from Jamaica were 29,528,273 lbs.; the

COFFEE.

137

next year they were lessened about four mil-
lions of pounds; in 1812, the export was
18,481,986 lbs. The Abbe Raynal says, that
12,550,000 pounds of cotfee are annually ex-
ported from Arabia Felix.

Almost every species of the vegetable
creation has an apparent enemy peculiar to
itself in the animal tribe, but which is un-
doubtedly intended for some wise purpose,
although often beyond our investigation. The
finest coflee-tree in our colonies, and some-
times a whole plantation, is seen to perish in
a short time. This is often occasioned by an
insect called the cotiee fly ; this fly is very
long, and has attached to its head two saws,
with which it sometimes cuts these trees to
the very heart. The white vine-frettersalso
attack the coflee-tree, to prevent which, pine-
apples are planted between the trees, be-
cause these insects, preferring the juice of
this fruit, eat of it, which causes their
death.

Every gentleman who has stoves should
raise this tree for the beauty of its appear-
ance. It is an evergreen, whose leaves con-
tinue three years ; and being of a fine dark
green, make a beautiful contrast with the
clusters of pure white blossoms, which per-
fume the air with an odour like jasmine.
Nothing can be conceived more delightful
and grateful than the appearance and per-
fume of a field of coffee-trees when in full
bloom; it resembles a shower of snow,
which nearly obscures the dark green
branches. The tree, like the walnut, pro-
duces smaller fruit, and better flavored, as
it becomes older.

Sonnini, in his Travels in Egypt, says, " If
you wish to be svipplied with excellent cof-
fee, you must go to Kous, Kenne, orBonoub;
for when one had arrived at Caim, or had
crossed the Nile, it was no longer pure.
Merchants were waiting there to mix it with
the common coffee of America. At Alex-
andria it underwent a second mixture by the
factors who forwarded it to Marseilles, where
they did not fail again to adulterate it; so
that the pretended Mocha coffee which is
used in France, is often the growth of the
American colonies, with about one-third, and
seldom with half of the genuine cotfee of
Yemen. When I was at Kous, the unadul-
terated coflee of the first quality sold for
about tenpence halfpenny the pound. If to
prime cost is added the expense of convey-
ing it to Cairo, the duties which are paid
there, the charges for loading and unloading,
those for transporting it to Alexandria, freight
to Marseilles, the exorbitant and arbitrary
duties with which that commodity is there
loaded, and if to these are added commission
and the expense of grinding, &c., how is it
possible to believe that they should have

Vol. L— 18

real Mocha coffee at Paris, at the rate of five
shillings perpoundl

The Turkey coffee is a small berry, and
is more esteemed for its flavor than that
which grows in the West Indies. We con-
clude that one great cause of the American
coffee being inferior in point of flavor, is
owing to the practice, in that part of the
world, of gathering the berries before they
are quite ripe, whereas the Arabians shake
their trees, .and by this means obtain the
berries in full perfection. Mr. Lunan ob-
serves, that the West Indian berries being
considerably larger than those of the Turkey
coffee, require much longer keeping; but
Mr. Miller, the celebrated gardener, is of
opinion, that coflee does not require long
keeping, and that it loses a part of its flavor.
He states that two gentlemen, who resided
some years in Arabia, assured him that the
berries, when first ripe, were very superior
to those which had been kept. He also
states, that from plants brought from the
West Indies, and raised in English hot-
houses, coffee berries have been produced,
which, at a proper age, were found to sur-
pass the very best Mocha that could be pro-
duced in Great Britain. Jamaica coflee is
often sold as Turkey coffee in London, and
there have been many samples sent from
Jamaica, that have proved quite equal to any
Arabian berries. As coffee readily imbibes
the smell or flavor of any article it comes
in contact with, it is often injured in the voy-
age home, by being stowed near sugar, rum,
pimento, &c. &c.; and the flavor which it
thus contracts cannot be separated again,
even by roasting.

The most eminent physicians of every
country have recommended the use of coffee
for various comjilaints. It greatly relieves
the headache, and is recommended to those
of constitutionally weak stomachs, as it ac-
celerates the process of digestion, removes
languor and listlessness, and affords a pleas-
ing sensation. Coflee is often found useful
in quieting the tickling vexatious cough. Sir
John Floyer, who had been afflicted with the
asthma for sixty years, was relieved by strong
coffee. The great use of coffee in France is
supposed to have abated the prevalency of
the gravel, for where coffee is used as a con-
stant beverage, the gravel and the gout are
scarcely known. Voltaire lived almost
wholly on coffee, and said nothing exhila-
rated his spirits so much as the smell of it ;
for \^•hich reason he had what he was about
to use in the day roasted in his chamber
every morning, when he lived at Ferney.

A friend writes me from Constantinople,
that many of the Turks will subsist almost
entirely on coffee, except during the rigid fast
of the Ramadan, or Turkish Lent, which

138

COFFEE.

lasts forty days; during which time they
neither eat, drink, nor smoke, while the sun
is over the horizon ; and the use of coffee is
then so strictly forbidden, that those who
have even tlie smell of coffee on them, are
deemed to have violated the injunctions of
their prophet: yet it is estimated that as
much money is spent in coffee at Constanti-
nople as in wine at Paris. Among the legal
causes of divorce with the Turks, the refusal
to supply a wife with coffee is one. Not-
withstanding the immense consumption of
coffee in the Turkish capital, they have but
one building where it is allowed to be roasted ;
a great number of persons are employed in
pounding it in mortars; this is performed as
soon as the coffee is taken from the oven,
which causes the surrounding neighbourhood
to smell strongly of this aromatic drug.

Among the various qualities of coffee, that
of its being an antidote to the abuse of opium
must make it an invaluable article with the
Turks, who drink it without either sugar or
milk. The Persians, who sip their coffee
extremely hot, take it also without either of
these additions; but they have an accompa-
niment that would not be quite so agreeable
to our fair countrywomen. The Persians
liave a saying, that " cotii?e without tobacco
is like meat without salt." How greatly
must the habits of the Mohammedans have
been changed by the introduction of these
two vegetable luxuries, which now contri-
bute to solace even die poorest inhabitants
of Turkey and Persia, as much as the Chi-
nese leaf does the English.

An interesting analysis of coffee was made
by M. Cadet, apothecary in ordinary to the
household of Napoleon, when empeior;
from which it appears, that the berries con-
tain mucilage in abundance, much gallic
acid, a resin, a concrete essential oil, some
albumen, and a volatile aromatic principle,
with a portion of lime, potash, charcoal,
iron, &c. Roasting developes the soluble
principles. JMocha coffee is, of all kinds, the
most aromatic and resinous. M. Cadet ad-
vises that coffee be neither roasted nor in-
fused till the day it be drunk, and that the
roasting be moderate.

M. Bigio, of Venice, has succeeded in ex-
tracting from coflee a green gum lac, said to
be useful antl beautiful in painting.

Dr. Moseley, in his learned and ingenious
treatise, states, that "the chemical analysis
of colTee evinces that it possesses a great
portion of mildly bitter, and lightly astrin-
gent gumnious and resinous extract, a con-
siderable quantity of oil, a fixed salt, and a
volatile salt. These are its medicinal consti-
tuent princijiles. The intention of torrcfac-
tion is not only toinake it deliver those prin-
ciples, and make them soluble in water, but

to give it a property it does not possess in the
natural state of the berry. By the action of
fire, its leguminous taste and the aqueous part
of its mucilage are destroyed ; its saline pro-
perties are created and disengaged, and its
oil is rendered empyreumatical. From
thence arise the pungent smell and exhila-
rating flavor not found in its natural state.

" The roasting of the berry to a proper de-
gree requires great nicety. If it be under-
done, its virtues will not be imparted, and
in use it will load and oppress the stomach ;
if it be overdone, it will yield a flat, burnt,
and bitter taste ; its virtues will be destroyed,
and in use it will heat the body, and act as
an astringent. The closer it is confined at
the time of the roasting, and till used, th«
better will its volatile pungency, flavor, and
virtues be preserved.

" The influence which coffee, judiciously
prepared, imparts to the stomach, from its
invigorating qualities, is strongly exemplified
by the immediate eflect produced on taking
it when the stomach is overloaded with food,
or nauseated with surfeit, or debilitated by
intemperance, or languid from inanition. In
vertigo, lethargy, catarrh, and all disorders
of the head, from obstructions in the capil-
laries, long experience has proved it to be a
powerful medicine; and in certain cases of
apoplexy, it has been found serviceable even
when given in clysters, where it has not
been convenient to convey its effects to the
stomach. Mons. Malebranche restored a
person from apoplexy by repeated clysters
of coflee.

" Du Four relates an extraordinary in-
stance of the eflect of coffee in the gout ; lie
says, Mons. Deverau was attacked with the
gout at twenty-five years of age, and had it
severely until he was upwards of fii'ty, with
chalk stones in the joints of his hands and
feet; he was recommended the use of cof-
fee, which he adopted, and had no return
of the gout.

" A small cup or two of coffee, imme-
diately after dinner, promotes digestion.
With a draught of water previously drunk,
according to the eastern custom, coflee is
serviceable to those who are of a costive
habit."

The generality of English families make
their coflee too weak, and use too much su-
gar, which often causes it to turn acid on the
stomach. Almost every housekeeper has a
peculiar method of making coffee ; but it
never can be excellent, unless it be made
strong of the berry, any more than our Eng-
lish wines can be good, so long as we con-
tinue to form the principal of them on sugar
and water. When coflee is used as a break-
fast beverage, we would strongly recom-
mend it to be served in the manner of the

WINDOW GARDENING.

139

French Cafe au Lait — with a small pot of
very strong coffee, they send a large jug of
boiling milk, and it is generally used from
about one-fourth of coffee to three-fourths of
milk ; thus you get nourishment from the
milk and sugar, and more refreshment from
a small quantity of strong coffee than a
larger portion of weak.

After dinner, we would recommend it
strong and hot, but without sugar or cream.

Count Rumford says, " Coffee may be too
bitter ; but it is impossible that it should
ever be too fragrant." The very smell of it
is reviving, and has often been found to be
useful to sick persons, and to those who are
afflicted with the headache. In short, every
thing proves that the volatile, aromatic mat-
ter, v/hatever it may be, that gives flavor

to coffee, is what is most valuable in it, and
should be preserved with the greatest care,
and that, in estimating the strength or rich-
ness of that beverage, its fragrance should
be much more attended to than either its
bitterness or its astrmgency. This aromatic
substance, which is supposed to be an oil, is
extremely volatile, and escapes into the air
with great facility, as is observed by its fill-
ing a room with its fragrance, if suffered to
remain uncovered, and at the same time
losing much of its flavor.

We would recommend those who give
coffee to evening parties, to let their attend-
ants hand empty cups, with a cotfee-pot on
the tray, which would insure its being warm
and with flavor.

WINDOW GARDENING.

A GKNTEEL address is said, by Chester-
field, (we believe,) to be the best letter of
introduction; with how much more truth
may it be said, that a fondness for flowers is
among the best evidences of a refined and
gentle nature in those who cultivate it. We
never see the window of a room filled with
fresh green shrubs and blooming flowers,
without being prepossessed in favor of its
occupant.

In sympathy with such of our fair read-
ers as love the smiling beauties of Flora, we
append the following.

That the cultivation of flowers, even in a
window, is indeed an enjoyment to the in-
habitants of cities, is evident by the pleasure
with which we see many of those, who live
by their labors with the needle or the loom,
spending the greater part of their few lei-
sure hours in tending a few geraniums or
other flowering plants arranged on a window
sill ; and there is something affecting in the
sight, when we recollect that many of these
persons probably came originally from the
country, and that these few leaves and flow-
ers are all that remain to remind them of
their native fields. The plants of persons
of this class are, however, generally much
more healthy than those of richer cultivators,
probably because they are more cared for,
and more diligently watched; for no living
objects more amply repay the attention be-
stowed upon them than flowering plants.

All plants grown in pots, and kept in a
room, require more attention than they would
do in any other situation, as they are in a
most unnatural state, and they need the
greatest care that can be bestowed upon them
to counteract the bad effects of their peculiar

position. To understand thoroughly how
disadvantageous that position is to their
growth, we must recollect that plants derive
their nourishment partly through their roots,
and partly through their leaves, by means of
pores so extreinely fine, that they can only
be seen by the aid of a very powerful mi-
croscope. When a plant is kept constantly
in an inhabited room, the pores of the leaves
become choked up with dust, and as the air
of every room inhabited by human beings
must necessarily be very dry, the delicate
points of the roots, which are of a soft,
spongy nature, to enable them to imbibe wa-
ter,*become withered or dried up, and lose
that power of alternate dilation and contrac-
tion, which is absolutely necessary to enable
them first to absorb moisture from the soil,
and afterwards to force it up through the
stem and leaves. In addition to these evils,
which it is extremely difficult to guard
against, may be added another of almost
equal importance, arising from the use of
saucers to the flower-pots. These it is diffi-
cult to dispense with in a living room, as,
without them, there would be danger of in-
juring the carpet and other articles of furni-
ture, every time the plant is watered ; for
water is of scarcely any use, vmless it be
given in sufficient quantity to saturate the
whole mass of earth in the pot, and this
cannot be done without some escaping by
the hole at the bottom. If, however, water
be suffered to stand in the saucer, unless
there be abundance of drainage in the bot-
tom of the pot, the water will sodden the
earth, and if it does, the spongioles of the
roots will inevitably become rotten. Where-
ever, therefore, plants are kept in pots, it

140

WINDOW GARDENING.

should be a paramount object with the cul-
tivator to set them out in the open air as of-
ten as possible, and then, while the pots arc
standing without their saucers, to give them
abundance of water, either syringins;; their
leaves, or washing them thoroughly by hold-
ing a watering-pot, with a fine rose, above
them, and letting the water descend on their
leaves like a shower. In summer, plants
may be watered in this manner twice a day,
and in spring and autumn once a day, with-
out receiving the slightest injury from over-
watering. In winter, however, the case is
different ; and as soon as the air becomes
frosty, the plants should not be exposed to it,
and they should be watered as little as pos-
sible, so as to keep them alive, unless they
should be plants which flower in the winter,
in which case they should be watered daily,
as all plants when in flower require more
water than at any other season. As these
winter-flowering plants nnist, of course, be
jilaced in saucers, for the sake of cleanli-
ness, it will be necessary to take care, when
the plants are watered, that the saucers are
emptied out as soon as the water has run
through into tliem, so that no stagnant water
may be allowed to remain to chill the roots.
Another point which should be attended to,
when plants are kept in living rooms, is to
remove all the dead leaves as soon as they
ajipear, as the decomposition of vegetable
matter is extremely injurious to the health
of human beings. Even the plants them-
selves appear to grow better when all the
decaying vegetable matter they produce is
regularly removed from tliem ; and not only
do they grow more vigorous!}', but the per-
fume and beauty of their flowers is said to
be increased.

In attending to the cultivation of plants
which are to be kept in rooms, it must never
be forgotten that they require air as well as
water to nourish them. It has been long
known that plants will not thrive unless the
air has free access to their leaves ; but it has
only lately been ascertained that the leaves
not only act in elaborating the sap, but that
tiiey also take in nourishment from the at-
mosphere. Air should likewise be permitted
to have access to the roots moderately, so as
not to dry them ; as the roots can derive
nourishment from it, as well as the leaves,
jn-ovided they are kept in a sufficiently
moist state by the earth with which they are
surrounded, to be capable of taking nourish-
jnent from any thing.

The important fact that jdaiits derive a
great portion of their nourishment from the
atmosijheric air, was little known before the
time of Liebig ; and even now, it is so con-
trary to all our ancient prejudices, that even

where it is acknowledged, it is rarely re-
membered when the rules derived from it
are to be acted upon.

Light is as essential as air or water to the
growth of plants ; and as plants in pots
rarely obtain a sufficient quantity when they
are kept in living rooms, their stems are fre-
quently drawn up till they become weak
and slender, and neither their leaves nor
their flowers are so dark as they would be
if the plants were grown in the open air.
When plants are grown in green-houses,
they are generally placed upon a stage
raised on steps one above another, and in
this manner the leaves receive the full ad-
vantage of light, while the sides of the pots
are not dried by exposure to the sun ; but
the reverse of this generally takes place
when plants are kept on a window-sill, as
the leaves of the plants are frequently
shaded by some projecting part of the house
or window ; while the pots are exposed to
the full influence of the sun, and thus the
points of the roots of the plants contained in
them are very apt to become dry and
widiered.

It may possibly be thought by some per-
sons, that it is scarcely necessary to enlarge
on the importance of light, air, and water,
to the health of plants, as every one must
be aware of that fact ; this, however, is far
from being the case. The generality of ama-
teurs who cultivate plants in pots, think that
the principal care requisite for their plants,
is to keep them M-arm ; and if they do not
grow freely, to give them manure ; but no-
thing can be more erroneous than tliismode
of treatment. Too much heat is as injurious
as too much cold; and if plants are brought
suddenly out of a cool green-house into a
very warm room, they will become sickly,
their flower-buds will fall off without ex-
panding, and probably they will lose the
greater part of their leaves.

Over-manuring is still more injurious. The
roots of plants in pots are so cramped by the
confined space in which they are kept, diat
they have seldom strength to digest strong
manure ; and there is no doubt that great
numbers of green-house plants were killed
by over-doses of guano, when it was first
introduced. Giving strong manure to a sick-
ly plant is as injurious as giving strong food
to an invalid; and in both cases, does harm
rather than good. If to over-manuring be
added abundant watering, and want of
drainage, the earth contained in the pot be-
comes what is called sour, and is not only
totally incapable of afibrding nourishment,
but it actually rots the roots of the plants
growing iu it.

INSTINCT AND REASON.

141

INSTINCT AND REASON.

I BELIKVE that I consider with as much
reverence as any one can do, and I hope
that I am duly gratefid for that wondeiful
faculty which it has pleased our infinitely
wise and good Creator to bestow upon his
favorite creature, man, for his guidance — I
mean his inestimable gift to us of reason.
At the same time, I must confess that I am
very far from participating in that pride,
which lias led some philosophers to suppose
that they should infringe ui)on the dignity
of our highly privileged species, by admit-
ting any of the beings which have been
placed below us in the scale of creation to
a share in this endowment. On the con-
trary, my observations of nature have all
tended to lead me to think, and I believe
tliat, in general, those who devote much of
their time and attention to studying the habits
and manners of animals, will be disposed to
the same opinion, that if our race has been
pre-eminently distinguished by receiving the
fidl light of reason, some sparks and glimmer-
ings of the same divine faculty have been
vouchsaled, by the same forming and al-
mighty hand, to our inferior fellow-crea-
tures.

It is no doubt exceedingly difTicult, and
perhaps impossible, to define where instinct
ends and reason begins, in animals. But
that some of them are endowed with a fa-
culty which does not come under the usual
notion of instinct, will, I diink, hardly allow
of a dispute. This, as it strikes me, appears
in the ditferent degrees of intelligence which
we are accustomed to recognise as elevating
one species of animal above another — as the
half-reasoning elephant, for instance, and the
dog, the friend of man. Now, the instinct
of one tribe, one would think, as much as of
another, must be full and perfect, and wonld
not admit of our considering the degree of
intelligence manifested in one species as
higher or lower than that possessed by
another. Again, much more must we con-
ceive that the proper instinct of any species
will be fully, and therefore equally, pos-
sessed by all individuals of that s])ecies.
How then, upon the notion of mere instinct,
shall we account for that superiority of intel-
ligence which is found in one individual, to
others of the same species, and which is
familiar to those wlio are employed about,
or in an}' way in the habit of conversing with,
animals'? But that which appears to me
most decidedly to carry the faculties of ani-
mals to something exceeding the measure
and character of instinct, is the new and in-
genious contrivances to which they will often
have recourse, in situations, and upon occa-

sions, much too accidental and peculiar to
admit of our imagining that they could have
been contemplated and provided against in
the regular instinct of the whole species.
Instinct, we should naturally be disposed to
conceive, must have been given to regulate
the ordinary habits of the animals, and
adapted to those exigencies of their mode of
life which are continually occturing, not to
such as do rarely, and might, one would be
tempted to say, never occur. A few in-
stances will, perhaps, better explain what I
mean, and carry more persuasion than a
mere argument.

I was one day feeding the poor elephant
(who was so barbarously put to death at
Exeter "Change) with potatoes, which he
took out of my hand. One of them, a round
one, fell on the floor, just out of the reach of
his proboscis. He leaned against his wooden
bar, put out his trunk, and could just touch
the potato, but could not pick it up. After
several ineffectual cfibrts, he at last blew the
potato against the opposite wall with suffi-
cient force to make it rebound, and he then,
without difficulty, secured it. Now it is
quite clear, I think, that instinct never taught
the elephant to procure his food in this man-
ner; and it must, therefore, have been reason,
or some intellectual faculty, which enabled
him to be so good a judge of cause and
effect. Indeed, the rcflecling power of some
animals is quite extraordinary. I had a dog
who was much attached to me, and who, in
consequence of his having been tied up on
a Sunday morning, to prevent his accompa-
nying me to church, would conceal himself
in good time on that day, and I was sme to
find him either at the entrance of the church,
or, if he could get in, under the seat where
I usually sat.

A gentleman, a good shot, lent a favorite
old pointer to a friend who had much more
to accuse himself of in frightening than in
slaughtering partridges. After ineffectually
firing at some birds which the old pointer
had found for him, the dog turned away in
apparent disgust, went home, and never
could be persuaded to accompany the same
person afterwards.

I have been often much delighted with
watching the manner in which some of the
old bucks in Bushy Park contrive to get the
berries from the fine thorn trees there. They
will raise themselves on their hind legs,
give^ a spring, entangle their horns in the
lower branches of the tree, give them one
or two shakes, which make some of the
berries fall, and then quietly pick them up.

A fly-catcher (^Musciaipa grisola) had

142

INSTINCT AND REASON.

built its nest in a pear tree against niy garcien
wall, and I had once or twice stopped and
looked at llie bird as she sat on her nest.
Coming one morning, and looking lor the
nest, I could not find it for some time, but at
last discovered it, comi)letely altered in ap-
pearance, the external parts of it being now
in some degree assimilated to its situation.
Some of the leaves of the pear tree also
seemed to have been drawn more over the
nest, as if for the purpose of concealment.

A large brown slug made its way into a
glass hive, where the operation of the bees
could be distinctly seen. Having killed the
slug, and finding that they were unable to
get it out of the hive, they covered it over
with the thick resinous substance called pro-
polis, and thus prevented its becoming a
nuisance to the colony. Into the same hive
one of the common brown-shelled snails also
gained admittance. Instead of imbedding
it in propolis, the bees contented themselves
with fixing it to the bottom of the hive by
plastering the edge with that substance. 1
have now in my possession a regular fortifi-
cation made of propolis, which one of my
stocks of bees placed at the entrance of their
hive, to enable them the better to protect
themselves from the attacks of wasps. By
means of this fortification, a few bees could
effectually guard the entrance, by lessening
the space of admission, which I had neg-
lected to do for them.

Bees show great ingenuity in obviating
the inconvenience they experience from the
slipperiness of glass, and certainly beyond
what we can conceive that mere instinct
would enable them to do. I am in the ha-
bit of putting small glass globes on the top
of my straw hives, for the purpose of having
them filled with honey ; and I have invari-
ably found that before the beescommence the
construction of combs, they place a great
number of spots of wax at regular distances
from each other, which serve as so many
footstools on the slippery glass, each bee
resting on one of these with its middle pair
of legs, while the fore claws were hooked
with the hind ones of the bee next above
him, thus forming a ladder, by means of
which the workers were enabled to reach
the top, and begin to make their combs there.
Dr. Bevan, in his very agreeable work on the
honc3'-bee, mentions another very striking il-
lustration of its reasoning powers. He says
that a friend of his, on inspecting his bee-
boxes, perceived ' that a centre comb, bur-
dened witli honey, had parted from its at-
tachments, and was leaning against another
comb, so as to prevent the passage of the
bees between them. This accident excited
great activity in the colony, but of what na-
ture could not be ascertained at the time. At

the end of a week, the weather being cold,
and the bees clustered together, it was ob-
served, through the window of the box, that
they had constructed two horizontal pillars
between the combs alluded to, and had re-
moved so much of the honey and wax from
the top of each, as to allow the jiassage of a
bee : in about ten days more there was an
uninterrupted thoroughfare ; the detached
comb at its upper part had been secured by
a strong barrier, and fastened to the window
with the s]5are wax. This being accom-
plished, the bees had removed the horizontal
pillars first constructed, as being of no fur-
ther use. Huber relates an anecdote some-
thing similar.

The power which bees possess of venti-
lating their hives, and of producing such a
temjierature as will prevent the wax from
melting in hot weather, is, I think, another
proof that something more than mere in-
stinct infiuences their conduct; as, in their
natural state, bees are probably not in so
contined a sjiace as they are in our common
straw hives, or exposed so much to the heat
of the sun. In hot weather, a number of
bees (the number probably being regulated
by the state of the atmosphere) may be ob-
served busily employed at the bottom of the
hive, moving their wings with so much ra-
pidity, that the motion of them is almost
imperceptible. If, while this action is going
forward, a lighted candle should be held at
the opening on the top of the hive, it will
immediately be blown out, a fact which
proves the strong current of air produced by
these insects from the motion of their wings.
I have, however, known instances, in ex-
treme hot weather, when all the labors of
the bees to keep the hive in a proper tem-
perature have failed, and a part of the wax
has melted. In this case it is dangerous to
go near the hive. The bees are in a state
of extreme irritation, and though I fancy that
mine know me and receive me as a friend,
and allow me sometimes to interfere with
them with impimity, yet, at the time referred
to, I have suflered from their stings in en-
deavoring to shelter them more efiectually
from the heat of the sun.

From these instances it appears evident,
that some animals and insects are endowed
with a faculty which approaches very near
to reason. Dr. Darwin asserts, that if we
were better acquainted with the histories of
those insects which are formed into societies,
as bees, ants, an»l wasps, we should fintl that
their arts and improvements are not so simi-
lar and uniform as they now appear to us,
but that they arose in the same manner (from
experience and trailition) as the arts of our
own species ; though their reasoning is from
few ideas, busied about fewer objects, and is

SEED-SOWING.

143

exerted witb less energy. This argument is,
however, I conceive, disproved by the unde-
niable fact that all animals and insects have
remained in exactly the same state in which
we have always known, and at present find
tbem. Dr. Darwin gives an instance of rea-
son in a wasf), which he himself witnessed,
and which is, I think, conclusive of the fact
of these insects possessing something ap-
proaching very near to it. He informs us,
that walking one day in his garden, he per-
ceived a wasp upon the gravel walk, with a
large fly nearly as big as itself, which it had
caught. Kneeling down, he distinctly saw it
cut off the head and abdomen, and then fly
away with the trunk, or middle portion of tlie
body, to which the wings remained attached.
But a breeze of wind acting upon the wings
of the fly, turned round the wasp with its bur-
den, and impeded its progress. Upon this it
alighted again on the gravel walk, delibe-
rately sawed off first one wing and then the
other, and having thus removed the cause of
its embarrassment, flew oft' with its booty.
If, as has been asserted, there is no surer test
of reason than when, after having tried one
mode of accomplishing a purpose, recourse is
had to another more likely to succeed, surely
some of the instances which have been given
will sufiiciently prove the reasoning powers
of animals and insects; or, if not quite amount-
ing to reason, it is clear, I think, that they are

in possession of a superiority of intellect
which approaches very near to it.

I have often watched a wasp taken in the
web of a spider. The spider seems to be so
perfectly aware that the wasp has the power
of annoying him with its sting, that be care-
fully avoids coming in contact with it, but
winds threads round and round it till the
wasp can neither escape nor do any injury.

There is a spider found in Jamaica which
makes its nest in the earth, of grass, moss,&c.,
and afterwards plasters it over with clay.
The inside is lined with a silky membrane,
smooth, and of a whitish gray, M'ith a valve
of the same texture. When the spider wants
to secure itself in the nest, it fastens this valve
with its silky threads, so that a resistance is
perceived when the fingers are applied to re-
move it. Probably the spider is in dread of
some enemy, which obliges it to have re-
course to this ingenious contrivance for de-
fending itself and preserving its young. la
the Bermuda Islantls there are spiders which
spin their webs between trees that stand
eight or nine yards asunder. This they do
by darting their threads in the air, and the
wind carries them from one tree to the other.
This web, when finished, is sufficiently
strong to entangle a bird. The fact of spiders
throwing out a thread in order to facilitate
their approach to a neighboring object, is now
perfectly well ascertained.

SEED-SOWING.

Most observant persons must have re-
marked, that in gardening, in all its branches,
a few scientific rules rationally observed, are
the strongholds of the best cultivators. Let
these be understood, and after processes are
easy; let them be neglected, and no other
advantages will compensate for the loss.

A finely-pulverized soil pressing on all
sides of the seed, is found to assist its germi-
nation ; too much moisture causes it to rot,
while a moderate degree of humidity is fa-
vorable to a vigorous growth. We shall ap-
ply these general remarks to the various
departments of seed-sowing, which are in-
teresting to gardeners, both in the flower and
the culinary departments.

Never attempt to sow vegetable seeds
when the soil is so moist as to stick to your
feet. Patience is exercised by delay, but the
rule ought to be adhered to, for Peas, Beans,
Onions, &c., put into the ground when it
does not crumble under the touch of the hoe,
cannot do well. The soil cannot be pressed
on the seeds except in a hard clayey texture,
inimical to growth, and die surrouniling land
will be rendered hard and imjjervious to
light and air by the treading. The same re-

mark fully applies to Potatoes, for the lighter
the soil is, the better the crop will be.

If we follow nature, we shall not sow
very deep, for all observation shows that
even without any covering, seeds will ger-
minate and prosper. If the ground is in a
proper state, seeds should be trodden or
rolled in. Last year I took the advice of a
writer in the Chronicle, and rolled my Onion-
bed, w'hen sown, with a heavy garden rol-
ler. I think I perceived the advantages of
the plan ; and the crop was certainly excel-
lent, less disposed to run to neck than ordi-
narily. After sowing, if the beds or rows
are not too extensive, it is better to guard at
once against birds and cats, by a slight
covering of brushwood. I use pea-sticks,
laying thein along the rows of Peas antl
Beans, and upon seed-beds. As soon as the
Peas are up, the sticks are on the spot for
their destined service.

In reference to annuals and other flower-
seeds, the same rules apply. Flower-seeds
sown in the open air, should not be put in
too early, however inviting the weather may
be. In the Middle States, it is inadvisable
to sow them till the beginning of May.

144

RECEIPTS.

RECEIPTS.

We vouch for tlie following recipe, and
recommend it to all mothers travelling with
children in hot weather :

Preseix'ation of Milk — If milk be intro-
duced into bottles, then well corked, put into
a pan of cold water, and gradually raised to
the boiling point, and after being allowed to
cool, be taken out and set away in a cool
place, the ndlk may be preserved perfectly
sweet for upwards of half a year. Or it
may be evaporated to dryness by a gentle
heat and constant stirring. A dry mass will
tlius be obtained, which, when dissolved in
water, is said to possess all the qualities of
the best milk. It is called Latteina, in Italy.

For Preserving Eggs. — In March, put half
a pound of quick lime in a stone or earthen
pot, and add a gallon of cold water: next
day, fill the pot with new-laid eggs, tie a pa-
per over it, and put the pot in a cool place.
The eggs will be found perfectly fresh at
tlie end of a year.

To make Hens lay Constantly. — Take away
tlie rooster, and supply them (if in winter)
with abundance of animal food, taking care
to keep the hen-house warm and comfort-
able.

Preservation of Butter. — One part of loaf
sttgar, one part of refined saltpetre, two
parts of the best pure salt, are to be pulve-
rized together, and kept for use ; one ounce
of this to be mixed tlioroughly with sixteen
ounces of the butter, as soon as it is freed
from the buttermilk ; it is then to be put into
a close and perfectly clean dry vessel, from
which the air is to be carefully excluded, and
it will remain good for many months.

To make Shoes Water-proof. — Take bees-
wax, tallow or mutton suet, equal parts,
rosin, a tenth part of the whole, melt and
mix together ; apply hot '.o your husband's
shoes, and they will last twice as long, and
he will never complain of wet feet ; the
leather will absorb a quantity of the mixture,
and it nuist be applied hot, imtil the shoes
are tlioroughly saturated, both soles and
uppers.

Asparagus. — Manure heavily in the fall,
and in March make the surface of the beds
quite white with salt; your shoots will be
double the usual size, and your beds free
from weeds. The Asparagus grows abun-
dant on the shores of the Chesapeake Bay,
where it is almost daily flooded with salt
water.

The only Certain Mode of Poisoning Bats. —
Make a rich sweet dough, with flour, mashed
potato, sugar, and fresh Mwsa/i' erf butter; work
this into pills as large as a marrowfat pea,
strew them in a closet or room inaccessible
to children, domestic animals, poultry, &c.,
for four or five nights in succession, until you
find that the rats get into the habit of eating
them ; then omit the potato and substitute
finely jnilverized arsenic, and we will an-
swer for every rat on the premises getting
his quietus. The rat is naturally so susjji-
cious, that any of the usual modes of poi-
soning are very ineflicient. You must first
acquire their confidence, and then betray.
As the eflect of the poison is to make them
exceedingly thirsty, it is best to choose a dry
time for laying it, and remove all water from
the jiremises ; the rats will then make for
the nearest stream, and die before they can
return to their haunts. Apropos of rats, and
their great sagacity in avoiding baits and
traps. Dr. G. B. S., of Baltimore, relates the
following : it seems, that being very much
annoyed by the rats that infested his house,
he succeeded, after considerable difliculty, in
destroying them all save one, but this was
the very Ulysses of the tribe, and he and the
doctor had a trial of wits for a long time,
but the doctor was too much for him at last;
he discovered that his long-tailed enemy had
a weakness, and, like a skilful general, he
took advantage of it. His ratship, fearing
poison, woidd eat nothing left in the kitchen,
but the ends of the candles left in the can-
dlestick; the doctor sprinkled some arsenic
around the wick of his candle, and tri-
umphed.

To make Good Vinegar. — Take ten gallons
of apjjle juice fresh from the press, and suf-
fer it to ferment fully, which may be in about
two weeks, or sooner if the weather is
warm ; then add eight gallons like juice,
new, for producing a second fermentation ;
in two weeks more add another like new
quantity, for producing a third fermentation.
This third fermentation is material. Now
stop the bungliole with an empty bottle, with
the neck downward, and expose it to the
sun for some time. When the vinegar is
come, draw otf one-half into a vinegar cask,
and set it in a cool place above ground, for
use when clear. With the other half in the
first cask, proceed to make more vinegar in
the same way. Thus one cask is to make
in, the other to use from. When making the
vinegar, let there bo a moderate degree ol
heat, and free access of external air.

®l)f |)lougl). tl)c loom, antr tl)c ^noiL

Vol. I. SEPTEMBER, 1848. No. III.

THE IRON TRADE OF THE UNION,

AND ITS INFLUENCE UPON THE INTERESTS OF THE FARMER AND PLANTER.

Every man is either a customer to the farmer and planter, or a rival to
him. Every man that is raised here, and every one that is imported, may
be made a customer while employing himself in the work of fashioning wool
or cotton into cloth, or coal and ore into iron, or wood and iron into ploughs,
and axes, and harrows, or into steamboats, or cotton, or woollen, or other
machiner}', but if prevented from becoming a customer he must himself
become a producer of food, or cotton, and therefore a rival to the farmer and
planter. The larger the proportion of consumers to producers, the larger
will be the return to the labor of the farmer and planter, and the more valu-
able will be their land. The larger the proportion of producers to consumers,
the smaller will be the return to the labors of the farmer, and the less valuable
will be his land. These are plain and simple truths, which we desire to
impress on the minds of our agricultural readers, before asking them to ac-
company us in an examination of the influence upon their interests now
exercised by the iron trade of the Union.

In looking at the coal trade we began with the producers. In the present
case we shall begin with the consumers. And first, we may inquire who
are the real consumers of all the vast mass of iron that is manufactured and
imported?

The farmer and planter require vast quantities of iron for the construction
of axes, and ploughs, and harrows, and other implements required to be
used in the production of food and of the raw materials of clothing — large
quantities for the transportation of their produce in carts, and wagons, and
steamboats, and cars, and on railroads, to the place of consumption, and for
bringing back the sugar, and the coffee, and the cloths, required for their
nourishment and protection — and other large quantities for the machinery
required for the conversion of their wool and cotton into cloth, their timber
into buckets and tubs, and carts, and wagons, and steamboats, and the thou-
sand other articles required for the uses of themselves and their fellow-men.
They are the great consumers of iron. They use nine-tenths of all that is
made and all that is imported. They pay for nearly all of it, for of the little
that is not directly consumed and paid for by them, a large portion is con-
sumed and paid for by men who live by transporting and exchanging their
products, themselves producing nothing.

Nevertheless, they appear to buy very little of it. Why is it so? It is
because the present system of the Avorld causes the waste of a large portion
of their products on the road, and in the work of transportation and exchange,
the planter giving five bales of cotton for one bale of cloth when he should
receive two bales of cloth for three bales of cotton, and would receive them
but for the wasteful process to which we have referred. Towns and cities
are thus built up at the cost of the planter and farmer, who remain poor and
are compelled to scatter themselves over the earth, and to solicit the people
of those towns and cities to make roads for them, when, if they had tho

Vol. I.— 19 N 145

146 THE IRON TRADE OF THE UNION.

fashioner of their products in their own neighbourhoods, they would grow
rich and make their own roads. They it is that consume railroad iron, and
iron in ail its other forms, and they it is that pay for it, although indirectly.

If, now, we desire to understand how they pay for it, we may begin by
placing ourselves alongside of a furnace, or rolling-mill, and watching how the
farmer pays to the furnace-master the price of a ton of iron. On one day, he
carries him a load of potatoes. On another, he carries eggs, and milk, and veal.
On another, a load of hay. On a fourth, he carries him a load of lumber,
the produce of his best lands, so heavily timbered that heretofore he could
not venture to incur the expense of clearing them. On a fifth, he sells a
day's work of his son and himself, his horses and wagon, not then required
on the farm. On some of these occasions he carries back manure to return
to his farm a portion of what he took from it, and the result at the close of
the year is, that he has his iron paid for and that his farm is improved, and
by the very process opened to him by the vicinity of the furnace, to a twice
greater extent than the value of the iron itself. He has thus earned treble
wages. He has received the price of the labor and his products once in
iron, and twice in the improvement of his farm. To all who desire to study
this process, we would recommend that they should place themselves along-
side of a little town growing by aid of concentration, and see if we have
erred in our estimate of the advantages derived by the farmer from its prox-
imity, unless indeed we have done so in under-estimating them, as we
believe to be the case.

Let us now place ourselves alongside of the man who is distant hundreds
or thousands of miles from furnaces and rolling-mills, and see how he pays
for his iron. It is obvious that he cannot send potatoes, or hay, or milk, or
turnips, or any other of the commodities of which the earth yields largely.
He may send wheat, of which the yield is 600 or 800 pounds to the acre —
or cotton, of which he obtains 200 or 300 pounds, but from them no manure
is returned, and he exhausts his land. He cannot sell the day's labor of
his son or himself, his wagon or his horses, and all remain unemployed when
not required on the farm. He has no market for his timber, and his best
soils remain uncleared and unimproved. Nevertheless, the iron must be
paid for, or he cannot have it. He sends the wheat, or the cotton, produced
on poor lands, and having exhausted them, he flies toother poor lands. He
has the iron, but his farm is deteriorated to the whole extent of its value.
He has been paid once where the other has been paid three times.

We may now inquire what is the quantity of land and labor required for
paying for this ton of iron.

An acre of land, to which the manure is returned, may be made to yield
400 bushels of potatoes, and half that product will pay for a ton of iron.

An acre of land may be made to yield two tons of hay, besides affording
pasture for cows, whose milk, united with the hay, will almost pay for a ton
of iron.

An acre of naturally good land will yield twenty bushels of wheat, but if
the manure be regularly wasted on the road, it will fall to twelve or ten, as
has been the case in New York and Ohio, and then it will require three or
four acres to pay for a ton of iron. If the process be continued, it will in a
little time take half a dozen acres to do it, and in a little further time the
land will be abandoned.

An acre of cotton land yields two hundred pounds, and a thousand pounds,
the produce of five acres, will be required to pay for a ton of iron. If it be
regularly exhausted, the time will arrive when it will require a dozen acres,
and then the owner will fly from it, as he is now doing in South Carolina.

In the first case, the price of the iron is the use of half an acre of land

THE IRON TRADE OF THE UNION. 147

and the labor bestowed thereon. In the second, that of an acre. In the
third that of three or four, and in the last, five acres. The owners of the
first and second give little land and labor to obtain a large return. The
third and fourth give much land and labor and obtain a small return. The
former become rich and their sons and daughters marry and remain near
them. The latter see their daughters remain unmarried, because all the young
men of the neighborhood fly to the west, and ultimately abandon their farms
and fly to the west themselves.

The farmer and planter are the real paymasters for the iron, and it rests
with themselves to determine how they will pay for it — whether by the mode
that enriches them and their land, or that which impoverishes both. In 1842,
they determined that it should be paid for in potatoes, and hay, and milk, and
veal, and the result was that in lb47, there were made about 700,000 tons,
worth in the various forms it was used, stoves, railroad bars, machinery, axes,
ploughs, &c., at least $100 per ton, or seventy millions of dollars, and making
a market for almost that amount of bulky articles of food, the refuse of which
went back upon the land. In 1846, they determined to try if it could be had
cheaper elsewhere, the result of which is that much of it has now to be paid
for in wheat and cotton, of which the earth yields little, and of that httle
obtaining nothing in return.

The quantity of iron paid for in 1847 was probably double what was paid
for in 1843, and the amount paid was greater in the former year by at least
thirty-five millions of dollars than in the latter, and yet the payment of this
vast amount was unfelt. Why was it so ? Simply because the major part
of it was paid for in commodities of which the return to labor Avas large,
potatoes, and milk, and hay, and a large portion in labor of men and horses,
that would otherwise have been wasted, and in timber that would have been
valueless — and because, with every step in this process the land was improved
to a greater extent than the value of the iron itself. Were all the furnaces
and roUing-mills created within the last four years now to be stopped, and
the quantity produced at home to be reduced to 850,000 tons, the quantity
imported to take its place would not, we believe, amount to 80,000 tons, and
the payment for even that quantity would be seriously felt, because it would
be made in commodities of which little is returned to the labor employed in
cultivation, and its export tends to the exhaustion of the land.

It is impossible to avoid being struck with the wonderful increase in the
consumption of commodities of every description as soon as they come to be
manufactured at home, and the reason for that increase is, that every such
manufacture feeds itself by finding employment for labor and for things that
would otherwise be wasted, and a market for those things the production of
which enriches the farmer and his land at one and the same time. But a
few years since, a gold pencil-case was a rarity not to be found in our prin-
cipal cities, as we have had occasion to know from having ourselves made
the search. Now, about 100,000 are made in a year in New York alone,
in whose immediate vicinity live the farmers who send in a single day ninety
tons of strawberries and milk to market. The pencil-makers help to make
the market for the strawberries, and the farmer obtains hundreds of dollars
from a single acre that would not have produced a dozen bushelb of wheat
but for the proximity of a market for its products, whence the manure; could
readily be returned.

We would now ask the farmer and planter, live where they may, to look
around them and see if their neighbors and themselves, their sons and daugh-
ters, or their hands, do not waste more time for want of a regular demand for
labor throughout the year, than would convert into yarn all the cotton and wool
of the neighborhood, and if they do not themselves lose more for want of aid in

148 THE IRON TRADE OF THE UNION.

harvest than would pay for weaving it. We would next ask them to see if
they do not waste more food than would feed the spinners and weavers, and
then see if all that food would not be clear gain, as the persons who would
be spinners and weavers must, and do, eat while engaged in doing nothing.
Having done this, let them determine if the whole work of spinning and weav-
ing would not be so much clear gain to them. Let them next see if they do not
now waste more manure on the road, and at the distant markets, for want of a
market at home, than would enrich the poor lands they now cultivate, and then
let them determine how much more productive would be their labor if they
could sell the timber which now covers their richest lands, remaining to this
day unimproved because of the excessive size of that timber, and of the cost
that would attend the work of its destruction. Let them then calculate the
amount of taxes upon those now unproductive lands, and determine what
would be their value if a market were provided on the ground for the hay,
and milk, and butter, and veal, and beef, they could yield, and that market
suppHed by men and women, and boys and girls, now often unemployed,
but then employed in enabling him to export cloth instead of wool, or cotton,
and corn. Having done all this, they will satisfy themselves not only that
the labor employed in the work of conversion is all clear gain, but that there
is a further and great gain in the improvement of the machine given for the
production of food and wool, more than equal to the whole labor employed
in the work of conversion. The earth is the great machine — the one that
improves with use, and improves most where most used, and therefore it is
that the consumption of cotton and woollen cloths, and iron, and paper, and
pencil-cases, and all other articles of necessity and luxury, increases so
rapidly when the work of conversion is performed at home. It is the work
that is twice blessed. "It blesseth him that gives and him that takes."
If we desire evidence of this, we need only look to those parts of the world
in which a market is found on the land for the products of the land, and
compare the neat and comfortable houses and beautiful farms of Belgium, or
of Tuscany, with the squahd wretchedness and poverty of Poland or Southern
Russia, which export cheap food to England — to that country which now keeps
itself poor by comparison with what she might be, because she expels men and
wealth and imports food, while neglecting her own agriculture and compelling
the world to use her looms when they would prefer to use their own, con-
suming their food upon the spot on Avhich it was produced.

So entirely a gain is the labor applied to the fashioning of the raw materials
yielded by the earth, that we feel perfectly safe in asserting that were all the
coal and iron mines, the furnaces and rolling-mills, the cotton and woollen
factories, the paper mills and the printing-offices, closed, and the whole labor
therein employed turned to the production of food, the quantity of food pro-
duced would in a short time be less than it is now, lor the reason that the labor
which is now employed in producing tons of potatoes and turnips, hay, and
rniik, and veal, and strawberries, and cabbages, would be then turned to the
production of commodities of which the earth yields by bushels, and Avhich
therefore bear to be exported. If we wish evidence of this, we may find it in
the fact that New England, dense as is her population, can yet export hay,
while South Carohna, sparsely peopled as she is, and Avith millions of acres
fitted to yield the finest hay, imports it from the north. When that State
shall obtain consumers on the ground for her rice and her cotton, she too may
export hay, because she will then have railroads upon which it may be carried.
Were the whole labor-power of the Union turned to the production of food,
and cotton, and tobacco, and hemp, the product of agriculture would be less
than it is now, and for the simple reason that the process of exhaustion would
ne more rapid. For evidence of this, we need look no further than Virginia

THE IRON TRADE OF THE UNION. 149

or South Carolina; but if further evidence be required, it may be found in the
impoverished state of every country that has made no market on the land
for the products of the land. If this be so, it must be evident that every
increase in the number of consumers tends to increase the product of agri-
culture to an extent exceeding the demands of those consumers, and that the
gain to the conuriunity is more than the whole amount of their consumption.

Vv''henever the consumers of Poland, employed in fashioning the products
of the earth, shall become as numerous as are now those of England, or New
England, the great machine Avill yield by tons instead of bushels, and the
producers Avill grow rich; and whenever the consumers of New England, or
of the United States at large, shall become as few as are now those of Poland,
the earth will yield by bushels instead of tons, and the producers will become
as poor as those of Poland, and may then enter fairly into competition with
them for the supply of the English markets.

It will be asked : if all this vast gain — and vast it is — results from thus
applying labor to the work of conversion, bringing the consumer to the side
of the producer, v.'hy is it that protection is required for enabling the latter
to induce the former to take his place by his side ? The reason is to be
found in the unceasing changes resulting from the unsound and unnatural
state of things existing- in other parts of the world. For the last thirty years
the average price of merchant bar-iron in England is stated to have been
^68, 9s. Sd., or about S41 per ton. Within that time it has been up to £VS,
and down to £4, t5s., thus fluctuating between $G2 40 and $23 80. In 1843,
only four years since, the latter was the price. Last year, it was £'S, 10s.,
or $40 80. Now, it is about £6, or $28 80.

What now, we would ask the farmer or planter to inquire, is the conse-
quence of this ? Let him look around and he will find the answer. He
will see that almost as surely as a furnace or a rolling-mill is built, its
owner is ruined by changes over which he has, and can have, no control.
Judging from the past, all that such a man can hope for is that he may have
a year or two of high prices, to enable him to provide against succeeding
years of low ones, when he would otherwise be ruined. He is buying a
lottery ticket, and he must trust to fortune to determine whether it shall be
a blank or a prize. Last year, furnaces and rolling-mills were built every-
where, and the manufacture of iron made such progress as to warrant the
belief that a ver}^ short time would place it beyond the reach of danger.
Now, many of the parties are ruined, and all are in danger of being so.
Their tickets have come out blanks. At the average price of England, with
a very moderate protection, they could live, and soon they would cease to
need protection. At the low prices of England, they cannot live.

These changes are unnatural. It required no more labor to mine and
smelt the ore, and to roll the iron, in 182.5 or 184(5, than it did in 1843, and
the quantity obtained in return to a given quantity of labor was as great in
the one case as in the other. The return to the labor of the farmer is liable
to great variation from the character of the seasons, and he may have twenty
bushels in one year while obtaining but ten in the next, but such is not the
case with the labor applied to the conversion of ore and coal into iron, or
cotton and wool into cloth. In those cases, what can be done on any one
day can be done on any other, and that for A^ears in succession, with, of course,
gradual increase from the improvement of machinery. The cost, in labor,
of food and of the materials of clothing, and of other raw materials, is
thus liable to changes, but the cost of iron, of cloths and of manufactured
commodities generally, tends to remain stationary, except so far as they are
subject to change from the greater or less supplies of the raw material in
good or bad seasons, and yet the price of iron is as variable as that of food.

n2

150 THE IRON TRADE OF THE UNION.

It goes up to 10 or 12, and down to 4 or 5, and it does this simply because
in Europe nothing is permitted to take its natural course. At one time laws
for making roads are refused, and iron is cheap. At another, laws are
granted by hundreds, and iron is dear. At a third, it is found that specula-
tion has caused roads to be made too fast, and iron is again cheap. From
hour to hour the system changes, and universal ruin is the result. The
furnace-master here has his market destroyed, and if he would not himself
be ruined, he must discharge his hands, who are forced to go and join the
farmer in raising more wheat, instead of consuming potatoes or cabbages.

Such results are due in a great degree to the fact that the farmer and
planter pay indirectly for the vast quantities of iron that they consume, and
not directly. If the farmer obtained his axes and ploughs, and spades and
harrows, and the use of railroad iron, directly from the workers in iron, in
his neighborhood, paying them in labor, and in cabbages and potatoes, it
would matter little to him what was the price of iron in the general market,
so long as he received the same quantity of it for his day's labor, for his
bushels of potatoes, his tons of hay, his gallons of milk, or his loads of lumber.
He would see at once that the market for those commodities was quite as
important to him as could be the market for iron to the owner of the rolling-
mill, or the market for axes to the maker of axes, and that the only result that
could follow from his ceasing to buy from his neighbor, Avould be that his neigh-
bor would cease to buy from him. Unfortunately for him, however, the whole
system of trade tends to his impoverishment, and he is obliged to look to the
people of distant towns and cities to supply him with axes and spades, and to
make his roads, all of which they do by aid of the large portion of his products
that they retain as their charge for performing for him the work of exchange.
With them, the only question is, what is the smallest quantity of money that
will purchase the iron with which to make axes, spades, or railroads? The
money price of iron in England has fallen, and as the city capitalist has
neither potatoes, nor hay, nor milk to sell, he buys his iron abroad instead of
buying it at home, and the farmer is supplied with axes bought with money
abroad, while his potatoes and his turnips rot on his hands at home, and he
is obliged to give his milk to his hogs, because his neighbor the furnace-
master has been ruined. He pays for his axes in wheat, of which it takes
the produce of three or four acres to purchase as much as would have been
paid for by half an acre of potatoes, and he loses all the manure, and his land
and himself are impoverished, and then he flies to the west to seek new-
lands upon which to repeat the same operation.

The farmer and planter require protection to enable them to bring the
loom and the anvil to the side of the plough, and they do so only because
the unnatural, and consequently unsteady, system of the trade of the world
has tended to drive men to congregate in large manufacturing tOAvns and
cities, and to compel both farmer and planter to waste in the Avork of trans-
portation and exchange a large portion of their time, and a very large portion
of their products, and to keep them poor. That protection they will take
whenever they shall come fully to understand that the toAvns and cities of the
world are built up at their expense — that thej^ are kept poor by operations that
make others rich — and that it is for that reason alone that they are compelled
to call upon others to make their roads. With every step in the progress
of concentration, by means of bringing the consumer directly to the side
of the producer, the necessity for roads diminishes, and the power to make
them for themselves increases, as they may readily see if they will travel
through New England, or New York, or in the neighborhood of any place
where the consumer and producer are fairly established in the neighborhood
of each other. The whole manufacturing system of the world at the pre

AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. 151

sent time is one of centralization, which always enriches the few at the
expense of the many. Concentration will enable the many to grow rich,
and will tend to improvement and equality of condition, physical, moral,
intellectual, and pohtical — but that cannot be obtained so long as the farmer
shall be compelled to buy his iron at a distance, while unable to sell his po-
tatoes and his turnips, and the labor of himself and his horses, to the furnaco
master at home, ruined by the sudden downfall of iron in the market of the
world, produced by changes of policy over which neither he nor the farmer
could have any control.

AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS.

The various attempts to establish Agricultural Schools in the United States
have for the most part originated in laudable intentions; but being rudely
planned, and with inadequate means, especially in the number and acquire-
ments of the Professors, they have but imperfectly succeeded. They seem
rather to have indicated the existence of a vague public feeling demanding
the establishment of such schools, than any thorough conception of the
appointments and materials requisite for their efficient organization.

In some cases, however, the conviction has been, though few may have
been found to avow it, that the object of those who got up the agitation,
hiring men to go round and procure signatures of Tom, Dick, and Harry,
as they might be met here and there, and paying so much per name, out of
the funds committed to their care by a credulous public — the general convic-
tion has been, we say, that with such agitators the object was one of sheer
speculation — to make money and to obtain influence. Such men, who live by
flying a succession of humbugs, have endeavored to persuade the public and
the pubhc authorities, to establish great schools, near large cities, and have
most innocently demanded to have them placed under their "auspices !" — in
other words, to make them subservient to their personal management, con-
venience, and ambition ; without the possession, on their part, of the industry,
acquirements, or public spirit essential to those who take charge of all public
institutions, and most especially such as are founded for the sacred purposes
of intellectual and moral instruction.

But, as might have been expected, the first inquiry of the public and the
public authorities has been, — whether any institution could be entitled to
confidence and State patronage, that could not conduct itself, without being
put under the guardianship of dry nurses who already have on hand, in the
administrationof other institutes, more than they can manage with that vigor
and efficiency which their accumulated and accumulating means would enable
them to do, if they would study usefulness more and humbugging less.

In other cases again, of undertaking to establish agricultural institutions
for education, where the motive has been fair and honorable, a predominance
has been given to the military feature of the school, incompatib^, as we
respectfully think, with that true and well-founded view of the pubnc welfare
that should prompt the farmer and the planter of this country to support all
militar}'^ establishments with habitual reluctance and distrust; and to regard
them, if necessary at all, as necessary and deplorable sores on the body po-
htic — natural enough, nay inseparable from a state of barbarism, where
stratagem and warhke prowess take the place of cultivated humanity and
justice ; but utterly inconsistent with that high state of moral civilization
which should be the constant aim and animating hope, ay, which should
form part of the education of every Christian people.

Few indeed seem to have a just conception of the difficulty of procuring
the various intellectual force which is necessary for the conduct of agricul-

152 AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS.

tural colleges — a sort of force rare in our country ; that is, where the school
is to be one in which the several sciences naturally allied to agriculture are
to be thoroughly taught. For manual schools, however, where the best
practice of agriculture is to be daily inculcated and wrought at ; in combina-
tion with a plain English education, including the lower branches of mathe-
matics and practical surveying, the case would be very different; as for
these schools which would be much more generally useful, we have both the
means and the materials — the teachers quahfied to instruct, and millions of
boys who, by such a course of instruction, would be raised in the scale of
real usefulness and respectability, in a manner to increase prodigiously the
character and productive capacity of the agricultural classes.

But for schools of the higher class, competent teachers, as we have said,
are not easily to be had — and where such can be found, they would be justly
entitled to a grade of compensation that would make the school inaccessible to
all but the wealthy — for the planter and the farmer is not now to be told, that
for instruction in the great business of agriculture, the source of prosperity
for all other pursuits, not a dollar is to be had from the government. Their
Representatives, so called, have not even the courage or patriotism to de-
mand it, while they are voting hundreds of thousands for surveys and insti-
tutions to diffuse military knowledge.

That the reader may have some idea of the difference in the character
of the two classes of agricultural schools to which we have alluded, and
judge the better, which is best adapted to our country, and most within the
bounds of practicability and most likely to be useful, we may add that in
England there are eminently high and again lotv schools of this sort, as he
may perceive by what follows, and which we find in the agricultural journals
of late date. They may answer not as models to be exactly followed in this
country, but as affording hints that may be turned to account. Suppose, for
example, one of those good farmers in the Cluaker settlement in Hartford or
Montgomery County in Maryland, Avould take twenty boys at twelve years
of age to be bound to him until eighteen, ought not the Orphans' Court to
be well pleased to have such an opportunity to provide for all that fall under
their control, to place them where instruction would be blended with such
fine examples of morality and thriftiness?

^'■Hoddesdon ^griadtural Training School. — The annual distribution of prizes to the suc-
cessful students in this highly useful and prosperous institution took place on Monday
se'nnight. There was a very large attendance of ladies and gentlemen from the surroiuid-
ing neighborhood, and many of the relatives of the students were also present. The
venerable Lord Dacre had consented to preside on the occasion, but, in consequence of
ill health, was unable to fulfil the promise which he made. Under these circumstances,
Mr. Haselwood, the Head Master, applied to Lord Dudley Stuart, M. P., who kindly
tuidertook to occupy the chair, and deliver the prizes. Among those present, we observed
Captain Townsheiid, M. P.; Mrs. Townshend and family; Mr. G. J., and Mrs. Bosanquet
and family ; Mr. C. Phelips ; Mr. E., and Mrs. Lomax and family ; Rev. H. Blane ; Mr. Wm.,
and Mrs.Mylne and family ; Captain 0 Bricn, R. N. ; Dr. and Mrs. Buchanan ; Mr. H.
Thoresby ; Mr. Peter Christie ; Mr. Charles Christie ; Messrs. Horley. Stokes, S. B. Brid^re,
J. Bigg, W. Heard, Hobbs, Clark, Roberts, &c. ; Professors iSimonds, Woodward, and
Donaldson.

" The Head Master then read the report of the state of the school during the past year.

" The Chairman then distributed the prizes as follows to the succes.'ful students, making
suitable laudatory and encouraging observations upon the delivery of each."

Here follow the names of those to whom gold and silver medals and other
prizes were awarded separately for general proficienc]/ — general improve-
ment— agriculture — botany — chemistry — geology — veterinary — mecha-
nics— mathematics — surveying — artificers^ uwrk — Latin — French — Ger-
man— history — geography — arithmetic — mapping — drawing — best collec-
tion of British grasses, and genercd good conduct.

AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS. 15S

" In the course of the delivery of the prizes, the Head Master remarked, that m con-
sequence of the papers sent in for the veterinary prize not being equal in merit to the
standard required in the school, it had been withheld, and extra prizes for good conduct
given instead. The same remark applied to the prize usually given for proliciency m
German.

" The noble Chairman then addressed the meeting, after which the company separated."

The next is an account of a school of quite a different character — one of
individual institution and management, and which would appear to be at once
useful and feasible in most of our agricultural districts. In our country the
fault is that we are apt to go upon extremes. In one end of it, boys are not
reared in habits of bodily labor, and in the other end, their labor, or the pro-
ceeds of it, is so much a matter of sordid calculation, that many parents will
not spare them long enough from the field to obtain even a good sound prac-
tical English education, so far as to embrace ordinary mathematics and
surveying.

It seems that in England a Mr. Batson has established on his own hook
a system of "agricultural training," which has been highly extolled by no
less authority than Mr. Mechi, one of the most enlightened and spirited
agriculturists of the age. In consequence of what was said by him at a
meeting of an agricultural society, and the expression of his conviction that
it would continue to succeed, the Editor of the Hereford Times applied to
Mr. Batson for an account of his system, to which he gave the following
answer. While aware that in many of the items given, this account may
not be applicable to our country, some hints may yet be taken from it and
made available for practical purposes. Who is it that cannot name, among
farmers known to him, one or more, who, if they could be prevailed on to
undertake it, might bring forward and turn out a number of young men,
under whose management the whole face of the country might be changed
for the better ? But all these improvements will come, when a settled and
steady demand shall have arisen, under the influence of a policy that shall
concentrate instead of scattering, and give encouragement to all industrial
pursuits. Supply will follow assured demand as certainly as that matter
will for ever obey the laws of gravitation.

Dear Sir, — Agreeably with my promise, I forward you some account of the system I
have adopted with the boys on my farm — a system which, I have much pleasure in say-
ing, has realized my most sanguine expectations.

It is now nearly three years since I first formed a gang of boys, taking them merely as
daily laborers, and paying them at the rate of 3s. per ^veek in winter, and 4s. per week
in summer ; bat, finding I could make no certainty of their attendance, and that there
was considerable difficulty in adopting a regular system of discipline, owing to the want
of education and bad management at home, I made the necessary accommodation for the
reception of twenty boys on my premises, about fifteen months since, antl took them
under my own care entirely for a term of four years — boarding, clothing, and educating
them in lieu of their daily labor on the farm — their ages averaging between nine and
fourteen years.

The system that I adopted was this: — Each boy was to be provided with two suits of
clothes — one for working in and the other for better use — with, also, a complete stock of
linen, shoes, &c. ; and at the end of four years I send them back with a like equipment.

The working hours are from six till six in summer, and during the winter they work
while it is hght.

The meal-times are at 9 o'clock, when they have half an hour for breakfast; at one
o'clock, an hour for dinner ; and at six o'clock, when they also have half an hour for
supper ; and the evenings are spent in education until nine o'clock, when prayers are
read, and they retire to rest.

The food consists of bread and milk, or bread and broth, for brealdast; bread, meat,
and vegetables, for dinner; and bread and cheese for supper; with the addition of coifee
and pudding on Sundays. According to the rule universally observed on my farm, no
beei or cider is allowed, excepting during the hay and corn harvests. The labor consists of tlie
general farm work ; but I may more particularly observe the planting or dibbling of

Vol. I.— 20

154

AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS.

wheat, and other corn and root crops, and the hand-hoeing of corn, turnips, &c. The
evening education is that of reading and writing, arithmetic, &c., and such rehgious and
other instruction as time and opportunity will admit ; in which, as well as in their daily
labor, they are superintended by a young man for the purpose, who was four years at the
Woburn National School, and six years at the Duke of Bedford's farm, where he also
worked in a gang ; to which, I may add, that I make it my duty to attend personally each
evening to assist.

The enclosed calculations will show the cost of clothes per year and per week, and
the cost of food per week, attendance, &c. : —

CALCULATION OF CLOTHES, MAKING, AND ATTENDANCE : TWENTY BOXS FOR ONE TEAR.

£ S. d.

34^ yards of moleskin, at Is. 2^d. per yard 218:^

44^ yards cord, at lid. per yard .-.-...-20 4^
3 yards of canvas, at 7d. per yard - - - - - - - -019

3 gross of buttons, at Is. Gd. per gross 046

1^ lbs. of thread, at 2s. lOd. per lb. 0 4 3

160 yards of calico, at 3d. per yard 200

Sj dozens jiairs of stockings, at 9s. per dozen - - - - - -1100

Shoes and mending, jier contract - - -1000

Making 20 suits, 50 days, at 2s. 6d. per day 6 5 0

Mending, say 25 days, at 2s. Gd. per day 326

20 pairs of braces, at 6d.; 20 handkerchiefs, at 6d. 10 0

78 lbs. of soap, at 5d. per lb. 1 12 G

20 caps, at 2s.; 20 ditto, at Is. 300

20 smock frocks, at 4s. Gd. per frock 4 10 0

Attendance -25 0 0

£&2 12 6 J

Being £3, 2s. 7^d. per boy, per year; or Is. 2^d. per week. This calculation does
not include the person who works with the boys.

TWENTY BOTS' KEEP PER WEEK.

taken at average market prices, as per amount consumed.

£ s. d.
3 bushels of wheat flour, at 7s. Gd. per bushel - - - - - 126

9^ lbs. of cheese, at 5d. per lb. 0 3 11^

1^ lbs. of treacle, at 4d. per lb. 0 0 6

Sl lbs. of dripping, at Gd. per lb. 0 19

35 lbs. of fresh and salt meat, at 6d. per lb. 0 17 6

1^ bushels of potatoes, at Gs. per bushel - - - - - - -0 9 0

3 oz. of cotfee, at 2s. per lb. 0 0 ^j

£2 15 7

Or, 2s. 9g:d. per week, per boy

Each boy's kee]i per week - - - - 2s. O^d.

Each boy's clothes per ditto. - - - Is. 22d.

Total expense for each boy per week - - - - 3s. ll^d
I shall now proceed to show sovk of the advantages derived from the system, and, in the
first place, I may mention, as a general rule, that their icork is much more carefully daiie than
any man can do it, working by the jricce, at the prices usually given, and as shown by annexed
statement ; —

COMPARATIVE VALUE OF BOYs' LABOR, WITH PRICES PAID FOR JOB WORK.

Boys. Men.

Not done in this county.
Men per acre, 4s.

Do., Gs. Gd. to

Do., 3s.
Do., 6s.

•■Wheat planting, 6 or 7 boys at Sd. per acre, 4s. 8d.

Wheat hoeing, G boys at Sd. per acre, 4s.

Turnip hoeing, 5 boys, at 8d. per acre, 3s. 4d.

Ditto, second time, 3 boys at 8d., 2s.

Mangold-wurzel, G boys and 1 man plant 5 acres per day,

say Is. 3d. per acre
Cleaning and heaping swedes, 6 boys, at 8d. per acre, 4s.

You will perceive that this statement is in favor of the boys very considerably.

In planting corn there is a considerable saving of seed, (which will of course vary
according to the idea of the farmer, as to quantity required;) the seed is allin the ground,
and at the required distances apart to admit of hoeing and weeding, and thus it requires

• Mr. Mechi tells me that in his neighbourhood they pay Us. per acre for planting
wheat.

AGRICULTURAL DINNERS. 155

less harrowing to cover the seed. The hoeing is as perfect as it well can be done by-
hand, and all the surface is moved — a system v/liich is seldom carried out when it is
hoed by the piece. In the turnip hoeing, the plants are at regular distances, and all the
surface is moved, so that no weeds escape. I may mention that the judges of swede
crops for the Herefordshire Agricultural Society, the season before last, mentioned the
cultivation of my swede crop as the most perfect they had ever seen ; and I believe that in a
field of 40 acres a man might have crossed it in six places, and not found six double
plants. Of incidental work I need say little more than to remark that, in weeding, col-
lecting couch, collecting turnips and potatoes, making hay, turning barley and other crops
at harvest, picking stones from the land,&c. &c., the boys are peculiarly adapted, as these
operations do not require strength, but care, and from their size the boys get so much closer
to their ivork.

But these are few of die great advantages to be derived. Whilst my boys are learning
to be good and skilful laborers, and to get their living, they are rescued from what are
too frequently dens of immorality and vice, and are learning their duty towards their
God, and their duty towards their neighbor. They are learning habits of cleanliness,
and a systematic mode of living, and may be, I trust, the commencement of a better race
of men.

You may ask, Is this system appreciated by the laboring class 1 I should say, most
decidedly it is.

I believe, in three months after I had filled up my number, I had refused as many as
sixty applicants, (some from a distance,) and one poor woman walked 24 miles to get her
boy placed with me, but my number was already made up.

There is another great advantage I must not omit to mention, that in keeping these boys
I am consuming my own manvfactures, (wheat, pigs, sheep, &c.,) by which means I have the
bran back on the farm ; I have the butcher's profit of pigs and sheep ; I get the manure
(night soil) on the land, and / keep my capital in my own country (my farm) instead of
sending it abroad (i. e., the labor market). I believe I have given you every particular
requisite, and I think the calculation very near. The only items I have omitted are milk,
(skimmed.) which would otherwise go to the pigs ; and garden stutf, which they have
when in abundance. The calculation is from Sunday morning till Saturday night, and
tlie boys have lived in the usual manner. The expense may vary, but I believe this is
about the average. I have said nothing of the accommodation and expense of filling up,
but it is not great. There are also books, &c., which are those generally used by the
national schools, published by the Society for the Ditfusion of Christian Knowledge ; in
these a sovereign will go a long way. This and the interest of capital invested in furni-
ture, &c.. when divided amongst 20 boys, amounts to very little per week ; perhaps in all
2s. per boy. — Hereford Times.

AGRICULTURAL DINNERS.

WHY NOT POPULAR IN OUR COUNTRY?

Can any one give any good reason why we should not have, in our
country, as in others, public dinners and discussions, when people have
taken the trouble to come together, once a year, from (some times) hundreds
of miles to see and be seen — to hear and to be heard — to give and to receive
information ? The most interesting and instructive portion of the English
agricultural journals, is that which gives accounts of toasts and discussions
Avhich take place at the public dinners on all occasions of annual meetings
of agricultural societies in that country. Every topic is brought into review,
and a dozen or more of men, distinguished yet more for their scientific
knowledge and practical experience, than for rank and wealth, make speeches
which serve at once to enliven and enlighten the company and the public;
for their remarks are taken down and published for wide and general circu-
lation. The speakers on these occasions have generally the good sense to
select topics of admitted interest for the day, and the good taste to condense
their remarks within a small compass, conveying much that is worthy of
note and remembrance, within a quarter of a column of a newspaper. Here,
it would seem that we never or rarely mingle the lively with the useful.

156 AGRICULTURAL DINNERS,

Every man is thinking of the '■'^ almighty dollar.'''' Even some of those
who betray unseemly anxiety for a paUry premium, will grudge the fee of
admission on the ground; and when the show is over, instead of being
publicly toasted for his success, at a public dinner, in a glass of Adam's ale
if you will, and publicly called out to offer thanks for the honor of which he
has a right to be proud, and to explain for the benefit of all present the means
by which he has attained excellence in the department for which he has
obtained a premium; you will see him put his five dollars for best "half acre
cf flax" in his pocket and go away, to see in what obscure house he can get
the cheapest dinner — and thus the whole affair, which ought to be one of
discussion and conviviality, giving and taking information, and explaining
the processes as well as the results of good management — takes an exclu-
sively sober, calculating, money hunting, unsocial turn ; and all that is ever
known by those who are not in attendance is, that Mr, A., living near, took
$10 for five best ewe lambs, and Mr. B., a "diploma" for best middled wool
buck! These remarks have been suggested by the perusal of an account
of the proceedings at the public dinner, at a late second annual meeting of
the "Norfolk agricultural association" in England, where more than a
dozen men of high eminence as agriculturists and stock-breeders addressed
the meeting on various subjects.

On these occasions it is gratifying to see, too, that even the Clergy are not
too straight-laced to take part, and give an example of anxiety for the progress
of agricultural improvement, testifying to its great importance. At the
dinner referred to in this case,

"The President, after a pause, again rose, and said, the next toast upon the list was
" The health of the Bishop and Clergy of the diocese." Among them, he believed, they
had agriculturists and geologists. He believed they were a body of men who did honor
to their profession. He thought if the Bishop of Norwich lived a long while, there would
be no sinecurists. (Laughter.)

, "The Rev. P. Gurdon thanked the company for the great honor they had paid to the
bishop of the diocese, and he made his acknowledgments for the compliment to the clergy.
He was not ignorant that it was an old custom, and he might almost say a constitutional
principle, to introduce the toast so early; and he was aware that it carried with it a two-
fold object — it showed unequivocally tlie mark they set upon the pastoral oflice; and it
clearly indicated to the clergy the important duties which devolved upon them. But he
would not debate upon that topic on the present occasion; for he felt too great an interest
in the welfare of that society to occupy their time as an humble individual, seeing, as he
did. many around him more fully qualified to enter into the various matters and details
which he considered they came there more properly to entertain, than to return thanks
for compliments; but he could not take leave of them without expressing a hope, an
earnest hope, that the clergy of the diocese might ever hold the high place which they
had hitherto enjoyed in their estimation. He felt satisfied, as a practical working clergy-
man, that they could always secure that esteem ; and he would use the language of the
bishop in returning thanks to the citizens of Loudon for the healths of the clergy ; they
could always secure that estimation by their talents, their education, and their diligence
among the iiocks over which they were appointed. (Applause.) He wished they might
live long to support the society with that zeal and spirit they had done hitherto, being
of the noble lord's opinion, that these associations must tend to the welfare and good of
mankind, because they embraced three objects — the first to encourage the researches and
the practical skill of the tiller of the soil; the second, to develope the symmetrical im-
provements in the breeding of those animals upon which the life of man is generally
sustained ; and thirdly, to bring into public notice the labor, the skill, the ingenuity, and
science of the mechanic. He concurred in all that had been said in praise of that great
man who had introduced so much zeal and energy into the county of Norfolk ; and among
the great things he had done, he had not left undone the introduction of machinery into
Norfolk. They had seen many of those machines ; and he would mention Crc^sskill's
clod-crusher, and Messrs. Garrett's machine for hoeing wheat. When they saw such
\mplements as these, he felt satisfied that societies like the present were for the general
benefit of mankind. (Plaudits.)"

Among many other things worthy of note, some remarks were made on

AGRICULTURAL DINNERS. 157

the importance of preserving the purity of blood of improved stock as the
only means of effecting desirable crosses.

Instead of the toasts all being read by the chairman of the meeting, (some-
times the dullest man to be found at the table,) it seems to be the practice to
select particular persons, to whom the prepared toasts are handed, one to
each, to be announced; and this is evidently an improvement. The toasts
being numbered, they are given in their right order. The health of the
judges of particular departments are usually given, and these being men
of known experience and judgment, it affords an opportunity for the spokes-
man of that committee to explain the principles and consideration involved
in the case, and thus much valuable information is elicited.

" Mr. E. C. Bailey having read the list of prizes awarded for sheep, IMr. W. Burroughes
gave ''The healtlis of the Judges of the Sheep," and regretted that there were not more
competitors from East Norfolk. (Applause.)

" iVIr. EUman, of Sussex, [the son, we suppose, of the great improver of Southdown sheep,]
said, it would be very bad taste on his part to detain the meeting with many observations
on the stock exhibited, after ]\Ir. Torrs eloquent speech. lie would, however, take the
liberty of making a few remarks, more particularly on the Southdowns. He found he
had two most able men as judges acting with him, and he left the Leicester sheep en-
tirely to them. In regard to the Southdowns, he must say, he derived the greatest plea-
sure from wjiat he had witnessed, and he hoped he was not treading on tender ground,
as a Sussex or Southdown man, when he expressed his satisfaction in seeing the South-
downs show much less of the Old Hampshire than they had previously done. Twenty
beautiful ewes showed as much Southdown breeding as he had seen for many a day.
He could not, for the life of him, see any great merit in those inmiense heads which some
of the sheep had to carry. At one time it was the i'ashion to breed Southdowns with too
much fat and too little lean ; and, if he might refer to the Leicester.s, the same fault was
committed with them. The farmers of Norfolk were indebted for the introduction of
Southdown sheep into the county to the late Lord Leicester, whose patronage his father
liad the honor of enjoying. It was impossible to come into Norfolk without acknowledging
that the late earl's patronage had made the county pre-eminent among the agricultural
coimties of this kingdom. He had been in most of them, and he had no hesitation in
saying that he never saw any thing like the skill which he had seen exhibited in Norfolk.
He recommended attention to be i)aid to the pure breed of Southdowns, as, unless it was
maintained, it would be impossible to have cross-breeds. In recommending that, he
might be supposed to be taking more interest in this county than his own, because most
decidedly he would be pleasetl to see the gentlemen of Norfolk conung to Sussex for
Southdown ewes. He believed, that if the breeding in this county was followed up, they
would find as good Southdowns in it as in any county of England ; and he thought that,
at the next Norwich meeting, Norfolk stood a great chance of preventing some of the
Southdown prizes going away from it. (Applause.)

" Mr. Bennett, as one of the judges for the sheep, returned thanks, and expressed his
opinion that the difference in the merits of the Southdowns and Leicesters was not so
great as some supposed; but that form and quality should guide thein in their judgment
of all animals, whether Southdowns or Leicesters, Shorthorns or Devons. He agreed with
Mr. EUman, that they should keep a pure race of animals ; for if they lost sight of the
pure breed, where was the cross to come liom? He remembered a saying of the old
Duke of Bedford, that the first cross was a very good one; but beyond that, all that was
good in either breed was lost, and all that was bad of both retained. (Hear, hear.) That
was borne out in the practice of a great number of individuals, who had carried crossings
of different breeds too far. He had been appointed one of the judges of the Southdown
sheep, thirty-four years ago, by the late Lord Leicester, who said he appointed him because
the nearer the Southdowns came to the form and quality of the Leicesters, the better. He
did not know whether they must reverse the order of things now; and whedier JNIr. Harvey
must not go to Mr. Overman, and get his forjn and quality, in order to be as perfect as he
ought to be. If so, he was quite sure that the spirit, enterprise, and judgment of Mr.
Harvey would be quite sufficient to induce him to do so. More skill and judgment were
displayed in the iinprovement of the Southdown than in keeping the Leicesters what
they were. It was much easier to miprove a race of animals than to keep up a race that were
pretty near perfection. He cautioned his friends, who were near the top of the tree, to be
careful that they did not retrograde; it required more judgment to keep up a good fock than
to get that flock. I'his he knew from experience, not only as regarded the Leicester
breeds, but every breed of animals."

o

158 WHAT IS NEEDED.

We apprehend there is much more truth in the remark of " the old Duke
of Bedford," than is generally supposed, especially when the further cross
is carried on by men destitute of skill and experience. Any one may effect
a great and visible melioration by using an improved male for a single cross,
but the misfortune is that all the progeny are usually employed in the further
work of procreation and improvement, without reference to qualities, and in
such cases if degeneracy does not ensue, no further improvement is effected.
We once remember, more than twenty-five years ago, to have heard the late
Mr. Steenbergen, of Virginia, one of the most sagacious and clear, strong-
minded farmers we have ever known, remark that the first cross, by an
improved male, Avas better for general purposes than the full blood!

But how is that first cross to be had, unless encouragement be given to
the breeders of the pure races ?

Before closing these very hasty remarks, made with a running pen, we
feel it to be our duty to disclaim and denounce all idea of dinner parties
anywhere for the low and vulgar indulgence of gormandizing and drinking.
When gentlemen want to indulge in mindless revelry, and coarse and
senseless jest, which some mistake for wit, the best place is some oyster
cellar or third-rate tavern ; but for the honor of agriculture we hope such
low and coarse indulgence will never be connected with associations for the
intellectual improvement of the best and most useful, and if /)ro;:>er/y under-
stood and followed, the noblest calling under the sun. But there is no
reason why we should exclude from such associations all idea of rational
conviviality and encounter of intellectual force and comparison of practical
experience.

WHAT IS NEEDED

TO GIVE TO THE FARMER AND PLANTER OF THE UNITED STATES THE
MARKETS OF ENGLAND.

In our last number, page 75, we pointed out to our agricultural readers
the mode by which they could secure themselves the great market of Eng-
land for their grain and flour. We now invite their attention to the following
letter from an American gentleman, writing from London under date of July
6th. He says :

" The crop of wlieat here, it is thought, will not exceed tlie usual average ; but of
potatoes the yield promises to be very abundant, and the prospect for tl>em and for grain
is also very good on tlie continent. I have no donbt, however, that after February next,
when the duty ceases, this country will be a constant customer to us for M-heat and flour,
though the exter.t of it will be governed hy the prices with us ; and in ordinary seasons
it probably will not be talcen to any considerable extent at over $\ 50 a $5 per barrel."

Let the price of flour be reduced to $4 50 per barrel, and large quantities
will be taken, unless the price should fall so low in England that it will
not be taken at more than $3 50. To accomplish this object, nothing is
needed but to convert our consumers of food into producers of food, by re-
pealing the present inefficient tariff, and thus depriving the former of his
present protection. Food will then be low enough for export to England,
and then the planter will raise less food and more cotton, and cotton will be
so cheap in England as cfiectually to do away with East India competition.
What, then, however, will be the condition of the planter? What will be
the value of his land ? What that of his hands ? Will he then be able to
live better or worse ? Will he feed, and clothe, and lodge his hands better
or worse ? Let him answer the question to himself, and in doing so let him
for once forget party — if he can. If he will do this, he will say to himself.

FLANNEL MILLS STOPPING. 159

that throughout the world the plough has prospered in the vicinity of the
loom and the anvil, and throughout the world it has failed to prosper where
the loom and the anvil have been very distant, compelling its owner to waste
labor and manure in the work of transportation and exchange. Let him
then ask himself the remed)'-, first satisfying himself of the difference between
the raising of tons of hay and potatoes to be consumed on the ground, on the
one hand, or hundred weights of wheat or cotton, to be sent from the land,
on the other.

Since writing the above, we have met with an article from the London
Times, on the grain crop of the United States, from which we take the fol-
lowing extract for the information of the farmers of the Union.

" Supposing the above tables to approach any thing like correctness, one conclusion
would seeai apparent. A considerable surplus of wheat is produced (taking the American
crop on the basis of 1847) over the amount required; and pnccs must, consequently, decline
in all open markets until they reach a point which will lead to an increase of consumption
sufficient to take off such surplus, or until a diminished i)roductiou shall ensue in conse-
quence of their passing below a remunerating rate."

In the same article is given a list of the open markets of the world — those
Avhich export food — and they are Russia, Egypt and Syria, Eastern Germany,
Denmark and Sicily — all of them the poorest countries of Europe, those
which waste most labor and manure in the work of transportation and ex-
change, and have least of either to apply to that of production. Such are
the countries with which the United Slates are required to compete, and a
belief is confidently expressed by the writer in the Times, that they will do
so. That they may do so, all that is necessary is that they should shut up
their furnaces and factories and drive the prosperous consumers to the west,
there to become poor producers, and they may then, in the words of the
Times, " boldly enter into competition with those of any other nation in the
great corn market of the world" — even with the Russian boor and the Egyp-
tian fellah. When consumers abounded in Egypt and Sicily, the producers
were rich. They themselves consumed largely and had much to spare. The
consumers have disappeared and the producers have become poor. They
can consume little themselves, and they have little to spare.

FLANNEL MILLS STOPPING.

" The mills of the Hon. Mr. Hale, at Haverhill, have stopped, in consequence of the
great stock of flannels on hand and the limited demand the present season. We under-
stand that the flannel business has paid little or nothing ibr a year past.'' — Lowell Courier,

When we meet with such notices as the above, and they are now of con-
stant occurrence, we cannot avoid reflecting on the injurious effect to the
farmer that results from compelling men to travel west to raise food, when
they would prefer, if at all possible, to stay at home and consume it. Every
increase in the ratio of producers to consumers is an injury to the farmer
and planter. Every increase in the ratio of consumers to producers is a
gain to them — and yet we see farmers and planters throughout the country
uniting to sustain a policy that builds up, at their cost, cities that are filled
with people who live by profits of transportation and exchange. If every
county in the Union had its mills, or furnaces, or other places of exchange, as
it should have, we should hear no more of mills and furnaces stopping — nor
should we witness such rapid growth of cities, while the country was being
depopulated, because of the exhaustion attendant upon the cost of transport-
ing and converting cotton and wool into cloth. When will the farmers and
planters open their eyes to the fact that protection to the loom and anvil is
in reahty protection to the plough.

160 LIST OF PREMIUMS.

LIST OF PREMIUMS OFFERED BY THE NEW YORK
STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.

We have been favored with a list of premiums to be awarded at the next
State exhibition at Buffalo, on the 6th and 7th of September. Among others,
there are more than fifty premiums offered for " field crops," on spaces
limited to "not less than two acres," as the highest minimum, and so down to
"half an acre" for others. No premium to be given for winter wheat where
the yield has been less than forty bushels — spring wheat thirty-five — Indian
corn this year not less than eighty — barley forty — rye forty — oats sixty —
buckwheat thirty — peas thirty — beans thirty — potatoes two hundred, and
another for not less than three hundred bushels* — ruta baga (swedish turnip)
one thousand — sugar beets five hundred — carrots five hundred — mangel-
wurzel five hundred — best half acre of tobacco, $5.

These premiums indicate what the executive committee deem it expedient
to promote the cultivation of, in that State, and the quantity which it is pre-
sumed they know may be made. It is respectfully suggested that a com-
mittee should be appointed to examine the statements of the claimants, and
to sift out from them any thing that is really new and economical worthy of
being preferred and adopted, over materials and systems already brought to
light, by the offer, in ten thousand cases, of premiums for the same objects —
for if the end has not been accomplished, by the employment of implements,
manures, or processes more economical and labor-saving than are already
known and have been heretofore practised and pubUshed — then it may be
asked, cui bono? What good is expected?

The following forms of Affidavits prefixed, will show against what sort
of habits and practices, and qualities of mind and character, it has been
deemed by the executive committee of the state society necessary to guard,
by compelling the claimant to "kiss the book."

Forms of afTidavits for surveyor, applicant, and assistant are annexed.

The application, with the proofs, must be forwarded to the Secretary, at the Agricul-
tural Rooms, Albany, by the 10th of January, 1849.

Forms of Affidavits for Surveyor, Applicant and Assistant.

County, ss. — A. B. being duly sworn, says he is a surveyor ; that he surveyed, with

chain and compass, the land upon which C. D. raised a crop of the past season, and

the quantity of land is — acres, and no more.

Sworn to before me, this day of , 184 . A. B., Surveyor.

, Justice.

County, ss. — C. D. being duly sworn, says that he raised a orop of the past

season, upon the land surveyed by A. B., and that the quantity of grain raised thereon
■^vas — bushels, measured in a sealed half bushel ; and that he was assisted in harvesting
and measuring said crop by E. F. ; and that the statement annexed, subscribed by this
deponent, as to the manner of cultivation, expenses, &c., is in all respects true, to the best
of his knowledge and belief; and that the sample of grain exhibited is a fair average
sample of the whole crop.

Sworn f^ before ine, this day of , 1 84 . C. D.

, Justice.

Cmmty, ss. — E. F. being duly sworn, says that he assisted C. D. in harvesting,

getting out, and measuring his crop of , referred to in the above affidavits, and that

the quantity of grain was — bushels, as stated in the affidavit of C. D. E. F.

Sworn to before me, this day of , 184 .

. , Justice.

* The Executive Committee, when they fixed this minimum at three hundred bushels,
had piobably not seen tlie account by the New York correspondent of the National In-
telligencer, of eight hundred bushels! and we forget how many thousand cabbages and
other things ma(re and to be made on an acre in New Jersey this year by Professor M.,
of the Jlmaican Inslilvle!

THE TEA PLANT. 161

THE TEA PLANT,

ITS CULTURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

As the Chinese and their empire are gradually, from their increasing
contact with the Anglo-Saxon race, better known, many prejudices and
unfounded opinions, formed for want of knowledge, are exploding and giving
place to more just and correct information. A subject hitherto much in the
dark, and now but partially understood, is the Tea Plant, and its culture.
We remember that for years and years, and indeed until within the last few
years, we in common with our countrymen thought it was impossible to pro-
cure tea plants or tea seed from China ; albeit, tea seed occasionally came to
this country, brought as a curiosity by a captain or supercargo, but as we
never could succeed in making it grow, we took the general opinion for
granted, that the Chinese boiled it before selling. We also acknowledge
that we thought, with that best work that was ever published for general
reading, " The Penny Magazine," that it was " only in a particular tract of
the Chinese empire that the plant is cultivated ; and this tract is situated on
the eastern side, between the 30th and 33d degrees of north latitude. The
more northern part would be too cold ; further south the heat would be too
great." These were our old prejudices ; but they have given way before
better information. The Chinese will not only sell plants and seeds, but they
will also hire themselves to cultivate them in a new country. The great
English tea companies imported into Hindoostan ship loads of plants, seeds,
and Chinese cultivators. Neither is it only in a particular part of China
that the plant will grow. It is cultivated in the northern and mountain
region, where snow lays on the ground three or four months of the year ; it
is found wild in Assam, as far south as the 24th degree, and is cultivated in
quantities at the foot and on the sides of the Himmaleh mountains. Such
being the case, cannot tea be cultivated with profit in the United States ?
From the best information we can get — from the books and journals of tra-
vellers— from conversations with the traders to and returned residents of the
tea country, we are fully convinced that the Union, from Texas to New York,
will grow tea equal in quality to two-thirds of that imported, and that some
of the states will grow it equal to or better than the best that comes from
China. The Assam plant would undoubtedly flourish foom Florida to the
Potomac, but would probably require time and care to naturalize it in the
Middle States ; whilst in these states the seed from the cold and mountainous
parts of China would grow luxuriantly, but would be troublesome to natu-
ralize in the south.

The characteristic observant and inquisitive tone of our countrymen, for
which as a nation we have become famous, leads us to believe that there is
a great mass of information in the country relative to the growth of the tea
plant ; and thinking as we do that it is every patriot's duty to render his
country, as far as he has the power, independent of foreign nations, we beg
those having such information to furnish us with it, that we may spread it
before the practical public, and have the experiment of tea-raising tried : and
we request our contemporaries, agricultural and daily, to notice the subject,
and gather all the facts in their power. If they will do this, and if our tra-
ders, merchants, supercargoes, and shipmasters will bring or order home
plants and seed whenever it is possible, the child is now born that will live
to see the United States export, instead of import, tea!

Since the above was partly written, we have learned that there is a young
gentleman of our city recently returned from Calcutta, who for five or six

Vol. I.— 21 o 2

162 RICHMOND, VIRGINIA.

years had the management of one of the company's tea factories (i. e. plan-
tations) in Assam, and that he has written a history of the culture and habits
of the tea plant, and the mode of preparing it for market ; and has made
drawings of all the implements used in its culture and preparation. This
gentleman, we understand, has expressed an opinion that this country can
and will grow as good teas as any portion of the world.

We know not the size of his work, but if it is not too large we shall be
happy to be the means of spreading it before the public, with the necessary
wood-cut illustrations.

It is to objects like these that agricultural institutes and societies should
turn their attention, and offer premiums for importations and for informa-
tion. Our officers of the navy have ever been ready to attend to any sug-
gestions from agricultural societies in such cases ; indeed many of them have
incurred considerable expense in this way, the government having no power,
and perhaps less disposition, to make advances for any thing but military
surveys.

Nations, like individuals, never know what they can do until they try.
Look at the history of the cultivation of the olive, now the main support of
commerce in some of the provinces of Italy. Pliny informs us that in the
year of the city 500, when Appius Claudius and Junius were consuls to-
gether, a pound of oil was sold for twelve asses ; but that in the year 680,
ten pounds of oil were exchanged for only one ass — and that in twenty-two
years after that time, Italy was able to furnish the provinces with oil.

If we were governed by a domestic policy, that would nurture every
branch and variety of industry and production, corresponding with our al-
most unlimited variety of climate, soil, and natural resources and capacity,
we should soon be making all our own wine and silk, and olive oil and tea :
and thousands would be employed in the production and manufacture of
these articles, and consuming the produce of the plough. Mho, for want of
these various employments, are following at the handles of the plough —
swelling its fruits into such masses of abundance that they must rot at home,
or be sent abroad to contend, where the Commissioner of Patents thinks they
may successfully contend, with the grain produced on the cheap lands of
Russia — by the serfs of Russia.

We shall be truly thankful for any practical information illustrating the
fitness of our climate for the production of this, or any new and valuable
commodity like it, even though the facts we may disseminate may be treated
as Avas the full history we gave twenty-Jive years ago, (along with the sub-
stance itself,) respecting the use and value of Guano.

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA,

ITS ADVANTAGES FOE, MANUFACTURING PURPOSES.

A NORTHERN gentleman visiting this region of country, on which Nature
has bestowed such eminent advantages, writes thus to the Philadelphia
Daily Sun.

Richmond, Fa., July 15, 1848.
Gentlemeit ; — This is my first visit Sontli ; and being particularly struck with the
beauty and advantages of this, the capital of the Old Dominion, I have spent a few days
in asking questions, and critically examining for myself why it is that this favored spot
should have been so long overlooked by tlie enterprising capitalists among my brother
Yankees. I have come to the conclusion that it can be accounted for only in one way,
and that is, the Nortliern prejudice that has so long withheld me from a Southern tour.

RICHMOND, VIRGINIA. 163

IVIy short intercourse witli the people, and my strict observance of their peculiar institu-
tion, has ah-eady removed all prejudice; and while I contemplate the magnificence of
this situation, its central position, its climate, its being at the head of navigable tide water,
at the terminus of the James River Canal, in the route of the great Southern Railroad, its
tremendous water-power, together with its great agricultural resources. I am wonder-
stricken that it is not ah-eady one of the first cities in the Union.

This overlooked region jjresents greater advantages to the manufacturer than any point
I have ever before visited. In addition to the advantages of climate, and low price, and
abundance of water-power, its vicinity to the cotton-growing country, the great superiority
of the Virginia iron, its being the terminus of the Richmond and Danville Railroad, now
being located, and the ultimate terminus of the great work proposed through Tennessee
to Memphis on the Mississippi, must make it ere long the Lowell of the South, if not the
Manchester of America.

There are already in this city several large cotton factories; one woollen factory: seve-
ral extensive flour mills, one of which is said to be equal, if not superior, to any in the
Union; an armory ; one cannon fijundery ; several iron works, rolling-mills, and machine
shops; one steel factory; one nail and screw factory; one paper mill, and several saw,
corn, and plaster mills. And v<»lien it is taken into consideration that those many esta-
blishments use but a moiety of the water-power on the one side of the river, what des-
tiny may we not anticipate for a city so favored.

The Richmond and Danville Railroad will commence from their depot — on or near the
dock, or shipping point— cross the James River diagonally, as I understand, in a south-
west direction, pass under the Petersburg Railroad Bridge near the south abutment;
thence up the river, through what are known as //(ei'''«//s and S/jrmg- /fiVZ properties; thence
diverging to the Chesterfield Coal Fields, and in its passage to the south-western terminus,
traverse that fertile portion of Virginia watered by the Roanoke and its tributaries.

This road will not only reduce the price of the best article for generating gas known to
our chemists — the Chesterfield coal — by aflbrding a cheap and ready transportation, but,
after its completion to Danville, near the North Carolina line, and M'ithin the cotton re-
gion, will open a new avenue to the raw, as well as manufactured material, and thus so
add to the already numerous resources of this favored spot, as to give a new impetus to
the awakening spirit for manufacturing; and call into reqiiisilion that splendid water-
power on the Spring Hill and Falls property, opposite tlie city, which, until recently, has
for many years been seemingly overlooked. Beaudful as Richmond is, and numerous as
are its advantages, I feel it but due to suggest to such of your readers as business or in-
chnation may lead this way, not to omit visiting Spring Hill. It is certainly one of the
most beautiful and best located spots for a manufacturing town I have ever seen. Its
water front is about 3000 feet, and within that distance the fall is some 27^ feet. When
you think of this, and that you may command at all times water enough to drive a half
million of spindles, you will wonder, as I did, that it has not long since been brought into
requisition. It has, however, within the last year, fallen into individual hands, who, as I
understand, has given evidence of enterprise by obtaining a charter, and is about organiz-
ing a company for the full development of the power, and die disposition of privileges
and lots.

His first purpose is. as I understand, to induce capitalists of enterprise to visit the spot;
that done, I have no hesitancy in anticipating the success of his enterprise, and shall data
from it a new era in the industrial prosperity of this portion of the South.

A New Courespgndestt.

Unfortunately, as we think for the welfare of Richmond and of Virginia,
those who have always controlled the policy of the state, and who from, that
state have generally shared in the direction of the policy of the general go-
vernment, have belonged to the 'let us alone' school of politicians — a policy
that would be very well if ours was the only country in the world, and one in
which the members of the confederation belong to one government. One por-
tion should not be taxed or restricted to advance the pursuits of another ; but
where the intercourse and the contest is between rival nations, does it not seem
to be suicidal for one to fold its arms and leave all other nations to regulate their
intercourse on such terms as they deem best for their own interest ? And
again, the cry raised against banks and capitahsts, and the difficulties thrown
in the way of associations to loan money and build factories — denouncing all
such as attempts at "odious monopolies" — has had the effect of driving capi-
tal from that state into others, where the wisdom of the people and of legisla-

164 ANNUAL SALE OF SHEEP.

tures has prompted them to offer to capitalists and capital every possible
temptation, saying, Come — come, and be welcome.

For how long a time will the people be hoodwinked by demagogues of all
parties, in search of power and place ? Is not the present a propitious mo-
ment to re-establish reason and patriotism in the place so long usurped and
held by party prej udice ?

MR. REYBOLD'S ANNUAL SALE OF SHEEP.

To THE Editors, — I made one of a trio, to go by the Napoleon, to Mr.
Reybold's sale of Oxfordshire sheep, returning by the Express — both good
steamboats, and, what very much helps to make good boats, both under the
guidance of pohte and attentive commanders. At Mr. Reybold's we found
a goodly company of substantial farmers ; among them Harry Carroll, of "My
Lady's Manor," Maryland, and his neighbor Mr. Jessup. Mr. Carroll had
last year provided himself with a buck of Mr. Reybold's breed, and Mr.
Jessup was lucky now, in getting No. 10, a choice animal, at a figure some-
where above $40. Neighbors may, in such cases, advantageously exchange
rams for a season, and thus avoid breeding too closely in-and-in. Mr. Reybold
is himself cautious to avoid this too common fault, or too common necessity,
of American breeders, by sending to England occasionally for a stream of
fresh blood, with which to dash that of the progeny of his old stock. He
is now expecting another ram from England, for use, this autumn. The
sire of his present flock was there in all his majesty, and is a perfect sight
in the ovine department. In May he weighed some 360 pounds, and no
doubt would, if now hung up in the shambles, cut eight inches through the
ribs.

The sale went to prove, what I apprehended, that there is not spirit enough
among breeders in this country, to keep up, at remunerating rates, annual
auctions of improved stock — some ten or twelve only were sold, for from
$40 to $60. A two-year-old was sold, under private orders, to a gentleman
in Virginia for $80 — but such a sheep! except his sire, is not to be found
every day, in any country. One was sent, under orders from Texas, to Gal-
veston. It is quite probable that every buck in the pen would have been
let in England, by the year, for double what their life-estate would bring
here. But England takes care that those who manufacture for her, shall
all live and do their eating within her boundaries. She does not send abroad
to buy manufactures for which she has all the climate and capacities at
home, resources which we possess in glorious abundance, if our commercial
policy did not forbid or cripple manuflictures in our own country, and thus
cut off the market which would otherwise and ought to be supplied to the
American farmer, by having the consumers alongside of the producers; if,
in a word, the loom and the anvil, the coalmine and the iron-foundery, were
kept constantly going near the plough.

It is belif^ve'd that Mr. Reybold, not finding the encouragement which he
ought to have expected from his extraordinary care and outlay in this branch
of husbandry, will hereafter sell at private sale, as opportunities offer — which
hittieno he has not felt himself at liberty to do, from his obligation to reserve
all choice bucks for public auction. But for this reserve, it was said that
he might have disposed of all he had on satisfactory terms. Nevertheless,
the pubhc may be assured, that he will in no measure relax in his attention
to the maintenance of his noble flock, in its present points of excellence ;

ANNUAL SALE OF SHEEP. 165

and those who desire to increase the weight of their sheep, in flesh and wool,
and to infuse into their flocks a greater propensity to fatten, on good pastures,
will know where to get the impregnating element.

For men whose land is poor, and pasturage poor, and flocks poor, and
where all is likely to get from poor to poorer, for want of inquiry and activity
of mind and bodjs on the part of gentlemen proprietors, we have no advice
to offer except that they continue to sit in their cool piazzas, with their
bottoms on one chair, their feet on another, and, leaning back at their ease,
keep on whittling sticks, or reading their party newspapers, until the sheriff
comes to — sell them ovt!

Ail I have to say, in addition, Messrs. Editors, is, that if the use of Mr.
Reybold's bucks will ensure such mutton as we found on his table, it would
not be easy to name too high a price for them. I do not mean that it was
excessively yb^, which to every man of good taste is a serious objection with
all meat — but that it was fat, and at the same time juicy and tender; and
altogether free from sheep flavor. I should hke to have known, but neglected
to inquire, how long it had been killed; for on this point I have my peculiar
theory for both fowl and butcher's meat. My persuasion is, that both should
be eaten, either immediately after they are killed, and if possible before they
get cold — or that if they do get dead cold, they should then be kept until
the fibre begins to give way, in the transition towards putrefaction. Hence
it is, let me tell you, for I can —

How to fry a chicken. — The traveller, whoever he may be, that ever
stopped to breakfast at Mr. Goodwin's, on the Fairfax road going out from
Alexandria, will remember how sharp was his appetite on arrival there in
the stage, and how by the time he could wash and refresh himself in that
way, he was shown into the breakfast room, to refresh himself more sub-
stantially with good old-fashioned Virginia biscuit, fragrant hot coffee, and a
dish of hot fried chickens, as tender as young partridges .' Well, if he had
asked Mrs. Goodwin the quo modo — the how it happened ; she would have
told him that when the stage arrived, the chickens were in the coop, from
which they were taken all "alive and kicking," and having their heads
wrung off', were instantly disemboweled and washed out with hot (not cold)
water, and then quartered and dropped into a pan of boiling lard, (pure sweet
lard mind ye,) and were served up hot and dry, not swimming in grease ;
and thus it is, Mr. Reader, that you get what is worth eating in the way of
fried chickens.' or if you prefer to have them served up with gravy, let it
in heaven's name be nice cream gravy — for which too you must not stop
this side of old Maryland ; and here permit me to enlarge with a line or two
to tell —

How to have lamb or mutton free from the objectionable '■'■'mutton'''
taste. — If a man were called on to review our early annals in search of the
locality and the period, of the most whole-souled, uncalculating, generous
hospitality, that ever did honor to any country, he would go back to a time
anterior and for twenty or thirty years subsequent to the American Revolu-
tion ; and running his finger over the map of the old thirteen, he would
stop when he came to the tide-water counties of Maryland, and run it
thence along, slowly pointing to the lower country of Virginia and the
Carolinas — dwelling, as he proceeded, particularly on the Chotank and
the James River region of Virginia — famous for fox-hunting, for card-
playing, for dancing, for good old rum-toddy, and for good muttonJ What,
in fact, that is best in good men, and good living, were not those regions
famed for ?

In old Chotank lived, among other choice and noble spirits. Colonel
Lawrence T. Dade, for twenty-five years a member of one or the other

166 ANNUAL SALE OF SHEEP.

branch of the legislature. At that time, the people, in looking for repre-
sentatives of the landed interest, did not contract their views dov^^n to the
narrow microscopic points of modern requirements in politics. They did
not ask whether the man was for 49° 30' or 54° 40'. Will he go the whole
of my hog, or another man's hog? They looked out for gentlemen of in-
teUigence and property, vv^ho they knew must be for their country, and for
which their blood and their property were alike deemed the best security ;
and felt safe in leaving all the rest to their honor and patriotism. But it is
not with Colonel Dade as a politician or lawgiver that I would deal, but as
a gentleman of the old school of high-breeding and unbounded hospitality ;
and with his judgment on two points of great importance in this world of
sober realities, where eating and drinking — or as Swift said, buttoning and
unbuttoning — constitutes the chief business of life.

It was Colonel Dade's observation, as to the management of lamb or mutton,
as well as all other living things to be eaten — that as soon as killed, they
should he instantly disemboweled. It was his theory that the warmth of
the body, carried off by the loss of blood, was for a time supplied from the
warmth of the bowels, and that it is the neglect to remove the entrails at
once, (and not, as some suppose, the meat being touched by the wool,) which
imparts to it that strong "mutton taste," which sometimes spoils the best
meat on a palate the least discriminating.

Colonel Dade afterwards removed to Kentucky, and there came in contact
with the great cat-Jish of the Ohio, some of them as heavy as an old field
southern bacon hog, running at large, enjoying the largest liberty for sixteen
months, and there he observed the same principle to hold good ; that the
fish too, as soon as taken, must have all the shme washed from its body, and
be immediately eviscerated, taking care, as well with fish as with sheep and
other animals, never to let the meat be touched by the entrails or their
contents.

I hope. Sir, you will not consider these homely subjects unworthy of being
treated in a paper, designed as yours is, to give useful information to every
class — in every branch of useful occupation — but I must not conclude with-
out a word about —

The Peach district of Delaware. — In going to New Castle, you pass in
view of that fine peach orchard on the noble estate of Doctor J. W. Thomp-
son, of Wilmington, advertised for sale on the cover of the Plough, the
Loom, and the Anvil. On leaving New Castle, wending your way down
to Delaware City, you pass some minor orchards, that in any other part of
the world would be esteemed large, until you come to that naturally splendid
and highly improved district belonging now to Major Reybold and his sons,
and sons-in-law, from whose orchards alone, it is estimated will be sent this
year 160,000 baskets of peaches to the Philadelphia and New York markets.
Delaware City ought to have been called Peach town. You may see there,
from this time until the last of September, a line of mule wagons, of peculiar
construction, loaded with peaches, extending for a mile — or as long as the
line of girls that came out in New England to greet the arrival of the "old
Hero," General Jackson.

From these wagons, the steamboats takeoff 5000 baskets a day, five days
in the week, making 25,000 baskets weekly for seven or eight weeks — each
basket holding about three pecks. I saw in the boat a Knight of the Thimble,
going down from Philadelphia, as he said, to hire out to "pick peaches," as
promising more agreeable if not more lucrative employment than handling
the goose. Some of these days I will give you a more detqiled account of
this peach husbandry, in its practical and mercantile details. This too is an
important variety of industry, which owes its cultivation to the application

SHORTNESS OF HANDS. 167

of steam and the use of coal — enabling the peach grower to send his fruit from
the Chesapeake and the Delaware fresh into the New York market. But, sir,
can you name any thing so important for agriculture and horticulture as the
success of all the other various industrial pursuits, whereby mouths may be
created gaping wide for the produce of the garden and the orchard, the dairy
and the field, like young robbins waiting for worms. Look through all nature,
and you see how she has provided consumers for every thing she has created;
insects to devour fruits and vegetables, and birds to devour insects ! So it is
conformable to her designs that other employments should provide thriving
consumers for all the products of the plough and the spade, and those who
favor a policy of government which prevents concentration of the followers
of other pursuits, near to and around the plough and the spade, to consume
the fruits of agriculture and horticulture, war with nature herself, and would
substitute for her orders and designs, the sinister inventions of human policy,
always seeking to make the many subservient to the few.

Lastly, in respect to this peach region, you are not to associate in your
mind, a poor, light, warm, sandy country, as people are apt to do. Not at all!
for here you see noble fields of great extent, covered with rich herbage, on
which large herds of bullocks "wax fat and kick," or fine flocks of sheep,
and fields of corn that promise sixty bushels to the acre. At Major Rey-
bold's I saw one field of Swedish turnips of 20 acres beautifully drilled.
And then how diflerent has been the conduct of Major Reybold from many
rich, old miserly curmudgeons that we know of! Instead of keeping his
children in servile expectancy and dependence, there resides the old patriarch
in the midst of his sons and sons-in-law, and grand-children, increasing in the
midst of abundance, and each head of his family enjoying his separate inde-
pendence. The old cock seems to delight in hearing the young ones crow,
each at a respectful distance on his own walk, all venerating the parents of
their existence, the nurses of their infancy, and their exemplars in diligence
and industry.

"SHORTNESS OF HANDS," HOW ACCOUNTED FOR.

Harvest. — Last week completed, or nearly so, in this county, a long, laborious harvest,
including hay, wheat and oats. Each of these crops have been unusually abundant and
of the best quality. The increased quantity of produce, as compared with the last pre-
ceding harvest, has doubled the amount of the farmer's labor in securing it. The increased
quantity — a shortness of hands, and the brittleness of the weather, have subjected the
farmers to a long and laborious harvest; but their toil is rewarded by the extraordinary
quantity and good quality of their products. — Delaware Co. Rep.

"The shortness of hands" will always be felt where the pursuits of labor
are all of one kind ; whatever tends to foster the greatest variety of employ-
ments will be found most advantageous to all— and most especially to the
farmer and planter, because their operations are simple and require but
little experience to perform those of them by which they are most liable to be
pressed. Where the loom and the anvil, the saw-mill and the wind-mill, the
tanner and the shoemaker, labor in the neighborhood and buy of one another,
each can be called upon at a pinch to help the other. There will be seasons
of comparative leisure, as well as of business, in the employments of all,
occurring at different seasons of the year; and if the farmer would insist on
having the loom and the anvil — the ironmonger and the miller, the tailor
and the carpenter, come and settle near to his plough — that is, if he will
require a system of legislation that will make it most profitable for those
who manufacture for him, to be as near to him as possible, in that case,
when harvest presses, and his crops are threatened to be overtaken by sum-
mer storms and the frosts of winter, he can command help from n<?ighboring

168 AMERICAN POULTRY.

mechanics and artisans, who Avill be wilh'ng to take in payment for their labor
a portion of the very crop which that labor has assisted to save from de-
struction. Look where he will — view his interest and condition in whatever
light he may, and the farmer and the planter will see that instead of detract-
ing from the value and diminishing the profits of other branches of industry,
the more they prosper the better for him. The Earl of Leicester — otherwise
and better known as the great Norfolk Farmer — used to say, that he would
like to know that each of his tenants could drink his bottle of champagne
every day ; and so we say to the farmer and the planter, it would be better
for them if every wood-sawyer on the wharves could make money enough
to buy their strawberries and their cream every day of their lives.

HOW TO RAISE POULTRY FOR MARKET ON A LARGE

SCALE.

American Poultry. — The following method of rearing and feeding poul-
try, says Mr. Charles Whitlaw, I had from a Captain Dunn. He had re-
ceived some hints from the Chinese, and likewise imported all the different
kinds of fowls he could get from that and other countries, in order to im-
prove and cross the breed. After many years' experience, he found that
the breed produced between the English and the Malay fowls was the best,
taking size and flavor, and their being better suited to the climate, into
consideration. The severities of the winters at New York require the em-
ployment of artificial heat, in order that the hens may lay all the Avinter,
and that chickens may be reared all the year through. The houses for this
purpose may be built either of brick or stone, one story high, with wooden
roofs, and must be heated by cast-iron steam pipes ; their ceilings and walls
must be finished with Roman cement, in order to keep the houses free from
vermin, which are apt to generate when heat is employed ; each house is to
be divided into compartments — the first for hatching and rearing chickens,
the second for breeding turkeys, the third for ducks, and the fourth for
geese. A furnace is to be built at one end, with a steam boiler to hold fifty
or one hundred gallons of water, which will heat a house eighty feet in
length ; the first two compartments must have the steam pipes passed
through both rooms, at the bottom of the walls, for hatching chicken and
turkey eggs, and they must pass once round the other two rooms, ducks
and geese requiring less heat. The boiler must also be so constructed as to
steam potatoes, parsnips, carrots, and herbs, which, when cooked and mixed
with milk, barley, oats or peas, meal or flour, produce the finest chickens
and other poultry. To make the hens lay all through the winter, mix pow-
dered oyster shells and slate, or decomposed schistus, with their food ; the
lime in the oyster shells is necessary to form the shells of the eggs, and the
slate improves the quality and flavor. Those hens are found to lay bet-
ter flavored eggs which are bred on soils formed from decomposed schistus
or granite. By persevering in the above plan, a sufficient quantity of poul-
try might be obtained to supply London at one-half the prices generally
charged, and yet allow a fair profit to the farmers, and an abundant supply
of eggs in the winter would always be certain. The finest children I have
seen in the United Slates were fed mostly upon bread, milk, eggs, and poul-
try. If parents would feed their children in this way, giving them little or
no other animal food, they would not be so liable to disease, nor would con-
tagious disorders be so fatal as they are now, owing to the excessive use of
animal food, and particularly pork. — From an English Paper.

THE EXPERIENCED BUTCHER. 169

THE EXPERIENCED BUTCHER.

CHAPTER I.

On the Laufulness of eating Animal Food — On eating Blood — On killing laboring Oxen.

The profession of a butcher, and the members of that profession, have
commonly been accounted, however deservedly or not, amongst the most
coarse and cruel of the human race. If the imputation be just, as they
are a numerous body, it may serve the cause of humanity, both in re-
spect to them, to mankind at large, and to the animal creation, to con-
sider the causes which make them so, and to inquire Avhether cruelty
be a necessary consequence of engaging in the profession, or merely
accidental; and, if the imputation be unjust, it will be no less an act of
justice and humanity to endeavor to remove it, to lay down an impar-
tial statement of the case, and offer such rules and hints for the improve-
ment and conduct of the profession as may appear to be agreeable to rea-
son, and that higher rule for the conduct of man, the Word of God. It
is the object of the writer of this little volume to attempt this desirable
end ; and, as there have been, in all ages of the Christian era, those who
have denied the lawfulness of eating flesh, or of taking away life at all for
the sustenance of man, it seems requisite to begin with a consideration of
that question. Of the writers on this subject of late years, the principal
are Oswald, in his " Cry of Nature," Ritson, in his " Essay on Abstinence
from Animal Food as a Moral duty," and the compiler of "The Literary
Miscellany," in the eighteenth number, containing remarks on the conduct
of man to animals, flesh-eating, «fec. To these may be added some of our
poets, who, in a strain of thoughtless or affected humanity, censure that
which they could not prove to be censurable, and which, probably, they
practised themselves : among these are Pope, Gay, Thomson, Armstrong,
and Goldsmith. Pope, in his "Essay on Man," epist. i. line 81, as a
general censure, calls the kiUing a Iamb for food, riot ;

The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day

Again, Ep. iii. 1. 154, he calls the killing animals for food and clothing,
murder. Speaking of man, in what he calls a state of nature, he says,

No murder clothed hmi, and no murder fed.

And again, 1. 161 — 164,

Ah ! how unlike the man of times to come ?
Of half that live the butcher and the tomb ;
Who, foe to Nature, hears the general groan,
Murders their species and betrays his own.

Gray, in his Fable of the Philosopher and the Pheasants, makes the parent
pheasant say,

Sooner the hawk or vulture trust
Than man, of animals the worst ;
In him ingratitude you find,
A vice peculiar to his kind.

Vol. L— 22 P

170 THE EXPERIENCED BUTCHER.

The sheep, whose annual fleece is dyed
To guard his heahh and serve his pride.
Forced from his fold and native plain,
Is in the cruel shambles slain."

Thomson, in his Spring, laments that " the wholesome herh neglected
dies," which is not true, for it is still cultivated as the food of the animal
creation, and, to a considerable extent, as the food of man, of whom he
says :

with hot ravine fired, ensanguined man

Is now become the lion of the plain,

And worse. 1. 340.

After comparing him with the wolf and tiger, whom he thinks less to be
censured, he says,

Shall he, fair form !
Who wears sweet smiles, and looks erect on heaven,
E'er stoop to mingle with the prowling herd,
And dip his tongue in gore ? The beast of pre)'',
Blood-stain'd, deserves to bleed ; but you, ye flocks,
What have you done ; ye peaceful people, what,
To merit death ? You, who have given us milk
In luscious streams, and lent us your own coat
Against the winter's cold ? And the plain ox,*
That harmless, honest, guileless animal,
In what has he oflended 1 He, whose toil,
Patient and ever-ready, clothes the land
With all the pomp of harvest, shall he bleed
And, struggling, groan beneath the cruel hands

Even of the clowns he feeds ? And that, perhaps, i

To swell the riot of th' autumnal feast, i^

Won by his labor ? Thus the feeling heart
Would tenderly suggest ; but "tis enough,
In this late age, adventurous, to have touch'd
Light on the numbers of the Samian sage.

He, however, seems to be aware that the thing for which he pleads, is
against the appointment of Heaven, and concludes with.

Heaven, too, forbids the bold presumptuous strain.

Whose wisest will has fix'd us in a state

That must not yet to pure perfection rise. 1. 354 — 376.

Armstrong, too, in his poem, " The Art of Preserving Health," speaks
of the time

when the world was young ;

Ere yet the barbarous thirst of blood had seized

The human breast B. ii. I. SV;

He had before pleaded,

And if the steer must fall,
In youth and sanguine vigor let him die. B. ii. 1. o2.

* Dr. Aikin, in his excellent little volume on "'The Arts of Life," Letter VII., says: 'I
shall not attempt to spoil your appetite by interesting your compassion in favor of the
victims, or dwelling upon the cruelty of a butcher's shop. You may find some very
pretty lines to the purpose in the poet Thomson, who, however, could eat his beef-steak
with as good a relish as any man. Treat animals kindly while they live, and never
take away their lives wantonly ; but you need not scrujjle to make that use of their
bodies which Nature has plainly ordained."

Here Dr. A. no doubt uses the word nature according to Cowper's acceptation :

Nature is but a name for an effect.

Whose cause is Gor. Task, h. vi. 1. 223.

THE EXPERIENCED BUTCHER. 171

And again,

' Then, shepherds, then begin to spare your flocks ;

And learn, with wise humanity to check
The lust of blood. B. ii. 1. 291. •

Goldsmith makes his Edwin, turned hermit, say,

No flocks that range the valley free

To slaughter I condemn ;
Taught by that Power that pities me,

I learn to pity them.

But from the mountain's grassy side

A guiltless feast I bring ;
A scrip with herbs and fruits supplied,

And water from the spring.

The amiable and humane Cowper, however, whose pen moved, more
than any other poet's, agreeably to the dictates of reason and religion, while
he has pleaded for the brute, has not intrenched upon the liberty of man,
and has acted as the arbiter between man and beast :

On Noah, and in him on all mankind,
The charter was conferr'd, by which we hold
The flesh of animals in fee, and claim
O'er all we feed on, pow'r of life and death.
But read the instrument, and mark it well:
The oppression of a tyrannous control
Can find no warrant there. Feed, then, and yield
Thanks for thy food. Carnivorous, through sin,
Feed on the slain, but spare the living brute. Task,h.vi. 1. 450, &c.

That the grant to Noah continues in force under the Gospel, may be col-
lected from the following considerations, made by Mr. Plumptree in the
second of his " Three Discourses on the Case of the Animal Creation, and
the Duties of Man to Them :"

"1. Before I mention our blessed Lord himself, I will just notice that
remarkable instance of abstemiousness, John the Baptist, the 'Ehas who
was for to come,' Matt. xi. 14, and who might be said, comparatively
speaking, to have come ' neither eating nor drinking,' v. 18, whose food
was 'locusts and wild honey,' Matt. iii. 4; his life, therefore, was sus-
tained by the labor of the bees and the death of the locusts.

" 2. Our blessed Lord, 'by whom are all things,' Rom. viii. 6, and who,
when upon earth, ' did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth,' 1 Pet.
ii. 22, and who would neither ' break the bruised reed, nor quench the
smoking flax,' Isaiah xlii. 3 ; Matt. xii. 20, scrupled not to partake of the
usual entertainments of those times, at which, no doubt, according to the
custom of the Jews, there was flesh. So much did he frequent and partake
of them, that the Pharisees, in reproach, called him ' a gluttonous man,'
Matt. xi. 19. At the feast given by Matthew, the publican, on his quilting
his profession. Matt. ix. 10, 11, and at the marriage feast in Cana, he pro-
bably partook with others of 'oxen and fallings,' John ii. 1 — 11 ; Matt.
xxii. 4. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, mentioned as a type of the
rejoicing in heaven on the repentance of a sinner, the fatted caff is killed
for the entertainment, Luke xv. 23. And again, at the marriage supper of
the king's son, another likeness of the kingdom of heaven, we hear ex-
pressly of the ' oxen and fallings' being ' killed,' Matt. xxii. 4.

" Of the paschal lamb he partook along with his disciples, who were
most of them fishermen by trade, an employment which consists in the
taking away of life for the sustenance of man. Upon two occasions, he

172 THE EXPERIENCED BUTCHER.

brought a multitude of them miraculously to their nets, Luke v. 1 — 1 1 ;
John xxi. 1 — 14; and these were probably their common food, as we find
they had fishes with them upon those occasions, when Christ miraculously
increased them, together with the bread, to give food to fainting thousands,
Matt. xiv. 15—21 ; Mark vi. 35—44 ; Luke ix. 10—17; John vi. 5—14.
Of fish also he eat, even after his resurrection, Luke xxiv. 42; John xxi.
29. He mentions also, without any censure, the ' two sparrows sold for a
farthing,' and the ' five for two farthings,' which were probably sold as
food.

"8. Under the law of Moses, and indeed long before that, in the time of
Noah, certain animals had been forbidden to be used by man as food, under
a distinction of unchan and clean animals. But, under the Gospel, even
this is done away ; for, when St. Peter Avas at Joppa, and at prayer upon
the house-top, ' and he became very hungry, and would have eaten : while
they made ready, he fell into a trance, and saw heaven opened, and a cer-
tain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet, knit at the
four corners, and let down to the earth, wherein were all manner of four-
footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls
of the air. And there came a voice unto him — Rise, Peter ; hill and eat.
But Peter said. Not so, Lord ; for I have never eaten any thing that is com-
mon or unclean. And the voice spake unto him again the second time,
What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common. This was done
thrice, and the vessel was received up again into heaven,' Acts x. 10 — 16.
Here permission is given to kill and to eat animals of all kinds. St. Peter
again, in his 2d Epistle, speaks of the ' brute beasts' as being ' made to be
taken and destroyed,' ii. 12. And, afterwards, when the disciples at
Antioch had some scruples as to the necessity of observing many parts of
the Mosaic law, and sent Barnabas and Paul to Jerusalem, to consult with
the other apostles on the subject, their determination was, ' That ye ab-
stain from meats offered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled,'
Acts XV. 29. And St. Paul, in the 10th chapter of his 1st Epistle to the
Corinthians, advises them, ' Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat,
asking no questions for conscience' sake. For the earth is the Lord's and
the fulness thereof.' ' If any of them that believe not bid you to a feast,
and ye be disposed to go ; whatsoever is set before you eat, asking no ques-
tions for conscience' sake.' ' Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or Avhat-
soever ye do, do all to the glory of God,' v. 25 — 27, 31. And he says
also, in another place, that ' the kingdom of God is not meat and drink ;'
that is, that these, however necessary and desirable, are not the great ob-
jects of life, ' but righteousness and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost,'
Rom. xiv. 17.

" 4. But St, Paul goes further, and informs us, in the 4th chapter of his
1st Epistle to Timothy, that the commanding to ^abstain from meats' is
' a departure from the faith.' ' Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that,
in the latter times, some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to se-
ducing spirits and doctrines of devils ; speaking lies in hypocrisy, having
their conscience seared with a hot iron ; forbidding to marry, and command-
ing to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with
thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. For every crea-
ture of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanks-
giving ; for it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer,' v. 1 — 5.
These passages are abundantly sufficient to satisfy any one, who believes
in the word of God, and will take the trouble to consult it, that the eating
of flesh is lawful.

THE EXPERIENCED BUTCHER. 173

"They're^'Menci/ and measure of this, however, is another question, and
must rather be determined by convenience, and by the physician, upon
considering the constitution of each individual. I beheve, however, that it
may be said, in general, that those who have the means of eating animal
food, commonly eat too much. Were the rich to eat less, and the poor
enabled to procure more, both classes would be the better for it. In par-
ticular constitutions and tempers, as, for instance, the irascible, an entire
abstinence, or nearly so, from flesh and fermented liquors, might be advisa-
ble. Instances have been known of angry tempers being cured by living
upon the food assigned to our fathers of the Avorld before the flood — the
herbs and fruits of the earth. Let it be observed also, that, when animal
food is rendered what is called high, either by putrefaction, or preparation,
its ill-effects are increased ; and that all waste of meat, by reducing a large
quantity into a small portion of essence, is, no doubt, a sin."

On the Prohibition of Blood it seems necessary to say a few words.
Stackhouse, in his "History of the Bible," vol. 1, book ii. chap. 1, Dis-
sertation 1, has considered the subject at some length. Those who may
wish to see the arguments on both sides, may consult the original, the
result of his inquiry is sufficient for this place : " Unless we are minded
to impair the authority, and sap the foundation of revealed religion, we
must allow the decree to be still in force, and the command, which pro-
hibits the eating of blood, still chargeable upon every man's conscience. A
command, given by God himself to Noah, repeated to Moses, and ratified
by the apostles of Jesus Christ; given immediately after the flood, when
the world, as it were, began anew, and the only one given on that occasion;
repeated, with awful solemnity, to the people, whom God had separated from
the rest of the world to be his own; repeated with dreadful denunciations
of divine vengeance, upon those who should dare to tivansgress it ; and rati-
fied by the most solemn and sacred council that was ever assembled upon
earth, acting under the immediate influence of the Spirit of God ; trans-
mitted from that sacred assembly to the several churches of the neighbor-
ing nations by the hands of no meaner messengers than two bishops and
two apostles ;* asserted by the best writers and most philosophic spirits of
their age, the Christian apologists, and sealed with the blood of the best
men, the Christian martyrs ; confirmed by the unanimous consent -.of the
fathers, and reverenced by the practice of the whole Christian church for
above three hundred years, and of the eastern church, even to this very
day," p. 162, 163.

He afterwards says, " though this prohibition of eating blood can hardly
be deemed a commandment of moral obligation, yet is it a positive precept,
which cannot but be thought of more weight and importance, for being so
oft and so solemnly enjoined ; that, though the reasons alleged for its in-
junctions are not always so convincing, yet the prevention of cruelty and
murder, which is immediately mentioned after it, will, in all ages, be ever
esteemed a good one ; and, though the liberty granted in the Gospel seems
to be great, yet can it hardly be understood without some restriction,"
p. 163.

In concluding this chapter, it seems desirable to say something on
the subject of killing the laboring oxen for food. Thomson and Arm-
strong have spoken against it in the passages before quoted ; and Mr.
Young, in his " Essay on Humanity to Animals," chap. 1, p. 27, says :
"Amongst the Athenians and many other nations, in very ancient times,
it was held unlawful to kill the ploughing and laboring ox, either for

• Gen. ix. 4; Lev. iii. 17; vii. 26; xvii. 10, 14; xLx. 26 ; Ezek. xxiii. 25; Acts xv. 29.

p2

174 THE PIKE.

sacrifice or food.* I cannot help doubting whether it would not have
been for the honor and even the advantage of mankind, if this senti-
ment had continued to retain its influence in later ages. I could wish
it to be considered, whether the loss of food, which would have arisen to
mankind from abstaining from the flesh of the ploughing and laboring
ox, would not have been compensated by the increase of humanity, which
would have arisen from an abstinence of that nature."

On this, it may be said that the law of Moses, which was so tender to ani-
mals, Exod. xxiii. 4, 5, 12; Deut. xxii. 1 — 4, 6, 7, 10, and especially to the
laboring ox, Deut. xx. 4, makes no prohibition of the kind ; and it appears
from the case of David, 2 Sam. xxiv. 22 — 25 ; 1 Chron. xxi. 25, &c., and from
the case of Elisha, 1 Kings xix. 21, that there was no scruple with the Jews
on this head. Nor do I consider it as being more cruel to kill the laboring
ox for food than to allow it to lead a lingering old age ; but should consider
the making it to cease from its work, while yet in strength, and allowing it
rest and abundance of food to fatten, to be rather an act of mercy. The
not using oxen more in agriculture, but using horses in their stead, which,
after their work is over, afford no sustenance to man, seems to me to be a waste
of food. Nor does it seem to me to be more cruel to kill for food the ox, which
has been the companion and sharer in the laborer's toil, than to eat the poul-
try reared by our own hands. It does not appear, that, if the poor man him-
self, mentioned by Nathan in his parable, had taken his " httle ewe lamb,
which he had brought and nourished up," which " grew up together with him
and with his children," which " did eat of his own meat and drank of his own
cup, and lay in his bosom, and was unto him as a daughter," 2 Sam. xii. 3,
and killed it, that he would have been considered as having had "no pity."
The great object in our conduct towards animals seems to be, mercy in life,

mercy in death.

< < » » >

THE PIKE.

The Pike, commonly called Jack when under three or four pounds in
weight, is a well-known fish ; like many of us, better known than trusted
or treated. He is a greedy, unsociable, tyrannical savage, and is hated like
a Bluebeard. Everybody girds at him with spear, gafT, hock, net, snare,
and even with powder and shot. He has not a friend in the world. The
horrible gorge hook is especially invented for the torment of his maw.
Notwithstanding, he fights his way vigorously, grows into immense strength,
despite his many enemies, and lives longer than his greatest foe, man. His
voracity is unbounded, and, like the most accomplished corporate officer, he
is nearly omniverous, his palate giving the preference, however, to fish,
flesh, and fowl. Dyspepsia never interferes with his digestion ; and he
possesses a quality that would have been valuable at La Trappe — he can
fast without inconvenience for a se'nnight. He can gorge himself then, to
beyond the gills, without the slightest derangement of the stomach. He is
shark and ostrich combined. His body is comely to look at ; and if he
could hide his head — by no means a diminished one — his green and silver
vesture would attract many admirers. His intemperate habits, however,
render him an object of disgust and dread. He devours his own children ;
but, strange to say, likes better (for eating) the children of his neighbors.
Heat spoils his appetite ; cold sharpens it ; and this very day (30th Decem-
ber, 1846) a friend has sent me a gormandizing specimen, caught by an
armed gudgeon amidst the ice and snow of the Thames, near Marlow. I
envy the pike's constitution. — Handbook of Angling.

* Potter's Grecian Antiquities, book ii, chap. 4.

FARMING IN MARYLAND. 175

FARMING IN MARYLAND.

We do not doubt that in Maryland there is vastly more of intellectual
investigation applied to agriculture than there was thirty years ago. We
of course remember when there was no such thing thought of as an agri-
cultural paper, whereupon we determined, as far as we could command the
means, to supply a defect so discreditable, as we considered it, to those con-
cerned in the great occupation which lies at the foundation of all others.

Essays appeared occasionally in the newspapers of the country, and were
read with avidity by all men eager for that most covetable of all things —
knowledge ; but no one thought of a regular organ, or channel, for convey-
ing information as to the practice, much less the rights of agriculture. In
behalf of the latter, even now, most of our journals are as dumb as so
many fish. Among the papers that made a stir throughout the agricultural
community in the South, and evinced an honourable eagerness to learn what
the best experience had taught to be best, were the papers of Arator, from
the pen of Col. John Taylor, of Caroline, published originally in a George-
town (D. C.) paper. It is believed there was then no paper published in
Washington. Since that time, hundreds of pens, and thousands of heads,
have been employed in agricultural discussions, until a knowledge of what
is most safe and profitable in the mere processes and implements of agricuV'
ture, is widely diffused; and what, as we have elsewhere said, the cultivator
of the soil now most needs to know, and therefore what he should most
especially study to find out, is, how shall labor be made to do well in other
pursuits, to create a demand for every variety of produce to which agricul-
tural and horticultural labor can be applied ? and how shall the market, to
be thus created, be established in the nearest vicinity to the plough, and be
made most reliable? These are the real and true questions now for the prac-
tical farmer and planter, and hence do we endeavor to manifest our sense
of duty, by endeavoring to show, not merely how the heaviest crops can
be made with the least cost, but how much the profit of American hus-
bandry must depend on the prosperity of American labor. We want to
find, and we want our readers to learn, how concentration is to be made to
take the place of dispersion. When a state of things exists that children
are seen to settle around their parents ; that the son of one neighbor marries
the daughter of another, and the son of that other marries his brother-in-
law's sister, and grandchildren and great-grandchildren are dandled on the
knees of the old people, then may we be sure there is something wholesome
and prosperous in the social and pohtical condition ; but when sons, as fast
as they grow up, are seen to move off to Wisconsin and Iowa, to Arkansas
and Missouri, or to seek clerkships at Washington, and the old tenements
are getting full of old maiden daughters, we may be as sure there is some-
thing unnatural, "something rotten in the state of Denmark." It is only
where population concentrates and thickens, that lands are progressively
improving. All the premiums that can be offered will never improve the
face of a country generally, where churches and meeting-houses are filled
Avith old maids. But to return to our starting point, the progress of im-
provement in Maryland has been, it is apprehended, rather in patches and
on particular estates, than universal, and resulting from well-rooted and
widely-extending influences. Thus, while the whole Eastern Shore of
Maryland has been stationary, for forty years, in population ; while the mar-
riages are few, and the children not increasing, there are instances of indi-
vidual intelligence and energy, and improved knowledge of agriculture,
under the influence of which farms have been made to more than double
their former produce, proving the effect as well of the judicious applicstioa

176 FARMING IN MARYLAND.

of capital and labor, as of superior management generally . Take Talbot county,
for example : with an easy navigation almost to every man's door, her popula-
tion, in 1820, was 14,887 ; in 1840, it had sunk to 12,090 — loss in twenty
years, 2319. At that rate, how long would it take to extinguish the whole
seed, breed, and generation? and that in a country which every one knows,
who knows any thing of its inhabitants, is not excelled in the Union for gene-
ral intelligence, and especially for intelligence in the prosecution of their chief
pursuit — grain-growing. Does not this show that something else, besides the
knowledge of ploughing and hoeing, and sowing and reaping, is necessary
to prevent dispersion ? to give life and cheerfulness, animation and hope; to
keep the sons at home, and to get husbands for the daughters ? What is
that something? Does not the farmer know that if a mistaken policy forces
us to go abroad for manufactures, fabricated by people who eat the produce
of other countries, that all those of our own country, who ought to be em-
ployed at home in driving the loom and working at the anvil near to his
plough, and all foreigners coming to our country, with their capital and their
trades, will be forced to throw up the shuttle, and to throw down the ham-
mer, and travel out to the cheap lands provided for them by the old states,
on railroads and canals built by the old states to carry them there at the
least possible expense ?

Col, Lloyd, for example — and there need be no better example as a man
or a farmer — makes this year, probably, on his portion of his father's estate,
double as much wheat as the governor made on his 14,000 acres, yet it will
probably not bring him as much money. The colonel is among the last who
need to be told that the native and the foreigner are growing wheat against
him, on cheap lands in the west, at a rate so cheap as to require him to
make three for one to keep way with them. How then must it be with
those who grow wheat in the old states, subject to fifty and one hundred
miles of land transportation ? Is it not obvious that whatever shuts up the
coal-mine, and puts out the fire in the furnace, and stops the loom, and
stills the sound of the hammer on the anvil, drives those who are delving
in the mines, and working in the founderies, and throwing the shuttle, and
lifting the hammer, to go where they can get land for nothing, and make a
bare subsistence with the least amount of capital and labor ; thus not only
ceasing to eat the farmer's wheat and his corn, his bacon and his mutton,
but producing all these in superabundance for themselves? Who, then, is
his greatest friend — he who tells him what he knows already, that is, how to
make poor land rich, or he who endeavors to bring about such a state of
things as will reward him for enriching his land, and afford him a good
and steady market of consumers close at hand ?

Take Q.ueen Anne's county, in the same state, for another instance.
There too, the population, in 1820, was 14,952, and in 1840 it had sunk to
12,633, Does any one believe this retrograde movement is the result of any
want of intelligence ? Here too, we understand, that a son of our lamented
friend. Col. Emory, has very greatly increased the crops on that part of the
paternal estate which has fallen under his management, Blakeford, the
beautiful estate of the late Governor Wright, (another true friend in days
long gone by,) presents another example of great value, as it proves that
capital will tell, when used with sagacity and fearlessness, in agriculture,
as it has under the same mind in commerce. The crop of wheat, which,
under former owners, perhaps never reached an average exceeding fifteen
bushels, went this year up to, and perhaps something above, twenty-five
to the acre, which sold for $1 12 per bushel, more than $28 to the acre, or
yielding from that part of the farm the interest on more than $400 to the
acre. The corn crop will be as large and as much increased in proportion.

BENEFICENT EFFECTS OF CONCENTRATION. 177

Hence it is not by lessons in practical agriculture, let us repeat, that such
neighborhoods need to be informed, so much as they require to be told how
those who take our money for their manufactures can be forced to come and
manufacture so near our ploughs as that it shall be their interest to take
pay in the wheat and the corn of us, who buy their slops and haberdasheries,
and coal, and earthen, and glass, and hardware, and cutlery, and iron, and
leather, and linen manufactures, and plate, and salt, and tin, and pewter,
and silk, and woollen, and small wares, all of which should be made in our
own country.

We have referred to farmers and to crops of which we have heard by
accident, and that occur to us at the moment. We know enough personally
to say, that if we wanted practical knowledge of agriculture generally,
especially in the production of the cereal crops, there is no place to which
we should repair with more confidence than to the very counties whose
population, with all their natural advantages, has been thus diminishing.
There can be no want of either enterprise or intelligence, where such men
as the Goldboroughs, the Martins, the Stevens, the Hambletons, the Lloyds,
or the Carmichaels, Chambers, and Emorys reside. Still, there stand the
" fixed facts" staring us in the face — young men moving away, while young
women remain single, though so charming that no change could improve
them, except — change of name !

Finally, to help the reader, as it has helped us, to understand what had
been mysterious in respect of the condition of the old states, we entreat him
to peruse and ponder the following extract,

ON THE BENEFICENT EFFECTS OF A POLICY THAT
PROMOTES CONCENTRATION,

From Carey's Past, Present, and Future.

The great prosperity of the people of the United States is uniformly at-
tributed to their abundance of fertile soils. They have been supposed to be
receiving wages for their labor, plus the excess that elsewhere would be
absorbed as rent. Forced, however, to squander their labors over the poor
soils of the west, and to use a vast amount of the inferior machinery of ex-
change, they appear to have been receiving only wages minus the profits
of the capital which has been wasted in subjecting to cultivation poor soils,
when fertile ones were at hand waiting the demand for their products. The
rich meadow-lands of Pennsylvania and of various other States have remained
covered with timber, while thousands have sought the west, there to com-
mence the work of cultivation on dry prairie-land upon which trees will not
grow; and to obtain from an acre of land thirty or forty bushels of Indian
corn that must be converted into pork before it can reach a market, distant
thousands of miles: >vhereas, by the careful cultivation of the better soils
of the older States, their labor might have been blessed with returns far
greater. An acre of turnips in England is made to yield twelve or fourteen
tons. Acres of potatoes yield frequently almost as much ; whereas an acre
of prairie-land yields but a ton of Indian corn, the most productive of all
grains. The meadow-land of Pennsylvania is not worth the cost of clearing,
because the market for its products has no existence : and until the consumer
shall place himself side by side with the producer, it can have none. Place
him there, and then nothing will be lost. The rich soils will give forth their
products, and the refuse will remain on the spot, to go back into the ground:
and thus the produce of the rich will fatten the poor ones. The land round
cities is valuable, because the soil gives forth its produce by tons : not bushels.

Vol. I.~23

178 BENEFICENT EFFECTS OF CONCENTRATION.

An acre of potatoes will outweigh a dozen acres of wheat, and its refuse' will
fertilize an acre of poor soil ; but from the produce of an acre of wheat sent
abroad to be exchanged, nothing goes back upon the land. We see every-
where that when furnaces are built, coal mines opened, or mills established,
land in the immediate vicinity becomes more valuable: and it does so be-
cause when the consumer and the producer come together, man is enabled
to compel the rich soils to exert their powers in giving forth the vast supphes
of food of which they are capable, and to pay them back by giving them,
the whole refuse : and until they do come together, nothing can be done.
To render the meadow-land worth the cost of clearing, the farmer must
have a market on the ground for his milk and cream, his veal and his beef.;
If compelled to convert the milk into cheese, giving the refuse to his hogs ;
and to drive his lean cattle to market : sending also to distant markets the
food they would have consumed in the process of being fattened, and thus
losing altogether the manure : the land is but little more valuable than the
prairies of the west, always to be had at the minimum price of a dollar and
twenty-five cents an acre : whereas to clear the trees and stumps and level
the ground might cost twenty dollars : and hence it is that men fly from rich
soils to poor ones. The people of the United States are now scattered over
a million of square miles, and over that vast surface they have been forced
to make roads, and to build court-houses, schools, and churches : whereas,
had they been permitted to follow the bent of their inclinations they would
not, at this time, have passed the Mississippi. The tendency of man is to
combine his exertions with those of his fellow-men ; and when we find him
doing otherwise the cause will be found, invariably, in the existence of some
essential error in the course of policy. Self-interest prompts him to this
union. He feels that two, ten, or twelve, acting together, can accomplish
that which would be impossible to a thousand men, each acting alone :'yet
is he seen flying off to the wilderness, abandoning his home, his parents,
and his friends, while meadows uncleared exist in unlimited quantity, soli-
citing his acceptance of their gil'ts. I'o produce an effect so contrary to the
laws of nature, a powerful repulsive firce must exist. It does exist, and the
extent of its power may be measured by an examination of the condition of
the adjacent province of Canada. Concentration therein is impossible.
The man who should undertake there to establish a work of almost any
description, would inevitably be ruined by the perpetual fluctuations of the
English S3'stem.

But a few months since, the prices of cotton cloths were high. Now,
the mills are closed, and a single town exhibits twelve hundred houses un-
occupied. The cotton manufacturer of Canada would be ruined. Three
years since, the price of iron was low, because peers would permit but few
railroads to be made. Now, it is high, because they have permitted the
formation of roads innumerable. A month hence railroad building may
stop, 'and then the world will be flooded with iron,* and foreigners will be
ruined. Against such revulsions, the product of a system that is to the last
degree unsound, the people of the British provinces have no protection.
Ministers are omnipotent : Parliament is omnipotent ; and the Bank is om-
nipotent. They make war or peace : grant or refuse railroads : make money

• So it has already happened, almost before the author had time to revise his proof
sheets. Last year iron was $10 80 per ton — now it is down to about $28, and those in
our country who were last year employed in making iron and consuming the products
of tlie plough, must next year be at tlie handles of the plough, augmenting yet more the
redundant products of the land, nntil the farmer shall become so badly paid and so poor,
that he may at last justify the assertion of Mr. Burke of the Patent Office, and undersell
the Russian serf in the Liverpool market. — Edits. P. L. ^ Ji.

BENEFICENT EFFECTS OF CONCENTRATION. 179

abundant or scarce, at their pleasure ; and the poor colonies must bear all;
and hence the utter worthlessness of land, as is shown by the occurrences-
of every day.* Railroads and canals are made with government assistance,
but they are almost unused, and so must they continue to be, until the people
shall acquire the powder of self-protection : or until England shall have learned
to obtain her own food from her own rich soils, and to permit those who
occupy the other portions of the earth to consume, on the ground on which
it is produced, their own food, returning to the soil its refuse : and thus fa-
cilitating the construction of the great machine, and the development of all
its wonderful powers.

From first to last Ave may see in the great fathers of our country a full
belief that the proximity of the consumer and the producer was essential to
the promotion of agriculture. They had seen the effects of provincial
government. They had been in the situation in which Canada now is placed,
and they had felt its hardships. The people of that province are poor, and
so must they remain pending the existence of the system : because, while
it lasts, they must continue to scatter themselves over the poor soils. There
[as in some places nearer to us] great men are numerous. They are busily
employed in governing the poor and scattered little men, and paying them-
selves : as they will continue to do, so long as the power of concentration on
the rich soils shall continue to be denied. The abundance of land is said
to be the cause of American prosperity, but Canada has land in greater
abundance, and yet she is too poor to make a road : too poor to keep her own
people, who are now deserting her capital to open houses of trade in New
York : too poor to keep the unhappjr immigrants from Ireland : while the
ever-growing wealth of the Union, blessed as it has heretofore been with
peace, has furnished means of employment for all that came direct from the
British Isles and from Europe at large, and all that overflowed from Canada ;
and having received them, has placed them at once in a situation to obtain,
if they would, houses, lots, and lands : homes of their oivn.

The right of resistance to wrong is inherent in every man: and every

* "By describing one side of the frontier, and reversing the picture, the other would
be described. On the American side, all is activity and bustle. The forest has been
widely cleared : every year numerous settlements are funned, and thousands of forms are
created out of the waste; the country is intersected with common roads, &c. » * * *
On the British side of the line, with the exception of a few favored spots, where some
approach to American prosperity is apparent, all seems waste and desolate. * * The
ancient city of Montreal, which is naturally the capital of Canada, will not bear the least
comparison, in any respect, with Buffalo, \vhich is a creation of yesterday. But it is not
in the difference between the larger towns on the two sides that we shall fiml the best
e^ddence of our inferiority. That painful but most undeniable truth is most manifest in
the country districts through which the line of national separation passes, for a distance
of a thousand miles. There, on the side of both the Canadas, and also of New Brunswick
and Nova Scotia, a widely scattered population, poor, and apparently unenterprising,
though hardy and industrious, separated from each otlier by tracts of intervening forests,
without towns or markets, almost without roads, living in mean houses, drawing little
more than a rude subsistence from ill-cultivated land, and seemingly incapable of improving
their condition, present the most instructive contrast to their enterprising and thriving
neighbors on the American side. » * » Throughout the frontier, from Amherstburgh
to the ocean, the market value of land is much greater on the American than on the British
side. In not a few parts of the frontier this difference amounts to a thousand per cent.

* * * The price of land in Vermont and New Hampshire, close to the line, is five
dollars per acre, and in the adjoining British townships, only one dollar. On this side of
the line, a very large extent of land is wholly unsaleable even at such low prices, while
on the other side property is continually changing hands. * * * J am positively
assured that superior natural fertility belongs to the British territory. In Upper Canada,
the whole of the great f)eninsula between Lakes Erie and Huron, comprising nearly half
of the available land of the province, is generally considered the best grain country of the
American continent." — Lord Durham,

180 BENEFICENT EFFECTS OF CONCENTRATION.

man and every nation may be at times compelled to resort to war in self-
defence. War is an evil, and so are tariffs of protection : yet both may be
necessary, and both are sometimes necessary. But for universal resistance,
the corn-laws would still exist, and the land-owners of England would not
yet have felt the necessity of looking towards home. Concentration is now
advancing in the United States because the interferences of England are
diminished, and thus we see mills slowly rising throughout the Southern
States, filled with black operatives. Planters now raise the food required for
their hands, and ploughs and other agricuUural implements are made at home ;
and hence it is that the overcharged markets of the world are reheved of the
surplus cotton, and that the planter obtains for a crop of two millions more
than could have been yielded by one of three millions. With a large crop
freights are high, and the machinery of exchange absorbs a large proportion
of the small price obtained abroad. With a small crop, freights are low and
prices abroad are high ; and the planter obtains a large reward, enabling him
to clear and drain his rich soils. He is placing the consumer by the side
of the producer, and with every step in this course he will obtain increased
returns from a diminished surface. With each, he will improve his own
condition, while the labor of those by whom he is surrounded will become
daily more valuable : and with each, there Avill be seen an increasing ten-
dency to improvement in their physical, moral, intellectual and political con-
dition.* If we now turn our eyes to Pennsylvania, we see the same results.
To bring into activity the coal mines of the eastern portion of that State, has
required an expenditure of $50,000,000, by aid of which they now send to
market three millions of tons of coal, worth $6,000,000: all of which is
expended on the spot, in payments to laborers employed in mining coal,
constructing engines, and building houses. Small as is, as yet, the result,
it has doubled the value of every farm, over hundreds of thousands of acres.
The farmer has now a market for his timber, and he clears his rich lands
with profit to himself from furnishing wood to be used in propping mines,
building boats, laying railroads, and building houses. He has a market for
his cabbages, his turnips, and his potatoes ; his veal and his beef; and he is
thus gradually acquiring power to force out from the great treasury of food
what "nature intended it should give forth: and that power is consequent upon
the fact that men have come to eat it. Close the mines, and he must raise
wheat to compete with the product of the dry lands of western prairies: and
at once must his lands decline in value. To accomplish thus much required
a vast sum : but, as we have already seen, in every operation connected with
the fashioning of the great machine, the first cost is the greatest. The land
that yields coal yields also iron ore. A hundred furnaces would produce five
hundred thousand tons of iron, worth, at the price in England, $12,000,000,
or twice as much as the present yield of coal:t and yet these hundred fur-
naces, that would bring to the ])roducer twice as many mouths as does now
the coal, would cost but $3,000,000. Why, then, are they not built ? Capital
abounds for every purpose, and iron which should be sold for fifteen dollars,
commands thirty dollars : and yet furnaces are built but slowly. The reason
is to be found in the fact that every species of manufacture is a lottery, and
will so continue while the policy of England remains unchanged. The fur-
nace-builder must calculate upon paying himself in a year or two, and so
much time may not be allowed him. Even at this moment, the increasing
difficulties of the times may have caused the abandonment of great lines of
roads, diminishing the demand for iron, and lessening the price one-half: and

• On our friends in Georgia and the Caiolinas these truths will not be lost. — Eds. P. L. SfJ.
\ Or more than double our average exports from 1840 to 184G. — Eds. P. L. ^ Jl.

BENEFICENT EFFECTS OF CONCENTRATION. 181

if so the furnaces and rolling-mills of Pennsylvania may be closed.* Pending
the existence of this state of things in a nation possessing the power that is
wielded by England, all operations of trade or manufacture requiring large
expenditure, must continue to be mere gambling ; and, as a necessary con-
sequence, they must continue to be monopolized by the few who can afford
to incur large risks for the chance of large profits : and those are not the men
who work most economically. When the manufacture of iron shall become
safe, it will fall into the hands of working men : and then iron will be cheap.
While such fluctuations shall continue, all operations in agriculture must like-
wise continue to be attended with great vibrations, consequent upon the
changes of Enghsh action. At one time, cabbages and potatoes will find a
market on the ground, as in parts of the country now they do. At another,
they will rot in the ground for want of a market, as some years since they
did.

The tendency of the whole system of the United States, is that of taking
from the great machine all that it will yield, and of giving nothing back :
and that tendency flows necessarily from the want of power over their own
actions. Concentration is natural, and dispersion is unnatural, yet dispersion
flows naturally from the absence of that power. The farmer of New York
raises wheat, which exhausts the land. That wheat he sells, and both grain
and straw are lost. The average jneld per acre, originally twenty bushels,
falls one-third. Had he a market on the ground for wheat, and milk and
veal, he could cultivate rich soils, and the same labor that now yields ten
bushels would yield him forty : and with each year he could clear such soils,
for increasing population would produce demand for timber, and stone, and
clay for bricks; and with each the great machine would yield forth more
largely the treasures with which it is charged. He sows his wheat early
and it is killed by the fly. Had he a market on the ground, for the produce
of the rich soils now covered with timber, he could so improve his land as
to sow it late, and then it would escape the fly. He sows his wheat on
bottom lands, and it is killed by frost. Had he a market on the ground for
veal and beef, he could enrich his higher lands with the manure produced
on the lower ones, and then he would escape the frost. The farmer of Ohio
raises wheat on thin soils, and it is killed by drought. He tries raising corn
and wheat on the river soils, and it is drowned out, or destroyed by rust.
He obtains ten bushels to the acre, which he must sell : and the produce of
his land diminishes with each year. Were the consumer near him, his lower
lands would be appropriated to meadows for his cattle, whose manure would
enrich the poor soils of the higher lands, and drought would not then mate-
rially affect them. Another obtains thirty bushels of Indian corn from rich
land, that, under a proper system of drainage, might yield sixty bushels :
but while he wastes his labor and manure on the road, no drainage can take
place. Thirty-two tons of corn, sown broad-cast, have been obtained from
an acre, in Massachusetts. That acre was enriched with the manure yielded
by western corn, consumed in the rich State that has already placed the con-
sumer by the side of the producer. When Ohio shall make a market for
such crops, she will have them.

The Kentuckian exhausts his land with hemp, and then wastes his manure
on the road, in carrying it to market. Had he a market on the ground for
corn and oats, peas and beans, cabbages, and potatoes, and turnips, he might
restore the waste : but the rich bottom lands must remain undrained until
he can place the consumer side by side with the producer.

Virginia is exhausted by tobacco, and men desert their homes to seek in

* Has not all this been unhappily realized? — Eds. P. L. ^ A.

a

182 BENEFICENT EFFECTS OF CONCENTRATION.

the west new lands, to be again exhausted : and thus are labor and manure
wasted, while the great machine deteriorates, because men cannot come to
take from it the vast supphes of food with which it is charged. Thousands
of acres, heavily timbered with oak, poplar, beech, sugar-tree, elm and hickory,
are offered at about the government price, or a dollar an acre, and on long
credit, but they are not worth clearing: and they cannot be cleared, until
there shall arise a demand for lumber for the construction of houses, mills,
and railroads : and that cannot arise so long as men shall continue to be
limited to the use of the worst machinery of exchange ; wasting on the roads
the manure yielded by the products of their poor soils, and the labor that
might be applied to the clearing of the rich ones. An acre of wheat has
been made to produce over eighty bushels, and such will, at some future day,
be the produce of these lands: but the consumer and the producer will then
be near neighbors to each other, and all the manure produced by the land
will go back again to the great giver of these rich supphes. She pays well
those that feed her, but she starves those who starve her : and she expels
them.

The cotton planter raises small crops on thin soils, and he, too, is ruined
by drought. He tries rich soils, and rains destroy his crop, even to the extent
of more than two hundred thousand bales, worth many millions of dollars,
in a single season. Were he near neighbor to consumers of food, vegetable
and animal, he could raise large crops of grass and food on rich lands, and
manure the poor ones : and then he would suffer little from drought or rain.
He would have always at hand, aid in harvest, and his cotton fields would
yield him larger crops from smaller surface.

South Carolina has millions of acres admirably adapted to the raising of
rich grasses, the manure produced from which would enrich the exhausted
cotton lands : but she exports rice and cotton, and loses all the manure, and
must continue so to do until the consumer of veal, and beef, and corn, shall
take his place by the side of the producer of cotton. When that time shall
arrive, her wealth and population will both increase : but until then both
must continue to diminish.

The sugar planter raises large crops, but they too are drowned out : or,
if they escape the loss from rain, they perish with the frost. Had he neigh-
bors who would consume food produced from rich land, he might raise his
sugar on lighter soils while draining his heavier ones ; and he would have
at hand supphes of labor to aid him in his harvest. He now prays for the
appearance of the cotton worm, as the farmer of Ohio praj's for the potato-
rot in Ireland. The one wants hands to make his crop, and the other mouths
to eat it. Both are thus compelled to wish their neighbors ill, and for the
same reason: because the consumer of food cannot take his place by the side
of the producer. The direct effect of the dispersion of man is to cause vast
loss of labor and manure, and to prevent the growth of those feelings of kind-
ness that are found where men possess the power to concentrate themselves,
and to combine their efforts for the general good.

The prosperity of the people of the United States is not due to the abund-
ance of land, it exists despite of the necessity that has been forced upon
them, for squandering their labor over the surface of hundreds of millions
of acres of poor soils, leaving untouched the rich soils that lie beneath. It
exists, despite of the necessity for living apart, when they might have lived
in communion with each other, combining their exertions for the establish-
ment of better schools, larger libraries, better houses and gardens, and all of
the thousand aids to the development of intellect, of taste, and of the affections.
It is, in despite of these obstacles, that they have schools where every man

BENEFICENT EFFECTS OF CONCENTRATION. 183

•as educated:* that they have colleges and libraries fitted to produce men like
Prescott and Bancroft, Kent and Story, Irving and Cooper, Norton and Robin-
son, Anthon and Pickering: that mind has been developed in the construction
of machinery,! enabling them to establish with the mistress of the manufactur-
ing world a competition that, more than any thing else, has tended to produce
the abolition of restraints upon agriculture; and which in its turn tends noAV
to produce a total change in her system and that of the world, by aid of which
the machinery of exchange will be diminished in quantity and perfected in
quality: the consumer of Germany, Italy, Canada, the United States and
India, taking his place by the side of the man who produces the food he is
to eat. With each step in the progress of this change, labor will become
more and more productive: man will learn more and more to concentrate his
thoughts and affections upon home : he will learn more and more to unite
with his fellow man, and will acquire daily increasing power over the land
and over himself: and he will become richer and happier, more virtuous,
more intelligent, and more free.

That the people of the United States should have acquired power thus to
affect the movements of the world, has been due to the fact that they have
abstained from war, and preparations for war, while other nations have wasted
millions of lives and thousands of millions of treasure on useless fleets and
armies, and in wars of desolation. That they have to so great an extent
remained at peace, has been due to the fact that the war-making power
rested with the whole people :| with the men who paid the taxes, each one
of whom had in his house and lot, his farm, his shop or mill, a little saving-
fund in which he could deposit his time and money; and a home occupied
by his wife and children, the depositaries of his affections. For them to go
to war is difficult, because with them alone rests the power to declare it ;
and before such declaration can take pJace, a majority in favor of such a
measure must be obtained. Among them is an infinite variety of interests.
Some produce corn, and some cotton: and othei's tobacco, or rice. Some
manufacture wool: others wood or cotton. Some own ships: and others
steamboats. All these people may lose by war, and few can gain much.
Under such circumstances, before a majority can be obtained, much discus-
sion is needed in and out of the newspapers; in and out of the halls of
Congress. Time is gained. The arguments for and against the war are
read abroad as well as at home. The cost of war is discussed on both sides,
and the value of the trade at risk is brought into view: and the result is a
settlement of the difficulty. Such is the history of the Oregon and Maine
boundary questions. Slow action is safe action; and where a nation takes
ihe form of a pyramid, with a great base and a very small top, the motion
is slow, and appears devoid of energy: whereas, in one like that of France,
where the pyramid is inverted, the movement is rapid, and energy appears

* "In New England, every citizen receives the elementary notions of human know-
le'lge; he is moreover taught the doctrines and the evidences of his religion, the history
of liis country, and the leading features of its constitution. In the States of Connecticut
and Massachusetts, it is extremely rare to find a man imperfectly acquainted with all these
things, and a person wholly ignorant of them is a sort of phenomenon.'" — De Tocqiunnlle.

+ "The Americans possess a quicker mechanical genius than even ourselves — as witness
their patents and improvements for which we are indebted to individuals of that country
in mechanics, such as spinning, engraving, &c. We gave additional speed to our ships,
by improving upon the naval architecture of the Dutch; and the similitude again applies
to the superiority which, in comparison with British models, the Americans have, for all
the purposes of activity and economy, imparted to their vessels." — Cobden.

^ A single usurpation of that power has cost us 20,000 lives and 100 millions of money.
May it prove a warning in all tune to come! — Eds. P. L. Sf A.

184 BENEFICENT EFFECTS OF CONCENTRATION.

to exist; but here, as elsewhere, the amount of power exerted is in the in-
verse ratio of the speed.

It may be suggested that concentration might have a tendency to prevent
the expansion of mind consequent upon the existence of the present system,
and that men would think too much of home, and become selfish. Directly
the reverse is the effect that is produced in private and in public life. The
prudent man that is fond of his home, his wife, and his children, has leisure
to read and to think. The voluptuary and the spendthrift have leisure for
nothing that tends to the expansion of mind. Such we see to be the case
in France. Every speech in the chambers, and every newspaper, abounds
in selfish views. If we look back through her history, among sovereigns,
nobles, leagues, and leaguers, the whole presents a picture of selfishness not
to be exceeded in the world. If we look at the people, it is the same.
Expansion of mind and liberality of feeling cannot exist where men cuhivate
the poorer soils, for communication is slow and difficult; and man must mix
freely with his fellow men, or he remains a barbarian.

In the course of England we find far less selfishness than in that of France;
but it invariably appears during long periods of war, like those of India, and
that long one which closed with the battle of Waterloo. Each step in the
progress of the latter was marked bj^ growing disregard of the rights of man
abroad and at home, until neutrals were driven from the ocean, and the people
of England were driven, almost en masse, to the poor-house. If we trace
the progress of feeling from the days of the Edwards to the present time,
we may see growing liberahty Avith increasing population. If we look at
the kingdom now, we may see the intensity of selfishness in many of the
highest, and very many of the lowest orders: the one owners of extensive
and ill-cultivated lands, looking to corn laws for support: and the other
habitues of the gin shop. If we desire to find liberality of feeling, it may
be met in abundance among the middle class of people who rejoice in the
comforts of home.

We have shown that in no country does there exist the same tendency to
concentration of affection, of feeling, of action, and of wealth, as in Massa-
chusetts: yet there may be found liberality of feeling in the highest degree.
How, indeed, could it be otherwise, when every boy, however poor, has in
the little library of the town school, towards Avhich his father pays his little
contribution, and in which the son feels himself as much at home as the sons
of the wealthiest, books that enlighten him in regard to the modes of think-
ing and acting throughout the world: and may now, or soon Avill, read in the
morning's penny newspaper the history of the proceedings of the previous
evening in every principal town in the Union, from New Orleans and St.
Louis to the very extremity of Maine? With every diminution in the
quantity required of the machinery of exchange, whether of things or ideas,
we find expansion of intellect, liberality of views, and the disappearance of
selfishness. Concentration, by means of Avhich the consumer and the pro-
ducer are brought together, has the same effect in nations as in families;
and if we desire to see improvement in moral feeling, in habits of kindness,
and in the disposition to make exertions for the common good, we shall find
it as we look more and more inward, and endeavor more and more to render
pleasant that home in which we are placed : in which, but for the interference
of the laws of man with those of the Deity, there might in all time past have
existed a degree of happiness, of Avhich, in most nations, its inhabitants have
had but little idea.

Passmg southward from Massachusetts, eldest born of the family of States,
we find, from north to south, and from east to west, a tendency in the same
direction : but diminishing as men become more and more scattered, and the

BENEFICENT EFFECTS OF CONCENTRATION. 185

fertile soils are seen more and more unoccupied. Throughout the whole
system exists, in a greater or less degree, the tendency to concentration of
feeling and affection, as is best shown in the existence of twenty-two hundred
newspapers, each giving to its readers the history of the proceedings of the
neighborhood ; and in the universal tendency to have, in every little settle-
ment, schools where the young can meet for instruction ; and places for the
worship of the Deity, where all, young and old, can meet. The Aome stands
first; and where that is the case, there will be found in the highest degree
the power of obtaining knowledge relative to things distant from home.*

Were France to turn her regards inward instead of outward, and dispense
with fleets and armies, and foreign missions, and the numerous other absurd-
ities that characterize her system, the expenses of her government need not
exceed those of the United States. That done, wealth would increase; and
her people would cultivate the rich soils instead of the poor ones: and popu-
lation would then advance. The United Kingdom contains less than a
hundred millions of acres, occupied by twenty-eight millions of people, and
the machinery of government that is needed is less than in the United States,
where twenty-one millions occupy six hundred millions of acres ; for where
people are concentrated they protect themselves : whereas, where they are
scattered they require protection. Were the expenditure of England reduced
to five millions of pounds, wealth would grow rapidly; for everybody would
work, either with his head or his hands : and the experience of every day
in that country goes to show the rapid improvement of the higher orders,
since it has been discovered that if men would maintain their places in society
they must contribute towards its well-being, as the world gives nothing for
nothing. In no part of the world do all classes, from the highest to the
lowest, so uniformly labor for the advancement of the interests of the society
in which they are placed, as in Massachusetts : and in none do men Avho
have acquired fortune exert so much influence: and simply because, with
all their fortunes, they continue to work almost to the close of life. They
are always ready to unite in what is needed to be done, and to contribute
both time and money to its accomplishment : and society respects them,
because they promote the good of society. In less enlightened parts of the
Union, men of wealth do little for the promotion of the interests of those
around them, and the latter take no interest in them. All this may equally
be seen by comparing the rapidly growing Liverpool with the stationary
Bristol. Concentration tends to promote activity of mind, and that activity
will exhibit itself more usefully abroad in the precise proportion that it ma-
nifests itself usefully at home. The nation that keeps itself poor by efforts
in behalf of "the liberties of Europe," exhibiting to the world a whole people
in the almshouse, does far less for the extension of freedom than it would do
were it to mind its own business, and exhibit the beneficial effects of freedom
in universal prosperity and happiness. The Parliament that occupies itself
with the affairs of Spain and Italy, and India and Canada; and reports on
coal mines, and drainage, and interments, exhibiting a near approach to
barbarism ; does less for liberty than a Congress whose. attention is turned

• "I travelled along a portion of the frontier of the United States in a cart, vi^hich was
termed the mail. We passed, day and night, with great rapidity, along roads which were
scarcely marked out, through immense forests. * * • From time to time we came
to a hut in the midst of a forest, which was a post-office. The mail dropped an enormous
bundle of letters at the door of this isolated dwelling, and we pursued our way at full gallop,
leaving the inhabitants of the neighboring log houses to send for their share of the treasure.
* * * It is difficult to imagine the incredible rapidity xvith which public opinion circulates
in the midst of these deserts. I do not think that so much intellectual intercourse takes place in
the most enlightened and populous districts of France." — De Tocqueville.

Vol. I.— 34 q3

186 BRENTZ'S UNBRANNING MACHINE.

exclusively homeward, leaving the liberties of the world to take care of them-
selves. The influence of the United States upon the world is now greater
than that of England, because it maintains little army or navy ; and its people
increase in numbers, and grow rich by minding their own business. True
grandeur goes with peace and prosperity, and the cultivation of the rich soils
of the earth. Littleness and selfishness are the invariable accompaniments
of war and the cultivation of the poor soils.

The highest degree of security for the rights of persons and of property
that exists in the world is to be found in Massachusetts: and it is there ob-
tained at the smallest cost, because there the people do most for themselves;
and those charged with the duties of government do least. As we pass from
that Slate and from New England generally, soiuh and west, security dimi-
nishes, and cost increases. In every part of the world security diminishes
with the increased cost of government. The latter is greater in France than
in any other portion of Europe: and hence it is that the government builds
fortifications, and that every man feels that he is sitting on a volcano that may
burst forth at any instant.* In that country centralization is carried to the
highest point: while in Massachusetts is shown the perfection of concentra-
tion. In the one, man's necessities are great : while in the other, his powers
are greatest.

The PAST saj'^s to the landholder of the present : "If you desire that your
property increase in value: labor to promote the growth of wealth, and the
concentration of man for the purpose of eating the food where it is produced."
■ To the laborer it says: '■'■U you desire a large return to your labor; to
live in your own house, or on your own farm, eating your food on the ground
on which it is produced: labor to promote the growth of wealth."

To all it says : " If you would be free, and happy, and rich : labor to
promote concentration, whose companions are peace and wealth ; and avoid
centralization, whose companions are poverty and war, followed by the dis-
persion of man over the poor soils of the earth."

Brenfz^s Unbranning Machine. — During the last sixty days, L. A. Spauld-
ing, miller of this place, has been engaged in putting up a model machine
for unbranning wheat — that is, to strip off the berry or outer coat or brand
before grinding it. Yesterday ten bushels of wheat Avere submitted to the
process, and the result equals the expectations of the discoverer. It is now
no longer theory, and is one of the most important discoveries of the age —
adding, as it does, at least twelve and a half per cent, to the value of the
wheat crop of the country — and if brought to bear on the whole wheat and
rye raised in the United States, would save at least thirteen millions of tons
per annum. On flour manufactured for market the saving will be enormous,
and no Flouring Mill, as now arranged, can compete with one having this
improvement. The advantages are too great to be stated in a brief para-
graph, which we pen merely to call public attention to the fact that such a
machine is in operation in Lockport, and the only one ever used in any mill.

The advantages are — 1st. Full twelve and a half per cent, more flour
2d. Flour of better quality. 3d. Not so liable to sour or injure in a hot
climate. 4th. Less offal.

We are informed that the apparatus sufficient for a mill having eight run
of stone, will cost inside of five hundred dollars — exclusive of the right to
use it. Such machinery is now in course of construction in the big mill in
this village, and we are told that it will be ready for use in the course of a
few weeks. — Lockport Courier.

• How prophetic ! — Eds. P. L. ^ A.

WHEAT.

187

WHEAT.

HOW TO BE MANAGED — VARIOUS KINDS — THICK AND THIN SOWING.

The reader may remember that a promise was iriven at page 110 to supply some
extracts on these subjects, for which we had not room at that time.

The Commissioner of Patents egtimates the crop of wheat for the whole United States
in 1S47-S. at ll4,-245,500 bushels; the population of the Union, at 20,746,400; the num-
ber of bushels of wheat consumed, allowing three and a half bushels to each free person,
at 6"2, 303, 1465 bushels. We think he is mistaken, as we shall elsewhere explain, in his
conclusion '■ that the American grain-growers can deliver grain or flour at as low a price
in England as the grain-growers of any other country, not excepting Russia on the Black
Sea ; and that they have it in their power to command the great grain-market of Great
Britain, and of nearly all the corn-importing countries of the world." If, however, the
free-trade doctrine, for which the Commissioner is understood to be an able and zealous
advocate, could be fully established, there is no doubt that we should soon be able to
produce the cereal grains in such abundance that the world might have them almost for
taking them away : the effect would be that agricultural labor would turn to other pro-
ducts— to sugar, to cotton and tobacco — until these again would become, if possible, drugs
more valueless than now.

But we must have done with our own ideas on the politico-economical aspect of the
subject, lest we should again be compelled to postpone the practical suggestions which
even now may prove almost too late tor practical use : \ve vi'ill take room, therefore, to
add here only, that lately, in Maryland, we learned that a kind of wheat called the "blue
stem white wheat' is fast making its way into general favor.

1. Preparation of the Land according to variety of Soils. — Wheat, the
most valuable of grains, is grown upon nearly every description of land; but
the soils best adapted for its culture are those which are more or less clayey:
indeed these heavy soils are so peculiarly fitted to its production, that they
are frequently distinguished by the appellation of " good wheat-land." It
is well known, however, that wheat will grow to high perfection upon
almost every soil, when the land is properly prepared for it.

Whatever may be the nature of the soil, it should always be the aim of
the farmer to grow full crops : partial and sometimes extensive failures Avill
even then but too often occur; but to neglect making the best-known prepa-
ration, or only to prepare for half a crop, is an ill-judged notion, and has a
direct tendency to unremunerating farming.

In order to prepare for luxuriant crops, the land, when of a wet nature,
must be liberated from all surplus water by proper under-draining ; it must
be clean from couch-grass [blue grass] and all other kinds of rubbish; not
tired out by cross or improper cropping ; must be judiciously manured, but
not overdone with it, inasmuch as too much manure causes the growth of an
unnaturally large quantity of straw, which, if the season happens to be wet
or stormy, will be crippled and flat on the ground before the ears could come
to perfection. When this happens, it both lessens the quantity, and very
much deteriorates the quality of the grain. The land being otherwise well
prepared, it is perhaps upon the whole more desirable to have a httle defi-
ciency of manure than too much, as, if necessary, a partial top-dressing may
always be added in the spring. The land must not be wheated oftener than
the soil will admit: some soils will bear it more frequently than others, and
it is essentially necessary that the kind of seed should be adapted to the
description of soil upon which it is to be propagated. An entire change of
seed from hot land to cold, and from cold land to hot, will always be found
advantageous, and especially from hot to cold soils, in which case it will fre-
quently bring the harvest nearly a tveek earlier. In both cases it is gene-
rally allowed to increase the yield, improve the sample, and preserve the
stock in greater purity.

188

WHEAT.

It has now become very general to sow wheat after clover upon all classes
of soils. This is doubtless one of the best systems of growing wheat: the
roots of clover after becoming decomposed afford much nutriment to the
growing wheat, and the firmness given to the land is another great recom-
mendation. It has been frequently observed when the plant of clover has
been deficient that the wheat-plant fails also. This, however, is not always
the case : at the same time it serves to show a peculiar adaptation, on many
soils, to the growth of wheat after clover. There are several other methods
of preparing land, varying according to the nature of soils, which oftentimes
produce crops of the first order. Some of these are as follows : —

1st, Upon clayey soils, a full summer's fallow is occasionally resorted to
as a preparation for the wheat-crop, particularly when the land becomes foul
with couch-grass, &c., and cannot very well be brought into a thorough
clean state of cultivation by partial fallows, connected with the growth of
green crops. Considerable benefit is also derived from summer fallowing
upon this kind of soil, as it causes a more perfect decomposition of its con-
stituent parts. This latter effect has been proved in many cases by expe-
rienced farmers, and has come under the observation of the writer. For
instance, when this kind of land has been repeatedly dunged, better crops
have frequently been obtained after a full summer's fallow without dung,
than after a good dressing of dung without a full summer's fallow. In illus-
tration of this statement, Professor Liebig, in his work on the 'Chemistry
of Agriculture,' says — "In the effect produced by time, particularly in the
case of fallows, or that period during which a field remains at rest, science
recognises certain chemical actions, Avhich proceed continuously by means
of the influence exercised by the constituents of the atmosphere upon the
surface of the soil ;" and in another place he says — " It is quite certain that
careful ploughing and breaking up of the soil, by producing the change and
increase of its surface, exercises a very favorable influence upon its fertility."
At no very distant period farmers generally considered sj'stematic summer
fallowing to be one of the most important points of agriculture ; and there
are some in the present day who have proved its peculiar suitableness to a
few of the wet clayey soils ; though many speak of it as an unnecessary
waste of labor, and a sacrifice of the produce of the land.

It is well known that wheat should be sown when the land is clung, and
it is considered better to wait and have a late season of sowing than to put
it in when the soil is in a dusty state ; which, upon some land, causes the
wheat to become root-fallen; and upon soils of a closer texture, where this
does not occur, the wheat seldom flourishes so well as when put in after rain.
The land is never too wet for sowing wheat, provided it works at all kindly,
and the seed can be effectually covered. There are, however, some soils of
a peculiar mixture of sand and clay, which, if stirred when very wet, will
run together, and afterwards in dry weather form a hard crust, which of
course checks the growth of the plant.

The best period for sowing wheat on cold, clayey soils is from the last
week in September to the middle of October, as it seldom becomes winter-
proud upon such land.

Many think that water-furrowing may be entire!}' dispensed with where
me land has been thoroughly under-drained, but this opinion is not borne
out upon very heavy tenacious clays. I have observed that upon such soils
the surface-water has not gone off sufficientljr quick Avithout it.

Upon rich, deep, dry, loamy soils, wheat is successfully cultivated after
potatoes, the potatoes being removed at the latest in October. It is no un-
common thing on some tracts of land — such as are extensively found in the

WHEAT. 189

neighborhood of East Ham, Barking-, Romford, Edmonton, Enfield, and
other places — to grow wheat and potatoes alternately for many years to-
gether. But in order to carry on this system successfully, dung must be
liberally used for the potatoes ; no dressing beyond this is required for the
wheat ; the potatoes yielding from three hundred to five hundred bushels
per acre, and the wheat from thirty to forty bushels. Of course, as above
hinted, to carry on this kind of farming, manure must be made rich and
applied abundantly, or be obtained plentifully from large towns. Upon this
description of land four pecks of seed are amply sufficient, and it should
never be sown till the end of October or the beginning of November; if at
all earlier, it becomes winter-proud, and produces too much straw. I have
witnessed the large yield of full fifty bushels per acre throughout a field of
thirty-seven acres in the parish of East Ham, in Essex, where the seed was
not sown till the middle of December, after a full crop of potatoes. Upon
other strong yet rich loams, containing a larger proportion of clay, wheat
and beans are successfully cultivated alternately. The beans, being kept
perfectly clean, frequently supersede the labor of ploughing for wheat; in
Avhich case the land is harrowed previously to drilling or dibbling the
wheat.

With respect to dibbling, we may observe, that it is acknowledged to be
the means of obtaining a stiffer straw: and hence the propriety of hand-
dibbling at a cost of 7s. or 8s. per acre on a loose peat.

On freshly broken-up grass-land, oats are preferred to wheat ; though,
after the surplus vegetable matter of the soil has been reduced by burning,
tillao-e, and the mechanical application of suitable earthy matter, wheat can
be grown of good quality. Of course these remarks on fresh broken-up
land are general, though not applicable to every case.

It is an acknowledged fact, applicable to every description of soil, that the
land prepared for wheat cannot be too stale or solid, provided it be free from
weeds, and the surface sufficiently mouldy to cover the seed.

2. The application of Dung or Jlrtificial Manures. — If a sufficiency of
farm-yard manure could be obtained there would be little necessity for any
other, inasmuch as it contains all the ingredients requisite for producing
every kind of crop. But let it be understood that the dung should be com-
posed of the excrements of animals well fed under cover.

It has been before observed, that when dung is to be applied in liberal
quantities for the benefit of wheat, it should, if practicable, be put on the
land previous to sowing a preceding root or pulse crop ; for thus those in-
gredients of the dung, which only tend in their first effect upon the land to
force an over-abundant growth of straw, will have been extracted, leaving
the land in a good state for wheat. Where root or puls3 crops are not
grown, the dung should be applied to naked fallows for wheat as early in
the summer as possible.

Though the practice of manuring immediately before sowing the wheat
is objectionable, it is still adhered to in many parts of the country.

A compost of earth and dung is highly beneficial on light chalky and
silicious soils.

Four or five loads per acre of farm-yard manure and half a folding with
sheep are a good manure for wheat, and frequently adopted by the farmers
of the midland counties.

A very large proportion of land is manured for wheat by means of the
sheep-fold alone, especially upon dry soils, where great benefit is derived
by its solidifying the ground ; it has also a tendency to kill the slugs and
other destructive insects, or at least to put a stop to their ravages. Folding

190 WHEAT.

upon fallows is likewise adopted with advantage ; upon loose, light soils,
folding after the wheat is sown is of advantage.

Some farmers adopt the plan of ploughing green crops in ; but others
consider it a better plan to convert all green crops into animal manures, by
feeding off with sheep or by soiling.

Pigeons' and hen-house dungs are frequently used as a top-dressing for
■wheat, and are almost sure to be beneficial on any soil. From thirty to forty
bushels are used per acre. Like all other light manures, it is best covered
by means of harrowing or hoeing, or it may be drilled between the rows.

Soot is much used as a top-dressing for wheat, and is commonly found
very beneficial. From forty to sixty bushels per acre are generally applied.
It has a tendency to increase the quantity and improve the quality of the
wheat, without forcing an undue quantity of straw. It should be sown in
February or March at the latest. It is however frequently sown as late as
the month of May ; but if a dry summer follows, it is in that case of little or
no value. As ammonia is the principal ingredient of this manure, it should
be covered by means of the hoe or harrow, being liable to waste by evapora-
tion ; and, as it is a very light substance, calm and showery weather must
be chosen for applying it. This manure is found to be peculiarly suited to
the county of Hertford, and consequently a very large proportion of the soot
made in the metropolis comes into this county. It has been used in Essex,
Kent, Middlesex, and other counties, but in most cases without general bene-
ficial results.

Bones may be applied with much advantage upon dry soils previous tc>
sowmg the wheat, at the rate of from sixteen to thirty bushels per acre.

Guano, at the rate of from two to three cwt. per acre, is sometimes advan-
tageously used at the time of sowing the wheat. This manure is found most
beneficial on poor loamy soils.*

The nitrates of soda or of potash are occasionallj' used at the rate of from
one to three cwt. per acre, and applied broadcast in March or April. Chemi-
cal analysis has proved that wheat always contains a much larger proportion
of potash than of soda; hence we may suppose that nitrate of potash is the
best of the two : it is, however, the most expensive. As to the application
of nitrate of soda to wheat when it has a j-ellow or sickly appearance in the
spring, if finely pulverized, and sown in moist weather, it will in a few days
alter the sickly hue to a luxuriant green. As it increases the quantity of
straw, it is best suited to poor loams and gravelly soils.

Common salt is sometimes applied before sowing the seed, at the rate of
from ten to twenty bushels per acre, and is often beneficial in bringing the
ears to perfection : it also causes a greater weight of grain, but seldom in-
creases the quantity of straw.

These are the principal manures that have been proved to be useful for
wheat. There are many others ; but even a bare enumeration would
occupy too much space.

3. The Time of Solving. — The time of sowing wheat varies with the
nature of the soil. Upon very strong clays or cold soils the plant has been
known to flourish best when sown as early as the middle of September. It
lakes a firmer and deeper hold of the soil before the frost commences, and
there is no danger here of its becoming "winter-proud." Sowing early on

• In Maryland, perliaps wc miirht say particularly in Hartfiird and Montgomery coun-
ties, guano has been used with great advantage. Benjamin Hallowell, a practical farmer,
and a man of science, will give us an account of his experience in the latter county; but
he is of opinion that bone-dust is preferable to guano. We may possibly hear from him
in time for tliis number.

WHEAT. 191

this class of soils not only insures a better crop, but brings it much earlier to
harvest. Wheat seed-time upon these soils begins about the 20th of Sep-
tember, and lasts till towards the end of October, Wheat sown at the for-
mer period has been known to be nearly a fortnight earlier to harvest than
that which was sown a month later.

Upon warmer soils, as before observed, the best period of sowing is from
the last week in October to the last week in November. If sown earlier, the
plants get too forward, and do not mat on the ground ; the plants become
weak, and spindle into along slender stalk, and frequently lose their healthy
appearance in the spring. Varieties of spring-wheat are sown in February
and March, and succeed on good land, though a productive crop is rarely
seen on inferior sands and gravels.

Observations having been made on the time of sowinq- in treating of the
preparation of the land, any further remarks are uncalled for.

4, The Quantity of Seed. — The necessary quantity of seed varies from
four to ten pecks per acre. It depends entirely upon circumstances — as the
time of sowing; the manner of sowing, whether broadcast, drilled, or dib-
bled ; when sown early, it requires less seed than when sown late ; the na-
ture and condition of the soil, the variety of wheat, and the quantity of ver-
min that consume the grain before or after it vegetates, — all have some
effect on the quantity of seed required. The poorer the land, the more
plentiful must be the seed. On a poor gravelly soil, where an abundance
of manure is not attainable, ten pecks are requisite, drilled at from six to
eight inches ; and we find, from observation of both wet and dry seasons,
that when this quantity is at all sensibly decreased, or the intervals between
the drills increased to a material extent, the crops suffer a diminution both
in quantity and quality.

When the land is good, very little seed is required, for it always branches
out in the spring ; but on poor land, when sown late, many of the plants
die, at the same time that others on good land are preparing for numerous
branches. Nothing definite, therefore, can be named as to the proper quan-
tity to be soAvn. Upon the broadcast system, where two and a half bushels
per acre are sown, it is generally allowed that, if drilled, two bushels would
be equivalent, and if dibbled five pecks. As an instance of the effect of
time, I may mention that upon a poor heavy soil, if we commence in Sep-
tember with two bushels, b}' the middle of October Ave increase it to two
and a half bushels per acre.

It has been repeatedly proved that upon land of the best quality, and in
high cultivation, if dibbled and put in perfectly regular, four pecks of seed
per acre are better than more, inasmuch as it leaves a roomy and healthy
space between the plants, encourages branching, and produces stiffer straw,
with plumper ears, than when sown thicker, and upon the whole gives the
most certain and fullest production that the land is capable of. Thickly-
sown wheat on rich land grows much weaker straw, smaller ears, and is
liable to fall down long before the usual time for coming to perfection.

Varieties of wheat differ in their tillering properties. The following ex-
periment was made in 1843 : —

October 28th, 184:?, planted thirty kernels of six varieties of wheat, Avith
a view of testing their tillering property, and the time at Avhich they arrive
at maturity. The Avheat was dibbled, one kernel in a hole, at equal depth
and distance, on a piece of loamy ground. The varieties each formed a
row, distant from each other ten inches, and from plant to plant in the
rows four inches. The following table will shoAV the result of the experi-
ment : —

192

WHEAT.

Variety.

Bellevue Talavera White
Marygold or Rattling Jack Red
Spanish Talavera White
Spalding's Prolific Red
Jonas's Seedling White .
Shirretfs Hopetoun White .

Number of

Seeds
vegetated.

Time of
comiiiif
into Ear.

26

June 3

26

" 14

26

" 8

27

" 14

26

« 12

25

" 12

Number of
perfect
Ears.

234
134
203
155
108
191

Number of
Ears from
one Grain.

9-0
5-1
7-8
5-7
6-4
7-6

The Spalding's and Marygold are the most productive of the six varieties,
though in this case they tillered less than any of the other kinds.

5. The varieties of Seed and the change of Seed.* — The variety of
wheat must be suited to the soil and climate ; and the know^ledge of the
varieties best suited to a particular soil can only be obtained from the expe-
rience of the farmers who cultivate that soil. It is, however, bad judgment
to be so far prejudiced in favor of one sort as to cultivate it to the exclusion
of all others. The best kinds deteriorate in course of time : new varieties
are constantly being introduced, some of which would in all probability be
found superior to the old.

More wheat is now produced per acre, by greater attention being paid in
choosing the most prolific kinds. It should, however, be borne in mind that
the most prolific are also very frequently of a coarse quality, and commonly
lose in price what they gain in quantity. At the same time it is admitted
by those who have put the question to a test, that the most productive are
often the most advantageous to the grower. Instances, indeed, have occa-
sionally occurred where heavy white wheat of the finest quality has been
tried by the side of a coarser description, and has equalled it in quantity ;
but this must be considered an exception to the rule, and not the rule itself.

On rich soils, where an abundance of straw is produced, short and stiff-
strawed wheat yields the best crop, as the weak and long-strawed wheat is
liable to be spoiled by being laid. Such varieties as Spalding's Prolific and
Piper's Thickset are suitable for rich land. On very productive wheat-land,
in Norfolk, Piper's Thickset produced such abundant crops, that on its
introduction into that county it at once obtained the name of Protection
Wheat. On the contrary, short-strawed wheats like Piper's Thickset are
very inferior to long-strawed wheat on land that yields a light crop. Mixed
wheat (red and white) is sown in some parts of the country, care being
taken to select two sorts that ripen at the same time. It is considered that
two varieties are more likely to produce a certain crop than one alone ; for
undoubtedly it frequently occurs that one kind produces the heaviest crop
one year, and another the next ; and when equal portions of red and white
wheats are sown together, sometimes the white and sometimes the red pre-
dominates in the sample that is produced. It is well known that a mixture
of red and white wheats commands a higher price in the market than red
alone.

During the last few years many new sorts of wheat have been introduced,
though some are but new names for varieties long well known. Some are

* Blue-stem white wheat is getting in great favor in JNIaryland : we imderstand Mr.
Wright made a crop of about or over twenty-five bushels to the acre, at Blakeford, near
Queen's Town. It is said to be free from the fault found with the Mediterranean wheat
— weakness of straw ; on the contrary, the straw is uncommonly stiff and strong, while
the grain is well covered in with the chaff, that prevents it frona shattering — wliile it
threshes uncommonly well. The popularity and spread of this variety is rapidly in-
creasing.

WHEAT.

193

noted for the earliness of their growth, — among these are the Bellevue
Talavera, Mexican Vicario, and the bearded April wheat, which are all
recommended for spring-sowing ; but it has been confidently asserted, from
observation, that the two former, though of superior quality, do not on a gra-
velly soil, in a dry climate, produce an average crop, if spring-sown ; besides
this, the grain adheres with such tenacity to the chaff, that there is extreme
difficulty in thrashing them with the machine.

Among other faults which some varieties possess is an incapability to
withstand severe weather, liability to shell when harvested, or to grow in
the ear, to which very chaffy kinds are more especially subject.

The advantasfes to be derived from a change of seed from a hot to a cold
soil, and vice versa, has already been mentioned. Plants removed from one
climate to another will in some measure continue in the same habit of growth.
Thus seed brought from a warm country will produce an early crop, though
it will be inferior in hardihood to plants grown from seed brought from a cold
climate ; and it will be found that, whilst the latter improves by cultivatioa,
the former deteriorates.

The following is the result of an experiment tried last year upon red
wheats by Mr. J. B. Brown, Elms Hall, Colne Engaine, given to the pub-
lic, which will be found to contain valuable information : —

auantity

Weight

Weight of

Bushels of

per
Acre.

pt-r
Bushel.

Straw
per Acre.

Chaff

per Acre.

b. p. p.

lbs.

lbs.

]. Colne White Chaff .

42 3 4

62

3250

90

2. Bristol

39 2 12

63^

3515

75

3. Sharp's, Goody's, or Crabb's .

39 0 14

64

3415

70

4. Spalding's ....

38 2 1

65i

3765

80

5. Seyer's

37 3 4

65

3860

75

6. Smoothy's ....

36 2 14

64i

3985

65

7. Kent Red

36 2 4

64

3755

65

8. Sewell's ....

36 0 6

63^

3535

65

9. Piper's Thickset

33 3 0

63^

2550

100

10. Kent Red ....

36 2 14

64

3780

50

Proporti(

)nnl

Proportional

Weight of

Weight

or

Measure of

Grain

Straw

n

Cliatr in

per Acre.

com pari

on

comj)arison

witli Gr

aiii.

with Grain.

lbs.

1. Colne White Chaff .

2654

1-22

2-09

2. Bristol

2520

1-39

1-88

3. Sharp's, Goody's, or Crabb's

2510

1-36

1-78

4. Spalding's ....

2522

1-49

2-05

5. Seyer's

2458

1-57

1-98

6. Smoothy's ....

2368

1-26

1-77

7. Kent Red

2340

1-60

1-77

8. Seweirs ....

2291

1-54

1-80

9. Piper's Thickset

2142

1-19

2-91

10. Kent Red ....

2350

1-60

1-36

The wheat to which the above tables refer was sovvn on the 28th of Octo-
ber, 1845, at the rate of five pecks per acre, with the exception of No. 10,
and that was at the rate of ten pecks per acre. The reader will of course
draw his own conclusions as to the merits of each kind of wheat ; and also
of thick and thin sowing.

Vol. I.— 25 R

194 WHEAT.

6. The Diseases to rvhich Wheat is liable. — The principal disease, and
one which can be completely guarded against by the seed undergoing pre-
paration previous to its being sown, is that Avhich is commonly known among
farmers by the name of smut.

This disease was formerly very common, but now smut-balls among good
farmers are seldom seen ; when they are found it may be attributed to care-
lessness in preparing the seed. Tull informs us that —

" Brining seed-wheat to pi-eTent smut was first practised about the year 16G0, when a
vessel of wheat was sunic near Bristol, and the grain so much injured by salt-water, that,
though it would vegetate, it was considered to be unfit for bread. It was taken out of
the vessel at low-water, and sown in diflerent parts. It was free from disease at the
following harvest, when wheat in general happened to be smutty. This accident led to
the practice of brining."

Salt-water of sufficient density to float an egg is still extensively used. A
quantity of salt and water of the above density is prepared in a tub, the
wheat is put into the pickle, and, Avhen stirred, all the diseased or light
grains will rise to the surface, which are skimmed off. The wheat is then
taken out of the brine, and a sufficient quantity of new slaked lime sifted
upon it to dry the whole quantity.

Some farmers wet their seed by throAving over it, when lying in a heap,
a quantity of urine ; it is then well mixed, and dried with lime, as in the
former case.

Water poured on caustic lime, and then thrown on the wheat while effer-
vescing, is a plan adopted by many.

But the cleanest, and perhaps the most efficacious preparation, is that of
blue vitriol (sulphate of copper) : 4 quarts of boiling water poured on one
pound of blue vitriol is sufficient for three bushels of wheat; this is well
mixed upon the floor with the grain, and thrown into a heap on the night
previous to the day the seed will be wanted.

Others prepare a solution of blue vitriol in a tub, by adding double the
quantity of cold water to the above mixture ; the wheat is put into it, and
the light grains are skimmed off. The seed is then taken out and laid in a
heap to dry. A convenient apparatus for wetting wheat, is a tub sufficiently
large to wet four bushels at once. The solution is first put in, and then four
bushels of wheat; this is well stirred, and skimmed with a common fleeting-
dish for ten minutes. The liquor is then drawn from the tub into an under
tank, and the wheat thrown out with a shovel. As soon as this is completed
the solution is returned to the tub, and we proceed in like manner with an-
other four bushels.

Another method is to have a "skep" basket, into which the wheal is put,
and plunged into the solution contained in a tub.

When the seed has been prepared, and cannot be used on account of the
weather, care must be taken to spread it thinly over a floor, and give it an
occasional turning.

There are many other diseases to which wheat is liable, as the rust,
blight, mildew, &c. &c. Some of these are owing to the growth of para-
sitical plants, "fungi," Avhich arise from a want of the proper constituents
in the soil for the growth of the wheat-plant to perfection, from an un-
favorable season, or from a feebleness of constitution inherent in the
plant. Disease and havoc are also caused by insects. But to describe
fully the diseases to which wheat is liable, requires the pen of a man
who has made that subject his peculiar study, rather than of the far-
mer : the latter may know from dear-bought experience how to guard,
in some measure, against these diseases, but cannot so well describe their
cause.

THE HORSE.

195

THE HORSE.

INTRODUCTION,

Valvuibk Properties of t!i£ Horse — Reasons for its Use being Proscribed to the Isrnelites —
Difficulty of Determining its Native Coimtry — Excellemc of the British Breed.

The Horse is a distinct genus, belonging to the order of Belluae, or large
beasts, and in himself the most serviceable of all quadruped animals, as well
as the swiftest of those brought under the dominion of man. Notwithstand-
ing these high qualifications, ancient history informs us, that, in the primitive
ages of the world, the ass was used in preference to him, not only as a mere
beast of burden, but for the purpose of conveying, from place to place, per-
sons of the highest distinction. This, however, may be satisfactorily accounted
for. Previously to the art of horsemanship being known, the ass, a superior
race of animal perhaps to that generally found in Europe, was more easily
managed than the horse, and better suited to the kind of food usually met
with for his support. He was, in fact, found to answer every purpose of
horses, until mankind increased in numbers and in wealth, when the com-
plicated interests that were the result, brought their services into use, and
they were trained to the art of war. But another reason may be given for
the late introduction of horses. Their use was interdicted by the Almighty
in the early ages of the world : — first, lest his favorite people, the Israelites,
should be led to idolatry, by carrj^ing on commerce with Egypt; secondly,
by their dependence on a well-appointed cavalry, they might cease to trust
in the promised aid of Jehovah ; and, thirdly, that they might not be tempted
to extend their dominion by such means, and then, by mixing with idolatrous
nations, cease in time to be that distinct and separate people which it was
His intention they should be, and without which the prophecies relative to
the Messiah could not be fully accomplished. Thus in the book of Psalms,
the horse commonl\'^ appears only on the side of the enemies of God's peo-
ple ; and so entirely unaccustomed to the management of him were the
Israelites, at the period of their signal defeat of the Philistines and other
idolatrous nations, that David, their commander and king, caused the greater
part of the horses of the cavalry prisoners to be cut down, from his ignorance
of any use to which he could apply them. In the reign of Solomon, how-
ever, a cavalry force was established, but to no great extent.

In the infant state of all nations, indeed, we can readily account for the

196 THE HORSE.

restrictive use of horses. A great deal of land that might be applied to the
production of human food is requisite for their maintenance in all countries :
and, in hot and sterile ones, the camel answered better, and was found ready
at hand. It is true they were used in the armies of the ancient Greeks and
Romans, Avhich were not considered as complete Avithout them. In Greece
they were not so numerous; but in a war with the Italic Gauls, the Romans
are said to have had no less than seventy thousand horses, and seven hundred
thousand foot, to attack their formidable enemies.* The army of Xerxes,
when reviewed by him at Dorsica in Thrace, after it had passed the Helles-
pont, is reported by Herodotus, contemporary with him, to have contained
eighty thousand horse ; but the judicious reader will be inclined to make
considerable abatements from the boasted amount of that celebrated but ill-
fated expedition resting as it does entirely on the authority of Grecian writers,
who represented facts in the light the most unfavorable to their enemies, and
the most glorious to their own gallant countrymen.

As, in the scale of excellence, the horse ranks first of all animals coming
under the denomination of cattle, and, as Buffbn justly says of him, "pos-
sesses, along with grandeur of stature, the greatest elegance and proportion
of parts of all quadrupeds," it is not a matter of surprise, that, as an image
of motive vigor, he should have been the subject of the chisel and the pencil
of the first artists in the world, or that the description of him by the pen
should have been not considered as unworthy the greatest Avriters of anti-
quity. But it is in his native simplicity, in those wild and extensive plains
where he was originally produced — where he ranges without control, and
riots in all the variety of luxurious nature — that we can form an adequate
idea of this noble animal. It is here that he disdains the assistance of man,
Avhich only tends to servitude; and it is to a description of his release from
this servitude, his regaining his natural liberty, that we are indebted for two
of the finest similes of the immortal Greek and Roman epic bards. The
return of Paris, with Hector, to the battle of Troy, is thus given in the
sixth book of the Iliad : —

" ili (5' OTt rif orard; Ttttoj, axorrrfjaaq bti (pirvrj
Atuiiov dnoppfi^Ui icir] tteHoio Kpoaivcji',
'Etcodus yoviadai ttippEio; ttutohuXo,
K'l^iooji/" v-Ijov 6z Kapri £,Xf'. o/"/'' ^' xairac
"ilfioii dtaaovTai' b 6' ay\atr]j>i ttstoiQuj,
'Pi^'/ia £ yovva (ptpci jxera t I'iSta Koi po^tov Tttzuv,

And Virgil is considered to have even exceeded Homer, in that splendid
passage in the eleventh book of the iEneid, where Turnus, turning out fully
accoutred for the fight, is compared to a horse that has just broken loose
from his stall : — •

"Qnalis, ubi abruptis fngit pra3sepia vinclis,
Tandem Jiber equus, cainpoque potitus aperto,
Aut ille in pastas arnieiitaque tendit equaruin,
Aut, assuetus aqua; porfundi flumine noto,
Emicat, arrectisque fremit cervicibus alte
Luxurians; luduntque juba? per colla, per armos.''

It is impossible, at this distance of time, to fix upon the native country of
the horse, as he has been found, in various forms, and of various sizes, in
every region of the Old World. The difTerence in size is easily accounted
for. The origin of all animals of the same species was doubtless the same
in the beginning of time, and it is chiefly climate that has produced the
change we perceive in them. Warmth being congenial to his constitution,
and cold naturally injurious to him, he is produced in the most perfect form,
and in the greatest vigor, when subject to the influence of the one, and not
only diminutive, but misshapen and comparatively worthless, when exposed

• See Ddncah's Discourse on the Roman Art of War.

THE HORSE. 197

to the evils of the other. Buffbn, however, is wrong' in making the horse
indigenous to Arabia, as is clearly proved by a reference to the Sacred
Writings. In the reign of Saul, horse-breeding had not yet been introduced
into Arabia; for, in a war with some of the Arabian nations, the Israelites
got plunder in camels, sheep, and asses, but still no horses. Even at the
time when Jerusalem was conquered and first destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar,
Arabia appears to have been without horses, as the Tyrians brought theirs
from Armenia. That the earliest available uses of the active powers of
horses was adopted by the Egyptians, the same authority satisfies us ; for
we read in the fiftieth chapter of Genesis, that when Joseph carried his
father's remains from Egypt to Canaan, "there went up with him both cha-
riots and horsemen." One hundred and fifty years afterwards, the horse
constituted the principal strength of the Egyptian army ; Pharaoh having
pursued the Israelites with " sixj;iundred chosen chariots, and with all the
chariots of Egypt." The earliest period now alluded to was 1650 years
before the birth of Christ ; and 1450 years before that event, the horse was
so far naturalized in Greece, that the Olympic Games were instituted, in-
cluding chariot and horse-races.

The origin of the native horse of our own country is now merely a ques-
tion of historical interest, the discussion of which would not lead to much
practical benefit. That experiments, founded on the study of his nature and
properties, which have from time to time been made to improve the breed,
and bring the different varieties to the perfection in which we now find them,
have succeeded, is best confirmed by the fact of the high estimation in which
the horses of Great Britain are held in all parts of the civilized world ; and
it is not too much to assert, that, although the cold, humid, and variable
nature of our chmate is by no means favorable to the production of these
animals in their very best form, we have, by great care, and after a lapse
of nearly two centuries, by our attention to breeding, high feeding, and good
grooming, with consequent development of the muscles, brought them to the
highest state of perfection (with one exception*) of which their nature is
susceptible. They may be classed under the following heads, and treated
of individually, viz. the Race-Horse, thorough-bred and not thorough-bred ;
the Hunter; the Hackney, for various purposes ; the Charger; the Troop-
Horse; the Coach, Chariot, and Gig-Horse; the Stage-coach and Post-Horse;
and the Draught or Cart-Horse.

THE RACE-HORSE.

PROGRESSIVE IMPROVEMENT OF THE ENGLISH BREED.
Although we may safely pronounce that the native breed of English
horses, however esteemed for other purposes, could not race, in the present
acceptation of that word, yet it is equally obvious that they formed the parent
stock of the renowned English Racer. The first step to improve it by a
cross with Eastern blood, appears to have been taken by James the First,
who gave the enormous sum (in those days) of £500 for an Arab stallion,
which, however, the Duke of Newcastle, in his work on Horsemanship,
(great authority at that time,) wrote down, on account, chiefly, of his compa-
ratively diminutive size. At the Restoration, however, there appears to
have been a tolerably good breed of horses in England, which Charles the
Second improved by an importation of Barbs and Turks, whose blood was
engrafted on the original stock, already very considerably ameliorated by the
services of a stallion called Place's White Turk, imported by Oliver Crom-
well's Master of the Horse, who bore that name; and afterwards by those
of the Helmsley Turk, followed by Fairfax's Morocco Barb. The change

* The exception is the English cart-horse, as will be stated hereafter.

k2

198 THE HORSE.

was at this time so visible, that the Lord Harleigh of that day expressed his
fears lest it might be carried to such an extreme as to extirpate the strong and
useful horse, which, perhaps, the majority of his countrymen were very well
satisfied with before. In the latter end of Queen Anne's reign, however,
the first great trump turned up, to secure future success. This was a stallion,
called Darley's Arabian, purchased in the Levant, by a Yorkshire merchant
of that name, although without any real attestation of his pedigree, or
country. The prejudice against Arabians, and other Eastern horses, the
effect of the Duke of Newcastle's anathema against them, having now, for
the most part, subsided, a good deal of their blood had been infused into the
mares of that day, when another stalhon, whose services were still more sig-
nal, accidentally made his appearance. We allude to the Godolphin Arabian,
as he was called, purchased out of a cart in Paris, and consequently of un-
certain caste, but evidently the horse of the Desert ; who, as will be hereafter
shown, may be said to have won the game. Although at first thought so
meanly of, as only to be used as a teazer, yet, fortunately for the Torf, he
lived twenty years after his services became notorious (by the accident of
his being the sire of a capital racer, out of a mare which the stallion to which
he was teazer refused to cover,) and, strange to say, no very superior race-
horse has appeared in England, for many years, that cannot be traced to his
hlood. The success of this horse was much facilitated by the lucky coinci-
dence of his arrival in England at a critical time, that is to say, when the
stock from Darley's horse, and the several Arabs, Barbs, and Turks, together
walh the royal mares imported by Charles the Second, had been "crossed,"
as the term is, on each other, and had produced mares worthy to be the channel
of imparting his own transcendent qualities to posterity. Taking it for
granted, then, that the English race-horse is descended from Arabian, Turk-
ish, and African (Barb) blood ; and also taking into consideration the various
peculiarities in the form and power of each of those kinds, requiring modi-
fication of shape, qualities, and action suited to the purposes for which they
were intended, it cannot be denied, that a task of no ordinary difficulty was
imposed on the English horse-breeders, and that they have executed that
task with a masterly hand. If other countries furnished the blood, England
has made the race-horse.

With the exception of one Eastern horse, called the Wellesley Arabian,
the grandsire of a winner of the Oaks in 1826, also of Dandizette, who ran
second for that stake in 1823, and was the dam of Exquisite, who ran second
for the Derby in 1829, the English Turf has benefited nothing, during the
last half century, from the importation of foreign blood. The fact is, that
having once gotten possession of the essential constitutional parts necessary
to form the race-horse, and which will be described hereafter, we ourselves
have, by a superior knowledge of the animal, and the means of availing
ovrsclves of his capabilities, not only by rearing and training, but by riding
him also, brought him to a pitch of excellence which will not admit of further
improvement. Superior as is the air of the Desert, which is said to be so
free from vapors, that the brightest steel is not affected w^th rust, if exposed
to it for a night, to that of our humid and ever-varying climate ; and propitious
as it must be to animals found, as the horse was found, in the greatest
perfection when reared in it; yet were the finest Eastern horse that could
be procured brought to the starting-post at Newmarket, with the advantage
of English training to-boot, he would have no chance at any weight, or for
any distance, with even a second-rate English race-horse. It may not, how-
ever, be uninteresting to point out what are the essential racing points originally
imparted to the horse of our own breed by these foreign stallions and mares,
and without which they never would ha\'e arrived at any thing approaching
the excellence which they have, for the last century, attained.

PROTECTION OF ANIMALS.

199

COUNTRY LIFE.

How often do we hear country ladies be-
wailing their lot, complaining of the mono-
tony of a country life, and envying the des-
tiny of such of their acquaintance as live in
the turmoil and excitement of a town.
Would our fair readers but explore the rich
treasures of rational and pure enjoyment
that are so profusely scattered around a coun-
try-house, they would be more apt to condole
with than envy their sisters of the city. Oin-
object, in these pages, v/ill be to awaken in
your minds an interest in the various works
of nature, so thickly strown around you; to
direct your attention to the birds, which
build their nests, and sing their varied songs
of love and joy in every tree, and bush, and
shrub ; to the flowers, which deck with their
thousand hues the sunny bank and the fer-
tile meadows, the parched heath and the
rippling brook ; and above all, to teach your
thoughts to ascend from the admiration of
the creature to the contemplation of the
Creator, and in all your observation of the
works of nature, " to look through Nature up
to Nature's God."

Each season has its glories and its won-
ders. First comes Spring — animated by her
genial breath, the whole face of nature
changes ; that which is now wrapped in the
gloom and sleep of winter, will soon awake
to renewed life and vigor, and all this will
take place at first slowly and gradually.

Now, then, is the time to commence your
observations, before the multiplicity of ob-
jects distracts your attention and bewilders
your ideas. You must acquire a habit of
observing ; not merely of looking and of
seeing, but of intimately, narrowly observing ;
for be assured, that an observant Poly-
phemus, with his solitary eye, obtains far
more information in one day than an unob-
servant Argus, with his hundred eyes, in a
whole month. It is surprising how your in-
terest in your daily walks will be increased,
when you have gained an insight into the
history, the uses, and the various objects
which you meet with. No walk, at least
no country walk, can be devoid of interest
to a mind desirous of acquiring information.
You will ever be meeting with something
new to excite your admiration, ever falling
in with something fresh, to impart instruc-
tion and to afford amusement. These coun-
try walks will give vigor to the mind, and.
health to the body ; that which before was
too frequently looked upon as a toil, will
now be regarded as a pleasure ; you will
often be induced to take exercise in the open
air, and the result will be a buoyancy of
spirits, and a lightness of heart, and a cheer-
fulness of temper, which all your in-door
amusements, and all your previous formal
walks had failed to produce.

PROTECTION OF ANIMALS.

It has often afforded me much pleasure
to observe the care which a kind Provi-
dence has taken for the better preservation
of its creatures, by apportioning their splen-
dor and beauty so as best to accord with
their safety. This is observable in many
varieties of birds, the males of which are
furnished with plumage of the most beau-
tiful description, while the females are of a
dull earthy color. It is not difficult to assign
a reason for this, and one which always
gives me pleasure to reflect upon; for if so
much care is taken by our Heavenly Father
in the preservation of an insignificant bird,
may we not, with the utmost confidence,
look to the same source for protection, if we
rightly and sincerely apply for if?

If hen birds, who sit and are exposed to
the view of beasts and birds of prey, and
of man, had the same gaudy colors as the
male, they would presently be discovered
and destroyed ; whereas, by having plumage
of a dull brown, or eartliy color, they can

scarcely be distinguished from the ground
on which they sit, and they thus escape ob-
servation and destruction. This is particu-
larly shown in the pheasant, peacock, and
duck tribes. What can be more beautiful
than the male bird of the golden pheasant?
while the plumage of the female is so dull
that it appears to belong to another species.
The males of the duck tri'pe are remarkable
for their fine plumage, whilst that of the
females is a quiet brown; and the distinc-
tion between the peacock and peahen is
still more conspicuous. The same observa-
tion applies to the chaffinch, yellow-hammer,
and many other birds ; while the plumage
of the male and female of the falcon, swan,
raven, owl, and other species, who are able
to defend themselves, is the same.

The same protecting care is shown in the
plumage of birds which are much preyed
upon, such, for instance, as the common par-
tridge and lark, which are not easily distin-
guished from the earth on which they are

200

PROTECTION OF ANIMALS.

sitting, or, as Mr. White calls it, " cowering
and squatting," while a marauding hawk is
hovering over them. The common house
and wood pigeons would fall an easy prey
to that bird if it were not for the amazing
strength of their wing, which enables them
to outfly and get away from it ; while swal-
lows, trusting to their wonderful agility, mob
the hawk with impunity. Warblers, such as
the nightingale, red-breast, fauvette, wren,
&c., on the contrary, are pretty secure from
its attacks, by sheltering themselves in thick
hedges and bushes, and the quail and corn-
crake by seldom leaving the long grass and
standing corn. One would almost suppose
that, owing to this beautiful economy for the
preservation of the weaker birds, the hawk
would be unable to procure its food ; but
when one examines the wonderful sym-
metry of its shape, the beauty and bril-
liancy of its eye, and the swiftness of its
flight, it will no longer be a matter of sur-
prise that some birds and animals should be
unable to make their escape from it. The
liawk sails over heaths and moors, and jireys
upon young hares and rabbits, as well as
snipes and other small birds, and, I believe,
upon frogs and lizards; and frequently he
hovers in the air for a considerable time till
something disturbs a bird, when he imme-
diately pounces upon it.

In examining the formation and habits of
the kangaroo, and the nature of the country
in which it is found, we shall be forcibly
struck with the truth of what has been re-
marked respecting the beneficent provisions
observable throughout the animal kingdom
for the preservation of the various creatures
which compose it.

Kangaroos inhabit a country where there
are enormous tufts of the coarsest grass
growing in swamps or marshy ground,
several feet in height, and at a considerable
distance from each other ; or else they fre-
quent rocky or bushy ground. By means of
the great strength of their tail and hind feet,
they can make bounds in succession of from
twelve to twenty feet in length, and several
feet in height, from one tufl of grass, or from
one rock or bush, to another, and thus es-
cape from their pursuers. Nor is this all ;
for such is the strength and rankness of die
grass in New Holland, or at least in some
parts of it where the kangaroo most abounds,
that if they produced their young in the
manner usual with other quadrupeds, they
would either wander and be lost in the high
grass, or, in case the dam was obliged to
leave them to provide for her own safety, it
would not be easy for her to find them
again. By means, however, of an abdorai-
y«al pouch, in which the young resiile, and
which they only occiisionally leave either for

exercise or amusement, they are never sepa-
rated from their dam, who can make her
escape with them in her pouch.

I have, however, been assured that those
kangaroos which have been domesticated
and bred in this country, are gradually losing
the use of the pouch as a filace of refuge
for their young, that the size and strength
of the tail is diminisliing, and that they more
frequently use all four of their feet in run-
ning. If this be really the case, I cannot
but consider it as a strong illustration of the
care taken by a beneficent Providence of
its creatures, in furnishing them with the
means best adapted for their relative condi-
tions and situations in the protection of
themselves and their ofl'spring, and dimi-
nishing those means when they become
no longer of the same importance to
them.

How soon would the breed of cuckoos be
extinct if they made their nests and hatched
their own young as other birds do! The
very peculiar cry of the cuckoo would in-
stantly lead every maratuler to their nests,
and we should be deprived of that note
which all the world listens to with pleasure,
and which forms one of the varieties of
pleasing sounds which enliven our springs
and summers. The instinct, also, which
leads a cuckoo to deposit its egg in the nest
of that bird whose young, when hatched,
are so small that the young cuckoo can mas-
ter them, and whose food is most congenial
with its nature, is very surprising. Thus we
find the young cuckoo in the nests of the
water-wagtail and the hedge-sparrow, wnose
young he contrives to eject from the nest as
soon as they are hatched, as it would be
impossible for the old birds to supply nou-
rishment for the cuckoo as well as for their
own young ones, especially as the former, as
he increases in size, has a most voracious
appetite. I had an opportunity of witness-
ing this in the case of a young cuckoo
which was hatched in the nest of a water-
wagtail, who had built in some ivy on a wail
close to my house. It required the united
efibrts of both the old birds from morning to
night to satisfy his hunger, and I never saw
birds more indefatigable than they were.
When the young cuckoo had nearly arrived
at his full size, he appeared, on the iittie ne>t
of the water-wagtail, '• like a giant in a cock-
boat." Just before he could fly, he was put
info a cage, in which situation the old birds
continued to feed him, till by some accident
he made his escape, and remained in a high
elm-tree near the house. Here the water-
wagtails were observed to feed him with the
same assiduity for at least a fortniglit after-
wards. This cuckoo was very pugnacious,
and would strike with its wings and open

FIRESIDE EDUCATION.

201

its mouth in great anger whenever I put my
hand near him.

I am not aware that any naturalist has
noticetl the circumstance, that those birds
who are necessarily obliged to be a longer
time absent from their nests in search of
food for diemselves or for tlieir young, make
infinitely warmer nests than those who are
able to procure their food more readily.
Thus we see the duck, and many aquatic
birds who have a voracious appetite, and
liave often to go over a considerable space
of ground in search of food, and are conse-
quently a long time absent from their nest,
cover up their eggs with a prodigious quan-
tity of down and feathers, in order to prevent
their being chilled. In like manner, the
long-tailed titmouse, (^Pai-us caudatus,) who,
having from twelve to fifteen young ones to
provide for, must necessarily be a long time
together away from them in search of food,
so that she cannot herself impart the neces-
sary warmth to her brood by sitting on them,
as most odier birds do, not only lines her
nest witli a profusion of the softest feathers
and down, but makes it almost in the shape
of a ball, with a small hole in the side to
enter at, so that tlie young are effectually
protected from cold in their snug abode. The

thrush, on the contrary, which can so readily
procure worms on a lawn or in a meadow, so
that it is not necessary for both the parent birds
to be absent in search of food at the same
time, lines its nest with clay or cow-dung.

The nest of the rook, also, which is in an
exposed situation, has but little warmth of
lining in it; but then the hen seldom leaves
it, and is fed, during the period of incuba-
tion, by the cock. He also provides food for
the young till the hen bird can leave them
with safety to assist him in his labors.

I should not omit noticing the nest of the
common house-sparrow, which is of a large
size, and completely filled with feathers;
and, though they have not so many young to
provide Ibod for as the long-tailed titmouse,
they have a most voracious progeny, it hav-
ing been calculated that a pair of sparrows,
during the time they have their young to
feed, destroy above three thousand three
hundred caterpillars in a week, besides
other insects. It is, therefore, I think, evi-
dent that a more than usual degree of
warmth is necessary to be provided in the
nest of the sparrow, to enable the parent
birds to leave their young with safety in
search of such a prodigious quantity of food
for them.

FIRESIDE EDUCATION.

Human society is composed of families.
A family consists of husband, vi'ife, chil-
dren. This is not an accidental or arbitrary
arrangement. The family compact originates
in the necessities of our nature ; has existed
from the creation, and, by the good provi-
dence of God, will continue till the end of
time. Accordingly, all attempts to encroach
on the obligations, as well as the privileges,
of the family relationship, have proved less
or more nugatory, and must ever inevitably
do so. What is the fundamental object of
the family compact, is extremely evident: a
due provision for the affections, and for the
nurture and education of children — the lat-
ter insured by the permanence of the matri-
monial engagement. Thus, by what we
must call a primary ordination, father, mo-
ther, children, compose a community dis-
tinct in its character, and which all must
recognise as essential to the subsistence and
wellbeing of civil society. We have con-
sidered it necessary to state thus broadly at
the outset, what appears to be the primary
principles of human relationship ; for there
are not wanting parties who would endea-
vor to rear systems of society in which the
family compact is to have no place, and
parental care is to be absolved from its du-

Vol. I.— 26

ties — a dream of the imagination, which the
common sense of mankind will ever reject
as visionary, and consider, for all good pur-
poses, to be impracticable.

Whatever be the benevolence of plans
propounded for the rearing of children apart
from the parental roof, it caimot escape no-
tice that they proceed on a misconception of
what education really is. In the treatment
which nature dictates, the child is to be
cared for in various ways, and for these va-
rious ways education, to a certain extent,
under the immediate direction of parents, is
indispensable ; in a word, Fireside Edu-
cation is necessary to form the perfect
being.

Fireside education is thus a wide and
comprehensive thing: its enlightened object
is to transform a weak, uninstructed child
into a healthy and accomplished man or
woman. What a variety of considerations
are necessarily engaged in this onerous duty!
The child is to be cared for physically; that
is, as regards food, warmth, clothing, exer-
cise, and, it may be, medical attendance. He
is to be cared for morally ; in which is in-
volved the suppression of evil passions, the
cultivation of the affections, kindness to ani-
mals, love of honesty and truth, and woi-

202

FIRESIDE EDUCATION.

ship of the Divine Being. He is to be cared
ibr intellectually; that is, he is to be in-
structed in all useful knowledge, in order
that he may with advantage perform his
part in society. '

Any routine of education which does not
embrace all these particulars, is of course
imperfect. Education, as respects mere
physical training, may produce a man health-
ful in constitution, and handsome in appear-
ance, accomplished, possibly, in walking,
riding, or in the performance of manual
operations : but he who possesses no more
education than this, is at best only an ele-
gant savage. Gladiators, the knights of old,
boxers, rope-dancers, and similar personages,
furnished examples of this proficiency. Phy-
sical, united with intellectual education, but
without moral training, produces a still more
dangerous character ; it is persons so edu-
cated who compose a large section of clever
and designing criminals, also ambitious and
unprincipled men in different ranks of so-
ciety. Physical, with intellectual education,
is pretty nearly the entire amount of culture
imparted at hospital seminaries. No doubt
at these institutions the pupils listen to moral
admonitions, and repeat answers to ques-
tions on religious subjects; but that is not
moral education, in the proper sense of the
term, and therefore they necessarily are de-
prived of one of the most important ele-
ments of youthful culture.

Moral education may be guided by books
and verbal admonitions ; precept and per-
suasion are of undeniable utility ; but,
strictly speaking, moral culture is valueless
unless principle is confirmed into habit. A
child, for example, may be taught to commit
to memory answers to an immense variety
of questions, psalms, hymns, and passages
of Scripture ; and he may be made to know
at the same time that it is sinlul to steal, lie,
or injure his neighbor; yet with all this,
and apparently a paragon of learning, he
may be little better than a heathen, and
have no proper sense of applying his know-
ledge to the regulation of his own conduct.
The true explanation of the phenomenon is,
that the whole course of moral instruction
has been a deceptive make-believe. The
power of memory was evoked : but me-
mory is not principle.

In infant schools, which are a species of
enlarged and well-conducted family circles,
the feelings and propensities are subjected to
a systematic training, greatly to the advan-
tage of children; and where parents are
incapable of properly conducting home edu-
cation, infant schools are indisjiensable.
Independently of these valuable institutions,
however, there is a lesser or greater neces-
sity for family intercourse, and lamentable

is the fate of that child for whom no domes-
tic hearth offers its cheering influence. The
fireside may be homely, or it may be dig-
nified ; but whether it belong to poor or
rich, it may be equally a shrine of the affec-
tions, a scene of happiness, a school of the
heart.

A school of the heart! In these words
we arrive at the true operation of moral
principle. The heart must be touched ; the
feelings affected ; the baser propensities sub-
dued ; the higher einotions quickened; and
all made love and joy within. And how
can this be done? Only by moral and reli-
gious principle being confirmed by training
and exercise, in reference to companions,
parents, brothers, sisters, and other relations,
as well as the general circumstances by
which we are surrounded. The very act
of loving and of consulting the feelings of
those with whom we are domesticated,
strengthens the tendency to well-doing. Nor
are the incidents which occur in a family
without their value. Births, deaths, meet-
ings of relations, misfortunes, things joyful
and things sorrowful, are all means of moral
culture. So likewise, within the domestic
circle, are acquired habits of order and per-
severance, ideas of personal intercourse and
courtesy, along with much familiar but use-
ful knowledge. Recollections of a youthful
and well-regulated home form also a source
of refined gratification in after-life. How
frequently has it been confessed that the re-
membrance of a father's solicitude and affec-
tion has acted like a perpetual beacon, in
warning from vice ! Old remembrances,
however, centre chiefly round the mother.
She is the divinity of the child, and was all
in all to him, before he knew of any other
object of veneration. What hosts of remem-
brances of this dear departed shade ! Her
early attention to all his little wants; her
anxiety about his personal appearance and
behavior, as she used to send him forth
every morning to school ; her attempts to
shelter him from rebuke and punishment —
perhaps her privations, her sufferings, in
widowhood ; her heroic struggles to main-
tain appearances, and get her boy forv^ard
in the world ; her delight, finally, in living
to see him in that position of respectability
which for years had been the object of her
most fondly cherished hopes; the tranquil
close of her existence and dying blessing —
all this, and much more, may be said to form
an inextiuguij.hable inheritance of pleasur-
able recollection — a fountain of feeling per-
petually welling out, and irrigating those
dreary wastes of hard, every-day toil and
thought, which lie irksomely in the path of
life.

Nor are the benefits of family intercourse

FIRESIDE EDUCATION.

203

in their immediate or remote consequences
confined to the children. " We are very apt
to imagine that the family arrangement is
entirely for the sake of the young — that the
children are exclusively benefited ; and that,
if it is disturbed or set aside, the young, the
children, are the only persons vi^ho sutfer.
On the contrary, it appears to me that the
old are as much interested in this divine
institution as the young — that it is as bene-
ficial to parents as to children — and that
any departure from it must bring a penalty
upon the parents equal to any which the
children can sulier. We are accustomed to
hear much, and very justly, of the obliga-
tions which children owe to their parents.
But while they very wisely impress this on
their children, people are very ready to for-
get, or not remark, that as the child owes
much to the parent, so the parent owes
much to the child; that while he has been
the object and receiver of good, he has also
been the minister of good : and every loving
thought, every toil, every sacrifice on the
part of the parent, has received from day to
day a return — a real and most precious re-
ward. Surely those persons judge very er-
roneously, who imagine that all the care,
trouble, and expense they lay out upon their
children is so much capital sunk, and from
which no return is to be expected till the
cliild has grown to maturity, or at least till
he has reached the years of discretion. We
are very apt to reckon nothing a blessing
which does not come to us in a material
form ; and so we sometimes undervalue or
overlook our highest privileges, because they
do not address themselves to our eyes, and
cannot be felt or handled by us. To any
one who observes and reflects, it will, I
think, be evident, that the parent is as much
the better for the child as the child is for the
parent; that infancy, childhood, youth, be-
stow as mvich on manhood, womanhood, old
age, as they derive from them ; that this is
an instance of that general law, that we
cannot do good to others without getting
good from them : in this field it is impossible
to sow without reaping ; for the same soil
which receives the seed from the bountiful
hand, returns it with increase. What bless-
ings, then, are children the means of con-
veying to their parents? In other words,
how is it needful, for the sake of the father
and mother, as well as of their offspring,

that the family life should be jealously
guarded 1

" The celebrated Lord Erskine has told
us that he never robed himself to plead at
the bar, but he thought he felt his children
pulling at his gown ; and if the history of
human thoughts were legible to us as it is
to the eye of God, we should doubtless find
that multitudes of the greatest men — men
who were great in the good which they were
enabled to achieve, which is the triiest great-
ness— drew their strongest stimulants from
the families God had given them ; and that,
on the other hand, myriads who have lived
usefully and well had been saved from
vices to which they were prone by the con-
sideration that these would involve in ruin
those who were dearer to them than their
own life. I might add a great deal more to
show that those persons are in a grievous
mistake who fancy that, however necessary
the parent may be to the child, the child is
not necessary or beneficial to the parent. It
appears to me, on the contrary, that parents
who do their duty, and keep their eyes open,
will acknowledge that they have been am-
ply repaid, day by day, for all their anxiety,
labor, and pains; that the pleasures and in-
struction, the incitements to good, the salu-
tary restraints which their children have
supplied, the thoughts they have suggested,
the feelings they have inspired, were cheaply
purchased even with the cost and care of a
family; and that children are not, as men
buried in selfishness esteem, a mere tax and
burden, but truly a promise and a blessing,
as they have pronounced them who lived in
the ages of faith."

So much we have thought it desirable to
say on the general advantages of fireside in
preference to any other species of manage-
ment for the young ; and we now proceed
to the more special object of the present sheet.

We take it for granted at the outset, that
parents desire to see their children grow up
healthful, intelligent, honest, orderly, good-
hearted — beings able to perform their part
creditably in society, and a comfort to all
connected with them. Attention to them
from birth cannot insure these good results;
but it will go far towards doing so. It is, at
all events, the duty of every parent to do
the utmost in his power to rear his children
properly, if only to avoid future self-re-
proaches for his neglect.

Revenge Extraordinary. — A wag having
had a dispute with a man who kept a sau-
sage shop, and owing him a grudge, ran into
his shop one day as he was serving several
good customers, with an immense dead cat,
which he quickly deposited on the counter,

saying, " This makes nineteen ; as you are
busy now, we'll settle another time ;" and he
was oif in a twinkling. The customers,
aghast, soon followed him, leaving their
sausages behind.

204

CURIOSITIES OF ART.

CURIOSITIES OF ART.

The interest excited by any product of
ingenuity or skill must ever be comparative.
The musket of the sailor is a matter of won-
der to the savage, the steam-vessel a marvel
to the Chinese, and the electric telegraph a
curiosity to the British. Five hundred years
ago our forefathers would have been as much
struck as the South Sea islander with the
feats of the musket; forty years ago steam-
boats ^vere subjects of wonder to our coun-
trymen ; and .soon we shall be as familiar
with electric telegraphs as we are now with
spinning machines, gas-light, locomotives,
and steam-frigates — all of which were mar-
vels and curiosities in their day. Since in-
vention is thus ever active and progressive,
we can regard as permanent curiosities of
art only such products as exhibit vastitude
or boldness of design, great ingenuity and
perseverance in accomplishment, intricacy
and complication of parts combined with
harmony of execution, minuteness of pro-
portions with delicacy of finish, and simila-
tion of living agency by inanimate mechan-
ism. In this sense we intend to present the
reader with descriptions of some of the more
remarkable results of human ability, confin-
ing ourselves particularly to those of a me-
chanical character.

The earliest efforts of mechanical inge-
nuity in Europe M'ere chiefly directed to-
w^ards the construction of clocks, watches,
and automata. In all of these, weights and
springs were the prime movers, and the
skill of the mechanic was expended in ren-
dering the movements of his work as nu-
merous and complicated as possible. They
had no idea of applying their art to the
great manufacturing operations so charac-
teristic of the present age ; not that they
■were unskilful workmen, but that they were
ignorant of that agency which has developed
cur steam-engines, spinning-mills, printing-
presses, and other machinery. Steam force
was to them unknown. Their sole great
moving power was falling water — a power
attainable only in a limited degree, and,
when attainable, not often in a situation to
he available. It was thus that ingenious
rt-orkmen .«o frequently devoted a lifetime
to the coristruction of .=ome piece of me-
chanism, which, after all, was only valuable
as an amusing curiosity. Among die more
remarkable of these were their clocks and
time-keepers, some of wluch we may shortly
advert to.

KEMAREABLE CLOCKS AND WATCHES.

The famous astronomical clock of Stras-
burg, completed by Isaac Habrecht about

the end of the sixteenth century, deserves
a prominent place in our catalogue. It has
been recently renovated by a M. Schwitgue,
after four years' labor; but its original move-
ments are tluis described in Morrison's
Itinerary : — " Before the clock stands a globe
on the ground, showing the motions of the
heavens, stars, and planets. The heavens
are carried about by the first mover in
twenty-four hours. Saturn, by his proper
motion, is carried about in thirty years; Ju-
piter in twelve ; Mars in two ; the sun. Mer-
cury, and Venus in one year, E.nd the moon
in one month. In the clock itself, there are
two tables on the right and left hand, show-
ing the eclipses of the sun and inoon from
the year 1573 to the year 1G24. The third
table, in the middle, is divided into three
parts. In the first part, the statues of Apollo
and Diana show the course of the year, and
the day thereof, being carried about in one
year ; the second part shows the year of ovtr
Lord, and the equinoctial days, the hours of
each day, the luinutes of each hour, Easter
day, and all other feasts, and the Dominical
letter; and the third part hath the geogra-
phical description of all Germany, and par-
ticularly of Strasburg, and the names of the
inventor and all the workmen. In the mid-
dle frame of the clock is an astrolabe, show-
ing the sign in wdiich each planet is every
day ; and there are the statues of the seven
planets upon a circular plate of iron ; so that
every day the planet that rules the day
comes forth, the rest being Iiid within the
frames, till ihey come out of course at their
(lay — as the sim upon Sunday, and so for all
the week. There is also a terrestrial globe,
which shows the quarter, the half hour, and
the minutes. There is also the figure of a
human skull, and the statues of two boys,
whereof one turns the hour-glass, when the
clock hath struck, and the other puts forth
the rod in his hand at each stroke of the
clock. Moreover, there are the statues of
Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter, and
many observations of the moon. In the up-
per part of the clock are four old men's
statues, which strike the quarters of the hour.
The statue of Death comes out at each quar-
ter to strike, but is driven back by the statue
of Christ with a spear in his hand lor three
quarters, but in the fourth quarter that of
Christ goes back, and that of Death strikes
the hour with a bone in his hand, and then
the chimes sound. On the top of the clock
is an image of a cock, which twice in the
day crows aloud, and claps his wings. Be-
sides, this clock is decked with many rare
pictures ; and, being on the inside of tlie

CURIOSITIES OF ART.

205

church, carries another frame to the outside
of the walls, whereon the hours of the sun,
the courses of the moon, the length of the
day, and such other things, are set out with
great art."

Another clock, celebrated for its curious
mechanism and motions, is mentioned by
Thompson, in his continental travels. It is
placed in an aisle near the choir of St.
Johns Cathedral, at Lyons. On the top
stands a cock, which every three hours claps
liis wings, and crows thrice. In a gallery
underneath, a door opens on one side, out of
which comes the Virgin Mary; and from a
door on the other side, the angel Gabriel, who
meets and salutes her; at the same time a
door opens in the alcove part, out of which
the form of a dove, representing the Holy
Ghost, descends on the Virgin's head. After
this these figures retire, and from a door in
the middle conies forth a figure of a rever-
end father, lifting up his hands, and giving
his benediction to the spectators. The days
of the week are represented by seven figures,
each of which takes its place in a niche on
the morning of the day it represents, and
continues there till midnight. But perhaps
the greatest curiosity is an oval plate, marked
with the minutes of an hour, which are ex-
actly i^ointed to by a liand reaching the cir-
cumference, which insensibly dilates and
contracts itself during its revolution. This
curious piece of mechanism cannot be sup-
posed to be so perfect in all its motions as
it was formerly ; and yet it has suffered as
little as can be expected in a long course of
years, through the care and skill of those
appointed to look after it. It appears, by an
inscription on the clock itself, that it was re-
paired and improved by one Nourison in
IGGl ; but it was contrived, long before that
time, by Nicholas Lipp, a native of Basil,
who finished it in 1598, when he was about
thirty years of age. The oval minute mo-
tion was invented by M. Servier, and is of
a later date. The tradition goes that Lipp
had his eyes put out by order of the magis-
trates of Lyons, that he might never be able
to perform the like again; but so far from
tliis being the case, the magistrates engaged
him to fix at Lyons, by allowing him a hand-
some salary to take charge of his own
njachine.

There are other celebrated clocks — such,
for example, as that of Lunden in Sweden.
and of Exeter, in England — which, from the
number and complication of their move-
ments and figures, may well vie with those
of Strasburg and Lyons. But these we pass
over, to notice two which were made some
years since by an English artist, and sent as
a present by tlie East India Company to the
Emperor of China. These clocks, says a

contemporary account, are in the form of
chariots, in wliich are placed, in a fine atti-
tude, a lady leaning her right hand upon a
part of the chariot, under wliich is a clock
of curious workmanship, little larger than a
shilling, which strikes and repeats, and goes
eight days. Upon her finger sits a bird,
finely modelled, and set with diamonds and
rubies, with its wings expanded in a flying
posture, and actually flutters for a consider-
able time, on touching a diamond button be-
low it : the body of the bird (which con-
tains part of the wheels that in a manner
give life to it) is not more than the sixteenth
part of an inch. The lady holds in her left
hand a gold tube, not tViicker than a large
pin, on the top of which is a small roimd
box, to which a circular ornament, set with
diamonds, not larger than a sixpence, is
fixed, which goes round nearly three hours
in a constant regular motion. Over the lady's
head, supported by a small fluted pillar no
bigger than a quill, are two umbrellas, under
the largest of which a bell is fixed, at a con-
siderable distance from the clock, and seem-
ing to have no connection with it, but from
which a communication is secretly conveyed
to a hammer that regularly strikes the hour,
and repeats the same at pleasure, by touch-
ing a diamond button fixed to the clock be-
low. At the feet of the lady is a dog in
gold, before which, from the point of the
chariot, are two birds fixed on spiral springs,
the wings and feathers of which are set
with stones of various colors, and appear as
if flying away with the chariot, which, from
another secret motion, is contrived to run in
a straight, circular, or any other direction.
A boy, who lays hold of the chariot behind,
seems also to push it forward. Above the
umbrella are flowers and ornaments of pre-
cious stones, the whole terminating with a
flying dragon set in the same manner. These
gil'ts were wholly of gold, curiously chased,
and embellished with rubies and pearls.

More interesting, perhaps, than any of
these, and yet of the simplest construction,
and of the most common material, are the
electric clocks lately invented by Mr. Bain,
of Edinburgh. The prime mover of these
machines is the electric currents of the earth,
brought to bear upon the machinery, as thus
described by a party for whom one of the
earliest was constructed. "On the 28th of
August, 1844, Mr. Bain set up a small clock
inmy drawing-room, the pendulum of which
is in the hall, and both instruments in a vol-
taic circle, as follows: — On the north-east
side of my house, two zinc plates, a foot
square, are sunk in a hole, and suspended by
a wire, which is passed through the house to
the pendulum first, and then to the clock.
On the south side of the hcuse, :it a distance
g

206

BROOMS.

of about forty yards, a hole was dug four
feet deep, and two sacks of common coke
buried in it; among the coke another wire
was secured, and passed in at the drawing-
room window, and joined to the former wire
at the clock. The ball of the pendulum
weighs nine pounds; but it was moved ener-
getically, and has ever since continued to do
so with the sclf-same energy. The time is
to perfection ; and the cost of the motive
powers was only seven shillings and six-
pence. There are but tlu-ee little wheels in
the clock, and neither weights nor spring, so
there is nothing to be wound up." Many
of these ingenious clocks have been since
constructed, and an illuminated one, pro-
jected from the front of Mr. Bain's workshop,
in Edinburgh, moves, as the inhabitants can
testify, with the utmost regularity. One
great advantage of this invention is, that,
supposing every house in a city provided
with the simple apparatus before referred
to, one electric current could keep the whole
in motion, and thus preserve the most perfect
uniformity of time.

As a sequel to these curious clocks, may
be mentioned some watches, remarkable
either for the minuteness of their pro])or-
tions, or the intricacy of their parts. In the
Annual Register for ] 764, it is stated that
Mr. Arnold, a watchmaker in London, had
the honor to present his majesty, George III.,
with a curious repeating watch of his own
construction, set in a ring. Its size was
something less than a silver twopence ; it con-
tained one liundred and twenty-five different
parts, and weighed altogether no more than

five pennyweights and seven grains. An-
other, still more curious, is mentioned by
Smith, in his "Wonders," as belonging to the
Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg. The
whole is about the size of an egg, within
which is represented our Saviour's tomb,
with the stone at the entrance, and the sen-
tinels upon duty ; and while a spectator is
admiring this ingenious piece of mechanism,
the stone is suddenly removed, the sentinels
drop down, the angels appear, the women
enter the sepulchre, and the same chant is
heard which is perfonned in the Greek
church on Easter eve.

To this list, if our space had permitted,
we might have added accoimts of some
curious clocks constructed by Grollier and
others, in which the motions were either hid,
or so complicated as to deceive the observer;
of some that were made to go by their own
weight, or by the hidden power of the mag-
net; of some that were employed to indi-
cate the force and position of the wind, the
vigilance of sentinels, &c. ; and of others
which were applied to the movement of
those intricate and curious instruments
known by the name of planetariums and
orreries. Had it not been for the same rea-
son, odometers, for measuring distances
travelled over, and set in motion by the
limbs of the traveller, gas metres, and other
self-registering apparatus, might have also
come in for a share of description, as not
only evincing great skill and ingenuity, but
on account of the practically useful purposes
to which they are applied.

BROOMS.

The best brush for our carpeted floors is
a long-handled one, with rounded ends, the
hairs very stiff, and about as long as those
in a clothes brush. This, at all events, will
suffice for the purpose six days out of the
seven, so that only once a week, instead of
every day, the use of the genuine carpet
broom mny be permitted. Two house-
brooms should always be provided, one for
the sleeping apartments, (which should be
kept up stairs.) and one for the kitchen ;
and these, indeed all brooms, shoidd have
round ends; we deprecate those which are
usually seen with ends sharp and square,
that scetn to have been invented ex-
pressly to chip the paint from the skirting
boards.

Housekeepers, however inexperienced, it
IS presumed, are aware that whalebone is
too frequently manufactured into brooms,
which are sold as hair; nor will it be requi-
site to inform tliem, that the former material is

far inferior to the latter in durability. It is not
easy for an inexperienced eye to detect the
fraud. The chief differences between hair
and whalebone are, that the former is elastic,
while the latter, if bent, retains the bend;
that hair is round and whole to the end ;
wlialebone, on the contrary, looks merely
fhred^ and the points are split. A hearth-
broom, for a common sitting-room, should
always be composed of black hair, for the
obvious reason, that being frequently used,
it so often would require to be washed, ii'
the hair were white. A hearth-brush should
always be provided for the kitchen ; a ser-
vant then will have neither excuse nor pre-
tence to make use of the long-handled broom
to sweep the bars of the grate — a practice
too frequently adopted, to the speedy de-
struction of the utensil. For lofty .staircases,
a " Turk's head" is used, in order to detach
cobwebs from corners that are too high to be
reached by means of the usual house-broom.

SEPTEMBER.

207

THE WIFE TO HER HUSBAND.

The following admirable lines, from the
pen of an American lady, a member of the
Society of Friends, appeared some years ago
in the Sunday Times newspaper. We are
told that the poem was found in the house of
a tippling gardener, whom it had the happy
effect of winning from the haunts of dissi-
pation to his own domestic hearth.

" You took me, William, when a girl,

Unto your home and heart,
To bear in all your after-fate

A fond and faithful part;
And tell me, have I ever tried

That duty to forego.
Or pined there was not joy for me

When you were sunk in wo 1

No ; I would rather share your tear.

Than any other's glee.
For though you're nothing to the world.

You're all the world to me.
You make a palace of my shed.

This rough-hewn bench a throne ;
There's sunlight for me in your smiles,

And music in your tone.

I look upon you when you sleep —

My eyes widi tears grow dim,
I cry, ' Oh Parent of the Poor,

Look down from heaven on him ;
Behold him toil from day to day.

Exhausting strength and soul ;
Oh look with mercy on him. Lord,

For thou canst make him whole !'

And wiien at last relieving sleep

Has on my eyelids smiled.
How oft are they forbade to close

In slumber by our child?

I take die little murmurer

That spoils my span of rest,
And feel it is a part of tliee

I lull upon my breast.

There's only one return I crave,

I may not need it long,
And it may soothe thee when I'm whert

The wretched feel no wrong :
I ask not for a kinder tone.

For thou wert ever kind ;
I ask not for less frugal fare,

My fare I do not mind ;

J ask not for attire more gay —

h' such as I have got
Suffice to make me fair to thee,

For more I murmur not.
But I would ask some share of hours

That you on clubs bestow,
Of knowledge which you prize so much,

Might I not something know ?

Subtract from meetings amongst men

Each eve an hour for me ;
Make me companion of your soul,

As I may safely be.
If you will read, I'll sit and work;

Then think when you're away;
Less tedious I shall find the time,

Dear William, of your stay.

A meet companion soon I'll be

For e'en your studious hours,
And teaidier of those little ones

You call your cottage flowers ;
And if we be not rich and great,

We may be wise and kind,
And as my heart can warm your heart,

So may my mind your mind."

SEPTEMBER.

I BKAR a special love to sweet September,

Though people say partialities are wrong,

From youdiful Janu'ry to old December
No month I love with love so true and strong.

The year hath got its richest ripeness then.
Like womanhood when in its perfect prime
And comeliness, before die hand of Time

Hath lined the forehead with his furrowing pen.
September's lap is full, and plenty reigns
To recompense the toiler for his pains

And feed the poor. A pleasant look hath she —
Such as the children love to see upon
Their mother's face, when they her smile have won.

Let others choose their love — September pleases me.

Mackellar.

208

RECEIPTS.

RECEIPTS.

To Destroy Cockroaches. — If your corre-
spondents will try the following simple plan,
I will warrant tliem that every beetle and
cockroach will shortly disappear, and that
the kitchen will not be again infested. Add
about a teaspoonful of powdered arsenic to
about a tablespoonful of mashed boiled po-
tatoes ; rub and mix them w^ell together, and
then crumble about a third of it, every night
at bedtime, about die kitchen hearth ; it will
be eaten up, or nearly so, by the following
morning. The creature is very fond of po-
tatoes, and devouring them greedily, crawls
again into its hole and perishes. I had oc-
casion to have some alterations made in the
kitchen stove six months after I pursued this
plan, and found hundreds of wings and dead
mummies of defunct cockroaches. Their
disappearance was not attended with the
slightest perceptible smell, and though five
years have elapsed, not one has again been
seen in my kitchen. In putting it into prac-
tice, any remaining crumbs should be swept
up the next morning. — F. H. Horner, M. D.

We have tried the foregoing, and found
it perfectly effectual. — Downing's Horticul-
turist.

♦

To Remove the Turnip Flavor from Milk or
Butter. — Dissolve a little nitre (saltpetre) in
spring water, which keep in a bottle, and
put a small teacup-full into eight gallons of
milk, when warm from the cow.

To Perfume Linen. — Rose leaves dried in
the shade, cloves beat to a powder, mace
scraped; mix them together, and put the
composition mto little bags.

To Clean Flint-glass Bottles, Decanters, ^c.
^Roll tip in small pieces, some white,
brown, or blotting paper ; then wet and soap
the same ; put them into the vessel with a
little lukewarm water, shake them well for
a few minutes, then rinse the glass with
clean water, and it will be as bright and
clear as when new from the shops.

Celery Sauce, for Roasted or Boiled Foicls. —
Take a large bimch of celery, wash it very
clean, cut it into little thin bits, and boil it
softly in a little water till it is tender; then
add a little beaten mace, some nutmeg, pep-
per and salt, thickened with a good lump of
butter rolled in flour; then boil it up and
pour it in your dish. You may add half a
pint of creaiu, a glass of white wine, and a
spoonful of catsup. For brown celery sauce,
omit the cream, and use red instead of white
wine.

Mrs. G.'s Famous Bunns. — One pound and

a half of flour, (a quarter of a poiuid left to

sift in last,) and a half a pound of butter cut

up fine together; then add four eggs beat to

a liigh froth, four teacups of milk, half a

wineglass of brandy, wine, and rose-water,

each, and one wineglass of yeast; stir it all

together with a knife, and add half a pound

of sugar, then sift in the quarter of a pound

of flour, and when the lumps are all beaten

smooth, set them to rise in the pans they are

to be baked in.

•

Biscuits. — A poimd and a half of flour
made wet with equal quantities of milk and
water moderately warm, made stiff, and
rolled out very thin ; cut them to any size
you please, prick them, and bake them in a
moderate oven on a tin. No flour to be put
on the tins or biscuits.

j1 Quickly Made and Cheap Cake. — Five
eggs, leaving out two whites, and beaten
separately, the whites to a froth ; five ounces
of sugar dissolved in three parts of a wine-
glass of water, put into a saucepan to boil,
and pour the dissolved sugar, boiling, into
the eggs; when nearly cold, mix in a quar-
ter of a pound of flour by degrees. Three
quarters of an hour in a quick oven will

bake it.

•

^ Plain Lemon Pudding. — The juice of
three lemons, the peel of one rubbed ofl' with
sugar, six ounces loaf sugar powdered, (ex-
cepting what has been used for the lemon
peel,) a good sized teacup-full of bread
crumbs; while it is soaking together, beat
up four eggs, leaving out two whites ; melt
one ounce of fresh butter, and mix all well
together; line and edge a dish with pufl-
paste, pour in the above, and bake in a quick
oven for three quarters of an hour.

^ Baked .^pple Pudding. — Butter a pie-
dish and line it with crumbs of bread, then
place a layer of apple (cut as for pie) in the
bottom of the dish, sprinkle it with moist
sugar, then a layer of crimibs, and so on al-
ternately till the dish is filled, ending with a
thick layer of crumbs ; pour melted fresh
butter over it, and bake for an hour.

To Make Blacking. — Three ounces of ivory
black, two ounces of treacle, half anoimceof
vitriol, half an ounce of sweet oil, (jnarterof
a pint of vinegar, and three quarters of a pint
of water. Mix the oil, treacle, and ivory
black gradually to a pa.ste, then add tlie vi-
triol, and, by degrees, the vinegar and water.

®1)£ |3lottC|l|. tl)c loom, axiii il)t ^nyil*

Vol. I. OCTOBER, 1848. No. IV.

FREE TRADE WITH ENGLAND,

AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE FARMERS AND PLANTERS OF THE WORLD.

The more thoroughly it shall be examined, the more fully will it be seen
that the doctrine taught by the patriot Jefferson, when he said that "we must
now place the manufacturer by the side of the agriculturist," is in accord-
ance with the common sense of mankind. Everywhere throughout the
Avorld the producer desires to have the consumer settle near him, and he
"rejoices in the arrival of the blacksmith and the shoemaker, because they
come to eat on the spot the corn which heretofore he has carried ten, twenty,
or thirty miles to market, to exchange for shoes for himself and his horses.
With each new consumer of his products that arrives he is enabled more
and more to concentrate his action and his thoughts upon his home, while
each new arrival tends to increase his power of consuming commodities
brought from a distance, because it tends to diminish his necessity for seek-
ing at a distance a market for the produce of his farm," — Carey^s Fast,
Present and Future, p. 801.

The landowner who makes a lease, inserts a provision that no hay shall
be sold off the ground, or, that if it be sold, an equivalent quantity of manure
shall be returned. He desires to have the consuming ox take his place by
the side of the producing man, because common sense teaches him that con-
stant cropping of the land, returning nothing back to the great giver, must
be followed by exhaustion of the land, to be itself followed by exhaustion
of the man who cultivates it; while experience teaches him that where the
manure is regularly returned back upon the land, its powers increase and
crops become large, and the tenant grows rich and is enabled to increase in
quantity and improve in quality the machinery of cultivation, to the advan-
tage of himself and his landlord.

If we desire to find the true policy of nations, we need only to study what
it is that the individual man of good practical common sense is prompted to
do, and what he does when left to determine for himself his course of action.
We never find such a man selling all his hay and buying no manure. We
find, on the contrary, that he buys manure, and marl, and lime, and that his
farm increases in its productive power the more he takes from it. If we look
to his spendthrift neighbor, we see him selling hay and buying no manure,
while the marl and the lime are permitted to remain where nature placed
them, underlying the poor land from which he runs away, as may now be
seen in Virginia and South Carolina.

England has marl and lime in abundance, and much of them she uses —
and yet she employs fleets of ships in bringing manure — guano — from abroad.
She knows the value of manures, and every individual man practises upon
that knowledge, yet the community of England teaches to all the rest of the
communities of the world, that they are to be enriched by bringing to her
their wheat, and their corn, and their rye, and their oats, and their rice, to
be eaten on her ground, giving her the manure yielded by the food of man,
while wasting on the road that yielded by the food of animals — and her whole

Vol. I.— 27 s 3 209

210 FREE TRADE WITH ENGLAND.

colonial system is based upon the idea of compelling subjects to do that which
free men would never voluntarily do. Therefore it was that these Unitet
States threw off her yoke, for the stamp tax, and the tax on tea, would no'
alone have produced the Revolution. With freedom came protection agains
the error of her system; with protection came wealth and strength, becaus(
Avith it came the power of returning to the land what was taken from the
land. The result maj^ be seen in the following remarks of a distinguished
member of parliament, in a recent debate in the House of Commons.

"For what purpose do we keep 9000 troops in North America'? [Hear, hear.] Is it to
protect the colonists against the United States? But if they are loyal at heart they are
strong enough to protect themselves; if they are disloyal, thrice 90U0 men will not keep
them down. [Hear, hear.] But suppose they were to separate from us, and to form inde-
pendent states, or even to join the United States, would they not become more profitable
as colonists than they are at present? [Hear.] The United States of America are. in the
strictest signilication of the word, still colonies of Great Britain, [hear.] as Carthage was
a colony of Tyre, and the cities of Ionia and Sicily were colonies of Greece; for the worfi
colony does not necessarily imply dependency, but merely a community composed of
23ersons who have removed from one country and settled in another, for the purpose of
cultivating it. [Hear, hear.] Now our colonies (as I will term them) of the United States
are in every point of view more useful to us than all our other colonies put together.
[Hear, hear.] In 1844 we exported to the United States produce and manufactures to the
value of £8,000,000 — an amount equal to the whole of our real export trade to all our
colonial dominions, which we govern at a cost of £4,000,000 a year; -while the United
States costs us for consular and diplomatic services not more than £15,000 a year, [hear,
hea7-,] and not one ship of war is required to protect our trade with the United States."

Such is the fact. The United States are more valuable to England than
any colony, and the reason therefor is to be found in the fact that they became
independent, and protected, in a small degree, their own industry. I'he
farmer Avho lives at a distance from the blacksmith, the shoemaker, the car-
penter, and the wheelwright, is a very poor customer to the storekeeper,
while he who is surrounded by blacksmiths, and shoemakers, and tailors,
and wheelwrights, and carpenters, buys largely of cloths, and perhaps of silks.
The one wastes labor and manure, while the other economizes both, and every
man thrives by the prosperity of his neighbors, while every man suffers from
the improvidence and waste of those by whom he is surrounded.

The system of England is injurious to herself and to the world, because
.it tends to compel men throughout the world to waste in the work of trans-
portation that labor which might beneficially be applied to the work of pro-
duction— to compel men, and women, and boys, and girls, and horses, and
wagons, to stand idle because of the want of employment for their days, and
weeks, and months, when they cannot be employed in the work of the farm
— and to compel the planter to give five bales of cotton produced bv great
labor bestowed on a very costly machine, in exchange for one bale of cotton
converted into cloth by aid of a comparatively inexpensive machine, and
therefore to remain poor, when, but for her interference, he might have two
bales of cloth in exchange for three bales of cotton con'ferted into cloth bv
nii;n who ate upon the ground upon which it was produced the food required
for their nourishment, giving back to the earth the refuse of its products, and
thus enriching both the land and its owner. It is the system of exhaustion
and impoverishment, and therefore it is that England requires colonies where
people can be compelled to send their rice and their cotton, their wheat and their
wool to her — the former to be eaten by the men who convert the latter into
cloth — and therefore too it is that every colony and every country that enjoys
"free trade" with England is in a stale of ruin.

Of all the countries of Europe there is noneihat has been so closely con-
nected in trade with England as Portugal. To gain a market for her wines
the latter made the celebrated Methueu treaty, by which she abandoned her

FREE TRADE WITH ENGLAND. 211

manufactures, and placed the consumer at a distance from the producer.
From that hour Portugal has declined, and she is now at the bottom of the
list of nations. Her name is synonymous with poverty and wretchedness,
yet she has a soil and a climate capable of yielding in abundance every thing
needed for the supply of the wants of man, and that will do so whenever
she shall determine to free herself from the yoke of England.

Canada possesses, it is said, the finest wheat-growing land on this conti-
nent, yet it is almost valueless, while inferior land on this side of the
imaginary line that constitutes the boundary, changes hands frequently at
prices five times greater than could be had for that which is better in town-
ships immediately adjoining, as may be seen by reference to Lord Durham's
Report, an extract from which was given in our last. (Seepage 179.) Why
is it so? Some would say — because we elect our presidents and governors,
while the Canadians do not ; but the real cause is that the Canadian cultivator
is dependent entirely on foreign markets, and he is compelled to waste in
the work of transportation the labor that should be apjilied to that of produc-
tion, and he loses his manure on the road and in the foreign markets to which
he sends his products, while eaten up by commission merchants and ship-
owners, and so must he continue to be while he remains a subject of England.
The annexation of Canada to the Union would treble the value of every foot
of her land, because the producer would then be, to a certain degree, pro-
tected in his efforts to seduce the consumers of his products — the shoemaker,
the blacksmith, the iron founder, and the coal miner — to come and sit down
near him.

Ireland is ruined. Her people have no manufactures, nor can they have
any while subject to the control of England; and until they shall have them,
they must continue to waste more time than would make all the iron and all
the cloth made in Britain, while wasting on the road and in distant markets
all the manure yielded by their products. With each step in her downward
progress, Ireland becomes a poorer customer, and the time is probably not
far distant when she will be emancipated, because of the cost of governing
her being far greater than the amount that can be wrung from her by taxation.

India is ruined. Free trade with England destroyed her manufactures,
and the richest of her lands have relapsed into jungle, while the miserable
cultivator of cotton raises on the high lands poor crops that his equally
miserable cattle are unable to carry or drag through the "rich black clay"
that lies between him and the Ganges. In the following extract from a
paper on India, by an enthusiastic advocate of free trade, may be seen the
effiicts of the colonial system.

"Looking to our Lidian empire, we cannot but be struck with the singular facilities
which — in climate, soil, and population — it presents to the connnerce of Great Britain. At
first sight, it seems to otfer every thing that could be devised, in order to induce to a com-
mercial intercourse almost without limit. There is scarcely one important article of tropical
produce which is consumed in this coimtry, either as the raw mateilal of our manufacture.s,
or as an article of daily use, for the production of A^hich Lidia is not as well, or better,
adapted than any other country; while its dense and industrious population would seem
to olfer an illimitable demand for our manufactures. Nor are there opposed to tiiese
natural and flattering elements of commerce any fiscal restrictions to counteract their
beneficial results. Indian produce has long entered into consuinption in the home
markets on tlie most favorable terms; ■while, in the introduction of British nianulactjires
into India, a very moderate duty is imposed. Yet, notwithstanding all these advantages,
it is a notorious fact, deducible alike from the tendency which the supply of some of the
most important articles of Indian produce show to fall off", and from the stagnant, or rather
declining, state of the export of our manufactures to those markets — and, perhaps, still
more so, from the extremely unprofitable and unsatisfactory result which has attended
both the export and import trade with India for some time past, — that there exist some
great and serious impediments to the realization of the just and fair hopes entertained
with regard to our Indian trade.'' — Ecoimnist.

212 FREE TRADE WITH ENGLAND.

These men think that free trade with them should bring wealth. They
$ee, however, that it does bring with it poverty, famine, and pestilence, and
they cannot understand it. They do not yet see that it has been the object
of their whole system to bring about a separation between the producer and
the consumer, and thus produce a state of things in the highest degree un-
natural. They are unable yet to see that it is to the fact that the system is
unnatural, are due its costhness and its instability, requiring for its mainte-
nance large fleets and armies and heavy taxes, and being liable to perpetual
revulsions, producing ruin abroad and at home.

Let us turn to the West Indies, and what do we see there but ruin? It
is ruin everywhere, and it must continue to be ruin in every country that is
unabte to protect itseJf.

We liave said that every man profits by his neighbor's prosperity, Avhile
every man is injured by that which injures his neighbor. How is it with
England? Does she profit by the ruin of her neighbors? Let the expe-
rience of the last twelve months answer the question. She has above a
hundred millions of unprotected subjects, and the market of the partially
protected United States is the only one to which she can look with hope in
her distress, and the reason why she can do so is that it has been protected.
Her people are in poverty and distress. Rags and nakedness abound, and
famine and pestilence sweep off hundreds of thousands, while the land of the
United Kingdom, properly cultivated, is capable of yielding abundant food
and raiment to a population five times greater than is there collected. Her
system is one of exhaustion abroad and at home. She taxes the world for
its maintenance, and she wastes on fleets and armies five times more than
the product of those taxes.

Free trade should exist throughout the world, and it would exist, were
the people of the world left at liberty to manage their own affairs. Were
the people of England and Ireland masters of their own destinies — were they
so happy as to be as free as are those of the United States — fleets, and
armies, and colonies would disappear, and the land would be carefully and
universally cultivated, and the prices of labor and capital would rise; and
then there might be free trade, for then would the system become as steady
as would be that of this country, but for the perpetual revulsions in the afl^airs
of the great broker who insists upon being the universal manufacturer and
exchanger for the world, and breaks himself every fourth or fifth year,
spreading ruin and desolation around, and then heaping maledictions on the
people of other nations whom he has ruined. Free trade will come, with
all its blessings, when that system shall be at an end, but not till then.
Those who most desire that it shall come, should stand foremost in advocacy
of the measures that will tend to bring it to an end, and should most desire
to see those measures complete and effectual. Of all the nations of the world
there is none that now can exercise so much power for that purpose as the
United States. The tariff of 1842 was doing the work, and had it been
established as the act of the ivhole people, this country would be this year
producing almost a million of tons of iron, and consuming eight hundred
thousand bales of cotton, and all the wool that could be produced, and the
producers of iron, and coal, and cloth, would be eating the corn, and the
potatoes, and the turnips, and the cabbages, and the veal, and drinking the
milk of the farmer who would now be rejoicing in the universal prosperity,
and praying to the Almighty Giver of all good things for good crops for the
famished people of Ireland, instead of, as now, praying for the appearance
of the potato-rot that he may find a market for his vast surplus of food.
Concentration makes the food come from the rich soils of the earth, and with
it men grow rich, and industrious, and moral, and they become more enhght-

WOOL AND WOOLLENS. 213

ened and more free. Deconcentration drives men to begin on the poor soils
of the earth, and with each step of its progress men become poorer, less
industrious, less temperate, less moral, less enhghtened, and more and more
a prey to demagogues who desire to enrich themselves at their expense.
The policy of 1842 was that of concentration. That of 184(5 is that of de-
concentration, as may be seen in the records of closing factories, and aban-
doned mines and furnaces.

< »» • >

WOOL AND WOOLLENS.

The following extract from a letter that has been communicated to us will
have interest for our wool-growing readers:

"In consequence of the great commercial crisis in Europe the last year,
with the political troubles of the present, this country has been filled with
foreign woollen fabrics, on which great sacrifices are being made ; a large
portion of these goods belong to bankrupt estates, and they must be sold
whether they return 25, 50 or 75 cents on the dollar of their value abroad.

"Very large sales of American woollen goods are being made at auction in
New York, at prices far below their cost. It is perfectly settled that there
are more woollen goods in the country than can be consumed the present
year, and the manufacturers have wisely adopted the policy of stopping a
portion of their works. A hard contest has commenced between the foreign
and home manufacturers, which is as sure to result in favor of the latter as
that the sun will pursue his wonted course. Although the money pressure
has lasted more than ten months in this country, there have been no failures
among manufacturers, while in Europe the failures have been for millions
in the same time. These facts induce me to believe that the statement made
by Mr. Lawrence, of Lowell, to Mr. Randall, (see 1st No. of The Plough,
Loom, and the Anvil,) was not too strong, viz.: 'The business of manu-
facturing wool in this country is on a better basis than ever before, inasmuch
as the character, skill, and capital engaged in it are such that foreign compe-
tition is defied.' This is strong language to be used in a country just starling
into life in the cultivation of the useful arts."

From the foregoing it is palpable that the wool-grower must take his
share in this contest. The low prices of goods, and suspension of a large
amount of machinery, must reduce the value of avooI below the cost of pro-
duction. This is a temporary state of things, and we entreat the wool-growers
not to do as they have formerl}^ done in times of depression, break up their
flocks and go into something else.

"Never give up," should be the motto of every American when engaged
in a good cause.

Let them, on the contrary, pet their shoulders to the wheel, determined
to take for themselves the protection tiiat is needed to enable them to com-
pel the woollen machinery and the men who drive it to come and take their
place by the side of their ploughs, and thus enable them to pay for their
cloth in the spare, and now wasted, labor of themselves, their sons and
daughters, their horses and oxen, their carts and wagons — and in potatoes,
and turnips, and hay, of which the earth yields by tons — obtaining back from
the consumer not only the cloth but the refuse of the products of the earth,
by aid of which their poor lands may be made rich, while the rich ones are
made richer by aid of careful cultivation and drainage.

Of all the labors of the farmer, there is none that would yield so largely
as the cultivation of sheep, but there is none in which it is more necessai_y
to have the consumer to take his place by the side of the producer. A steady

214 THE MARYLAND INSTITUTE.

market for fresh meat would double the value of his flocks, but mutton is a
meat that cannot be preserved. Beef, and pork, may be salted, but veal and
mutton must be eaten where they are killed. Let the wool-grower then offer
a premium to the mutton eaters of England, to come with their machinery and
sit down by him, and he will, in a few years, make this country, as it should
be, the great wool-growing, and the great wool manufacturing, country of the
world, and then the necessity for protection will be at an end. Seeing
what has been done, who can doubt that if the taritf of 1842 had been made
the great national measure of the planters and farmers, the production and
consumption of wool would be, even at this moment, almost double what it is.

There is not a wool-grower, nor a cotton-grower, nor a corn-grower, in the
country, that would not pay towards having a road made to enable him to
get to market in less time, and at less cost. Every man wants to get the
consumer as near him, in point of time and expense, as possible, and yet the
present policy of the country, advocated by both farmers and planters, is that
of driving our present consumers to the west — there to become themselves
producers — and replacing them by other consumers who are so distant that
the cost of transport and exchange eats up the chief part of the product of
labor.

Every man would pay for making a road by which to get his produce to
market, there to lose the manure, exhausting his land — but when they are
advised to bring the market to their sides, that they may save the manure
and enrich the land, each man calculates how much his shirt would cost him
at five cents a yard, and compare it with the six cents that he might for a
time have to pay to the weaver in his neighbourhood, forgetting that when
the consumer is on the land the land becomes enriched by his presence,
because he enables the farmer to give his attention to the raising of those
things of which the earth yields largely, whereas when he is at a distance
he must be fed with those things of which the earth yields by bushels.

Wherever there exists a market for milk, and veal, and mutton, and eggs,
and turnips, and cabbages, farmers grow rich. Let then the farmer labor to
seduce the consumers of those commodities to come and take their place by
his side. The loom and the anvil are the best aids to the labor of the plough.

THE MARYLAND INSTITUTE, FOR THE PROMOTION
OF THE MECHANIC ARTS,

AxNouxcES to the public that its first exliibition of American manufactures will be
opened at Washington Hall, in the City of Baltimore, on Tuesday, the 31st of October, 1848.

We further state that we will hold a Cattle Show and Fair, in connection with the
Mechanical Exhibition, and that a suitable place will be provided for the exhibition of
Stock, die Products of the Farm, Dairy, Garden, &c. Farmers, Planters, and Horticultu-
rists are particularly requested to give their countenance and aid to this part of the enter-
prise. The exhibition of Stock, &c., connected with the Cattle Show will commence on
Wednesday, the 9tli November, and continue two days. The Ploughing Match will take
place ou Thursday, the 10th. Adam Denmkad, Chairman.

JOSKPH K. StAPLETOX, FlELBIJfG LucAs, Jr.,

Geo. J. Roche, Samson Cariss,

H. Hazleuurst, Josiah Reynolds,

Edwaiid Needles, Isaac Bbown',

Joshua Vansant, James Muiirat,

B. S. Benson, RoiiEnT Poole,

William Petehs, William Feugusson,

William Minifie, Thomas J. Claiie,

Thomas Thimhle, Ross Winans,

Washington Page, Elliah Stanshurt, Jr.,

Amos Gore, C. W. Bentlet,
Samuel Sands, Secretary.

bs

farmer's protection too great. 215

We regret not having had our attention called to the above in time to
give the whole programme of the Institute and its exhibition, accompanied
with such remarks of feeble encouragement as it might be in our power to
express. Two things are certain — the object is highly patriotic and praise-
worthy— and so far, it is in the hands of working men ; and if they do not com-
mand success, we will venture to predict they will endeavor to deserve it. We
lOpe this institute may never dwaidle into a stock buying, stock-jobbing con-
;ern, or swell into a soap bubble, which owes its elevation to its lightness, and
which nothing but the power of self-puffing could keep afloat. Let them
lot open a great omnium gatherem or curiosity shop, to serve as a place of
advertisement for all who choose to stuff it to overflowing, from year to year,
with the same things — but let them appoint committees, of high-minded,
honorable, qualified men, in no way connected with or interested in the
institute as a money or patronage concern ; and let these committees report,
fairly and rigidly, as to each department, whether there be, from time to tune,
any real bona fide valuable improvements in particular productions of me-
chanical and manufacturing industry ; and in ivhat these improvements
really consist. We have no time or space for another word, except to wish
the Institute, guided as this is by plain practical men, may meet with all
the success they anticipate and more.

THE FARMER'S PROTECTION STILL TOO GREAT.

We invite the attention of the farmers and planters of the Union to the
following, which we take from one of the leading "free trade" papers of the
day.

"The fall business opens rather slowly. There are many Southern and Southwestern
buyers in town, but they do not evince much avidity in making jjurchases. The supply
of domestic goods is very considerable, and the assortments varied and desirable; but the
supply of foreign goods is not so abundant — the importation bei)ig not so large in propor
tion to the business as was expected. It may be, that even the present tariff is too high to act-
beneficially eitlierfor the revenue or the ivelfare of trade. The exports of domestic goods from
this port for August are 3087 packages, against 1863 last year."

With the closing of cotton-mills, and woollen-mills, and furnaces, and
rolling-mills, the price of labor, and of cotton, and of wool, has fallen, and
the power of consumption has diminished, and we are seeking in foreign
lands a market for the goods that we cannot retain at home, and we therefore
import less. The advocates of the existing system are disappointed, but
they are unable yet to see that every increase in the distance between the
farmer and planter and their customers, tends to impoverish the farmer and
his land at one and the same time, and they think that they have not yet
gone far enough. With another step, more mills and furnaces will be closed,
and more men will be driven to the west to raise food instead of remaining
at home to consume it, and food and cotton wiU become cheaper, and land
will become more rapidly impoverished, and the power of consumption will
be still further diminished, and it will then again be found that "the tariff
is still too high." The whole of the present policy of the nation tends to
impoverish the cultivator and the land he cultivates, because it produces
waste of labor and manure, and yet its leading advocates are the planters and
farmers, who would be enriched by the adoption, as a great national measure,
of the policy of concentration.

216 DRAUGHT.

DRAUGHT.

The powers of horses and other beasts of draught have been, especially
in Ireland, applied within a few years with much more effect than formerly.
The same description of horse which, twenty years ago, pulled 6 cwt. or
7 cwt. with difficulty in that country, can now draw 15 cwt. without any
violent exertion. The great improvement which has taken place in the
level and formation of roads has mainly contributed to this advancement in
the application of animal labor, and to a pretty general knowledge among
carters of the plainer principles of traction.

Much difference of opinion prevails, however, among scientific men upon
mechanical points affecting the principles of draught, especially where four-
wdieeled carriages for a high velocity are concerned. In England, great
prejudice prevails in favor of wagons of ponderous size, requiring teams
of four, five, six, and eight horses. In Scotland, where economy is more
consulted, and in Ireland, where want of capital prevents a vast majority of
farmers from employing any description of cart, which is not cheap, simple,
and fit for every turn of work, the one-horse, light, two-wheeled cart is al-
most universally used. The reasons severally urged by the advocates of
the four and two-wheeled vehicle are as follows :

The favorers of the wagons of various kinds, so much in use in the
southern parts of England, maintain that the horses, by working in team
steadily together, though they may draw lesser loads in this combined way,
last longer than if working singly under two-wheeled carts, which often press
intolerably upon their backs, and shake them extremely on uneven roads.

" They insist, also, that those in the carts are, from their unvarying efforts, sooner tired,
and the wear is consequently greater than in wagons, in which they can ocK'asionally
relieve each other; that the whole load being above the axletree in the carts, it throws
so much weiglit upon the horse, in descending hilly roads, as to endanger his safety,
while it equally impedes his exertions in the ascent ; and that, while the one horse is
compelled to use his utmost strength to overcome any sudden obstacle, the power of a
team is, in a similar case, only applied to one half of the load, which, in the wagon, rests
equally on both pair of wheels: thus supposing a ton to be loaded upon a cart, and that
a short rut in the road is to be surmounted, the whole, being upon one axle, nuist be
dragged out at once ; but. were the same weight upon a wagon, it being divided upon
the two axles, is drawn out at two separate pulls, the first of which clears the fore-
wheels before the hinder fall in."

The advocates for carts contend —

" That there are but few articles, except long timber, which may not be conveyed on a
carriage with two wlieels equally as well as upon one with four; that .single-horse carts
are easier loaded and unloaded, handier for almost every purpose, and that six or eight
may be driven by one man, with the assistance of a boy ; that they are also less de-
structive to the roads than wagons, especially in hilly roads, where the wheels of the
latter reijuire to be locked ; that they carry more in proportion than either wagons or
carts drawn by two or more horses, and are consequently more economical.'*

On heavy roads full of ruts, on very long journeys, and with full loads,
wagons are probably most advantageous; but, in ordinary cases, and espe-
cially where quick movements are required, as in general farm-work, be-
sides being expensive and a load in themselves, they occasion a great waste
of draught power. The nearer that the horse is to his load the better, con-
sequently the Engli.sh mode so frequently practised, of yoking from three
to five horses to a plough or wagon, in a line, one after another, is the worst
possible. In proportion to the distance at which animals of draught are
removed from their load, is the loss of power. It is hard, then, to under-
stand upon what principles — they certainly are not mechanical — this extra-
vagant waste of labor is systematically permitted. We are safe in assort-

British Husbandry, p. 100.

DRAUGHT. 217

ing that three horses, (supposing these in both cases to be of similar
strength and form,) with Scotch carts, which are partly drawn and partly-
borne on the back, would pull as heavy a load as four horses would attached
in line to a four-Avheeled wagon. The loss of one in four has been ascer-
tained at the collieries in Durham, when the horses were probably yoked in
the more favorable manner of our mail-coach horses. The experiment is
thus stated :

A two-horse cart carried - - - - 3G busliels, weighing 20^ cwt.
A three-horse cart carried - - - 48 " "• 39 "

A four-horse wa^con carried - - - 74 " " fiO '•

Whereas now a one-horse cart carries 24 bushels, weighing 19^ cwt., and travels

twenty-six miles in twelve hours.*

The same principle applies in some degree to the case of two horses har-
nessed tandem to a Scotch cart ; here is some loss of power : the two horses
abreast would do more, and with perfect equality of labor, which does not
hold in the other case, for, in descending a hill, the Avhole weight rests
■upon the back of the shaft-horse, while the other is totally relaxed ; or, if
the driver, through stupidity or drunkenness, allows the leader to pull, the
tendency of his draught is to drag the other on his knees by increasing the
pressure on it ; when ascending a hill the leader often draws too much,
while the shaft-horse declines from his pull, and on a level, if the leader be
lower than the wheel-horse, his traces, instead of being in line with those
of the shaft-horse, form a considerable angle, and tend to bear the load
downwards on his back. If the cart be without a regular load, the driver
becomes utterly careless, and perhaps allows a spirited and willing leader
to draw the wheel-horse, the cart, and the driver, who falls asleep after his
dose of Avhisky, as long as his energies permit.

Hence, although the fore-horse frequently throws the whole labor of draught upon the
horse behind, yet, by exerting his force solely in pulling, without bearing any portion of
the weight, and by the starts and jerks to which he is subject, he is almost always found
to be more distressed on a journey, or by any continued work, than the horse on which
the burden falls more constantly and equal ly.-j-

A horse of the Clydesdale breed was employed during fourteen years by
Sir Charles Stuart Menteith in drawing coal wagons upon the ill-made turn-
pike road in the county of Dumfries, from Ayrshire to Dumfries. His
usual load of coal was 85 cwt. in a common light-road wagon, weighing
13 cwt. He travelled twelve miles a day in four-mile stages. He never
lay down during the last eight years, except twice, when he was sick.
From the experience which Sir C. S. Menteith has had in the use of ani-
mal power upon common roads, he is of opinion that the most economical
mode of employing horses in draught is to give every horse his own car-
riage, in order that he may depend solely upon his own exertions, as it is
difficult to find either man or beast always wiUing, and capable of making
uniform and continuous efforts. t

Railroads (says Sir C. S. Menteith) of cast-iron, nine inches wide, some-
what concave, are laid down in the long ascent between the river Clyde
and the Forth and Clyde canal at Glasgow, which enables one horse, in a
single-horse cart, to draw from two to three tons, though the rate of ascent
in some parts of it is one foot of rise for every fourteen feet of distance.
This plan of railroad for ascents has been adopted at Glasgow more than

* British Husbandry, p. 100. f Low's Elements, p. 133.

^ The same spirited and judicious proprietor also employs one-horse wagons, for his
extensive lime works, which take three tons on a stage of three miles and a half, gene
rally of gentle declivity, with occasional ascents of one foot in thirty, on which he ha»
placed sandstone railroad, with iron plates, six inches wide, for the wagon wheels. Tli
friction break diminished the draught down any of the more rapid descents.

Vol. L— 28 T

218 DRAUGHT.

twenty years. If the employment of one-horse wagons, weighing 12 or
13 cwt., was adopted in conveying coal through the streets of London, one
horse would do the work of two. At present four immense horses draw three
chaldrons, or four tons one hundred weight of coal in a wagon weighing two
tons, so that the shaft-horse is obliged to draw a weight of six tons in turn-
ing out of one street into another, which is the greatest cruelty a poor dumb
anirnal can be subjected to. At the same time, railroads of cast-iron, simi-
lar to those in use at Glasgow, should be laid down for the wheels of carts
or wagons upon the narrow streets from the river Thames to the Strand,
which would enable one horse to draw two tons up these streets, instead of
employing six horses, according to the present practice for drawing four
tons of coals upon the same streets in their present state.

Where three horses are used, they should be yoked abreast, if the
breadth of the road will permit. In ascending a hill, it is evident that the
power of draught will be increased by drawing from the locality of the axle,
and not from the forepart of the shafts ; but, on a smooth level road requiring
no effort to lift the wheels over any obstruction, (to overcome such, with
an^r wheel-carriage, the inclination of the traces downwards, from the collar
to the axle, will facilitate the effort,) horizontal draught is the best. The
average description of road must of course regulate this point.

The French two-wheeled carts are extremely long and narrow, probably
from being much used in the carriage of timber ; these are, undoubtedly,
more easily drawn than those which are short and broad. But, in France,
owing to the wretched state of the by-roads and farm-lanes in winter, a
team of seven (horses and oxen combined) in a row is yoked to drav/ a
load of wood or a tonneau of cider to the market, weighing 85 cwt. only.
The farmera contend that the lanes are frequently too narrow to permit two
of the beasts to be yoked abreast, and, though this objection does not apply
to the roidciges (see Carts) on the great roads, the same injudicious sj'stem
is pursued, and, if it were not for the admirable training of the excellent
horses employed in this kind of Avork, and the general sobriety of the two
carters who conduct the entire team, great and partial distress would be
more frequently experienced by the cattle.

In either cart or plough, horses should have their necks perfectly free ;
the system of tight-bearing reins, even for coach horses, especially on
ascending ground, is very questionable, and never pursued in France or
Germnny. In the former country, the horses are at full liberty to stretch
out their necks as they please, and this freedom, in mounting a hill, or on
a level, if the pull is considerable, greatly aids their efforts, by rendering
their weight most available in traction. When they are thrown on their
haunches by being reined up, their power of draught is more confined to
their muscular action, and their weight of body does not tell.

The Germans in harnessing coach-horses fall into the opposite extreme
from ourselves, for they tie down to the pole the heads of their Avheel-
horses, to make the utmost of their weight at a dead pull. The free action
of the head and neck in heavy draught is very important ; in slow and
heavy farm work, there is no occasion for bearing up the horses.

In coach work, especially when the draught is light, there are strong
reasons for keeping up the neck in an unnntural position, viz. to allow the
driver greater power in rapidly directing the horses' movements, and to
assist those of infirm limbs in keeping their feet.

The best composition for greasing wheels is that recommended by a cele-
brated French chemist, viz. eighty parts of grease and twenty parts of
blacklead (plumbago) reduced to very fine powder, and most intimately and
completely blended together. This is used at the French mint for locks,
&c., and is surprisingly durable. A very small quantity suffices.

THE EXPERIENCED BUTCHER. 219

CHAPTER II.

On the Profession of a Butcher — The Patriarchs — The Priests and Heads of Families under
the Law of Moses — The Greeks — The Romans — The Modern Jews — England — Edinbm-gh —
Chester — Whether a Butcher may serve on a Jury in a Case of Life and Death — Whether
the Employment be likely to infiuence the Moral character of the Man.

Having shown in the former chapter that it is lawful for man to take
away the life of animals for his own sustenance, it is next to be considered
by whom that life is to be taken away.

In the appointment of sacrifice by God, in the case of Adam on his trans-
gression, he Avho had brought "death into the world and all our wo,"* must
have been the first who took away life with his own hands. So, also, in
the case of the sacrifices of Abel and of Noah. Whether any part of the
victims, in these several cases, was eaten by the offerers, it is not stated.
The first express mention of an animal killed solely as food, is when the
three angels visited Abraham on their way to Sodom to destroy it, when
" Abraham ran unto the herd, and fetched a calf tender and good, and gave
it unto a young man ; and he hasted to dress it. And he took butter and
milk, and the calf which he had dressed, and set it before them ; and he
stood by them under the tree, and they did eat." (Gen. xviii. 7, 8.) Here,
Abraham, who had, no doubt, been used to kill animals for sacrifice, was
probably the butcher, the assistant cook, and the servant to wait upon his
heavenly guests. In the case of Jacob and the two young goats, of which
his mother made savoury meat for Isaac, to pass for Esau's venison, they
were probably killed by Jacob. Do we, in these cases, feel any horror at
this office of the patriarchs, and impute any cruelty of disposition to them ?

Under the law of Moses, in the daily sacrifice of the tabernacle and the
temple, the victim was sometimes slain by the priests, and sometimes by
the inferior ministers ; and, at the feast of the passover, each head of a
family was at once priest to kill the sacrifice, and the butcher to slay for the
food of the household.

Amongst the ancient Greeks, it was, likewise, the office of the priests to
slay the victims for sacrifice, and of the head of the family or his sons to
kill for food. Many instances may be found in Homer ; as, where Aga-
memnon kills the lambs, the blood of which was to be the seal of the treaty-
made with the Trojans.

And Agamemnon, drawing from its shoatli
At his huge faulchion's side, his dagger forth

* * »

He said, and pierced the victims ; ebbing life
Forsook them soon; they panted, gaspd, and died.

CowPEu's Homer, Iliad, b. iii. L 301 — 326, 2d ed.

Again, Avhen Nestor sacrifices to Minerva, his own sons kill the victims,
cut the flesh in pieces, and broil it.

The royal youths then raising from the ground
The heifers head, sustain'd it, while she pour"d
Her ebbing life's last current, in the throat
Pierc"d by Pisistratus, the Prince of Men.

Odyssey, b. iii. 1. 568—571.

Milton's Paradise Lost, b. i. 1, 3.

220 THE EXPERIENCED BUTCHER.

And, again, when Achilles entertained the messengers of the other Gre-
cian generals :

Achilles, then, himself
Advancing near the fire an ample tray,
Spread goat's llesh on it, with the flesh of sheep

An<l of a fatted brawn; of each a chine, i

Antoniedon attending held them fast, !

While with sharp steel Achilles from the bone |

Sliced thin the meat, then pierced it with the spits. (

Meantime the god-like Mencetiades 3

Kindled fierce tire, and when the flame declined, ;

Raked wide the embers, hung the meat to roast,
And taking sacred salt from the hearth-side,
"Where it was treasured, shower'd it o'er the feast.
When all was finish'd, and the board set forth,
Patrochis furnish'd it around with bread
In baskets, and Achilles served the guests.

Iliad, b. ix. 1. 350— 364.»

The same practices also prevailed amongst the Romans.

At what period the office of killing animals for food became a separate
trade, it may be difficult, if not almost impossible to determine : pro-
bably at different times in different countries, and in different parts of
the same country. It is the province of civilization to make trades or pro-
fessions ; for, as the wants, either real or imaginary, of men increase, and
there is a greater demand for any article, it becomes expedient for persons
to confine themselves to fewer objects, by which means much time is saved,
and business is executed with the greater nicet}^ Thus, in any district, or
town, or parish, it is better for one man to confine himself to make clothes,
or shoes, or to make houses of stone, or brick, or wood, or to kill animals
for all the rest, rather than for each person, or each head of a faniily, to
practise all these employments. Thus, no doubt, arose the first butchers.
And, from killing for others, they might soon get to kill their own animals,
to sell out in small portions to such persons or families as might not be able
to use a whole animal while it was good.

In 1 Cor. X. 2.5, Ave hear of meat being " sold in the shamhlesy The
word maheUon., which is here translated shambles, is formed from the Latin
word macelluni, which signifies "a ?««rA"e/-place for flesh, fish, and all man-
ner of provisions, a shambles, a butcher-row." (Ainsvvorth's Dictionary.)
" If we recollect that Corinth was at that time a Roman colony, we shall
cease to wonder that a public place in that city was named in imitation of
the Latin maceUum, and that St. Paul, in writing to the Corinthians, should
retain the use of a word, which in that city had acquired the nature of a
proper name." (Parkhurst's Greek Lexicon.) "The original of the name
is said to be this : — One Macellus, a very wicked and profane man, being
condemned to die, a place was built in his house by ^Emilius and Fulvius
for selling provisions, and from his name it was called mucdlum. Into these
places the priests sent to be sold what was ofl^ered to their idols, if they
could not dispense with it themselves, or thought it not lawful to make use
of it.t Herodotus says, that the Egyptians used to cut off the heads of

• See, also, Odysacy, b. xiv. ]. .58, &c., and 1. 504, &c.

■j- This i.s the practice with the modern Jews; when they have killed a beast, and find
it unclean according to their own laws, they sell it to Christian butchers lor general sah'.

A little before the overthrow of the papal power at Rome, in February, 1797, " the
Jews held a synod at Leghorn, in which the Rabbles of all the several cities through-
out Italy agreed, that their Sabbath should be kept on Sunday, that their people should
eat pork anil other meat killed by Christian butchers, that their beards should lie shaved,
that married women should wear their own liair, and that the different tribes should in-

THE EXPERIENCED BUTCHER. 221

their beasts that were sacrificed, and carry them into the market to sell
to the Greeks ; and if there were no buyers, they cast them into the
river." (Gill, quoted by Burder in his " Oriental Customs," vol. 2, p.
365.)

Amon^ the ancient Romans there were three kinds of established
butchers, namely, two colletres or companies, composed each of a certain
number of citizens, whose office was to furnish the city with the necessary
cattle, and to take care of preparinof and vending their flesh. One of these
companies was at first confined to the providing of hogs, whence the mem-
ber of it was called Suarius ; and the other was charged with cattle, espe-
cially oxen, when the member of it was called Fecuarius or Boarius.
Under each of these was a subordinate class, whose office was to kill, pre-
pare, &c., the member of which was called Lanius, and sometimes Curni-
fex. The market-day was every ninth day. Brissonius, Modius, and
others, mention a pleasant way of selling meat, used for some ages among
the Romans : the buyer was to shut his eyes, and the seller to hold up some
of his fingers ; if the buyer guessed aright, he was to fix the price ; if he
mistook, the seller was to fix it. This custom was abolished by Apronius,
prefect of Rome ; who, instead thereof, introduced the method of selling by
Aveight. Nero built a noble edifice at Rome for the shambles ; on which
occasion was struck that medal, whose reverse is a building supported by
columns, and entered by a perron of four steps; the inscription MAC.
AUG. S. C. Macelliim Augiisti Senatus-consulto. (See Chambers's Cy-
clopcedia.)

Miss Starke, in her " Letters from Italy," speaking of the present times,
says, " I have frequently seen the Tuscan cattle, Avhen destined for slaugh-
ter, adorned with chaplets cf flowers, precisely as the ancients used to adorn
their victims for sacrifice. The Roman butchers, likewise, still wear the
dress and use the knife of heathen sacrificing priests," vol. 2, p. 11,

Amongst the modern Jews, to exercise the office of butcher with dexterity,
is of more reputation than to understand the liberal arts and sciences. They
have a book concerning shamble-constitution ; and, in case of any difficulty,
they apply to some learned rabbi for advice ; nor is any one allowed to prac-
tise this art, without a license in form from the high-priest, which gives the
man, upon examination, and evidence of his abilities, a power to kill meat,
and others to eat what he kills ; provided he carefully read every week for
one year, and every month the next year, and once a quarter during his .
life, the constitution above mentioned. (See " The Encyclopedia Britan-
nica," art. Butcher.) Communicated, also, by a learned Jew rabbi of the
present day.

Of the history of butchers in England, the writer, after some investiga-
tion and inquiry, has been able to learn but little. The laws relating to
them, which form a part of it, will be given in a subsequent chapter, as-
signed to that purpose.

The butchers were incorporated by King James the First, under his letters
patent, bearing date the 16th day of September, in the third year of his
reign in England, (1606,) and of Scotland the nine and twentieth. They
were incorporated by the name of Master, Wardens, and Commonalty of
the Arts or Mystery of Butchers of the City of London, the fraternity

termarry with each other : thus were the most material articles of the Jewish law dis-
pensed with ; while the Grand Seignor (if I am well informed) annulled about the same
time many of the laws of Mahomet. These circumstances, luiited with the fall of the
popedom, furnish the thinking mind with ample scope for reflection."

Miss Stabke's Letters from Italy, 2d edit., vol. 2, p. 140, note.
t2

222 THE EXPERIENCED BUTCHER.

being very ancient.* (See Strype's edit, of Stow's Survey of London,
&c., vol. 2, b. V. p. 211.) It is the twenty-fourth in rank among the livery
companies, and is governed by a Master, four Wardens, elected annually,
sixteen Assistants, and one hundred and ninety-three on the Livery. 1'hey
have a very handsome hall, the inside of which is finely wainscoted, in
Pudding Lane, near the Monument. Their arms are azure, (blue,) two
Axes saltierwise, (in the form of St. Andrew's cross,) argent (silver) be-
tween three bull's head coiiped, (cut evenly off,) attired or, (with the horns
gold,) a boar's head gules, (red,) between two Garbes [wheat-sheaves) vert
(green.)

At Edinburgh there is a company of butchers, or Jleshers, which is the
tenth of the fourteen incorporated companies of tradesmen, out of which the
fourteen deacons are chosen, which form a part of the town-council, and
out of which one of the commissioners for parliament is chosen, and out of
which the Lord Provost may be chosen. So that a butcher at Edinburgh
may arrive at the highest civil honors.

There was a company of butchers at Chester in the year 1328, since,
from the Harleian Manuscript of the Chester Whitsun Plays, in the British
Museum, it appears that The Temptation was played by the butchers.

It seems to be generally understood, " that our legislature has affixed such
an imputation of proneness to shed blood upon persons who slaughter brute
creatures for a subsistence, that by the laws of England no butcher is per-
mitted to serve on a jury when sitting on the life of a fellow subject."
(" Pantalogia," art. Butcher. See also Tryon's "Way to Health, Long
Life, and Happiness," vol. 1, p. 348. " Domestic Encyclopedia," art.
Butcher. "Literary Miscellany," No. 18, p. 49.) Mr. Young, in his
" Essay on Humanity to Animals," seems to think it to be the general opi-
nion, that a butcher should not be admitted as evidence in a case of life and
death : "It seems to be a very general opinion, that the English law Avill
not accept the evidence of a butcher in any trial wherein life is concerned,
under the idea that butchers are, from the nature of their business, apt to
be rendered less feeling and humane than other classes of men." He seems
to acquiesce in this judgment ; but adds : " This opinion, however, respect-
ing the evidence of butchers, is, I believe, a vulgar error; but it serves at
least to show w^hat is the sense of a great number of persons upon the subject
in question," (chap. i. p. 5, 6.) Both ideas, I believe, are erroneous ; for I
cannot find any thing of the kind in Burn's " Justice," under either of the
articles. Butchers or Jurors.

Thus far, then, the way seems to be cleared before us. But it is well
worthy of consideration, whether there is any thing in the employment of a
butcher which really tends to dispose the mind to cruelty, either towards
man or beast. Tryon, in his " Knowledge of a Man's Self," &c., which is
the second part of " The Way to Long Life," &c., p. 335, says, " Butchers,
whose employment is violent, bloody, and cruel ; which practices, actions
and motions of the human body, by the repeated strokes of violence, and by
the conversationst of their school-fellows in all base lessons, language, and
methods ; never fail to stamp the signatures of brutality and inhumanity,

• The Biitchor's Company was fined as " adulterine (that is, being set up or institntod,
without royal license) in the twenty-sixth of Henry the Second ; that is. in the year
1180. See Bhaylet's London and Middlesex, vol. 2, ]). 343 — 419.

f At an ordinary, at a public house in a market town, frequented by a butcher known
to the writer of this, at which about eight butchers and two tanners, besides other per-
sons, are occasionally present, there is a rule, that, whoever malces use of an oath is to
forfeit sixpence. In upwards of a year, the butcher mentioned above never heard but
one oath s^vorn there, and that was by one who did not usually dine in that room.

THE EXPERIENCED BUTCHER. 223

and diffuse their own propertys to the intellectuals, so that the invisible
quaiitys are infected, and the spightful envious powers advanced to the
government, and are forthcoming on all occasions, as is manifest by their
common discourses and ordinary conversations. And it is for the same rea-
son, that not only this trade, but all employments which communicate with
and handle gross unclean materials, or that frequently oppress any of the
inferior animals : the practicers thereof are sure to have all their sanguine,
soft tempers suUy'd ; such know nothing of the planissing hammer or its
uses; but, like anchor-smiths, do all by the fierceness of fire and laborious
violent strokes. The next trade or employment concerned about the dead
bodies of the creatures are the tanners, whose business it is to make their
skins useful. These tradesmen are but one degree above butchers : they
are for the most part bold, gross, and unclean in their methods and orders
of life, much like the materials and things they work in, handle, and com-
municate with.* Now, the next beautifying trade belonging to the skins
of beasts, are the leather-dressers of various sorts, according to what skins
they are, as curryers and those traders who are one degree before the tan-
ner, because they are the second beautifyers. However, these are a surly,
bold, impudent sort of people, much hke the original matters they are em-
ploy'd in, and the ingredients they use in their art. The next sort of trades-
men are still higher graduated, as shoemakers,t glovers, and all other small
arts belonging to the said trades," &c.

That a person's occupation, and the objects by which he is surrounded,
and the light in which he is accustomed to see them, that is, the thoughts
with which he contemplates them, have much influence upon his disposi-
tion and character, I believe to be very true. But these, if of an unfa-
vorable tendency, may be counteracted by other objects, by other pursuits,
and by other thoughts, and, above all, by religion, by bringing every thought,
word, and work, in subservience to the will of God. That the occupation

* In Acts ix. 43, and x. 6 and 32, we find that Peter, when at Joppa, lodged and tar-
ried many days with one Simon, a tanner. Peter, tlierefore, did not think this man ob-
jectionable on account of iiis business, but, probably, selected him for his host on ac-
count of his being a Christian and an eminently pious man. Christ's instructions to his
disciples in what kind of houses they were to abide, when they went on their missions,
(Luke X. 5 — 8,) will give us an idea of what must have been the house and character
of Simon. Let it be observed, also, that it was at the house of this tanner that Peter had the
vision of the vessel full of all manner of living things, and when the voice from Heaven
said to him, "Rise, Peter, kill and eat," (x. 13.)

■j- The fraternity of shoemakers have certainly given rise to some characters of great
worth and genius. The late Mr. Holcroft was originally a shoemaker, and, though he
was, unhappily, at the beginning of the French revolution, infected with French princi-
ples, yet he was certainly a man of great genius, and. on the whole, a moral writer.
His dramatic pieces must rank among the best of our English dramas. Robert Bloom-
field wrote his poem of " The Farmer's Boy" while employed at this business, and, for
modest worth and humanity, the members of any profession might feel happy in the
acquaintance of the shoemaker and the poet.

hi: William Carey, Professor of Sanscrit and Bengalee, in the College of Fort William,
Calcutta, and the able and indefatigable translator of the Scriptures into many of the
eastern languages, was originally a shoemaker in Nordiam])tonshire. Having, in early
life, a taste for reading, he cultivated it with considerable success, and being particularly
expert at learning languages, he bent all the force of his mind to that pursuit, ancl made
himself acquainted with the Latin and Greek, and several modern languages, before he
went to India ; where, by pursuing the same course of unexampled assiduity and suc-
cess, he has well entitled hhnself to the honourable appellation of "Fadier of the Ori-
ental Version.s,'' (see the Fourth Report of the Cambridge Auxiliary Bible Society, 1S15.)
as he has had the merit of giving the ''first impulse to the great work of the translation of
the Scriptures now carrying on'' with so much success in India, as well as of contributing
more than any other iiulividual to the continued progress of this noble work. See ".4
Sermon on the Nations imploring the Word of Life," by the Rev. John Scott, of Hull, 1811. ^

224 THE EXPERIENCED BUTCHER.

of a butcher has not too frequently a tendency to harden the disposition, I
will not pretend to deny ; but that it is of a worse tendency than many
others, which are not held in equal abhorrence, I can by no means grant ;
and the example of many most respectable and humane butchers is a proof
of it. The cries of the animals, and the sight of agonies and of the effusion
of blood, make the greatest impression upon minds guided by feeling rather
than by principle ; but

the poor beetle that we tread upon,

In corporal sufferance finds a pang as great

As when a giant dies.

Shakspeake's Measure for Measure, Act iii. Scene 1.

And he who kills the smallest bird, or the most minute insect, perhaps, oc-
casions as great a portion of pain to the object, as the butcher who kills an
ox. Those, therefore, who live upon what they call vegetable diet, must
not flatter themselves that they do not destroy animal life, since almost every
vegetable abounds with insects, though perhaps too minute to be seen with-
out a magnifying glass.

The Hindoos, for the most part, live on vegetables, that they may not take
away life. A story is told of a Hindoo, who obtained a microscope from
a European ; and, on looking through it at some article of his food, de-
stroyed it. On being asked his reason, he said it was to prevent himself,
or any one else, seeing the animals it had discovered to him.

The author of the "Literary Miscellany," No. 18, puts the surgeon on
the same footing with the butcher, and supposes that he is equally excluded
from serving on juries. With respect to this point, the surgeon is excused
from serving on juries, as he is from serving the offices of churchwarden
and overseer, on account of his useful and uncertain profession, being liable
to be called upon at any moment, on cases of the greatest humanity and
exigence. As far as my experience goes, I have no scruple in saying that
some of the surgeons I have known have been amongst the most humane
of the human race. In respect to the butcher, let us appeal to facts. It is
said that his shedding the blood of animals will dispose him to shed that
of his fellow-creatures. Have the greater part of the murders committed
in this kingdom, within the memory of man, or within the scope of records,
been perpetrated by butchers, to justify the assertion or the supposition?
Do the New^gale Calendar, and the various calendars of prisoners, if pre-
served by the various clerks of the peace for our several counties through-
out the united dominions, record more names of cruel butchers than persons
of any other profession I Have more murders been committed by butchers
than by soldiers or sailors, whose profession, unhappily, leads them to the
shedding of human blood ? Yet that does not prevent our considering a
soldier or a sailor as the tender friend, the humane citizen, and the polished
gentleman. What shall we say of the duellist, the gentleman, the man of
honor, who can go out in cool blood, take away the life of his friend, and
be afterwards received in civil society ? If a butcher is not fit to sit on a
jury in a case of life and death, what shall we say of the counsel who
pleads against the prisoner, the jury who find guilty, and the judge who
condemns ? If the occupation of a butcher be cruel, what are we to say of
those who set him to it, who purchase his meat so cruelly slaughtered, and
who send their animals to him to be slain ? It is a maxim in law,

Qui facit per alteram, facit per se.
"He who does a thing by another does it himself;" and, in a case of mur-
der, he who is privy to it, is considered guilty as well as the perpetrator.
What shall we say of the fishmonger, who cuts up some of his animals
alive, merely to make them, as it is supposed, taste better ?

AGRICULTURAL CLUB OF NEWCASTLE. 225

AGRICULTURAL CLUB OF NEWCASTLE COUNTY.

We hav'e often said, and oftener thought, that these sociable monthly
meeting clubs at each other's houses are attended with more active and better
influence than annual shows, where many men come more from idle curiosity
and to hear what is going on in the political world, than from any hope or
desire to receive or impart information. In fact, the greater part come from
a distance, and go too soon to admit of much inspection or deliberation.

We had lately the pleasure to meet the agricultural club of Newcastle
County at the residence of that exemplary farmer Mr. Sauder, and know
not when we passed a day so agreeably. His farm of 150 acres is distin-
guished for the great length and beauty of its hedges, as well as for the heaA'^y
crops of grain it produces, and for good management — twenty-five bushels
of wheat to the acre is not uncommon with him, at least has been repeatedly
reaped. His land now being made ready for sowing, waiting for one more
harrowing before it is seeded, is in much better order and finer tilth than
many of what are called " garden spots" in some States, but as we hold it
to be more friendly to indicate defects than to bespatter with praise what
every one ought to accomplish, we may, without offence we hope, notice the
absence of an ice-house, which if once a man enjoys, brings with it so many
little nameless comforts, that he could never afterwards live without it. And
again, there is a defect almost universal, but in this case the more unavoid-
able because the barn was ah'eady buiit to his hand, when he bought the
farm. We allude to the common construction under which the litter is taken
from the barn, and exposed in the open air to sun, wind and rain. Every
man, who has a barn to build, should so construct it as to have his horses
and cattle above the stercorarj' or manure heap. Into that, all the litter
should be thrown and all the urine find its way. There it should be kept
free from light and air, and in circumstances altogether the most favorable
to putrefaction. For what these circumstances are, see Doctor Ealdw-in's
interesting communication in this number of The Plough, the Loom, and
the Jinvil; and for an exemplification of the principles of construction here
recommended, see, if you ha e a chance, Mr. Webster's stables at Marshfield,
or otherwise in the barn at Mr. Newall's near Boston, which, above all we have
seen, is most perfectly arranged for plainness and simplicity in the structure
itself, and for the greatest attainable economy of space and labor, in stowing
away and in administering the food and the manure. There is in neither case,
we believe,afffnA; for saving the liquid manure, but there is constantly provided
in the rit^ht place the various materials for catching and absorbing it. The
senior E Jitcr of this paper has had the honor to be unanimously elected a mem-
ber of the Newcastle County Agricultural Club — to the announcement of which
he very briefly returned his grateful acknowledgments, adding, that though
he had opened the way, as a feeble pioneer, thirty years ago, such had been
the progress of knowledge in all that practice has developed, that now he
felt satisfied that what the planter and the farmer most needed was The
Loom and the .dnvil near the Plough — that is, consumers numerous and
thriving to ensure a steady demand for the products of the plough ; and
secondly, what they have a right to demand from the government was as
much for scientific discipline of the laborer of the country, as is now given
for scientific instruction in the art of human destruction. What the effect
of this last was, he said, had been testified by General Jessup, a man of wade
experience and admitted abilities, who had publicly declared, that by means
of the officers instructed at the expense of the people, the whole militia of

Vol. I.— 29

226 AGRICULTURAL CLUB OF NEWCASTLE.

the United Stfites might be converted in sixtj'- days into" well-disciplined
soldiers — and why, asked Mr. Skinner, might not science do as much for
the great, beneficent and all-supporting art of agriculture ? Because, said he,
agriculturists have not the thought and the courage to enforce upon public
men the primary attention due to the agriculture of the country. Hence
amono- other shameful instances of the disregard of the plough, we might
refer to the fact that the agricultural committee of the Senate, on which
little Delaware had the honor to have a member, never held a single meeting
during the last session of Congress !

The meeting passed very pleasantly, and adjourned to hold their next at
Mr. Bryan Jackson's near Newcastle. We may add, without being invi-
dious, that the party was animated and enlightened by the presence of that
indefatigable veteran in the cause, Doctor J. W. Thompson, whose name
and zealous exertions are associated with the wonderful progress of agricul-
tural improvement in Delaware above all other States, as we think we may
aver — and of that brave soldier in the same march — him of "wheat lands,"
whose word is ever, not go boys, but come boys. He also now buys and.
uses tons of gitano, where once he could not buy a horse collar — and all by
thought — and by action. — Mem. He takes and reads the agricultural
journals.

At the meeting of the Agricultural Club, as above mentioned, at Mr.
Sander's, the following testimony was adduced in favor of

PENNOCK'S drill and the ADVANTAGES OF DRILLING OVER BROAD-
CASTING.
Reedsville, Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, July 21, 1848.
S. and M. Pen nock :
Gentlemen, — I liave this day threshed and measured the wheat grown on an acre
of land, one half of which was drilled widi one of your machines, the odier lialf was
sown broad-cast and harrowed in the usual manner. The result is as follows: — the
half acre drilled 1;^ bushels seed per acre, 13 shocks measured 12 bushels and 2 quarts.
Half acre broad-cast 1^ bushels seed per acre, 8 shocks measured 7 bushels 18 quarts.
The quality of the ground was exactly the same, and treated exactly alike in every
particular previous to seeding.

Diderence on the half acre in favor of die drill 4i bushels, added ^ bushel saving of
seed, makes 4^ bushels more than broad-cast.

Yours, very respectfully, Abner Thompsox.

We the undersigned were present and saw the land measured, cut the grain, and assisted
in threshing the same. And do hereby certify to the correctness of Mr. Thompson's
statement

James Reed. H. G. Morris. Alexander Reed.

D. C. Miller. William Steeley. Geo. Ashby.

We cannot put our hand at the moment on the account of Doctor Charles
Noble's experiment in Delaware, with the drill against broad-casting — but
the result was about as follows — he having taken the precaution to weigh
the wheat and the straw. He got eight bushels more from the acre of wheat
drilled at the rale of U bushels of seed than from the acre of bread-cast on
which two bushels had been sown — with less weight of straAV from the drilled
acre — and this result is, we understand, in correspondence with the expe-
rience of Major Jones, of Wheatlands. From others who may have made
trials we should be glad to know the results. We have now done our duty
by giving both sides. After all, as we have said, the consideration of jnore
farmer-like appearance, suggested by Major Jones, ought to have and will
have its weight with every man who entertains that ambition for excellence in
his profession, which is itself a strong guarantee of success, and at least a
proof of what all men of right mind will covet — a character for deserving
success!

IN WHAT DOES GOOD FARMING CONSIST? 227

IN WHAT DOES GOOD FARMING CONSIST ?

Premiums have been offered by societies for essays wliich shall best point
out how to make poor land rich.

To us this proposition seems to be almost as vague as it would be to ask
for precise rules to estimate the cost of a house, without saying whether it
was to be of Avood or stone, or knowing the abundance or scarcity, distance
or proximity of the materials, and cost of labor. So much depends on cir-
cumstances, and these are so undefinable, that means may be recommended,
accessible and expedient for one, that it would be folly for another to employ.
Yet there are some general maxims applicable under all circumstances, but
these again are so obvious that it requires neither preniium nor penetration
to discover them ; as, for instance, may it not be affirmed at once that the
requisites for good farming, and for fertilizing land, consist in — 1, Divesting
the land of all superjluous moisture. 2. In the application of an adequate
quantity of fertilizing substances ; and, 3. In good tillage, to let in air and
the necessary moisture, and to keep down weeds and all extraneous growth,
so that the strength of the land and the power of the manure may be
exclusively appropriated to the crop ?

Such are the great leading principles of all good farming. But when you
come to details, and begin by laying down a certain prescription, to Avhich,
as to the bed of Procrustes, every tiller must ccnfurm, without reference
to the infinitely various circumstances that belong to different men, you can-
not take a single step before you are met by the fact, that, as the man says
in the play, " circumstances alters cases." One doctor, without examina-
tion of the symptoms, and of the means at hand, prescribes doses of lime,
at a rate more or less according to a vague description or estimate of the
condition and quality of the land, and without knowing whether it does not
possess already enough of that ingredient, its unproductiveness being the
result of deficienc}'- in other essentials. The poor man goes in debt to buy
lime, of which the land had enough already, his crops continue to fail, and
he is ruined, because the doctor did not know all the symptoms of his case.

Another doctor orders barn-yard manure, and it is a{)plied accordingly ;
but being made of wheat straw merely passed through the body of his cat-
tle, it comes out as worthless as it went in, and his land being yet deficient
in lime and other essential elements of fertility, his crops continue to fail,
and he again is ruined.

Thus it happens, as it has often happened to the letter, that " doctors dif-
ler and the patient dies."

Each case must depend on its own circumstances, and to arrive at any
thing like certainty, these must be defined. The farm must be described in
its general geological features, and in its locality and natural resources, espe-
cially how far from the place for selling its produce, and what the modes of
conveyance, and the means of the owner are, &c. Is lime at hand or dis-
tant, suppose the land to need it ? Can manure be bought, and at what
cost of time, labor, and money can it be made available ? or are the means
at hand, such as marsh mud, marl, &c., to make manure ? How can
any essayist lay down his rules for the government of any individual
farmer, without reference to all these things? Hot water and bleeding
may do in some cases, but not in all. How many victims perished be-
cause Doctor Sangrado's pride would not let his practice run counter to
his hook? Not a book on making poor land rich, but on what, in like man-
ner, and no more, depends on the symptoms and circumstances of each par-
ticular case, viz. on making a sick man well. But as a general rule — on?

228 IN WHAT DOES GOOD FARMING CONSIST?

which may be laid down as of universal applicability — such as will always
be followed with results that may be considered natural, and alone worthy
of regard, for making poor land rich, is so to shape the policy of the govern-
ment, as to draw the Loom and the Anvil — the hatters' shop and the tailors'
shop, the tanner and the shoemaker, and all the mere fashioners and con-
sumers of agricultural produce, as near as possible to the Plough !

Insure consumers able and willing to buy, and so near that the farmer
shall lose little in the work of transportation and exchange, and the wants
of the living men, women and children, will be sure to bring the focd cut of
the ground. A thousand bulky and perishable articles will be needed, that
the land would produce, if the market were in reach, and the land and the
land-owner will grow rich together, and Avith wealth will come scIk ols and
increase of knowledge, which is power, and Avith improved knowledge,
again will come improved farming, as is seen in Scotland, ay, and all the
countless refinements and blessings that belong to the most advanced civili-
zation.

Here then is the way to make poor land rich. But, how are the con-
sumers to be drawn near to and around the producer? Certainly not by
sending our raw materials away to other and distant countries, to be manu-
factured there by people who consume the products made by the slaves and
paupers of European despotisms? Does it not follow from all this that
agricultural societies and institutes, organs of the landed interest, when in-
quiring into the condition of the farmer and the planter, should go a little
deeper into the subject, and look for the law — the principle — that governs
the case? As for taking a specific ten or ten hundred acres of land to make
tliem rich, every one knows, that for such as have the means, the way to im-
prove poor land is by thorough draining, heavy nianuring, and good tillage,
but Avithout strong assurance of a remunerating market, our lands Avill be
neither thoroughly drained, heavily manured, nor well tilled. Look at the
rich swamps and forests undrained and uncleaned in Virginia and the Caro*
linas, where all are producers, and no consumers, except at a ruinous
distance !

Since Avritii g the above, Ave find in that excellent old paper. The Amcri'
can Farmer, for Avhich, in its infancy, we maintained correspondence Avith
such men as Madison, and Jefferson, and Taylor, and Garnett, in the South,
and Gluincy, and Pickering, and LoAvel, and Parsons, in the North — in it
we find the following from a man Avith Avhom farming is a pursuit of honor,
because he makes it one of intellect! not of mere habit or routine.

"I see you have offered handsome premiums for the best essays upon the improve-
ment of worn-out lands, their length not to exceed ten pages of the American Farmer.
If I were to enter the lists, (which I shall not.) mine would be comprised in less than
ten lines. I would recommend one hundred cart-loads of com])ost, made from the stable
or cow-yard, or one hundred cart-loads of marsh mud, from a salt-water river, which I deem
equally good, and five hundred bushels of shell marl from a marl bank, the pre j-crties
of which had been jiroved, to the acre. My friend, ]\Ir. Maddox, of your post-cfllcc. was
here on a visit last sunnner ; he saw corn growing on my lands which had been marled
twenty years ago, and deemed it equal to the improved lots around Baltimore."

One hundred cart-loads of compost to the acre, says Judge Carmichael —
that Avould be, for, say twenty acres, (a small corn-field for Maryland,) Iavo
thousand cart-loads ; now to make tAvo thousand cart-loads of compost Avould
require hoAv much labor? hoAv many cattle? And then for the marsh
mud — suppose a man has no marsh, and how many have ?

Another correspondent of the same journal, on the same subject, says :

"Some time ago it was stated in the papers that the American Peace Society had
offered a considerable sum as a premium to the individual who would favor the world

THE CALAMITIES OF WAR. 229

with an essay on the origin and cause of the late war with IMoxico, and the probable
result. An individual put in boldly for the prize as follows, with what force of reason-
ing, I do not pretend to determine.

" 1st. Origin and cause of the war — Texas.

"2(1. Result of the war — Taxes.

" Now, friend Editor, in noticing the very liberal premiums ofl'ered for the best essays,
not to exceed ten pages in length, on the renovation of worn-out lands, I was induced to
believe that one might be prepared not quite so brief as the above, but contain the whole
matter, as it were, in a nutshell — something like tlie Ibllovving :

" Borrow some money if you can ; if not. sell a part of your land, for money you must
have as a starting point to renovate worn-out land.

" Clear your ground of all bushes and stones.

'• Plough thoroughly and reduce it as much as possible.

"Then put on lime at the rate of fifty bushels per acre for corn.

"Then bone at the rate of ten bushels per acre for oats.

" Then guano at the rate of two hundred pounds per acre, with all the manure that
can be made from the fodder and straw for wheat.

" Give it a liberal sujjply of grass seed, and the thing is done, as I know by

EXPETIIEN'CE."

"Experience" has hit the nail on the head. Money is wanted, in the
first instance, and, if employed with equal judgment, will tell as well in
farming as in other things ; "but how is that to be had ? There's the rub !
How can you raise money on land where, as in Virginia, all are sellers and
no buyers? The way to raise it is this: Concentrate population around
the plough, as in New England, where men clear a ton of stone from six
feet square of land, to plant their orchards, and to make potatoes and car-
rots, and where $2000 of public money lay for years to be loaned at six per
cent., and found no borrower. That's the way to improve poor land.

Let the hundreds of millions we import be manufactured at home, and
then the farmer and the planter will be sure to sell to those of whom he
buys, and both will be done at an immense saving in the cost of transporta-
tion and exchanofe.

THE CALAMITIES OF WAR— ON WHOM DO THEY FALL?

In the name of heaven, what can this subject have to do with Agricul-
ture ? Such, no doubt, is the query that will be propounded by many sin-
cere individual friends, as well as most societies formed for the promotion
of agricultural improvement. If in fact we were to judge from the indif-
ference manifested by such societies, as to the legislation and the burdens
of government, we might conclude, that, in their opinion, the people who
follow farming and planting for a livelihood have nothing to do but to learn
bow thick to sow, and how wide to plant, and for the rest, stoop to the bur-
dens imposed on them, and go their way like asses or mules, wherever their
rulers choose to ride or drive them.

Nine-tenths of the people in the country, laboring at the plough, pro-
bably believe, at this moment, that they are not paying one dollar of tax to
keep up the costly military and diplomatic establishments of the govern-
ment, merely because a tax-gatherer does not make his regular visit, with a
bill of particulars, and threaten to execute his horses or his wagon if he
does not "down with the dust," How then does he suppose the si.xty mil-
lions of dollars for the war debt, and the fifteen millions annually for army
and navy, and thousands for navy and army schools, are to be paid I Do
these millions of money rise, does he suppose, like fogs or mushrooms, out
of the ground, or descend like dews from the heavens ? Would it be honest
in us, under the persuasion we feel, not to advise the cultivators of the soil,
that four-fifths of these millions, think what they may, come out of their
pockets, ami would remain in their pockets were these debts not incurred?
It is the humbuggery of indirect taxation that lulls him into ignorance of

230 THE CALAMITIES OF WAR.

what he really pays. And what, after all, does the farmer and planter get
by war ? Is not that a proper question for agricultural societies ? Instead
of having nothing to say or do with politics, it is exactly in such societies
that the bearing of the laws on the landed interest should be discussed,
unless it be true that rulers, lawgivers only, should be enlightened, and the
rulerf kept in ignorance ! We don't mean miserable partj^ politics and
scrambling for place, but the politics that belong to and bear upon the
plough. The question, for example, whether the laAvs should encourage
the fabrication, in this country, of the raw materials produced in the coun-
try, so that the proportion of consumers should be constantly increasing in
relative numbers to the producers? The question whether the art of culti-
vation may not be as much benefited by government appropriations for ap-
propriate instruction in that, as the art of war has been improved by the
same means ; and whether the former would not much more conduce to the
solid prosperity and true glory of the nation than the latter? Why are not
these proper questions for societies organized for the express purpose of
looking after, guarding, and promoting the landed interest of the country ?
Nothing but the cowardice that is generated by ignorance and the habit of
submission to wrong, prevents such questions from being entertained, until
the true foundations of agricultural rights and prosperity are understood and
established.

Of the efi"ects of Avar, its character and consequences, a picture lies before
us, sketched by a master-hand, which our conscience tells us, as the friend
of agriculture, we ought to exhibit to our readers of all parties, for in our
labors to bring into juxtaposition " the Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil,"
and to show their mutual and friendly connection with each other, we pro-
fess to be of no party but the party of the plough.

PICTURE OF WAR.

" One of the most Christian of modern poets, Cowper, has finely said :

War is a game at which, were subjects wise,
Kings would not play.

" This thought, however just, was by no means an original one ; for in all
ages the truth was plain, that kings and the great only are the gainers by
wars, and that the more successful they are, the more do they ruin the mere
people, whose substance and whose lives they waste only to enslave them.
Such is, to the bodj^ of a nation, the sole consumm.ation of successful enter-
prises against their fellows ; so much havoc as they allow their government
to commit upon the wealth or lives of other conmiunities, so much do they
fling away of their own ; and just so far as they lend their strength to am-
bitious rulers to subjugate other countries, just so far do they arm those
conquering rulers with power to be the scourge of their own freedom. It
is an unfailing retribution, which the Almighty himself has appointed ; the
plague which he sends to punish, not princes or presidents, but the still
guiltier populace, who, instead of sympathizing with those of their own
condition, on whom everywhere falls the weight of war and its woes, have
wickedly lent their strength to afflict and enslave their innocent fellow-men,
the poor inhabitants of some weaker country. Then it is that, making war
itself, and the slavery which it draws after it, his vengeance. He turns to
his instruments and executioners, the bad kings or magistrates whom a
criminal people have armed for the wanton destruction of humankind. It
is the people who are, in all such cases, guilty, for what can even kings do
if their people choose to gainsay it ? But great as is their crime, their folly,
everywhere, when they permit needless Avars, that folly and that crime are
of course greatest in the citizens of a free, a popular government, Avho,

HEMP.

231

happy themselves, can have no excuse for going abroad to distress others,
and, free themselves, should know how dreadful the offence when they
strike at the independence of other nations.

"Of all republics war is the bane. It stops all arts but those of destruction,
all industry but that of death. The husbandman quits his own hajjpy field
to ravage a foreign one, or perhaps manure it with his blood. Public works
are suspended ; all private improvement ceases ; trade declines ; the laws
must learn to be silent ; morals are forgotten ; religion hides her face. The
whole of a people must cease benefiting themselves or others, and apply the
entire public force to injuring another nation. Meantime, while profitable
industry has lessened, taxes have grown, yet, grow as they may, they never
fail to leave a longarrear of debt, the poor man's only share of glories for
which he perhaps bled, and his sons shall sweat — glories which, in reality,
seldom consist, for the nation itself, in any thing more than the Christian
thought that they have desolated and destroyed quite as much as they have
been desolated and destroyed in return. Add to all this, idleness, licen-
tiousness, lawlessness, and that horrid taste for human blood, which na-
tions, like wolves, contract, when once they have lapped it. Let any man
consider of all this, and then, figuring to himself all this, deepened and
deepened, by war after war, conquest after conquest, into one wide habit
and rage of national rapine and slaughter, let him, if he can, think coolly
of an American statesman who can preach to us this detestable career as
that which we must run, and can strive ' to prepare the hearts of our peo-
ple' for this execrable policy."

«»>•!»

HEMP.

What is the condition of and prospect for this branch of American husbandry? — ^Wliat
is needed in the way of implements and processes for cultivating and preparing it, and
in legislation for ensuring a market? — Will Mr. Anderson please give us a memoir on

the subject who better, if so well, qualified as he or Mr. Sanders ? — What has become

of the great desideratum machine, so strongly recommended by the American Institute
soHie few years since, from St. Louis, we believe?

I have recently rotted hemp, and produced a superior and uniform quahty,
by a new process ; that process I will proceed to explain, believing firmly
that if it be applied to the sliver of hemp, designed for fine yarn, an
equal thread can be uniformly and economically obtained.

It is known that the glutinous matter causes the adhesion of the fibres ;
to remove that glutinous matter, the hackle and milling machine have been
resorted to with rather uncertain results, and great loss of material ; that pro-
cess I call the mechanical, and if I prove that the same results can be attained
by a chemical process, then I shall think I have rendered some service to
the manufacturer of hemp.

Hemp has been drawn and spun in a wet condition, and yet it has been
so spun without an effort being made to decompose the incrusting matter. I
propose to destroy the binding' matter, by heat and moisture, ^yhich can bo
effected in about twenty-four hours. The rough hand of hemp is first lapped,
and then passed through a drawing head and received into a can ; the can
filled with the rove of hemp is immersed in a vat of water, the water slightly
impregnated with the sulphate of iron ; so soon as a thorough saturation has
taken ^place, the can is withdrawn from the vat of water — it is allowed to
drain, retaining only so much of the water as the hemp will hold in solu-
tion ; and in this way, by the action of still air, heat is quickly engendered,
and in twenty-four hours a complete disintegration of the glutinous matter is
effected. Should there be found too much moisture, when ready for the
spindle, that could be removed by pressure on the hemp in the can, havmg
openings in the bottom for the excess of water to pass out.

James Anderson.

232 NOTICEABLE FACTS.

NOTICEABLE FACTS IN LATE ENGLISH AGRICULTU-
RAL PAPERS.

Hops from a brewery make better hot-beds than horse-manure.

Potato Disease. — In the London Gardener's Chronicle of the 8th of Jul}',
the highest authority, it is stated that the evidences of disease among th(^
potatces have reached the editor in so many cases as to "make it evident
that the danger to the general crop is serious."

Analysis of Plants. — At a special council of the Royal Agricultural So-
ciety, on motion of Mr. Pusey, M. P., seconded by Lord Portman, the coun-
cil voted

'•The grant of a sum not exceeding jEoOO, to be placed at the disposal of the Analysis
Committee, for the prosecution of Professor Way's analyses of the Ashes of Plants, in
continuation of the results on that subject already published in the Journal of the Society,
Mr. Pusey took that opportunity of remarking, that valuable as the researches published
in the Journal had hitherto been, on inquiries connected with geology, entomology, che-
mistry, and other sciences connected with agricultural improvement, he was happy to
say that a field of inquiry, no less interesting and important to the farmer, o \ the anato-
my, physiology, fimctious, and diseases of live-stoclc, had been opened by the valuable
lecture already delivered before 'the members in London by Professor Jjiinoiuls, and
which was then in the press, illustrated with numerous wood-cuts, for the new number
of the Journal ; and he had no doubt that Professor Simonds's lecture, about to be deli-
vered at the York meeting, would be found no less important and interesting than its
predecessor."

How much more profitably our American Institute and other societies
might thus appropriate some of their surplus cash, now funded in '* hve-per
cent, stocks !"

Draining. — The following item is very interesting, as going to show
that, in our pine and cedar boughs, we have a valuable material for drain-
ing in many places where no other exists.

No drains answer their purpose better than some we have seen on the
farm of Mr. Summers, a plain farmer near Nottingham, in Maryland, mado
with several pine poles laid side by side along the drain, and covered with
pine or cedar boughs, and then covered over with earth, in such a manner
as to present no obstacle to the passage of the water below, or of the plough
above, nor any break in the surface of the land :

" Lord Portman favored the council with an interesting statement of the result of his
draining forty acres of meadow-land, twenty-four years ago, with young Scotch fir boughs,
obtained as the thinnings of his plantations. The boughs were cut in June and July,
when the trees were full of their sap and turpentine ; and, being laid longitudinally in
the drains of the meadow, at a depth of three feet, to within eighteen inches of tlie surface,
they were covered over with clay and turfed down. His lordship liaving recently had
occasion to make a cut across the meadow in question, for hydraulic purposes, he had
the satislaction of finding that, after a period of twenty-four years, every drain was found
to be doing its work adnjirably ; and the boughs, instead of being dec'ayed, were found
in perfect preservation, and the wood had become firmer in the substance, and harder tii
•the cut of the knife. Mr. Fisher Hobbs had the pleasure of fully corroborating Lord
Portnian's statement of the value of fir boughs for the purpose of draining in strong clay
or marl, some of his own drains, formed of them, having sto<jd from fifteen to twenty
years. He had found, however, that, unless the boughs were cut while full of turjien-
tine, the wood would soon decay."

Since writing the above, Ave have seen it stated in the American Farmer
that Charles B. Calvert, Esq., an enterprising and, above all, an inquiring and
investigating farmer, has thoroughly drained sonic of his most valuable land
by a means, as to materials, at the command of many who have all their
lives given up many acres of their richest land to mud and mire, for Avant
of enterprise to begin, or thought upon the means of reclaiming it. We

NOTICEABLE FACTS. 233

are glad to preserve the following evidence of the energy and success of a
different sort of man. These are the sort of men, as Doctor Thompson
says, who ought to be in the management of our public affairs, so far as the
landed interest is concerned; but such men generally stand no chance in
competition with a young limb of the law. Is it not time, by-the-by — do
not the limes seem to invite the fanner and planter to lay aside and put
their foot upon mere narrow, mercenary, calculating party spirit, and every
other spirit, which blinds them to the paramount claims and importance
of their own pursuit? — to elevate their views above the murky atmosphere
in which the little designing demagogue would keep them always blinded,
and endeavor to discern the true foundations of agricultural prosperity for
every country ? And who can doubt that that consists in the circumstances
which most mvite and make it easiest for men of all employments to come
together — to concentnUe and combine for maintaining mutual and friendly
assistance and dependence among all the industrial pursuits that contribute
to the sustenance and comfort of the community? But we are forgetting
Mr. Calvert's simple mode and entire success in draining, thus described 'n
that capital journal, the old American Farmer:

" On the southern front of the mansion, contignous to the lawn, there is a fieUI of be-
tween fifty and sixty acres now well set in clover and orchard grass, from which a luxu-
riant crop v;as mowed this season, and a second crop is now growing. This field, a few
years since, was a deep and almost impenetrable swamp, in which, in the dryest sea-
sons, the cattle were mired, and not unfrequently had to be prized out. This melioration
was brought about by a series of open ditches and covered drains, which collects and
vents the water at all times, and by which an unsightly anil unwholesome quagmire has
been converted into a fertile meadow, adapted alike to the growth of grass and to every
other product of the farm.

" There is anodier field of about equal dimensions, which has been also drained, and
aboiu three-fourths cleared, which, when completed, will be among the most productive
fields on the estate, as its soil has been enriched by the decomposition of vegetable mat-
ter for uncounted years. The mode of making covered drains as practised by Mr. Cal-
vert, is eminently worthy of note, as it is both economical and simple, and, therefore,
cannot fail to commend itself to all who, like him, may consiiler it a matter of moment
to achieve great ends at the least possible cost. After digging and graduating the drains,
so as to ensure himself of their capacity to pass off" the water into the open ditches, he
fills them uj) with pine-boughs to snch a height as that they will not interfere with the
operation of ploughing, and then covers up to the surface with the earth which had been
excavated. From experience, these drains answer every purpose of more costly ones,
and bid fair to endure for a quarter, if not the third, of a century. The facility with
which Mr. C. has demonstrated, how easy a matter it is to make sound, dry, arable soils
out of inaccessible marshes, is as notable as praiseworthy, and eannot fail, we shoidd
think, to stimulate hundreds of landed proprietors to reclaim lands of a similar character
wliicli they may have on their respective estates, and thereby enhance their value and
secure their families against those autumnal diseases which make such inroads upon their
constitutions and health."

Glass Milk-Pans, says Mr. Colman in his Report on European Agricul-
ture and Rural Economy, made of bottle glass, are much approved, and with
proper care are in no danger of being broken. They recommend them-
selves by their cleanliness and incapacity of rust, or corrosion, or decompo-
sition. If our agricultural societies would offer a handsome premium for the
first exhibited, or if the American Institute would engage one or two hun-
dred of a manufacturer, we could have specimens exhibited, and the advan-
tages are so obvious in the particulars recommended by Mr. Colman that
they could not fail to come into general use.

It is surprising how long, under the force of habit and prejudice, the best
things are kept out of use.

We can remember well when ochra was cultivated for the sake of the
berry, to get in it the best substitute for coffee ; but nobody then and there
thought of making out of it the best and most wholesome of all soups and

Vol. I.— 30 u 2

234 NOTICEABLE FACTS.

most convenient, Gumbo soup ; and so it may be said, as we find in an Eng-
lish paper, of

"Sled Pens. — Who does not remember the time when a steel pen cost as much as a
dozen q\iilis? Who is isrnorant of the marvellous reduction that has taken place in the
market-value of these tiny bits of steel 1 Sixi^ence a piece, sixpence a dozen, sixpence
a gross — thus have they come down in value. All this could not have been done but
for the application of machinery. Men's hands, employed in cutting and pressing and
shaping the pens, would never have permitted this cheapening to have gone to such an
extent. And yet there are actually more men employed in the manufacture than when
machinery was less used. The machinery, in fact, has created a demand, which requires
large numbers bodi of machines and of men to supply. Some of the steel-pen manu-
factories of Birmingliam are very large establishments, containing ranges of highly
finished machines, and giving employment to large numbers of workmen. One of these
manufacturers (Gillot), in his advertisements, states his yearly produce at millions of dozens :
and there is no reason to doubt that it does not reach that extraordinary pitch."

Let us have glass milk-pans, if only for greater cleanliness. If some glass-
bottle manufacturer would only introduce them, we will guarantee him cus-
tom. To return to what is said above about steel pens and the tendency of
machinery to create demand for labor, so it would be with a variety of other
small manufactures that might be established in country villages and county
towns in Maryland and Virginia, if the laws of the state and of the Union
would give the encouragement and security they ought to the natural tend-
ency of men to combine and come together for all the purposes to Avhich
individual strength and means are inadequate. These manufactories once
in operation would create business for themselves, while they would thicken
population and give support to all around. There is scarcely a village in
Maryland or Virginia, or. a good water-power, that ought not to have small
factories, a number of which, scattered here and there, would be much bet-
ter for the country than the centralizatioyi of vast masses in large cities.
For example, take Annapolis, the seat of govenmient of Maryland — why
not a manifacturing town? Why should not Annapolis support various
manufactories where steamboats and railroads run every day ? where living
and house-rent are so cheap, the means of education at hand, and the popu-
lation as exemplary and virtuous as any in the world ; so much so that, within
our knowledge, the front doors of hotels were left unlocked all night ? Were
such advantages enjoyed at the seat of government of a New England city»
such an estate as Strawberry Hill would be worth $100 an acre at least,
and every man, woman, and child, would be well and prosperously em-
ployed. Into all these things we hold it to be our duty to look, for it is on
these things that agriculture depends. V/hy should not all the works of the
loom and the anvil, needed for that place and vicinity, be made there, and
the farmer, and the weaver, and the smith exchange with each other 1 It
could not succeed, say some, because it has no ivafer-power; and that would
be true if water had no power, except by its gravity in the act of falling
over a wheel. But is it forgotten that steam has taken the place of water,
and that by the application of heat, one inch of water may be so evapo-
rated, and a mechanical force evolved equivalent to fourteen pounds and
three quarters raised to the height of 1700 inches. If, as is known, the ap-
plication of steam to machinery has drawn manufactories from the line of
water-courses into large cities, what is to prevent the use of steam for manu-
factories of every sort at Annapolis ? Would not the greater cheapness of liv-
ing, and of land and houses, and sites for fectorics, more than counterbalance
any additional cost of transportation ? If cotton and coal can be sent to
Har[)er's Ferry and to Laurel and the Savage factory, why not to Anna-
polis ? Our business with such questions is, as they affect the interest
of the farmer and planter. As such, we shall examine them again and
again.

INSPECTION OF TOBACCO IN VIRGINIA. 235

INSPECTION OF TOBACCO IN VIRGINIA.

We find the following in the "Southern Planter;" — ^judging by what we have seen
we should doubt whether it has ever been signed and presented, however universal
may be the impression that the legislation called for is needed. Neither do we suppose
that if presented it would be heeded, so inert is the agricultural class, and those who re-
present it, in State Legislatures and in Congress.

In the Senate of the United States, that body so select and so double-refined in public
spirit and patriotism, we have good authority for saying, that up to very nearly the last
day of one of the longest sessions of Congress which has ever happened, the Committee on
Agriculture had never held a single meeting! nor do we believe that for this gross and
scandalous neglect of an appointed duty, they will ever hear one word of reproach from
any agricultural society, or from any other paper or individual in the Union — except in
the still small voice that here speaketh. How can it happen otherwise than that a class
which is thus guilty of self-neglect and abasement, will be neglected and trodden upon
by all other interests.

To the General Assembly of Virginia.

Your petitioners, a majority of whom are planters of tobacco and citizens
of countj% respectfully invite your attention to the Tobacco Law,

and ask an amendment of the same. Many years ago, the legislature pro-
hibited the exportation of inferior tobacco. When this law was passed, it
became necessary that the inspectors or some other officers should have the
power of pronouncing judgment upon tobacco when inspected, and of de-
ciding what was fit for exportation, and what deserved the flames. In this
way originated the power conferred upon the inspectors of passing and
refusing tobacco. The exportation of refused tobacco is not now prohibited,
but it is now exported to the different markets of the world as freely as
passed tobacco. The reason, then, for allowing the inspectors the right of
passing and refusing tobacco, has ceased. This power was given to the
inspectors under circumstances no longer existing, and its continued exer-
cise is at war with the liberality of the age. We also maintain, that it is
injurious to the planters, who have the same right to ask that the proceeds
of their labor shall be exempt from unnecessary condemnation as those who
follow other pursuits. No one denies the expediency of having tobacco
inspected. It is proper that the hogshead be taken off', the tobacco broke,
and samples drawn out and exhibited. When this has been done, the
buyers and planters are competent to make their own contracts, uninfluenced
by the judgment of the inspectors. We think that the inspectors should
be inspectors only, and not judges as well as inspectors. No tobacco can
pass unless the inspectors deem it " sound, well conditioned, merchantable,
and clear of trash." The refusal of tobacco by the inspectors (who are
selected because of their integrity and knoAvledge of tobacco) is equivalent
to a public declaration that such refused tobacco is not " sound, well condi-
tioned, merchantable," &c. Refusal brands tobacco with discredit, and^im-
pairs its market value. To deny this, is as erroneous as to assert that the
standing of a man in society is as good after trial and conviction as before.
If all the horses brought in Virginia, for sale, were examined by legal in-
spectors, who were competent judges, and who were required to refuse all
horses not deemed by said inspectors to be " sound, Avell conditioned," &c.,
can any one believe that horses known to have been inspected, and marked
as refused, would sell as readily, and command as much, as they would if
there were no inspection and no refusal ? Again, the words " well condi-
tioned and merchantable" are so vague and indefinite, that the inspectors
cannot act upon any uniform rules in deciding what tobacco ought to pass,
and hence tobacco is refused at one warehouse which would have passed at
another. Why subject tobacco to refusal, when other products are exempt I

236 THE QUEEN-BEE AT HOME.

Wheat varies in quality and appearance, yet the miller and seller make
their own contracts without the need of inspectors to enlighten their minds or
bias their judgments. There are no inspectors whose duty it is to refuse
any of the iron made in Virginia, or the cotton or woollen goods made here,
nor are those who follow the various mechanical trades liable to have the
proceeds of their labor disparaged by the refusal of competent judges,
acting in obedience to law. Western hogs and horses brought annually into
Virginia are liable to no legal condemnation. We see no reason why the
planters should be regarded with distrust and suspicion. They ask no ex-
clusive favors, but they desire to be relieved from injustice. Their tobacco
needs no commendation from the inspectors, and should receive none of their
censure. Let tobacco stand or fall upon its own merits. The reputation
and character of Virginia tobacco should be confided, not to the inspectors,
but to the planters themselves, who are the appropriate guardians of their
staple. No refusal is necessary as a stimulus to improvement, or a penalty
for neglect. 'Prompted by self-interest, the planters will always endeavor
to make good tobacco, and prepare it properly for market. W'hen they
make indifferent tobacco, it is more their misfortune than their fault, and
misfortune deserves no punishment. Other reasons might be argued in
support of the proposed am.endment, but we forbear, and content ourselves
■with expressing the hope that it will be the pleasure of the General Assem-
bly to amend our tobacco law, as has been here indicated.

THE QUEEN-BEE AT HOME.

The community of bees is an example of a pure monarchy, unrestrained
by any checks on power, yet never deviating into despotism on the one
hand, or anarchy on the other. Some years ago, while our gracious queen
was making a royal progress through her northern dominions, we witnessed
a no less interesting sight of the progress of a queen-bee, in the glass-hive
of an ingenious friend and lover of nature at his country retreat. The hive
was of that construction which opened from behind, and showed the whole
economy within. In a few minutes, the queen made her appearance from
the lower part of the hive. Her elongated body and tapering abdomen at
once distinguished her. She moved along slowly, now and then pausing
to deposit an egg in one of the empty combs ; and it Avas most interesting
to perceive how she was constantly accompanied by neai-ly a dozen of bees
that formed a circle around her, with their heads invariably turned towards
her. This guard was relieved at frequent intervals, so that, as she walked
forward, a new group immediately took the place of the old, and these, hav-
ing returned again, resumed the labors in Avhich they had been previously
engaged. Her appearance always seemed to give pleasure, Avhich was
indicated by a quivering movement of the wings. The laborers, in what-
ever way occupied, immediately forsook their work and came to pay homage
to their queen, by formiing a guard around her person. Every other part of
the hive, meanwhile, presented a busy scene. jMany bees were seen
moving their bodies with a tremulous motion, by which thin and minute
films of wax were shaken from their scaly sides. Others were ready to
take up this wax and knead it into matter proper for constructing cells.
Frequent arrivals of bees from the field brought pollen on their thighs for
the young grubs, and honey, which they deposited in the celts. Ail was
activity, order, and peaceful industry. IS'one were idle but the drones, who
seemed to stroll about hke gentlemen. — British Quarterly Review.

THE HORSE.

237

MEANING OF THE TERM "BLOOD."
A GOOD deal of pains has been taken to define the meaning of the term
"■bleed," as applied to the horse called thorough-bred. Osmer, an old but
accredited writer en the Horse, pronounced it to be a certain elegance of
parts, derived frcm air, chmate, and food, which, being suitable to the true
natural conformation of the animal, enables him to perform extraordinary-
feats of activity and motion, coupled with great endurance of tbe highest
bodily exertion; and hence the expression, "he shows a vast deal of blood,"
means nothing more than that he is a truly formed race-horse. Where, he
asks, is the blood of the Ostrich, whose speed is so great, that it can "laugh
at the horse and his rider?" "If the good qualities of the race-horse," says
he, "depend upon blocd, we could net, as we often do, see one horse very-
good, and his own brother, with equal advantages of good keep and training,
very bad." It was the opinion of this writer, that it has been to the foUy
of expecting, that what is termed high-blood, in the Eastern horses, unac-
companied with essential form, will produce a racer, so many failures in the
attempt to breed race-horses have occurred ; that the virtue of what racing
men call "blood," has been too much insisted upon, not being sufficiently-
influenced by the fact, that it can never be considered as independent of form
and matter. We conceive there is a great deal of truth in each of the fore-
going observations. Blood cannot be considered independently of form and
matter, inasmuch as the excellence of all horses must depend on the mechan-
ism of their frames, which, if duly proportioned, and accompanied with
superior internal, as well as external organizatiin, gives them stride, pace,
and endurance. The quickness of repeating this stride also, and the power
of continuance, will depend upon vigor of muscle, capacity of chest, and
strength of the constrained lungs. The result, then, of this argument is,
that when we speak of some of the celebrated stallions of former days having
transmitted the good properties of their blood, or high Eastern descent, to the
race-horses of the present time, we can only imply, that they have imparted
that true formation of parts, that firmness of b jne and sinew, and that general
superior organization, competent to give facility of action ; together with
great powers of respiration, which will enable horses to last under the severest
trials of their powers. In fact, their excellence is in a great manner me-
chanical. Were it not so, indeed, did they not excel each other according
to the degrees of difference in their form and shape, and all the constituent
parts, full brothers and sisters would prove of equal goodness on the race-
course, health and condition being on a par. But this is very far from being
the case ; and, again, if it depended on blood, the same horse would rua
alike on every description of ground, which we know rarely happens ; but
of this we may be assured, that it is a superiority of muscular substance,
united with justly proportioned shape, and not innate blood, which enables
a horse to bear to be pressed, on any description of ground, still more so
upon such as is severe, as several of our race-courses are.

Yet, if there must be this elegance of form, these nice proportions in the
limbs, or moving levers of the race-horse, how is it that so many of those
called "cross-made," i. e. plain, and apparently disproportioned horses,
possess the power or parts conducive to speed and action ? If blood can be
defined the peculiar elegance in the texture of the external parts, how hap-
pens it that several very ugly horses and mares have at all times distinguished
themselves on the turf? Are there certain occult causes, not discoverable
to the eye, that produce this excellence, to which the rules and laws of action
appear to be opposed ? On these points it may be observed, first, that the force
and effect of muscular motion is nearly beyond our ken; and, secondly, such
horses are really not misshapen, inasmuch as they are hidden virtues in the

288 THE HORSE.

mechanism of their internal frames, which the eye cannot detect; and where
deficient in one point, thej'^ are recompensed by additional powers in others.
They possess the essential points, although not so elegantly displayed; and
this, we believe, is the case with other animals than the horse; although,
generally speaking, true symmetry in all is attended with corresponding
excellence in their useful properties, and adaptation to the purposes of man.
Those persons who insist upon an innate quality in what is termed "blood,"
are led to believe that there is something in the nature of a thorough-bred
horse, which enables him to struggle in a race far beyond his natural capa-
bilities, and which is distinguished by the term "game." We do not think
there is. We learn from experience that horses often allow themselves to
be beaten by others which are inferior to them, from sheer ill temper; but
their efforts to ivin a race, we consider to be merely limited by their physical
powers, the effect of a proper arrangement of their parts ; and that the
operation of the mind, or spirit, has nothing at all to do with it. The hero
at the Olympic Games had, and the champion of the British boxing ring may
have had, feelings which, from the superiority of their nature, and the fact
of their character, interest, and future happiness, being all involved in the
event, mifjht have induced them to struggle even to the very verge of life ;
but the same sense of honor, and the same spirit of emulation, cannot be
ascribed to the race-horse.* If his own acting powers be unequal to those
of others opposed to him in the race, he yields to that superiority, although
it must be admitted, that what are called sluggish horses will not try to exert
themselves to the utmost, unless urged to it by the spur and whip; and
others, when spurred and whipped, slacken, instead of increasing, their speed.
The final result of this discussion then is, that when, as has been previously
suggested, we speak of such horses as King Herod, Highflyer, or Eclipse,
having transmitted their blood to the past and present generations of running
horses, we can only admit that they have transmitted that true formation of
parts necessary to enable them to run races at a prodigious rate of speed,
and to endure the severity of training for them.

EASTERN HORSES.
Although we have spoken in disparagement of horses of the East as racers,
•npon the same terms with those of our own breeding, we are willing to
allow them the merit of being the parent stock of all our racing blood ; as
it is quite evident the indigenae of our own country, or of those European
ones which approximate to it, would never have produced the sort of race-
horse now seen on the British Turf. The nature and character, indeed, of
the horse of the Desert are peculiarly adapted to an animal who, like the
race-horse, is called upon to put its phj'sical powers to the severest test to
which nature, aided by art, can submit. In the first place, the Arabian
horse possesses a firmness of leg and sinew unequalled by any other in the
world. This excellence, which he owes to climate, arises from his having
larger muscles and smaller bone than other horses have; — muscles and
sinews being the sole powers of acting, and on them depend the lasting'
qualities of an animal going at the top of his speed. Bones being the weight
to be lifted, serve only to extend the parts ; and it is evident, that such as
are small, but highly condensed, like those of the deer, and the horse of the

• The Race-Horse appears to be animated by an instinctive spirit of rivalry and
ambition to excel. Hence cases have been known where they liave seized the rider of
their opponent wlien in the act of passing near the winning-post. On Potter's course
near Baltimore, Bachelor and another race-horse, grazing in the field, were seen to walk
delibenitcly to the starting-po.<t, take a fair start, and each to do his best for a mile! There
are many things in this world not dreamed of in our philosophy, and there are many
birds and animals, from which man might take lessons, if he would, in manners and in
morals. — Eds. P. L. ^ A.

THE HORSE. 239

Desert, are, by occupying less space, and containing less weight, more easily
acted upon by muscular force, than such as are large and porous, and for a
greater duration of time, without fatiguing the acting powers. But the ex-
cellence of the Arabian horse, or horse of the Desert, does not end with his
hig-hly condensed bone, and flat and wiry leg, so much esteemed by the
sportsman. All the muscles and fibres of his frame are driven into closer
contact than those of any other breed; and, by the membranes and ligaments
bei-ng composed of a finer and thinner substance, he possesses the rare quality
of union of strength with lightness, so essential to the endurance of fatigue
in all quick motions. He thus moves quicker and with more force, by rea-
son of the lightness and solidity of the materials of which his frame is
composed ; and when, to these qualifications, are added the peculiar and deer-
like elegance of his form, and extraordinary share of muscular poAver for his
inches, he appears to furnish all the requisites of the race-horse on a small scale.

We have already accounted for the present breed of English race-horses
being no longer susceptible of improvement from any foreign blood. But it
is worth inquiring into the reason of the improvement of the horse of the
Desert, and indeed of all the countries of the East, not advancing towards
perfection, as that of our own breed has done. No doubt, it was intended
that we should improve upon animal nature, as we improve our own, and
nowhere has the attempt been so successful as upon our varieties of domestic
cattle ; but the horse of the Desert now, if he have not retrograded in his good
qualities, is the same animal that he was nearly two centuries back. With
the exception of the Wellesley Arabian, said to have been bred in Persia,
(but the assertion is unaccompanied by proof,) who measured fifteen hands
two inches high, all the rest that have been imported have been little better
than Galloways, which must be attributed to two causes; first, the want of
being forced, as our own horses are, in their colthood, by high keeji ; and
secondly, by adhering too closely to the indigenous breed, or that whose
blood is unmixed, by which means it has dwindled. Accurate observers
must have noticed, that the greater part of the horses brought to this country
as Barbs and Arabians have exhibited a palpable deficiency in the points
contributing to strength, and the want of general substance is apjiarent at
first sight. It is true that, of late years, their estimation has so diminished
in this countr)^ that no great pains have been taken to procure stallii ns of
the highest caste, and scarcely any mares have been imported, and several
of those sent over have been accompanied by very unsatisfactory pedigrees.
We are, however, inclined to think that, as the immediate descendants of
such horses are found quite inefficient as race-horses, and but few of the
second or third generation have turned up trumps, unless as a rational expe-
riment, the breeding of race-horses from Arabians is at an end.

In corroboration, however, of the good qualities of form and texture of this
comparatively Lilliputian breed, we give the following extract from a letter
of the late Captain Gwatkin, head of one of the Honorable India Company's
studs, on the subject of crossing the English thorough-bred horse with foreign
blood, dated Hauper, Bengal, September, 1838, to show, by their rate of
going, their great endurance under the combined pressure of weight and
speed ; for to have run these lengths in the time specified, their height only
averaging fourteen hands one inch, and of course unfavorable to speed, in
addition to the ground being sandy, and therefore void of elasticity, the pace
must have been severe from end to end of the course. Unfortunately the
ages are not given, or a still better judgment would be formed of the lasting
powers of these little animals under more than average weight.*

tJee Old Sporting Magazine, vol. xxiv. New Series, p. 12.

240

THE HORSE.

Run

1

AT Bengal

Name.

We

ght.

Time.

Distance.

St.

lb.

m

s.

Patrician,

9

0

5

34

280 yards, less 3 miles.

1807.

Antelope,

. 9

0

6

4

2| miles.

1809.

Putriot,

9

6

6

46

3 miles and 325 yards.

tSulky, (sent to England,)

. 9

0

6

25

3 miles and 325 yards.

Oddsbobs,

9

0

ran second in the above race.

1818.

Sir Lowry,

.

, 7

4

4

0

2 miles.

1820.

IS'imrod,

8

ID

4

6

2 miles.

Sultan, (not 14 hands,)

. 8

12

6

16

3 miles.

1826.

Paragon, (sent to Englanc

,) ■ .

11

0

4

20

2 miles.

Esterhazy,

. 11

7

3

42

1| miles.

Cavalier, (not 14 hands,)

8

7

4

4

2 miles.

1827.

Champion, .

. 11

7

3

44

If miles.

1828.

Barelbot, .

8

4

6

7

second heat of 3 miles.

Cornet,

, 8

4

R

in second to Barefboi.

Chapeau de Paillie, .

8

3

2

58

I5 miles.

Redgauntlet,

.

. 9

0

5

6

2 2 miles.

Botherem,

9

3

2

58

I5 miles.

Run

AT PoONAH

1827.

Pyramus, (not 13 3,) .

. 9

0

4

8

2 miles.

lb2S.

Dragon,

8

8

4

4

2 miles.

Run

AT Bombay.

1827.

Slyboots,

. 8

5

4

2

2 miles.

Gaslight, ,

9

0

C

16

3 miles.

Creeper,

. 8

G

4

2

2 miles.

Run at Baroda.

1827. Harlequin, .... 8 4 693 miles.

Run at Madras.

1828. Orelio, 9 0 4 0 2 miles.

We have reason to believe, that the best use to be made of Eastern horses
would be for the production of the English hunter, by the best-shaped hunt-
ing mares, nearly thorough-bred. By the help of the dam, and our present
improved system of keeping young hcrse-slock, there would be liitle fear
of the produce not coming to a good size, even in the first generation, as it
is, for the most part, the property cf these horses to beget stock larger than
their.selves ; but by crossing the female produce in the second with our large
thorough-bred horses, hunters for heavy weights might be looked for, with
every prospect of success. We know that the virtue of the blood, or con-
stituent parts, of the horse that was no racer, (Marske, the sire of Eclipse,
for example.) has produced a racing son, by acquiring proper formation of
parts from the dam ; and if to the fine form of the English hunter could bo
added the firmness of leg and sinew for which the Eastern horse is so con-
spicuous, but in Avhich the English hunter is too often deficient, in conjunc-
tion with the larger muscles, more highly condensed bone, and well known
powers of endurance of the Eastern horse, not omitting his action, which is
generally first-rate, but of which a proper judgment could be formed pre-
viously to the choice of the stallion, a great improvement upon our ]:;rcsent
race of hunters would be effected ; and all such as were known to be thus
bred would meet a ready sale. It is a well-known fact, that some of the
most brilliant hunters England ever produced, were got by Arabian stallions;
and one, by Lord Clive's Arabian, was one of the best horses in Leicester-
shire, in Mr. Mcyncll's day, over every description of country. He was the
property of the late Mr. Childe, of Kinlet Hall, Shropshire, who is said to
have been the first to introduce the present very spirited style of riding after
hounds. A powerful Tf-orkoman stallit n would nrt, we think, fad in getting
hunters out of good English mares. That breed is the largest of any of the
Eastern horses, owing to being reared on better land.

THE HORSE. 241

One word more on the subject of the Eastern horse, as connected with
the English Turf. Owing to the doubts and uncertainties that hang over
the pedigrees and countries of the most celebrated stallions and mares which
laid the foundation of our present breed of racers, it is impossible to deter-
mine to which individual breed, whether to the Turkish, the Barb, the
Arabian, or the Persian, are the greater advantages derived from them to be
attributed. They appear to us to be pretty equally divided. To the Byerly
Turk we are indebted for the Herod blood, (sire of Highflyer;) to the Go-
dolphin Arabian, said to be a Barb, for the Matchem blood, the stoutest of
any; to the Darley Arabian, (the sire of flying Childers,) for the Eclipse
blood; and to the Wellesley Arabian, believed to be a Persian horse, to the
only real advantage gained to English race-horses, by a foreign cross, in later
years. It must, however, be observed, that the most famous horses of the
last century, such as Childers, Old Crab, Eclipse, and King Herod, did not
appear on the Turf before they were five years old ; which leads us to sup-
pose, that the failure of horses subsequently bred, as they themselves were
bred, from Oriental blood, and trained at an early age, may in great part be
attributed to the fact, of the immediate produce of such horses requiring
more time to come to maturity, or even to a certain degree of maturity, than
those, like our present breed of race-horses, farther removed from such blood;
and the cause may be attributed to climate. It is reasonable to suppose, that
the produce of stallions and mares bred in the Torrid Zone, would come
slower to perfection in a damper and colder country than it would have done
in its own ; and we may infer from this, that, in proportion as horses were
brought earlier to the post, and races shortened in distance. Eastern blood
got into disrepute.

As to the compiarative speed of Arabian and English race-horses, England
is not the arena on which it can be fairly decided, inasmuch as the total
change of food, system, and climate must operate more powerfully on the
Arab brought to England after a certain age, than on the English horse
taken to India under sim.ilar circumstances, for reasons too obvious to require
to be mentioned. It may, however, be stated, on the best Indian authorities
on this subject, that the best Arab on his own ground has not a shadow of a
chance agamst an imported English racer, in any thing like a good form.
The celebrated race on the Calcutta course, between Pj'ramus and Recruit —
the former the best Arab of his year, the latter a second-rate English race-
horse by Whalebone, the property of the Marquis of Exeter — settled this
point, inasmuch as allowance was made for the comparatively diminutive
size of the Arab, it being what is termed a give-and-take match, or weight
for inches, in which Recruit carried 10 stone 12 pounds, and Pyramus only
8 stone 3 pounds, an extra allowance of 7 pounds having been given to him
as an Arab.

"Pyramus," says the reporter of this race, "is as good an Arab (he had
previously beaten all the best Arabs in Calcutta for the gold cup) as has ap-
peared for many years. His condition was undeniable ; the distance was all
in his favor; and he was ridden with superior judgment; so that the result
of his match with Recruit may be considered to have established this as an
axiom, that no allowance of weight within the bounds of moderation can
bring the best Arab, even in the climate most congenial to him, upon a par
with an English thorough-bred horse of moderate goodness. In addition to
all these circumstances in favor of Pyramus, it must be remembered that
Recruit only landed on the 28th of May, (the race was run in January,) after
a voyage of five months." This statement is borne out by one of the articles
of the Auckland Cup, the annual gift of the Governor of Bengal, in which,

Vol. I.— 31 X

242 THE HORSE.

for the year 1840, English horses were weighted at 2 stones 7 pounds beyond
that carried by Arabs.

BREEDING THE RACE-HORSE.

Amongst the many things in the history of Ancient Greece that have called
forth the admiration of mankind, the celebrated games of Olympia claim the
foremost place. Independently of their religious association, and advance-
ment of literary spirit, they were highl}'- serviceable to the country; and
none proved more so than those at which horse-racing was introduced, which
appear to have been completely established in the 25th Olympiad. That the
improvement of the native breed of horses was the chief object of the Go-
vernment, is beyond all doubt, as it has been that of all others who have
given encouragement to racing; and it is equally apparent, that the Thessa-
lian courser, so highly extolled by Pindar, and likewise so terrible in war,
was the result of a foreign cross. So essential, indeed, was this object con-
sidered in Greece, where horses were very scarce even after the time of
Pindar, that it is stated, on the authority of Aretius, in a note on Pindar's
second Isthmian Ode, that there was a general law in Greece, requiring all
who were able to breed horses. The state of perfection their horses had
approached at this early period is beyond the power of conjecture ; but in
Great Britain, from the highly cultivated knowledge of the mechanical struc-
ture of living bodies, with the junction of best shapes — although, but for
the stimulus given by racing, this knowledge would have been comparatively
in its infancy — the horse has arrived at the highest state of perfection of
which his nature is capable; and in whatever country and in whatever cli-
mate his racing powers are put to the test, he has scarcely found a rival,
excepting under verj' disadvantageous circumstances. It is true, his lasting
qualities were doubted, and he was challenged to rebut the charge ; and the
following was the result. On the 4th of August, 182.5, two second-rate
English racers. Sharper and Mina, contended against the most celebrated
Cossack horses from the Don, the Black Sea, and the Ural, in a race of the
cruel length of forty-seven miles. At starting. Sharper and Mina ran away
with their riders more than a mile, and up a steep hill, Avhen the latter horse
broke down, and pulled up. Half the distance was run in an hour and forty
minutes. In the last half, only one of the Cossack horses was able to contend
with Sharper, who, notwithstanding every foul advantage was taken by
changing the Aveight, and dragging along his opponent by a rope, Avon his
race in gallant style, performing the distance in two hours and forty-eight
minutes. At starting, the English horses carried three stone more weight
than the Cossacks; and during the latter half of the race, the one Cossack
who remained in it was ridden by a mere child.

From the export trade to the Continent of English horses, and particularly
those of full blood, joined to the low price of horse food during the last twenty
years, and on which there is not much prospect of an advance, occupiers of
land cannot turn their attention to a much surer source of profit than that of
breeding horses, provided they go judiciously to work. But, unfortunately
for the speculators in this branch of rural economics, too much is left to chance
and experiment, and thus horse-breeding becomes absolutely a matter of spe-
culaticn, instead of a matter of judgment. It is true, those noblemen and
gentlemen whose studs have become eminent on the Turf, cannot be included
in this charge; but, even with the benefit of great experience, and various
other advantages, the utmost exercise of their judgment is required, to ensure
even a prospect of success against such a field as they have to contend with.
Having said this, we will lay down a few practical rules for the breeding and
rearing the various kinds of horses now used in Great Britain, commencing,
as before stated, with that of the Race-Horse.

HOW AGRICULTURE IS AFFECTED BY LOCAL PREJUDICES. 243

now AGRICULTURE IS AFFECTED BY LOCAL
PREJUDICES.

Doctor Lee, a New England man, as we believe, or at the least a New-
Yorker, and formerly editor of the Genesee Farmer, is now a resident of
Augusta, Georgia, as editor of the Southern Cultivator, which he conducts
with his v.'ell-known ability.

Speaking, then, from personal observation, as to the comparative estima-
tion of the laboring man in the North and the South, he remarks in the July
number of the Cultivator : —

" So far as we have been able to discover, laboring white inen are treated with equal,
and in some instances superior consideration at the South, as compared with their treat-
ment at the North. We dined not long since in company with the President of an agri-
cultural society, wealthy merchants, members of the bar, and planters, at the table of a
gentleman, who had at the time a couple of white laboring men employed in digging
ditches. Under similar circumstances at the North, few gentlemen or their wives would
have seated these rfiif/icrs at the dinner-table with their company ; nor would the white
laborers have expected it, or been offended to eat by themselves. On the occasion
alluded to, these worthy men, albeit none the less worthy for having a little adhesive
soil on their clothes, took their plates at the table in a way so perfectly easy to all the
guests, as well as themselves, that we saw, to our surprise, no evidence of condescension
on the one hand, nor of assumption on the other."

Now this, we must confess, Southern men as we are, seems to us to be
going it, as the saying is, " with a rush !" It is one thing to entertain, as
gentlemen do everywhere, kind and respectful and benevolent feelings for
the honest laborer, whatever may be his trade or occupation ; but it is quite
another to bring in ditchers, with the "adhesive soil on their clothes," and
place them among ladies and gentlemen at a dinner party, even, as we should
think, for the convenience and comfort of the ditchers themselves. There
is reason in all things, " even in roasting eggs !" but it shows conclusively,
as the Doctor says, that " laboring white men are treated with equal, and in
some instances superior, consideration at the South, as compared with their
treatment at the North." How far such instances are common, is not stated;
nor do we conceive them to be necessary to the establishment of the general
fact that honest white labor is treated in the South with that respect which.
is everywhere due to it. To whatever influence it is to be ascribed, there
is no part of the globe where more kindness of heart and of treatment is
evinced towards inferiors in rank and fortune by their superiors in both, than
in the Southern states.

Not many days since, we were agreeabl}'' surprised by a visit from a large
planter of Louisiana, residing near St. Francisville ; and a Northern gentle-
man being present, Avho justly appreciates the Southern character, though
opposed on politico-economical grounds to their " peculiar institutions," we
asked our Louisiana friend about the "allowance" to his slaves ; not that we
did not know, for we had learned it on his estate, but that the facts might be
brought directly to the notice of our Northern friend. The answer was, that
the regular allowance, besides milk and vegetables, was as much meal as they
could eat, and four pounds of meat, of the best sort, per week; and if that
were not enough, his orders were to give more — " to give enough, but to
permit no waste" — sugar and coffee every day.

The gentleman's Avord was as conclusive to our mind, of the exact truth
of the statement, as if it had been proved by a thousand of those carefully
drawn up " affidavits" prescribed in some parts of the country, to guard
against lying and fraud in all cases where premiums of a few dollars are
in question for the best half acre of sugar-beets or carrots.

244 ANALYSIS OF COTTON.

(From the London Gardeners' Chronicle, by Professor Lindlcy.)

ANALYSIS OF COTTON,

WITH KEMARKS ON THE SOIL AND CLIMATE ADAPTED TO IT.
Since our paper on the chemical anal3-sis of Cotton wool and of Cotton
soils was written, we have received an Analysis of New Orleans Cotton
Wool, and of the seed of the same kind of Cotton made by an American
chemist, which, we believe, has not yet been published. This is interesting,
not only on its own account, but as showing the great value of employing
the seed as a manure for the Cotton plant.

One hundred parts of Cotton wool, on being heated in a platina crucible, lost 85'SO parts.

The residuum, on being ignited under a mulHo till the whole of the carbon was consumed,

lost 12'735, and left a white ash which weighed nearly 1 per cent., or 0-9347. Of this

ash nearly 44 per cent, was soluble in water. Its constituents were as follows:

Carbonate of potash (with a trace of soda) .... 44-29

Phosphate of lime (with a trace of magnesia) .... 25-34

Carbonate of lime 8-97

Carbonate of magnesia G-75

Silica 4-l'2

Sulphate of potassa 2-90

Alumina ........... 1-40

Chloride of potassium"^

Sitlphateoflime Und loss 023

Phosphate of potasss
Oxide of iron (atrace)_

luu-uo
Analysis of Cotton Seed.
One hundred parts, treated as belbre, lost 77-387, and the residuum, after being burned
under a muffle, left 3-93G parts of a perfectly white ash, the composition of which was
as follows:

Phosphate of lime (with traces of magnesia) .... 61-34

Phosphate of potassa (traces of soda) 31-73

Sulphate of potassa 2-C5

Silica 1-G8

Carbonate of lime ......... -47

Carbonate of magnesia . . . . . . • . "27

Chloride of potassium ........ "25

Carbonate of potassa "^

Sulphate of lime I and loss 1-03

Sulphate oi magnesia (

Alumina and oxide of ironj

luu-uo
With respect to these analyses, we may for the present observe, that the
seeds yielded nearly four times as much ash as the Cotton itself did, and at
the same time contained a much larger proportion of phosphoric acid and of
lime. In this respect the quantity of both these substances is greater, as
shown by the American analysis, than in that of Dr. Ure. Whether this
may be owing to different kinds of wool having been employed, or to differ-
ences in the modes of analysis, can only be known Avhen the analyses have
been repeated by chemists with different kinds of Cotton.

In resuming our observations on soils, it is first of all necessary to observe
that, though no one will dispute the paramount importance of the chemical
constituents of the soil, yet these may be considered in some respects to be
only of comparative value, as it is equally necessary to attend to the physical
state of the soil, and to both in connection with the chmate of particular locaH-
ties. The mechanical state of the soil, its greater or less degree of porosity
or of tenacity, enabling the roots to spread with more or less facility, so as
to fix the plant steadily in the earth, at the same time that they supply it
with a large portion of its nutriment, is necessarily of great importance.
But as a considerable portion of the food of plants is supplied by the air, its

ANALYSIS OF COTTON. 245

different states and due supply require also to be attended to, in addition to
climate; no chemical composition or mechanical state will compensate for
unsuitableness of climate. We all know that our oaks are as little likely
to flourish within the tropics, as South American palms in our meadows,
and no one now expects that our rich variety of orchidii would flourish, if,
supplying them with every requisite of site, of soil, of culture, and even of
temperature, we denied them a moist atmosphere. And yet a few years
only have elapsed since it was considered a rarity to flower these air-plants;
and also since mountain rice was attempted to be cultivated here in the open
air, because it came from a cool climate, and was said to be cultivated with-
out irrio-ation. But it was forgotten that, during the season of cultivation in
its native mountains, rain falls almost every day, and the air is in a state of
continual moisture. So, also, in the culture of cotton, a certain state of the
soil, both with respect to its chemical composition and its mechanical state,
may be well suited to one situation, and yet not be desirable in another,
chiefly from a difference in the condition of the atmosphere. For instance,
a certain degree of porosity of the soil may retain and bring just enough of
Avater within reach of the roots, and yet if the atmosphere became more
damp, the soil may require to be made drier by drainage. Again, if in
another situation the air is more dry, and evaporation necessarily greater,
both from the surface of the earth and from that of the leaves, a soil more
retentive of moisture will be more suitable than one which is more open, and
which thus allows moisture to escape, not only by evaporation but by drain-
age. These varieties may be observed not only in the soil and climate
of different localities, but even in the same locality at different seasons
of the year, especially in a country like India, which, in the language
of meteorologists, is in many parts one of extremes. As plants obtain from
the ground their water, holding in solution sahne and earthly particles, and
are dependent upon the air for the elements of organic matter, it is evidently
essential to pay equal attention to both, for it is difficult, nay impossible in
most cases to say whether the soil or the cHmate has the most influence upon
successful cultivation, and it is nearly as useless, to use the words of Mr.
Neill, as "attempting to decide which half of a pair of scissors has most
to do in the act of cutting, or which of the factors 5 and 6 contribute most
to the production of thirty."

With respect to the practical inferences deducible from the chemical ana-
lyses, w^e may first quote the opinion of Mr. Piddington, that carbonate of
lime was essential to good cotton soil. Subsequently he observed that the
American, the Mauritius, and the best Singapore soil" contain a considerable
per centage of vegetable matter, and some part of it easily soluble in cold
water, while the Indian soils contain very little vegetable matter, and this
wholly insoluble in Avater; but that the best contain a far larger proportion
of carbonate of lime, and, some of them, their iron in a different state froni
the others. The lime, though not indispensable, he supposes, may be highly
useful; but he ascribes greater value to the presence of vegetable matter.
For a soil in Bengal, which contained but exceeding minute portions of lime
and carbonaceous matter, and in which he cultivated cotton, worth from 9rf.
to \\d. per lb., as an experiment, for seven or eight years, during which he
had always good and often abundant crops, he ascribes this effect to the
plants havingbeen constantly manured with the black, peaty earth, so abund-
ant in the jheels (pieces of water) of India, and of which an average good
specimen contains 26.00 per cent, of vegetable matter, and 15.00 per cent,
of carbonate of lime, yielded chiefly by the small shells contained in the
above deposits.

Mr. E. Solly, as the result of his analyses, remarks, "that the goodness

x3

246 COMING TO THE POINT IN A PRACTICAL WAY.

of the soils from Georgia depended, probably, far more on the mechanical
structure than on the chemical comptsition, and that the presence of lime or
any other substance would appear of far less importance than that the soil
should be, not too rich, but of a light and porous character, so that the delicate-
fibres of the roots might penetrate easily in all directions." This opinion is
probably not far from the truth wherever the climate is most suitable to the
cultivation of cotton.

Dr. Wight, after practical experience of some years, states that w'here it
is in his power to choose, he prefers "a deep dark culored, light, almost sandy
loam, and if it has been long out of cultivation so much the better." The
black cotton soil in which so much of the cotton of India is grown, and which
is generally considered the best for the purpose, is remarkable for its power
of retaining moisture; while of the red soil he says, "again I am informed
that in some parts of the country, for example in the Yizagapatam district,
the finest cotton crops, both as to quantity and quality, are raised on red soils,
and the redder the better for the purpose." But the suitableness of these
several soils we must consider in connection with, chmate.

COMING TO THE POINT IN AN INTELLIGIBLE,
PRACTICAL WAY.

In the Kent County Maryland Farmer's Club, a discussion seems to have
been entertained as to the proper time for sowing wheat. In a certain club
ycleped a '■'Fanner^ s Club!'''' at which we erewhile attended, occasionally,
for curiosity and amusement, and with certainty of information when such
as Doctor U. and C. H. A., &c.. happened to be there — otherwise, those in
attendance were any thing but farmers — you might have attended to hear
the question discussed, what is the right time to soio wheat? but in a few
minutes, as soon as the everlasting talkers could get oft^ on a tangent, you
would in vain endeavor to guess what was the question at issue. Now we
like a discussion that ends in something plain and practical like the following :

"At a meeting of the Agricultural Board of the Agricultural Society of Kent county,
on the 8th inst., the opinion of members was asked in reference to the projier time of
seeding wheat:

Mr. Ricaud thought all wheat should be seeded as early after the 15th August as
practicable.

Mr. Smith agreed that Mediterranean wheat should be seeded so early, but other wheat
may be advantageously seeiled up to 10th October.

£))■. Kennard — The proper time for all wheat is from 20th August to 10th September.

Mr Wdlcins concurred in opinion with Dr. Kennard.

3Ir. Westcott — From 1st August to 20th September, season suiting and ground being in
proper order, which are considerations of controlling influence.

3Ir. Price — All wheat should be seeded from 20di August to 10th September.

31r. Spencer thou.ght nothing was to be gained by seeding before the 1st Septo^mbcr.

Mr. Constable — Decidedly in favor of early seeding, from 20th August to 20th September.

3Ir. Iling£;old — Has seeded early for two years past, thinks his wheat seeded from 1st
to 15th September best; seeded a portion of his crop last year as early as middle of
August.

Judge Chambers — Seeded on the IGth August as long since as 1837 with singidar suc-
cess. The best wheat he had this season was seeded in the middle of August, which is
the favorite period with him."'

But against the unanimous opinion of these nine practical farmers, in favor
of early seeding, what is to be said of the opinion and practice oi^ Judge
Carmichael, also a closely observing farmer, w!io sows late to avoid, and
seldom suffers by, the ravages of the Hessian fly? He says —

" I never sow wheat till the cool weather in October disarms the Hessian fly, by which
I seldom sufier."

The witnesses live in neighboring counties.

THE FERTILIZING POWER OF MANURES. 247

THE TRUE SOURCE OF THE FERTILIZING POWER OF
MANURES, OR, THE EFFECT OF SHADE.

The following is that sort of communication which we take pleasure in spreading be-
fore inquiring readers, who pay to the journals they patronise, not the poor compliment
of merely subscribing their names and paying, (ivhich some forget to do!) but that which
is to every editor of true ambition much more gratifying, that of reading and studying
what he takes the trouble to furnish. For ourselves, our humble aspiration has ever been,
not so much to count the number of subscribers as to give in new ideas subjects for
thought f?) those we have ; for however slow we might be to imitate, who may not ad-
i.iire the pride of the French cook, who threw himself upon his sword because the
fish for his royal master's dinner had been spoiled in the cooking?

We regard the following as, to a certain extent, original; and highly important in th©
practical uses that may be made of it. There is not an observant liirmer, in the habit of
noticing all he sees connected with his profession, but may remember some facts corrobo-
rative of Doctor Baldwin's theory. We remember, when a boy ourselves, delighting in
assisting " the people" on Saturdays in the light work of hay-making, that the noble-
minded and noble-hearted proprietor, who was truly a father over all, black and white,
always made them select poor spots in a neighboring field on which to cure and stack tlie
hay, and these spots, merely from the effect of the stacks having stood upon them, were
sufficiently fertilized to bring heavy crops of corn and tobacco. Yes, these are the sort of
communications that impart ideas that excite thinking, and that are well worth to the
reader the annual price of the journals in which they are kindly permitted to appear:

Wi7ichester, Virginia, August 25, 1848.

Deau Sir, — I submit for your consideration a few practical observations
upon the subject of manures, or the ahment of plants, made during an at-
tempt to renovate a large tract of impoverished land in this county. I
consider the residue of putrefaction the only manure. All substances, ani-
mal, vegetable, and mineral, either liquid or solid, which are capable of un-
dergoing the putrefactive fermentation, form, by the chemical changes pecu-'
i ;;r to that process, a fertihzing residue. This residue is the only pabulum
of plants. No substance whatsoever, not excepting animal excretions, can
be properly considered a manure until it has been subjected to putrefaction.
To perfect this, it is indispensable that most substances should be favorably
located. Close, dark, cool, damp locations, with a slight contact of air, most
favor it. Light, heat, much moisture, and a free circulation of air, retard,
and in many cases entirely prevent, the putrefactive process. 1 believe
that the quality of the manure does not depend so much upon the chemical
composition of the substances subjected to putrefaction, as it does upon the
manner of perfecting that process. Manure made in vaults is admitted to
be the best, and manure in stables better than that of barn-yards. Straw,
which has remained in vaults or ice-houses one winter, when ploughed un-
der in the spring, proves to be a very valuable manure ; taken from the
rick it is no manure. The earth itself is capable of being converted into
the best manure. If densely shaded, it will undergo chemical changes, ap-
parently similar to those which vegetable and animal matters do when they
are converted into manure ; namely, it is changed in color, consistence, and
fertilizing qualities. This fertilized earth is known as vegetable mould, or
virgin earth, to be the best of all manures. It has hitherto been considered
the residue of vegetable decomposition. I furnished you with the facts in
June last, which convinced me that this definition was erroneous. I now
wish to direct your attention to a few additional facts. Vegetable matters
upon the earth's surface exposed to a free circulation of air, appear to be
decomposed by a different chemical process, termed mouldering, which
forms a trifling carbonized residue destitute of fertilizing qualities. And
this is the case, also, when ploughed under and deprived of contact with
the atmosphere. Unless they be previously saturated with water, or lime
be added, they do not undergo the putrefactive fermentation ; but by

248 AGRICULTURAL CONVENTION AT BALTIMORE.

mouldering become useless, if not pernicious, to after vegetation. The
astonishing fertilizing effect of vegetable matters, when thickly covering
the surface of the earth for a length of time, cannot be accounted for by
their decomposition, for the quantity of the residue of clover, leaves, or
straw, would not be sufficient, even if it were always equal in virtue to the
best Peruvian guano. Straw spread thickly upon the poorest land — " land
completely exhausted of alkahes" — will enrich it by the time it becomes
decomposed ; ten times the quantity ploughed under will produce no per-
ceptible benefit. If the manure of straw be owing to the six per cent, of
phosphate of lime which it contains, why is it that sixty per cent.^placed
in the earth imparts no fertility to it ? But that the fertility of the earth i.-i
not attributable to the decomposition of the straw, is proved by the fact, that
any substance incapable of decomposition will produce precisely the same
effect. I do not entertain a doubt that the Avonderful fertilizing effect of all
substances covering the surface of the earth for some time, is to be attri-
buted to shade and shade only, and that the degree of fertility imparted to
the soil may always be estimated by the density and duration of the shade.
That shade is a most powerful and efficient agent, is exemphfied by the
rapid destruction of the timbers and floors of buildings without cellars,
when the precaution of preserving ventilation beneath has been neglected.
That it can be most profitably employed by the farmer in fertilizing the
surface of the earth, I know from experience ; for lands densely shaded
one year, ivith any substance ivhatevcr, will always prove to be more dura-
bly enriched than lands well manured. Any number of acres may be
rendered productive by it (without labor or expense) in as short a time as it
usually takes to prepare manure and apply it to a \cw acres. No method
which has been hitherto suggested for the renovation of large tracts of worn-
out laud is so practicable, cheap, and effective.

Yours, with great respect, Robert T. Baldwin.

THE AGRICULTURAL CONVENTION AT BALTIMORE, IN

MARYLAND.

The last few months have been remarkably fruitful of conventions. If
their dignity and worthiness were measured by the scale of real usefulness,
in reference to the objects for which they were called, among the most
Jionorable would be esteemed the convention of agriculturists assembled at
Baltimore on the 5th of last month. Yet of all that have occurred, it was
probably the smallest in point of numbers. But, if to be measured by the
spirit, intelligence, character, and patriotic designs of those in attendance,
then was it worthy of the noble occasion for which it met. Where the
yeast is so good, a small quantity will leaven a large mass; and thus may it
be hoped the proceedings of this m.eeting will prove to have been one of
those small, but lively sparks, which, falling on combustible matter, spreads
rapidly and wide its renovating influence — not one of those devastating con-
flagrations that sweej:) as with the besom of destruction the accumulations
of honest industry, but one of those to which the farmer on the river-shore
has sometimes recourse in spring-time to destroy the poisonous growth and
rubbish of the marsh, to be succeeded by sweet and nutritious herbaoe.
May we not hope that ihis farmers^ convention will be the harbino-er of re-
form in particulars that affect not merely the profits, but the character and
standing of the profession, insuring for it among themselves (where re-
form must always commence) a higher sense of self-respect, and a more
perfect combination to command consideration from others, and especiallv
from men in public life, who much need to be reminded that the interest of

AGRICULTURAL CONVENTION AT BALTIMORE. 219

the plough is that which, of all others, has the first claim on their attention?
Surely, as is well said in the American Farmer,

" It is time that the agricultural community should take measures to protect their in-
terests, as from long neglect, though numbering three-iburths of the entire population of
the country, they have less weight in state and nntidnal councils than almost E^ny other class.
We say to them — the time for action has arrived. Whilst millions are expended yearly
for the promotion of other interests, nothing has been done to improve the condition of
those engaged in agriculture.''

For our humble selves, we are free to confess, that, highly and unaffectedly
as we profess to respect the intelligence, character, and designs of every
member in attendance on this occasion, we should have little hope of any
permanently profitable results, were it not that we anticipate, as the conse-
quences of the wholesome excitement th which such conventions should
lead, a higher appreciation and more determined enforcement of the claims
of agriculture to take precedence overall other pursuits, Avhen provision is
to be made for instruction or encouragement by public authority and pub-
lic means. More we have not room to say at present, except very briefly
to add that the convention proved to be here what its members are known
to be at home — one of working men ; and that, during the short time thiy
could he kept together, (too short, as usual,) much important matter was cut
out for future consideration and action, besides the formation of a Slate
Agricultural Sociclij at the suggestion of Mr. Dobbin.

On the meeting of the convention, John Glenn, Esq., on the nomination
of Mr. Calvert, and by the unanimous acquiescence and wish of the body,
was called to the chair. Mr. Glen is president of the Farmers' Club of
Baltimore County, under whose auspices the convention met, and, though
a professional man, whom all sides are eager to retain in all important cases
of doubtful issue, he j-et finds time to give his countenance to all undertak-
ings to meliorate and improve the condition and prospects of agriculture ;
but he belongs (we say it not without deliberation) to the most liberal of all
callings and professions, in our humble judgment.

As " The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil" is stereotyped, to enable us
to meet the demand for the thousands of copies which, it seems likely, will
yet be wanting, it has to go early into the hands of the stereotyper, and
thus this is the last moment to send forward any thing for the October num-
ber. We can only give, therefore, what follows from the Baltimore Ameri-
can, the morning after the adjournment of the convention ; but we must
take room to add, that, while so many drones remained sleeping at home,
that active working bee, in the hive of agricultural industry. Major Jones
of Delaware, favored the convention Avith his presence and good counsels.
Nor can we suppress the thought, as it arises at the moment, that, while so
much solicitude was evinced for the procurement, on the best terms, of a
supply of guano, it would not have been mal apropos to have passed a vote
of thanks to George Law, Esq., of Baltimore, for his active, persevering,
and most disinterested, and even generous agency, in diffusing the substance
over the country, and with it a knowledge of its properties. But the process
may be said to have resembled that of boring and splitting granite rocks with
gun-powder, so unbelieving are farmers ; yet all mysteries become pla-in
enough when ivcll explained, and thus all noiv understand the value of guano,
and the cry is how shall we get it on fair terms? For this let us wait the
report of the committee appointed at the judicious and well-timed sugges-
tion of Mr. Farquhar, of Montgomery county.

"The committee appointed to nominate officers for the State Agricultural Society, sub-
mitted the following report, which was adopted, and the gentlemen named declared to
be eif'cted oHlcers of the State Agricultural Society:

Vol. L— 3-^

250 THE IRON TRADE.

President — Clias. B. Calvert, of Prince George's county.

Vice-Prcsidenfs — John Glenn, Baltimore city; H. S. Key, St. Mary's county; Gen. J. J.
Chapman, of Charles county; Col. H. Capron, of Prince Georp;e's county ; Geory;e Wcems,
of Calvert county; Win. C. Syles, of Ann Arundel county; Dr. A. Thomas, Howard dis-
trict; A. Bowie Da^as, Montgomery county; David W. Naill. Frederick county; William
A. Dodge, Washington county; Dr. Samuel Smith, Alleghany county; Geo. Patterson,
Caroline cotuity; Wilson Carey, Baltimore county; R. McHenry, Harford county; Rev.
Mr. Mclntyre, Cecil county; Wm. S. Constable, Kent county; Jas. T. Earle, Queen Ann's
county; Samuel Hambleton, Talbot county; Jos. Pearson, Caroline county: Dr. J. E.Muse,
Dorchester county; Dr. William Williams, Somerset county; John U. Dennis, Worcester
county.

Corresponding Secretary — Geo. W. Dobbin.

Recording Secretary — Samuel Sands.

Treasurer Geo. M. Gill.

Curators Wm. W. W. Bowie, N. B. Worthington, J. C. Welsh, Z. Barnum, and Chas.

R. Howard.

'• On motion of Mr. Davis, the convention then adjourned sine die, and the State Agri-
cultural Society immediately thereafter organized, the President. Mr. C. B. Calvert, taking
the chair, and returning his thanks for the honor conferred on him.

" On motion of Mr. Crane, the pajoers throughout the state were requested to publish
the proceedings of this body.

" The chair then proceeded to appoint the several standing committees called for by
tlie laws of the Society.

" Mr. Dobbin submitted a resolution calling for the appointment of a committe to re-
port on insects injurious to husbandry common in Maryland. The resolution was adopted,
and the cominittee appointed.

"The Society then adjourned to meet on the evening of the 8th of November next."

We shall doubtless have the official report in the American Farmer.

THE IRON TRADE.

In our last, we stated our belief that if all the furnaces and rolling--!nills
of the Union, created since 1843, were closed, and the product of iron thus
reduced from 700,000 to 350,000 tons, we should not import above 80,000
tons to take the place of the other 350,000, and for the reason that the pay-
ment of 80,000 tons produced abroad would be more onerous than that for
the 350,000 produced at home, and we have just met with a statement that
tends stronp^ly to confirm this idea.

The import of iron into New York in the first half of the followini^ years
has been as follows :

ISIG. 1847. 1818.

Bar Iron, tons, 0690 14,'259 13,000

Pig do. 7700 19,.500 23,960

Here we see that the Avhole increase is but 23,000 tons, and that would
perhaps give from thirty-six to forty thousand tons for the Union. We have
thus gained by the tariff of 1840 the use of that quantity, but we have closed
rolling-mills that Avould have produced a far greater one, and we have pre-
vented the building of furnaces that would be now making 200,000 tons per
annum, and of roUing-mills that would be yielding 100,000 tons of rails to
be used for enabling the farmer and planter to get his products cheaply to
mark-et.

The price of iron has diminished, but the power to purchase it has dimi-
nished far more, because the farmer is the man ivJio pays the freight, and
every increase of the distance between him and his customers diminishes
his power of consumption. He it is that should labor to bring the loom and
the anvil to take their place by the side of his plough, and he it is that will
do so, when he can learn to appreciate the fact that he must pay all the
freight, and all the commissions, and all the insurance, and all the waste,
that takes place in the passage of his food and his wool, or his cotton, on
their passage to and from the place where his wool and his cotton are con-
verted into cloth, and his food converted into iron.

STEAM POWER. 251

STEAM POWER.

WHY NOT EMPLOYED MOKE EXTE^'SIVELY FOR AGRICULTURAL PURPOSES
IN THE UNITED STATES ?

Written for the Model American Courier, by tlie Editor of the Plough, Loom, and the Anvil.

If the many thousand dollars which Congress begins to expend, under
retence of satisfying the just demands of Agriculture, for its annual com-
pilations of facts, and statistics, sliced with long sharp scissors from the jour-
nals of the day, and commonplace letters about feeding hogs on corn, cooked
and uncooked, were appropriated in premiums for scientific discoveries in
the principles, processes and implements of agriculture, and for wf?/' applica-
tions of steam and other powers to the cultivation of the soil, we should ac-
celerate and illustrate the progress of AmericanHusbandry,andthe genius and
talents of our countrymen would be put in a way to acquire enviable renown
and profitable results in field practice. One has only to step into any one of
the various manufacturing and mechanical establishments in our large cities,
and there see the great variety of purposes to which steam is applied, from
the boring of a 32-pound cannon, down to the smallest and most minute opera-
tion ; and he cannot fail to be struck with the advantages which result to all
trades and professions, from concentvjation of population and mind.

One of the sources of greatest loss to the farmers of the United States, is
the want of some cheaper means of draining land. Ride where you will,
through the old States, and you will see thousands of acres of the best land
Avaste for want of thorough ditching and draining. The absence of popula-
tion, occasioned by our encouragement of foreign labor, and consequent want
of consumers near the plough, is generally enough to account for this waste
of the richest lands. Still, it would not exist to the extent that it does, if the
operation could be accomplished, as we are persuaded it might, if Yankee
ingenuity could be stimulated by the certainty of adequate reward, for the
invention of some mode of applying steam, or even horse power, economically
and skilfully, to the purposes of ditching and draining.

In the account of the great Fair lately held in England, where the mere
catalogue of implements exhibited made more than 200 pages of letter-press,
we find the following account of draining implements, and harrows.

We are quite aware that, generally, for the uses and circumstances of
American farmers, we are ahead of the old country in the way of imple-
ments, and that those which have been invented there, when imported, haA^e,
in many cases, been reformed and modified, to make them better suited to
our purposes ; but this is no reason Avhy, when new ones are invented, our
Agricultural Societies and implement makers should not import them, if
only to be thus modified and improved.

"Draining Implements. — Of these, Messrs. Mapplebeck and Lowe, of Birmingliam,
contributed several; as did also Mr. H. Clayton, of 21 Upper Park-place, Dorset Sqiiarej
Loudon. Under this head we must not omit to mention a model of a very powerful
machine invented and manufactured by Mr. Joseph Paul, of Thorpe Abbot's-hall, Norfolk,
which is thus described by the inventor. This machine may be worked with three or
more horses, and liy a single operation will cut a drain frmn three to Jive feet in depth at the
rate of four feet per minute, leaving it in a finished state, ivith a perfectly level bottom for the
tiles to rest upon. It is also calculated for raising subsoil to the surface for the purpose of
claying lands, [why not then in our marl pits?] and when used with four horses, will raise
from 4 to 5 cwt. of clay per minute; and on stony soils it may be made equally efficacious,
although the operation would be somewhat slower. It may be used to the greatest ad-
vantage when the surface of the soil may have become so hard, either by frost or dry
weather, as to render it impracticable to accomplish the cutting of drains by manual labor.
The utility of this implement, when it is required to cut drains on clover lands in course
for wheat crops, and from which the first crop has been taken, is clearly seen; as the clay,
from being immediately spread over the smface, becomes thoroughly pulverized, and

252 THE NORWEGIAN HARROW.

comes into iinmediate operation for the succeeding crop, while, from the rapidity with
whicli the work is accoinpiished, the second crop of clover is not retarded in its growth.
Price £5U, exclusive of royalty, [or copyright,] winch must vary under the circumstances
in which it may have to be used. We had previously heard something of the working
of this machine; and have no doubt, from the ingenuity and respectability of Mr. Paul, as
a large, practical ikrmer, that his description of its capabilities and powers are fully borne
out by facts. Mr. Paul has applied the same princij)le to a separate machine tor deep
subsoiling and pulverizing the land to the depth of 20 or 30 inches, and at tlie same time
bringing up such portion of the subsoil, to be distributed on the surface,as may be deemed
expedient. Price 30 guineas.

Although the above machine, at 50 guineas, would be too costly for our
farmers generally, yet if a single machine were had, or a good drawing, it
would soon be improved, probably as the English drill machine was improved
by. Mr. Pennock, and others have been by the unfettered and active inge-
nuity of American mechanics. And besides, if it will cut a ditch at the
rate of from 3 to 5 feet deep and 4 feet long in a minute, or 240 feet in an
hour, or 2400 feet in ten hours, a man might make a good business in taking
it from farm to farm, and working by the perch. What we insist on is, that
such things should be systematically watched for and imported. In England
great improvements are stimulated by the certainty of great rewards in the
price of meat and grain ; let us then, if we cannot offer the same induce-
ments, because we do not force those employed in manufacturing for us to
come here with their looms alongside of our ploughs, let us^^we sa}^, at least
keep a sharp look-out to take advantage of the fruits of this more universal
and powerful stimulus to agricultural improvement and agricultural machines
in the mother country. Such, for another example, as is noticed in the same
account of the recent agricultural exhibition in England. The reference is to

THE NORWEGIAN HARROW.

Of these we noticed perhaps 100 varieties, from the powerful drag to the
light seed harrow, and from the common oblong to the diamond, zig-zag,
circular and serpentine form. The Norwegian, or revolving spike harrow,
seems to have lost none of its former value, if we may judge from the increase
in the number and quality of those exhibited on this occasion. Mr. Richard
Stratton, of Bristol, alone, had five of different dimensions, chiefly invented
by G. E. Frere, Esq., of Roydon, in Norfolk, but improved by himself.
The chief improvement in their construction (speaking of the machine
generally) consists in the facility with which they may be raised and lowered
at the land's end ; and on this point none pleased more than that of Mr.
Samuel Smith, of Northampton, thus described by himself as the inventor,
improver, and manufacturer: — "This implement is made ])rincipally of
•wrought-iron ; it has four wheels — two cast-iron and two Avrought-iron ; it
has likewise a strong wrought-frame, and four rollers full of spikes, the spikes
on the front roller being two inches longer than those on the other three, so
that it may mount the large clods more easily. The front axle-tree is made
to oscillate, so that the wheels always take a level boring; it is also provided
with a very powerful lever, by which it can be raised or lowered at pleasure.
Price, at Northampton, £20." The following letter to Mr. Stratton so satis-
factorily explains the nature and operation of one of these machines, that
we do not hesitate to give it a place in our report.

" To Mr. Richard Stratton, Bristol. — Sir: AVhen I received the Nor-
wegian harrow, last winter, I was disappointed with it, believing it to be too
heavy, and finding my workmen unwilling to use it. This opinion I shortly
expressed to you at the time. I have now, however, a very different story
to tell. It is not too heavy; and it is as absolutely requisite for the efficient
cultivation of my land as a plough and the common harrow. Without it,

LIEUT. W. D. PORTER. 25^

I could not have sown my oats, barley, or mangold wiirzel, nor have brought
my ground into proper order for potatoes and turnips. This is no exaggera-
tion, whatever. During the late dry weather, as soon as I had ploughed
the land, I ran the Norwegian harrow over it once. It broke the clods to
pieces, and left a fine light bed beneath. No drags or harrows would have
accomplished anything to be compared to it, and most certainly not without
ten times the work: though I do not believe it could have been done at all
without it. The men who used it were astonished at the work, and praise
the machine in unbounded terms. I lent it to many of my neighbors, and
their opinion of it does not differ from mine. One says he could not have
got his land fit for potatoes, nor have sown his barley in a satisfactory man-
ner without it ; another says it is worth £50 ; and others, that it was worth
to them at least a guinea a day. All their workmen concur with them in
their praise of it. I could relate many instances of entire failure to bring
land, not differing in its quality from mine, into cultivation during this season ;
and of instances of days being occupied to do work which the Norwegian
harrow accomplished in difew hours. It is the only occasion I am acquainted
with, when a general concurrence in the value and importance of a new
instrument wets universal, without qualification or exception ; and when
the workmen were actually dehghted to use it. There is always a prejudice
among ploughmen against a new implement ; and that any such feeling
should have been silenced by the most obvious and manifest efficiency of
the Norwegian harrow, is the strongest testimony that could be given of its
great value.

" Your very obedient servant, " Thomas Falconer.

"Wootton, Christ Church, Hants, May 23."— Price 151. 10s.

A CHIP OF THE OLD BLOCK, AND A GOOD ONE,

Is this Lieut. W. D. Porter, son of Commodore David Porter ! An
article in the Washington Union says :

"During his residence at Tuspan, Mexico, as governor of the province, Lieut. William
D. Pouter made a coast survey of sixty miles, and a topographical survey of the same
distance inland, the results of which he promptly furnished to the commander of the
squadron in the Gulf On his return to the United States, in command of the schooner
Mahonese, he brought with him some thirty or forty of the native plants of the pro-
vinces of Tuspan and Chicintepex, among which are several valuable fruits and vegeta-
bles ; also a variety of birds, some of which are known in natural history as ' the Cura-
coa ;' these are about the size of a full-grown turkey, and are easily domesticated.

" The plants, &c. have been deposited by Lieut. Porter, whh the National Institute, and
will prove a valuable addition to its already very extensive collection."

One of the most expressive and beautiful compliments that Avas ever
penned by a great statesman to a brave warrior, was that paid by Mr. Mad-
ison, in his annual message, to Commodore David Porter for his valiant
defence of the Essex frigate, where he fought to the last under disadvan-
tages, such as attend a man who combats against two, with one hand tied
behind him. We remember to have heard the noble hero say, that,
during the engagement, in which a ball passed through his old black straw
hat, three officers and men Avere shot dead at his feet while he was in the
very act of conversing with them. It was a contest as unequal as that at
Buena Vista; but one in which the superior could hold his inferior at his
own distance. Porter had no chance to grapple his enemy, as the gallant
Taylor had, else the result might have been equally fortunate, as it was an
eqilally glorious display of patriotic and invincible courage, and the annals
of war can supply nothing more so.

254 A VISIT TO MR. VAIL's SHORT-HORNS.

We cannot risk marring, by attempting- to quote from memory, the com-
pliment so sententious and beautiful, from the polished pen of the illustrious
Madison ; but, in proof of the value which brave men may well attach to
such praise from such men in such places, we may add the remembrance
of hearing Porter say, that it well repaid him for the mortification of not
being able to come to close quarters with his wary enemy.

Porter was among the most constant and eager readers of, and a frequent
and highly interesting contributor to the old American Farmer. His cor-
respondence was highly valued by the editor for its versatility and humor
and intelligence. Among other direct contributions to the stock of agri-
cultural and horticultural materials, we are reminded by the above extract
that he too sent to Mr. Skinner, then editor of the old American Farmer,
some large fowls, in size between the barn-door fowl and turkey, called
in South America Powees, if we remember rightly.

They were sent out to Mr. Oliver's country seat, Plarewood, and were
seen thei'e for some years after, but we behove never increased their famil}^
and got badly frosted in the feet.

We have often adverted to, but never dwelt, as our knowledge of their
services and our feelings would prompt us to do, on the very many good
offices rendered to Jimerican agriculture by American officers of the navy.
It would be impossible to display a higher or more enlightened spirit than
many of them have done from that bright era in our naval history, illus-
trated by such men as Decatur, Rogers, and Porter, and Hull, and Bain-
bridge, and Jones, and down to the last point of that time when most agree-
able, social, official,* and editorial relations, made us familiar with their do-
ings for the good of the plough. We need hardly add that we shall always
be prompt to brighten the old chain, individually, and as editor now of
" The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil."

A VISIT TO MR. VAIL'S SIIORT-IIORNS.

We embraced lately, Avith much pleasure, an opportunity to visit, under
the kind attentions of their spirited owner, Mr. Vail's large and superior herd
of short-horns, near Troy, in New York. Professing to be something of
judfjcs, we venture to say that a large portion of the herd Avould pass nms-
ter at the best exhibitions in England — as why indeed should they not, since
many of them are individuals imported with great care as to family and
quality, and at very heavy expense ? Infusing the blood of the Whitaker
stock with that of "the celebrated Bates stock, whose excellence has been
repeatedly proclaimed in English agricultural annals, Mr. Vail has mani-
fested a laudable solicitude to maintain the excellence of his herd, and will
have at his command choice materials to meet the wants of those who may
desire to convert their surplus corn and grass into the greatest quantity of
beef in the shortest time. Still we should doubt whether his stock may
not be increasing beyond a remunerating demand for good things in this
country, and, were we not afraid of intruding, would recommend that he
keep a look-out to maintain a commanding position, so to regulate matters
that the means of supply should/o//oi^, noi precede demand.

• The senior editor of the Plough, Loom, and Anvil would now have been the oldest
purser in the navy, except S. Hanibleton, Esq., (one of the best practical farmers in
Maryland,) if ho had not left the service after the war, and after having been aiipointed
postmaster of Baltimore, also by Mr. Madison, he may be proud to add, on the ground
of personal acquaintance, confidence, and friendship. One of the best essays tliat lias
ever appeared in the aimals of American agriculture was Mr. Madison's address to the
Agricultia-al Society of Albemarle, especially in vindication of the use of oxen. Ah! those
were times to be remembered !

AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURES.

AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURES.

" We fire glad to learn that the dispute between the lessees of the Dowlais Iron "Works
and the iNIarquis of Bnte, as to the renewal of the lease, has been adjusted, and that
the works on which thirty thousand persons are dependent, will be continued."

" We must now place the manufacturer by the side of the agricuhurist,"
said IMr. Jefferson, in his letter to Mr. Austin, of Boston, in 1816. We were
reminded of it on reading in a late English paper the above extract, placed
at the head of this, for the sake of hanging on it, as on a peg, a few reflec-
tions.

Thirty thousand persons dependent, in England, on one iron work! — as
manj' persons as there are men, women, and children, living in all Cum-
berland, or Dauphin, or Armstrong, or Schuylkill county, Pennsylvania !
and yet we have lately seen that a large quantity of English railroad iron,
perhaps from these very English works, has been landed at Jersey city for
the use of a railroad to be laid down in Jersey state ! Now, can any farmer
of Pennsylvania or New Jersey fail to see that it would be better in this
case to have the m.anufacturer placed alongside of the agriculturist, even
though for a time, until that industrj- should get a fair foot-hold, he should
be obliged to pay a little more for his hand-hammer and his nails ?

Sivppnse the whole country were to demand a tarifT that would insure
the production, in our own country, of all the iron we need, must not the
farmer benefit by the diversion of so much labor from his own pursuit,
and b}' the presence and close proximity of so many consumers as must
now be employed in producing it abroad ?

Let us contrast for a moment the number here said to be dependent on a
single iron works in England with the number employed in some of the
important manufactures of Pennsylvania, as, for instance :

In woollen manufactures ----..- 2,909

In cotton manufactures ---.-.. 5,532

Two hundred and thirteen furnaces and one hundred and sixty-
nine forges 11, .552

In these great branches, total 27,983

Well, suppose these thirty thousand persons dependent on one Enrrlish
iron work were to get their provisions from America, would it not be still
better, both for the American farmer and the English manufacturer that
they should be brought here as nearly as possible to his plough, that so the
expense attendant on the sale and purchase should be as much as possible
saved to both ? and thus the farmer would save both money and time for the
improvement of his great machine of production, and the operative would be
able to get more for his labor.

Here we may appropriately invoke the attention of the reader to a ^ew
pa2fes of a work that has lately appeared under the title of " The Past, the
Present, and the Fitire," en all of which it casts a rich flood of lieht for
the benefit of all who would understand the true causes of the dispersion
of American agriculturists and the decline of American agriculture — a de-
cline resulting, as we now perceive, and as we have before said, not so
much from want of knowledge as from political causes ; that is, from de-
fects in national legislation, as irresistible, while they exist, as would be the
falls of Niagara against the efforts of a man who should attempt with a
straw to arrest it in its descent. We must ascend to and dry up the source
of the evil.

^V e should feel ashamed to draw so often from Mr. Carej-'s book, if we

256 AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURES.

could elsewhere find so well presented the great truths which ought to be
engraved on every farmer's mind.

" Ask tho farmer of Pennsylvania why he does not associate with his neighbors to
erect a furnace, and his answer will be, that three years since all the iron-masters were
nearly ruined : that iron is now £10 per ton ; but that before a furnace could be built,
it would be down to £5, and their capital would be sunk. He, too, would say that
charters were needed, and that charters could not be obtained.

'•Here lies the secret of dispersion. Here is to be found the cause of the impossibility
of concentration. The people of the United States have no power over their own
actions. They waste annually more labor in haulinsr their products to market, and their
consumers from market, to the west, there to be employed in raising more food and cot-
ton than would build markets for themselves. They waste on the roads the manure
yielded by the products of poor soils, and they leave on the rich ones the manure that
has accumulated for ages, and that would render their poor ones rich, and, while they
shall continue so to do, they must scatter themselves over the far-west; they must leave
home, and friends, and school-houses, behind : they must continue to be hewers of wood
and drawers of water on the poor soils, instead -ef becoming rich on the fertile ones ;
they must continue to obtain bushels where they might have tons; they must continue
to do as do the people of India: cultivate poor soils and find themselves bogged in tho
rich ones, through which they have to drag their products to market.

" The annual loss to the people of the Union from the want of the power to concen-
trate themselves on the rich soils, is far more than the value of the whole exports of
England to all parts of the icorld, and, were she to give them the whole, the gift would be
injurious. It would tend only to scatter the people more widely, for concentration would
then be impossible, and without that the earth cannot be made to yield, and, unless it be
made to do so, the poor soils cannot be made rich. Population makes the food come from the
rich soils, while depopulation forces men back to the poor ones.

" The number of states emjJloyed in producing cotton is ten. The whole product is
about two millions of bales, and the average is therefore about two hundred thousand
bales per state. To prepare a state for producing that quantity, and the food that is to
be consumed by the men who raise it, has cost hundreds of millions of dollars. To
place in that state machinery requisite for its conversion into cloth would cost ten mil-
lions of dollars, or less than the amount annually wasted: of labor for want of employment
at home ; of labor and manure in transporting the product to market ; of labor and ma-
nure in transporting men to new lands; of crop from the want of hands to pick it; of
freights, because of the increased demand for ships and wagons ; and of prices, because
of the surplus in the markets of the \vorld ; and less than half the amount annually wasted,
because of the necessity for cultivating poor soils while rich ones lie idle.

" The cost of transporting the hides and the food to the shoemaker, his awl and his
lapstone, is great, and all the manure is lost, and lost for ever. The cost of bringing the
awl and the lapstone to the hides and the food is small, and all the manure is saved;
and the great machine is improved, because the manure is saved and the shoemaker
wants a house ; and the house wants timber and stone, by the furnishing of which the
land is cleared. A large portion of the people of the United States are busily employed
in carrying the hides and the food to the awl and the lafistone, and in driving people
who might use the awl to other places, where they must raise more hides and food.

"What is the remedy for this state of things? The answer is easy: England must
be made to raise her own food, and she must be made to let other nations consume theirs.
The resistance of the United States put an end to the navigation laws. Their resistance
killed the right of search; their resistance killed the corn laws; their resistance will kill
the colonial system, and give freedom to India and Ireland, to the people of England, and
to themselves.

" To their resistance is due the fact that England has already turned lier attention, in
some degree, homeward; but the work is not half done. To make a short war, it must
be a strong one. No set of men can now feel any confidence in erecting iron-works,
cotton-mills, or woollen-mills; and until all shall feel full confidence, the little capitalists
cannot get to work, and the business must remain in the hands of great ones, who can
rim great risks ; and, while that shall be the case, but little will be done. Almost all
that exists in the Union is the work of the millions of little men engaged in improving
the great machine, and when they, the little farmers, and little mechanics, and little shop-
keepers, shall get to work, the production of iron, and of cotton and woollen clotli, will
go ahead as rapidly as farming has done, and then concentration will take place, and the
rich .soils will come into cultivation, and every county in the Union will have its iron, or
its cotton, or its woollens exchange, and then land will doul)le in product and in value.
There is not one county that could not sujjply the stone, the timber, and the labor neces-
sary for buikling a furnace or a mill, and the money necessary for the purchase of ma-

AGRICULTURE AND MANUFACTURES. 257

chinery : thus making a place of home exchange. Once built, further capital is not
needed. The grower of corn, and hay, and oats, and wool, and the yoimg men and
young women who have labor to sell, perform their exchanges at the factory, which be-
comes a little bank in which each man buys a share while accumulating means to build
a house or buy a farm, selling it again when the house is built or the farm is bought.
Throughout the Union, south of the Hudson, there is scarcely a single count/ in which
there is not more capital unemployed than would build such a place of exchange ;
and scarcely one in which, for want of such a place, there are not more people idle
than would suffice to carry it on. Were each county to help itself, all would be
helped.

"Wealth is Power. The people of the United States have the wealth. That wealth
has given them power, dispersed as they were, to do much. Concentration will give
them greater wealth and greater power. Their twenty-one millions produce at this
moment a greater quantity of commodities than the people of England, while they build
twice as many houses ; make twice as many roads ; ai)ply thrice the labor to the im-
provement of land; build four tiines as many school-houses and churches; and print ten
times as many nc'U'spapers. The machinery of production is greater than that of Eng-
land, and all they now want is better machinery of exchange. Let the farmers and
planters have this, and population will increase with greater rapidity than ever, for
young men will stay at home and marry instead of going to the west ; and tens of thou
sands of mechanics, and of coal and iron miners, will seek the United States ; while
laborers will come by hundreds of thousands, and every man will furnish a mouth to be
fed, instead of, as now, furnishing hands to produce food. They will then be consumers
of corn, and wool, and cotton, instead of producers — customers instead of rivals. Corn
and cotton will be produced at less cost of labor, and wages in corn and cotton will be
higher; while cloth and iron will be cheaper, and the farmer will cease to have to pray
for bad crops in Europe ; while the planter will find in the increased demand for his
product consequent upon the higher wages of England and of Europe, a certainty of a
good market for all he has to spare. Coffee, and tea, and sugar, will then be paid for
in cotton cloths, and the men who make the cloth will be customers to himself and to
his brother agriculturists of the north, who will use more cotton than at present ; while
Brazil and Cuba will want more cloths, because they will have a better market for their
sugar. Every diminution in the machinery of exchange tends to give more time for
impj-oving the great machine of production, whetlier for cotton or sugar, wheat, rye, oats,
or hemp ; to increase the quantity produced ; to increase the wages of the laborer and
the profits of the capitalist, landed or moneyed ; and to increase the comfort and happi
ness of all.

" Let but the people of the United States set the example of a determined resistance
to the system, and it will be followed by all Europe. French artisans will then seek
America and Germany, and France, too, will have to raise her own food. Her swords
will be changed for ploughshares, and her forests will disappear, while her coal mines
will be opened. She, too, will learn the art of concentration, and with each stej) of her
progress, the few will become less and the many greater.

" The peojDle of the United States owe this to themselves, and to the world. They
enjoy a higher degree of happiness than has fallen to the lot of any other nation, and
they should desire to aid their fellow-men in England, in Ireland, in Germany and in
India, and by helping themselves they will help them. As colonies, India and Ireland
will remain poor. As independent nations they will become rich, for they, too, will
insist on the right of placing the consumer by the side of the producer.

" Westward, the star of empire wends its way. From the west to the east civilization
has gone, and so it has yet to go ; from the base of the Alleghenies to the foot of the
Himalaya. The measure is one of peaceful and quiet, but determined, and it should bo
of united, action. It is one that interests

Every man that wishes to cultivate rich lands instead of poor ones :

Every man that would raise tons instead of bushels :

Every father that would wish to see his sons, aud his sons' sons settle round him :

Every mother that ■wishes to see her daughters married :

Every son that would have a wife and a home of his own :

Every daughter that would have a husband :

Ever journeyman that would be an employer :

Every laborer that wovJd have a farm and house, or shop, of his own:

Every property-holder that desires higher rents:

Every man that hates crime and loves virtue .

Every man that loves literature and art :

Every man that loves freedom :

Every man that loves the people of Ensland : or of France:

Vol. L— 33 ^ y 2

258 AGRICULTURAL SCHOOLS.

Every man that loves Ireland :

Every man that feels for India :

Every man that loves his old fatherland, Germany :

Every man that loves free trade :

Every man that loves peace :

Every man that loves his fellow man :

Every man that loves his Creator :

Every man that desires that the great law of Christ, "Do unto others as ye would that
others should do unto you," should become universally operative.

"It is the great work reserved for the people of these United States, and they have
the power to accomplish it. It shoidd be entered upon with the same feeling that ani-
mated the Puritans of old; the same that gave confidence to the men who, seventy
years since, signed the Declaration of Independence. It should be preceded by a return
to peace with an unfortunate neighbor, towards whom they now occupy the position of a
strong man pummeHng a weak one already on his back, to make him cry enough. That
war has already cost more than would have given to every county in the Union a place
for exchanging labor, corn, and cotton, or wool or iron ore, for cotton or woollen cloth, or
iron ; and if it continue another year, it will cost at least as much more. They have too
much land already. They want but concentration to enable them to become both rich
and strong.

WHAT INTELLECT MAY DO FOR AGRICULTURE.

Extract from a letter from Doctor Brewer, of Montgomery County, Maryland, to the Editor

of the Ammcan Farmer.
"On entering upon my new avocation, although more agreeable to my inclination, not
less arduous than the one I had abandoned, I soon discovered in my intercourse and con-
versation with my farmer-neighbors, a great lack of knowledge, and that most of their
operations were performed without being able to give satisfactory reasons for what they
did, save those of observation and hearsay — hence the same process was performed on
a stiff or loose soil, argillaceous or silicious. Geology and chemistry were sealed books
to most of them. It is self-evident, and will not admit of argument, that no man can
successfully prosecute a business he does not imderstand, nor can an ignorant man pro-
secute as successfully a business as a learned one, each using equal industry. I would,
therefore, advise, nay urge the farmers of every election district in the State to form clubs,
and by no means neglect to create libraries, and thus furnish the materials of knowledge.
There is no lack of native talents among the farmers — all that is wanting is excitement
and cidtivation. Let the means be provided for their mental cultivation, and I will, at the
risk of being called a demented, or at least a visionary man, inedict that, within the en-
suing twenty years" farming operations will be performed with steam or electrical ploughs,
to the great saving of hard labor and enormous expense. What would have been said
of an individual who, twenty years ago, had suggested the probability of navigating the
Atlantic and Pacific Oceans in steamships? Would he not have been called a madman?
Most assuredly he would. It is inculcidable what advances might he made in the sciences of
agriculture and mechanics, if proper means and encouragements were provided for the cultivation
of the minds of those engaged in these pursuits."

All this is very true and very worthy of the most deliberate consideration,
and more than that, of — being acted on; but why is it — the question arises
on the surface — why is it that we nowhere see sus^gestions of a demand
from the general treasure of the country, for establishing in each State a
Normal School, to prepare teachers to give instruction in the common country
schools, and thus have the seals of these "sealed books" broken? Why
are not members of Congress commanded to propose and insist on it? No —
the only question asked of those who offer for that most important of all trusts,
that of making the laws, is, to what faction does he belong — and for what
faction will he* employ his talents and influence in obtaining slices of the
public cheese? No inquiry is ever made of his knowledge of statistics, the
condition, and the wants, and the claims of agriculture, but does he belong
to my party? or rather is he one of the leaders to whom / belong? Is he
the bell-wether of the particular flock in which I am counted, and with
which I consent to be annually sheared, in that hope which springs eternal
in my breast, that one of these days, 1, or some lamb of mine, may come in

EXPERIMENTS WITH POTATOES AND GOOSEBERRIES. 259

for a few grains, more than the rest, from Uncle Sam's great crib at Wash-
ington ? These are the objects to which the free and independent repubhcan
farmers (so called) of the United States are too much in the habit of looking,
and so will it ever be while party spirit is allowed to supersede all pubhc
spirit and all public considerations.

EXPERIMENTS WITH POTATOES AND GOOSEBERRIES.

APPROPRIATION OF PUBLIC LANDS FOR AGRICULTURAL INSTRUCTION.

Patterson, 5th August, 1848.

Dear Sir: — You ask me the result of my experiment as to the potatoes
I planted the middle of November last. I answer that as yet we have no
rot or the appearance of rot — that the produce is fair, but not better than the
same kind of potatoes planted first of May. Part of those planted last fall
I covered with salt hay — the same those planted in May. On the whole I
think the produce was, or rather is, greater on those not covered. It is true
that the covered potatoes we have not had to hoe — but then the covering-in
cost was fully equal to the hoeing. But of salt hay I can, as to gooseberries,
speak favorably. Seeing that this was advised, I put round and under my
gooseberry bushes a full covering of salt hay — this was just as they were
coming in blossom — at same time I dusted the bushes with slacked lime,
early in the morning. The result was either from salt hay — or lime — or both
— that I had a large crop of uncommon fine berries, both as to size and flavor.
I mean next spring to dust all my fruit — whether vines, bushes, or trees —
with slacked lime one day, and wood-ashes on another — when in blossom,
early in the morning ; and am sure the result will be beneficial — the hme
I am sure of — the ashes I believe in.

The more I have thought on this subject, the more I am convinced it is
the duty of every well-wisher of his country to advocate the establishment
by our government of agricultural colleges in each State and Territory, and
that there is no way in which the lands belonging to the nation can be so
usefully employed. R. L. C.

Note by the Editors. — We agree that the States, through their representatives, ought to
insist on their share of the proceeds of the public lands — not to be appropriated by the
general government to the establishment of Colleges in the States, or at the seat of govern-
ment, where such colleges \\-ould be sure to become a den of laziness and corruption,
for hunkering political hacks and favorites of the dominant party — no — these appropria-
tions should, in each State, under State authority and control, be applied to the establishment
of Normal Institutes, for preparing teachers for country schools. Teachers to apply to the
art of cultivation the laws of nature and the sciences applicable to that art.

THE PRIZES IN MARYLAND,

So liberally offered by the editor of the American Farmer for the best
essays on the restoration of worn-out lands, have been awarded in the fol-
lowing order :

1st, to Edward Stabler; 2d, to Col. Horace Capron ; 3d, to T. P.
Stabler ; whose names assure us that they will convey a mass of valuable
practical matter through the pages of the American Farmer to all who have
access to that sterling journal, as every farmer should (as we have said
again and again) who does not value a bushel of wheat, or two of corn,
above the information, of inestimable value, which every number of it con-
tains. The names of the winners of such prizes ought to be inscribed on
a record in the State Library, in which should be preserved the names of
all farmers who best improve their own land, or teach others how to do it.
Public sentiment will never be in the right state until such thing's are done.

260 THE WOOL TRADE ABROAD.

PENNSYLVANIA AND HER INTERESTS.

From a journal that is distinguished for its opposition to the maintenance
of that protection that is needed to enable the farmer to draw to his side the
consumer of his products, we take the following —

"Tlitit Pennsylvania is destined to become one of the most opulent States that ever
Nourished, is so obvious a proposition as scarcely to require a specification of facts to
sustain it, independent of all intercourse with foreign countries. Our coal, iron, Hour and
manufactures, furnish a source of wealth that is of giant and measureless value. Inex-
liaustible as these are, who shall dare to affix a limit to our power, or restrict the bound-
less sweep of our available resources?"

The answer to this question may be found in the fact that the coal and
iron trades, from a state of high prosperity have fallen into a ruinous condi-
tion, and that coal mines are being abandoned, and furnaces are going out
of blast, and rolling-mills are being closed, under the operation of the tariff
of 1846, which is driving tens of thousands of miners and laborers to the
west, there to produce food, when they would prefer to remain in the east,
converting food into coal and iron. A limit is being fixed to the power of
Pennsylvania. The west is protected by distance and higher freights, dimi-
nishing the competition of English iron, and the west can continue to produce
coal and iron long after the mines and furnaces of the east have been closed.
Of all the portions of the Union, there is none whose policy is so adverse to
the prosperity of her people as is that of the "key-stone" State. Every
farmer in it desires to have consumers brought to take their places near him,
3'et they unite in support of a policy that converts customers into rivals, and
compels themselves to depend upon the variable markets of Europe for wheat,
when they might have at their doors a steady and perpetually increasing
market for potatoes and turnips, and hay, and milk, and fresh meat, for the
spare labor of themselves and their children, their horses and wagons ; and
the timber that now encumbers rich lands, covered with manure that would
enrich the poor ones they now cultivate. Of all the States of the Union,
there is none that would profit more than Pennsylvania, from understanding
that the plough never has prospered, and never can prosper at a distance
from the loom and the anvil.

THE WOOL TRADE ABROAD— LAST REPORT.

The following, which we find in a late number of the Mark Lane Express, may prove
interesting to some of our northern readers. Li the letters of Colonel Randall on Sheep
Husban(h-y in the South, every thing has been said that need be, to inform the agriculturist
on that branch of his business. The reader may judge how much the subject is open
to study, and how nice must be the judgment of an adept in the trade, when he sees it
remarked, that in the lots of ivool at a great depot, he could detect "traces of defective feed!''

Foreign Wool. — The imports of wool into London last week were 2152
bales, of which 1561 were from South. Australia, 494 from Algoa Bay, and
the rest from Germany, &c.

There are no less than 30,000 bales of colonial and other wool declared
for sale on the 22d inst., and in the interior there is very little doing.

Accounts of the 10th inst. from Breslau state that wool was much reduced
in price, and would have been worse, but for the buyers who attended from
England and Hambro'. The sale of Zollverein fabrics was only accomplished'
by manufacturers submitting to lower prices ; and they had purchased raw
wool, although scarcely knowing how they could avoid further serious losses
by keeping their mills going. The great object, however, was to keep the
people employed. There were 25,000 quintals of wool left unsold of the
59,000 offered, and prices were 8 to 10 per cent, lower.

THE WOOL TRADE ABROAD.

261

Leeds, June 16. — We are unable to note any improvement in the foreign
wool trade since our last report, the demand being still very limited, and
prices almost nominal.

Breslau Wool Fair, June 9. — Without entering upon an extended ex-
planation of the well-known causes of the present unheard-of commercial
crisis, we only observe, that chiefly an unexampled want of credit, created
by the critical state of politics and the uncertainty of the future, has been
the principal cause of the great reduction of prices in the present fair.
Thanks to the extraordinary concurrence of English and Hamburgh buyers,
joined to the purchases of our home manufacturers, the result of the market
is not worse. The latter bought considerable quantities in order to give their
working people further employment and support, though they cannot expect
the ordinary sale.

The quantity brought to market was —

Of Silesian wool about .... 39,500 cwts.

" Posen '; " 8500

" Old Stock " .... 11,000

In all about 59,000

In the June fair of 1847, we had about 47.800
Therefore in this year we had a surplus of about 11,2U0
The wash and manipulation of the wools were perfect, yet there could
be sometimes observed traces of the defective feed, which, together with an
uncommon mortality among the flocks, has caused this time a minus of 8 to
10 per cent, in clipping.

The reduction of price has been —

$ per cwt.
20 J;o 30
22 " 30
18 " 25

For selected and high-bred wools . »
" fine and middle tine
« lower qualities .....

It will be understood that some lots had a smaller, others a greater loss to
undergo.

The following prices were obtained — ■

For Silesian super select wools from

" " select

high-bred ....
" '• fine .....

" " middle fine

" " low

" " double clept wool, fine

" " middle fine ....

" " low

'• Posen fleece wool, fine

" " " '' middle fine

" " " " low

" Silesian lambs' wool, hin;h-bred

" " fine .

" " " lower qualities

" " skin woo] ....

" " slipes .....
" " locks .....

" Polish ditto

" white Tigara wool (ordinary washed)
" " '• (well washed) .

" black " ....

$per

cwt.

90 to

110

SO "

88

70 "

78

60 "

68

50 "

55

40 «

46

40 "

45

32 "

38

26 "

30

50 "

60

40 "

45

35 "

38

80 "

97

65 "

70

48 «

53

25 «

35

30 «

40

20 "

28

17^"

20

22 "

23

There has been a great quantity of skin wool in the market, and none of
it sold except a few small parcels, the very low price of which not serving
as a guide, Ave do not quote them. The principal buyers have been English
manufacturers and dealers, as well as many Hamburgh, Netherland, and

262 PHILADELPHIA AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.

Belgium purchasers. The little cloth makers of the country, as well as all
Austrian and French buyers, have kept away. We had this time no sup-
plies of Hungarian, Austrian, and Bohemian wools ; but there may be found
great lots of them among the old stock. There has been bought but very
little in the warehouses, and the quantity of wools left in first and second
hand amounts to about 20,000 cwts. The greater number of the buyers
are still here, and many a bargain might yet be made.

D. C. S. GuNSBURG, Wool-broker.

COWS AT THE SHOW

OF THE ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY OF ENGLAND, IN JULY LAST.

Written for the Model American Courier, by the Editor of the Plough, the Loom and the Anvil.

After thirty years of competition and high prices in England, (the best
bulls and rams letting for the season for five times as much as they would
sell for in our country,) choice animals seem to maintain their prices won-
derfully. The last show of short-horn cows was said to be the best ever
exhibited in England. " For the general prize, Violet, purchased by Mr.
Hopper for 350 guineas ($1750), cajne last. She was met by the two prize-
cows, Chtrry and Hope, and was defeated by Hope. Each of those cows
is a winner of the Royal Agricultural Society's 1st prize, one at Newcastle
and the other at Northampton ; so that in this class for the local prize to-day,
we had the three best cows in England — three winners of the 1st prize in
three successive years, for competition. Hope, in this case, will not deceive
her friends. It would be absurd to attempt superficial criticism of such ani-
mals as these. ' Here stand three animals, worth 1000 guineas, and I will
give 600 guineas [$3000] for two of them,' was the ejaculation of an emi-
nent Lincolnshire breeder who was examininof them.

TO THE FARMERS OF PHILADELPHIA COUNTY AND

VICINITY.

The Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture will hold their annual
exhibition on Thursday the 5th, and Friday the 6th October, at the Rising
Sun village, about three miles north of the city.

The Committee of arrangement would earnestly appeal to you, 07ie and
all, to assist in rendering this exhibition what it ever should be, the great
centre of attraction ; let us all feel a duty to contribute something. Manu-
facturers and mechanics take a pride and find their interest promoted in ex-
liibiting the result of their labor and genius. Let us unite in displaying the
wondrous works of Providence and the effects of our industry. Blessed,
as we are, with a soil capable of the greatest production and in the largest
variety, we should take an honest pride in not permitting those enjoy-
ing less natural advantages to excel us. To all, then, we say, prepare your
offering, that we may make this exhibition sustain the reputation of Pennsyl-
vdnia for the fairest fields and largest barns, and show that we know how to
use the one to fill the other.

An address Avill be delivered on the second day of the exhibition by
1 )r. G. Emerson, of Philadelphia, a gentleman of well-known scientific
acquirements and practical experience as an agriculturist.

The trial of ploughs and ploughing will take place on the second day
of the exhibition. The list of premiums embraces almost every thing of
interest to the farmer. On behalf of the committee of arrangenients,

Samuel C. Ford, Chairman.

Fhiladelphia, September 13, 1848.

CINNAMON.

263

CINNAMON.

The Laiirus cmnamomum, from which
tree our spice called cinnamon is procured,
is a native of the East India islands, in
many of which it grows wild ; but owing
to tlie narrow policy of the Dutch, who, till
the year 1810, possessed most of the Spice
Islands, it has never been cultivated in any
of them, except in the Island of Ceylon,
where large plantations are reared, which
supply the rest of the world with this deli-
cious and valuable article. The tree, in its
uncultivated state, grows to the height of from
twenty to thirty feet, but, in the cinnamon
plantations it is not allowed to rise above
ten. The leaf resembles that of our laurel,
except in being strongly marked by three
principal nerves, which take their rise in
tlie footstalk, and run lengthwise through
the leaf. At its first budding the young leaf
is of a brilliant red, changing gradually from
that colour to a pea-green ; it becomes in its
maturity of a dark olive upon tlie upper
side, and of ratlier a lighter shade upon the
under surface. The fine tint of the yoimg
shoots is brilliantly contrasted with the rich
hue of the full-grown leaves. The blossom
is wliite, having the corolla six-parted, and
about the same size as that of the lilac,
which it also resembles in growth, except
that the footstalks to the flowers of the cin-
namon tree are longer than those of the
former shrub, consequently the bunch of
flowers is less compact. The blossoms are
produced from the axillae of the leaves, or
fum the extremities of the branches; tlie
scent, although weak, is extremely pleasant,
resembling a mixture of the rose and lilac.
The fruit is a small berry of the form and
consistence of an olive, and is filled with a
bor./ kernel. It ripens in the latter end of
autumn, and is gathered by tlie natives for
the purpose of extracting its oil, which they
use to perfume their hair and to anoint
themselves with upon grand occasions.
This oil, when congealed, becomes of a solid
substance like wax, and is formed into can-
dles, which are reserved for the use of the
King of Candy. The oil also is burned in
the lamjis of his audience-chamber when
he receives the ambassadors of other states.
The Laurus cinnamomum grows wild in
many parts of Ceylon, but it flourishes in the
t.iuth-west angle of the coast only, between
Negumbo and Matura, where the .'^oil is a
iine white sand, and where the air is moist,
and rains fall every month. In the northern
extremity of the island, where the climate
is dry and sultry, not a bush of it is to be
seen. The principal woods or gardens
where the cinnamon is procured lie in tlie

neighborhood of Columbo. The grand gar-
den near that town occupies a tract of
country twelve miles in circumference.
Others of a smaller size are situated near
Negumbo, Point de Galle, and Matura. The
prospect around Columbo is exquisitely
beautiful : the plantation ■which covers the
plain is bounded on one side by a broad
belt of cocoa-nut trees, and on another is
washed by the winding lake of Columbo;
beyond this luxuriant foregroimd rise groves
of evergreens, interspersed with tall clumps,
among which the cashew tree is conspicu-
ous ; and the whole is crowned by a long
and lofty range of Candian mountains. The
cinnamon gardens aflbrd delightful rides to
the inhabitants of Columbo, roads being cut
among the shrubs which make a winding
circuit of seven miles. The ground is gently
undulated, and the rich green of the laurel
is enlivened by innumerable species of
beautiful plants and flowers, springing up
spontaneously and blooming in perpetual
succession.

The cinnamon tree emits no scent while
growing, except a little from the blossoms ;
the footstalks and leaves are slightly aro-
matic, but it is the bark alone which gives
out that delicious odor to which no other
perfume bears any resemblance. Moores
simile is perfectly true to nature as respects
this tree : —

The dream of the injured patient mind
That smiles at the wrongs of men,

Is found in the brui.scd and wounded rind
Of the cinnamon, sweetest then.

There are several different sorts of cinna-
mon trees in Ceylon; of these only four are
esteemed fit for use : they are, the Rasse
Coorundoo, or honey cinnamon ; the Nai
Coorimduo, or snake cinnamon ; the Capara
Coarundoo, or camphor cinnamon ; and the
Cabatfe Coorundoo, or bitter cinnamon. From
the third kind a gummy substance contain-
ing camphor is exuded. The shrub may be
cultivated in either of the following ways : —
By seeds, which must be sown in the rainy
season ; by shoots cut from large trees ; by
layers; and, fourthly, by transiilanting the
old stumps.

The first method is of course the slowest,
as it is ten years belbre the tree reaches its
greatest perfection. The second mode is
less tedious, but, unless the sprouts be con-
tinually watered, they do not thrive ; the
cuttings must be taken very young — if they
have more than three leaves they die. The
third method, by laying down the young
branches, is also of slow progress ; trees
thus raised not being fit for use till they are

264

CINNAMON.

eight years old. The fourth manner is that
generally practised. The roots, carefully
transplanted, yield shoots of the proper size
twelve montlis after dieir removal ; but
great care must be taken that none of the
small fibres are injured; as, if they receive
the slightest hurt, the plant certainly dies :
even a scratch upon the root of a young
plant will destroy it. Around the old roots
spring up a multitude of suckers, which
yield the finest cinnamon.

The cinnamon tree blossoms in January;
in April the fruit is ripe, and soon after-
wards the business of decortication begins.
May and June, which are the most favor-
able months, are styled the great harvest;
November and December, in which also the
barking is practised, are called the little har-
vest. The art of stripping the cinnamon tree
is an employment of itself, and of the mean-
est kind. For this reason it is left to the
Cholias or Coolies alone, who form the low-
est of the native castes. Any other indivi-
dual who should follow this business would
be ignominiously expelled from his tribe.
The manner in which the workmen judge
whether a branch or offset be fit for cutting
is this: — When a tree bears fruit, it is sup-
posed to be in a healthy state ; and to prove
whether the bark be ripe, the Clioliah strikes
his hatchet obliquely into a branch; if, on
drawing it out, the bark divides from the
■wood, the cinnamon has attained its matu-
rity ; if not, it must remain growing some
time longer. The shoots which are cut
down are from three to five feet in length,
and about three quarters of an inch in dia-
meter. When a Clioliah has cut the quan-
tity of sticks which each man is obliged to
furnish daily, he carries them to a hut or
shed situated in an open part of the garden,
where, with the assistance of a companion,
he thus strips off the bark. The first part
of the operation after removing the buds
and leaves, is to scrape the rod thoroughly,
but gently, so as to remove the outer bark
or skin, which, if left on, would embitter
tlie flavor of the cinnamon. The knife used
is of a peculiar form, being convex on one
edge, and concave on the other, in order to
facilitate the process. Tlie bark is next cut
along with the point of the knife from one
end of the branch to the other, twice, and
after being gradually loosened with the con-
vex edge of the knife, is stripped oft" in one
entire slip, about half the circumference of
the branch. The smaller pieces are then
inserted into the larger ones, and are laid
out on mats to ilry; wlien, the moisture
quickly evaporating, the tubes contract and
form solid rods, acquiring at the same time
the rich brown color in which they appear
to us. These rods are lied together in bun-

dles, and carried to the government store-
houses, in order to be packed for exporta-
tion. The method of packing is this : —
Each bundle being formed of the weight of
ninety-two pounds, and about four feet in
length, is firmly bound with cords, and
sewed into a double covering of coarse
cloth. When one layer of bales is stowed
in the hold of a ship, a quantity of loose
black pepper is thrown in above it, and all
the crevices are completely filled up with
the latter spice. The surface being then
smooth, another set of bales is laid down^
and packed in the same manner. The pep-
per, by drawing the superfluous moisture to
it, preserves and improves the cinnamon,
which, at the same time, enriches its own
flavor : thus the two spices prove mutually
beneficial to each other. As pepper is not
grown in sufficient quantities in Ceylon to
answer the demand for packing, a great deal
is imported for that purpose from ]\Ialabar.
The cinnamon bark, before it is dried, is
of a pale yellow, and about the thickness of
parchment. The best is rather pliable, and
by that quality is distinguished from the
inferior kinds, as well as by its color ; the
more ordinary being thicker and browner.
After that part of the cinnamon which is fit
for exportation is sent off to Europe, the
fragments and small pieces are collected
and put into large tubs, with just enough
water completely to cover them. This mass,
after being left for six or seven days to ma-
cerate, is distilled over a slow fire, and cin-
namon-water is produced, with the oil float-'
ing upon the top of it. The latter is then
carefully skimmed off", and put into bottles,
which, alter being sealed, are brought to the
governor, by whom they are placed in a
chest properly secured. The oil is extremely
valuable, as the quantity is less than that pro-
cured from an equal weight of any other spice.
The cultivation of cinnamon, as at present
practised, is not of very long standing in
Ceylon ; the trade formerly depended upon
the produce of the trees growing wild in the
island. The Dutch governor, Falk, who
died at Columbo in 1781, not believing in
the connnon notion that cinnamon was good
in its wild state only, determined to make
the experiment of cultivation with it. Ac-
cordingly, he raised a few plants from seed
in his garden at the Grand Pass near Co-
lumbo, but, after flourishing for a time, they
withered and died. On accurately investi-
gating the cause of his disappointment, it
appears that a Cingalese, who earned his
livelihood by barking cinnamon in tho
woods, fearing lest his emj)loyment should,
by the cidtivation of the shrub, become tnore
easy and less profitable, had secretly be-
sprinkled the plants with hot water.

LOVE OF AMM4LS FOR THEIR YOUNG.

265

LOVE OF ANIMALS FOR THEIR YOUNG.

I HAVE always great pleasure in seeing
tlie afleclioa which animals have for their
offspring, and which sometimes shows itself
in an extraordinary manner. A hen who
has hatched young ducks, will follow them
in her agony into the water, and will even
sacrifice her life to preserve the lives of her
chickens; and whoever has seen a dog
break into a covey of young partridges, will
have had one of the strongest proofs which
exists of die force of natural affection. The
following is a striking instance of parental
attachment in a bird. A gentleman had di-
rected a wagon to be packed with sundry
hampers and boxes, intending to send it to
Worthing, where he himself was going.
For some reason, his journey was delayed ;
and he therefore directed that the wagon
should be placed in a shed in his yard,
packed as it was, till it should be ccjnve-
nient for him to send it ofli". While it was
in the shed, a pair of robins built their nest
among some straw in it, and had hatched
tlieir young just before it was sent away.
One of the old birds, instead of being fright-
ened away by the motion of the wagon,
only left its nest from time to time for the
purpose of flying to the nearest hedge for
food for its young ; and thus alternately af-
fording warmth and noiuishment to them,
it arrived at Worthing. The affection of
this bird having been observed by the wa-
goner, he took care in unloading not to dis-
turb the robin's nest; and the robin and its
young ones returned in safety to Walton
Heath, being the place from whence they
had sei out : the distance travelled not being
less than one hundred miles. Whether it
was the male or female robin which kept
with the wagon, I have not been able to
ascertain ; but most probably the latter, for
what will not a mother's love and a mo-
ther's tenderness induce her to do^

Fishing the other day in Hampton Court
Park, I disturbed a moor-hen who had just
hatched. Her anxiety and manoeuvres to
draw away her young were singularly inte-
resting. She would go a short distance,
utter a cry, return, and seemed to point out
the way for her brood to follow. Having
driven her away, that I might have a better
opportimity of watching her young ones, she
never ceased calling to them, and at length
they made towards her, skulking amongst
the rushes, till they got to the other side of
the pond. They had only just left die shell,
and had probably never heard die cry of
their mother before.

If you go near the nest of a lapwing, one
of the old birds will fly close to you, and 1

Vol. I.— 34

try to draw you from the nest. I have seen
my dog almost struck by one of the birds as
she flew past him ; and they seem quite to
forget their own danger in the endeavor to
preserve their offspring. It is said that
when a hind hears the hounds, she will
allow herself to be hunted, in order to lead
them awa)' from her fawns.

In the Royal Parks I have obs'ferved a
doe come up to a dog, who has approadied
the lair where her fawn was concealed, and
putting her feet together, she has made a
spring, and alighting upon him, has either
maimed or killed him. A friend of mine
was walking in Had ley Park, Worcester-
shire, when the discharge of a gun reverbe-
rated through the woods. Soon afterwards
a bleeding fawn bounded by, followed by
the keeper's hound, and, in close pursuit of
the hound, came a doe, the dam of the
wounded fawn. Loss of blood so w eakened
the poor fawn, that the dog soon brought it
to the ground. The doe, losing all her
natural timidity in affection for her^ off-
spring, attacked the hound with the utmost
ferocity, nor did the interference of the
keeper intimidate her. The man termi-
nated the sufferings of the fawn with his
knife, and carried it from the place : and
when the dam, as if agitated by excessive
grief, had surveyed the pool of blood, she
followed the dead fawn and its destroyers,
uttering a tremulous cry of maternal dis-
tress. This cry I often hear during the sea-
son for killing fawns, and it is one of j^ecu-
liar agony.

A cow was driven from Bushy Park and
sold in Smithfield market, her calf being
left at the head keeper's yard in the park.
Early the next morning, this cow was found
at the gate of the yard, having made hei
way through all the intricacies and impedi-
ments of London, and traversed twelvn
miles of road, in order to get to her calf
again. She must also have watched the
opportunity when the park gates were
opened, to get through them.

A gentleman who had resided for several
years in New South Wales, related the fol-
lowing circumstance, which he assured me
he had frequently witnessed while hxmting
the kangaroo : it furnishes a strong proof of
the affection of that animal for her young,
even when her own life has been placed in
the most imminent danger. He informed
me that when a female kangaroo has been
hard pressed by dogs, he has seen her,
while she has been making her bounds, put
her fore paws into her pouch, take a young
one from it, and then throw it as far on one

266

LOVE OF ANIMALS FOR THEIR YOUNG.

side as she possibly could out of the way of
ihe dogs. But for this mancEuvre her own
life and that of her young one would have
been sacrificed. By getting rid of the latter,
she has frequently effected her escape, and
probably returned afterwards to seek for her
offspring.

Such is the jealous care which a cat
shows for her kittens, that I have known
one to remove a whole litter to the leads at
the top of a house after they have been han-
dled by a stranger, though she had pre-
viously allowed every inmate of the house
to touch them.

It has been most beautifully and provi-
dentially ordered that the process of suckling
young is as pleasurable to the parent animal
as it is essential to the support of the young.
It is probably from a deficiency in the flow
of milk that we sometimes hear of animals
destroying their progeny. Where there is
a redundancy of it, and a painful sensation
is produced, animals will allow the young
of almost any other species to suck them.
Thus a panther has been nom-ished by a
bitch, and a puppy by a cat which had
been deprived of her kittens. As the mam-
mae of animals become painful when over-
distended with milk, they are reminded of
their helpless young, and are thus led to
visit them periodically at those times when
sustenance is necessary for them.

The following fact connected with this
subject is too curious to be omitted. It may
excite a doubt in the minds of many per-
sons, but it was so frequently witnessed by
those on whose veracity I can depend, that
I have no hesitation in relating it.

A cat belonging to Mr. Smith, the re-
spectable bailiff and agent of the Earl of
Lucan, at Laleham, is in the constant habit
of taking her place on the rug before the
parlor fire. She had been deprived of all
her litter of kittens but one, and her milk
probably incommoded her. I mention this
in order to account in some degree for the
following circumstance. One evening, as
the family were seated round the fire, they
observed a mouse make its way from the
cupboard which was near the fireplace, and
lay itself down on the stomach of the cat,
as a kitten would do when she is going to
suclc Surprised at what they saw, and
afiraid of disturbing the mouse, which ap-
peared to be full grown, they did not imme-
diately ascertain whether it was in the act
of sucking or not. After remaining with the
cat a considerable length of time, it returned
to the cupboard. These visits were repeat-
ed on several other occasions, and were
witnessed by many persons. The cat not
only ajjpcarod to expect the mouse, but ut-
t^'red that sort of greeting purr which tlie

animal is so well known to make use of
when she is visited by her kitten. The
mouse had every appearance of being in
the act of sucking the cat, but such was its
vigilance that it retreated as soon as a hand
was put out to take it up. When the cat,
after being absent, returned to the room, her
greeting call was made, and the mouse
came to her. The attachment which existed
between these two incongruous animals
could not be mistaken, and it lasted some
time. The fate of the mouse, like that of
most pets, was a melancholy one. During
the absence of its nurse, a strange cat came
into the room. The poor mouse, mistaking
her for its old friend and protectress, ran out to
meet her, and was immediately seized and
slain before it could be rescued from her
clutches. The grief of the foster-mother was
extreme. On returning to the parlor she
made her usual call, but no mouse came to
meet her. She was restless and uneasy,
went mewing about the house, and showed
her distress in the most marked manner.
What rendered the anecdote I have been
relating the more extraordinary, is the fact
of the cat being an excellent mouser, and
that during the time she was showing so
much fondness for this particular mouse, she
was preying upon others with the utmost
avidity.

A gentleman, now residing in Sussex,
had a cat which showed the greatest at-
tachment for a young blackbird, which was
given to her by a stable-boy ibr food a day
or two after she had been deprived of her
kittens. She tended it with the greatest
care ; they became inseparable companions,
and no mother could shovi^ a greater fond-
ness for her own ofl'spring than she did for
the bird. This incongruity of attachment in
animals will generally be found to arise
either from the feelings of natural affection
which every mother is possessed of, or else
from that love of sociability, and dislike of
being alone, which is possessed more or
less by every created being.

The following is, perhaps, a still more
extraordinary instance of the affection which
one animal entertained for another not of its
own species. Mr. Edwards, Lord Jersey's
trainer at Newmarket, had the care of his
lordship's celebrated horse Glencoe, and a
great afiection existed between Glencoe and
a large Newfoundland dog of Mr. Ed-
wards. The dog lived in the stable with
the horse, and followed him when he was
taken out to exercise. While this friendship
existed, Glencoe was parted with. The dog
was inconsolable, refused to eat, and it was
sup[)osed would have died. On being
brought from tlie stable by his master into
his sitting-room, which had several portraits

LOVE OF ANIMALS FOR THEIR YOUNG.

267

of horses hung against the wall, and that of
Glencoe among the rest, the dog fixed his
eyes on the likeness of his late companion.
At first he began to wag his tail gently, but
at last showed the greatest excess of joy,
jumped up to the picture, and it was evi-
dent that he had discovered the likeness of
his absent friend. This anecdote may be
thought extraordinary, but the celebrated
Dr. Pearce, Bishop of Rochester, mentions
one almost similar to it. He says that when
he was one day visiting Sir Godfrey Kneller
at his country-seat at Whitton, near Houns-
low, he carried him into his summer-house,
where there was a whole-length picture of
Lady Kneller, which was much damaged
and scratched at the bottom. Upon the
Bishop's expressing a curiosity to know how
it became so injured, Sir Godfrey said it was
owing to a favorite dog of Lady Kneller's,
who, having been accustomed to lie in her
lap, scratched the picture in that manner in
order to be taken up. This made the bishop
mention that Zeiixis had painted a bunch
of grapes upon a boy's head so natnrally
that a bird pecked at them. Sir Godfrey
answered, " that if tire boy had been painted
as well as the grapes, the bird would not
have ventured to peck at them."

Those agreeable naturalists, Messrs. Kir-
by and Spence, assert that insects are capa-
ble of feeling quite as much attachment to
their offspring as the largest quadruped,
will undergo as severe privations in nou-
rishing them, expose themselves to as great
risk in defending them, and, in the very
approach of death, exhibit as much anxiety
for their preservation. I had an instance
of this the other day in the case of a spider,
and I watched its whole proceeding with
infinite gratification. I found its nest in the
under part of the broad leaf of the striped
garden-grass. It was covered with a thick
sort of silky web or cocoon, with an opening
to enable the spider to go in and out. On
taking otF the covering, which consisted of
two diflerent layers, I found a deposit of
eggs closely packed together, and the whole
collection was about the size of a large pea.
Having completely exposed the eggs, I put
the spider and the part of the leaf to which
the eggs were attached under a glass. In
turning down the glass, the spider was at
the upper part of it, but she no sooner per-
ceived her eggs than she ran to them with
the greatest eagerness — covered them as
much as she was able with her body, sensi-
ble, no doubt, how necessary warmth was
for them — and soon began to spin another
silky web over them. Nothing seemed ca-
pable of disturbing her during this process,
and there was no mistaking the afiection
which prompted her. This she showed in

another remarkable way. I had placed the
portion of striped grass, which was nearly
two inches in length and about three-quar-
ters of an inch in breadth, upon a marble
mantelpiece in my sitting-room. One of the
first operations of the spider, as I said be-
fore, was to cover her eggs with a web.
She next proceeded to fix one of her threads
to the upper part of the glass which con-
fined her, and carried it to the further end
of the piece of grass, and in a short time
had succeeded in raising it up and fixing it
perpendicularly, working her threads from
the sides of the glass to the top and sides of
the piece of grass. Her motive in doing
this was obvious. She not only rendered
the object of her care more secure than it
would have been had it remained flat on
the marble, but she was probably aware
that the cold from the marble would chill
her eggs, and prevent their arriving at ma-
turity : she therefore raised them from it in
the manner I have described. On the even-
ing of the fourth day, two of her eggs were
hatched. On coming into my room the next
morning, neither eggs nor young spiders
were to be seen. I was satisfied that they
could not have made their escape, as the
edge of tjie glass rested on the marble so
closely that the point of a needle could not
be introduced under it. After minutely ex-
amining the spider, I was perfectly sure
that not one of her young had attached itself
to any part of her body, in the manner de-
scribed by Mr. Kirby.* The abdomen of
the spider was however three times the
size it had been the day previous, being
very much distended, and shining like the
abdomen of a bee when it returns to the
hive loaded with honey. Those who wit-
nessed the altered appearance of the spider
were, like myself, convinced that the young
had been introduced into the abdomen. The
death of the spider soon afterwards prevent-
ed further observations.

A large breed of spiders abound in the
palace of Hampton Court. They are called
there " cardinals," in honor, I suppose, of
Cardinal Wolsey. They are full an inch
in length, and many of them of the thick-
ness of a finger. Their legs are about tM^O
inches long, and their body covered with a
thick hair. They feed chiefly on moths, as
appears from the wings of that insect being
found in great abundance under and among

* Mr. Kirby says, the young of the .spider (aratiea
saccata) attach themselves In clusters upon the
hack, belly, head, and even legs of the mother;
that in this situation, she carries them about with
her, and feeds tliem until their first moult ; and
that upon disturbing her, thus covered by hun-
dreds of her progeny, it was amusing to see them
all leap from her back and run away in every di^
recticin.

268

MORAL TRAINING.

their webs. In running across the carpet in |
an evening, when the light of a lamp or
candle has cast a shade from their large
bodies, they have been mistaken for mice,
and have occasioned no little alarm to some
of tlie more nervous inhabitants of the pa-
lace. A doubt has even been raised whe-
ther the name of cardinal has not been
given to this creature from an ancient be-
lief that the ghost of Wolsey haunts the
place of his former glory under this shape.
At all events, the spider is considered as a
curiosity, and Hampton Court is the only
place in which I have met with it.

The common earwig has generally a
brood of young ones about her at this time

of the year, and she shows the greatest
care and anxiety for their safety. If she is
disturbed, nothing can exceed her agitation.
She has some means of collecting her young
together after they have been scattered. I
have seen them fall to the ground froin a
height of two or three feet, and reassemble
at the same place. Mr. Kirby says that
"this insect sits upon her eggs, and ap-
proaches the habits of the hen in the care
of her family. As soon as the young are
hatched, they creep like a brood of chickens
under the belly of the mother, who will sit
over them for hours together, and shows
the greatest agitation when she is dis-
turbed."

MORAL TRAIXING.

So much has been said on this subject in
the Tract on the Management of Infants,
that little remains to be added.

That which we would here more em-
phatically insist on is, that in youth, as well
as in infancy, the child should, as far as
reason or convenience will allow, be suffered
to associate with his parents. Socially, the
child is the equal of his father and mother.
He is younger, but in other respects he is an
equal, and should be treated as such. It
may seem strange that we should speak of
what seems to be an evident truth ; but
this, like many other truths, is unfortunately
apt to be lost sight of We almost every-
where see children treated as if they were
inferior beings, and kept systematically out
of sight, like toys, only to be shown and
fondled on certain occasions. In a right
domestic management, however, the chil-
dren are to be viewed as only younger men
and women, and respected accordingly.
Much practical advantage will arise froin
this consideration, as will be immediately
explained.

A child has every thing to learn, and he
learns best by having good examples for
imitation. If you, therefore, desire to see
your children well-behaved, do not leave
'hem in the charge of servants, who are for
the most part ignorant, and otherwise not
well adapted to train the minds of ^oung
persons. Rear and superintend your chil-
dren yourself, at least in all matters of gene-
ral intercourse. They may be dressed and
cleaned by domestics, and domestics may
also walk out with tliein ; but let them spend
a considerable part of their time with you
daily in the parlor. In short, you, the
)>arents, are to be the model to be im'itated,
not the girl who is hired to sweep out the
tiX>ms, or to do any other humble office in
tlie household. Being thus the companions

of your children, and conscious that every
word you utter, and every thing you do, will
be imitated, you will of course take care to
say and do nothing which can lead to im-
proper habits.

Temper. — In all families there are differ-
ences of character : one child will be lively,
anodier dull ; some will have good, others
bad tempers. It is of first importance to
cultivate a cheerful temper in children, and
therefore the greater care will be required
in this respect when there appears to be any
deficiency in the natural disposition. Much
will depend on how you treat the child. If
it be peevish, do not scold or threaten it ;
and, we may add, in no circumstances get
out of temper with it.

The mother of a family with whom we
are acquainted pursues the following excel-
lent plan with her children. When one of
them cries, or is otherwise in bad humor,
she says, " Oh, I see you are not well, my
dear; I think you had better go to bed, and
I will give you a little medicine." This
kind of sympathy usually sets all to rights.
The disinclination to be put to bed and take
medicine acts as a sovereign remedy.

Some parents are constantly telling their
children not to do this, and not to do that.
This is not treating them as equals, and too
prominently establishes the principle of in-
feriority. Children should not be talked to
as if they were dogs. They should be re-
quested, not ordered: at least in all ordinary
matters, and when they commit no act of
insubordination. " I should think you had
better not meddle with that Unife ; it is ra-
ther sharp.'' « I would let alone that piece
of broken glass ; it is dangerous." "Don't
you think this would be a pleasant day for
a walk"?" " I thought you would not have
done so foolish a thing." " I am sorry we
cannot bear that noise ; and I think you had

THE ABSENT ONES.

269

better go to the nursery." By accustoming
children to such mild language, they learn
to be mild themselves. A soft word will
do more with such children than a torrent
of reproof

Firmness, however, is as requisite as mild-
ness in family management. On this point
■we beg to extract the following observa-
tions from the work of Mr. Goodrich on
Fireside Education : — " Some children are
easily managed, but there are few who will
not sometimes try to have their own way.
At one time they will attempt to evade, at
another they will brave, authority. In this
species of strife they are often sharp-witted
and dexterous, and sometimes intrepid, per-
tinacious, and headstrong. If they succeed
once, they gatlier courage ; if twice, they
feel assured ; if thrice, they triumph. The
only safe method is for the parent to meet
the first resistance of the child with firm-
ness, and by no means to permit himself to
be baffled either by evasion or defiance.
But great caution is to be used. The object
should be, not merely to make the child obey
externally, but iuternally ; to make the obe-
dience sincere and hearty, and to make it
flow alike from aflection, a sense of duty,
and a conviction that he consults his true
interest in so doing. All these motives
should be brought to concur in the act ; if
any one of them is wanting, the obedience
is imperfect. To accomplish this thorough
subjection of the child to parental authority,
it is obvious that great prudence is necessary.
There must be no violence, no display of
temper, no angry looks, no hasty words.
Before he can expect to govern a child, a
parent must first learn to govern himself
His own passions being under control, his
heart chastened, and the traces of vexation
swept from his countenance, he may meet
the rebellious child, assured of triumph.
That child might resist threats, and be har-
dened by force ; but it will not long resist
patient kindness, tender remonstrance, af-
fectionate counsel."

Truth. — Accustom your children.^ from the
earliest infancy, to speak the truth ; and this
they will do, if not prevented by servants,

or by their parents. How lamentable is it
to find persons so lost to all senfC of oblijj;a-
tion as to encourage deceit in their children !
A mother will be heard admonishing them
to conceal such a thing from the knowledge
of their father — to say they did not see so
and so, &c. Such deceits are ruinous to the
moral character of children, and, we need
uot say here, that they are grossly wicked.

Children should never hear a falsehood
uttered. The very idea of there being such
a thing as untruth ought not to come across
their mind, unless, indeed, when the cri-
minality and fruits of falsehood require ex-
planation and reproof Every encourage-
ment, even to the pardoning of ofi'ences,
should be given to truth. Cultivate in the
child's mind a love of candor, straightfor-
wardness, honor, and integrity, along with
a corresponding hatred of falsehood, equivo-
cation, dishonesty, and meanness. Lessons
in these things, however, will be of little
use. The cultivation must be by the train-
ing of motives and principles into confirmed
habits, and that can be realized only within
the family circle.

Eeligious impressions, in the same manner,
require to be made in the first place by pa-
rents as much as possible by means of
practical habits and personal explanations.
As the mind expands, the leading charac-
teristics of Creation and Providence, the
nature of God, and the reasons for his being
an object of veneration and worship, may
be explained. And from these, as starting
points, all proper exjilanations as to religious
doctrine and duties will naturally diverge.

Some parents, either because they are
themselves ignorant, or because they will
not take the trouble, leave their children to
pick up religious knowledge from cate-
chisms, the learning of which they rigor-
ously enforce. We fear no little mischief
arises from this practice. Few young peo-
ple can understand the meaning of cate-
chisms, and the obligation to learn them as
a task is apt to disgust them with what
ought to be the grandest of all subjects of
meditation. We advise great caution in the
way of enforcing catechetical instruction.

THE ABSENT ONES.

Amipst the bright, the free, the gay,
How often do we turn away

From all assembled near ;
And, passing by all present things,
How rapt'rously our bosom clings

To those who are not here.

The absent ones ! whose flags unfurl'd
Are streaming on the wide, wide world,

Breasting its waves of strife ;
Struggling amidst its bubbbng foam,
To keep their footing on that home,
The battle-field of life.

Emiit Vaundel.
z3

270

REPORT ON GARDENS IN MARYLAND.

REPORT ON GARDENS IN MON
" The following are the names of the la-
dies in Montgomery county," says the Ame-
rican Farmer, " whose gardens were in-
spected by a Committee of the Agricultural
Society,"' each of whom receive, in this re-
port, what the Editor of that paper states is a
well-merited compliment. It is not easy to say
in such cases what is the just measure of
merit, luiless we could tell what assistance
and encouragement the good lady has had
from her husband. She ought to Aave, if
he can coaunand it, not only the physical
force, but the intellectual aid which is ne-
cessary— and first of all, she should be
encouraged by at least some show of taste
for horticulture on his part. That taste may
be displayed in various ways, to give her
assistance and satisfaction. She should be
supplied with the requisite publications and
papers on the subject, and these may be had
for less money than he often loses, by neg-
lect of his affairs while going to a scrub
race between horses, or a yet more useless
race between scrub politicians. But the
taste for reading is to be begotten while
people are i^oung, and he who neglects to
provide the means to encourage it to the
extent that he can afford them, deserves
to be treated as was the mother by the
son, who, under the gallows, bit off her
ear for neglecting to punish him when he
stole the first spoon. Yes, we have no pa-
tience with those who can in any degree
appreciate the value of the love of books,
and the happiness of which it is the source,
and who yet neglect, as too many do, the
least appropriation or effort in the way of a
family library. If any money is spared, in
the way of provision for reading, beyond
the purchase of a spelling-book and the six-
penny almanac, the next thing is for a. party
newspaper, in which he can see half his
countrymen unsparingly abused, as a set of
knaves and fools, and there he stops in the
way of provision for giving to his family a
taste for books, and the nameless delights,
and even power, which result from increas-
ing knowledge. That knowledge is power,
we saw happily illustrated, as follows, in a
late number of the Vermont School Journal,
as thus :

" We will not write an essay on this
theme. A few facts may be of use by
showing how good schools promote the effi-
ciency of manual labor; how by a little
Leadwork an immensity of hard work may
be saved, or the hourly value of hand work
vastly increased.

" Suppose we have a block of squared
granite, weighing 1080 lbs., to move. It
has been found by experiment, that

TGOMERY COUNTY, MARYLAND.

'• To draw it along the floor of a roughly
chiselled quarry, required a force equal to
780 lbs.

"To draw it over a floor of planks, 652
lbs.

" If placed on a platform of wood, to
draw it over the same floor, 600 lbs.

" If the surface of the wood be soaped,
182 lbs.

" With the same rollers on a wooden
platform, 22 lbs.

" With the latest railroad improvements,
as to track and wheels, less than 4 lbs.

" The 7S0 lbs. in the last, represent the
muscular strength required, the difl'erence
between the two — or 776 — the power of
knowledge."

Even the slightest word of approbation
and pleasure, at seeing a sprig of honey-
suckle stuck in the print of butter on the
breakfast table, or a rose in her own bosom,
would encourage the good wife to cultivate
for herself and daughters a skill in horti-
culture and floriculture; but where his
thoughts are about nothing but the tobacco
and corn, and he comes in merely to de-
spatch his meals, as the horse does, from
hunger and necessity, what encouragement
to her to keep even her house in order ? It
would then be the height of injustice, in
many cases, to conclude that because, as is
often the case, there is nothing in the garden
but a few straggling Dutch cabbages, and
some kidney-beans or potatoes, that there-
fore the housewife is not willing and ready
to do her part towards the comfort and
embellishment of the homestead. Let us,
then, be prompt to give praise where it is
due, but be slow to draw unfavorable in-
ferences, in the absence of a knowledge of
facts, which being a matter of household,
concern, the curtain must not be lifted.

The names of the Ladies are as follows :
Mrs. Wm. Brewer; Mrs. Joseph C.
White ; Mrs. Nicholas Brewer ; Mrs.
Joseph Brewer ; the Misses Joseph Brc-
NER ; JMrs. George W. Chiswell ; ]\lrs. Wjt.
Chiswell; Mrs. Alexander Sopeb ; Mrs.
Wm. Cissel; Mrs. Warhex King; Mrs. P.
H. McLeod ; Mrs. John A. Jones ; j\Irs.
Benjamin White; Mrs. Richakd H.Jones;
Mrs. Coi,. Shrieve ; Mrs. John L. T. Jones ;
Mrs. Samuel Young ; Mrs. Henby Young;
Mrs. Hezekiah Trundle ; Mrs. Wm. Mat-
thews ; Mrs. Frederick S. Poole ; Mrs.
James S. Alnut ; Mrs. Rout. M. Wil-
liams ; Mrs. Horatio Trundle ; Mrs. Jo-
seph White: Mrs. Samuel ]\Iilfobd ; Mrs.
Benjamin White, jun.; Mrs. Walter Wil-
liams.

SCRAPS.

271

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

INTRODUCTION.

Give ear, O ye daughters of beauty, at-
tend to the voice of your sister, for expe-
rience hath taught her wisdom, and length
of days virtue and understanding.

My father was the brother of Tenderness :
my mother was the sister of Love.

As the rosebud opening to the morn, as
the dewdrop on the lily, so was the loveli-
ness of my youth.

I awoke at the rising of the dawn ; my
salutation was that of joy and gladness.
Pleasure beckoned me forth, and I sjjorted
in the sunshine of Plenty.

The hours were swift, and ran smiling
away ; but the lightness of my heart out-
lived the going down of the sun.

The day departed with the mildest
breeze, and the night but invited me to the
bed of repose.

My pillow was the softest down, my
slumbers attended with golden dreams.

Thus one day passed ?iway, and the morn-
ing of the next found me happy.

Happy are die hours of artless innocence !
happy the days of virgin simplicity, while
the bo5oni is a stranger to deceit, and the
heart unconscious of the painful sigh !

O that I could overtake the wings of
time ! O that I could recall the pleasures of
my youth ! for the days of my womanhood
have been days of many sorrows, the tears
of misfortune have bedimmed the lustre of
mine eye : the lily is fallen, and the rose-
bud is blown and withered on my cheek.

For I listened to the voice of Adulation,
and her bewitching blandishments allured
me to destruction.

The silver tongue of Flattery is hollow,
and laden with guile ; the manna that drops
from her lips is corrosive poison to the heart.

Hear then, O daughter of America! 0
fairest of the fair among women ! let my
precepts be treasured in thy bosom, and
walk in the ways of my counsel ; so shalt
thou shun the thorn of reproach, more keen
than the bite of the asp, more venemous
than the sting of the scorpion.

The hand of Scorn shall point its finger
from thee ; the tear of Misery shall never

bedew thy cheek ; thy life shall be replete
with good things, and peace and honor shall
satisfy thy soul.

CURIOSITY.

As the first of all evils, as the source of
calamity, as the beginning of pain, avoid,
0 daughter of Eve, the bewitching charm
of curiosity.

Seek not to know what is improper for
thee ; thirst not after prohibited knowledge;
for happier is she who but knoweth a little,
than she who is acquainted widi too much.

Remember thy mother, the daughter of
heaven, arrayed in the whitest robes of in-
nocence ; forget not the fatal consequence
of her disobedience.

How much happier in the bowers of
Paradise, feasting on the luscious grape of
gladness, than wandering in the wilderness
of care, to chew the bitter weed of repent-
ance !

Be thou contented, therefore, with know-
ledge fitting for thee ; for in the acquaintance
of many things lieth not wisdom ; but in
the knowledge of that which is meet.

Let the threshold of thy neighbor's door
secure her family, let her window tempt not
thine eye to see, nor the open casement thine
ear to hear the secrets of her house.

The prying eye is a foe to itself, and the
listening ear will hear itself slandered.

Art thou inquisitive after deeds of scan-
dal and reproof, inquire of thyself, and thou
wilt find employment within.

Art thou a virgin, doth the bloom of health
glow lively on thy cheek, study not to know
the ways of man.

As the way of a serpent in the grass, or
a traveller over the waste, in a dark night,
so the ways of man are dangerous and hard
to find out.

Thy ignorance of his cunning may lay
thee open to his deceit ; but the knowledge
thereof must be the consequence of thy
being deceived.

Learn, therefore, 0 woman, what thou
shouldest know, before thou seekest farther
knowledge.

SCRAPS.

The grave has been defined to be an ugly
hole in the ground, which lovers and poets
wish they were in, but take uncommon care
to keep out of

A person once sent a note to a waggish
friend, for the loan of his noose pajjcr, and re-

The initial letters of the names of the late
French Provisional Government — Arago,
Lamartine, Ledru (Rollin,) Marrast, Albert,
and Dupont — form the words '• all mad."

The race-horse, " Justice to Ireland,'' has
been sold to the Duke of Richmond for

ceived in return his friend's marriage certificate. \ £2.500 — 5l2,-500,

272

RECEIPTS.

RECEIPTS.

To Clean Black Silks.— To bullock's gnll
add boiling water snfllcient to make it warm,
and with a clean sponge rub the silk well,
on both sides, squeeze it out, and proceed
again in like manner. Rinse it in spring
water, and change the water till perfectly
clean; dry it in the air, and pin it out on a
table ; but first dip the sponge in glue wa-
ter, and rub it on the wrong side ; then
dry it before the fire.

To Preserve Clothes. — As clothes, wlien
laid up for a time, acquire an unpleasant
odor, which requires considerable exposure
to the atmospheric air to remove, it can be
prevented by laying lumps of recently znade
charcoal between the folds of garments ; and
even when the odor is already fixed, the
charcoal will absorb it.

Fried Potatoes. — The French cooks at the
large hotels are making this dish very fa-
shionable. The piotatoes are peeled, wiped,
and cut into thin slices, then thrown into a
fi-ying-pan containing an abundance of hot
lard ; as soon as they become brown and
crisp, they are thrown into a cullender to
drain, are then sprinkled with salt, and
served up as hot as possible. It is a break-
fast dish.

Potted Beef.— Take cold boiled beef, (the
lean half of the round is tire best adapted
for the purpose,) remove all the skinny
parts, mince it fine, and pound it in a mor-
tar with fresh butter till quite smooth, sea-
soning with nutmeg, black pepper, cayenne,
a little mace, and salt, if requisite ; press it
very closely into small flat pots, clarify some
fresh butter, and pour over the top, and
when cold, paper as jams and jelly, omit-
ting the In-andy.

To Polish Mahogany Tables. — Grate very
small a quarter of an ounce, of white soap ;
put it into a new glazed earthen vessel, with
a pint of water ; hold it over the fire till
the soap is dissolved ; then add the same
quantity of white wax cut into small pieces,
and three ounces of common wax. As soon
as the whole is incorporated, it is fit for use.
When used, clean the table well, dip a bit
of flannel in the varnish when ivarm, and
rub it on the table ; let it stand a quarter of
an hour, then apply a hard brush in all di-
rections, and finish with a bit of clean dry
flannel. This will produce a gloss like a
mirror, and to those who dislike the smell
of turpentine or oil, will be very useful.

Water Souchy. — This is a mode of dress-
ing fresh-water fish, of every description.
They must be quite fresh, cleaned and
trimmed ; put them in a stew-pan, and cover
them in water ; add a few parsley leaves
and roots cut in shreds, a few green onions
cut very fine, a little horseradish, and a bay
leaf, seasoned with pepper and salt ; skim
it carefully when it boils. When the fish
is quite done, send it up in a deep dish, or
tureen ; also a few slices of bread and
butter on a plate.

Fritters ivhich may be made quickly. — One
egg, two spoonsful of flour, a little sifted
sugar and ginger, milk sufficient to make a
smooth batter; cut a middling-sized apple
into thickish slices, and put into the batter,
and with a spoon put them into the frying-
pan, with just the batter which is taken up
in the spoon ; have a sieve with the bottom
up, and, as fried, lay the fritters upon it to
drain. The above quantity is sufficient for

a small dish.

♦

Apple Jelly. — Take good winter apples,
not too mealy, pare and cut them in slices,
put them into a deep stewpan, with as much
water as will cover them ; boil them gently
till they will mash, and then strain them
through a jelly-bag; to every pint of liquor
add one pint of loaf sugar ; boii it till it
comes to the tojj for ten miiuUes, then pour
it into a mould with or without sliced lemon
peel. A quart only should be done at a
time. This jelly will keep, and make a
pretty dish at any time.

First-rate Blacking. — Three ounces ivory
black, two ounces molasses, half an ounce
of vitriol, half an ounce of sweet oil, quarter
of a pint of vinegar, and three-quarters of a
pint of water. Mix the oil, treacle, and
ivory black gradually to a paste, then add
the vitriol, and, by degrees, the vinegar and
water. It will produce a beautiful polish.

To Clean Marble. — Pound very finely a
quarter of a pound of whitening, and a
small quantity of stone blue ; dissolve in a
little water one ounce of soda, and mix the
above ingredients carefully together with a
quarter of a pound of soft soap. Put the
whole into an earthen pipkin, and boil it
for a quarter of an hour on a slow fire,
carefully stirring it. Then, when quite hot,
lay it with a brush upon the marble, and let
it remain on half an hour. Wash it off with
warm M'ater, flannel, and scrubbing-brush,
and wipe dry.

^\]t pioitigli. tl)e Cooiii, mxif tl]t Slnt)il.

Vol. I. NOVEMBER, 1848. No. V.

DISCOURSE ON THE WANTS OF AGRICULTURE,'

Delivered before the Middlesex (^Connecticut') Jlgricultw-al Society, at their Annual Electing,, en
the 1th of October; lS-iS,by J. H.SKiyyEn, Senior Editor of "■ The Plough, the Loom, and the

Anvil.''

I HAVE accepted the invitation with which you, my friends, have honored
me, to come among you on this occasion of your annual exhibition, but not to
talk about practical agriculture. There is little that I could teach you. A
southern man, in his visits to the north, sees much to admire, and much that
he might desire to imitate. He may learn much, but he finds that he has
little to give in return. You are everywhere endeavoring to provide for
yourselves the best of teachers, in agriculture and in all else, in bringing the
consumer to take his place by the side of the producer, and thus giving
to the latter the widely pervading and permanent stimulus aftbrded by
ready markets and good prices, and these do more for the promotion of agri-
ciil'ture in a single year, than premiums and, other hot-bed influences alone
could do in a century. You are endeavoring to provide a market, on the
land for all the products of the land, thereby to enable your farmers, at small
cost of time or labor, to exchange their potatoes, their turnips, their cabbages,
and their fruit, with the makers of ploughs and axes, the manufacturers of
cloth and of carpets, carrying back the refuse of their products to enrich
their land and themselves, thus to acquire the connxian-d of time and means
for the improvement of their machinery and their minds. To that is due the
fine exhibition of both men and things that I have lately Avitaessed, with
a gratification that could scarcely have been increased, except, perhaps, by
my having had with me some of my southern friends, who have yet to learn
the advantage that is to be derived from bringing the loom and the anvil to
take their places by the side of the plough.. Among them, too, agricultural
societies abound, yet agriculture does not flourish, and therefore it is that
men are seen flying, as if from pestilence, from lands abounding in marl and
lime, from meadows undrained, from river bottoms uncleared,, and from soils
so rich as to be covered with timber of growth so luxuriant that the cost of
destroying it is more than the land would be worth when cleared, to seek in
the west new and poor soils upon which again to begin the work of cultiva-
tion, and there to repeat the work of exhaustion — and all because they have
yet to learn that the loom and the anvil are the most efficient aids to the
labors of the plough.

Agricultural societies abound throughout the Union, but with their in-
crease production diminishes. Fifty years since, the average yield of wheat
in New York was twenty bushels. It is now but twelve. 7'wenty years
since, that of Ohio was twenty bushels. It is now not over ten or twelve,
and it diminishes with each successive year. The reason for this is, that
these societies began at the wrong end, and so do they still continue. They
offer premiums for single cauliflowers, and dozens of cabbages — for pecks
of peaches and apples — and for bushels of wheat and corn — «vhen they

Vol. I.— 33 273

274 DISCOURSE ON THE WANTS OF AGRICULTURE.

should be offering premiums to induce those who are themselves the dis-
pensers of the great premium offered b)^ the presence and all-pervading in-
fluence of ready markets and prompt pay for all the produce of the farm, the
eggs, the milk and cream, the butter, veal and mutton, peaches and apples,
strawberries and raspberries — premiums to induce active and industrious
shoemakers and tailors, carpenters and bricklayers, blacksmiths and ma-
chinists, spinners and weavers, to come, or to remain, among them, setting
themselves down by the side of their ploughs, and thus enabling them to
produce tons of turnips and potatoes from the same land, and with the same
labor that yield now but hundred-weights of wheat or cotton. Instead of
premiums on production, they want premiums on consumption ; for whero
consumers abound the farmers grow rich and skilful, and machinery im-
proves, and production increases, because the labor required for the process
of exchanging is diminished, and that applied to production is increased in
proportion, and because the refuse of the products, instead of being Avasted
on the road or in distant markets, goes back upon the land, which improves
instead of deteriorating, and becomes more valuable with every increase in
the quantity that is taken from it.

Throughout a large portion of the Union, the product of the land dimi
nishes, because our societies have thought too much of the practice, and too
little of the politics of agriculture. We see, occasionally, a disposition for
the cultiv^ation of this more elevated science, but rarely, as I think, do we
see a manifestation of much knowledge of the real wants of agriculture. Of
all our societies there is none that enjoys so much government patronage as
does that of New York, in whose ponderous volume of Transactions, re-
cently issued from the press, the most conspicuous place is assigned to the
Address of the late Governor Wright ; a man occupying, and most de-
servedly, a high place in his country's esteem, and distinguished as a poli-
tician, but not, as I think, a master of the science he has undertaken to teach in
that address — the politics of agrinilture. It may appear, perhaps, presump-
tuous in me thus to speak of such a man ; but it is precisely because of his
prominent position that I select his views for comment. Small men may make
mistakes and do small harm, but w-hen great men do so, they do great harm ;
for error so endorsed and so widely disseminated under such auspices,
passes for truth, and is, by the agency of the press and the public patronage,
propagated throughout the land, to be echoed back again from north and
south, and east and west, until at length what was at first but the error of an
individual, becomes the error of a party, capable of influencing the action
of a nation, to the serious injury of the interest that it was honestl^v designed
to serve, one in relation to which I feel that I have a right to express some
concern, after dedicating to its advancement the best portion of my life.

In this "address" we are told that " our agriculture is in its infancy al-
most everywhere, and at its maturity nowhere." That such is the case
is obvious to all. What we desire to know, and what we lock to find in
this address, is the cause of this extraordinary backwardness in the great
pursuit of man, compared with his extraordinary progress in the mere work
of fashioning its products ; but that we are not told. The speaker does not
even seein to have asked himself the question, and yet it lies at the bottom of
all useful inquiry into the condition of agriculture, and is therefore certainly
one deserving most serious reflection. Had he entered on the inquiry, he
must have been struck with the fact that after two centuries of practice,
our machinery of production is yet so exceedingly imperfect that it may
with justice be said to be almost in earliest infancy, and that in a coun-
try which boasts so loudly, and so justly too, of its superiority in the
machinery of conversion and exchange. Behold what steam, the great

DISCOURSE ON THE WANTS OF AGRICULTURE. 275

discovery, of the age, is doing for ail other pursuits compared with any
direct application which has been made of that great power to agriculture.
The orator's own state possesses perhaps the best mills in the world for the
conversion of wheat into flour, and yet her yield of wheat has fallen to a dozen
bushels to the acre, Avhile a careful writer, before the Revolution, stated that
from twenty to thirty bushels was the common crop in the county of Albany,
and her people are abandoning the immediate vicinity of those fine mills, to
seek in the west new lands at a distance from any mills. Her great port
possesses the best machinery in the world for the transportation of corn to
feed the famishing people of Ireland, but her machinery for the production
of corn is so inferior that its yield is but twenty-five bushels to the acre,
while fifty years ago it was proved that one acre could be made, in the
same state, to yield one hundred and twenty bushels. She has close at hand
the best machinery in the world for the conversion of wool into cloth, and
yet at brief intervals her farmers cut the throats of their sheep, and thus ex-
terminate flocks whose collection has been the labor of years. The nation
possesses the best machinery in the world for the conversion of cotton into
cloth, and yet throughout the south men cultivate acres that yield but two
hundred pounds, when, under a proper system of cultivation, they might
have in return to the same labor quintuple the quantity. Everywhere
we see that agriculture is in its earliest infancy, and almost everywhere we
see that it goes rather backward than forward, notwithstanding the numerous
societies and journals engaged in disseminating information in regard to im-
proved instruments, and improved modes of practice, and it would have
been a task worthy of the intellect of Governor Wright, to search into and
explain the causes of this extraordinary fact. Had he done so, he might
have found the explanation in another fact referred to by himself, that while
in the older states there is not a single county that has not land that is yet
to be brought into cultivation, Ave are constantly engaged in expelling oui*
people to form new states in the west, which are growing, therefore, with a
rapidity that almost surpasses belief. In the midst of all this, hear a late
and enlightened Governor of South Carolina declare, "We have extensive
swamps and countless ponds in our country, most of them vastly rich.
Instead of requiring manure, these swamps could furnish a large amount of
peat and mud for our poorer land, and retain afterwards a thickness of vege-
table matter which ages of proper culture could not extract. They are
equal, large portions of them, to the best lands of Louisiana and Texas, and
their yield, on the second year's cultivation, would repay all the labor of
draining and clearing."

Yes, my friends, it is to this fact that is due the slow progress of cultiva-
tion and its almost universal slovenly character. When men are running
away from each other, production diminishes, and agriculture cannot improve ;
and the reason why it cannot do so is, that until population attains a certain
density, and men are thereby enabled to combine their exertions, the richest
soils cannot be cultivated. Look around, I pray you, and see what were
the lands upon which your foreflithers commenced. Were they those which
bore the largest trees — those which, from the richness of the soil, were most
fitted to hold water — and which occasional inundation had enriched by ages
of alluvial deposits — and those therefore which required the most clearing
and drainage? Certainly not! To have done so would have ruined them.
They commenced upon poor soils; upon those which bore few trees and
drained themselves; and it is only as wealth and population have grown, that
the richer ones have come into activity. So has it been everywhere, and so
is it now in every state of the Union, even in those new ones to which your
people are flying in search of rich soils, to be obtained, as they suppose,

276 DISCOURSE ON THE "WANTS OF AGRICULTURE.

without labor. So must it everywhere be, for rich soils will not pay the
cost of clearing until the consumer is at hand to drink the milk and eat the
veal, the potatoes, tlie turnips, and the other conunodities of which the earth
yields largely, and which will not, therefore, bear the cost of transportation.
First settlers have neither the means nor the inducement to begin on the
richest soils, encumbered with wood or saturated with water. Look, I pray
you, to Virginia and South Carolina. In both, the work of cultivation was
commenced upon poor soils, which have been exhausted by the production
of the wheat, and the tobacco, and the cotton required for foreign markets,
and the owners of those lands are now flyiiig from the vicinity of beds of
marl, and from river bottoms abounding with manure, and covered with
limber that should be employed in the construction of houses, and the making
of railroads, for the hundreds of thousands of prosperous mechanics that
might now be occupying those States, making a market on the land for the
products of the land, and enabling the planter to obtain tons of potatoes and
turnips, where now he has but hundred-weights of cotton ; but, unhappily
both have yet to learn that the plough and the harrow cannot prosper at a
distance from the loom and the anvil. " Population makes the food come
from the rich soils, and depopulation drives men back to the poor ones."
Here, my friends, is the great truth that lies at the bottom of sound agricul--
tural politics. It is not in accordance with the doctrines of the day, which
teach that increasing population must be accompanied with increasing
tendency to starvation and misery, and that war and waste are "blessings
in disguise," because they tend to restrain population within the hmits of
subsistence, but it is in accordance with every day's experience in New
England and in every country that remains at peace, and permits wealth
and population to grow together.

Our agriculture is in its infancy, and it is so because our people are every-
where increasing their distances from each other. Why they should desire
so to do, appears to have claimed the attention of Governor Wright, and
thus we find him attributing it to a "strong and resistless inclination of
our people," leading them to agriculture in preference to any other pursuit.
Here his inquiries appear to have stopped. Had he gone one step farther,
endeavoring to ascertain the cause of the existence of this supposed " incli-
nation," he might have found that necessity, and not the inclination itself, or
the power to indulge it, lay at the bottom, and was the true cause of the extra-
ordinary facts presented to view throughout this country. Man always courts
societ}'. He never flies from the neighborhood of his fellow-man to gratify
inclination. He knows that "two can lift a log that one can neither roll nor
lift," and yet he is everywhere throughout the country seen flying from parents
and friends, from the home of his youth, with its school-house and its church,
and from every thing that has contributed to make life pleasant, and all,
according to Governor Wright, because of a "resistless inclination" for
agriculture, that has, as I believe, no existence. Look around you, my
friends, and see how strong is the tendency towards the mechanic arts.
Nine-tenths of your young men and women would prefer the town and its
pursuits to the country; and they do so because they like to congregate.
Such being the case, there can be few, who, from choice, go west, there
to begin the work of cultivation. I doubt if any would, had they the
power to choose between good wages in a factory, with employment for their
children, and Avith a little lot at hand upon which to bestow the spare hours
and half-hours not otherwise employed, and that lot having in its immediate
neiuhborhood the old school-house, afibrding means for educating the
children, and the old church, and the old clergyman, and the old grave-
yard, hallowed as the place where repose the remains of parents and friends.

DISCOURSE ON THE WANTS OF AGRICULTURE. 277

And I hold it to be the natural right of the people of every country — one
which every country would enjoy under just and wise leoislation — to carry
all its natural products up through all the various processes of preparatiua
for actual use, and to which labor can be profitably applied, until the raw
material is made ready for consumption by the last touch of industry ; and
that any course of policy, which interferes with such application of the labor
of a country to the fashioning of its own productions, is worthy to be regarded
as the pernicious "invention" of mere politicians — an invention which dis-
turbs, without any equivalent advantage, the natural course of industry,
diminishes the ratio of profitable consumers to producers,, and so far afFects
injuriously the natural and pohtical rights of the cultivators of the soil. For
such disturbing and mischievous interference, statesmen, or politicians claim-
ing to be so called, have alleged the want of appropriate labor in our own
country, and especially in the South ; but such is not generally the flict, and
where it is so the effect is confounded with the cause : for where absence
of labor exists, it may be traced directly to political causes, which deprive
labor of a living and reasonable reward. But let the legislator cut off our
colonial dependence on the pauper labor of Europe — let him say to industry
and capital, seeking fair employment, go into the vast coal fields of Penn-
sylvania and of Maryland, and there open your mines — into Virginia where
coaland ore abound, and build your furnaces — into theCarolinas and Georgia,
where water-power beyond measure exists in the midst cf the finest sheep
pastures in the world, and there build your factories ; and there will be no
want of labor to heave the coal, or to smelt the ore, or to weave the wool
which there might be grown, almost as the leaves grow on their ever-green
trees, through winter and summer, without labor and without expense. Let
the lawgiver but hold out profitable employment, and industry will soon flow
in from all quarters, as when the proper soil is provided mushrooms sprin^T
np by thousands in a night where none w^ere ever seen before. Thus on
inquiry have I been lately informed by manfacturers in the heretofore most
thinly settled parts of Maryland, and in almost abandoned Alexandria, that
on putting up their factories, the redundant or poorly paid labor of agricul-
tural and niechanical pursuits, and labor altogether unsuited by its feebleness
to such employments, flocked in to their establishment for present living, and
more certain reward, just as water is everywhere seen to seek its level —
becoming in these factories active bees instead of drones in the great hive
of human industry, and profitable consumers instead of producers of the
fruits of the plough.

When the last touch of the industry of our own countrymen has been
given to the products of our own country, and the articles thus manufactured
are found to transcend their w^ants, then, and not till then, should commerce
be invited to come and perform her appropriate and beneficent offices in the
work of exchange of the fruits of the earth and the fruits of the mind, be-
tween different regions of the earth, fetching and carrying only such com
inodities as the laws of climate, and other natural influences, may have
adapted to the one and forbidden to the other. Such in my judgment are
the true principles of agricultural economy; principles Avhich I truly and
gratefully admit have been in a great measure imbibed from the recent woric
of Mr. Carey, "The Past, the Present, and the Future," a work in my
estimation better fitted than any which has appeared in our languai2:e to
explain, and in the clearest and simplest way, the natural and true doctrines
of social and political economy, and particularly as they lie at the foundation
and affect the progress of agricultural improvement. But after all the
natural, and the most profitable pursuit of man is agriculture, and his
inchnation for it would be far stronger than it is now, could it be indulged

2 A

278 DISCOURSE ON THE WANTS OF AGRICULTURE.

without the necessity for separating himself from parents and friends, and
society at large, and, above all, from the lovely daughters in companionship,
with whom he has grown up to manhood, as he is novi^ forced to do.
And why should this separation be required ? In every county of every
one of the older states there is abundant land unoccupied, or but half
occupied, and men are everywhere seen cultivating large farms that would
yield to each of half a dozen men, owners of the small farms into which
they could be divided, more than is now obtained from the whole ; and
that division would take place could each county have its mill, or its
furnace and its forge, as a place of exchange for labor, and food, and
other raw materials, much of which is noAv wasted. In the old settled parts
of Virginia lands may be bought for two, three, and four dollars an acre,
alongside of tracts which skilful and industrious management has made to
yield from twenty-five to thirty bushels of wheat to the acre. It is neither
scarcity of land that drives, nor " inclination" that seduces men to go west.
Every man and woman born in your state would prefer to live and die in it
could he gratify that "inclination" Avhich is really the "resistless" one, and
which prompts him to desire improvement of his condition, to be attained either
by the work of cultivating the earth, or that of fashioning its products, and
when they flee from among you to seek the West, it is because of the
existence of a necessity for doing that which they would prefer not to do,
and because of the absence of power to determine for themselves their course
in life.

To what cause are we to attribute this absence of poAver ? That question
may, I think, readily be answered without travelling beyond the hmits of
this "Address," in which we are told, that notwithstanding the great
demand produced by famine in Europe, "the avenues of commerce" are
still " filled with the productions of American agriculture." Such we know to
be the case. There is a perpetual surplus of corn, and tobacco, and wheat,
and cotton, and all other of the products of the field. That surplus is always
seeking a market, and the farmer of the old states is borne down by its
weight as it passes over him. It is sold at low prices, yielding little to the
producer while destroying the man with whom it comes in competition;
and the latter then goes west to seek the fabled land of plenty — that
tvhicli yields the corn that can be sold so low — there to add to the
supply of food with which to overwhelm those he left behind, and compel
them in their turn to follow his example. Necessity drives him Avest, and
every man thus driven helps to drive others in the same direction. To that,
and that alone, may we attribute the " irresistible inchnation" to agriculture
that has scattered twenty millions of people over a million of square miles,
commencing everywhere with the poorer soils, while surrounded by rich
lands undrained and uncleared, and compelled lo make and maintain tens,
if not hundreds, of thousands of miles of unnecessary roads, on which and
in distant markets they waste the manure yielded by their products, every-
Avhere exhausting their lands and keeping themselves poor Avhen they
might have grown rich, could they have followed their real '■'•inclinaiion,^*
and staid at home!

That such is now the case must be obvious to all of you, my friends, and
equally so must it be that the continuance of the existing S3stem tends to
the depopulation of the older states. Will it continue ? That it will do so
we are assured in this " Address," which a State society has felt called
upon to distribute so widely, and in which Ave are told that it is impossi-
ble to see " a limit to the period" Avhen AA-e shall not "present in the com-
mercial markets of the Avorld large surpluses of all the varieties of bread-
stuffs, beef, pork, cheese, cotton, tobacco, &c. ;" and, if that must continue

DISCOURSE ON THE WANTS OF AGRICULTURE. 279

to be the case, agriculture cannot improve. The same causes that have, in
time past, compelled men to fly from each other must continue so to do for
a time, beyond which we cannot " see a limit;" and, while such shall be
the case, men must continue to scratch poor soils when they might have
rich ones could they live in connection with each other, and, while they
shall thus continue to disperse themselves, agriculture must continue in its
"earliest infancy."

What is the remedy ? What shall be the remedy, when our '• almost
boundless agricultural field" shall come to be squatted over by men who are
exhausting the powers of the earth, and wasting labor and manure on the
road in search of markets for this vast surplus ? What is to prevent
Virginia and South Carolina from being utterly abandoned, as the cul-
ture of tobacco, and cotton, and wheat, is more and more transferred to
the new states of the West? '• We have no hope," says Governor Ham-
mond, of South Carolina, " of discovering a new staple which shall be neces-
sary to the existence or comfort of mankind, the cultivation of which we can
monopolize long enough to restore our fortunes." They cannot continue
to raise them on this already exhausted land, and they have no market for
potatoes, or turnips, or Indian corn, or cabbages, to enable them to clear and
drain the rich ones. If we seek in this " Address" for a remedy for this
extraordinary state of affairs, we shall find none. We are there told that
"our farmers must surrender the idea" of a market on the land for the pro-
ducts of the land, " and must prepare themselves to meet the competition
of the commercial world in the markets of the commercial world, in the
sale of the fruits of their labor." It has been in pursuance of the doctrine
here inculcated and acted upon, by men high in name, in influence and
authority, to prepare ourselves to meet the competition of the commercial
world in the markets of the world, that several of the most fertile counties
of my native state have diminished in population more than ten per cent.
within the last ten years.

And who are the people with whom our farmers are thus invited to com-
pete? Are they those of the more civihzed portions of Europe? Of England,
or of Belgium ? They have no grain to sell. They have taken care to make
a market on the land for the products of the land, and therefore it is that
they are civilized, for civilization is the companion of growing wealth and
population. Is it not with the least civilized — the miserable people of Poland
— the ignorant serfs of Russia — the wretched fellahs of Egypt — the impo-
verished people of Sicily — that we are invited to compete ? It is. They
have made no market on the land for the products of the land, and there-
fore it is that they waste their labor in carrying their products to "the mar-
kets of the commercial world," losing on the road and in those markets the
manure, exhausting their land and themselves, and cultivating poor soils
for want of means to clear and drain rich ones. Had Governor Wright
been talking to his son, he would have given him different advice. He
would have told him to enter into competition with those above, and not with
those below him; but, in talking to the nation, he advises competition with,
and thinks we may prevail against, the most degraded and ignorant people
of the world, and not with the most civilized. Such competition is easy.
Let us shut up our mills, our coal mines, our furnaces, and our machine
shops, and we shall be prepared on the instant. Food will then be cheap
enough to supplant the corn of the Black sea and of the Vistula, cotton \\ ill
be cheap enough to drive the Hindoo out of market, and the sheep-grower
of Michigan and Vermont will starve out the bush-ranger of Australia. No-
thing would be easier than for Mr. Webster, Mr. Clay, or Mr. Calhoun, or
Mr. Clayton, to sink himself to the level of the lowest blackguard that rolls

280 DISCOURSE ON THE WANTS OP AGRICULTURE.

f ^ —

in the gutter ; but would it not be unwise in them to attempt it ? Equally
unwise is it in the United Stales to seek a competition in the great commer-
cial markets of the world with the Russian boor or the Hindoo ryot. Yet
such is the advice of Governor Wright, as it is also of the head of our Pa-
tent Office, the latter cf whom seems to think that it requires but a small
eflbrt to enable us to place ourselves on a par with the nations of Europe
of all others the most ignorant and wretched : such as are most distinguished
for wasting their labor in obtaining small products from large surfaces, and
maintaining agriculture in " its earliest infancy."

Such are the doctrines scattered broad-cast over the land by the AVisdom
and power of your governments, state and federal, at the public expense.
It is against such fearful odds that the humble individual whom you have
invited to address you to-day has resolved to contend, as far as that may
be done through a monthly journal, which, to indicate its purposes, is entitled
" Thk Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil," aided as he hopes to be by the
countenance and counsels of those who unite in the belief that the best
security for a prosperous husbandry is in the policy which favors the growth
of the greatest number of prosperous consumers near at hand, to require
all that the most improved husbandry can produce.

Yes, my friends, it is in these Addresses and Reports of which I have
Tentured to speak, that we find the fashionable political economy of
the day. It is for preaching such doctrine that the friends of what
they call free trade in England have bestowed half a million on a single
advocate. It is based upon the doctrine taught in all your schools, and
which teaches that earth is a machine of constantly decreasing power to
yield food, while population tends to increase in a constantly augmenting
ratio, and that thus is produced a necessity for men to fly from each other.
Common sense teaches us differently. We see it conspicuously here in
New England, and it may be seen throughout the world, that men live and
go ahead better as they are enabled most to combine their exertions with
each other, and therefore that we should seek to emulate the course of Eng-
land or of Belgium, which obtain large quantities of food from small surfaces,
with constant improvement in the power of the land, rather than that of
eastern Europe, where small quantities are obtained from large surfaces,
with constant deterioration in the power of the land, as must be the case
with all who are, like them, dependent on distant markets.

Why should this surplus continue ? We have food to spare — and cotton
to spare — and wool to spare — and the materials of iron to spare — and we
want cloth and iron. Why not combine then ourselves, and have our own
cloth and iron ? Is it for want of capital ? Certainly not. We invest in
horses and wagons, and ships, to drag about over the world our food and our
cotton, more than would build factories to make our cotton and wool and food
into cloth, and furnaces to convert our food, and coal, and ore into iron. Is
it for want of labor ? Certainly not. We waste on the road, the rivers, and
the ocean, carrying our food and cotton to market — and in carrying those who
should be consumers of food to the West, there to become themselves producers
of food — and on the farm, for the want of the regular demand for labor that exists
where the loom and the anvil are near neighbors to the plough — more labor
than wf>uld convert our cotton and wool into cloth, and our coal and ore into
iron. We are always wasting capital, and labor, and manure, in strict accord-
ance with the doctrines of modern English jiolitical economy, and with that
inculcated or implied in the Addresses and Reports to which I have referred.

"In the natural course of things," I quote now from Mr. Carey, "there is a
strong tendency towards placinq-the consumer by the side of the producer, and
thus diminishing the quantity required of the machinery of exchaj.ige ; and

DISCOURSE ON THE WANTS OF AGRICULTURE. 281

wherever thai tendency does not grow in the ratio of the growth of popula-
tion, it is in consequence of some of those weak 'inventions' by which man
so often disturbs the harmony of nature. « * * In the regular course
of human atiiiirs, the man who makes the shoes eats the food produced by
the man who desires to wear them, and he does so because it is easier for
him to bring the awl and the lapstone, by aid of which he may make ten
thousand pairs of shoes, than it is for the farmer to carry to him the food
necessary for his support while doing it. I'his tendency struggles inces-
santly to develop itself, and is seen on every occasion making its appearance,
but it has almost invariably been crushed, the effect of which has been that
the people of the United States are now far more widely scattered, and far
less wealthy, than they would otherwise have been. They have been com-
pelled to use a vast quantity of inferior machinery of exchange in the form
of roads and wagons, in place of the superior machinery of steam-engines
and mills, and they have been driven to begin on poor soils in the West, yield-
ing ten bushels of wheat to the acre, when they might otherwise have worked
their way down into the rich soils of the river bottoms farther east, portions
of which may at all times be bought for far less than the cost of production."*

Such is the natural course of things, and were it not for foreign interfe-
rence, we should have no surplus either of food or cotton, although labor
employed in agriculture would be far more productive than it is at present.
But for that interference, hundreds of thousands who are now at work in the
West, producing ten bushels of wheat to the acre and exhausting their land,
would be working at the loom or the anvil, in the factories and furnaces
farther east and south, by the side of the ploughman who Avould be raising
tons of hay, and turnips, and potatoes, and all would be richer and happier,
more enlightened, and more free.

That interference has come from England. She has desired to he the great
workshop of the world, and to compel all nations to bring their cotton and
wool to be twisted, and the food to support the man Avho twisted it, and her
whole policy has had in view that single object. She has desired to keep
the loom and the anvil at a distance from the plough, to the injury of the
farmers and planters of the world, and with no advantage to herself, as may
now be seen in the condition of her laboring population. To the measures
to which she was prompted by this desire was due our Revolution. To the
necessity for combination against her was due the Federal constitution. To
sad experience was due the feeling that prompted the patriot Jefferson to say
to his countrymen, that " the manufacturer must now take his place by the side
of the agriculturist." In accordance with that sentiment it is declared, among
other things in the same spirit, in a manifesto signed by nearly a hundred
amongst the most opulent and intelligent planters, in a single county in Mis-
sissip})i, recently sent me for publication in 7'Ae Plough, the Loom, and the
Anvil — that they are in favor of such a Tariff as that of 1«42, because, among
many other reasons very clearly and forcibly assigned, "it affords," as they
say, "adequate protection to all kinds of domestic labor, and renders us
independent not only in name but in fact." To a feeling of the necessity
for resistance to wrong has been due the whole series of protective ta-
riffs, each in succession more protective than its predecessor. We have
now a mere revenue tariff, yet it was seen clearly by its friends, that it could
not stand unless made to a considerable extent protective, and much more so
than that which existed in 1841. Great is truth, and it will prevail. The
Avave recedes again and again, but after each successive recession it rises
higher than before. A home market is the great desire of every farmer

• Fait, Present, and Future, p. 117.

Vol. I.— 36 2 a 2

282 DISCOURSE ON THE WANTS OF AGRICULTURE.

and every planter, however much opposed in theory to the doctrine of pro-
tection. Everjr one knows that the nearer he can bring his customers to
him, the more valuable are his labor, his land, and their products; and the
day cannot now be far distant when the producers of rice and cotton will
arrive at the conclusion that protection, by aid of which they may themselves
build mills for the conversion of bcth their chief products into cloth, is in
fact and in truth a farmer's and planter's measure, and that if they desire to
enrich their land and themselves, they must unite with their brethren at the
north, as a g-reat number more than is generally supposed, and those among
the most influential and intelligent, are ready to do, in the measures neces-
sary to induce the owners of looms and anvils, and the men who work at
them, to come and take their places by the side of the plough and the
harrow\

That day arrived, Virginia and South Carolina will grow rich, for men
will then cease to fly from rich lands, uncultivated, in search of poor ones,
and then, my friends, I trust there will be seen, in those States to which I
am attached by so many years of familiar intercourse, and so many grateful
associations with many of their most distinguished men of all parties, many
of those beautiful results of natural concentration that delight the eye of every
southern man who visits New England. With each step in their progress
in that direction, they will be enabled more and more to combine their exer-
tions with each other, whether for the buildingof factories, the making of banks,
the construction of roads and of steam-engines for canaling and draining, or
the founding of asylums for the aged and infirm, the deaf, the dumb, the blind,
and the lunatic, and with each there will be seen more and m.ore to pervade
every class of society that habit of kindliness and good feeling so obviously
existent where men associate in small communities, as in New England, and
so obviously absent where men are forced, in accordance with the doctrines
of modern political economy, to congregate together in great cities like Lon-
don, Paris, and New York, which are built up out of the profits of unnecessary
exchanges — out of the spoils of the farmer and planter.

If your desire be, my friends, to see agriculture pass from its "earliest
infancy"and attain its manhood, in all its full proportions, and to see your fellow
man attain his highest development, physical, moral, and intellectual — or if
it be to preserve unimpaired that happy form of government under which
we live — let your eflxirts be, I pray you, given not to studying how you can
compete in foreign markets against the pauper laborer of Europe, as re-
commended in the addresses and reports of distinguished men and high
public functionaries to which I have referred, but to the promotion of
the study of the true politics of agriculture. Exert yourselves to bring
about the adoption of that policy which makes a market on the land
for the products of the land — that policy which enables men to stay at
home and become rich consumers, instead of flying to the west, there to
become poor producers, to add to the already vast surplus for which we are, at
enormous cost, seeking markets in all the countries of Europe — that policy, in
fine, which brings together and gives equal support to the plough, the loom, and
the anvil — which enables parents and children to remain together, securing
husbands to the daughters and wives to the sons, and surrounding //«'i/- parents
with happy families of grandchildren — for it is not good, saith the Scrip-
tures, that man should be alone, nor, (as was well added by Sterne,)
" woman eitlierJ'''

J

ON THE HOTATION OF CROPS. 283

OX THE ROTATION OF CROPS.

An interesting report on this subject may be found, at page 2G4 of The
American Farmer, vol. 8, from a Committee of the Montgomery County,
Maryland, Agricultural Society, presented by that zealous and enlightened
friend of the "landed interest, A. B, Davis, "of that ilk."

The subject — though it may be somewhat musty, is still an important one,
and is handled by the Committee in a clear and forcible manner. It pour-
trays, in lively colors, the ancient, in contrast with the present condition and
appearance of that good old county of peace-loving and industrious farmers,
and truly some explanation would seem to be required, where the popula-
tion goes on, or rather goes down, in ten years from 19 to 15 thousand ; in a
county lying under the very shadow of the Capital of the Union, and bor-
dered by canals and rivers and railroads. We would, if space allowed, pub-
lish the whole report, though we have no room for the hundredth part of the
practical matter that offers itself for our pages. For thirty years we have
been endeavoring to keep pace with, and it may be in some measure to ac-
celerate the march of practical improvements in cultivation, and in all the
implements and animals employed therein. Leaving that duty now more
particularly to the numerous and more able agricultural journals to be had
for a bushel of wheat, and which every farmer should take, we are seeking
to open fresh ground of usefulness, by endeavoring to learn, and to dissemi-
nate, the principles of political economy that belong to the plough, along
with whatever comes to light that is new and commendable in the use of it.

Thus it is with this Report, as with innumerable essays that fall under
our eye — we can only take that portion of it which falls particularly within
the bent of our inclination, by holding up to emulation the example of men
whose success in the field of agriculture has illustrated the value of even a
few examples in the walks of peaceful industry. But again the question re-
curs— how does it happen that with such instances of the success which has
attended the skill and dihgence of such men as Roger Brooke, the Stablers,
Halloweil, Stonestreet, Blair and others, the county should be sinking in
population, from year to year, as appears by the statement of the learned
and laborious Darby, for the birth-place of whom counties might well dis-
pute, but to which, we believe, this very county of Montgomery can prove
title, though we are not sure. Does not this intelligent and respectable Com-
mittee go it rather strong when they describe so much exhaustion and dete-
rioration of every sort, charging the picture as we apprehend with colors
rather too sombre — does not this Committee, may we presume to ask, rather
over-strain the matter in their report, when they say, that all has proceeded
from a luant of the proper rotation of crops !

Hear them.

"To make mere apparent the first position, your committee need only refer to the large
tracts of common and old fields in this county, given up and forsaken, because not afl'ord-
ing a sufficient return to defray the cost of cultivation.

"From these old fields, now covered v/ith sedge and pine, the perpetual sight of which
is painful to look upon, and in some places is only reUeved by galls and gullies, we know
that our forefathers once reaped comparatively rich and luxuriant harvests. Now, where
mirth and hospitality once reigned, dreariness, desolation and want, seem to cover the
land. What has produced the mighty contrast? Why are the hospitable mansions of our
ancestors, in many situations, fast crumbling into decay — the broad fields, the lawns and
gardens, turned to the common waste? We answer emphatically, because a proper system
of Rotation of crops was not understood, or, if understood, not duly appreciated."

Now v/e will venture to say, that if this committee of deservedly eminent
gentlemen can prevail with a certain body of wise men, which has been
incubating near at hand for the last nine months, over the affairs of the nation,

284 ON THE ROTATION OF CROPS.

(without hatching any thing proportionably remarkable,) to establish as the
permanent policy of the nation, (not of a party,) such encouragement to manu-
facturing industry, as will seduce or force the English manufacturer of cotton
and woollen cloth, and the coal-heaver and the ironmonger, to come and take
their stand, with their capital, machinery and experience, at Cumberland, on
the head-waters of the Potomac and the canal, where the whole country is
embedded with coal and iron, and with their steam-engines and their power
looms, settle along down the river and the canal, until the sound of "the great
falls of the Potomac," within the hearing of the Committee, shall be drowned
in the noise of the mills and factories which these falls ought to have been
driving for the laSt fifty years, there would quickly spring up there another
Lowell, Avith an equal population, doubling that of all the inhabitants of Mont-
gomery county; and then — and then what ? Why then the whole country,
for twenty miles around, would revive and look up, as verdure covers the
parched field after a soaking summer rain, and there would be no longer oc-
casion for committees to teach the ignorant farmer the ^'■proper rotation of
crops r'' That would soon be understood and "properly appreciated."
Population makes the food come out of the ground. Of all teachers of the
"proper rotation," and of all else that pertains to successful and prosperous
industry, give us consumers at hand to pay for the products of industry.
Bring the loom and the anvil near to the plough, and he who follows the
plough will soon learn when to plough and to plough deep — the virtue and
profit of which was taught in a most masterly pamphlet,* exposing "the
great error of American Husbandry," by another farmer of Montgomery
county, more than forty years ago, as will, we dare say, be well remem-
bered by our old friend Roger Brooke. We allude to that of Thomas Moore,
whose name, were it only for that great and then most opportune service to
Agriculture, would deserve to be recorded with honor in the annals of the
Montgomery County Agricultural Society, ay, and to be cherished gratefully
by every man who knows how to venerate the real benefactors of his race.
We do not candidly know a county less in need of good precepts, merely,
in the practice of agriculture. Only give to the people of Montgomery
county the market which the God of Nature designed thej^ should have,
•when he led the waters of the Potomac to fall in such prodigious volume
over ledges of rock, which his bounteous hand provided for building on the
spot ; let the spinning jenny there spin the wool — and the loom there weave
the cloth, and the tilt-hammer there beat out the iron, that is now spun and.
wove andbea-t out for us m England, by men who eat the bread of ploughs
followed by the poor serfs on the Black Sea, and then the peo|ile of Mont-
gomery will have a market on the land for the produce of the land ; and
need no longer, as now, throw away half their time and substance in getting
over bad roads to worse markets. Then they can make tons where they
now make only bushels. Then the farmer of Montgomery might answer,
as did Mr. Phinney of Massachusetts, when lately we asked — "praAS my
dear sir — how do you get remunerated for the labor of removing, as you tell
me you have done, more than a ton of stone from every six feet square, off
much of your land, now covered with the finest grasses and orchards of the
choicest fruits ? Where do you find customers to buy, as you tell me you
sell $2000 of fruit sometimes in a single year?" "Why, sir, have we not,"
was his prompt reply, "besides many other towns, IW,000 hungry consu-
mers at one little manufacturing village, Lowell, ready to buy all our spare
fruitand milk — and butter and eggs, and poultry, and vegetables, and meat,
from a pig of 400 pounds down to a pint of blackberries ?" Yes, friends of

* This pamphlet was one of the first things which, being read when a boy, impressed our
mind with the idea, that there was such aching as philosophy in agriculture .'

ON THE ROTATION OF CROPS. 285

old Montgomery, rely upon it, it is this all-pervading stimulus of certain and
remunerating sale afforded by the dense population of consumers, to which
every covuny has a right, according to its natural resources, that teaches, be-
yond all other instructors, the proper rotation of crops — and the proper
management of orchards. Nor does it stop there — its animating influence,
like that of woman in all civilized countries, reaches everywhere and every
thing — it enhvens the good housewife herself, in her poultry-yard and her
dairy — the hens lay more eggs and the eggs hatch out the better for it, and
fewer chickens die of the gapes — the milk yields more cream, and the cream
more butter, and the butter comes quicker — even the ashes yield more ley and
the soap hardens better and whiter. You shall see its effects in the lightness
of the good woman's steps, in the brightness of her eye, and the cheerful and
good-humored tone of her voice. In augmenting and certain demand for her
chickens, and her butter, and her dried apples, and her peach leather, she
sees the means to buy new gowns, and new shoes, and new gloves, and new
bonnets for her beautiful, and what is much better, her dutiful daughters. In
the demand of consumers near the plough, the anxious and devoted mother
sees the means that will enable their lovers to propose for their daughters in
marriage, and the happiness to have them settle around her. It is then that
the housewife has the heart to " seek wool and flax, and worketh it willingly
with her hands" — that her husband may be "known at the gate among the
elders." In short, my friends, all sorts of good things come from having the
loom and the anvil near the plough, as we shall be glad to show you more at
large by sending to any who may desire it, all of them together, "The Plough,
THE Loom, and the Anvil," to let you see how well they work together —
for it is a truth and no joke, that throughout the world they all thrive in
friendly association, and throughout the world the plough ceases to thrive
■when a great distance, and especially foreign countries, inter])ose between it
and the loom and the anvil. But, after all, there are, in all localities, and
under all circumstances, a few leading men, of strong inquiring minds, ha-
bituated to the actual ttse of man's distinguishing faculty ; men who lead the
Avay in all the courses of useful industry, just as the stalwart reaper proudly
leads the harvest gang — men who do not stand like the ever-pointing finger-
posts, that never go the way they point ; and among such men, we took our
pen to only recognise in this report, as entitled to stand out in the bold relief
it presents him, our old friend as aforesaid —

ROGEE BROOKE, OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY,
MARYLAND.

Nor is the field of asrricnltural improvement, the only one in which he has been wont
to be conspicuous — Tally ho.' What say you General G., "Black George,"' as Old Hickory
used to call you? Well it is, as we hope, by this time well known, that it conies pecu-
liarly within our inclination and habit editorial, to do honor to all such men, devoid as they
are of all ambition for display or distinction, but nevertheless, whose

"useful toil
Their homely joys and destiny obscure"
do real service to society, and entitle them to honor and respect from all men of true
discernment.

Thus speaks the Committee in their Report, from which we make room for the follow-
ing extract —

"We have promised to give some evidence to sustain our second position,
viz.: that worn-out lands can be restored to fertility, and made highly pro-
ductive ; and, as example is justly considered entitled to more weight than
precept, the committee deem themselves fortunate in not being compelled to
go beyond the limits of our own county for instances so striking and remark-
able, as to dispel all doubt from the minds of the most incredulous.

286 SALT V. WIREWORM.

"Your committee will then make no apology for first (as entitled to most
honorable distinction) introducing the venerable and respected name of Roger
Brooke. This gentleman, Ave are informed, became possessed of an estate
that had been subjected to the process we have attempted to describe in an
early part of this report. His quick perception and far-seeing judgment
admonished him that, to continue the same mode of farming, would bring
ruin upon himself, and entail poverty upon his posterity. But he was too
shrewd a calculator to continue a business with such results staring him full
in the face. Accordingly, his first step in his system of improvement was
to abandon the tobacco crop — being aware that, although it may have made
many rich fathers, there were too many instances, in this county, of its having
left an impoverished landed estate as an inheritance to their sons. His next
step Avas to stock his farm with grasses, and carefully to husband and judi-
ciously spread out all the manure he could raise in his barn-yard and collect
about his homestead. To those members of the society who have seen his
neat and highly cultivated fields, or have partaken of his hospitable board,
or what to many will be remembered with still more delight, who have list-
ened to the sallies of Avit and humor as they playfully flowed from his Avell-
stored mind, under the shade of his umbrageous trees — your committee need
not tell the result : to others, it may be interesting to learn that, instead of
having an impoverished estate to leave as an inheritance to his children,
Mr. Brooke, in green old age, Avith them, enjoys the fruits of an estate, the
value of which he has perhaps quadrupled.

" Stimulated by this example, and the march of improvement Avhich charac-
terizes the age v.^e live in, a number of our farmers have abandoned the old
practice, and adopted the modern system of improvement. Among those
who have more recently signalized themselves in this respect, and Avho, it
may almost emphatically be said, have changed 'the barren waste to fertile
fields,' the committee Avill only mention the names of Benjamin Halloavell,
Samuel T. Stonestreet, and F. P. Blair, Esqs. With such examples to
encourage us, Ave think none need despair. In addition to the sources of
improvement heretofore within our reach, Ave may now draAv upon the
shores of the Pacific, and the rich pasture fields of Virginia, Avhich are
annually sending us large contributions in the shape of guano and bone-dust,
to aid our efforts in the Avork of improvement. Their application, thus far,
has been highly satisfactory, and we deem their characters as great fertilizers
now Avell established."

Salt v. irirervorm. — A correspondent in the Gazette, signing "Han-
toniensis," requests information on the quantity of salt requisite per acre for
the prevention or cure of wireAA^orm. I beg to inform " Hantoniensis," (a
foreigner no doubt,) that I soAA^ed on tAvo acres of land greatly infested Avith
wireworm one ton of salt, (viz. tAventy bushels per acre,) I also marked off
a small piece upon Avhich not a particle of salt fell ; the salted part is a
beautiful piece of corn, that not salted is not one-fourth of a plant, and I noAv
regret that instead of sowing one ton on two acres, that I did not soav a ton
per acre, (for even the best part is rather thin at places ;) had I doubled the
quantity I believe it Avould have been just the thing, although my neighbors
thought me a fool for putting on as much as I did, and all felt quite satisfied
that there was not the least doubt but that the salt Avould exterminate the
Avireworm and the Avheat also. — H. K. Hemsted, Marhet-gardener, Ridg-
ivelh near Ilalated, Essex.

P. S. Should "Hantoniensis" be passing through Ridgwell, and Avill con-
descend to call on me, I shall be most happy to shoAv him the piece of Avheat,
and to partake of a glass of my home-brewed afterwards. — //. K. H.

MANIFESTO OF SEVENTY-NINE COTTON PLANTERS. 287

MANIFESTO OF SEVENTY-NINE COTTON PLANTERS,

OF ADAMS COUNTY, MISSISSIPPI,
IN FAVOR OF PROTECTION TO AMERICAN MANUFACTURES.

We confess we had no expectation, when we undertook to show the identity of interests
between the Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil, that we should have our hands thus strength-
ened and our liearts emboldened as they are by the following letter and manifesto, from
planters of cotton, among the most opulent and deservedly influential in all the southern
country. We feel proud to recognise many of them as valued friends, and should not
have valued them the less if we had found them, as we should have apprehended some
of them at least were, opposed to us in the political doctrines which, in our judgment, best
comport with the interests of the planter. As it is, we feel strengthened and foititied in
proceeding to show^ that of all guaranties of prosperous husbandry, the most reliable
is that which is based on the jjolicy which places the greatest number of consumers in
the nearest proximity to the producer.

New rdrcr, August 2S, 1848.

To J. S, Skinner, Esq., Editor.

Dear Sir: — I have the first number of " The Plough, the Loom, and
the Anvil,'''' and am much pleased to find you are again working on your
own account. I am glad to see some notice of a steam plough; such a ma-
chine is much wanted in the cultivation of the sugar-cane, and might be
used to great advantage in this level country. The cow pea is used as a
fertilizer, here, with the most marked advantage. It is commonly planted
among the corn, when that plant is receiving its last working, and is ploughed
in green, in September and October, with large ploughs with two coulters,
one, near the end of the beam, being reversed, so as to cut the vines on the
surface of the ground. The best planters say, they make the largest crop
of sugar on the land that bore the largest crop of pea-vines. These large
ploughs are drawn by three yoke of oxen, and cut about nme inches deep
and twelve wide. This is very poor work, compared with what a corre-
spondent of the "National Intelligencer" says Professor Napes does on his
farm in New Jersey. The professor, according to this gentleman, with one
yoke of oxen runs a plough that cuts sixteen inches deep. This is common
work. When he wishes to plough deep, the professor runs twice in the
same furrows, and then he cuts three feet (3 feet) deep. His oxen, how-
ever, weigh 3800 lbs. a pair; ours about 1200 to 1500 lbs. a pair. I should
like to know what plough Mr. Napes uses, and of what breed his oxen
are.*

• I am also much pleased with your views on the protection of American
industry; and to show you how near you "jump in judgment" with a num-
ber of the wealthiest and most intelligent cotton planters in the Union, I
send you, herewith, a copy of a paper, published by them in 1844, embody-
ing their views on the subject of the tariff of 1842, and called the
"Planters' Manifesto." The subscribers to the manifesto were obtained in
one county (Adams) alone in Mississippi.

I presume you consider subscribers to the Farmer's Library as subscribers
to "The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil."

With sincere wishes for your success, I am, very respectfully yours,

W. J. M.

* Our correspondent should make allowance for the light sandy soil of New Jersey.
Still three feet deep at two cuts is deep cutting, it must be confessed.

288 MANIFESTO OF SEVENTY-NINE COTTON PLANTERS.

« PLANTERS MANIFESTO.

Natchez, October 24, 1844.

Whereas, an opinion prevails in some portion of the planting region, that
the protective policy, and especially the taritfact of 1843, has impoverished
and oppressed the cotton planter, to an extent sufficient to warrant a resort
to remedial measures, to resist its operation or obtain its repeal:

And whereas, it is believed by many of those largely engaged in planting
in this section, that the injurious effects attributed to the tariti" may be satis-
factorily traced to other causes, it is deemed proper to give public expression
of their opinion, in the hope that those who differ from them may be in-
duced to consider not only calmly and dispassionately, but earnestly, whether
they are not as much interested in the permanency of a policy which insures
the general prosperity of the whole country, as tliose who are now imme-
diately and directly protected by it; and whether their interests, as producers,
are not dependent on the prosperity of the consumers. The undersigned,
therefore, residents of Adams county and growers of cotton, set forth some
of the views which have influenced them, in giving their support to the
protective system.

They are in favor of such a tariff as that of 1S42, because it affords, as
they believe, adequate protection to all kinds of domestic labor, and renders
us independent, not only in name but in fact.

Because they believe it will induce, at the north, large investments of
capital, and the employment of a large number of laborers in the manufacture
of cotton goods; that it will extend the consumption of manufactured articles,
and thereby increase the demand for the raw material; that it will give the
growers of cotton two markets instead of one, and one of those a home
market.

Because it protects, indirectly, the growers of small grain, and gives them
a home market.

Because it protects, indirectly, the hemp growers, and gives them a home
market, and keeps the large amount of capital and labor now invested in
that business from being employed in extending the culture of cotton.

Because it protects, indirectly, the breeders of hogs, of horses, of cattle,
and of mules, and gives them a home market.

Because it protects the producer of sugar, gives him a home market,
prevents the vast amount of capital and labor invested in the culture of cane
from being directed to the already redundant production of cotton.

Because they believe that all experience proves that its ultimate tendency
is to reduce the price of manufactured goods, and thereby benefit consumers
of all classes.

Because they believe no one great interest of the country can be adequately
protected, without, in some degree, extending protection to all other interests,
and that none derive more essential beneflt from the general prosperity of
all other ])ursuits than the cotton grower.

But above all, they are in favor of such a tariff as that of 1842, because
they believe the interests of the manufacturers of cotton goods at the north
to be identified with the interests of the growers of cotton at the south.
And, that as strength is added to those two great interests, the one at the
north and the other at the south, so will strength be added to the bonds
which bind this glorious Union together; and they do most solemnly
believe, that if the system of affording adequate protection to American
industry be persevered in for but a few years, all the great interests of the
country will become so blended and so dependent one upon another, that

WHY GO AWAY FROM KINDRED AND FRIENDS. 289

all attempts, whether of abolitionists or of abstractionists, to destroy our
beloved Union, will be lauq-hed to scorn for centuries to come. Signed —

James Metcalf, J. P. Ashford, M. Lasley, D. Farran, Thomas J. Davis,
G. P. Ogden, Harry Sojourner, James H. Mitchell, William B. Fowles,
Alexander C. Farran, Isham Griffin, John H. Thom, William Bisland,
H. Chotard, Thomas Henderson, G. B. Shields, Robert McCullough,
L. R. Marshall, Stephen Duncan, S. M. Warren, H. Elliott, James Surget,
J. C. Wilkins, A. S. Benjamin, Jun., C. Y. Dahlgran, S. A. Cartvvright,

B. L. C. Wailes, Thomas Affleck, Isaac Dunbar, J. C. Inge, E. L. Wailes,
L. C. Wilkinson, O. Metcalf, James Carson, Jun., Gerard Brundon, C. Hale,
O. Kibbe, James F. McCabb, Samuel Chamberlain, R. Dunbar, James P.
Sessions, John Ker, H. L. Conner, A. W. Ogden, Benjamin Chase, James
P. Smith, George Calhoun, Alexander Montgomery, S. M. Reuth, A. C. Hen-
derson, Austin Williams, J. N. Helm, J. F. Gillespie, B. O. Smith, A. Kinsej',

C. Marck, J. A. Saunderson, R. R. Barker, Lewis Lum, Allen Grafton,
J. F. Roach, C. Stowers, J. Themsbury, J. C. Coleman, R. D. Warde,
J. C. Warne, Levi Pipes, D. Knott, John Rife, John R. Davis, Andrew
Grafton, W. S. Bernard, B. Wade, J. P. Walworth, C. N. Nicholls, W. J.
Minor, John Hutchins, P. R. Nichols, A. S. Benjamin.

WHY GO AWAY FROM KINDRED AND FRIENDS TO
THE "FAR- WEST?"

Except to indulge that roving temper, which prompted old Daniel Boone
to say, that he could not breathe freely when civihzation approached his
dwelling in the woods.

The facihties for getting away to the west are so great and so system-
atized, with numerous agents and harpies on the look-out for all immigrants
who come, that our old sea-board states are no more thought of than if they
had been sunk in the ocean fifty years ago. Yet look here at the evidence
of their capacity to yield ample return to labor, and that in the midst of
every social convenience and arrangement. Mr. Newton, not long since a
member of Congress, and a very enterprising agriculturist, living in one of
the oldest and most deserted districts of Virginia, says to the editor of the
American Farmer :

" Our agriculture is rapidly improving in this region. We formerly thought ours not a
suitable soil or climate for wheat, but now by good husbandry and suitable manures we
make fine crops. There have been frequent instances of late of a product of from
fifteen to twenty-eight bushels per acre, on lands formerly deemed incapable of produc-
ing wheat. From a bushel and seven-eighths of Zimmerman wheat, I reaped forty-two
bushels — a part of it yielded at the rate of twenty-eight for one.

"We are using guano to some extent. The African we find greatly inferior to the Pe-
ruvian. The price of it is too high, considering the low price of wheat. I wish to pur-
chase about ten tons, and if the price falls under $40 I will do so. I have been informed
that Mr. Wm. Harding, of Northumberland county, Va., made through a considerable field
dressed with Peruvian guano, twenty-seven bushels of wheat for one. The land on
which this was accomplished is precisely such as is sold throughout the "forest" of the
Northern Neck at §2 to §4 per acre. He had, of course, improved it somewhat by other
manures (lime, &c.) before. JNIr. Robert Lyell, of Richmond county, made from a simi-
lar dressing on old and unimproved corn-land, near seventy bushels for one. Thou-
sands of acres of such land as Mr. Lyell's and JNIr. Harding's, in a healthy region, may
be purchased in their unimproved state for less than §4 an acre. Yet people will pre
fer the west in search of laud !

Vol. I.— 37 2 B

290 ADVANTAGES FROM THE USE OF OXEN.

ADVANTAGES TO BE DERIVED FROM A MORE
EXTENDED USE OF OXEN

IN THE HUSBANDEY OF THE UNITED STATES,
We should think we have labored to little purpose, if any practical farmer who reads
it should hesitate to believe that in the following Essay alone he will be repaid for the
amount of his subscription for a year. How few, by the by, reflect on the labor bestowed
by Editors on special articles — labor for which a lawyer, if called on to collect the ma-
terials and to draw out the argument of equal volume and with equal care, would charge
more than the amount of fifty subscribers. The following appeared in the American
edition of "Every Man his own Cattle Doctor," by the sensor Editor of this journal —
published by Lea and Blanchard, who have been kind enough to loan us the cuts.

So deep is the conviction of the great saving Avhich would be accomph'shed
by individuals, adding immensely, in the aggregate, to our national wealth,
by « more extended use of oxen in lieu of horses in the general labors of
husbandry, that the occasion is here embraced to present the views by which
that conviction has been established, and the editor feels persuaded that he
might venture to introduce these views, on the score of their intrinsic im-
portance, even though the subject to which they relate Avere not so naturally
associated, as it seems to be, with a work on the diseases of cattle.

That "a farming district maybe judged of by its 7vorking oxen, as safely
as by its barns or its corn-fields," has been laid down as an axiom by a Com-
mittee cf Farmers, — working men in the true sense of the word, — of Massa-
chusetts, at an exhibition where no premium was offered for horses, expressly
on the ground that "it was believed that the interest of the farmer is pro-
moted by substituting the ox for the horse, yb?' inost purposes, as he is fed with
less expense, is more patient of labor, and is more valuable when his service
is ended." This declaration in favor of the ox for '■'most purposes^'' is at
once explicit and broad, and might seem to settle the question ; but there are
considerations arising out of difference of soil and climate, Avhich obviously
demand a comparison of circumstances to see how far that system admits of
general application, which is here proclaimed on the best authority to be
expedient throughout New England : and this brings us at once to the most
formidable cbjecticns to the use of oxen — their cdleged incapacity to with-
stand, ivhen laboring, the heat of more southern latitudes, and their slow-
ness of motion.

As to New England, in addition to the evidence already quoted, we may
give here the answer of the venerable Josiah Q,uincy, now President of the
time-honored Harvard University, to a letter once addressed to him by the
writer of this. "Oxen," said he, "are used almcst wholly for plough and
team work in this quarter of the country. A single horse is usually kept
by our farmers to go to mill and to church, and for the convenience of the
family. This is so universal as to be almost Avithout exception amcng mere
farmers. They certainly answer all purposes except perhaps speed, and in
this, on a long journey, they are considered as quite equal to horses. Our
farmers are so satisfied with their utility and economy, that no argument
would induce them to change."

Hence it is seen that no reasoning is necessary to recommend the ox to
general use in all that portion of America, and this evidence has been ad-
duced to prevail upon southern readers to reflect on the subject, by showing,
what many of them do not know, that already, in many of our States where
the folks are nice judges of economical and labor-saving machines, animate
and inanimate, oxen are actually substituted, and horses altogether banished
for all farming purposes, and that their speed en long journeys is quite equal
to that of horses. On the point of speed we shall speak again and conclu-

ADVANTAGES FROM THE USE OF OXEN. 291

sively, when we shall have dismissed the one in hand, to wit: — capacity to
bear heal!

It was for a long time believed that the ox was a native of Europe, and
that in the Aurock, running wild in the forests of Poland, his original type
was to be found; but Cuvier's researches in comparative anatomy have
established the belief that the cow is a native of Southern Asia, and thence
may be deduced an argument that there is nothing in the natural constitution
of the ox which forbids his manifesting his entire capabilities in southern
climates. If there were, how is it that in South America he reaches his
highest developments of size and power ? As one of the Commissioners
to South America, Chancellor Bland, in a report which Mr. Adams pro-
nounced to be one of the ablest papers ever presented to the government,
thus describes the ox-carts employed, and the wonderful powers of endurance
of this patient animal in crossing the pampas of Buenos Ayres. It speaks
conclusively to both the objections — want of speed and of power to bear heat.

" The Tucuman and Mendoza carts, at a little distance, looked like thatched
cabins slowly moving over the plain — the whole machine is destitute of a
nail or a bit of iron ; its great coarse wheels are not less than eight feet in
diameter ; six oxen, in general noble strong animals, move it ; the two front
pair have a great length of cord by which they draw ; and the load of the
cart, which, on an average, is not less than four thousand weight, is pretty
nearly balanced on the axletree ; the body of the cart is either covered with
raw hide or thatch, made of reeds or straw ; and with a collection of brush-
wood, as fuel, tied on the top, and brought from the westward of the pampas,
these carts are seen crossing the plains in caravans of from thirty to forty
together. On the journey the oxen are unyoked occasionally through the
day and night, and permitted to seek their food round about. Thus without
any other provision than what is necessary for himself, the carrier pursues
his way over a waste of thirty days or six weeks' passage. From Buenos
Ayres to Mendoza the distance is nine hundred miles, and the journey is
performed in about thirty days."

In some parts of England they formerly had ox races, and it is said that
some years ago an ox ran four miles, over the course at LeWis, for one hun-
dred guineas, at the rate of fifteen miles the hour.

We are told that in India bullocks are used for the saddle and coach, and
that there travelling oxen are curried, clothed and attended, with as much
solicitude, and much greater kindness, than we bestow on our best horses.
The Indian cattle are extremely docile, and quick of perception, patient and
kind; like the horses, their chief travelling pace is the trot; and they are
reported by those who have ridden them often, to perform journeys of sixty
successive days at the rate of thirty to forty-five miles a day.

To come back to our own country on this point, it is worthy of being here
added, that in an address delivered before the Barnwell Agricultural Society
of South Carolina in 1&21, Dr. J. S. Bellinger remarked, that "in the lower
districts of our State they appear fully to appreciate the value of their labor
in heavy drafts. With those of us who have attempted the use of them,
oxen appear fully calculated to answer the many purposes upon our farms
to which we almost exclusively apply the more expensive, though nobler
animal, the horse."

Time was when the horse was not considered "the nobler" of the two;
else why the many cautions in Scripture in favor and in honor of the ox —
thou shalt not muzzle the ox — thy ox shall not labor on the Sabbath day —
thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife nor his maid — nor his oxJ

The late James M. Garnett, of Virginia, honored be his name by all friends
of American agricuhure, stated in one of his addresses — "A gentleman of.

292 ADVANTAGES FROM THE USE OF OXEN.

my acquaintance had a mixed team of horses, mules, and oxen — in each
season his horses failed first, the mules next, although both were fed upon
grain and hay ; and the oxen, fed exclusively on hay and grass, Jlnished the
crop. But to come down to the present time and nearer home, in Maryland,
at the hottest season of the year, and the most busy one with the planter, the
same teams of oxen are worked, during the whole day, hauling very heavy
loads of green tobacco for weeks together, and do well without any food but
the grass of common pasturage on being turned out at night — whereas horses,
working steadily in the same way, on the National Road in wagons, consume
twenty-five pounds of hay, and grain at the rate of four bushels of oats per
day for the five horses, or four-fifths of a bushel for each horse — or, what is
considered equivalent, four bushels of corn in the ear — making of oats at the
rate of two hundred and thirty-two bushels for each horse for a year!"

As to horse power on the National Road, the following is the answer from
Major Thruston : —

"Cumberland, Maryland, November 17, 1S43: — The general result, (for
they differ widely in their opinions,) obtained by conversation with the oldest
teamsters on the National Road, is this — A five horse team with a load of
sixty cwt. (the average) will make daily, throughout the year, fifteen miles
per day ; the weight of the empty wagon between one and a half and two
tons. At this work horses will not last as long as at farm-work by one third,
certainly. They average one set of shoes monthly, each horse ; cost of shoes,
one dollar each per month ; feed, four bushels of oats per day, or four-fifths
of a bushel per day to each horse; the same of corn in the ear ; hay, twenty-
five pounds. On this subject they are uniform in their statements. This
amount of food is enough, and not more than will be consumed."

But the comparison in point of expense will be extended in another part
of this essay.

In answer to the argument against oxen now under consideration, and the
one which has had most influence in restricting the use of them, we now
offer the views urged by the illustrious Madison, whose pen simplified and
enlightened every subject it touched, as could not but happen with a mind
so pure and so bright.

The objections generally made to the ox are — 1st, that he is less tractable
than the horse ; 2d, that he does not bear heat as well ; 3d, that he does not
answer for the single plough used in our corn-fields ; 4th, that he is slower
in his movements ; 5lh, that he is less fit for carrying the produce of the
farm to market.

The first objection is certainly founded in mistake. Of the two animals
the ox is the most docile. In all countries where the ox is the ordinary
draught animal, his docility is proverbial. His intractability, where it exists,
has arisen from an occasional use of him only, with long and irregular inter-
vals; during which the habit of discipline being broken, a new one is to be
formed.

The second objection has as little foundation. The constitution of the ox
accommodates itself as readily as that of the horse to different climates.
Not only in ancient Greece and Italy, but throughout Asia, as presented to
us in ancient history, the ox and the plough are associated. At this day, in
the warm parts of India and China, the ox, not the horse, is in the draught
service. In every part of India the ox always appears, even in the train of
her armies. And in the hottest parts of the West Indies, the ox is employed
in hauling the weighty produce to the sea-ports. The mistake here, as in
the former case, has arisen from the effect of an occasional employment only,
with no other thnn green food. The fermentation of this in the animal,
heated by the weather, and fretted by the disciphne, will readily account for

ADVANTAGES FROM THE USE OF OXEN. 293

his sinking' under his exertions; when green food even, much less dry, with
a sober habit of labor, would have no such tendency.

The third objection also is not a solid one. The ox can, by a proper har-
ness, be used singly, as well as the horse, between the rows of Indian corn;
and equally so used for other purposes. Experience may be safely appealed
to on this point.

In the fourth place, it is alleged that he is slower in his movements. This
is true, but in a less degree than is often taken for granted. Oxen that are
well chosen for their form are not worked after the age of about eight years,
(the age at which they are best fitted for beef,) are not worked too many to-
gether, and are suitably matched, may be kept at nearly as quick a step as
that of the horse — might I not say quicker than that of many of the horses
we see at work, who, on account of their age, or the leanness occasioned by
the costliness of the food they require, lose the advantage where they might
have once had it ?

The last objection has most weight. The ox is not as well adapted as the
horse to the road service, especially for long trips. In common roads, which
are often soft, and sometimes suddenly become so, the form of his foot and
the shortness of his leg are disadvantages ; and, on roads frozen or turnpiked,
the roughness of the surface in the former case, and its hardness in both
cases, are inconvenient to his cloven foot. But where the distance to market
is not great, where the varying state of the roads and of the weather can be
consulted, and where the road service is less in proportion to the farm service,
the objection is almost deprived of its weight.

In cases where it m.ost applies, its weight is diminished by the considera-
tion that a much greater proportion of service on the farm may be done b}^
oxen than is now commonly done ; and that the expense of shoeing them
is little different from that of keeping horses shod. It is observable that
when oxen are worked on the farm over rough frozen ground, they suffer so
much from the want of shoes, however well fed they may be, that it is a
proper subject for calculation whether true economy does not require for them
that accommodation, even on the farm, as well as for the horses.

A more important calculation is, whether, in many situations, the general
saving by substituting the ox for the horse would not balance the expense
of hiring a conveyance of the produce to market. In the same scale with
the hire is to be put the value of the grass and hay consumed by the oxen ;
and in the other scale, the value of the corn, amounting to one-half of the
crop, and of the grass and hay consumed by the horses. Where the market
is not distant, the value of the corn saved would certainly pay for the car-
riage of the market portion of the crop, and balance, moreover, any difference
between the value of the grass and hay consumed by oxen, and the value
of the oxen when slaughtered for beef. In all these calculations, it is doubt-
less proper not to lose sight of the rule, that farmers ought to avoid paying
others for doing what they can do for themselves. But the rule has its ex-
ceptions, and the error, if it be committed, will not lie in departing from the
rule, but in not selecting aright the cases which call for the departure. It
may be remarked that the rule ought to be more or less general, as there
may or may not be at hand a market by which every produce of labor is
convertible into money. In the old countries, this is much more the case
than in new ; and in new, much more the case near towns than at a distance
from them. In this, as in most other parts of our country, a change of cir-
cumstances is taking place, which renders every thing raised on a farm more
convertible into money than formerly ; and as the change proceeds, it will
be more and more a point for consideration how far the labor in doing what
might be bought, could earn more in another way than the amount of the

2b2

294 ADVANTAGES FROM THE USE OF OXEN.

purchase. Still, it will ahvays be prudent, for reasons Avhich every expe-
rienced farmer will understand, to Jean to the side of doing rather than hiring
or buying what may be Avanted.

The next most serious charge against the ox is constitutional sloumess of
motion, which, as many suppose, no course of education can oven;ome, but
which may be set off in comparison with the greater speed of the horse, as
TEsop illustrated the difference in the long run between the pace of the ^^ tor-
toise and the hare!'''' — " The greater haste the less speed," is a proverb suited
to this case as to that. It has already been seen that ox-teams travel over
the ever-verdant pampas of Buenos Ayres, at the rate of thirty miles a day,
for a month together. Twenty years ago, the writer of this held corre-
spondence with Commodore Jacob Jones, himself a practical fai'mer, and an
habitually close and judicious observer, and then commanding our squadron
in the Mediterranean, on the subject of Andalusian horses, cattle, and other
animals, with a view to the importation, under authority from the Albemarle
Agricultural Society, of such as might be deemed essentially superior to
animals of the same species in America ; and we now quote from his letter
as applicable to the questions both of speed and susceptibility to heat : —
" The cattle that I have seen in Spain appear to be nothing superior to ours,
nor have 1 seen anywhere on the coasts of the Mediterranean any that appear
better than those in America, excejit a race of white cattle at Naples used
for the draft. I was informed by a gentleman who, in supplying the govern-
ment with timber, had used thirty yoke of them for two years, that during
that time they had constantly travelled from twenty to twenty-five miles a
day. They are generally fifteen hands high; their bodies long, thin, and
deep; legs long ; small light head; sharp muzzle resembling deer ; color
entirely white, except black nose, ears, and tuft of the tail. I'hey are most
frequentlj^ worked in the thills of the cart, and are as spirited and walk as
quick as a horse, and appeared not to suffer from heat more than a horse."

To show, however, that we are not dependent on anj- foreign stock, it may
be stated that the small, pale-red old field ox about Salisbury in Maryland
will travel twenty-five miles in a day, Avith heavy loads of lumber going,
and returning empty, over the sandy roads of that region ; while it may he
affirmed, after particular inquiry, that the distance made by the heavy-bodied,
grain-devouring, Conestoga horses on the National Road between Cumberland
and Wheeling averages not over sixteen miles, six horses with loads of from
six to eight thousand pounds.

To the letter from Major Thruston already given may be added the follow-
ing, which goes somewhat more into detail, from Mr. Agnew, Postmaster at
Wheeling, Virginia : —

Wheeling, November 23, 1843.
J. S. Skinner, Esq.

Dear Sir, — Your favor requesting me to obtain information respecting
horses, wagons, &c., was received in due course of mail ; but as 1 was just
leaving for Pittsburgh, I was compelled to defer answering until my return.
I conferred with several wagoners, and give below the result of their united
opinions. Respectfully, your obedient servant,

David Agnew.

1. Tlie iiPiml average daily travel of loaded ) o-vtpen miles

wagons? ^

2. How many horses, and their average cost } Six horses, average cost of each sixty-five

or value? \ dollars.

3. The average time that horses so employed > c ,,^0,--

• II 1 ao f oeven yeaiis,

will last? 5

•I. At what age is it considered safe to put ) Five years. Many are used at three and

them to such laborl \ four years.

ADVANTAGES FROM THE USE OF OXEN. 295

Fifteen dollars.

5. What the average cost of shoeing each

horse per annum?

6. What is the nsual feed of kind and quan-'^ Oats is the only feed in use. Four and a

tity, and to how many oats is it equiva- s. half b-ushels is allowed per day for six

lent where oats are not used"? ) horses.

7. As to hay — is it in regular use on theS

road, or does cut straw, or what, take ^ Cut straw is not used. Hay is in regular use.

the place of it? j

_ -.-.T, . ^, , • 1 ^ y- .1 • 1 1 -N The wei2;ht of loads varies from sixty to

S. What IS the usual weight of their load^ - i " i i i i i

, . i- .1 • 1 1 .f eiirhty hundred pounds: seventy luni-

oxclusive of their wa;;ons, and what > ,--,•' , • ., ', • - .

, • w /- », ■ ■" o C dred pounds is the usual v/eignt: wa-

the weight of their wagonsi 1 • • w i . om,, .u

° ° -' gon s weight about 3500 lbs.

9. What is the first cost of wagon-harness"p A wagon of the largest size used on the

per horse, and how long will a set of > National Road costs $250; harness per

harness last? j horse, §20: and will last six years.

10. What is the cost of a wagon in jiropor--^ A wagon that will carry 3000 lbs. costs $150;

tiontowhat it will carry— and about/ 4000 lbs.$160; 5000 lbs.$175; 6000 lbs.

how long will a .wagon last with ordi- C $200 ; 7000 lbs. and upwards, $250 ; and

nary care? -^ ^vith ordinary care will last four years.

In support of the adaptation of the ox to the road for heavy draft and long
journeys, the last authority which it is deemed necessary to produce is one
of unquestionable validity; being no other than the testimony of the late
Timothy Pickering. Being called on for his knowledge of the employment
of o.x-teams for the transportation of military stores during the Revolution,
when he acted as Q,uarter-Mastcr-General under General Washington, the
following is extracted from an interesting reply, in which other views are
embraced, connected with other aspects of the subject, to be presently
considered:

"When in August, 1781, disappointed in the expected co-operation of a
French fleet against the enemy in New York, the commander-in-chief de-
cided on the expedition against the British army under Lord CornwaUis in
Virginia, I received his orders to provide for moving the troops destined for
that service. The oa:-teams effectually performed the transportation of
baggage and stores to the points where they were relieved by water con-
veyances. From the head of Elk in Maryland (sixteen miles eastward of
the Susquehanna) to James' River in Virginia, near three hundred miles,
the ox-teams (without loads) travelled expeditiously. The heavy artillery,
shot, shells, &c., brought from the head of Elk by water, were landed on the
shore of James' River, I think at or near Jamestown, whence they were
transported by the ox-teams to our camp before Yorktown, a distance, I
believe, of about fourteen miles. In the performance of this service, those
teams were of essential imj^ortance,

"The late Colonel Jeremiah Wadsworth of Connecticut (one of the most
judicious and efflcient men in business that I ever knew) was then the con-
tractor for supplying the French army with provisions, teams, carriages, —
in a word, with every thing necessary for it, in the quarter-master's and
commissary's departments. I introduce his name, because he had provided
a great number of ox-teams and wagons for the use of the French army
during the same campaign, and these a/so travelled to Virginia.

" I always understood that the great transportation of provision, and stores
from Massachusetts and Connecticut to the troops on Hudson's River, was
almost v)holly performed by ox-teams during the war.

"Just at the close of the war, in the summer of 1783, I recollect being at
the house of an agricultural gentleman of Princeton, in New Jersey, where
Congress was then sitting, and that Charles Thomson, the Secretary, was
present. One of Arthur Young's Agricultural Tours in England lay on
the table, and gave rise to a conversation on the use of oxen for the draft,
particularly when geared with collars, hames, and traces, hke horses ; and

296

ADVANTAGES FROM THE USE OF OXEN.

Mr. Thomson related the following' fact, now, for substance, perfectly in
my recollection. Travelling in that part of Chester county in Pennsylvania
which lay between Lancaster in that State and Newport on Christiana creek,
Mr. Thomson fell in with a team of a novel character in that country, being
composed of one pair of horses and one pair of oxen : and the latter were
accoutred ivith harness like horses, only ivith the collars turned upside
down. His curiosity being excited, he stopped and made some inquiries,
and received from the driver an account as follows: that he and a neighbor,
each havinw a horse-team and wagon, had entered into a contract to transport
a quantity of flour (I think in a given time) to Newport; that in the midst
of the work one or two of his horses failed, (fell sick or died,) and he was
not in circumstances conveniently to procure others; but he had a pair of
oxen, and he concluded to try whether they would supply the place of his
horses; that he made the experiment and succeeded. He told Mr. Thomson
that the oxen were more useful to him than horses; for after some fall-rains,
when the roads had become miry, he continued to carry his full complement
of barrels of flour, while his neighbor's horse-team, frequently getting stalled,
(the familiar term in Pennsylvania when a team gets set fast in a slough,)
compelled him to lessen his loads. But he added, that in returning from
Newport with their wagons empty, his neighbor had the advantage in speed,
although none in the actual performance of the contract."

Thus it appears that as Rome is said to have been saved by the cackling
of geese, the labor of oxen contributed on a critical occasion to the establish-
ment of the American Republic. So much in answer may we not say in
refutation of the objection made to these animals in comparison with horses
for heavy draft even on the road.

OX-SnOES AND MACHINE FOR SHOEING OXEN.

A great impediment to the use of oxen on our public roads in the winter
season, is the liability of their feet to get sore for want of shoes — a great
scandal on the intelligence and humanity of all southern farmers — for nothing
can be easier or more simple than the manner of doing it in New England,
where cattle driven on the roads in winter are as regularly shod as horses.
In the hope of introducing a practice recommended equally by interest and
humanity, a view is here given of the frame used for that purpose, and the
smith who does not provide himself with one ought not to receive the pa-
tronage of any enlightened neighborhood.

ra

J3

^,

D

-w

eztt^F^i^z:^=zzS

A

ADVANTAGES FROM THE USE OF OXEN.

297

The frame, as here exhibited, shoiild be seven and a half feet long by
three and a half wide, and five and a half high, consisting of four upright
posts, A A A A, and two horizontal bars on each side, B B B B, joined by-
mortices. In the bars of one end, at the distance of ten inches from each
other, are two perpendicular stanchions, the one fixed, the other movable,
and fastened by a key D, which are let into the bars and form a head stall.
The lower bars of the sides are eighteen inches from the ground. Imme-
diately under the upper bar on the right side is a windlass E E, separated in
the centre, working in the posts, and a block K let fall from the bar — with
one end passing over, and moving upon the opposite beam, is a broad leather
strap six feet long, attached by an iron ring at the other end to the staples
in the windlass. To give sufficient stability, the posts may either be let
into the ground, or framed into sills, with end braces.

The ox to be shod is led into the frame, and his head confined in the head
stall. The strap is brought under the lower part of the belly and fastened
to the windlass, by turning which his hind feet are raised six or eight inches
from the ground. The foot is then lashed by a cord to the upper surface of
the lower bar. In this situation the shoes are easily set. By moving the
strap till it comes near the fore-legs, the other part of the body is raised, and
the shoes set on the fore-feet in like manner.

The shoe is the arc of a circle, of the thickness of a common horse-shoe,
from half to three-quarters of an inch wide, flattened to double that width at
the hind part. The flat or hind part covers the frog, the tenderest part of
the foot. The heel and toe are either corked or raised to make a level with
the heads of the nails. Five or six nails are sufficient to secure it. Parti-
cular care must be taken by the smith in shoeing, that the toes of the shoes
do not extend quite to the extremity of the hoof, in which they impinge on
each other, and by the motion of the feet are easily thrust off. These direc-
tions are given by Benjamin Coleman, Esq., of Virginiaj and are illustrated
by the following sketch.

For the speed of an ox-team in the plough we might rely cm the nume-
rous certificates of committees for the last twenty years, in which our agri-
cultural annals abound, from Boston in the north to Baltimore at least goino-
south. These testify in innumerable cases to their ploughing five or six
inches deep, an eighth of an acre thoroughly well, at the rate of an acre in
four hours. Making the most liberal allowance, however, for the favorable
circumstances under which the work has been done at this rate, and it may
still be safely assumed that a yoke of oxen, well trained, will turn over more
than an acre of strrmg land in eight hours.

All that Ave have contended for is more than confirmed by the following
testimony taken from a very interesting letter from Governor Hill, dated 7tS

Vol. L— 38

298 ADVANTAGES FROM THE USE OF OXEN.

December, 1843, on the use of oxen in the himbering business in Maine.
He says — "My own experience in this matter is quite recent, and of course
limiteJ. I have at this time cattle of my own raising, which, having been
iaiiglit to step quick, and having Avorked in the same team with horses, Avill
side by side travel as fast and plough as much in a day as the same number
of horses. A pair of these oxen will turn over with a plough that carries
twelve inches of the last year's corn or potato ground, or easy stubble land,
from one and a half to two acres in a day, working eight hours, four in the
forenoon and four in the afternoon. Oxen well fed with hay and a portion
of Indian corn or meal, will in the heat of sunnner stand it to work daily
from eight to ten hours."

At the Exhibition of the Maryland Agricultural Society in 1823, [quonan
pars fui.^ in the view of hundreds of spectators, an ox-team started. in com-
petition with five horse-teams, and was the second in completing an equal
quantity of ground, and would have been the first if the horse-team had
cleared out the middle furrow; but supposing that when ready to start the
horse has a little the advantage of foot, it is to be considered that for small jobs
and short bouts his competitor can be more quickly hitched up, and the work
despatched by the time the horse would be geared : — such cases as Ave have
stated abound in all the accounts of the proceedings of agricultural societies.
A writer in the Memoirs of the Massachusetts Agricultural Society, speak-
ing to a community who neither could nor would be deceived on a matter so
well under^stood by, and so deej^ly interesting to them, says — "The principal
ai'gument of the advocates for the cultivation by horses in Maryland seems
to be the superior speed of the horse. Now this must proceed from an im-
perfect training of the cattle. With us our cattle will plough an acre of
ground much better, and in as short a time, as a pair of horses would do it,
unless they can trot their horses in the plough ; so they will get in a ton of
hay in as short a time." Here we are well persuaded the sagacious writer
hits the nail on the head, when he suggests that the objection on the score
of speed must arise from an '■'■ iinperfect training of the cattle.''^ He must
possess an imperfect knowledge of the difierence between the habits of the
New England and the Southern ploughman, Avho is not prepared to admit
that in nothing is that difTerence greater than in their treatment of all their
cattle, and more cspecialh/ their oxen. In this very difference, in fact, is to
be found the solution of the question, and this brings us to the point for
making the suggestion we propose on the breed, gearing, training, and
general treatment of the ox.

As to the breed, there can be no doubt that if regard were had alone to
the working qualities of cattle, a skilful breeder might, in a series of years,
not very long, manufacture out of our own country cattle a race which would
be as distinguished for quickness of motion and endurance as, by like care
and attention and skill, the improved short-horns have been made, and es-
tablished for earh' maturity, symmetry and disposition to lay on flesh and
fat on the most valuable parts. There is, however, in the two cases, this
obvious difierence in the system of breeding the horse and ox, which is a
matter of necessity militating against the ox and detracting from him on the
score of action, leaving it even a subject of surprise that he should be as
quick as he is. While the horse, for instance, is bred and cultivated with
a view to the possession and display of a single qiuditij, either high-bred for
light harness or the saddle, or cold-blooded, with weight to be thrown into
the collar, for the plough or heavy loads, for the cart or the wagon, true eco-
nomy compels the husbandman as to his cattle, to keep in view and to com-
bine, as far as he can, several objects in some degree incompatible with each
other, and with the highest attainable degree of excellence in any particular

ADVANTAGES FROM THE USE OF OXEN. 299

one of them. Few, for instance, could afford to breed cattle with exclusive
reference to the pail, the yoke, or the shambles! For either of these objects
a different breed Avould be taken, while, under all circumstances, for all these
purposes combined, we should pronounce in favor of the North Devon. It
is from this stock that the famous New Enoland oxen are descended. Being
of moderate size, and active and thrifty, they are adapted to a wider range
of country; and being in itself an unmixed, distinct natural breed, if we may
say so, it transmits and preserves its peculiar qualities with remarkable uni-
formity as to shape, size, color, temper and action; and without demanding,
in order to keep them up to the mark, that practised skill and extraordinary
care in the selection of the breeding stock which has been for many years
exercised in the formation of some other artificial breeds, choosing for that
purpose individuals in every case most free from tlie defects, and possessing
the greatest number of the points which it may be the object of the breeder
to establish.

In a correspondence between Dr. Mease of Philadelphia and some English
stock-breeders of celebrity, one of them, Mr. Chandler, who had repeatedly
gained prizes at Smithfield for the cattle he had raised or exhibited, says in
his answer to certain inquiries — "Not being an advocate for very large ani-
mals or for feeding to an excess, I have endeavored from experience to make
use of that description of animals \\\\\c\\ pay best for the food they eat, and
are the readiest sale when fit for market. I have in consequence used the
North Bevons. They are the best breed that I am acquainted with for the
united purposes of labor and feeding, being very active, fast walkers, quick
feeders, of a very good quality when slaughtered, and of a size now very
generally preferred in our markets to the very large beasts, being from one
hundred to one hundred and fifty stone of eight pounds. They are worked
in yokes from four to six to a plough, and plough upwards of an acre per
day ; indeed they work harder than any other oxen in this country, for
Devonshire is a very hilly country. The Devonshire cows are not of a large
size, but very handsome forms, quick feeders, and give milk of a very rich
quality. I should suppose that a yearling bull vv'ould not be procured in
either Devon or Hereford, from the first breeds, for less than one hundred
guineas."

It is stated in the communications to the Board of Agriculture in England,
vol. iv., that ten North Devon cows of Mr. Congon produced on an average
five dozen pounds of butter per week in summer, and two dozen in the
winter; or, in other words, two hundred and sixty-eight pounds per cow.
His thirty cows averaged an annual profit of £VS, 14s. 8(/., or $00-53 per
head.

Another fact which weighs heavily in favor of the ox is, that his size is
not diminished by labor; a consideration dwelt upon with emphasis by the
late John Lowell of Massachusetts, eminent alike for his knowledge and for
his public-spirited use of it. In a report in 1825, he remarks — "There was
another very interesting fact disclosed on this examination. There v/ere
three fine five-year-old steers of Joseph Eastbrooks, two of which had been
Avorked hard from the age of three, and the third had never had a yoke
around his neck. The judges, and better judges there could scarcely be
than my associates, could perceive no sensible difll'rence in the value of the
worked and unworked cattle of the same age, owned by the same man; and
with the same treatment and food, the unworked oxen often were in no degree
superior to those which had been submitted to labor. Great Britain might
learn a lesson from this example, if her farmers could have been present."

Were it admitted, as perhaps it should be, that an ox will consume more
hay or long provender than a horse, it must also be conceded that the horse

oOO IMPROVEMENTS IN AGRICULTURE AND ARTS.

refuses much that will well sustain the ox — and the objection can at any rate
only apply in all its force where the owner is near enough to market to send
his hay for sale. Now as the grain-crop is more condensed in proportion to
value, And admits of much easier transportation to market, the horse being
the consumer, according to Mr. Stabler's calculation, of ninety bushels more
of grain, is in that view and in that proportion the more expensive animal
of the two. In a national point of view it is worthy of remark that he con-
sumes too the very staple which goes most efficiently to increase and sustain
the population and strength of a country ; very few, perhaps, have reflected
on the number of people who may be kept on the food of one horse. For
example, the usual allowance for a slave is a peck of corn-meal and three
and a half pounds of meat for a week, besides salt fish and vegetables; not
enough, supposing the meat to be converted into hay, to keep the horse he
drives for a single day.

Another view, which must not be overlooked, is, that the ox makes much
more and better manure than the horse. He is, in fact, a much better ma-
chine for grinding down by his ruminating process into manure, all the pro-
vender which cannot be taken for sale from the farm. It is in few cases
economical, often not even with hogs, to consume the grain on the farm ; and
of all things that eat it, not excepting poultry and pigeons, the horse is the
roost expensive, as he gives it back in no way but by his labor, and there-
fore is the last animal that should be kept when it can be avoided. We shall
conclude this article in the next number, Avith such practical suggestions as
to breaking, gearing, and management as may prove useful.

ON THE IMPROVEMENTS IN AGRICULTURE AND THE
USEFUL ARTS,

THAT GROW OUT OP CONCENTRATION AND POPULATION.

These improvements are in nothing more obvious than in the use which
has been made of steam, the great discovery and the great labor-saving power
of modern times.

Go into a factory in the towns, where "men do congregate," and see the
variety of purposes to which steam is applied, from the lifting of the tilt-
hammer to the polishing of a needle. Then go in the fields of the husband-
man and ask what it is doing for him. Almost nothing. Behold how perfect,
how wonderful is the machinery employed in the conversion of the raw
materials into the thousand forms that prepare them for use, in towns and
factories where men readily combine all their powers, intellectual and phy-
sical; but what has steam yet done in the work of production of the fruits
of the earth ? Look at all the farmer's implements ! The simple axe which
fells a small tree, only after a thousand strokes — but only get that tree to the
river shore, where it can be reached by the man who hves in a concentrated
population; and see what lie will do with it!

By steam, against wind and tide, you shall see him drag it on board his
vessel, from which he delivers it again to the man of the town, Avho has
invented a steam saw-mill to cut it up into planks of anj' thickness, even
that of a wafer, and with a power and expedition over that of the secluded
farmer's axe as 1000 to 1. This hitherto unwieldly block of timber, as it
came from the hands of the countryman, (whose business has not been im-
proved by the genius which concentration excites and rewards,) being thus
in an instant ri[)ped up into boards, yo\i shall see each board passed with
the speed of thought, and between planes that shave and groove and tongue
it, and prepare it with perfect precision for the use of the carpenter and the

IMPROVEMENTS IN AGRICULTURE AND ARTS. 301

cabinet maker; and they again, if need be, Avitli a labor-saving machine that
looks miraculous, will cut the tenon and mortice, and the huge tree is thus,
by the inventive arts that flourish wherever men can combine, sliced up and
fitted for its final uses with mathematical exactness and the celerity of magic.
Thus it is, farmers, with every thing else — where the policy of a country
draws men together, there improvements of all sorts ensue, and the march
of discovery is steady and rapid. The young men can afford to get
married, and the daughters have no difficulty but to decide between rival
admirers. Population increases and every thing prospers. But where the
barbarous policy is to break up the useful industries — to send the products
of the plough to foreign looms, to shut up the coal-pit and put out the fire
in the furnace and scatter our population to the far West, to make more
wheat and mo?'e corn and more meat, of all of which we have already a
surfeit ; and the stimulus to invention is withdrawn, and invention ceases,
and with it improvement in all the arts, population diminishes, and nothing
increases but ignorance, poverty, and old maids.

To show the wonderful difference in the contrivances for industrial pur-
poses where men live wide apart and where concentration whets the genius
— take, for example, your own field of Indian corn, or of wheat — yoiw farm
is your factory — yet how rude and comparatively inefficient are all your
implements and appliances compared with those in the hands of the mechanic
and the manufacturer, and hence how slow and laborious are all your pro-
cesses, except such improvements as have been invented for you by mechanics
— not in many cases, either, exactly for you, but to tneet the more earnest
and remunerating demands of the manufacturer and the commercial man,
and only incidentally turned to your advantage.

Look at your axe, and your hoe, and your plough, and your scythe, and
see how simple and how laborious in their form and their uses until the
grain reaches your barn, where, as in Mr. Boiling's, and a few others, it meets
the power of steam, not originally applied for your benefit or any stimulus
offered by your active and vigilant societies, but to meet the sharp-sighted
requisitions of men who live in concentrated communities.

Does anybody believe that if commerce or manufactures had needed a
machine like Hussey's for reaping wheat, as agriculture has done since the
time of Noah, that it would not have been perfected centuries ago? compare
it with the thousand more complicated machines to serve the use of the arts
pursued and practised in the towns — compare it with the machine for mak-
ing cards !

Well, let us follow your wheat to the great merchant mill and see how
incredibly expeditious and beautiful are all the operations it there undergoes,
and yet how incomparably more expensive is the machine of production,
than such as are employed in fashioning the natural products of the land
and of agricultural industry — the timber tree or the grain crop.

Take, for instance, your 1000 bushels of wheat, manufactured with a year's
labor on 100 acres of land, for which you would ask $2000. Then calculate
the amount of manual labor in tediously ploughing, and harrowing, and sow-
ing, and reaping, and threshing, and cleaning, and taking to market. If at
the end of a whole year, one-eighth of the crop remains clear profit in your
hands, it is more than many get, though they may not and do not choose to
know it. See then the miller, with his light and comparatively inexpensive
machine of conversion, when he takes 3^our crop in hand, how he will in a
few hours pass it through the mill — fan, grind, bolt, cool, and pack it, and
after taking as much of it for the labor as you bestowed months upon it, he
hands it over again to the merchant, who makes you pay again first for
inspecting and then for selling it — selling it to the man who in iVIanchester

2C

302 CONSTRUCTION AND USE OF CARTS.

is weaving your wool — or your cotton — that is if you can there meet the
competition of the commercial world in the markets of the world, as Go-
vernor Wright and the Patent-office Commissioner recommend we shall pre-
pare and strive to do, instead of compelling the Manchester spinner to come
and spin your wool and your cotton here in your own country, where he
would be sure to eat your flour and your meat. And why not carry your
wheat, and your corn too, to be ground in England, as well as your wool and
cotton? If you want the miller here to take out a part of his toll in the
corn he has need of, why not require the cotton spinner and ironmonsrer of
England to come here and take of your cotton and wool a part of what is
needed for them to wear?

How much better then, in a word, saj's common sense, how much more
natural — more profitable to compel the loom to come to the cotton fields and
the sheep pastures, and the lapstone to come to the hides, and the mill to
the corn, and the anvil to the plough, than to force, as our wise tariff policy
does, the planter find the farmer to be dragging their raw and bulky produce
in all directions all over the world, to be fashioned for use by foreign capital-
ists who never buy our produce, even after it has encountered the expense
of transportation across the ocean, unless we can work hard enough and
live mean enough to undersell the half-starved pauper laborers on the Rhine
and the Black Sea, who go half clad, and live on black rye bread called
pumpernicle. Let then the policy which prevents concentration in the old
States be called the pumpernide policy.'

ON THE CONSTRUCTION AND USE OF CARTS AND
OTHER VEHICLES.

We know of few subjects of equal importance, that are so seldom and so superficially
investigated by farmers, as the proper form, and structure, and material, of the conveyances
employed for the transportation of manure and farm produce. Hence we deem it expe-
dient to give the following.

In the emplojnTient of single-horse carts, as compared with double-horse
carts, so great a saving, in some cases, of farm-work can be effected in cart-
ing as from twenty-five to thirty per cent.; and in leading out manure from
the fold-yards, a saving so great as forty-four per cent, has been made. And
I have also the authority of a thorouglily practical and highly enterprising
farmer, who farms 2400 acres in Northumberland, employing sixteen pairs
of horses — he formerly used no other description of cart than that drawn by
two horses. He has become convinced, from practical experience, of the
superior advantages attainable by the use of the single-horse cart, for, as his
old stock wears out, he is now replacing in their stead single-horse carts; he
informs me that he considers three horses, when employed in single carts,
quite equal, if not superior, to four horses when employed in two double-
horse carts. He is no theorist. I am told by another farmer, that he finds
a saving of one horse in three when employing the single-horse cart. Should
I be able to prove this to those who now employ two horses in a cart, that
one in three, or even one in four, can be gained by the use of the single-horse
cart, I trust this may be deemed a sufficient inducement, by those who have
not yet adopted the single-horse cart system to do so. Lightness of cart is
of considerable importance in the business of a farm. This is more particularly
evident, when we consider that, by the use of the light single-horse Scotch
cart (weighing from seven to eight cwt.) with the same strength of draught,
one-fourth more work can be done in the same length of time, than can be
done with the heavy double-horse cart commonly employed in this district,

CONSTRUCTION AND USE OF CARTS. 303

(weighing from ten to twelve cwt. ;) and as the use of the single-horse cart
has been introduced to a very limited extent in this neighborhood, I shall,
therefore, carefully endeavor to give a just estimate of the advantages deri-
vable from the use of the single-horse cart, as compared with that from
the double-horse cart. Practice and opinion are agreed in assigning a greater
power of draught to one horse working singly than to any number harnessed
together; for in proportion to the distance at which horses are removed from
their load, so is the loss of power. This loss may be accounted for in three
ways, viz.: — Distance from the object to be acted upon; horizontal line of
draught; and diversity of pulling — for no one will dispute the fact that the
nearer 3'ou can bring your horse to the point from which he draws, the greater
power he will exert over it; that is to say, when he is at once attached to the
body to be moved; because every exertion he makes is at once communicated
to the mass, and therefore the horse produces more effect, because his force
is applied immediately to the resistance. Again, in a horse drawing in a
horizontal position at slow paces, there is a loss, I beheve, varying from
one-fifth to one-sixth of his power; and as it is known that a horse can apply
his strength to the greatest effect and advantage when the line of draught is
from the point of his shoulders to his hocks, (which is an angle of eighteen
degrees,) as in the case of the line of draught of the plough. Again, the
diverse pulling of either horse greatly embarrasses the efl^ects of the other,
for seldom is it, indeed, that you see two horses so equally matched in tem-
per, pace, and size, that they at all times take alike an equal and continued
share of the burden, for as it too frequently happens, that good horses have
license to work themselves to death, whilst an old knowing one has leave to
act the rogue. It will be generally admitted, I think, that a hnrse can exert
his powers with the greater ease and effect when working singly than when
he draws in conjunction with another; for when alone he has nuthing but
his load to contend with, whereas when he draws in conjunction with another
he is greatly embarrassed by some difference of pace, the horse before or
behind him being quicker or slower than himself, and he is frequently in-
commoded by the greater or lesser height of the other. The shaft horse has
a double share of the work, and frequently the duty of both horses imposed
upon him to perform; for, when turning, the whole exertion is required of
him, and in descending hills he has the retarding of the two horses' load,
and as we occasionally, but not unfrequently see, at the same time, the trace
horse pulling, thereby increasing the already over-taxed exertions of the
horse in the shafts; and these are no over-drawn statements, as such scenes
may be observed every market-day in this town, in two-horse carts laden
with corn descending such a hill as Dean-street. Again, in ascending a hill,
should either horse relax his draught, the other horse must of necessity tax
his powers to twice their natural extent. Such are a few of the disadvan-
tages attending the use of double-horse carts. The use of the single-horse
cart has been introduced into this neighborhood to a very hinited extent; but
I trust I shall be able to show, by comparison of the statements of others,
combined with my own practical experience, extending over a period of five
years in Berwickshire, and the northern parts of Northumberland, the un-
deniable advantages it possesses. As an example of the advantages of
single-horse carts over double-horse carts, I shall quote the authority of a
well-known agriculturist of this district — a member of our own club, whose
absence from home, I regret, prevents him from being present. He, in
writing to me, says — in using single-horse carts, on a farm employing six
horses and three men, in leading out dung to the distance of a mile from the
fold-yard, six carts, two men filling in the fold, and the other spreading and

304 CONSTRUCTION AND USE OF CARTS.

shaping dung-hili, four boys or girls driving, Avill each go twelve times, car-
rying one ton each time — the expense of which will be —

Three men, at 2s. Gd. ...... Is. Gd.

Four drivers, at Is 4 0

Six carts, at 3s. Gc? 21 0

Leading out tons . . 72) 32 G

0 5 J per ton.

Then, using double-horse carts, according to the system usually followed in
this neighborhood, each man fills, teams, and spreads his cart of dung, lead-
ing to the distance of one mile, will go nine limes, carrying twenty-five cwt»
each time. The expense will be —

Three men, at 2s. Qd Is. 6d.

Two double carts, at Gs. Gd 19 6

Leading out tons . . 34)27 0

0 9^ per ton.

The cost of leading a dunghill of 300 tons one mile, with double-horse carts, £ s. d.

at 9^d per ton 11 17 6

The cost of leading a dunghill of 300 tons one mile, with a single-horse cart,

at 5^rf. per ton . . . . . . . . . . .6113

Showing a difference in favor of single-horse carts of . . . . 5 6 3

Single-horse carts to lead out the above will require 4^- days.

Double do. do. do. do. 8J-:J, or nearly 9 days.

By the above calculation the difference in favor of the single-horse carts
amounts to forty-four per cent. — a large sum certainly; and, from the above
details, I think it wilt be conceded that the trace horse is not of any service.

I can only say that when I came to , I had several double-horse carts

made, but we used them indiscriminately with the single ones, finding that
one horse could draw as much dung as could be placed on the cart, which
amounted to about one ton. At the same time, were we considering the
leading of short manure from a town, we must calculate that the single-horse
cart will carry one-third less than the double-horse cart; but then, again, we
expect that a man will have the care of two single-horse carts, so that they,
even on this ground, are preferable to the double-horse cart. Then, again,
as regards the time required to carry the aforesaid dunghill, there is two to
one at least in favor of the single-horse carts. And we all know of how
great importance this is in fickle seasons — such as we must always expect
in these northern latitudes. Again, in a letter from a gentleman, resident
in Berwickshire, an intelligent and an enterprising agriculturist, he informs
me, "that his loads are, to Berwick generally, and with return carriage of
coals, 3 quarters of wheat, 8.1 to 4 quarters of barley, 4^ quarters of oats,
and we never load heavier than 16 cwt. of coals, the distance to the pit and
back again being 39 miles, and the pace at which my horses travel from 3
to 82 miles per hour, but on good roads with short distances I would have no
hesitation of putting on a load of 18 to 20 cwt., and this can be done with
less distress to the horse than when working double and conveying one-third
load less in quantity and weight." I believe more than 20 per cent, is lost
in driving on the road. I am informed by a gentleman residing in the north-
ern part of this county that the usual loads of double and single-horse carts
are as follows: —

Single-horse carts.

Double-horse carts.'

Two single-horse carts.

Oats . 18 bolls (3G bushels)

24 bolls (48 bushels) .

3G bolls.

Barley 15

20

30 "

Wheat 12 "

18

24 «

Coal . 9

12

18 »

From the above table you will perceive that with single carts two horses

CONSTRUCTION AND USE OF CARTS. 305

are capable of doing nearly or quite as much work as three horses in double
carts, that ten single horses can convey to market 180 bolls of oats, while it
would require fifteen horses in double-horse carts to accomplish the same
end ; an immense saving in favor of single-horse carts in an economical point
of view; and in harvest work, on level farms in dry weather, three single-
horse harvest carts will convey into the stack-yard as much hay or corn in
sheaf as two double-horse carts. First, then, I shall describe the one-horse
Scotch cart, such as I employ on my farm; and next, the double-horse cart,
commonly used in this district. And I shall attempt to point out some of
their relative merits, advantages, and disadvantages in poii^t of construction.
The single-horse cart, of which there are two varieties, viz., the coup or tilt,
and dormant or whole-bodied cart. The one-horse coup or tilt cart. — The
body of the cart, with its bolster or cods, rests upon the axle, and to which the
shafts are joined by means of a joint iron rod that passes through the bolsters
at the ends of the shafts. The shafts are secured to the body by means of
the lock at the front end of the cart, which fastens the body to the slot-sheath
or cross-beam joining the shafts. The side boards, or top sidqs, are fitted so
as to take off at pleasure, as required. On withdrawing the bolt at the front
end of the cart, the fore part of the body rises up from the shafts, while the
other end sinks, and so allows the load to be deposited on the ground. The
price of such a cart as I have described is 10/. 10s., and the weight 8 cwt.
This cart, I find, in practice, the best adapted for the general purposes of
husbandry, owing to the great facility afforded by the body being movable,
in at once discharging its load. This point is one of considerable importance
where loads of earth, lime, or stones are to be conveyed only for short dis-
tances, and the whole load deposited at one place and time; but, on the other
hand, the disadvantages arising from the body of the cart not being immo-
vably fixed to the shafts, as by the description before given. It will be re-
membered that the body is fastened to the slot-sheath by means of a lock,
consisting of a bolt and eye. These, in time, wear the bolt smaller, and the
eye larger ; consequently there is a degree of motion between the shafts and
the body, which interferes with the motion of the horse; and it will be allowed
that it is injurious wherever there is any movement between the body of the
cart and the shafts, — as, for instance, carriages that are hung on C springs
are notoriously the worst to pull, and are in the stable expressly called horse
murderers — requiring heavy powerful horses to drag them, while lighter
animals are able to drag much greater weights in carriages that do not admit
of this motion. This objection is obviated, as will be seen by the description
I shall give of the dormant-bodied cart, to which I give a decided preference,
where the produce of a farm and the leading back of manure are to be con-
veyed a distance of many miles. The body is fixed immovably to the shafts
or blades, and the horse pulls at once to the shafts, which are fixed imme-
diately both to the load and to the axle-tree. The dormant-bodied cart has
its body similarly constructed to the coup cart, excepting the shafts and bol-
sters. The cart requires no bolsters, but, instead thereof, the shafts are
prolonged backwards, taking the place of, and serving most of the purposes
of the bolsters, the body being immovably fixed to the shafts. The price
of this cart is 10/., weighing from H to 8 cwt. For conveying loads long
distances, this cart is infinitely superior to the coup cart. The greatest dis-
advantage attending their use arises from the extra trouble experienced in
discharging a load from them, as, at each time, the horse has to be loosened
to permit emptying the load. Those carts seemed to be very generally used
among the railway contractors now employed in this town, and in their busi-
ness, dispatch being of consequence, their using this description of cart
Vol. I.— 39 2 c 3

306 CONSTRUCTION AND USE OF CAtlTS.

argues that the advantages gained in other respects must be found sufficient
to compensate for the loss of time which may arise from the body being
immovably fixed to the shafts, as I previously described. Any loss of time,
I freely allow, is a disadvantage attending the use of this cart ; but where
the discharging of a load is only required twice or thrice in a day, as in the
leading of manure from town, this loss of time is not quite so serious a mat-
ter. But in the formation of manure heaps of straw dung, there is a method
which is now practised by som.e farmers of not driving the carts on to the
manure heap, and there couping the load, but of throwing all straw manure
lightly up from t^e cart on to the manure heap ; for, says an intelligent farmer,
in a letter to me, "I do not approve of the system of couping up straw ma-
nure, or even drawing it out with an implement called a muck-hawk." All
straw dung should be griped and thrown lightly up. The bodies of each
of the carts I have just described can be lifted from off the axle and wheels.
Of the harvest or Scotch corn cart, which consists of open frame-work with
boarded bottom, it is light and cheap in construction, and can carry a bulky
load. It is ciyefly used for the purpose of carting hay, straw, corn in sheaf,
or similar bulky materials. It is a more efficient vehicle than the coup cart
and hay frame. "Of the double-horse coup cart, which is so universally
employed in this district, it will be unnecessary^ for me here to give you any
description, as all must be so well acquainted with its construction. A state-
ment of the price and weight, I trust, will therefore be deemed sufficient.
By an estimate I have received from a well-known country cartwright in
this neighborhood —

The cost of a double-horse coup cart is . . £14:.

Weight ditto . 10-Jtollcwt.

You will be likewise fully acquainted ivith the construction of the double-
horse long cart used in this neighborhood for carrying hay, straw, &c. By
above estimate —

The cost of long cart is ..... jE 15.
Weight ditto 11 cwt.

I, however, am informed by a cartwright of this town that his prices are as
follow —

The cost of double-horse coup cart . . . £17 10
The cost of long cart . . . . . . 20 0

Fearing you may think the latter estimate above an average, in making my
calculation of the comparative statement of cost of single and double-horse
carts, I have taken the former. On a farm employing three pair of horses
it would require —

With single-horse Carts.
Two single-horse coup carts, at 10^. 10s. . . £21 0
Four ditto dormant, at 101. . . . 40 0

Three ditto long carts, at ol. 10s. , . 10 10

With douhh-horse Cart^.
Three double-horse coup carts, at 151.
' Three ditto long carts

Total
Deduct single-horse carts .

Saving . . £15 10

Three additional cart saddles and breechings would be required when single-
horse carts are employed, so that you will perceive that in adopting the
single-horse cart system there is even a saving in the outlay of capital.

£71

10

£45
42

0

0

£87
71

0
10

THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPL 307

THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

We are indebted to the author, Hamilton Smith, Esq., of Louisville, for
an exceedingly instructive pamphlet on "the advantages offered by the West,
and particularly by the country on the Lower Ohio, for manufacturing,"
and now desire to call to it the attention of our Southern and Western read-
ers. Mr. Smith desires to see the loom and the anvil take its place by the
side of the plough, and he furnishes numerous calculations with a view to
show the enormous waste that occurs when they are separated. He says,
and most trulj', that —

"It would astonish one who has never thought of the svibject to calculate the amount
of fixed capital expended in grading an uneven site of a city, and in its buildings. The
filling up of our ponds and cutting down of our sand-hills has been but a mere trifle when
comparctl with similar expenditures in other cities.

''The splendid Quincy market-house in Boston, and the immense blocks of granite ware-
houses around it, now stand where ships once anchored; millions of dollars have been
paid by New York for the timber and lime of Maine, the granite of Massachusetts, the
sandstone of Connecticut and New Jersey — and she has even been obliged to send to
New Hampshire and Maryland for brick.

"The very cost of transportation on the building materials alreaily sent to New Orleans
from New England and the Ohio river, would, at many points on this river, build a large
manufacturing town, and furnish it with a working capital."

And who are the paymasters for all these enormous expenditures ? Are
they not the farmers and planters of the Union? When the planter sends
away five bales of cotton and obtains in return one bale converted into cloth,
by aid of the light and easily transported machinery of a cotton-mill, is he
not taxing himself largely towards grading the streets of New Orleans and
New York, and building the market-houses of Boston and Manchester ?
When the farmer sells his corn from his farm at 15 to 20 cents, that it may
be eaten at Manchester at the cost of a dollar or more, and is paid in labor
applied to the conversion of his wool into cloth, receiving in return for a
dozen bushels about the same quantity of labor that he has given to the
production of a single one, are not he and his neighbors contributing towards
the making of roads and mills for others, as much labor as would give them
roads and mills for themselves ? When he sells his corn to be eaten abroad,
does he not lose the manure and exhaust his land? When it is eaten at
home, does he net save the manure and enrich his land ? That he does all
these things is unquestionable, and equally unquestionable is it that the loss
to the farmer and planter in manure alone is more than the price he pays
for all the clothing consumed on his land.

"On the banks of the Ohio and its tributaries we have," says Mr. Smith, "a?/ the na-
tural elements of a manufacturing district: cheap fuel, cheap living, cheap land, cheap
stone, clay, and timber, cheap raw materials, cheap transportation, in a healthy country,
in the centre of a great market; and besides, we have good laws and light taxes."

To enable the people of the West to avail themselves of these advantages
there is required —

"The association of capital, protected by liberal charters, and under the management
of Superintendents of high character. Overseers carefully selected, and Directors in whom
the public have entire confidence.

"This system, which has worked so well elsewhere, is worthy of our adoption; wher-
ever it has been tried the results have been the same; it has stood the test of a quarter
of a century, and it does not require the gifl of prophecy to predict the same result here.

"It is admirably adapted to our institutions and the character of our people.

"It is the democratic system, — for by it the hundred dollars of the poor man, invested in
the stock of the corporation, draws as large a dividend as the hundred dollars of the rich
man: it is the system safe for the public. — for it requires at the outset a capital sufficient
for its purposes and asks no credit; and safe for the stockholder, as he only risks his stock
and cannot well be ruined by the mismanagement or knavery of associates; this is the

SOS

THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

system which gives surety to the operative for his wages, and to the agricuhurist for the
price of the food furnished by him to the operative; and the results of its adoption here
will be seen in lesseniag the cost of fabrics our necessities require, — in increasing the
amount of our productive capital, — in enlarging the ninnber of profitable employments
of our young men of capital and enterprise, and in giving us an important home market
for our raw materials and provisions.

"The way in which this system works, and why it works well, will be seen hereafter;
but under it, as perhaps every reflecting man will adnn't, the west has already abundance
of capital for the purpose. It is not expected that our very rich men will leave their
comfortable homes for new positions where there are peculiar natural advantages and
where manufacturing can be made most profitable ; or that they Mill personally super-
intend the details of making cotton or any other fabrics; nor can it be expected that diey
will risk the earnings of years to the management of a distant co-partner or agent.

" To manufacture cotton, or indeed any other great staple, at the most profit, we must
do a large business ; the cotton mill of 10,000 sjjindles will make goods probably ten per
cent, cheaper than one of 1000 spindles; the first requires a capital of, say $200,000;
now it would be preposterous to make the attempt to get a Lexington capitalist to furnish
that large sum of money to any man or for any purpose, however great the "paper profits"'
might appear, or however strong might be tlie faith of the capitalist in the general profits
in the business proi30sed: it would be equally preposterous to ask two hundred men to
contribute $1000 each, and also their individual skill and labor, to any co-partnership con-
cern. But. if you start twenty mills under the guardianship of the same men who so
satisfactorily manage our Bank and Insurance capital, and under the direct superintend-
ance of a man of unquestionable capacity and integrity, and with the checks of Treasurer,
Overseers, &c., where there is no liability beyond the capital invested, and where the stock
promises large dividends, you will find the rich man taking his risks in each mill ; while
the man of less capital will follow the example to the extent of his means. They who
construct the buildings or furnish the materials and machinery, and they who wish to sell
the goods or obtain employment in or about the mill, will be glad to take all the stock
they can afibrd to hold. Labor and materials to a considerable extent will be equal to
money.

"It is said that steamboat capital does not, on the average, pay 8 per cent, per
annum — yet how easy is it, on any point of our river, to start a boat costing from thirty
to fifty thousand dollars — in this the shares are rarely over 1-16 — but in a cotton mill each
share would be, say 1-2000. The boat owners are the builders of the hull and the engine,
the oflScers and the commission merchant; would it not be far easier to raise the capital
of the mill and partially in the same way, with anticipated profits of twenty to forty per
cent, and in a business attended with less risk and giving constant employment, and at
the same place? Let those who scorn small contributions to great works remember that
most glorious of all monuments, the Polish mound, made by a grateful people, of whom
each contributed but a spadeful of earth — or the more recent instance of the subscription
of half a million of dollars by Irish laborers, which ensured the completion of the west-
ern railroad from Boston to Albany.

"It is believed by many that there has been an increase of specie capital in the Mis-
sissippi valley since 1830 of nearly one hundred millions of dollars, and that its annual
increase is from ten to fifteen millions. It is said by those who have the best means of
knowing the facts, that something like five millions of specie are annually brought into
the west by European emigrants. Some shrewd calculators make the exports of Indiana
and Illinois over their imports from six to seven millions of dollars per annum. It will
be remembered that the government does not now drain us of specie through its land
offices, and that we are now nearly freed from eastern land speculators. Our independ-
ence is shown in the strength of our banks and the favorable state of our domestic and
foreign exchanges. In the interior, the rate of interest has fallen to six, and in some sec-
tions to five per cent, per annum : while in our cities and large towns our banks furnish
all the facilities desired for legitimate business transactions.

"We have so long been dependent on the east for money capital, that it is difficult for
us to look for it in any other direction. We have now sufficient strength to stand erect,
but have .scarcely learned the use of our feet.

"But, perhaps, we are to look to the south for capital, either in money or its equivalent
cotton. The cotton planter for years has been chagrined that he has made less in pro-
ducing than the New Englander has in manufocturing the cotton; and he will gladly
avail himself of the opportunity, now perhaps first presented to him in a practical shape,
of making the manufacturers' profit. He coidd not manufacture in Glasgow and JNIan-
ohester; and Lowell was too far distant for him to invest in her mills. At liome he has
not the labor, power, conveniences or skill. The lower Ohio is within his reach, (I refer
0 the planters on the Mississij^pi and its tributaries.) Hero he can, while overlooking

THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 309

the management of the mill, mingle business with pleasure during the summer. Many
may smile at the idea of getting surplus capital from a cotton planter, and may exclaim,
mortgages, execution, advances, &c.; yet let me assure such that the south-west is in quite
a different condition now from what it was ten years since. Let them remember that
not only has the cotton crop vastly increased in that period, but that the facilities for
obtaining credits in New Orleans have been greatly diminished, while at home there are
now comparatively no such facilities. Many of the planters now consign their crop to
liOuisville, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, the eastern cities and even to Liverpool, and neither
ask nor wish for an advance. Let it also be remembered that the cotton jilanter has no-
thing at home to invest his surplus in, save more land and slaves. He has no canals or
railroads, houses, or ships to build; he has no banks to deposit his money in even; he
does not wish to take mercantile risks or to leave his money long in the hands of those
who do take such risks; would he not gladly invest in mills near him, where his own
cotton would be spun and woven, and on its way to market and on his way to the springs
or his summer residence? Indeed, he might find a healthy summer residence within
sight of the mill. He would realize the value of his cotton (indeed trebled in value)
from the goods before he could get his return from that consigned to the Liverpool factoc.

"This direct consignment is, of course, the most favorable for the planter. When the
New Orleans or New York speculator buys the cotton and consigns it, the jDlanter of
course pays, or rather loses, the intermediate profits.

" On this reliance on the south I have not only to state its reasonableness, but the posi-
tive assurances of very many planters who have surplus capital, that tliey and their friends
are ready to take stock in cotton mills just as soon as they, who practically understand the
details of putting up and managing mills, will obtain the charters and superintendents
and contractors.

" But we cannot expect cotton mills to leap into existence at once. Several years will
be required to erect buildings, obtain machinery, &c. Then the first that are started will
make profits to build others ; besides, the moment we show the east that we have sys-
tematically and energetically undertaken to manufacture our cotton and hemp, and to eat
our corn and f)ork at home, the building of new mills there will be checked, and the men
of capital and enterprise there, who wish to engage in the business, will bring their capi-
tal, skill, and labor here.

Agreeing, as we do, with our author, in every word tliat he has said in
regard to the advantages to be derived by the West, and by every portion of
the Union, from the estabhshment of mills and factories, furnaces and rolling-
mills, at which the labor and the food, the cotton or the wool, the coal and
the iron ore may be combined together for the production of cloth and iron,
we find ourselves, nevertheless, constrained to difier entirely from him in
regard to the views contained in this closing sentence. Between the various
portions of the Union there are no opposing interests. The man of Massa-
chusetts or Connecticut is not to be the loser because the Georgian or the
South Carolinian becomes a manufacturer of cotton, nor is the Pennsylvanian
to suffer because the Missourian converts into iron his inexhaustible supplies
of ore. On the contrary, all are to be enriched by the same process. The
more coarse cloth manufactured in the South and the West, the greater will
be the abihty of Ohio and Kentucky, Georgia and Alabama, to consume fine
cloths, and with every step in this change the freight becomes a matter of less
and less importance, while with each the taste and skill resulting from long
practice become more important, enabling their possessor to obtain increasing
reward for his services. The direct effect of the establishment of factories
at the South and West will be that of converting the existing manufltcturers
of the North and East into producers of the finer articles for which we are
now entirely dependent upon the mills of France and England, and tliere-
with will arise a demand for skill of a far higher description than any now
required, offering constantly increasing inducements for exertion, and tending
largely to promote intellectual improvement. The more rapid the increase
of penny newspapers, and in the demand for primers, and spelling-books,
and grammars, the greater will be the demand for newspapers of a higher
character, for magazines, and for literature of the highest order. Ohio now
manufactures her own school-books, yet she purchases from Boston, and New

310 THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

York, and Philadelphia, more books of a superior order in a week than
she consumed in a year, at the time when there was not a book-printing press
within her limits.

We are fully aware that many of the manufacturers of the North look
with jealousy upon the tendency towards the erection of cotton mills now
existing at the South, but it is a feeling as short-sighted as that which prompts
the planter to look coldly upon the progress of Lowell or of Providence.
Every mill that is built in the South and West tends to increase the value
of property at the North, and every one built in the North tends to increase
the value of the farms and plantations of the "West, and South. Every fur-
nace built in Ohio or Tennessee tends to increase the value of the coal mines
of Pennsylvania, and every mine that is opened in the latter tends to increase
the value of the farms of Ohio and the plantations of Tennessee. All men
prosper by the prosperity, and all suffer by the misfortunes, of their fellow-
men, and ahhough cases son)etimes occur where the reverse appears to be
the case, careful examination will show that the gain from the misfortunes
of others is only apparent, while the loss is real. The famine of last year was
productive of great apparent gain. We realized from sales of grain to the
starving people of Europe some twenty millions of dollars more than we
should otherwise have done, but we lost almost as much in the price of cot-
ton, and therefore, even had the account remained as it stood a year since, Ave
should have gained nothing. It has not, however, so remained. The famine
contributed largely towards stopping the railroads of Europe, and that re-
duced the price of iron, and that is now, in its turn, closing the furnaces and
rolling-mills of the Union, and driving the laborers and miners and furnace-
men to the West, there to become producers of food. The farmer kses his
customers for the bulky commodities that will not bear transportation, with
a certainty that they will soon become rivals in the production of wheat, and
rye, and Indian corn, and is therefore doubly injured. The famine dimi-
nished the power of the people of Great Britain and Ireland to piirchase
cloths, the consequence of which is, that our markets have been flooded with
foreign cloths, and our cloth and flannel mills have been closed, and thousands
of workmen and workwomen have been discharged, to the great injury of
the farmer who is seeking a market for his food and his wool. Were il
possible to furnish an accurate account of the effects of that famine upon the
people of this country, we feel assured that every planter and farmer would
unite with us in saying that there is a grievous error in a system which
compels us to pray for bad crops abroad, to be followed by the starvarfon of
our fellow-men, in the hope that we may thereby obtain a market for our
surplus food, and that it is an error tending to serious deterioration of the
moral feeling of the community. The remedy for that error is to be found
in offering inducements to the workmen of Europe to come with their looms
and anvils and take their places by the side of the plough and the harrow,
eating their food on the ground on which it was produced, giving back to
the land the refuse of its products, and giving to the cultivator ci the land,
day's work for day's work, and relieving him from the necessity for giving
the labor of a dozen days applied to the production of corn or wool in
exchange for that of one or two daj^s applied to their conversion into cloth,
as now he does. Let the planters and farmers of the Union set their shoulders
to the Avheel, with a determination to bring the consumers of food and cotton
to take their places by the side of the producers of food and cotton, and the
day will not then be far distant when they will all unite in prayer to the
Great Giver of all good things, that the labor of their fellow-men throughout
the world may be rewarded by large returns, enabhng all to enjoy the same
abundance that has fallen to their own happy lot.

THE HORSE. 311

WHAT CONSTITUTES A THOROUGH-BRED HORSE.

In the first place, it may be observed, there has been a great deal of dis-
cussion in various publications on Sporting, but to very little purpose, on the
much agitated question, "What constitutes full blood, or, what is termed, a
thorough-bred horse ?" We consider this question as very easily decided ;
the term " thorough-bred horse" merely implying one that can be traced
through the Stud-Book, by sire and dam, to any Eastern stallion, or to what
were called the Royal Mares, imported by Charles the Second, as they, to-
gether with two or three of the first imported stallions, form the ne phis ultra
of all racing pedigrees. As to the assertion, that, for a horse to claim the
title of thorough-bred it is necessary he should be of pure Oriental descent,
it cannot for a moment be supported ; as, independently of the fact, that only
two mares are stated in the Stud-Book, or elsewhere, on authority, to have
been imported into England, in the early days of racing, it is well known
that the first British race-horses were those of British breed, changed, ame-
liorated, and, at last, perfected by the admixture of Eastern blood, and judi-
cious crossing afterwards.

The effect of what is called crossing blood is as follows : The first cross
gives one-half, or 50 per cent. ; the second 75 per cent. ; the third 87^ per
cent.; and the fourth 93| per cent. In sheep, after this, if the ewes have
been properly selected, the difference in the wool between the original stock
and the mixed breed is scarcely perceptible; but with the horse, the breeder
must not stop here, if he means to produce a race-horse ; and a curious fact
is stated respecting sheep, on the authority of the Count Veltheim, of Bruns-
wick, an extensive breeder of that species of stock. " It has frequently
occurred to me," says he, "that rams, which, after an improvement of four
or five descents, have rivalled all the visible qualities of the purest Merinos,
when employed in propagation, have got very ordinary lambs, and conse-
quently they are not fit to be used for breeding. On the other hand, a fact
may be stated, wherein, after a very opposite cross, pure blood, with evident
improvement upon the original stock, was procured on the eighth descent.
The late Lord Orford, very celebrated for his greyhounds, finding them de-
generating in courage, crossed his best bitches with a bull-dog. The result
was, after several re-crossings with pure blood, that breed of greyhounds for
which he was so eminently distinguished. The immediate descendants,
however, of the Eastern horses, have, almost without an exception, proved
so deficient of late years, that our breeders will no more have recourse to
them, than the farmer would to the natural oat, which is little better than a
weed, to produce a sample that should rival that of his neighbors in the
market."

Much speculation has also been indulged in, as to the effect of close affinity,
in breeding the race-horse, or what is called breeding in-and-in ; a system
which has eminently succeeded in breeding cattle, and also with Lord Egre-
mont's racing-stud. Beginning with Flying Childers, several of our very
best racers have been very closely bred; and it certainly appears reasonable
that, as like is said to produce like, if we have high form and superior or-
ganization in an own brother and sister, that high form and superior organi-
zation would be very likely to be continued to their incestuous produce. In
a work called "Observations on breeding for the Turf," published a few
years back, by Nicholas Hankey Smith, who resided a long time among the
Arabs, the author gives his opinion, that colts bred in-and-in show more

312 THE HORSE.

blood in their heads, are of better form, and fit to start with fewer sweats,
than otiiers; but when the breed is continued incestuous for three or four
crosses, the animal, he thinks, degenerates. By breeding in-and-in, how-
ever, he does not insist upon the necessity of breeding from brother and
sister, or putting a mare to her own sire, or the sire to his own dam ; but
after the first cross, to return to original blood. A recent proof of the good
effect of a close affinity in race-horses may be found in the produce of the
dam of his late Majesty's favorite mare Maria. By those celebrated stallions,
Rubens and Soothsayer, they were worthless ; but by Waterloo and Rain-
bow, grandsons of Sir Peter, and thus combining much of her own blood,
they would run to win.

CHOICE OF STALLIONS AND MARES.

We now come to the most certain source of producing good racers,
namely, the choice of stallions and mares, and the treatment of the produce
in their colthood. But as regards the two first-named requisites, reference
must be had to the parts of the country in Avhich horses are intended to run.
If for the short races of Newmarket, so much the fashion of the present
day, a difl^erently formed animal would be required to one intended to clear
his way on the provincial courses. But whether it be one description of a
race-horse or another, although the laws of nature are not always certain,
a proper junction of shape, or similarity in formation of horse and mare,
together with a due regard to blood, gives the fairest prospect of success.
We admit it is difficult to account for the degrees of excellence between the
running of two full brothers or sisters, where it does not arise (a common case
Ave conceive) from some violence or impression on the womb, when the
foetus is in a soft state, or from a decline in the constitution of the mare,
subsequent to her last produce; but when we find the produce of two highly-
bred animals, both apparently well formed and sound, and with a proper
admixture of blood, unable to race, we can attribute it to no other cause than
a dissimilitude of parts in the horse and the m&re, or a similitude of some
parts tending to an extreme in both. Without going so far as to assert that
there is no innate quality in blood, we may safely pronounce it so far from
being, as some have supposed it to be, independent of form and matter, that,
unless accompanied with suitable form and action, it is of very little value
in a race-horse. "Sometimes," as Sancho saj's, "we look for one thing
and find another;" but we know of no instance of a bad, misshapen horse,
and a bad, misshapen mare, however highly bred, producing Food runners.

The first and most important point in the choice of a brood-mare for a
racing stud, is the soundness of her constitution and limbs ; although, of
course, it is desirable she should be of good size and shape, with substance.
How highly soever she may be bred, and however well she may have run,
if'she have not a sound frame, she cannot be depended upon to breed racers.
If she have never been trained, of course the risk is increased; but, in either
case, her form and action must not be overlooked, as it too often is, render-
ing the breeding of thorough-bred stock a mere matter of chance. Should
she have appeared in public, her racing capabilities are to be consulted.
For example, if pace (speed) was her best, as the jockies say, a stallion
should be selected, who, by the known stoutness of his running, is hkely to
tie her produce to pace, or, in other words, to give them both speed and en-
durance in a race. Her frame should be roomy, or her produce will be apt
to be small, although, it must be admitted, there are exceptions to this rule.
She should be of, what is termed, fashionable blood ; for, if she be not, and

THE HORSE. 313

her produce should come to the hammer, previous to trial, they would prove
utterly worthless in a market.

It cannot admit of a doubt, that it is trespassing on the powers of nature,
to expect a mare, or any other female animal, to nourish her foetus, in em-
bryo, so perfectly during the time she is giving suck, as if she were dry or
without milk. Nevertheless, it is customary to put all blood mares to the
horse the ninth day after foaling, and it is almost too much to expect that
the owners will let them lie fallow, although they may in some measure
resemble the man who cut up his goose to get at the golden egg. Durino-
the period of gestation, however, the thorough-bred mare should be highly
kept. All animals well fed, produce their species of a superior description
to those which are not well fed ; and nothing more forcibly shows the bene-
ficial effect of warmth in rearing superior varieties of the horse, than that
the half-starved horse of the Desert should be as good as he is even now
found to be.

In a racing-stud, the period of putting mares to the horse is much earher
in the year than that of any other sort, by reason of their produce beino-
almost always called upon to go into work before they are two years' old.
In fact, they can scarcely be dropped too soon in the commencement of a
new year, where proper accommodations are provided for them. A peep
into the three volumes of the Stud-Book will satisfy inquirers into these
matters, that some mares have produced more than twenty colts and fillies,
and, in a few instances, the greater part of them proved good runners; but,
we should be inclined to think that the average would not exceed six, as the
produce of each mare.

Virgil, in his excellent remarks on breeding horses, tells those of his
readers who wish to gain a prize, to look to the dam ; and, until of very late
years, it was the prevailing opinion of Englishmen, that, in breeding a racer,
the mare is more essential than the horse to the production of him, in his
highest form; and we know it to have been the notion entertained by the
late Earl of Grosvenor, the most extensive, though not perhaps the most
successful, breeder of thorough-bred stock England ever saw. The truth
of this supposition, however, has not been confirmed by the experience of
the last half century, and much more dependence is now placed on the
stallion than on the mare. The racing calendar, indeed, clearly proves the
fact. Notwithstanding the prodigious number of very highly bred and
equally good mares that are every year put to the horse, it is from such as
are put to our ver}' best stallions that the great winners are produced. This
can in no other way be accounted for, than by such horses having the faculty
of imparting to their progeny the peculiar external and internal formation
absolutely essential to the first-rate race-horse; or, if the term "blood" be
insisted upon, that certain innate but not preternatural virtue, peculiarly
belonging to some horses but not to others, which, when it meets with no
opposition from the mare, or, in the language of the stable, when "the cross
nicks" by the mare admitting of a junction of good shapes, seldom fails ia
producing a race-horse, in his very best form. It is obvious, then, that
owners of racing-studs should not hesitate at paying the difference between
the price of a first-rate stallion and an inferior one; and there is always one
of the former to be found, to suit every description of mare. Breeders of
all kinds of horses, but of the race-horse above all others, scarcely require
to be cautioned against purchasing, or breeding from, mares, or putting them
to stallions, constitutionally infirm. By "constitutionally infirm," is chiefly
implied having a tendency to fail in their legs and feet, during their training,
which too many of our present racing-breed are given to; although the

Vol. L— 40 2 D

314 THE HORSE.

severity of training is not equal to what it was some years back. It would
be invidious to particularize individual sorts; but we could name stallions
and mares, from which the greatest expectations were raised, whose progeny-
have sacrificed thousands of their owners' money, entirely from this cause.
It having been clearly shown, not only in theory but in practice, that the
diseases and defects of horses are for the most part hereditary, we may be
induced to give credit to the assertion, that the Arabians, after having brought
their breed of horses to the highest pitch of improvement of which they
themselves considered them capable, have preserved their chief perfection,
namely, great endurance of fatigue, with highly organised matter, and na-
tural soundness of limb — by restricting the use of stallions until approved
of by a public inspector of them. Indeed, in several European states,
similar precautions are taken, and stallions are provided by their governments,
for the use of farmers and others who breed horses, and care is taken in the
selection of them to avoid all such as have proved naturally unsound, or
been affected by any disease, the influence of which may be hereditary.
No part of veterinary pathology is more interesting than that which relates
to the hereditableness of disease; and, as an eminent French writer. (Pro-
fessor Dupuy,) on the veterinary art, observes, "That person will render an
important service to his country, and to rural economy in general, who may
show, by incontestable evidence, that those organic diseases (farcy and gland-
ers) are very often hereditary. I knew a mare whose body on dissection
presented every appearance of glanders; her filly died at the age of four
and a half years of the same tuberculous affection. The other offspring of
this mare inherited her particular conformation, and her propensities to bite
and kick." The Professor produces three similar instances of inherited
disease, all of which, he says, were too evident and well-marked to admit
the possibility of any serious mistake, and were attested by the professors
of the Veterinary School at Alford. Similar observations follow in relation
to the diseases of oxen, cows, sheep, and swine, as also of ophthalmia in
horses, all of which are transmitted from one generation to another, the effect
of hereditary influence. "These considerations," continues the Professor,
"to us are of the greatest moment, since we have it in our power, by coupling
and crossing well-known breeds, to lessen the number of animals predisposed
to these diseases. Acting up to such ideas, our line of conduct is marked
out. We must banish from our establishments, designed to improve the
breed, such animals as show any signs of tuberculous disease, or any ana-
logous affection. Above all, no stallion should be allowed to remain in a wet
or cold situation, in consequence of the evils likely to result therefrom."

In consideration of the preference given to the stallion over the mare, in
the propagation of racing-stock, may be quoted the following passage from
Perceval's Lectures on the Veterinary Art, (London, 1820.) "It might be
supposed that the part the male takes in fecundation is comparatively a very
unimportant one; it must be remembered, however, that the copulative act
is the essential first cause ; that therein the action of the organs is natural
and sympathetic, and that the result is the generation of a new animal
bearing a likeness to one or both of the parents ; from which it would
appear, although the physical part of the male is simply to project the sperm
into the female, who alone has the power of rendering it efficacious, that
the influence of the sperm is much greater in the generative process than
we seem to have any notion of, or at least than we have been able to reveal
the nature of in physiology."*

Lecture 59, On the Physiology of the Organs of Generation, Male and Female,, p. &4.

SHEEP IN ENGLAND AND SHEEP IN AMEPJCA. 315

SHEEP IN ENGLAND AND SHEEP IN AMERICA.

LOOK AT THE DIFFERENCE.

We lately gave some account of the sale, or rather of the attempt to sdl, not to ''let for
the season" but to sell, Mr. Reybold's superb lot of yearling rams. A few of which went
off at from $40 to $G0. Now look at the following account of the annual letting of Mr.
Webb's South-downs in England — sixty-seven rams let before dinner, for the sea.son, at
an average of $125 — three choice rams let at an average of $300 each, and many others
were hired at prices varying from $150 to $2-25 each! Behold, farmers, the efl'ect of a
policy tlint encourages home industry, increasing the number of cowsitwiers, alongside -of the
plough, to devour the products of the plough!

We shall give this account more at length, in reference particularly to the notice taken
of our much respected and worthy countryman Mr. Colman, and his speech in reply.
We may now doubtless expect soon to have the results of his personal observation of the
agriculture on the Continent, to which brief reference is made in this rejjly to the com-
pliment to his country and himself

MR. JONAS AVEBB'S BABRAHAM TUP SHOW.

The twenty-second annual letting of pure Southdown tups, the property
of Mr. Jonas Webb, of Babraham, Canibs., took place, on Friday last, in a
field adjoining- the residence of the above-named gentleman. In the course
of the morning there were apprehensions that the day would have proved
a wet one; the rain at Babraham was but little, although in the neighborhood
heavy showers, accompanied by a tempest, were experienced. About two
o'clock the business commenced with considerable spirit. Mr. Martin
Nockolds officiated for the first time as auctioneer, an office which has been
filled, ever since the establishment of the letting, by Messrs. Smith and Son;
the latter having retired from business, it became necessary to appoint a
successor. Having been present at these annual lettings during the last twelve
years, places us in a position to be able to give an opinion, as to the general
merits of the show, somewhat approaching to accuracy. We have no hesi-
tation whatever in pronouncing the present exhibition considerably in advance
of any of its predecessors, in which opinion we are corroborated by a vast
number of the most eminent and practical agriculturists and breeders in the
kingdom. This, considering the position which Mr. Webb had already
attained, might have been considered almost impossible. Many men would
have concluded they had arrived at the highest attainable degree of perfec-
tion if similarly placed to Mr. Webb during the last twenty years; but it is
this gentleman's firm conviction that to be stationary is virtually to retrograde,
which prompts him to unremitting exertions, and thus perpetuates in the
country specimens of its best breed of sheep.

The very best test, however, of the value of this flock may be found in the
yearly increasing average prices attained for the rams submitted to competi-
tion. The highest priced tup was let for the season to Mr. Ayling, from
Sussex, for 79 guineas. The entire number publicly let before dinner was
sixty-seven; the gross amount realized was ^61571, 17s., being an average
of £2S, 10s. per head! Particular attention should be paid to the average
price of a large number, inasmuch as isolated instances of even higher prices
than the maximum on Friday could be no evidence to rely on either as to
the value or estimation of any particular breeders' stock. The inost remark-
able feature at the present show was the manifest improvement in the
shearling tups. We particularly noticed three distinguished for their beauty
of symmetry, qualify of wool, and every qualification for a first-class animal.
They let for the season at an aVerage of sixty guineas each. Many others
were hired at prices varying from thirty to forty-five guineas.

S16 SHEEP IN ENGLAND AND SHEEP IN AMERICA.

It were vain to attempt to give any thing like a list of the company
present; amongst those present at the show or dinner we observed Lord
Hardwicke, the Duke of Manchester, the agents of his grace the Duke of
Beaufort, Lord Braybroke, Lord Walsingham, the Earl of Chichester, the
Duke of Grafton, Lord Ducie, Lord Milton, Earl of Leicester, Earl of Bur-
lington, Mr. Colman, the celebrated American agriculturist and author, and
about two hundred agriculturists and breeders from every part of the king-
dom, from bleak Northumberland to the sunny downs of Sussex.

After the letting, a party of about two hundred sat down to an excellent
and substantial cold collation, under the presidency of the Earl of Hardwicke.

The Chairman gave, in rapid succession, " The Queen," three times three ;
"The Queen Dowager," ditto; "Prince Albert, Albert Prince of Wales, and
the rest of the Royal Family," ditto.

The Duke of Manchester proposed the health of the Lord Lieutenant
of the county, the Earl of Hardwicke.

The Chairman next gave "The Bishop and Clergy of the Diocese of
Ely."

The Rev. John Graham acknowledged the toast. The rev. gentleman
said that it was now, more than at any previous period in their history, in-
cumbent upon them to exert themselves to the utmost towards elevating the
character and habits of the lower classes, by means of sound moral and
religious teaching, and by the laity co-operating with the parochial clergy,
who were ready to devote their energies, their talents, and, if need be, their
lives, in furtherance of this great work.

The Chairman said it was but right to inform them that he had seated on
his right and left two gentlemen from America — gentlemen who, though
frequently called foreigners, had no right to be thus denominated. In drink-
ing their healths, he hoped they would remember that they were a portion
of that true Anglo-Saxon race, which was now diffusing itself throughout
the world, and giving to the people of foreign states and nations an example
of civil and religious freedom — of a sound constitutional movement — in a
manner in which it ought to be presented. They had an opportunity on all
the occasions of calling up those recollections associated with the fact of one
of the greatest nations on the face of the earth (and which would one day
be the greatest) having emanated from the loins of this country; America was
of the same flesh and blood as themselves, and not only so, but the whole
of their laws and institutions were taken substantially from those of England.
(Hear, hear.) Similar were they in every respect — taken from them in every
degree and form — the same trial by jury — the same principles of liberty,
civil and religious, only governed by a President instead of a sovereign.
Lord Hardwicke concluded by proposing the healths of Mr. Colman and
Mr. Bassett.

Mr. Colman said he was delighted once more to attend this interesting
annual meeting of the farmers of Cambridgeshire. He was glad to find
that while he had been absent they had not thrown Jonah overboard (laughter);
and allow him to tell them that, so far from such a preservation being pre-
judicial to the crew, it had been most essential to the interests of the whole
ship's company. He was most happy to witness — to see the progress which
Mr. Webb had made during the last four years; he (Mr. C.) thought per-
fection had been long ago attained; but the exhibition of that day had fully
dissipated any such impression. He had lately returned from a long agri-
cultural tour on the Continent, and it was to him as clear as the light of day
that the farmers of England, in respect to the improvement of their stock,
were not onl}' a whole head, but a whole length before all other countries.

SHEEP IN ENGLAND AND SHEEP IN AMERICA. 317

(Cheers.) Still there were two or three improvements which might be most
advantageously adopted from abroad; one was with respect to the "soiling"
of cattle. It was a well-established fact that oxen and beef cattle could be
kept in as good condition which were constantly in the stable, and at less
expense than those in pasture. It was also well established that cows afforded
as much produce when constantly "soiled" as when allowed to range at
large. But compare the results of the two practices, and observe the benefit
which one produced on the farmer's manure heap. Another great improve-
ment he should like to see carried out was the preservation of the liquid
manure. (Hear, hear.) The best agricultui'al district he had passed through
was Flanders, and the secret of all their success (and he could say it without
disparagement, so transcendant were their excellences here) was in their
urine system. It was impossible for farmers to overrate the advantages of
preserving their hquid manure in urine cisterns, not to confine their practice
to simply draining their muck-heaps. (Applause.) He got into a great
difficulty at Northampton when talking about the importation of foreign corn
from America; but like very many other difficulties, it grew out of a mutual
misunderstanding. They thought he was talking of wheat, (and it was at a
time when farmers had no skin at all, and touch them Avhere he might they
were sensitive,) instead of which he alluded to Indian corn. They imported
a great many fat cattle from abroad, perhaps because they had not enough
to feed them with of their own produce. Why not import Indian corn, or
maize? There was no article which would make them so much beef, or
repay them so well, as fattening cattle on Indian corn. By this they would
see they would have the resource of the manure ma.de, which would be so
vahiable. There was another subject he wished to mention his views on,
which he had no doubt they would view as Utopian. He knew that at
meetings of this description politics were excluded, and he was the last per-
son to offend against any wholesome rule; he would, therefore, put the poli-
tical view of the subject entirely out of sight. He believed that notliing
would tend more to the benefit of the English farmer than the cultivation
of beet-root for sugar. Mr. C. entered into a comparative statement as to
the cost of beet-root in France and Flanders, and the beneficial results arising
from its cultivation. In the latter country he found one farmer who had
saved seven-twentieths of the value of the crop for feeding cattle. He (Mr. C.)
saw him in June, with a large flock of sheep in his barn, and with a number
of heads of cattle that even an Englishman would have envied. He was
then feeding them with the remains of the beet-root manufactured in the
preceding autumn, which had been kept uninjured from that period. He
could hardly express his pleasure in being able to meet them in peace, after
his recent tour through countries ruined and miserable by the whirlwind of
revolution and anarchy. This state of things was especially favorable to
agriculture ; for if the soldier fought for all, and the parson prayed for all, it
was the farmer who paid for all. (Applause.) God grant that it might be
their happiness to enjoy uninterrupted peace ; prosperity they could hardly
dare look for; if they could preserve peace and order, and the country in
security be content — but do not feel too confident, for Heaven knew what
might happen — if they preserved a natural quiet when thrones were totter-
ing around them, and the entire continent of Europe was shaken to its very
centre ; if they were saved from all the horrors of unmitigated anarchy which
now afflicted a neighboring state, where the whole country was one immense
fulminating volcano, so that they could not put their feet anywhere but it
burst forth with almost uncontrollable violence ; if they could ride at safety
in their fast-anchored bark, even though contending with some difficulties

2d2

318 SHEEP IN ENGLAND AND SHEEP IN AMERICA.

and hardships, until Heaven was pleased to grant them but a httle of the blue
sky of hope and security in the midst of this storm, they had much to con-
gratulate themselves upon. (Cheers.) Soon would their hopes be animated
and cheered, and their entire horizon be illumined with the full effulgence
of a meridian sun, diffusing light and health and peace over the whole of
this great and prosperous country. (Loud applause.)

Mr. Bassett also acknowledged the toast.

The Chairman expressed himself in terms of approbation, and fully con-
curred in the agricultural views taken by his American friends. In reference
to growing beet-root, his lordship said that many of the farmers were under
an impression they were living under a system of free trade, and yet they
were not permitted to grow beet-root and tobacco. It was impossible for
agriculturists to know to what extent to carry out improved systems of cul-/
tivation, interfered Avith and fettered as they were on all sides by acts of par-
liament. This was one of the miserable results of the new free-trade theory.
If they had free trade, let them grow what they liked and sell what they
liked, and not stop them when they attempted to cultivate tobacco or beet-
root. But as this might be construed into a departure from the rule forbidding
politics if he went any further, he should abstain ; he only mentioned it to
show the difficulty of the position in which they were placed. The noble
lord here gave the health of Mr. Ayling, of Sussex, the hirer of the highest
priced tup.

The Chairman proposed the health of Mrs. Adeane and family, the repre-
sentative of the late esteemed owner of the soil. This toast was succeeded
by the toast of the health of their host, Mr. Jonas Webb, and success to the
Babraham flock. Before dinner, Mr. Webb had parted with sixty-seven
sheep, which had realized £1571, 17s., or £23, 10s. per head average. The
noble lord proved that this must inevitably be a great public benefit rather
than, as was sometimes said, a good "bagging" for Mr, Webb. He would
ask any hirer to trace the benefits which the hiring of Mr. Webb's sheep
produced on their own flocks, and to calculate the increased amount which
their lambs had realized since the introduction of this particular breed.

Mr. Jonas Webb most heartily thanked them for the compliment paid him.
Be assured it was a question most interesting to him to see so many celebrated
agriculturists present from all parts of the kingdom. He felt quite over-
powered by the liberality and attention bestowed upon him, and that when
he ought to say the most he Avas only to say the least. It was a very great
satisfaction to him to find that the hirer of the highest-priced tup came from
the county of Sussex, where he originally obtained the breed from. It was
most gratifying to him to know that they were only taking back what he
originally had from them. The Chairman had said, gentlemen had remarked
that his sheep had realized him very high prices. He did not complain; he
had obtained good prices, and he hoped they were taking back their own
stock with interest on the present occasion. They might rest assured he
should never relax his exertions in the cultivation of this stock so long as he
met with the support he had always experienced during twenty-two years —
every letting having brought him more money than the preceding one.
With respect to the approaching meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society
at York, he had but one wish — that the owners of the best stock and the
best implements might obtain the prizes. (Hear, hear.)

Mr. Witt, Denney Abbey, proposed, in eulogistic terms, the health of
their noble Chairman.

The Chairman acknowledged the compliment paid him, and said he felt
fully persuaded it would never have been paid him had they not been con-

AREA AND POPULATION OF EUROPE.

319

vinced his conduct, though occasionally differing from their views, had been
honest and straightforward. The lamentable circumstances abroad might all
be attributed to a want of mutual dependence; and the miserable condition
of France at that moment resuUed from the spoliation and indiscriminate
diffusion of ])roperty, and the absence of the great mainstay of a nation —
Avealth. With regard to free trade, he believed the best course they could
pursue was to quietly allow the theory to be worked out; of the result he
had no doubt whatever. There yet existed a remnant of the corn-laws, and
he entreated the company to look upon this subject with reference to their
revenue. In the face of an increasing duty there had been a falling price.
He would say, endeavor to hold fast the present portion of duty, since it
produced a considerable sum for revenue, while it inflicted no injury on the
consumer.

Several other toasts were drunk, which our space compels us to abridge.
Mr. Hicks proposed "The Strangers present," coupling it with the name
of Mr. Rigden, from Sussex; and Mr. Rigden, in acknowledging the toast,
said he regularly hired of Mr. Webb, and found it paid him a very good in-
terest; he should certainly have gone higher for the best ram let to-day, but
from a belief that the party bidding against him had a much longer purse
than he had. The above were followed by "The Magistrates of the County
of Cambridge:" "The Royal Agricultural Society;" "Mr. Wood, and our
friends from Nottinghamshire;" "Success to Agriculture;" "Health of Mrs.
Webb and family, and Mr. Webb, sen." The Chairman left at half-past
eisfht.

AREA AND POPULATION OF THE VARIOUS STATES OF

EUROPE.

STATES OF EUROPE.

Geograpliical
Sijuare Miles.

German Confederation . .
Austria (except the part be-
longing to the Confederation
Prussia (exclusive of ditto) .
Russia (as far as the Ural and

Caucasus)

France

Great Britain and Ireland

Netherlands

Belgium

Denmark (with Schleswig)
Sweden and Norway .

Switzerland

Portugal

Spain

Italy

British Possessions in the Me-
diterranean Sea . . . .

Greece

Turkey

Montenegro

Total ....

11,477-07
8,509-09
1,714-56

99,489-41

9,616-90

5,754-91

54G-30

535-91

84G-40

8,004-76

752-00

1,659-37

8,446-90

4,787-00

54-95

652-69

12,210-10

60-00

Inhabitants at

Per Centage

of the
whole Area
in Europe.

41,072,375

24,828,079

■3,863,822

64,865,000

35,050,000

27,905,000

2,829,035

4,335,319

1,729,976

3,338,504

2,411,608

3,260,693

13,077,997

19,070,869

357,010

957,003

9,949,226

111,280

180,089-92 200,800,694 lOO'OO

0-35

4-71

0-95

55-06

5-32
3-19
0-30
0-29
0-47
4-43
0-40
0-92
4-68
2-05

0-03

0-36
6-76
0-03

Per Centage
of tlie wliole
Poi>nlation
in Europe.

Average
Inhabitants

on One
geographical
square mile.

15'88
9-52
1-49

24-87

13-44

10-70
1-09
1-67
0.67
1-28
0-93
1-25
5-02
7-32

0-14

0-37
3-82
0-04

100-00

3,631

2,918

2,253

65-2

3,555
4,643

5,178
8,089
2,044
417
3,008
1,961
1,548
3,984

6,497

1,466
815

1,855

1,444

320

INCREASE OF PIG POPULATION.

INCREASE OF PIG POPULATION. ^

The following table will show the rapid increase of the pig. Supposing
the first litter to be when it is twelve months old, and that it has a litter every
six months ; and that it has an average of six pigs every litter. The sows
to be kept in a breeding state till three years old, and then fatted off. Aver-
ao-e 4 cwt. when killed, and all the hogs to be fatted off by the time they
are twelve months old, and average 2 cwt. when killed.

w

O 01

Increase of Stock. 1

Stock Sold. 1

Weisht

Increase and

Sale.

For
Breeding.

For
Fatting.

1 year old

Hogs,
2 cwt. each.

3 years old

Sows,
i cwt. each.

of Fat
Bacon
in cwts.

End of . . .

ISOl .

1

. 1

4

3

3

12

3

3

12

3

6

1802

7

21

21

3

Old sow deducted

. 1

18

• •

1

10

54

54

12

24

1803

. 39

117

117

21

42

Old sows deducted .

3
36

. "90

• •

3

120

1804

270

270

54

Old sows deducted .

3

87

3

246

2U4

612

612

117

Old sows deducted

. 12

iy2

. 462

12

588

1805 .

1386

1386

270

Old sows deducted

. 21

21

1308

441

1053

3159

3159

612

Old sews deducted .

54

54

2988

999

1806

2385

7155

7155

1386

Old sows deducted .

. 117

2268

117

67S6

5247

16,281

16,281

3159

Old sows deducted .

. 270
5157

• •

270

15,390

1807

12,312

36,936

36,936

7156

66,009

66,009

12,792

4!50

27,508

At the end of 1807 then there ) c,„„, ^
would be of breeding Pigs \ ^^^^~^ "^^^^^ °''^-

1386 2 years old.
3159 \\ year old.
7155 1 year old.
16,281 \ year old.
36,936 sucking pigs.
65,509
53,217

118,746 in all, besides the sale of 27,508 cwts. of bacon j
and beside — 10,281 hogs, half year old, and
36,236 sucking hogs.

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION. 321

AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION:

ADVOCATED BY AGRICULTURAL CLUBS IN ENGLAND — WHY NOT IN
THIS COUNTRY? — CHANNING ON THE PRE\'ENTION OF MOBS.

At a late meeting of the Harleston Farmers' Club, the subject of "Agri-
cultural education" was introduced by Mr. R. B. Harvey, when the following
resolution was carried unanimouslj^

^'■Harleston Farmers' Club. — At a meeting of the Harleston Farnners' Club held at the
Magpie Inn, on the 14th inst., present — Messrs. Mechi, Theobold Gower, Woodward,
Nunn, and a very crowded company of agriculturists, the subject of 'Agricultural Edu-
cation' was introduced by I\Ir. R. B. Harvey, when the following resolution was carried
unanimously: — 'It is the opinion of this meeting that an improvement in the system of
agricultural education generally, is of the utmost importance. It believes that a better
understanding of the principles of the tenure and management of land is required by the
owners of the soil ; that with the improvements in science which the last few' years have
eifected, a knowledge of those connected with agriculture will Ije indispensable on the
part of the rising generation of the oc-cupiersof land ; and above all, that the more know-
ledge a laboring man possesses the happier he will be and the more skilfid and handy
he becomes. With these views it recommends to every one connected with the soil, and
to the members of this club especially, that they shotxld promote by all tiie means in their
power an improvement in the system of Agriculmral Education.' "

Why is it that American Farmers' Clubs and Societies seem to be afraid
to touch such subjects ? Do they not know that the best and surest and
widest place into which to sow the seeds of every improvement is in the
minds of the rising generation, and that the more education is made to bear
on the profession of agriculture, as well as on the profession of law, or me-
dicine, or arms, the more efficiently that profession may be practised? Yet
the only one for which the farmer and the planter are taxed is to maintain
schools for teaching the science of war! the very science that has its origin
in, and essentially belongs to, a state of barbarism. It is not that one would
have the government turn school-keeper, or editor, as it does in undertaking to
pubhsh an annual on Agriculture from the Patent Office, (made up of statistics
cut out of price currents, interspersed with rigmarole letters about feeding
hogs, and random guesses at next year's produce and prices,) but that we
would have the Representatives of the landed interest in Congress demand
as much for each State, to be, by the States, expended in the diffusion of
agricultural sciences, as they now vote, to be paid by farmers and planters,
expressly for the maintenance of military schools!

The highest duty of every government is to provide for the education of
the people, (which is the same thing as providing for virtue and productive
capacity,) and in proportion as agriculture supplies the wealth and feeds the
population of the country, so ought the provision which government should
make for education to be applied to the art of agriculture. If education is
neglected, the time will come in our country when pov^erty and ignorance
Avill rise, as in Europe, under a vague sense of wrong, against all that is
valuable and sacred in society.

Read what the amiable and accomphshed Channing said on this subject.

" What is Taught by Popular Tumults. — I grieve when I hear men referring to the next
legislature, as if some stronger laws were all tliat we need for our security. Let us have
these laws; but unless accompanied by wise, patient, generous effort for the reformation and
advancement of the ignorant and exposed classes of the community, they will avail little.
Our mobs, though they have spoken in confused "and discordant yells, have uttered one
truth plainly — and this truth is, that there exists among us — what ought to exist in no
Christian coimtry — a mass of gross ignorance and vice. They teach one plain lesson to
the religious, virtuoits, philanthropic, educated, refined, and opulent; and that is, tliat these
have a great work to do, the work of enlightening and lifting up a large portion of their
fellow creatures and their neighbors; that they have no right to sjiend their lives in accu-
mulating wealth or in seliish indulgences, but that they are to labor, to expend time,

Vol. I. — 41

322 MARYLAND AGRICULTURAL CONVENTION.

thought, wealth, as their circumstances may permit, for the intellectual, moral, spiritual
life of a multitude aroimd them buried in darkness, prejudice, sensuality, excess, and
crime. This is the great lesson to be learned from mobs. If we heed not this; if we
look for safely to penal laws, rather than to the performance of personal duty, the dis-
interested labors of Christian love, and tlie faithful use of the best means of purifying
and elevating society, we shall have none to blame but ourselves if society become the
prey of violence and insurrection."'

Another way to prevent mobs, and the best way, after that of an improved
education,istoadoptand cherishsuchahneof policy on the part of the govern-
ment as will draw the loom and the anvil around the plough. For every
country, concentration around a thousand centres is better than centraliza-
tion in one place. Where men are collected by hundreds of thousands,
there will be overgrown fortunes, and great squalidness, and poverty, and
corruption, and violence. Let us foster the system that will build up villages
around water-powers, that every farming district may have its customers
close at hand, to get what he wants to buy, and to sell what he wants to dis-
pose of in exchange for what he wants to buy. Then all parties will save
the time and the expense of transportation, and then we should have no
combinations nor mobs. Then we should have economy in the management
of the government, and then we should always have peace.

MARYLAND AGRICULTURAL CONVENTION.

A FEW WORDS TO THE MEMBERS OF THE STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.

May it not be hoped that results will be ultimately reahzed from the late
convention, as connected with the progress and character of Maryland agri-
culture, both intellectually and practically, so decided and profitable as to
make it hereafter a matter of some interest to have the means of tracing these
results to their origin and their authors ? In some faint expectation that
such may be the case, the official account of the proceedings of the conven-
tion shall be transferred from the pages of The American Farmer to those
of The Plough, the Loom, and the Jinvil — if not in the present, in seme
early subsequent number, for preservation and reference — and why "faint ex-
pectation," says the sanguine and confident young reader? Alas! if we must
say it, because the sad recollection overcomes us, that such conventions have
been held and such societies incorporated, (and some still exist,) not only in
Maryland, but all the way from the Coosawhatchie to Cape Cod, and yet the
question arises, after the lapsb of half a century that some of these societies
have existed, what great enduring improvements in the agricultural produc-
tions and condition of these States are clearly traceable to these societies
Avhich would not without them have been realized? Nay, where are the
evidences of any such improvements in the state and circumstances of the
soil and the cultivators of the soil from the Chesapeake to the Mississippi?

Look at the state of agriculture in old Virginia, and the number of apparently
auspicious efforts at amelioration like this, which have been made in that State,
so blessed, even to profusion, with all that nature could do to render a people
numerous and powerful, polished and conspicuous, for all the glorious fruits
that spring from high social, political, and industrial development ! Kecall to
mind the number of her "conventions" and the number of her agricultural
societies, and the great names that have figured in their organization? Yet
is there any general advancement in the agricultural wealth and prospects
of the Old Dominion correspondinof with the general march of the arts in
other pursuits, and m any degree proportionate to her incalculable advan-
tages in soil, climate, and natural resources? Is her average acreable pro-
duce, in corn, wheat, oats, rye, peas, beans, potatoes, barley, or tobacco, more

MARYLAND AGRICULTURAL CONVENTION. 323

than it was fifty years ago ? Are her sons under the perpetual influence
of a centripetal or a centrifugal force ? Are the sons and daughters of neigh-
boring farmers clustering on and around their birth-places, marrying and
being given in. marriage to each other, as soon as their inclinations would
draw them, and their virtues entitle them to come together? Is the area of
cultivation in the aggregate rapidly increasing or being contracted? Is the
whole slate, in a word, becoming more populous, more wealthy, and more
refined? for these are the invariable signs and concomitants of a prosperous
agriculture, or, alas ! are not her sons moving oft^, and her fair daughters —
renowned over the world for making the best of housewives — neat in their
persons, affable in their manners, intelligent, spirited, benevolent and thrifty;
are they not left around their mothers, when they ought all to be mothers
themselves? And have our agricultural societies — numerous and longlived
as they have been in the Carolinasand Maryland — prevented the same state
of things from taking place in these States, no less favored of Providence?
On the contrary, has there not been general decline instead of general im-
provement— dispersion instead of concentration, (leaving out the large toAvns,)
and the happy effects, social and political, that concentration always begets
under ivise laws? and this brings us to the problem — one which it is most
respectfully suggested it behooves you to probe to the bottom — why is this?
Is it not because farmers and formers' societies have begun with their cares
and inquiries at the wrong end? Is it not that they have given too large a
proportion of these cares and inquiries to the practice, and too little to the
political economy of agriculture? for, permit us respectfully to suggest, that
agriculture, if societies would but see it, depends for its prosperity, and is
subject to decline, from political influences, just as much as manufactures
and commerce are; rising and sinking, as these influences — that is the le-
gislation of the country — happen to be favorable or mischievous; and if they
would bring about general improvement, if they would see old houses re-
paired, and new ones built; and the rich lands ditched and drained, instead
of still further exhausting those that are worn out — if, in a word, they would
brighten up the whole face of the country, they must betake themselves to
studying the political economy of the plough! They must think less about
how to fatten bullocks and how to make a bushel more on an acre of corn,
or wheat, or potatoes or turnips, and more about how consumers — the hatter,
the shoemaker, the tailor and the smith, the ironmonger and the coal-heaver,
and the schoolmaster, are to be provided in our own country — to buy, as in
Connecticut and Massachusetts, pay for, and consume, the bullock and the
corn, wheat, potatoes and turnips. Let them go into Massachusetts, where
the people have the sagacity to draw, against the very laws of nature, the
iron from other States to their anvils, the wool of other Slates to their looms,
and the leather of other States to their lapstones; and there see how lauds
are selling by the foot, many miles out from Boston; there, and only there,
w'here you find the loom and the anvil by the side of the plough, and where
consumers bear a large proportion to producers, will you ever see three
hundred varieties of pears, grapes as large as pig-nuts, and more than one
thousand cut-glass plates and dishes, with a countless variety of mao-nificent
fruit displayed at a single exhibition ! Among such a people so concentrated
only will you see, as we have lately done, teams of only two yoke of oxen,
hauling in the common way, about the town of Lawrence, wagon loads of
Pennsylvania anthracite coal, and loads of iron, weighing more than twelve
thousand pounds ! Yes, my worthy friends, if you would open deep and
enduring springs of progressive improvement for Maryland husbandry, you
must go to the bottom, instead of beginning at the top of existing difficulties.
If you proceed in the same old way that societies have been doing for the

324 MARYLAND AGRICULTURAL CONVENTIOX.

last fifty years — content with only offering premiums for bushels of this and
quarts of that — deterioration and dispersion will continue as they have done
all the while. You must act on the legislation of the country by concerted
influence — you must force yourselves to be heard and respected — you must
insist that our colonial vassalage to England shall be utterly broken up —
that we shall be independent of her in fact, as well as in name, and that a
policy shall be established that will leave undisturbed the natural tendency
of men to combine for mutual interests, and that attraction which everywhere
exists between the plough, the loom and the anvil — an attraction from which
ensues every blessing that combination of power, mental and physical, can
secure. If you go on putting your exclusive reliance on mere expedients,
on offering silver goblets and paper diplomas, to have repeated again what
has been accomplished a thousand times, and what every one knows can be
accomplished again, your sons will continue from necessity to desert their
homes and go to drag out their existence among strangers; and if you do
not go yourselves, your daughters will continue at home to read romances
and dream of a thousand things they can never realize. To undertake to
remove agricultural stagnation, by oflering ten dollar cups alone, (well enough
and even commendable and useful in their way,) may be fitly compared to
the conduct of him who should attempt to restore life to a dying tree by
sprinkUng its branches with whale oil soap, when sapped by the ravages
of worms gnawing at its root; or to that of a miller who should undertake
to stop a leak in his dam by throwing dirt 07i the outside.'

With these very hasty thoughts, hastily expressed in a steamboat on the
river approaching New Haven, and in the midst of much noise and con-
fusion, we shall send back the proceedings of the convention to the printer,
fervently hoping that in its results, now and for years to come, all the most
sanguine hopes, the most sanguine can entertain from the formation of a
State society, may be realized. Proposing to be among you at the Fair on the
9th, to brighten with old friends the chain of our ancient regards, and, what
is not quite so easy, at our time of life, to make many new ones, we bid you
adieu — au revoir. The convention, hke the society, was formed of men
of the finest spirit and the highest degree of intelligence. Reader, run
your eye over the names, and say if it be possible that want of practical
knowledge is the cause that agriculture does not go ahead in counties where
such men reside? What then is needed? Want of concentration and va-
riety of employment. How are these to be effected? Not by sending our
wool to be wove and our cottijn to be wove in foreign looms — not by imjiort-
ing the coal that is dug and the iron that is manufactured in other countries
by men who eat the bread of other countries.

One word more — unite with Mr. Colt, an eminent citizen of Nev.' Jersey,
who last winter in vain petitioned Congress to appropriate for each State
04,000 acres of the public lands for the purpose of agricultural education
under State authority. Since the public domain, acquired by the blood and
treasure of the old States, is to become a prey to squatters from every region
of the globe, becoming themselves in turn the prey of land-jobbers and
speculators, why not thus secure some of it, while yet we may, for the most
noble and praiseworthy use that can be made of property of any kind? If,
as General Jessup said, no doubt truly, he could discipline the whole militia of
the United States in sixty days, why might not, in like manner, the agricul-
tural labor of the country be directed with equally increased efficiency, by
means of men educated in a knowledge of the sciences that essentially be-
long to practical agriculture? Here then are objects worthy of your deep-
est contemplation and most determined efforts. But let the demand be first
created at home, and all the rest will follow — and without that, the rest is

MARYLAND AGRICULTURAL CONVENTION. 325

all "but leather or prunella." In the emphatic words of an address which
has just fallen under our notice, allow us to conclude this hasty but friendly
Avarning. " When a people, by protecting their own industry, become inde-
pendent of all the world, then, and not till then, can they be said, under
Providence, to control their own destinies, and to take rank with the first
in the great family of nations."

We have been so apprehensive, judging from what we have seen of their
proceedings, that agricultural societies have relied too exclusively on the
influence of premiums for fat things and large animals, and heavy crops on
single acres, as the great if not the only means within their reach of insuring
progress in agricultural improvement; and have so sensibly felt the obliga-
tion to warn theui of the necessity of taking a deeper and more comprehen-
sive view of the subject, that we begin now to fear that we may have laid
ourselves liable to the suspicion of being altogether opposed to such exhibi-
tions as have been held in some States for the last thirty years at least.
Now, on the contrary, we heartily approve of them, but not so much as a
means to the great end in view, as to demonstrate the practical and profitable
result of measures more efficacious and thorough. What we lament is, that
farmers should thus come together in great numbers, and thus separate again
and again, without any interchange of thought and reflection, upon the
manner in which they and their interests and substance are made subservient
to other classes, and without any attempt at devising the means of producing
that concentration of population and diversity of labor among themselves,
which draws the loom and the anvil near to the plough, and ensures within
the smoke of the farmer's chimney settlements for his children, and markets
for his produce, such as we have seen lately in New England, where a
small stream of only five miles in length, greatly inferior to many of the
mountain trout streams of Virginia, drives no less than eleven factories. Vv^e
have been more than chagrined — we have been disgusted at seeing the tarae-
ness with which farmers, and those who represent them in societies and in
Congress, submit even without daring to complain, to the payment of se-
venty-five per cent, of t-heir taxes for military establishments and military
instruction, without appearing to have the knowledge or the virtue to demand
something for instruction, (not in the mere statistics which may be had
from the journals of the day,) but in the principles of their own profession.
No, so far from objecting to an agricultural exhibition per se, we cordially
agree with a friend in New England — than whom we do not know a more
enlightened promoter of agricultural improveinent by all the most elevated
means of realizing the best results. The extract we give from his letter
embraces in the smallest compass the whole argument, and is at once con-
densed and conclusive. Still we would maintain that there is no guarantee
for general and progressive improvement in the art of agriculture, worthy
of a great and a free people, short of provision for teaching the elements
of agriculture to the rising generation of the country in the schools of the
country — and that with every other social and political blessing will follow,
when the nation has realized the independence of which it boasts so much;
by a national above-board determination to carry out the declaration of Mr.
Jefl^erson to Mr. Austin, that now we must have the manufacturer to set him-
self down by the side of the agriculturist. Then will come concentration
instead of dispersion, and then will come the means of making roads and
building school-houses, and of realizing all the improvements that spring
from concentration, wealth and power.

As it is, our government pursues a policy which scatters our people over
20,000,000 of square miles of territory, making roads indispensable, and then
denies itself the power and refuses to make roads. Let farmers think of all

2E

326 BALTIMORE AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITION.

these things, let them understand the economy-^the law of the case — and
then they will enforce, in the pohcy of the government, the best of «// systems
of premiums — one which will jiervade the whole country, one which will
be everywhere operating night and day, and endure as long as the nation
shall entertain a clear sense of the true interests — not of a party but of tlie
people! Says our esteemed correspondent :

"11' I should venture to take any exceptions to the two works in question, it would be
to an occasional dash of cold water ejected from the editorial fountain upon agricultural
Eocieties, or rather upon tlie manner of awarding premiums and the objects of the same.
Undoubtedly these societies, as all human institutions, have their deficiencies and defects,
but they are not therefore to be detracted from, fjr the benefits conferred by them. If I
understand you aright, you are of opinion that no further premiums should be otfered for
larj,e crops, for fat cattle, or for extra stock of any kind, as the mode of producing them
is well known, and all can produce them if they will. Granting this, (which I would
fjrant only for the argument,) I would submit to you whether the exhibition of such stock,
and the statement of the material facts respecting such crojis, are not calculated to produce,
and do produce, a wonderful stimulus upon the agricultural mind to attempt similar
results? If that mind is already informed, its will and energy are by these associations
roused to action — if it be not inlbrmed, it is put on the track of information and excited
to inform itself. Suppose that you discourage these societies — stop their annual meetings
— close the doorsof their exhibition halls — strike their cattle-pens and stop their ploughs,
what will you substitute in ]5lace of them to meet what now seems to be an agricultural
demand ail over the country? Books and journals treating of farming are good, excel-
lent, indispensable, in their pilace. But you well know how small a j)roportion of even
the most intelligent parts of the agricultural community are reading inen — how much
more accessible are they to the real substance itself for the production of lively imjires-
sions, than to the mere description of it on paper — and that till such impressions are pro-
duced, books to them are sealed books. Now, as I conceive, these societies do accomplish
great good — and they have evils incident to them too — in rousing the dormant facidties
to exertion and whetting the mind's appetite to seek for further and more soliti food from
the higher order of agricultural journals. Am I not right in this view of the subject, and
are not we and you co-operators together in the greatest, best, most healthful and delight-
ful of all earthly pursuits? If Groat Britain is to be taken as a model in agricultural
afiairs, we can still point to her numerous agricultural societies and shows, which have
prospered with renewed and renewing vigor, as her agricultural periodicals have in-
crea^ed in number aixl ability — and so may it be, and 1 doubt not will be, here. Go on
then with your work — speed "'the plough, the loom, and the anvil,"' but I pray you dis-
courage not the exhibiiions of practical husbandr}'.

" Yours in the best of bonds. J. W. D.''

THE COMING AGHICULTURAL EXHIBITION AT
BALTIMORE.

We have not left ourselves room for the record of the proceedings of the
convention and the official account of the organization of the Maryland State
Agricultural Society, but as the outHne has been already given and the event
has passed, the particulars, for mere record, may as well appear hereafter —
net so however the coming exhibition, which we hope to witness in all its
variety of agricultural and mechanical excellence. We can only find room
for the following, from the "American Farmer," for October.

"We are authorized in saying, that about thirty head of the noble herd of Devons, of
George Patterson, Esq., will be here — and no one who feels an interest in the subject
■will'begrudge a ride of a thousand iniles for a sight of them. The sui^eriority of the
Ucvons for oxen is well established, and the farmer will behold, in the specimens here
presented, the perfection of the breed. This country cannot produce any thing of the kind
to equal Mr. Patterson's herd, and we doubt if its sujierior is to be found in Europe.
INIr. Patterson is also exi)ected to exhibit some of his blooded horses, which we have
heard sjjoken of in the highest terms. Colonel Capron, and Mr. Calvert, of Prince George's,
will also be here, with their Durhains, Devons, Holsteins, &c. ; each of these gentlemen
will have an equal number, at least, with Mr. Patterson, from their fine herds, and we
tliink we are not out of the way in saying, tliat they can favorably compare with the herds

WOOL. 827

of any State in the Union, either in the number or character of their stock of these breeds.
There are a great number of otlier gentlemen who ^^'ill be present with their cattle, and
though their herds are not so numerous as those to which we have alhided. yet there will
be found many animals of a very superior order — Mr. McHenry's Ayrshires, that beauti-
ful and favorite milking breed, will be here, as we suppose will those of John Ridgely,
Esq., of Hampton, and General Howard, Colonel Ware, Mr. Clement and Mr. Reybold,
and we suppose Governor Stevens, Colonel Lloyd, Colonel Bowie, and others, will he in
attendance with their dillbrent breeds of slieej), Colonel Capron with his splendid mules;
and we should be gratified to learn that the Messrs. Hambleton, of Talbot, will exhibit
those fine animals which carried off the prize at the last Talbot Fair. Let every one
who has any thing ol' superior excellence to exhibit be with us on the occasion. We have
no doubt that from oitr neighboring States of Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Virginia, we
shall have a number of animals. We invite all to come — a welcome is extended to them,
and the field, it will be seen, is opened for competition to the whole country.

^'Implements. — This part of the exhibition will also be of great interest — not only ouv own
manufacturers, who are hard to beat, will be prepared to make a handsome display, but
we learn that many from the Eastern States, as well as our neighbors of Pennsylvania
and Delaware, will be here. No farmer should fail to be a witness of the trials for pre-
eminence, which will take place in this department. It will be superior to any thing of
the kind presented in the Eastern cities. Every description of implement will be here
exhibited, and the farmer will be enabled to judge at a glance of the merits of the various
machinery which will be presented for his inspection."

This department of implements is the one which in our judgment deserves
to be regarded as of the very highest importance. It lies at the foundation
of all improvement, and if the farmer would compel Congress to give only
a tenth part as much for improvement of labor-saving machines by the appli-
cation of steam and otherwise, as it now appropriates for military surveys
and books and for labor-saving machinery for man-kilJing, who can begin to
anticipate the results that would follow.

One word more. Have railroads and steamboats decided to take free of
charge to and fro whatever is going bona fide to the exhibition? Even their
own pecuniary interests, well understood, should prompt them to do so.

WOOL.

PRICES OF WOOL — PROSPECTS FOR THE WOOL-GROAVER — LETTERS
FROM S. LAWRENCE OF LOWELL.

It would be worse than affectation to say that we do not feci flattered by the following
testimony to the value of our labors in endeavoring to demonstrate to the farmer and the
planter, the wheat-grower and the wool-grower, the cotton-grower and the corn-grower,
how essentially and particularly the question of encouragement to all the branches of
domestic industry is a question interesting to them.

According to the common notion of the influence of self-interest on the actions and
opinions of men, a notion in tlie inain well founded, the manufacturer of wool is the last
person to whom the growers of wool should apply for candid advice in his business —
but there are men whose views are more elevated and extended, and who have the saga-
city to see that interests apparently and at first sight antagonistical, are really identical,
■when looked at philosophically and their true political economy is thoroughly understood.
It is in this understanding of the case, and in a knowledge of character gained by much
business intercourse, that both wool-growers and cotton-growers, and those who propose
to embark in the maniffacture of these articles, apply from all quarters with equal confi-
dence to Mr. Lawrence of Lowell for his opinions and advice; well assured that they
will be given with equal politeness and candor.

Though well persuaded that every thing from him will command the attention of the
wool-grower, we cannot forbear to invite the regards of every political inquirer after the
real economy of agriculture, to the striking fact he states as to the vast difference in the
amount of capital invested in this case, in the machinery for the ;»-orfKdro». compared with
that which is necessary for the conversion of •wool: and on that simi)le aspect of the ques-
tion which is applicable in so many cases, let us inquire whether it be not unreasonable,
nay monstrous, to enact a policy or tariff, under which the produce of the great machine
<}f production should be transported and sent all the way to Manchester and back, rather

328 WOOL.

than compel the Manchester weaver to come with his light machinery to the great ma-
chine of prochiction, here to eat the corn, and potatoes, and veal, and pork, and beef, and
mutton, for all which he is compelled to give enormous prices in Manchester to the ben-e-
lit of the foreign agricultvirist* Will our people sufier themselves for ever to be canght
and led by the nose — and at last ridden bare-back by demagogues as the gaucho catches
with his lazo and subdues for life the free courser of the Prairies?

Col. Skinxer.

Lmvdl, October 3, 1848.

My dear Sir: — I cheerfully comply with your request, and hand you copies
of the letters you read when here a k\v days since. The best renaedy I
can think of for the evils under which the country is suffering is that every
mftn, woman, and child in the United States, shall take a copy of your
admirable paper, "The Plough, Loom, and Anvil," read it carefully, and
practise on the doctriues laid down therein.

I remain, your friend truly,

Sam. Lawrence.

Mr. Samuel Lawrence.

Moore's Salt-irorks, Jefferson County, Ohio.
Dear Sir: — I hope it will not be offensive to you in finding one addressing
you with whom you have no acquaintance. I desire some information in
reference to the wool market, and can think of no person at present whose
opinions would be entitled to more consideration than yours; I mean not only
the present value but the prospective value some years to come. In 1840
I purchased one hundred native ewes ; with these and their progeny I have
bred from the best merino bucks I could procure — my present stock is, say,
. twelve hundred ; a few of the original stock are still living; taking my whole
lot together it is tolerably nice wool — last year it brought twenty-nine cents,
cash; this year I sold it at twenty-seven and a half. But the purchaser

could not raise the cash, and I did not choose to let him have it. — '■

of Steubenville offered twenty-six cash; I declined taking it. It is under-
stood that you are not purchasing any wool this season ; Avhat does this
mean? Will the article advance this winter? The Washington county
wool is all on hand and cannot be get without advanced prices. Is the
supply too large for the demand? If so, will not the market sink still lower
every subsequent j^ear — would it be advisable to abandon the business at
once? I will be pleased to have your views at large on the subject. If
wool is destined to range with this year's prices, I can do much better with
my lands than pasturing sheep. But I lack foresight. I feel discouraged
in the business. I have heard men say they could raise wool at twenty-five
cents. I'hcse bellevinof this may do so. I cannot and will not.

Yours truly, R. G.

R. G., Esq., Moore's Salt-works, .Tefferson county, Ohio.

Lowell, September 2G, 1848.
My dear Sir: — Your highly valued favor of the 10th is at hand, and I
beg to assure you that I have much pleasure in replying to your queries,
and in giving you such information relating to the great branches of national
industry in which we are both engaged as is in my power. The reasons
for the great depression in the woollen manufacture of this country are
obvious. A short crop of food in 1840, in Great Britain, caused a famine in
1847, and a greater commercial crisis than has been for fifty years on the
other side of the water. This caused a very large exportation of manufac-
tured goods to this country, as they could not be consumed at home. Then
came the last winter and spring, the political and financial troubles on the

WOOL. 329

Continent, with similar effects on consumption and exports to this country.
For the last eighteen months thiscountry has been inundated with foreign
fabrics, not one-quarter of tchich ivere needed for comfort or luxury.
The quantity of French and German broadcloths sold in New York the
present year is perfectly enormous, and would amaze the wool-growers were
they possessed of the facts. These goods have been sold generally at great
sacrifices, which fell on the creditors of the makers and shippers, who had
become bankrupt. Our own manufacturers have suffered severely by the
great fall of goods, prices of which were never so low as at this time. Our
own stock of goods was so large that we stopped a portion of our works,
and discharged over a thousand hands.

This kind of thing cures itself, and my belief is firm that another year
will show a greatly improved state of things. Whether wool will advance in
price the coming winter or not, is beyond my judgment ; but I have no
doubt it will be higher within a year. The supply of domestic wool is not
above the machinery. The clip of 1847 was entirely worked up. Do not
for one moment entertain the idea of abandoning the business; instead of
Avhich make preparations to go on increasing. All the old and new ma-
chinery will be in full operation within one year. It would be about as wise
for us to send our horses to Europe to be shod, as to depend upon importa-
tions of our woollen goods. It depends upon the wool-growers of this country
how far the business of fabricating shall be carried; give us the wool at Ger-
man prices and we shall soon supply ourselves.

The woollen manufacturer is in a relative position to the wool-grower as the
miller is to the wheat-grower. The amount invested in sheep farms and sheep
in this country is morethanfour hundred millions of dollars, while not over
one-twelflh of that amount is the cost of AvooUen-mills, machinery, &c. It
therefore rests with those representing these hundreds of millions of dollars
to decide how far their interests shall be extended. Strike the woollen in-
terest out of existence in this country, and what would be the value of the
lands for the production of food?

The producers of food in this country obtain a foreign market only in
seasons of famine, and I ask you if it is safe for so great an interest to depend
for their prosperity on the frowns of Heaven? Would it not be wiser to
make a market at home, and calculate how much food there is in the hun-
dreds of thousands of tons of iron now imported yearly, which could as well
be made here. Our government is the cheapest and best in existence, and
we have the elements of prosperity beyond that of any nation of which there
is a record. Let us all aim to make our beloved country glorious.

Believe me, your obedient servant, Sam. Lawrence.

Lowdl, Scptcmhcr 28, 1S4S.

R. R. R., Esq., Washington, Pa.

My dear Sir: — Since Bishop Campbell assumed the guardianship of tile-
fine wool interest of this country, I have looked on as an amateur. You
are aware that for a great many years previous I gave that branch special
attention. If the Bishop has not informed you it was his duty to do so,, that
the French government and Belgian also are allowing high bouaties on the
exportation of their manufactured woollens; and all goods made of wool frora
those countries are imported in this way, say, an article costs in Havre— -

100 dollars.
Bounty 12

bS,(JO "
Duty 30 per cent. 2 (3,-10 ^ ;

Vol. I.— 43 2 e 3

114,4U

330 PHILADELPHIA AGRICULTURAL EXHIBITION,

Should be cast 100 dollars.
Duty 30

130

I believe the bounty is ISI per cent., but am not sure. The woollen ma-
nufacturer is to the wool-grower precisely in the same relative position as
the miller is to the wheat-grower. In sheep and sheep-farms in this country
four hundred millions of dollars are invested. In woollen-mills and machinery
thirty millions. Who is to look into this matter? [The wool-grower or the
manufacturer?] Our fonrvof government is the cheajjest and best in exist-
ence, but its policy is far more unnatural than that of the ostrich. The
prosperity of our glorious country depends quite as much upon the success
of the wool and woollen interest as upon any other great branch of national
industry. Let this interest drcop and the whole country would feel it. Our
food producers think a great deal of exporting to Europe, which only hap-
pens in times of short crops. Let them rather calculate how much food is
consumed in the manufacture of a yard of broadcloth in our own country,
carrying the whole thing out in its various ramifications! I would make
any reasonable sacrifice to sit down with you and some others and discuss
this thing. Something must be done tj put the country on the right basis.
There is a jealousy in many parts of thp country against manufacturers ;
their influence is comparatively nothiiig. The agriculturists control the
country and should do. This is right; only pray move, and with energy, for
the paternal care of Jlinerican industry.

I remain, your friend and obedient servant, Sam. Lawrence.

THE PHILADELPHIA AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY'S
EXHIBITION,

We rejoice to hear, went off admirably. An engagement contracted some
time back, when we were not aware of the time their exhibition would take
place, deprived us of the pleasure of being present, and compelled us to go
to Middletown, Connecticut, to deliver the discourse which makes the first
article in tliis number.

How often we wished some of our observing southern friends had been with
us lately at cattle-shows in New England ! Ah ! they are a wonderful people !
— real propellers ! What would you think of seeing, as we did, some fifteen
hundred men come in at the end of a little ride of forty-five miles, to old Wor-
cester at 9 a.m., to go to /mm that night, travelling the ninety miles in about
three hours, and all for less than a cent a mile ! Every man well dressed, good
cloth seeming to be as common as the commonest things in nature. What
is more, you do not see any great men among them! all seem to be on a
footing. No great lawyers and great stump-speakers, and rich nabobs driv-
ing four-in-hand, that stand out in bold relief for the groundlings to stare at.
And then the way they build up banks, and factories, and railroads, and the
way that population, and demand, and high prices, make the food, and the
fruit, the hay, the potatoes, apples, pears, plums, and grapes come out of the
ground, is a caution ! Why ? The regular farmer there picks up every apple
and every Indian walnut, and every shell-bark, assured of customers to buy
— one pays for his shoes with dried apples, and another his postage with
pig-nuts. Nothing is wasted that could be honestly converted into money or —
manure. None are ashamed to work, but all are ashamed to beg. What
think you of a savings' bank of some hundred thousand dollars in little Middle-
town! And the way they do make shoes, and planes, and pitch-forks, and
rakes, nail kegs and axe handles, for their kind friends in the south ! But we
only took up pen to fill a space, and the printer says we'U overrun the mark !

INSECTS.

331

INSECTS.

A LOVER of natural history cannot, I thinlc.
be a bad man, as the very study of it tends
to promote a calmness and serenity of mind
favorable to the reception of gratefid and
holy thoughts of the great and beneficent
Parent of the universe. He cannot be a
cruel man, because he will be unwilling
wantonly to destroy even an insect wlien he
perceives how exquisitely it is contrived,
and how beautifidly adapted for tlie station
it is destined to fill in the animal world.
Few things have afforded me greater plea-
sure than watching the wonderful instinct
which induces insects to watch over and
protect their offspring. An instance of this
occurred in the case of a sand-wasp. I ob-
served this animal fly backvv'ards and for-
wards very frequently from the side of a
window to a gravel walk near it. After
some time I perceived that she collected the
finest particles of sand from the walk, with
which, under a projection of the window,
she formed a cell. When the cell was com-
pleted, she flew to a neighboring bush, from
whence she selected a little green cater-
pillar, which with some difficulty she con-
trived to force into the cell. Having next
deposited an egg on the caterpillar, she
covered over the top of the cell with a sort
of paste made of fine sand, sloping it so
that no rain could rest upon it. In this man-
ner four different cells were completed.
After a lapse of some time the young 'wasps
emancipated themselves and disappeared.
There seems no reason to doubt but that the
caterpillars which were so curiously intro-
duced into the cells served not only to pro-
tect the young brood from too much heat or
cold, which they would have been subjected
to had they merely been deposited at the
bottom of an empty cell, but also for food,
till they were capable of extricating them-
selves from their state of confinement.

Blumeabach, in his Elements of Natural
History, states that an insect of the sphex
genus will dig a hole in sandy ground, drag
a large spider, or the caterpillar of a pha-
IcBna, into it — lame it by biting off its legs
— and tlien lay an egg in each hole ; so that
the larva may suck out the spinning fluid
of the animal which the mother has buried,
and in that way prepare itself a habitation
in which to pass through its metamorphosis.

The following remarks by the same na-
turalist may interest those who have not
access to his works.

" It has been calculated that the abdomen
of the female white ant, when about to lay
her eggs, is two thousand times larger than
previous to impregnation. She can lay eighty

thousand eggs within twenty-four trours. In-
sects Avhicli undergo metamorphosis are
called larvae, whilst in the state in which
they escape from the egg. They are mostly
very small on their first appearance, so that
a full-grown caterpillar, of the willow-moth
for instance, is seventy-two thousand times
heavier than when it issues from the egg.
On the other hand, they grow with great
rapidity, so that the maggot of the meat-fly,
at the end of twenty-four hours, is one hun-
dred and fifty-five times heavier than at its
birth.

'• The carrion-beetle (^vespilio'^ scents from
a distance the bodies of small animals, as
moles, frogs, &c., and buries them under-
ground for the purpose of depositing its eggs.
Six of them will bury a mole a foot deep in
less than four hours.

" The eyes of insects are of two kinds ;
the first are large hemispheres, mostly com-
posed of thousands of facets, but in some
instances of numerous conical points, and
covered on the inner surface with a layer
sometimes glittering, sometimes variegated.
Those of the second kind are simple, small,
and vary as well in number as position.
Eyes of the first kind seem calculated for
seeing at a distance — of the second for
looking at near objects. Only a few insects
can move their eyes.

" The anienna are organs of feeling, which
are of great importance to insects, on account
of their hard, insensible covering, and the
immobility of their eyes. They appear to
possess their most acute feeling in the an-
tenna, as man has in the tips of his fingers ;
and as for the most part they live in dark-
ness, supf)ly the want of light by this con-
trivance.

" The eggs of some insects are covered
with a kind of varnish, to protect them from
the destructive influence of rain and other
accidents."

It would, however, be an endless task if
I were to enter into all the wonders of tlie
insect creation. Latreille eloquently says,
" that the wisdom of the Creator never ap-
pears to excite our admiration more than iii
tlie structure of the most minute beings
which seem to conceal themselves from ob- s
servation ; and Almighty Power is never
more strikingly exhibited than in the con-
centration of organs in such an atom. In
giving life to this atom, and constructing, in
dimensions so minute, so many organs sus-
ceptible of diflerent sensations, my admira-
tion of the Supreme Intelligence is much
more heightened than by the contemplation
of tlie structure of the most gigandc animals."

Qo

99

SWANS, PIGEONS, AND EMUS.

SWANS, PIGEONS, AND EMUS.

■ the swan with archod neck

Between her white wings mantling proudly, rows
Her state with oary feet.— JJUlton.

Living on the banks of the Thames, I
have often been pleased with seeing the
care taken of the young swans by the parent
birds. Where the stream is strong, tlie old
swan will sink herself sufficiently low to
bring her back on a level with the water,
■when the cygnets will get upon it, and in
this manner are conveyed to the other side
of the river, or into stiller water. Each fa-
mily of swans on the river has its own dis-
trict; and if the limits of that district are
encroached upon by other swans, a vindi-
cation of local rights immediately takes
place, and the intruders are driven away.
Except in this instance, colonies of swans
appear to live in a state of the most perfect
harmony. The male is very attentive to
the female, assists in making the nest, and
when a sudden rise of the river takes place,
joins her with great assiduity in raising the
nest sufficiently high to prevent the eggs
being chilled by the action of the water,
though sometimes its rise is so rapid, that
the whole nest is washed away and de-
stroyed.

The following instance of attachment in
these birds has recently come inider my
observation. A pair of swans had been in-
separable companions for three years, during
which time they had reared diree broods
of cygnets; last autumn the male was
killed, and since that time the female has
separated herself from all society with her
own species; and though at the time I am
writing (the end of March) the breeding
season for swans is far advanced, she re-
mains in tVie same state of seclusion, resist-
ing the addresses of a male swan who has
been making advances towards forming an
acquaintance with her, either driving him
away, or flying from him whenever he
comes near her. How long she will con-
tinue in this state of widowhood I know
not, but at present it is quite evident that
she has not forgotten her former partner.

This reminds me of a circumstance which
lately happened at Chalk Farm, near Hamp-
ton. A man, set to watch a field of peas
which had been much preyed upon by
pigeons, shot an old cock jngeon which had

long been an inhabitant of the farm. His
mate, around whom he had for many a year
cooed, whom he had nourished from his
own crop, and had assisted in rearing nu-
merous young ones, immediately settled on
the ground by his side, and showed her
grief in the most expressive manner. The
laborer took up the dead bird and tied it to
a short stake, thinking that it would frighten
away the other depredators. In this situa-
tion, however, the widow did not forsake
her deceased husband, but continued, day
after day, walking slowly round the stick.
The kind-hearted wife of the bailiff of the
farm at last heard of the circumstance, and_
immediately went to afford what relief she
could to the poor bird. She told me that,
on arriving at the spot, she found the hen
bird much exhausted, and that she had
made a circular beaten track around the
dead pigeon, making now and then a little
spring towards him. On the removal of the
dead bird, the hen returned to the dove-
cote.

The only instance I have met with in
which the hen bird has not the cliief care
in hatching and bringing up the young, is in
the case of the emus at the farm belonging
to the Zoological Society, near Kingston. A
pair of those birds have now five healthy
young ones. The female, at different times,
dropped nine eggs in various places in the
pen in which she was confined. These
were collected in one place by the male,
who rolled them along gently and carefully
with his beak. He then sat upon them him-
self, and continued to do so with the utmost
assiduity for nine weeks, during which time
the female never took his place, nor was he
ever observed to leave the nest. VV^hen the
young were hatched, he alone took charge
of them, and has continued to do so ever
since, the female not appearing to nonce
them in any way. On reading this anec-
dote, many persons would suppose that the
female emu was not possessed of that na-
tural affection for its young which other
birds have. In order to rescue it from this
supposition, I will mention that a female
emu belonging to the Duke of Devonshire,
at Chiswick, lately laid some eggs, and as
there was no male bird, she collected tliem
together herself and sat uf)on them.

Nepotism Extraordinary. — The late Miles
Lester, Esq., of UiJton, Gainsborough, Eng-
land, who died a short time ago, has left
sixty of his nephews and nieces £300
each.

In a lecture at the Manchester Mechanics'
Institute, Mr. F. Warren said, " the first cot-
ton cloth was made in Derby, in 1773, by
Messrs. JMccd and Strutt, and it wasdien pro-
hibited by law from being sold in the market."

THE TOAD.

THE TOAD.

I REMEMBER soiiie years ago getting up
into a mulberry-tree, and finding in the fork
of the two main brandies a large toad al-
most embedded in the bark of the tree,
which had grown over it so much that he
was quite unable to extricate himself, and
would probably in time be completely co-
vered over witli the bark. Indeed, there
seems to be no reason why, as the tree in-
creased in size, the toad should not in pro-
cess of time become embedded in it, as was
the case with the end of an oak-rail that had
been inserted into an elm-tree, which stood
close to a public footpath. This, being bro-
ken off and grown over, was, on the tree
being felled and sawn in two, found nearly
in the centre of it. The two circumstances
together may explain the curious fact of
toads having been found alive in the middle
of trees, by showing that the bark having
once covered them, the process of growth
in the tree would annually convey the ani-
mal nearer to the centre of it, as happened
with the piece of oak-rail ;' and also that
toads, and probably other amphibia, can ex-
ist on the absorption of fluids by the skin
alone. This is confirmed by the following
fact. A gentleman put a toad into a small
flower-pot, and secured it so that no insect
could penetrate into it, and then buried it in
the ground at a sufficient depth to protect it
from the influence of frost. At the end of
twenty years he took it up, and found the
toad increased in size, and apparently
healthy. Dr. Townson, in his tracts on the
resi:)iration of tlie amphibia, proves, I think
satisfactorily, from actual experiment, that,
while those animals with whose economy we
are best acquainted, receive their principal
supply of liquids by the mouth, the frog and
salamander tribes take in theirs through the
skin alone ; all the aqueous particles being
absorbed by the skin, and all they reject
being transpired through it. He found that
a frog, when placed on blotting-paper well
soaked M'ith water, absorbed nearly its own
weight of the fluid in the short time of an
hour and a half; and it is believed that
they never discharge it, except when they
are disturbed or pursued, and then only to
lighten their bodies, and facilitate their es-
cape. That the moisture thus imbibed is
suflicient to enable some of the amphibia to
exist without any other food, cannot, I think,
be reasonably doubted ; and if this is ad-
mitted, the circumstance of toads being
found alive in the centre of trees is fully
accounted for. In one of the volumes pub-
lished by the Academy of Sciences at Paris,
there is an account of a live toad being in

the centre of an elm-tree, and of another
in an oak. Both trees were sound and
thriving. \

In additional proof, however, of what has
been advanced, I may mention that the re-
spectable proprietor of some extensive coal-
mines in Stalibrdshire informed me diat his
men, in working into a stratum of thick coal,
at a very considerable depth, found what
they called three live eels in a small deposit
of water in the centre of a block of coal,
which died as soon as they were taken out
of it. As this assertion may astonish the
geologists, I think it right to mention that
my informant did not see the eels himself;
but his workmen, one would think, could
have no object in deceiving him in a matter
of this sort. The men called them eels, but
they might possibly be the genus of amphibia
living in dark caverns, the Proteus, of which
Sir Humphrey Davy has given an account
in his " Consolations in Travel." I am not
aware of any communication with the ex-
ternal world by which eels could reach the
place where they were said to have been
found. The men in question made an affi-
davit of the fact before a magistrate. I was
also informed by a most resjaectable clergy-
man and magistrate in that neighborhood,
that two colliers came before him and re-
quested to make an affidavit of their having
discovered, in a large block of coal about
sixty yards below the surface of the e-irtli,
a snake or adder, which was found alive on
breaking the piece of coal. These men
wished to make the aflidavit because the
truth of their assertion hail been doubted. I
should add that the Staffordshire colliers are
a trustworthy race of men, and not given to
fiction.

Another case was mentioned to me by an
eminent physician. A wet spot had always
been observed on a freestone mantelpiece,
which afterwards cracked at that place, and
upon its being taken down, a toad was found
in it, dead ; but its death was probably owing
to the want of that moistiu'e %^diich it had
been enabled to imbibe when the stone was
in the quarry, and Vv'hich gradually lessened
by the action of the fire, as from the mois-
ture which appeared on that part of the
mantelpiece, some time after it was put up,
there seems but little reason to doubt that
the toad was alive at that time.

There is also a well-authenticated account
in the Annual Register, of a toad being
fjund in the middle of a large and hard
stone, which had no visible aperture by
which it could get there.

Biiunenbach, in his Elements of Natural

'Of

<'J±

HOI\IE AND FRIENDS.

History, says that it is indisputable that liv-
ing toads have been found in sawing
through blocks of stone, trees, &c.

I may here mention a curious circum-
stance in regard to some irogs that had fallen
down a small area which gave light to one
of the windows of my house; the top of
which being on a level widi the ground,
Avas covered over with some iron bars,
through which the frogs fell. During dry
and warm weather, when they could not
absorb much moisture, I observed them to
appear almost torpid ; but when it rained
they became impatient of their confinement,
and endeavored to make their escape, which
they did in the following manner. The
wall of the area was about five feet in
height, and plastered and whitewashed as
tmooth as the ceiling of a room. Upon this
suiface the frogs soon found that their claws
would render them little or no assistance ;
they therefore contracted their large feet so
as to make a hollow in the centre, and by
means of the moisture which they had im-

bibed in consequence of the rain, they con-
trived to pro(hice a vacuum, so that by the
pressure of the air on the extended feet, (in
the same way that we see boys take up a
stone by means of a piece of wet leather
fastened to a string,) they ascended the wall,
and made their escape. This circumstance
occurred frequently.

It is a curious fact, that toads are so nu-
merous in the island of Jersey, that they
have become a term of reproach to its in-
habitants, the word " Crapaud'' being fre-
quently applied to them; while in the
neigliboring island of Guernsey, not a toad
is to be found, though they have frequently
been imported. Indeed, certain other islands
have always been privileged in this respect.
Ireland is free from venemous animals, of
course by the aid of St. Patrick ! In olden
times, the same was afllrmed of Crete, the
birthplace of Jupiter. The Isle of Man is
said also to be free from venemous creatures.
The Mauritius, and I believe one of the Ba-
learic islands, enjoy the same immunity.

CLIXG TO THOSE WHO CLING TO YOU.

Clixg to those who cling to you ;

More than half our sorrow 's made
When we are ourselves untrue

To the ligljt of friendship's aid.
But how sweet it is to own

Some kind heart to thine beat true.
After many years have flown ! —

Cling to those who cling to you.

Cling to those who cling to you ,
Think how those who live apart,

That sweet solace never knew

Friendship sheds around the heart.

Who is there that hath not longed
Once to find some friend prove true ?

That your friendships be prolonged —
Cling to those who cling to yon.

Cling to those who cling to you

Every link of friendship's chain,
If the heart be only true,

Will for ever bright remain.
Never be the first to break

In the chain the link that's true;
Never trust and truth forsake —

Cling to those who cling to you.

J. E. Carpenter.

HOME AND FRIENDS.

Oh there's a power to make each hour

As sweet as Heaven design'd it!
Nor need Me roam to bring it home.

Though few there be that find it !
We seek too high for things close by.

And lose what nature found us ;
For life hath here no charms so dear

As home and friends around us !

We oft destroy the present joy

For future ho[)es — and praise them;

Whihl flowers as sweet bloom at our feet.
If we'd but itoop to raise them;

For things afar still sweetest are

When youth's bright spell hath boimd us;
But soon we're taught that earth hath naught

Like home and friends around us !

The friends that speed in time of need,

When hope's last reed is shaken.
To show us still, that come what will,

We are not quite forsaken ;
fliough all were night, if but the light

From friendship's altar crown'd us,
'Twould jjrove the bliss of earth was this^

Our home and friends around us !

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

335

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

EEFLECTION.
As the way of a man who walketh, yet
knoweth not whither he is going, so is the
discourse of one who weigheth not his
words.

As the chattering daw that prateth without
imderstanding; as the young magpie with
its double tongue tallceth by rote ; as the
monkey jabbers ; as the green parrot squalls
without ceasing, so is a woman who re-
gardeth not her speecli.

Before thou openest thy lips to speak, re-
flect whether thou knowest the truth of what
thou art about to say, or untlerstandest the
matter thereof.

Else thou mayest be detected in a false-
hood, and thy assertions may be an impeach-
ment to thy understanding.

So shall the stranger, and the acquaint-
ance repeat thy words to thy disadvantage ;
the sincere will despise thee, and the wiser
than thou laugh thy folly to scorn.

Let thy promises be few, and such as thou
canst perform, lest thou art reduced to break
thy word, and it be hereafter reckoned of
no account.

Be not less circumspect over thy actions ;
for the sayings of thy mouth may be for-
gotten ; but the work of thine hands will
make a deeper impression, and may be
lasting causes of remorse.

Consider what thou art about to do, before
tliou beginnest thy work: lest thou labor in
vain, and the fruit of thy endeavors turn to
no end.

Weigh thy strength and thy design ; lest
thou faint under thy burden, and fall short
of the recompense of thy toil.

Wouldst thou attempt to reach up to the
moon, the nurse would laugh and the young
child hold thee in derision ; yet as well
mayest thou undertake a work thou canst
not perform.

Examine also the price of thy labor, the
consequence of thy deeds, lest, when thou
hast finished thy task, thou art dissatisfied
with thy wages.

For the consequence of precipitancy is
repentance at leisure.

The price of folly is reproach, and the
wages of sin is death.

VANITY.
Tiiou art fair as the snow-drop of the
spring, the rose of June blows on thy da-
mask cheek, thine eye outsparkles the blue
lustre of the sapphire, thou art stately as the
tall fir-tree, and thy presence is coimnand-
ing as majesty itself.

The east and the west pour forth their
treasures to deck thee ; the sea and land
give up the pearl and the precious stone;
thy array is the finest silk ; the diamond is
a star on thy bosom, and the ruby and eme-
rald are interwoven with the hair on thy
temples.

Therefore vanity haUi lifted thee up, thou
flutterest on the wings of thine own conceit,
thou dcspisest even the ground where the
vulgar tread, thy chariot is drawn by white
horses, and thy feet are hardly conscious of
their own burden.

O deluded woman ! the butterfly and the
gaudy tulip are emblems of thy fancied
importance.

They are decked in the pride of summer,
they enjoy the sunshine awhile, but shortly
fade and attract the eye no more.

Is thy breath perfume? is thy taste rich?
the particolored carnation and the speckled
rose are sweet, and the juice of the ripe
grape as delicious as thy taste.

But the rude hand of the spoiler cometh,
both in the opening of the bud and at tlie
fidness of the bloom, and the untimely frost
turns sour the rich flavor of the vine.

So mi-sfortune may crop thy imaginary
greatness in the bud of thy joys, or in the
full bloom of thy splendor ; and the clay-
cold hand of disease convert thy exquisite
taste to undistinguishing bitterness.

Doth gold pamper thee with dainties, doth
the smiling aspect of fidl-fed plenty delight
thee ;

Be not exalted beyond measure, for thou
knowest not how soon they may forsake
thee : vi'hen starving poverty shall provide
scraps for thy table, and meagre want, with
famine on her hollow cheek, shall stare thee
in the face.

Art thou quick of invention, is thy mind
stored with the talents of wit and under-
standing, doth the power of elocution sit
on tliy tongue, do thy periods flow like honey
from thy lijis : be not vain-glorious of these,
nor boast them in thy possession.

For the fool will take a pleasure to peck
at thee ; thy words will be sifted, and thy
speeches examined with the nicest severity.
The malicious and the ignorant will catch
at the opening of thy mouth ; neither shall
the justest of thy sayings escape their criti-
cism.

Nay, they will condemn thee unheard,
yea, censure when thou speakest not.

If thou sayest thou wilt act wisely and
eschew evil, and the frailties of hiunnn na-
ture should overcome thee to do ill, they
will then point at thee and cry out, litis is

oo(

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

the %i-ise luoman trho hidhkth her hmise on a
rock, ii-ho is sagacious to do good ; let us profit
by Iter exnviple, let us take pattern by her won-
drous wisdom.

Avoid, therefore, vain-g]ory and self-
conceit; for she who lifteth herself up will
others talce a pride to pulldown; and, if
the day of calamity should come, her fall
will be their triumph and their rejoicing.

But the humble shall be honored in pros-
perity; they shall find favor in adversity:
and compassion shall invite them to her
home, in the day of trouble and distress.

KNOWLEDGE.

Who is she that travelleth from the far-
thest parts of the earth, who crosseth the
mighty waters, to find out the ways of the
children of men ?

Who changeth her habitation daily, who
dwelletlr in the fields and in the populous
cities, beneath the straw-crowned cottage,
and the golden roofs of the king's palaces 1

Fatigue hath wrinkled her forehead, her
head is silvered over with age ; yet she
walketh upright, for experience is her sup-
port and her strength.

Her name is Knowledge : she is the
daughter of Inquiry, and the mother of
many children.

For pleasure, and profit, and experience,
and sorrow, and pain, are the fruit of her
womb.

Wouldst thou, 0 fair one, be the guest of
her house, be satisfied with Mhat her table
ailbrdeth.

For Pleastn-e standeth at the door and in-
viteth thee with smiles, and Profit spreadeth
the best on the board : but if thott desirest
what she hideth from thee, and pryest into
the secrets of her closet. Experience will
embitter thy drink, and Sorrow, like a churl,
make thy cheer and thy welcome naught.

It is not for thee, O woman, to undergo
the perils of the deep, to dig in the hollow
mines of the earth, to trace the dark springs
of science, or to number the thick stars of
the heavens.

Let the kingdom rule itself; let the wise
iTien and the counsellors enact laws, and
correct them ; the policy of government is
a hidden thing, like a well of water in the
bottom of a deep pit.

Thy kingdom is thine own house, and thy
government the care of thy family.

Let the laws of thy condition be thy
.study, and learn only to govern thyself and
thy dependents.

REPUTATION.

BniGHTF.n than polished silver, more va-
luable than Peruvian ore, more precious than
the i^earl in the sea, than the diamond in the
bowels of the earth, or all the shining trea-
sures of the mines of Potosi, is reputation to
a woman.

As the time that is past is gone for
ever; as the word that escapeth thy lips
returneth not again, so is the good name of
a woman, when it goeth from her.

Art thou beautiful as the morning, art
thou comely as the evening, do strangers
Fpeak thy praise, and thy acquaintance pour
their encomiums on thee ; yet thy way is a
narrow path, from which, if thou strayest,
thou wilt never more find it out, thy praises
will be turned into revilings, and thy enco
rniums into keen reproach.

Art thou placed on an eminence among
tlie daughters of women, dost thou sit at the
head of the board, do crowds of admirers
bow down before thee with reverence ; yet
thou sittest on a slender pinnacle, from
which the suddeii breath of indiscretion, or
the strong blast of envy, may cast thee
down ; so shall thy fall be that of a falling
meteor ; thou shalt be despised in the dust,
and gazed at on high no more.

Wouldst thou preserve this jewel of an
high price; let not the boaster, nor the pro-
fessed betrayer, come near thy house.

Be not frequent in the walks, nor in the
thronged parts of the ciiy, nor in the high
places of the theatre.

Let not thy foot often leap at the sound
of music, lest in thy dancing days thy repu-
tation forsake thee.

Encoru'age not a train of admirers, lest
their envy and jealousy of each other cast
an odium on thy conduct.

As the way of a man on the ridge of an
house, so is the fame of a woman among a
crowd of fools ; but the coquette is light of
heart, and dunceth along; no wonder, there-
fore, she falleih.

Yet affect not to despise temptation ; for
the prude loseth her good name by the
means she taketh to preserve it.

As a man on the brow of a precipice
trembleth at the depth below, and fearing
to fall, his head swinnneth, and he is gone;
so is a woinan who boasteth her reputation.

Keep the appearance of evil at a dis-
tance ; for the show of a crime may be as
fatal to thy reputation as the reality of a
transgression.

Sport not with thy good nnme, nor run it
heedlessly into danger; for the conscious-
ness of thine own innocence will not pro-
tect tlice from reproach.

®l)c pioitgl). tl)c CooiiT, antr t\}t ^nml

Vol. L DECEMBER, 1848. No. VI.

POWER OF CONSUMPTION UNDER THE FREE TRADE
AND PROTECTIVE SYSTEMS.

We have on several former occasions desired to call the attention of our
readers to the fact that the labor bestowed upon the conversion of food and
wool into cloth, and that bestowed upon converting food and coal into iron,
and iron into machinery, is not only all pure gain, but that the product of
agricultural labor is actually greater in quantity where the loom and the anvil
are associated with the plough, and where a portion of the community are
employed in fashioning the products of the plough, than where the plough
stands alone and all are producers. In illustration of this, we have pointed
to the wonderful increase in the power of consuming cloth and iron and other
commodities when made at home; and to the equally remarkable decrease
in the power of consumption, when, from changes of policy, mills and furnaces
are closed, and the farmer is compelled to look to distant markets for the sale
of his produce, for which he is to receive pay in the cloth and iron that were
before made in his neighborhood. To be satisfied that consumption in-
creases with the facility of supply, and that the wool-grower finds his best
customers where the loom is near the plough, one has only to go into New
England, and there see, as we have lately done, thousands of men at their cattle-
shows, all dressed in a manner to prove that their consumption of wool is vastly
greater in proportion than that of the like number of people in States where
the plough is distant from the loom. It is one of the first facts that strikes
the eye of an observer, who has seen much of the North and the South.

The principal object of this journal is that of showing the farmer and
planter, that the plough and the harrow never have prospered at a distance
from the loom and the anvil, and teaching them that they jiei'er can prosper
Avhen so separated. Its first and greatest object is, however, the dissemina-
tion of Truth, let it lead to what course of action it may ; and therefore shall
Ave at all times be wiUing to present, for the consideration of our readers, the
arguments of those who believe that prosperity is to result from employing
men and wagons on the road, and ships on the ocean, in conveying our pro-
duce to foreign markets, for which Governor Wright said we ought to pre-
pare, and which Commissioner Burke says we can do successfully, rather than
from employing the same labor and capital in increasing the quantity pro-
duced, by aid of that division of employments which enables the consumer
of food to take his place by the side of the producer of food, instead of flying
to the west, there to become himself a producer of food, and to increase the
necessity for employing labor in the work of transportation and exchange.
With that view we now offer them the following article from a journal (The
Public Ledger) that is perfectly consistent in its opposition to all measures
tending to protect the farmer in his efforts to bring to his side prosperous
consumers, and thus relieve himself from the necessity of continuing to
impoverish himself and his land, by wasting labor and manure on the
road and in distant markets.

" The depression of the anthracite coal trade has awakened general attention, and the

Vol. L— 43 2 F 337

338 POWER OF CONSUMPTION.

cause of tlie prostration has been the theme of much crimination and recrimination in
the partisan journals. Among other reasons, it has been alleged that low duties had
thrown our ports open to the free introduction of foreign coal, and that the jiroduce of our
mines was thus brought directly into competition with the foreign production. For the
information of the public on this important point, we addressed the Collectors of the ports
of Boston, New York and Philadelphia, the throe principal ports of the Union, and have
received from them comparative statements of the quantity and cost of coal imported
direct into their several districts, for the three quarters of the present year, up to the 1st
inst.; and for the corresponding period of time last year, as follows :

Boston. New York. Philadelphia.

Tons. Value. Tons. Value. Tons. Value.

1S47. 52,717 30,040 $87,983 2,303 §4,694

1848. 57,000 22,487 64,874 1,464 2,111

4,343 8,563 23,109 839 2,583

It will be seen by the above comparison, that, so far from there having been any increase
of foreign coal imported the present year, the amount at the three ports named is less by
5,059 tons than for the first three quarters of last year. The same comparison, we have
no doubt, will hold good at any port throughout the Union. At Boston, there has been a
slight increase, but at New Y'ork and Philadelphia there has been a considerable falling
off. The whole amoiint imported, however, is too trifling to merit a word of comment
on the score of competition with the produce of our own mines. The Reading Railroad,
of itself, brings down in three weeks more coal than is imported into the three principal
ports of the Union in nine months. How idle is all the partisan vaporing of protection
in the face of such a statement made to appear. If we enjoy so nearly the whole market
now, against whom does the trade require protection "?''

It is obvious to every one that tlie great coal trade of Pennsylvania is in
an almost ruinous condition. Men who have for years devoted their labor
and their capital to this great trade are ruined. Miners and laborers are
compelled to seek elsewhere the employment no longer afforded them in the
working of the mines. Railroads and canals that have cost twenty or thirty
millions of dollars, have fallen in value to one-third of their original cost—
and all this is here attributed to over production, which means that too many
men have been emploj'-ed in consuming food while producing coal, with
which latter the market has therefore been glutted. Look, however, where
we may, we see the same difficulty. The market is glutted with food, with
wool, with cotton, and with tobacco, and if the men who have consumed food
while producing coal had been employed in producing food, the glut of food
would have been still greater than it is. Men must work if they would live,
and if they cannot earn wages in converting food into coal and iron, they
must endeavor to do so by producing food themselves, and every man who
is deprived of the power of being a customer to the farmer becomes of ne-
cessity a rival to him. Everywhere around, it is the same. Not only are
the coal mines being abandoned, but furnaces, and rolling-mills, and cotton
and woollen mills are being closed, and labor is everywhere becoming sur-
plus, preparatory to its transfer to agriculture. There is a glut of every
thing required for the convenience and comfort of man — food — coal — iron-
cotton and cotton cloth — wool and woollens — and yet the laboring man finds
it more difficult to obtain the supplies required for his family and himself
than he did when there was a glut of nothing. Why is it so? Because
the places where food and labor were on the spot exchanged for iron and coal
and clothing, have been closed by the working of the system adopted in 1846,
the tendency of which is that of compelling the farmer to send his wheat, of
which an acre yields ten or fifteen bushels, across the ocean to pay the distant
iron-master for iron, which before he bought from his neighbor with potatoes
and turnips and hay, of which the earth yields by tons, and thus to diminish
his power of purchasing and consuming iron. Throughout the whole nation
the power of consumption has been diminished, and therefore there is this
glut of every thing, to. continue, and to increase, until the planters and farm-

POWER OF CONSUMPTION. 339

ers of the Union shall determine toith one voice, and as one man, that they
will have at their sides the machines and the men necessary for converting
their food and their wool into the cloth and the iron needed to supply their
wants. Let them do that, and the glut will cease, for every county in the
Union will obtain its place of exchange, where coal, or iron, or cloth, may be
obtained for food, and the power of consuming those commodities will increase,
because the farmer will obtain larger crops, while saving the labor that is
now wasted on the road, and at home for want of a regular demand for it,
and returning to the land all the refuse of its products, thus increasing, instead
of diminishing, its power of production.

Two systems are now before the farmers and planters of the Union for
consideration. By the one they obtain a market at home for commodities
of which the earth yields largely. By the other they are forced to depend
upon foreign markets, to which they can send only those commodities of
which the earth yields little. By the one, they will be enabled to consume
largely of cloth and iron, because obtained in return for little labor. By the
other, they will be enabled to consume but little of those commodities, because
obtained in return for much labor. The tariff of 1842 gave the first. That
of 1846 has given the last. Under the first there was no glut, because con-
sumption was large. Under the last, gluts are universal, because consumption
is small.

The glut of coal does not arise from any material increase in the quantity
imported, and thus the assertions of the writer, in the article we have quoted
above, are strictly correct, yet that fact proves conclusively the exhaustive
nature of the process to which the nation is now being subjected. The duty
on coal, and iron, and cloth, was reduced, because it was alleged that high
duties diminished the power of consumption. To prove the correctness of
this view, it would be necessarj^ to show that the power of consumption
increased with the reduction of the duty, and that the quantity imported was
greater than would have been the quantity produced. Instead of this, we
see that the market is glutted with a quantity scarcely at all exceeding that
of last year, when it should have increased at least 600,000 tons, and the
friends of the present system triumphantly assure us that this is not because
of an increased import, because that increase has not taken place — thus
proving that the new system which had for its object an increase in the
power of consumption has been followed by a decrease in that power, and
consequent deterioration of the condition of the people.

All this will be fully seen by comparing the consumption of coal, a neces-
sary of hfe, in the last six years of the Compromise Act of 1832, with that
in the six years which followed the passage of the act of 1842. The
effect of the law of 1840 was suspended for a year by the famine of Europe
in that year, and the paralysis which would otherwise have been seen in 1847
was thereby deferred to 1848.

Produced. Total.

. 153,450 . 881,476 . 1,034,926"^

129,083 . . 739,298 . . 868,381 Average

. 181,554 . 819,327 . 1,000,881 I power of

865,414 . . 1,028,281 [consumption,

. 155,394 . 958,899 . 1,114,293 1,049,380

. 1,108,001 . . l,249,522j

. 41,153 . 1,263,539 . 1,304,692"| .

. 1,631,669 . . 1,718,742 Average

. 85.776 . 2,023,052 . 2,308,820 V 1'°^^''^'^ °\

. 2,343,992 . . 2;500,845 r°™P'i°"'

. 148,021 . 2,982,309 . 3,130,33oJ ~'-^''-'"^'

140,000 estimated 3,000,000 estimated 3,140,000
From this we see that the whole supply of coal furnished to meet the de-
mands of the consumers had reached, in 1837, the quantity of 1,034,926 tons.

Imported.

1837,

153,450

1838, .

129,083

1839,

181,554

1840, .

162,867

1841,

155,394

1842, .

141,521

1843,

41,153

1844, .

87,073

1845,

85.776

1846, .

156,853

1847,

148.021

1848, .

140'000

340 POWER OF CONSUMPTION.

The Compromise Bill of 1832 had then become fairly operative, and its
effects were being more and more felt from year to year, the consequence
of which was, that in 1842, five years afterwards, the whole quantity fur-
nished to supply the wants of the greatly increased population, was scarcely
more than it had been at first, and less, of course, per head. From that year
forwards we see a rapid change, and in five years more we find it exceeding
three millions, with every reason to suppose that in the present year it would
attain four millions. Instead of this we see that ruin is spreading among
the prosperous producers of coal and consumers of food, because of the want
of a market for the products of their labor, and the home supply is hkely
scarcely to exceed that of last year, while the foreign supply is not increased,
because of the inability to pay for it. The same capital and the same labor
that have been employed would have given almost four millions, whereas it
will yield but little over three, and thus are the comforts of the people of the
Union diminished by the Avorking of the present system, to the extent of
some hundreds of thousands of tons of coal, with the absolute certainty that
the same effect will be produced next year to a still greater extent. Had
the tariff of 1842 remained untouched, four millions and a half of tons of
coal Avould have been needed in 1849, Avhereas, it is now unlikely that the de-
mand will exceed three millions, and all the foreign coal to take the place of
the remaining million will probably not exceed 150,000 tons. The con-
venience and comfort of the community are therefore diminished, by mea-
sures adopted under the mistaken idea that the farmer and planter were to
grow rich by substituting the nominally cheap commodities produced abroad
for the really cheap ones produced at home.

If we look to the cotton trade, we shall find the same results. "VVe close old
mills, and we prevent the building of dozens of new ones, each of which would
produce a million of yards of cloth, and thus we diminish the supply of
clothing to the extent of thirty, forty, or fifty millions of yards ; to supply the
place of which we import an extra half dozen milhons, the payment for
Avhich exhausts our resources, and the import becomes diminished because
of our inability to pajr for even this small quantity.

We close our furnaces and our rolhng-mills, and we prevent the building of
furnaces and mills that would produce iron by hundreds of thousands of tons;
and to supply the place of these hundreds of thousands we import tens of
thousands, the payment of which exhausts the land and its owners, and the
power of consumption diminishes, when it would increase at a constantly
accelerating rate were this pohcy of the nation one that would aid the farmer
and the planter in their effi^rts to seduce the loom and the anvil to come and
take their places by the side of the plough and the harroAV.

Were the farmer offered a new plough, he would inquire if it would enable
him to do more or less work in the same time, and if he found it would do
less he would decline to take it. Were he advised to change his course of
cultivation, he would desire to know if the new one would yield more or less
food, or cotton, in return to the same labor, and if he found it would be less,
he would adhere to the old one. Let him weigh the systems of 1842 and
1846 in the same manner, and if he find that the latter enables him to obtain
more food, clothing, and fuel, than he had before, let him adhere to it; but if
he find that under it the power of consuming food, and clothing, and coal, has
diminished, and that the market is glutted with the same quantity that in the
preceding year was readily absorbed, let him determine to have nothing to
do with it. Let him, after having satisfied himself that such have been, and
such must continue to be, the results, determine to unite with his friends and
neighbors in the endeavor to secure the adoption of the measures now required
to enable the owners of looms and anvils to come and take their places by
the side of the plough and the harrow.

PLOUGHING. 341

PLOUGHING.

WHAT NEW ABOUT THAT?

Of all operations this is the most important. Spading would prepare the ground more
thoroughly, but only think of the cost!

Captain Yellot, a sagacious farmer, who led the way in improvement in the neighbor-
hood of Baltimore, set the example of good ploughing and thorough tillage — he used to say,
that when ground was well prepared, the work was more than half done before the corn,
was planted. There is no book in the world, where the whole subject of ploughs and
ploughing is so well illustrated by diagrams and descriptions as in Stephens's Book of
TUE Farm — an English work of three volumes, of one thousand pages each, and which
sold lately, (the English edition,) in Boston, for $30. We have it reprinted in this coun-
try, with notes, by the senior Editor of the Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil, for sale, the
whole in two volumes for $Q. The reader may judge of the fulness of the whole work,
when told that under the heads of ploughs and ploughing alone, there are nearly one
hundred references in the index.

We are really surprised that any man who has any idea of the work, and $6 at com-
mand, does not secure it while he may — and Timer's Principles of Agriculture, which may
be had for $3. The two works together for $S. On the subject of ploughing, the follow-
ing seems worthy of being extracted from the proceedings of the Onondago county (New
York) Agricultural Society, which seems altogether to indicate much more than ordinary
care and intelligence to "do the thing up right," as the Yankees say.

REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON PLOUGHING.

The annual expense of cultivating and preparing the earth to produce
various crops of grain, roots, and cultivated grasses, is immense. That
which will lessen this expense, and at the same time tend to an increased
product of the soil, would be considered a pubHc benefit; because the cost
of production would be less, the quantity produced greater, and the expense
to the consumer decreased.

In the opinion of your Committee, the largest proportion of this expense
is caused by ploughing the soil preparatory to a crop. The object of plough-
ing is always to pulverize the earth, and expose a fresh surface free from
weeds or other hindrances which will prevent the vegetation, and subsequent
growth of the crop to be cultivated. The time is within the recollection of
all who have arrived at mature years, when numerous ploughings were con-
sidered indispensably necessary to prepare the earth for the reception of seed,
^0 insure a reasonable prospect for the production of the various grain or
root crops.

Subsequent experience has shown these opinions erroneous, and that when
the earth is free from weeds and foul grasses, one ploughing properly per-
formed is better for any crop than to have the process repeated. But in
order to have the earth in so clean a condition that one ploughing shall answer
for the winter and small summer grains, the process of summer fallowing is
sometimes necessary, and when this is resorted to as a clearing process, it
should always be most thoroughly performed, so as not to require repetition,
for the process of summer fallowing is quite expensive, not only in labor,
but also in the loss of the use of the land for nearly or quite one entire sea-
son. Many cultivators also think it tends to exhaust the soil. But when
the ground is clean, the one ploughing which is given for each crop should
be performed in a first-rate m.anner. But perhaps it may be said there is a
diversity of opinion what constitutes good ploughing. To some extent this
is true.

Your Committee will proceed to lay down some general principles which
they deem important:

First, the ground should all be ploughed, and in no case less than six inches

2r2

342 SEPARATION OF THE PLOUGH AND THE ANVIL.

deep. The fertility of the soil will be greatly increased if the depth is gra-
dually increased to twelve inches, and a greater depth is desirable.

Secondly, the furrow should be well turned. And to do this the width
of the furrow slice must always (except in summer fallowing) be graduated
to the depth of the furrow. If the furrow is too deep for the breadth cut,
the slice will stand edgewise. If the slice is too wide for the depth of the
furrow, a "balk" will be left on which nothing ought to be expected to grow,
and if the next furrow is properly ploughed, a hole will be left where the
preceding furrow was improperly turned.

Thirdly, where the surface of the ground will permit, the furrow should
be straight, that the work may be more easily performed and have a more
workmanlike appearance than it otherwise would have.

Fourthly, where the earth is hght and sandy, the flat furrow is best, because
it leaves the soil more compact, and less likely to be injured by drought.
If the soil is stiff and inclining to clay, the furrow is best if left at an angle
of forty-five degrees, because the harrow will most effectually operate on the
surface, and under each furrow a small channel will be left, which will assist
in disposing of the surplus water which may fall upon the surface, and also
will render the soil more loose and friable.

It may be said, these are simple rules, which every ploughman knew
before. To this we reply, while so large a proportion neglect to practise
them, we think it proper to call attention to them. The art of ploughing
has advanced very much since the formation of this society, and the
Annual Ploughing Match has in our opinion been one of the principal
causes of it.

THE SEPARATION OF THE PLOUGH AND THE ANVIL.

The Mill Dam Iron Works. — These extensive works, formerly carried
on by H. Gray & Co., and which gave employment to a large number of
hands, are now nearly or wholly given up, and the deserted buildings have
a melancholy appearance to those who observed the business-look of the
place a year or more ago. We hear that the Worcester Railroad Corpora-
tion talk of purchasing the site as a location for their machine shop. —
Boston Traveller.

Pennsylvania Iron Works. — The Miners' Journal, of Saturday, says :
"Several of the principal establishments in this borough have, within a few
days past, been compelled to discharge a large number of hands on account
of the scarcity of work for them. Several colliery works, too, have recently
curtailed the force employed in them, and there appears to be no work of any
magnitude going on in this region at present. Labor is consequently in poor
request, and the rates of wages extremely low."

We commend the above notices to the consideration of our agricultural readers, as
specimens of the paragraphs which now daily meet our eye, begging them to reflect that
every man expelled from a coUiery, a furnace, a rolling-mill, a veoollen or a cotton mill,
and thus deprived of the power to earn wages to enable him to buy food, must go to
work to endeavor to produce food, and thus are customers converted into rivals. With
every increase in the number of his customers the farmer is enabled to improve his land,
becoming rich himself With every increase in the number of liis rivals he is comi^elled
to waste more labor and manure on the road and in foreign markets, impoverishing his
land and himself.

ENGLAND VIRGINIA MASSACHUSETTS. 343

OLD ENGLAND— OLD VIRGINIA— AND OLD MASSA-
CHUSETTS.

READ AND YOU SHALL SEE — WHAT YOU SHALL SEE.

Items like the following, extracted from an address to the ancient Massa-
chusetts Agricultural Society, by James Richardson, Esq., are calculated,
one Avould suppose if any thing could, to draw off the attention and heart-
yearnings of the farmers and planters of Virginia, from the squabbles of
party, and the pursuit of office, to their own condition and prospects, and to
the consideration whether it be not time that measures should be laid in the
policy and legislation of the State, if not of the general government, for
drawing into activity and enjoyment resources such as nature has lavished
upon no other equal area on the face of the earth.

In Mr. Jefferson's day, among the last things thought of was, for a Virginia
gentleman, or the son of a Virginia gentleman, to place himself, for all the
hopes and all the means of subsistence, in a state of dependence on the
caprices of political fortune and the smiles of men in power at Washington.
Mr. Jefferson himself even made it a matter of regret, in his correspondence
Avith his old revolutionary friend. General Smith, of Baltimore, that it was
found difficult to get respectable men to fill responsible posts under the go-
vernment. Now there are no posts so poor but there are men poor enough
to do them reverence; and the sons of men born to better times and better
things, scarcely get rid of the egg-shell before they fly on the top of a neigh-
boring stump, flap their wings, and pronounce half their countrymen
to be totally unworthy and unfit for all public employment; proclaiming
their own readiness to serve their country in — the best office they can
get! And yet with all her great men, (and for stump-speaking she can beat
the world,) with all her patriots, doubly refined in knowledge of the Con-
stitution, and boiling over with zeal to serve the commonwealth; we find
that lower Virginia, fully capable of sustaining five times its present popu-
lation, without being crowded, embracing thirty counties, having in 1810 a
population of 258,240, had, in 1840, a period of thirty years, increased only
15,000. Here, then, with all their fervor of patriotism, and all their deep
reading of the Constitution, with all their suspicion of a wooden horse, in
every corporation for lending money or building factories, we have a section
of country of 8875 square miles, the most anciently inhabited part of the
State, intersected with natural canals paying no tolls, and needing no repairs,
open at all seasons of the year, on which the population is distributed at the
rate of only about thirty to the square mile ! and on which the ratio of increase
has been only about one and one-Jifth per cent, for the last forty year si en-
joying all the time, as they suppose, the largest liberty, under a government
republican in form, and nominally independent — but all the time sending
abroad to Mother England for the produce of her looms, and her anvils,
instead of compeUing, as recommended by Mr. Jefferson in 1816, in his letter
to Mr. Austin, " the manufacturer to take his place by the side of the
agriculturist."

We shall presently see how different is the condition of Massachusetts,
where the loom and the anvil have taken their natural but subordinate posi-
tion in the neighborhood of the plough, — a State where people have the
sagacity to know that the strength of two men combined can achieve what
a thousand could never accomplish by individual strength; and therefore do
they follow the dictates of common sense, by offering every encouragement
to the combination of every species of power, monetary, intellectual, and
physical; while in Virginia, there »eems to be, not merely a hereditary,

344 ENGLAND VIRGINIA MASSACHUSETTS.

but a sort of instinctive readiness to anathematize combinations of aJl sorts
and for all purposes. Is it then to be wondered at, that exhaustion, poverty,
and dispersion go on increasing from year to year?

Let us have leave to go into Milk-street or Pearl-street in Boston, and select a
merchant, or into Lowell or Salem, for a shrewd self-made manufacturer, Avho
never mounted a stump to make a speech in his life, and who never wrote
thirty-seven colunms on a constitutional point, imagining himself all the time
a Lucius Junius Brutus, Solon or Lycurgus; but give him the government
of the State, with power to make laws, to encourage combination, and to
attract and reward genius and industry, and our life upon it, if not counter-
acted by the barbarous anti-American policy of a yet higher power, in twenty
years he would have her coal mines and her iron mines, her water power and >
her wool-growing and Avool-manufacturing power,*all in full blast, and Rich-
mond and Norfolk teeming with thriving populations of 100,000 inhabitants.

But we are forgetting our extracts from Mr. Richardson's address — from
which we beg the reader to proceed to the perusal of what we propose to say
next, about the statistics of a toicn of two-and-a-haf years'' growth in the
midst of a rocky and a sandy country, where, in spite of rocks and sand,
and hills clad with snow one-quarter of the year, agriculture still flourishes,
and every farmer is out of debt, because, there the ploughman's whistle
mingles in harmonious concert with the sound of the shuttle and the hammer.
Hence it is, that while that glorious region, lower Virginia, has in thirty
years increased not two per cent, in fifty years, Massachusetts has increased
nearly one hundred — but look at the difference in the proportion of the people
at the plough and those at the loom and the anvil in the two States. In
Virginia, employed in agriculture 318,771, in manufactures 54,147. In
Massachusetts, in agriculture 87,887, in manufactures 85,176. With about
one-quarter part of the soil yet uncultivated, England and Wales maintains
a population of three hundred to the square mile, but English looms and
anvils manufacture not only for themselves, but her people are bowed down
with taxes, and the Avhole Vv'orld is taxed to enable her to keep up fleets and
armies, that against all nature and the interests of the whole world she shall
force the world as she does, (the United States included,) to take the products
of her looms and her anvils. The whole civilized and uncivilized world
pays tribute to her colonial policy — to her determination to force the wool
and cotton of other countries to come to her looms, instead of our forcing her
looms to come to our cotton and our wool. Are farmers and planters to be
forever ridden by party hacks, in perpetual blindness to their own interests?

"An impression of the progress and importance of agricultural improvements may be
received from a glance across the Atlantic to the land of our ancestors. The little Island
of Great Britain contains a less extent of cultivated land than the ■whole territory of tha
State of Virginia, and but a very little greater extent capable of any cultivation;* and
yet this small specie on our earth's surface sustains over sixteen millions of people, some
in profusion, many in plenty, and nearly all in comfort, with the aid of foreign bread stuffs
to feed them less than two weeks in the year; — besides feeding an immense number of
animals, — horses kept for service, splendor or sport, and one sheep to every acre of cul-
tivated land on the whole island; yielding a sufficient quantity of wool, though not of a
suitable quality, toclothe their whole population, and the whole population of the United
States.f

• According to the latest surveys. Great Britain, including England proper, Scotland
and Wales, contains 56,833,330 acres in the whole— cultivated land 34,01'1,000 acres —
land uncultivated and capable of cultivation 9,934,000 acres — and land incapable of any
cultivation 12,885,330 acres. The State of Virginia, it is well known, contains 40,000,000
of acres.

■j- The lowest calculation as to the number of sheep kept on the island of Great Britain
? present is 30,000,000. Their population now is not far from lG,0Of 1,000, and tliat of
the United States somewhat over 12,000,000. [This was in 1832.] The quantity of wool

HOW INDUSTRY THRIVES. 345

"Though our progress in agriculture has been far from discouraging, and the quantity
of bread-stutis exported not inconsiderable, — yet the straw of the grain of that small
island for a single season, at the current price of common straw here, is of greater value
than the whole of the bread-stuffs exported from the United States for ten years.* And
we may safely assert that should the productions of that small spot of earth be entirely
destroyed but for a single year, not all the surplus food produced on the whole earth would
be suflicient to save their population from famine. Now look back on this land of our
ancestors in the time of Julius Ccesar, and what does it present? Some hundred thousand
demi-savages, subsisting by fishing and the chase, with painted limbs, clad in the skins
of beasts, armed with scythes and stakes hardened in the fire, and resisting the mailed
bodies and well-tempered blades of the Roman legions."

HOW INDUSTRY THRIVES AND TOWNS GROW UP,

WHERE THE LOOM AND THE ANVIL TAKE THEIR PLACE BY THE SIDE
OF THE PLOUGH. — STATISTICS OF LAWRENCE, MASSACHUSETTS.

In October last, we had the pleasure to accompany one of its enterprising
founders in a ride to the town of Lawrence, commenced just three years
since on the banks of the Merrimac, with water-power and other advantages
not to be mentioned in comparison with those which nature has provided at
the great Falls of the Potomac or at Richmond, and at many other points in
the Southern States. Curious for information, and anxious to let our friends
in the South see what can be done by men who know how to encourage
combination, and how to laugh at and take advantage of the ignorance and
blindness of those who think that the plough thrives best at a distance from
the loom and the anvil — we took the opportunity to play the Yankee, and to
ask a smart chance of questions, the result of which the reader will here
find. He will need no assistance to enable him to calculate how much the
value of land is enhanced by having, here and there all over the State, peo-
ple in all sorts of employment ready to buy the tons that rich land will
produce, instead of the iusAe/s of wheat and corn and pounds of cotton, that
only can be grown where the plough is distant from the loom and the anvil —
when, in a word, the consumer is at a great distance from the producer, and
only to be reached by great consumption and loss of time and manure in
going over bad roads and wide seas. We commend the growth of this young
Yankee town to the good people of Richmond, and the effect of it on the
landed interest to the land-holder in the neighborhood of Richmond.

What a teacher would such a town be at the great Falls of Potomac, to
the good people in Montgomery county, as to the "proper rotation of crops!"
to the Avant of a knowledge of which has been exclusively ascribed the ex-
hausted condition of that county.

For these statistics we are indebted to the civility and attention of Samuel
Webber, jun., Esq., — one of those young New England men, who carry old
heads on young shoulders — another choice fruit of condensation of popula-
tion; for constant attrition will keep off rust, and sharpen and polish mind

annually produced in Great Britain, exceeds 140,000,000 of pounds; and allowing, ac-
cording to their best calculations, five pounds to the head, including both sexes and all
ages and sizes, the quantity of wool raised there would clothe the population of both
countries, estimating the pojDulation as above.

* According to Sir John Sinclair, the straw of Great Britain, calculating three-fourths
of it for manure at 3d. per stone of 22 pounds, and the other fourth for feeding stock at
6d.per stone, is worth 10,225,000 pounds sterling — equal, at $1 80 per pound sterling, to
78,880,000 dollars; the present price of common straw here, being from 33 to 37| cents
per 100 pounds, amounts with great exactness to the price stated by Sir John Sinclair —
and the average amount of bread-stuffs exported from the United States in the last ten
years is about 7.000,000 dollars per annum."

Vol. I.— 44

346 HOW INDUSTRY THRIVES.

and manners, as it does even steel and stones. Boys in some States follow
the plough, such as in others are followed by servants, to keep them from
being- poked by the cattle or falling into the water!

The town of Lawrence is situated on the Merrimac river, about midway
between Lowell and Haverhill, and contains some six square miles of terri-
tory, nearly equally bisected by the above river. The actual origin of the
town may be dated in 1844, when the Messrs. Lawrence and others bought
about 3000 acres of land in this place, preparatory to the location of a new
manufacturing town. In 1845, the gentlemen above-mentioned petitioned
the legislature of the state for a charter for a corporation to be known
as the " Essex Company," with power to build a dam, construct locks and
canals, and create water-power to use and sell for manufacturing purposes,
with a capilal of $1,000,000, in shares of $100 each. This charter was
granted in March, 1845, and on the 16th of April following the company
was organized, and the officers appointed. Charles S. Storrow, Esq., then
agent of the Boston and Lowell railroad, was appointed their treasurer and
agent, and acted as chief engineer until April, 1840, when the valuable
services of Captain Charles H. Bigelow, formerly of the engineer corps,
were also obtained for the company ; and to whom, through Mr. Webber, as
aforesaid, we are indebted for much valuable information, contained in the
following statistics.

In May, 1845, Mr. Storrow came upon the ground, and, August 1, exca-
vations were commenced for the foundation of the dam, the first stone
of which was laid September 19, of the same year.

In the meantime the plan of the town was laid out, and the legislature of
1846 granted charters to several other corporations, as follows :

February 2, 1846, to the "Bay State Mills," with a capital of $1,000,000,
since increased by the legislature of 1848, to $2,000,000, for the manufac-
ture of woollen and other goods. February 3, 1846, to the " Atlantic Cotton
Mills," with a capital of $2,000,000, for the manufacture of cotton goods.
March 10, 1846, to the "Methuen Bleaching & Dyeing Company," with a
capital of $500,000, for the manufacture of cotton and woollen goods, and
for bleaching, dyeing, calendering and printing. INIarch 25, 1846, to the
" Union Mills," with a capital of $1,000,000, for the manufacture of cotton,
wool, and flax. Making the whole capital incorporated here for manufac-
turing purposes, $6,500,000.

Consequent on the commencement of these operations, was the joint
j)urchase, by the Essex Company, /ind the Locks and Canals Company,
of Lowell, of the Great New Hampshire Lakes, comprising a surface of
water of 120 square miles, and purchased with the view of equahzing the
power of Merrimac river, and producing a flow of water at all seasons, equal
to the average yearly amount.

April 16, 1846, the grounds of the Bay State Mills were laid out, and
April 16, 1848, the first water-wheel of the company was set in motion.
April 28, 1846, was the first sale of land at auction by the Essex Company.
June 9, the ground was first broken for the Atlantic Mills, and July 10 the
first stone was laid in the foundation of the foundery connected with the
Essex Company's machine shop. These are the most important dates of
the commencement of operations, and fearing to occupy too much space,
Avith more minute though interesting particulars, we will pass to the present
situation of the town.

Three only of the diflx^rent companies, incorporated as above, have as yet
commenced operations — the Essex, Atlantic, and Bay State Mills, and the
amount of work done by them to the present time is very nearly as follows :
— commencing with the works of the Essex Company, the first in order is

HOW INDUSTRY THRIVES.

their dam of solid masonry, 1629 feet in length, divided thus : length
of overfall, 900 feet ; south wing, 324 feet ; north do. 405 feet, running to
unite with guard-locks. The whole structure is firmly embedded in, and
bolted with iron to the solid rock. Thickness 35 feet at base, 12 ft. 6 in. at
lower end of sloping crest-stone. Batter on the front, 1 inch to a foot ; on
the back below the crest-stone, 45° ; greatest height, 40 ft. 6 in. ; mean do.
32 feet. Face and top of granite, with hammered and dove-tailed joints,
bolted in many parts with iron. The whole masonry of the dam, and a
considerable portion of the adjacent wing and river-walls are laid in the most
compact manner with cement mortar. The mass of masonry is about 27,500
cubic yards. Hammered surface of granite, 122,000 square feet. Rock
excavation, 1700 cubic yards. Cost, $250,000, including a heavy embank-
ment in rear. Effective head and fall, 28 feet, for the whole Merrimac
river.

Their main canal is on the north side of the river, and is in length 5330
feet; width at upper end, 100 feet; at lower do. 60 feet, taken on the surface
of the water. Depth, 12 feet, of middle portion, and 4 feet at side walls.
Area of water-section, 944 square feet at upper, and 464 square feet at lower
end. Earth excavation, 175,800 cubic yards. Mass of side walls, 11,000
cubic yards. Cost, including guard-locks, navigation-locks at upper and
lower ends, and waste-weir, $185,000.

The Essex Company have erected a spacious machine-shop of stone,
404 feet long by 64 wide ; 4 stories high, with 3 large porches in the front
and rear. The lower story is 17 feet high in the clear, admitting the free
ingress and egress of complete locomotive engines. All the floors are sus-
tained by a double row of handsome iron pillars. The water is brought to
the wheels in an underground penstock, a distance of about 540 feet from
the canal, and is carried from thence in a covered raceway, of two arched
passage-ways of masonry, each 13 feet wide, 15 feet high, and 1000 feet
long. Two iron turbine wheels are used for driving the shop, either being
capable of carrying all the machinery in case of necessary repairs on the
other.

The forge-shop connected with the above, is 232 feet long, by 53 ft. 8 in.
wide, and 17 feet high in the clear. It will contain 32 forges of different
sizes, with trip-hammers of various dimensions, suited to any work.

Another turbine-wheel is placed here, of the same force with those used
in the shop, for driving the hammers, and the blast for the forges and
foundery: its raceway of stone masonry debouches into the great raceway of
the shop. The forges are arranged in the middle of the building, and the
smoke is conveyed by an underground cylindrical flue of brick, 4 feet in
diameter, to the great chimney in the yard.

This chimney is a circular stone shaft, 14 feet exterior diameter at base,
8 ft. 6 in. diameter at top, and 142 feet high. The interior flue is of brick,

5 feet clear diameter, surrounded by an air-chamber nearly to the top, and
receives the smoke from the steam heating apparatus, the anneahng furnaces,
and the forge-shop.

The foundery is 154 feet long, by 90 feet wide, with walls 22 ft. 6 in.
high. It is thoroughly well hghted and ventilated. Its present product is

6 to 8 tons per day, and its future capacity may reach 30 to 35 tons daily.
The warehouse, store-house, pickling-house, annealing-house, and heating-
house, will constitute a range of buildings 315 feet long, by 43 ft. 6 in. wide,
and mostly 2 stories high. The foundations of all these buildings are laid,
and the warehouse, annealing-house, and heating-house constructed. A
pattern-house is soon to be built, 150 feet long, 53 ft. 6 in. wide, and

348 HOW INDUSTRY THRIVES.

3 stories high. All the buildings in the machine-shop yard, above enume-
rated, are entirely of stone, furnished by the company's ledges.

Several lesser buildings for the storage of iron, coal, sand, &c., and for
manufactured machinery, have been or are soon to be constructed. A rail-
way connecting with the various main lines entering the town, completely
encircles the machine-shop premises, and is conducted in and about the
different buildings.

This machine-shop and its appurtenances are to be devoted to the manu-
facture of cotton and woollen machinery, locomotives, turbine-wheels, and in
general of all machinery of which iron forms the principal part.

A square of 50 commodious brick tenements, good enough for any man
to hve in, has been erected for the accommodation of the workmen employed
in the shop and foundery, &c., and 50 more are in contemplation. When in
full operation, 7 or 800 men will be employed in the works.

The Essex Company have also constructed a main sewer for the use of
the town. It is built of brick, in cement where it passes under the canal,
and the remainder of stone masonry. It is half a mile long, and sufficiently
large for a man to walk erect — say 65 feet high, by 3 feet wide.

The Atlantic Cotton Mills were incorporated with a capital of $2,000,000,
of which $1,350,000 has been paid in for present purposes. The site of
their mills is 1500 feet in length, measured along the canal, and the pro-
posed number of spindles 50,000, for the manufacture of coarse cottons.
The power employed may be reckoned as equal to that of 1000 to 1200
horses. The number of hands to be employed will be probably 1500 or
1600.

The buildings of this company will consist of 4 mills, each 220 feet long,
by 63 ft. 8 in. wide, and 5 stories high ; 4 picker houses, each 73 ft. 4 in.
long, by 53 ft. 4 in. wide, and 3 stories high ; 3 cotton houses, aggregate
length, 650 feet, and 53 ft. 8 in. wide, by 25 feet high, sufficient^ for the
storage of 20,000 bales of cotton. A range of buildings 400 feet long, by
42 ft. 8 in. wide, 2 stories high, for repair shop, cloth room, counting-room,
storehouses, &c, ; 10 blocks of boarding-houses for operatives, making a
range of handsome brick buildings, 3 stories in height, and amounting in all
to over 2600 feet in length.

Of the above, two mills with all their appurtenances have been already
constructed, being more than half of the whole. Also the feeders, raceways,
and the major part of the wheel-pits of the remaining two mills. The
machinery for mill No. 1 is already placed, and that for No. 2 is ready to be
so. These two mills will go into operation as soon as the turbine-wheels,
now constructing, can be set up. Three of these wheels are placed in a
wheel-house between each pair of mills, and so arranged that one mill will
be driven by each of the external wheels, while the centre one can be used
as auxiliary to either of the others, or to take the place of either in case of
accident or repairs.

The mills are heated by an apparatus entirely separated from them, and
for this purpose steam will be used. One handsome octagonal brick chim-
ney, 145 feet in height, has been built, and another similar one is to be
added.

The work already executed for the Atlantic Company, may be approxi-
mately estimated as follows, viz. :

No. of bricks laid, .... . . 10,661,439

Masonry in cubic yards, 44,700

Granite in cubic feet, (mostly hammered,) .... 35,611

Slate roofing in acres, ....... 4^

Earth work in cubic yards, ....... 260,000

Total exiJcnse of constructions hitherto, about . . $600,000

HOW INDUSTRY THRIVES. 349

This work has all been done for them by the Essex Company, and some
work has been done by the Essex Company prospectively for another cor-
poration, in establishing a plank piling between the canal and the river, and
in building a large brick cuh^ert under the canal, both of which operations
could be eifected with vastly greater convenience before filling the canal
than after, and Avere done accordingly. For this purpose 67,500 cubic
yards of earth were removed, and 120,000 bricks consumed.

The Bay State Mills erected, in 1846-7, three blocks of spacious boarding-
houses for their operatives, each 250 feet by 36, 3 stories high, containing
8 tenements each, with 4 Zs in the rear, 16 by 18 feet, 1 story high, and
containing 877,856 brick to each block, with sewers running under the
sheds to the same, supplied with water from the canal by a cast-iron pipe,
and discharging through a main sewer placed at right angles to the above,
into the Merrimac, after passing under the canal and river mill, and con-
taining in all 1,005,039 brick.

Also the east of their three mills, 200 feet long, by 48 ft, 8 in. wide, with
front and rear porches, each 20 feet by 23, and 8 stories in height, being
105 ft. 8:t in. high to ridgepole, lighted by 382 windows, and containing
1,901,673 brick, with foundations of massive stone-work, 40 feet deep in
front, and 28 ft. 6 in. in rear, and costing altogether about $150,000.

They also erected a building along the line of their river-wali, 998 feet
long, by 40 wide, with wings at right angles to the fine ; one 240 feet by
40 feet, and one 240 feet by 48 feet. The centre of this mill, on the river, is
42 feet by 52, and 5 stories high, the remainder 3 stories, though some part
of it is divided into 4 stories of less height each, for dry rooms. This mill
contains 3,828,160 brick, and is lighted by 911 windows, and will be partly
appropriated to manufacturing purposes, and partly to dry rooms, dye and
boiler houses, coal sheds, &c. In each wing are to be 12 boilers, to supply
the necessary steam for dyeing and warming, with chimneys 11 feet square
at base, and 135 feet high, containing, the one, 157,516 bricks, and the other,
167,818 do.

This year, (1848,) the centre mill has been erected, of the same size as
the east one, but with wings, 62^ feet long, and two stories high, to contain
boilers for supplying the necessary steam for heating the mill, and for the
dressing and finishing departments. (The east and west mill will be sup-
plied from the boilers in the wings of the river building.) This mill is
lighted by 463 windows, and contains 2,162,532 bricks.

There are yet to be built another mill, and a range of buildings, 800 feet
by 38, along the canal, for counting-rooms, storehouses, watch-house, &c.,
which will form, with the river mill and its wings, a hollow-square, or rather
parallelogram, within which stand the three mills above mentioned, two of
which are now built, and the foundation ready for the third or west one.
making an almost solid mass of buildings, 1000 "feet by 400.

This will be, when completed, the largest woollen manufactory in the
world, and the only one in which all the processes are concentrated, for
making some of the goods intended to be produced. It will consume
2,000,000 lbs. per annum of the finest quahty of American wool, which is
expected to be supphed by the flocks of the Great Western Wool District,
including Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Western New York. It will require a
proportionate quantity of dyestuff, leather, and other manufacturer's articles,
and will employ about 2500 hands. The power Avill be obtained from 7
breast-wheels of the first class, each 23 ft. 4 in. long, by 26 feet in diameter,
and of 125 horse power each, 2 of which wheels will be placed in each
main mill, and one in the river mill. These mills are intended to contain 80
sets of cards, 144 jacks of 180 spindles each, and 8 of 200 each, Avith

2G

350 HOW INDUSTRY THRIVES.

a sufficient number of broad and narrow looms to consume the yarn pro-
duced. The present intention is to run one mill on cassimeres, one on.
broadcloths, and one on shawls, and it is proposed to make goods of a style
and quality never before produced in America.

But a small portion of the machinery of this company is yet in operation;
7 sets of cards, 2000 spindles, and about 60 looms are now running, and
producing an article of plaid shawls, equal, if not superior in style, fabric,
and colours, to any imported, and it is proposed in the course of the winter
to set up 100 looms on the same floor with those now running, making
a weave-room 476 feet by 40, filled with twelve-quarter looms.*

The work now done by this company maybe summed up as follows, viz. :

Earth removed, in cubic yards, ..... 242,003
Rough stone, (foundations,) in perch, ..... 64,402
Granite laid, in cubic feet, about ..... 80,000

Bricks laid, 11,951,398

Slate roofing in acres, nearly ...... 4

And about 4,500,000 more brick will be laid ere the works are completed.

The total cost of constructions so far, in round numbers, maybe estimated
at $800,000.

These works were designed and executed by Capt. Phineas Stevens, of
Nashua, N. H., and are in every respect models of solidity and strength,
besides having been executed with great skill and rapidity.

These three companies will, when in full operation, maintain a population
in the town of about 15,000, including 5000 directly employed in the mills,
and the town may be expected to increase in that proportion : that is to saj'-,
for every 1000 employed in the mills, 3000 may be considered as the
increase of population.

Gas-works have been established by the associated companies for hghting
their mills, at a cost of about $80,000, and so constructed as to be capable of
increase when called for by the wants of the town.

A foundation has been laid for a valuable library, by a donation of $1000
from the Hon. Abbott Lawrence, which has been appropriated to the pur-
chase of scientific works, by a society legally organized as the Franklin
Library Association.

Eight religious societies have been formed, and most of them have erected
suitable places of worship. An elegant town-house is under process of con-
struction, and a large and handsome brick grammar school is nearly com-
pleted. Public and private schools have been established, and are well
managed and fully attended.

A bank has been opened, with a capital of $200,000, Three weekly
papers have been established. A fire insurance company has been formed,
and an efficient fire department has been organized; and it is now proposed
to build reservoirs in different parts of the town, to be kept full of water by
the force-pumps of the difl^erent mills.

The Essex Company have presented to the citizens a common in the centre
of the town, of 17 acres, which is to be appropriately laid out, and orna-
mented with trees and fountains. Two fine hotels are in operation, and an
aqueduct company has been chartered, to supply the town with pure water
for domestic purposes.

Since the commencement of the works, the Boston and Maine Railroad
(to Portland) have ahered the location of their track so as to pass through
the town, and are now building a larsje repair-shop and engine-house on the
opposite side of the river. A railroad has been built to Lowell, one to Salem,

• Twelve-quarter, i. e., three yards. A technical term, referring to the width of Loom.

HOW INDUSTRY THRIVES. 351

and one is now under construction to Manchester, N. H., giving unequalled
facilities of transportation to any part of the country.

The whole power here is calculated to be about equal to that of Lowell,
and it is confidently expected, that at no distant day we may see on this
ground, three years ago almost a desert, now a flourishing town of 8000 in-
habitants, a manufacturing population second only to Lowell in size, and
equal to what Lowell now is.

From the success of Lowell, the hopes were formed on which this
gigantic experiment was founded, and from Lowell have been drawn much
talent and mechanical skill. Founded by the same men, for the same
jourpose, it affords ample evidence of the power of American Industry, and
the energy of New England men ; and where, four years ago, little was heard
save the lowing of cattle or the scythe of the mower, the air now rings with
the sound of the hammer and the scream of the locomotive, while the rise in
the value of farms, for miles around, bears ample testimony to the benefits
which the Plough may derive from the Anvil and Loom.

Now, in many parts of the country, it may be supposed, that the men
who can command the means of founding and carrying forward such gigantic
undertakings must soon become enervated by the luxurious indulgences
which such means must place within their reach ; and hence that, as in some
other parts of the world, the care of such establishments would be devolved
on subordinates, leaving the principals to pass their hours daily in social and
convivial enjoyments. Yet what ignorance of the habits of these enterprising
Yankees would such a supposition betray ! Reared in habits of intellectual
activity and systematic attention to business, they find their greatest pleasure
in that which has been the invariable practice of their lives, and thus it is
that they persist in the personal care and supervision of their affairs, as long
as their physical powers, prolonged by a course of temperate industry, remain
unimpaired ; nor even then do they cease to evance the force of early associa-
tions. On the contrary, you shall see these venerable old gentlemen, the
Brooks's, the Perkins's, the Appletons, and others, coming from their magnifi-
cent villas in good weather to their old haunts in Boston, if only to hear how
the world wags, just as "old Whitey," the war-horse, turned out to grass
for the remnant of his days, at every "sound of the trumpet" will continue
to say "Ha, ha: and he smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the cap-
tains and the shouting."

Few who have not seen it on the spot can have an idea of the labors these
men of means undergo — and that of all labors the most wearing and tear-
ing— the labors of thought; for besides the direct management of their
own vast operations, they have to maintain a world-wide correspondence at
home and abroad. You shall see such a man as S. Lawrence, for example,
returning to Lowell from a flying visit to large concerns at Boston, hurry from
the cars to take his seat in the mills, there to examine with his own hands
and eyes hundreds of pieces of goods as they are brought and laid before
him, and go thence to answer with punctuality and care voluminous inquiries,
it may be, from wool-growers in the West, or from others, who propose to
embark in the business of manufacturing in the South.

Ah, Reader! if you would see the effects of a s\)\x\\.o{ combination — of a
readiness to facilitate, instead of denouncing, the association of men and
means, to lend money and to build factories and railroads, and to do for the
development of internal resources, and the creation of wealth and power, by
imion, that which in other States is never done, for want of it ; go to New
England — to Rhode Island — to Connecticut — to Massachusetts. I3y the by,
we remember last winter dropping in at the hotel in Annapolis to dinner, where
there were many members of the legislature, when one of them, "a hmb

352 DIFFERENCE IN THE QUALITY OF GRAIN.

of the law," or rather a sort of half-lawyer half-planter, selected by planters
of a neighboring county, for his aptitude at legislation, displayed "his super-
refined knowledge of the political economy that belongs to agriculture, by
vehement denunciations of incorporations of all sorts — to lend money — to
erect factories — or to make roads. He would enact laws that should be a
warning to every man who should dare give aid or countenance to such as-
sociations, on any account, little or big, that he should do it at the peril of
involving his whole estate. Is it, then, Ave repeat, where the farmer and the
planter select such men for law-makers, any wonder that exhaustion, poverty,
and dispersion go on increasing from year to year? The French have a
motto, V union est la force. This gentleman's motto is the reverse, he
thinks the fagots gain strength by separation!!

DIFFERENCE IN THE t^UALITY OF GRAIN PRODUCED
IN A NORTHERN AND SOUTHERN CLIMATE.

The able Editor of the South Carolinian says : —

We go at length into this scientific description of the component parts
of wheat, which consist of gluten, gum, starch, sugar, bran, and water, so
that our remarks may be thoroughly comprehended. Starch is by far less
nutritious than gluten, and abounds in wheat in the proportion of about G
to 1 of gluten. The latter is then the valuable nutritious matter in wheat,
and from all that has been developed by the aid of science, it has been
clearly proven that gluten can be varied and increased by climate and the
character of the fertilizers used to promote the growth of the plant. The
mere difference in climate, upon a fair trial, and by analysis of the grain, has
resulted in the following satisfactor}'^ statement, in favor of the warmest re-
gions in which wheat is successfullj^ grown:

Warm Climate.

Starch .... 56.05

Gluten .... 14.55

Sugar 8.48 ''

Gum .... 4.90

Bran 2.30

Water .... 12.30

100.49

Let the reader look below at the result of the analysis of wheat grown in
a cold climate, and compare the great preponderance of starch with that of
the former. Also observe the large amount of gluten and sugar contained
in the grain growii in a warm climate, and estimate the comparative value
of that which contains so large a proportion of these essential ingredients
which constitute in the main the nutritious qualities of the grain, with that
which is greatly deficient in those substances:

Cold Climate

Starch .... 71.4G

Gkiten .... 10.96

Sugar .... 4.72

Gum 2.32

Bran .... 1.00

Water .... . 10.00

100.49

These statements fully show the great superiority of our climate over
more northern regions for producing the most nutritious grain.

ADVANTAGES FROM THE USE OF OXEN. 353

ADVANTAGES TO BE DERIVED FROM A MORE
EXTENDED USE OF OXEN

IN THE HUSBANDRY OF THE UNITED STATES. (Concluded.)

Breaking. — The sooner this is commenced, the more complete will be the
command of the teamster. It would be well, if convenient, to have them
named and haltered, and taught to stand and to start, to "gee" and to "haw,"
when not more than a year old, and slightly worked in the summer and
autumn after they are two. Gee and haw are the terms used in most parts
of the country. The first indicates that the yoke is to incline off to the right,
or from the near side on which the driver should always take his stand.
The yoke, however, should not be put on their necks until they are to be
worked, as they might acquire a habit of running off in it, which it will be
found very difficult to correct.

The directions which follov/ are taken principally from practical observa-
tions by T. P. Stabler, of Montgomery county, who has performed in Mary-
land all the requisite labor on a farm of one hundred and sixty acres, with
but one horse in addition to his oxen; and of Mr. Oilman, then of Alexandria.
"The proper time," says Mr. Stabler, "for putting them to work, is at three
years old; and such as have not been handled, as above recommended, while
growing, should be driven round the field for a day or two, before being yoked,
so as to tire them." The propriety of this is proved by the greater ease with
which they are broken, when taken and yoked directly out of a drove, before
they have time to recruit from the fatigue of travelling. Instead, then, of
being yoked two together, they should be tied by the horns (with a rope
shpped over and resting on the top of the head) to the side of a house, tak-
ing care that there be no place for the horns to become entangled, and stand
tied in this manner till they cease to pull by the cord, which will in most
cases be in a day or two. They may then be led very readily, and taught
to turn, stop, or start, singly, just as a colt may be, instead of couphng two
together at first, which any man in the care of horses would condemn, as
being most likely to end in the destruction of one or both, which has not
unfrequently happened with young steers when forcibly yoked together in
the first instance.

"When two young cattle," says Mr. Stabler, "are yoked and turned loose
with their tails tied together to run and plunge about, they are almost certain
to acquire a habit of running away; and even should this not be the case,
one, and sometimes both, lose a part of their tail in these violent exertions.
When they are sufficiently broken to the halter, they may be placed side by
side, for the purpose of receiving the yoke, having reference to their relative
size, strength, and mastership ; because, if one is stronger and more free
than the other, he should be placed on the off-side that the team may rather
incline to, than from the driver."

If one should be larger than the other, he will be likely to be stronger and
more free ; and, should they be put to the plough, the furrow ox being the
larger, the yoke will be kept nearer a level than in the other case. It requires
but little observation to see that they are easier to be turned to the right, or
made to "gee," than to the left, or to "haw," or "come hither:" therefore,
if the master-ox be on the off-side, he will assist in controlling the near or
left one in "coming round;" but when reversed, and the master-ox on the
near side, and he not altogether wilhng to "come here," the team is some
time stationary ; for let the then off-ox be ever so wilhng to obey the voice
of the driver, the horn of the near one speaks a contrary language, equally

Vol. I. — 45 2 g 2

354 ADVANTAGES FROM THE USE OF OXEN.

intelligible. After the yoke is put on securely, their tails should be Avell tied
together, and they suffered to stand tied as before until a strong pen is built
round them, not more than sixteen or eighteen feet in diameter, taking care
that the ends of the rails do not extend inwardly. The ropes should then be
loosed, if possible, in such a way that they will not be sensible of it. Here
they will soon learn to turn themselves about, without one violent exertion,
or the least fright. They should be tied up as before, at night, their tails
untied, and the yoke removed, to be replaced in the morning as before ; and
the day following they may be led or driven in a larger space. By this time
the cause will be gained in a manner calculated to ensure a prime pair of
cattle. . They may now be attached to something light, and led about for a
few hours, daily and gradually increasing the draft, and greasing their necks
occasionally, to prevent galling. When put to the cart or harrow with others
already broken, contrary to the usual practice, they should be placed before,
instead of behind them ; by which arrangement it will be found that if fright-
ened the old cattle will not let them run; but, if otherwise, they, by running
against the older ones, may frighten them also.

In Kentucky they practise another mode of breaking steers, which is thus
described ; — Where the establishment is a large one, and there are some to
be broken in, every year, the fixture and practice here recommended would
seem to be ehgible and judicious — "Get a strong post eight feet long by two
thick; plant it three and a half feet in^the ground, well rammed; round or
level the top of the post, and leave a pin to it, or make a mortice and insert
a strong two-inch pin of tough wood in it, perpendicularly at the top, six or
eight inches long. Then get a tough sapling, twenty-five feet long ; measure
off at the small end of it the usual length of a yoke, and bore the holes for
your bows. Then bore three holes, or more if you choose, four, eight, and
twelve feet from the other end of the sapling, of the size of the pin in the
top of the post, giving the shortest lever first; draw your steers up, let them
be young or old, gentle or wild, it makes no difference ; yoke them to the end
of the pole ; but instead of tying their tails together, if you wish to avoid
bob-tailed oxen, tie their loins together with a good rope, wrap up their head
hahers, clear the front, and let them go; round and round they will go with
a rush ; drunk — drunker still they grow, until, groaning, down they drop.
For a while they he panting and looking wild ; at length they leap as if sud-
denly frightened, rush round and round again, grow drunk and drop again.
Leave them, they Avill repeat the experiment, until reeling, they will stop
or stand. In a few hours you may lead them around by their halters. Un-
couple them from the pole, or yoke them to your cart, and drive them where
you please with safety." The preceding method is recommended with con-
fidence from personal knowledge by Mr. William P. Hart, of Kentucky.

There is no point in the comparison between oxen and horses which more
strongly idustrates the economy of ox-power than the difference in the expense
of gearing.

For each horse employed on public roads, where it is in constant use, the
harness costs, according to the best information, as has been seen, twenty
dollars ; being one hundred and twenty dollars for a team of six, leaving the
swingle or whiffie-trees, as they constitute a part of the wagon, out of the
question ; and this harness is not expected to last more than six years ; while
for six oxen, the whole gearing, consisting of three yokes and two chains,
would not cost more than twenty dollars, and would probably last twenty
years. ^

A singular method of accustoming young animals to draw is practised in
France ; and, although it must be admitted that few nations have been more
the slaves of routine and of old habits, or slower in the progress of improve-

ADVANTAGES FROM THE USE OF OXEN.

355

ment in agricultural implements,
yet the system they pursue in
this instance, as here illustrated,
looks and reads so plausibly
as to appear worthy of trial,
and to bespeak confidence in its
efficac}\ It is well known that
nothing is more humbling to the
wildest and most indomitable ani-
mal than the sufferings of ex-
treme hunger; and among the
French, in the very act of satisfy-
ing its cravings, they habituate
young animals to the yoke and
harness. For this purpose they
attach them to the manger by
means of a cord which runs
through a ring, at the extremity
of which a weight is attached,
as represented at A, in the an-
nexed Plate, so that the animal
may, at pleasure, approach or
recede from the manger. A collar
is put on the animal with two
cords fixed to a bar or swingle-
tree, to which another cord is at-
tached at B, which passes through
the pulley at C, and to which is
suspended a weight as at D, to be
increased or diminished at plea-
sure. Things being thus ar-
ranged, fodder is put in the rack.
The animal, when pressed with
hunger, approaches his food, in
doing which he raises the weight,
and keeps it suspended as long
as he continues to eat, and thus
contracts the habit of drawing in
a few days. He is free to relax
his exertions, for whenever he
recedes, the weight reposes on
the ground.

"In many respects," says Mr. Oilman, "proud man must look up to the
beast as his superior: man's reason is replete with error; but instinct, or the
inference drawn by a brute, from certain sounds and motions, after having
once learned their purport, is infaUibk. I have seen the best drilled soldier
mistake, for the instant, advance arms for recover arms, but never saw a
well-trained ox mistake gee for haiv, or haw for gee: hence system is indis-
pensable in the management of working cattle. He who would work them
with ease and facility, should maintain a strict uniformity in his conduct to-
wards them. They must have names ; therefore, calves intended to be raised
for working should be named while young, to which they become familiar
by the time they are ready for the yoke. Any thing appropriate to their
color, shape, &c., is proper; such as bright, broad, line, spark, back, star,
turk, golden, &c."

356 ADVANTAGES FROM THE USE OF OXEN.

"The buffalo breed of cattle, or those without horns, will not answer well
for working, as horns are necessary in backing a cart, and in carrying it
down hill. This may be obviated by having a plain harness with breeching
fastened to the yoke of the oxen to the tongue, as is the practice in Pennsyl-
vania. Oxen should never be changed in the yoke after having been broke ;
the near and off-ox should always remain as such; by changing them, they
become confused, and all the benefit of their tuition is lost."

"A temporary change, however, can be made in one instance to advantage ;
this is Avhen they hang off from each other, as they are apt to do in bad tra-
velling, when they get fretted ; they then cut each other's feet with their
shoes ; shifting them puts this out of their head for that time."

"There are, however, several ways in which oxen may be geared for
work ; they are willing to earn their bread any way ; they have been tried
and found to pull by a j^oke on the neck, by a shaft lashed across the fore-
head, and traces to its ends; by traces fastened to the horns; by harness like
horses ; and they will pull by the tail. From these various modes, it is the
husbandman's duty first to study the nature and convenience of the ox ;
secondly, economy and his own convenience, and then select that which
embraces most of these desirable objects."

There are but two of these modes mentioned that can be adopted Avith
any degree of satisfaction or success ; these are the yoke and the harness.
From the former being in general, net to say universal use, the inference is
a natural one, that some inconvenience must attend the latter. The form
of the ox is one objection to harness ; his belly is so much wider than his
shoulders, it is embraced so hard by the iron traces as to impede his wind,
as well as to be injured by galling. The yoke, on the other hand, being of
hard wood, appears to be an instrument that would gall, but I never knew
any injury done by it. The neck of the bullock seems by nature fitted for
the yoke ; the skin, naturally thick, soon becomes so callous as not to be
hurt by friction ; it is there his strength lies, even to a proverb.

In point of economy, there is a wide disparity between the harness and
j'oke ; the expense of the former to that of the latter, for eight years' wear,
Avould be as ten to one, and the time of gearing and ungeai'ing is as three to
one ; in other words, a yoke will cost only five dollars, which will average
eight years' wear, and can be put to oxen in two minutes.

A yoke which is properly made for oxen of equal size and strength will
have no particular end for the near or off-ox ; but the bows being sometimes
untrue, will fit to the neck better one particular way. This the nice team-
ster will observe, and always put them so. An ox can feel as sensibly as
a man the pains of tighter unfitting accoutrements ; but not being so fluently
gifted, and being too noble and patient to shrink on that account from his
task, it particularly behooves every driver (who cannot all day wear a key
or penknife in the foot of his boot) to be vigilant that the tackle sits easy and
free on his team.

When oxen are unequally matched as to strength, the strongest is apt to
carry his end of the yoke several inches before the other; this makes the
yoke uneasy to them, and is soon remedied by putting the staple of the yoke
nearest to the end of the strong ox. It does not, however, always follow
that the stronger ox carries the fore end of the yoke. It often occurs that
an inequality of strength begets such ambition in the weaker ox as will ruin
him by his overstraining himself for an even yoke. The driver should be
attentive to this circumstance, (if it ever occurs with him,) and remedy it,
as has been just pointed out.

It is unnecessary, in yoking well-tutored oxen, to lug the yoke round the
yard after them, as they are easily called to that. I have often called the

ADVANTAGES FROM THE USE OF OXEN. 357

ox I wanted from a drove of all sorts of cattle. Stand the yoke on one end ;
take out the ofT-ox's bow; steady the yoke with the left hand, and with the
right hold up the bow towards the ox, and beckoning with it, call him by
name to you ; slip the bow under his neck ; turn the yoke doAvn upon it ;
enter it in the bow-holes, and put in the bow-pin; then take out the other
bow, and lifting up the near end of the yoke with the left hand, with the
bow in the right call the near-ox also by name, who will come and "bow his
neck to the yoke," and is harnessed the same as his companion.

An ox-goad, to drive with, is made of hickory, or any tough wood, three
and a half to four and a half feet long, as may suit the whim of the driver,
about the size of a man's finger, with a prick or sharp point of iron in the
end, projecting not more than a quarter of an inch. This is more cheap and
simple, and has been found to answer much better than a whip, or a long
green withe. The ludicrous practice of using the latter, and of having a
driver on both sides of the team to keep them straight, or of fastening a rope
to the horn of the near-ox for the same purpose, cannot be too soon exploded.
Riding on oxen is a shameful, lazy practice, that should also be done avv-ay
with. Oxen may, and ought to be so taught, that by speaking to them and
making a kind of beckoning motion with the goad, they will come to; or, in
other words, turn to the left without the trouble of an assistant on the off-side,
or a rope to pull them round.

I would have one thing remembered in driving oxen, (which also applies
to every species of servants ;) I mean the impolitic habit of a uniform harsh
deportment, and of keeping the goad constantly going over them ; it is a
needless tax upon the lungs and sinews; the oxen will not do so much work
for it; and, what is Avorse, they become so callous from this perpetual rough
discipline, that they cannot easily be brought to any extra exertion when it
is indeed necessary.

The benefit of a calm management has been very apparent to me Avhen
I have been driving in company with these peevish geniuses; and coming
to a steep hill, I would then speak sharp and determined to my team, and
ply the goad pretty freely, if necessary. This treatment, so novel, would
be fully appreciated ; every one of them would pull as for his life, and the
hill would be quickly surmounted; while the driver who has always been
speaking harshly, and always been plying his goad, could not here make
use of any new argument to stimulate his cattle to the exigence of the mo-
ment. The consequence was, he would often have to receive assistance from
a team no stronger than his own. Drivers should acquaint themselves with
the burden of their oxen, and never load them beyond it; it discourages
and hurts them.

Because they are very strong, many unthinking taskmasters appear to
believe them omnipotent. When they are properly taken care of, they are
not apt to be sparing of their strength ; they are sometimes profuse with it,

I have often been beset with difficulties when at work alone in the woods
with a yoke or two of oxen, and have then thought I could perceive traits
of reason in them; for, in proportion to my anxiety and exertions to extricate
myself, have I seen their's spontaneously to increase.

That all cattle should be sheltered in cold and wet weather, is obvious to
every person; but to those that work, it is indispensable; their health and
strength depend upon it.

From the severity and duration of our winters at the northward, our barns
are generally spacious, and calculated to hold as much as possible of our
grain and hay. No doubt, however, but this is good economy in every climate
in the United States; as the farmer loses as much in quantity and quality of
his produce in a short time, by stacking out, as would build a barn.

358 ADVANTAGES FROM THE USE OF OXEN.

Our old-fashioned barns, I believe, are not susceptible of much improve-
ment. Those which cattle are wintered in are built a small distance from
the house, on a rising ground, with a yard opened to, and descending a little
towards the south, if such a spot be near; it being thereby warmer, kept
cleaner, and the wash enriches the adjacent ground. The barn has two
large doors opposite each other for the convenience of driving loads of grain
and hay ; on one or both sides of this thoroughfare is a stall for cattle, say
ten feet wide and six and a half high, and running the whole width of the
barn; so that if a barn were forty feet long, the stalls would take up ten feet
on each end, and twenty would of course be the width of the thoroughfare;
which latter being also used as the threshing-floor, is floored with two-inch
plank, well joined.

The partition between this and the stalls is only three feet high, for the
convenience of feeding cattle, whose crib joins the partition, and is thus
made : — A piece of timber, the length of the stall, about four inches thick
by eight wide, is laid down on edge, parallel with the partition, and two and
a half feet from it; this makes a crib on the floor, being the most natural one
that cattle can have to feed at. It is perfectly clean, as the stall-floors have
a gradual descent of about three inches. Immediately over this timber is
another smaller one of the same length, fixed to the joist above; in both of
these timbers from end to end holes are bored at three feet distance, and
smooth round stations or studs, three inches in diameter, are fixed therein ;
round each of these stations is bent a small hickory hank or hook, sufficiently
loose to play up and down thereon; a wooden bow passing through this hoop,
embraces the neck of the ox, who is thereby kept at his post, yet still has
every rational liberty. He has room to eat his food, lie down or stand at his
pleasure. (See drawings on page 359.) These stalls have smallv/indows,
four feet from the floor, and a convenient distance from each other, through
which to throw the manure. Satisfactory experience of the safety and eco-
nomy of this mode of housing cattle- has made it universal in that quarter.

On tj'ing up cattle for the night, respect should be had to mastery among
them ; the strongest should be put in first, and at the further end from the
door, and so on, according as they hold dominion over each other, leaving the
cows, yearlings, &c., next the door, in case of civil war among them.

It is interesting when "the curfew tolls the knell of parting day," and
the farmer's boy opens his stall-door and gives a nod of invitation to his
"leading characters," to see them forming a line of march, entering the door,
and taking their places precisely according to rank, without martial music,
word of command, or confusion.

The thorough-bred teamster never suffers himself to partake of his repast
before his oxen have begun theirs. They require little else in winter but
good wholesome hay and water; but when sufiicient time cannot well be
allowed them to dine on hay, then corn in the ear is the best thing that can
be given them. Pumpkins are also very grateful to them, and being remark-
ably prolific, may be raised with little trouble. In winter, cattle are tied up
and fed at about sunset; fed again at eight o'clock; again at daylight; then
at sunrise they arc ready for the labors of the day. This mode of feeding
is considered preferable, being fresher in small quantities, eaten more freely,
and less liable to get under their feet, and be wasted.

Carts being cheaper than wagons, and handier about the ordinary business
of a farm, are therefore to be desired. Different kinds of bodies may be
attached occasionally to one pair of wheels; an open one for hay, sheaves,
cfcc, and a close one for fruit and vegetables. The naked wheels are handy
to haul spars, poles, and all kinds of long timber on. In hitching a cart to
the oxen, the tongue or spire thereof passes into the ring of the ox-yoke, as

ADVANTAGES FROM THE USE OF OXEN.

359

far as the shoulder in the tongue wiJI permit; an iron instrument called a
copes pin, resembling the capital letter U, is put on the end of the tongue,
embracing it above and below, and the copes pin is inserted through the end
of the tongue and through the copes. This copes is for the purpose of hitching
the second yoke of oxen to, when necessary. (See the annexed drawing.)

Wherever oxen and yokes are used, chains become indispensable ; four of
these, each ten feet long, with a hook in each end, or part of them with a ring
in one end and a hook at the other, are enough for two or three yokes of oxen.

The drawings above are necessary for a better understanding of what has
been said.

Fig. 1 represents a cart-tongue hitched to a yoke, as in the act of draw-

360

ADVANTAGES FROM THE USE OF OXEN.

ing ; a is the copes pin, which goes through the tongue, and by which the
yoke draws ; b is the copes by which the second pair is hitched, when
necessary.

Fi<T. 2, a stanchion and bows, by which cattle are secured at their crib ;
a, the cap lies flat on the top of their neck ; the end of the bow at b is some-
times hke a button, and is put in the hole at c, and springs into its place.

Fig. 3 is the model of a yoke for a middling sized pair of oxen. Whole
length, three and a half feet; distance of bow-holes, a to a, twenty inches;
from b to b, in the clear, six and a half inches. The bows being something
of an oval form, and c to c being the greatest SAvell, and where the ox's
shoulders come, the staple e should be in a direct line between, so that the
strain will come right, in drawing: d d may be flat keys or round pins of
wood; one in each bow is sufiicient. The stuff" of which the bows are
made must be at least one and a half inches in diameter.

There is no good reason why the ox should not be worked singly; so
might cows when not at the pail very well do the single ploughing, and haul
light loads in carts; and it would be yet more economical and expedient to
spay and work heifers under certain circumstances. In Spain and France
it is a common practice. Every judicious farmer will endeavor to get all
possible remuneration for the certain expense attendant upon the keeping
of every thing that consumes the produce of his land. Even the dog that
eats what would keep a pig, besides guarding his house, protecting his fields,
and finding his game, is made by the calculating New England man to churn
his butter.

It is observed that less food is necessary for spayed heifers to keep and
fatten them than is required for the ox ; and Mr. Marshall, in his rural eco-
nomy of Yorkshire, remarks, that it is a fact well established in the practice
of that district, that they work better, and have better wind than oxen.

It is a common thing to see a single ox in a cart at Norfolk in Virginia,
among a people as little as any other observant of improvements going on
in agricultural machinery. That whole States, even where oxen are used,
should forego the use of single oxen, serves to show how proverbially slow
is the change of habits among agriculturists. Large bulls of immense strength
are often kept and fed through the entire year, for the sole purpose of their
services for eight or ten cows, when they might haul immense quantities
of wood and manure in vehicles adapted to the purpose.

For an ox working singly, some recommend a single harness with the
collar reversed; but for the reasons
he gives, and which are obvious, the
single yoke recommended by Mr.
Stabler, and here exhibited, is greatly
to be preferred. When the collar is
used, and the draught heavy, the
pressure of the traces on the sides is '
obviated by the yoke. The length
for a single yoke must be proportioned
to the thickness of the animal, so that
the traces will be as far apart when
fastened to a small hook on the under
side of each end as is required to
prevent his sides from being chafed.
The following will show the proper
shape of the single yoke: —

It will be observed that by placing the hooks perpendicularly through the

ITEMS FROM ENGLISH PAPERS. SGl

ends of the yoke, the draught is applied precisely as in the double yoke,
and the bow consequently keeps its proper place.

Mr. Stabler, a nice observer and a practical man, residing in a middle
State, sets it down that a horse when at work must have at least three gallons
of grain a day, and for six months in the year one hundred and twenty-five
pounds of hay per week. Supposing him to be at work only two-thirds of
his time, and during the remainder to be kept on hay or pasture alone, he
must consume upwards of ninety bushels of grain, and two thousand eight
hundred and seventy-five pounds of hay in a year, which latter is amply
sufficient, with such pasture as the horse must have, (and some additional
coarse food in the winter,) to keep the ox in prime order for work without
the use of any grain. Thus it appears, that for every ox substituted for a
horse, there are ninety bushels of grain saved in the year.

From data given, Mr. Stabler shows a saving on four oxen instead of four
horses in twelve years, of two thousand four hundred and fifty dollars —
and concludes his observations on the subject with this wholesome advice : —

"It cannot be too strongly urged upon those who are about embarking in
agricultural pursuits as a means of securing a livelihood, (and who may be
free from many of the prejudices entertained against oxen,) to make the
experiment at least, and give the thing a fair trial, before they encumber
themselves with that moth, a stock of farm-horses ; in doing which, it will
■easily be seen they hazard nothing ; for should any wish to abandon the
plan after a sufficient trial, one summer's grass will enable them to obtain,
in cash, an advance on the first cost of their cattle, if young and thrifty;
and such are always to be had."

ITEMS FROM ENGLISH PAPERS.

Butter-making. — There is a paragraph in your paper headed "Butter
making," in which the writer condemns the use of turnips for feeding cows,
as giving the butter and cream a bad taste, and expresses his surprise that
there should not be any method to prevent it. I occupied a farm of 500
acres, and kept a large dairy of cows, and never had the taste of Turnips in
the butter, by applying hot water and steam, at different times, to the milk
and cream, which entirely took away all flavor of the turnip. We gene-
rally made from Id. to 'Zd. per lb. of our butter more than market price.

Flooring. — Mr. Drummond copied, about two years ago, a receipt for
making a flooring; twenty-seven gallons of gas tar, three tons of sand, one
bushel of lime, and upon trying this about a year afterwards, found it would
not answer, but one of the workmen, by accident, mixing a much larger
quantity of lime, it formed a most excellent flooring. The exact quantity
of lime is not known. [Can any one furnish us with an experience on this
subject.]

The Gapes. — A farmer's wife must take the bird on its back in her left
hand, holding its beak open with the fingers of that hand; and with the right
holding the end of a small quill feather properly trimmed and dipped in
sweet oil, she must, watching her opportunity, slowly insert the feather end
two inches into the windpipe of the unfortunate bird, and turn it once round
and withdraw it. The bird will cough up the worms which occasion the
disease.

Vol. I. — 46 2 H

362

WOOL AND WOOLLENS.

TOTAL ACREAGE OF ENGLAND, AND ITS DIVISIONS.

As in the prosecution of agricultural and political comparisons and in-
quiries, it may often be desirable to know how much there is of different
kinds of lands in different countries, and especially in that country from
which we sprung, and to which we are, if we did but know it, yet in many
respects absolutely subservient — we think it well to give, for the sake of re-
membrance and reference, the following estimate, from a writer who is con-
sidered among the best of authorities.

In his analysis of the "occupations of the people," Spackman says, p. 35:

Statute acres.
Amount of arable lands and gardens .... 10,252,800

Meadows, pastures and marshes 15,379,200

Wastes capable of improvement ..... 3,454,000

Incapable of improvement 3,256,400

Total acreage of England 32,342,400

According to Darby, there are in

Eastern Virginia
Middle Virginia
Western Virginia

Total .

Or of acres

Square miles.

8,875

. 24,297

28,130

Population.
262,524
655,266
147,514

1,065,304

To the sq. m.
30
26

G1,3U2
39,233,280

Had Virginia been all along governed by the policy which encourages
combination, and thus tends to the concentration of population, which pre-
vails in Connecticut and Rhode Island — a policy which mingles in harmo-
nious concert the whistle of the ploughman and the whistle of the railroad
car, with the sound of the shuttle in the loom and the hammer on the anvil —
what would have been her population at this day of our Lord 1848?

WOOL AND WOOLLENS,

EXPORTED FROM GREAT BRITAIN TO FOREIGN COUNTRIES — INCLUDING
THE UNITED STATES. — FARMERS, LOOK AT THIS.

Official returns, dated 18th July last, have been published, showing that
during the last two years the export of British sheep and lambs' wool from
Great Britain in 1846 and 1847, to thirty-one different countries, was, in

1846, 5,851,888— in 1847, 5,550,680.

The largest quantity was in 1847 to France, the next to Belgium, the next
to Holland, and ihefourlh to the United States, being 29,488 ; but of British
woollen and worsted i/arn, the whole amount was, in 1846, 8,630,608 — in

1847, 10,065,231. Here again the United States was the sixth on the list
of favored nations, having received from good mother Britain, of whom we
have declared ourselves '■^independent!''^ 179,264, every pound of which
ought to have been spun in our own country, by men who should have eaten
our own beef, and mutton, and pork, and bread, and cheese, and potatoes,
and turnips. How long will John Bull continue to laugh in his sleeve at the
boasted sagacity of the Yankee, who fancies himself free, and who every
fourth of July joins hands to dance around his liberty poles, singing — "Zei
independence be our boast?'"' Alas, how much this world is governed by
humbuggery, from the great National Wittenagemotc down to what? why
down to the A Institute !

can't raise an agricultural society. 36S

THE COUNTY THAT CAN'T RAISE AN AGRICULTURAL

SOCIETY.

It is published, not " in Gath," but confidentially in the " St. Mary''s
Beacon" that an attempt lately made in that county, in Maryland, to get
up an Agricultural Society, proved an utter failure. One might suppose
from the number of gentlemen appointed there, to attend the Agricultural
Convention in Bakimore, in October last, that every other man in that
county was an active member of such an association. Quite sure we are,
that a club composed of the persons nominated on that occasion, would most
advantageously compare in abilities and experience with some who, in the
north, are so systematically puffed up, as to loom largely in — the papers.

But where farmers lack the energy and spirit to associate for the benefit
of their profession, may it not be suspected that there the loom and the
anvil are kept at a distance from the plough and the harrow ? How is that
fact in old St. Mary's — surrounded, intersected, and indented as is no
other county in the world, by magnificent, and bold, and beautiful bays, and
rivers, and harbors ? Are they all planters and farmers, with no men and
women at other trades, such as are to be found in all sorts of occupations,
in all parts of New England, ready on the spot to consume all the milk and
butter, the potatoes, and parsnips, and apples, and pears, that can be pro-
duced, and all helping to build up banks, and factories, and railroads — all
busy making ox bows, and ox yokes, and rakes, and pitchforks, and axes,
and axe-handles, and planes, and shoes, and shirts, and tubs, and buckets,
with which to pay, and a little overpay, the farmer and the planter of Mary-
land and Virginia, and the Carohnas, for their corn, their wheat, and their
cotton ; all of which are made and sold by the bushel and the pound, de-
manding laborious and costly culture of large surface, and therefore forbid-
ding concentration, and those improvements of all sorts, that can only be
realized where concentration takes place ? When that does take place, the
farmer gets a market for bulky and valuable commodities of a perishable
nature, sure of a sale on the land or within the smoke of his chimney —
hence the ever-increasing productiveness and value of land in Delaware,
and in New England. When deconcentration takes place, things of little
value, such as will bear transportation, can be made ; and hence dispersion
and impoverishment. An acre of land that will bring thirty bushels of
wheat, worth thirty dollars, will bring five hundred of potatoes, worth two
hundred and fifty dollars. Is it under a policy and influences like these, which
prevent the approximation of the plough, the loom, and the anvil, that good
old St. Mary's, the first spot in the state settled and consecrated to liberty
and toleration, seems to have been paralyzed in her growth, increasing
only three hundred in ten years! while abounding in calcareous and other
rich fertilizing substances ; all, in fact, that need be desired, to increase
her agricultural resources, lacking only the customers, " by the side of
the agriculturist," to buy the products of agriculture ? Does St. Mary's
manufacture her own wool — does she tan and make up her own leather ?
What does she manufacture for sale, except wheat, and corn, and oats, and
tobacco, that are carried away beyond her limits ? How much of what
she gets out of the ground, and how much of all that she sells, is sold
within her borders, and its refuse returned upon the land ? In New Eng-
land, every thing that comes out of the ground is sold within the county
and the township, and yet the consumers, like young and hungry birds,
with open mouths, cry for ever, more — more — and if one farmer does not
get the refuse of his own land, another does. But where the consumer is

364 OCTOBER FAIR IN PRINCE GEORGe's.

at a distance from the producer, is it not " always taking; out of the meal-
tub, and never putting in ?" Will the Beacon cast us some light on this
subject, and tell us how it is that Avith such a munificent array of nature's
bounties, the good old lady should, in point of numbers, be standing still,
almost at the bottom of the list, in a noble state of which the historian has
already recorded — " The increase of her population, for the last forty years,
has been nearly equal to one per cent. .'" For love of the state that bore
us, Ave pray again — "give us but light."

THE OCTOBER FAIR IN PRINCE GEORGE'S.

It was truly gratifying to see, in the reliable " Marlbro' Gazette," such a
good account of the late exhibition. It says :

" Those who visited the Prince George's Agricuhural Society in former years, inust
have noticed the gradual improvement in the various departments — and in every thing
exhibited at its late meeting there was displayed more perfection than on any previous
occasion. The contributions of the ladies were both useful and beautiful. The display
of fruits, flowers and vegetables, excelled the rich collections of former years. The
stock yard was well filled with superior animals, aflbrding ample proof that tlie attention
bestowed on raising improved animals has more than compensated for the care and ex-
pense. We cannot do justice to the fine cattle exhibited — and must content ourselves
with referring to the reports of the various committees which will be published next
week. A most interesting feature of this branch was the competition for the ' Calvert
Premium.' It will be recollected that the liberal and zealous friend of agriculmre,
C. B. Calvert, last year offered, through the columns of the Gazette, to give the male
calves of his celebrated Durham stock, free of charge, to such gentlemen as would oblige
themselves to exhibit them for the premium of the Society, annually for three years.
Eleven gentlemen availed themselves of the ofltr, and the committee who passed upon
the calves, speak in the highest terms of their appearance. They have made an inte-
resting report on the subject."

•Truly, there is a great difference between giving away improved short-
horn calves, and selling them, as in England for the last forty years, at from
fifty to one hundred guineas. It is well that something can prompt gentle-
men of ample means to take measures for the improvement of their stock;
but after all, the question arises, how far is it expedient, with a view even
to general improvement, to give away the means of accomplishing it,
unless it be to men of spirit unable to buy?

In the general way, that is not most valued which may be had, even
without the trouble of asking; and when those who are able to buy wait to
have a thing given to them, to whom can they expect to sell ? Will not
the next generation wait not only to have the best things given them, but
sent them in the bargain, with a polite note entreating them to accept ? By-
the-by, though we have read with lively pleasure the account of the show,
we have looked in vain for any indication of a desire to inquire into the
laivs of the State that hear vpon agricultxire. Whether, for instance, some-
thing might not be done to enable the planters and farmers of Prince
George's, to avail themselves of their unemployed means of raising as many
more sheep as would add fifty thousand dollars to the income of the county,
without an additional outlay on that amount of one per cent. ? Are there
not streams enough in Prince George's to manufacture all the cloth that is
used in the county, and might not the county supply the wool fine enough
for all purposes, and the vegetables and corn, and fruit and meat for the
operatives employed in its manufacture, without intrenching on their pre-
sent income from other sources ? Why for ever persist in putting their
trust so exclusively in tobacco ? Suppose even that the duty was to be re-
duced in England, and the consumption quadrupled or quintupled : have
we not in the west land enough and labor enough that can in no way be

OCTOBER FAIR IN PRINCE GEORGe's. 365

SO profitably employed as in producing tobacco at four dollars a hundred ?
And is it not, therefore, morally certain, that the supply Avill for ever tread
closely on the heels of demand, and so keep down the price ? Let, then,
the planter and farmer of Maryland and Virginia study how — by what
action of the government — those who manufacture iron and cloth for us
abroad shall find it their interest, and be tempted to come, and, while they
are manufacturing for us here, eat the cabbages, and the turnips, and pota-
toes, and apples, and milk, and butter, and veal, and mutton, that might be
made in Prince George's, Avith half the labor and cost that they are made
in New England. Then he would sell tons, where now he sells pounds
weight of wheat and tobacco.

We see in these proceedings at Marlbro', conducted by gentlemen of ac-
knowledged and superior intelligence, no attempt to agitate the question of
\.\\e fence laivs, and the inspection laws of the state — though the fencing in
that very county has cost more than the land would sell for. When far-
mers meet, one would suppose it would be to inquire and discuss, as mer-
chants and manufacturers do, the bearing of the laws, and policy of the
government on their particular pursuits ; but, alas ! for instruction in all that,
they surrender the privilege of thought and inquiry to old field party
leaders, whose orders they implicitly obey. The whole country may be
compared to a great pyramid, the base of which, broad and strong enough
to hold all the rotten materials above, is composed of the substantial farmers
and planters of the country. The next tier above consists of the seekers
after numerous small offices, for which they rely on the influence of the
next tier above them again, composed of a smaller number, vv'ho aspire to
something a little higher — state legislators, &c,, who, in their turn, are the
creatures of lawyers without briefs, and doctors Avithout patients, looking
for seats in Congress, rising up at last to an individual sitting in a great pa-
lace, who holds the purse-strings — who constitutes the apex of the political
pyramid, and who saves, to all below him, the trouble of thinking for them-
selves ; and in regard to whom it sometimes happens that still the wonder
grows that one small head should carry all he knows. Such is the system
under Avhich the farmer and the planter allows himself to be governed,
Avithout any attempt at individual inquiry and independent action. Socie
ties seem to be organized, not to inquire into the pohtical economy and con
dition of the landed interest, but to give aAA-ay, for large calves and fat sheep
as much money as they can collect — while those in whose names and foi
Avhose benefit they associate, continue to pay $15,000,000 a year for mili-
tary establishments and schools.

< • « * »

Foot-Rot in Sheep. — In answer to your correspondent respecting the foo*
disease at present in sheep, I beg to inform him that I have had some very
bad, and I think I have cured them by the folloAving plan, (at least they are
nearly well,) and I only operated on them about ten days ago. I cut off all
the hoof that required it ; I then AA-ashed their feet Avell fn very strong salt
brine ; after that a man rubbed in some salt, and did not care if they bled a
little. I am quite satisfied this has answered, but I continue to examine
them and rub more salt if they appear to require it, first Avashing the feet
well in brine. — Jl Subscriber.

Lime a means of preventing Plant Wounds from Bleeding. — This year,
I saved some fine pelargoniums from bleeding to death, after being cut dWn,
by dusting slaked hme over the wound. It might have the effect of preserv-
ing other plants under similar circumstances. — Falcon.

2 H 2

366 WOOL GROWING.

WOOL GROWING,

A GREAT AND MUCH NEGLECTED RESOURCE FOR AMERICAN

FARMERS.

Is the firm belief that under a policy that should force the manufacturer to come with
his light and inexpensive portable machinery to the wool grower, and the cotton grower,
with their expensive unportable machines of jiroduction, instead of sending the wool
and the cotton to the looms; or, what is the same thing, buying the cloths of odier coun-
tries ; in the firm belief that imder such a protective and common sense policy, the
growing of wool might be infinitely extended, and with profit, in the United States, we
shall continue to bestow particular attention on that branch of industry. As the best
means of promoting the best understanding of the subject, we have begun by ollering
the best book that in our judgment has yet appeared to enlighten the inquiring farmer
in all the branches of sheep industry. We find the following in the Vermont State
Agriculturist. It evidently comes from the pen of a writer i^ractically familiar with
what he undertakes to illustrate.

All kinds of wool are worked up in manufacturing. One mill may use
one kind, and another a different one, the differences being based on the in-
tended quality of the fabric, and on the kind of machinery used. Manu-
facturers, therefore, buy their wool with reference to the object in view.
The carpet-maker does not want the fine wool necessary for broadcloth, nor
can the latter be made from the coarse South American article employed by
the former. The price of wool is always graduated according to its quality
and the price of the intended fabric ; and manufacturers can generally pro-
cure in some part of the country the article they need. They are not,
therefore, confined to any particular section, and, consequentl}'-, it is of no
consequence to them what kind of wool the farmers in their immediate
neighborh'ood produce, as they can often buy cheaper at a distant market.
The charge of interested views, therefore, which I have so often encoun-
tered, is without foundation.

But now, what kind of wool is it most profitable for our farmers to raise ?
Coarse wool can be produced at the West, very much cheaper than in Ver-
mont. Coarse wool can be imported from South America for much less
than it can be raised in Vermont. Most of our farmers keep small flocks,
and can, therefore, pay them all necessary attention. Our climate is severe,
and the expense of keeping sheep is a matter of considerable consequence.*
It is, therefore, a matter of great moment to our far77iers, whether they get
fifty cents or a dollar per head more for their ivool than is now generally
obtained. How can this be done 1 Plainly by raising fine wool. I am
fully of the opinion that fine Saxony sheep of the right kind do as well in
our climate as any others, and will be found much more profitable. To
prove this, one has only to look at two flocks now kept within six miles of
Burlington, both of which have been kept at least two years in their present
situations. One of these is Saxon, and the other Merino. I am bold to
say that no one, after a careful examination of the two flocks, and after wit-
nessing the effects of wintering upon them, can decide in favor of the Me-
rinos. This examination will prove the best argument, and can be accom-
plished with but very little trouble. As regards the j(;?'q/?/, the following
figures xwill best exhibit that.

The flock of Messrs. Perkins & Brown, the avooI of which is now at the
Burlington Mill, averages two pounds to the fleece, and is considered cheap
at 7.5 cents per pound, or $1.50 per head. The general average of Ver-
mont wools, according to the best authorities, is about 21 pounds — say

* The estimate by those widi whom we have conversed, is from i^l.lO to $1.15 per
head, as the market price of the food consumed in winter. — Edits. P. L. !f Jl.

DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN MARKETS. 367

three, at from 28 to 30 cents — say 30 cents per pound. This will give a
balance in favor of the fine sheep, of 60 cents per head.

The wool of Messrs. Perkins & Brown may be considered light, but that
is partly accounted for by its condition. Their wool will shrink but 2S per
cent., when the Vermont wools will generally shrink from 40 to 42 per cent,,
and sometimes as high as 50 per cent. Not a tag, nor a particle of dirt of
any kind is to be found among this wool ; and it would add to the value of
ordinary wools were they offered for sale in similar condition.

It is often supposed that fine wools are so much lighter than coarse, that
the difference in price is balanced by the deficit in quantity. But this is an
error. The finest avooI in the world, that from which Cashmere shawls are
made, is valued on the spot at $1 per pound — the yield being about two
pounds, or $2 per head.* The common Vermont avooIs we have already
estimated at 90 cents per head, although the yield in weight is one-third
greater. The difference between fine Saxons and Merinos is not so great as
that, but it will be sufficient to induce the culture of fine wools in prefer-
ence to those of a coarser quality. C.

Burlington Mills, Jpril 21, 184S.f

EFFECTS OF DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN MARKETS.

We take the following passage from a leading free-trade paper,| and beg
to commend it to the careful perusal of our agricultural readers :

"It is extraordinary, that amidst all this state of things, all the difTiculties with M'hich
we are surrounded, there is nothing within ourselves calculated to cause them, or give
them any permanence. It is our intimate connection, in all financial and mercantile mat-
ters, with the Old World, that is destroying our prosperity, and inflicting upon us evils
which we shall not recover from very soon. Our domestic atfairs have, for a long time,
been in a healthy condition; our productions have been unusually abundant ; and all the
elements of wealth have been properly husbanded ; but the state of affairs in Europe
has tended more to depress prices for our products than any thing that has transpired
within our own limits. Whatever affects the consumption of our products abroad, de-
preciates prices for all that we have on hand. Our products and manufactures are valued
at about |2,000,000,000, of which only about §100,000,000, or one-twentieth part, is ex-
ported ; and whatever atfects the value of the portion exported, affects the value of the
nineteen-twentieths reserved for domestic consumption. We are thus at the mercy of
foreign countries. If any thing of a political nature transpires abroad, calculated to im-
settle the public mind and destroy confidence, we feel it through its inffuenceupon jjrices
for our products. If a financial revulsion spreads over the whole or any part of Europe,
the markets for our products are injured or destroyed, and immense losses fall upon oiu
merchants and producers. We have to bear the brunt of every political, financial, or
commercial disaster, which occurs in any and every part of the world. The raw mate-
rial, for the most important branch of manufacturing, is produced in this country, and we
are, therefore, dependent upon those countries which consume this staple so largely. If
markets for manufactured goods are injured by any revulsion or revolution, the manufac-
turer can stop his machinery, discharge his operatives, and for a time remain inactive,
with the loss merely of the interest on his capital; and when he resumes, the raw ma-
terial will be found so much depreciated that moderate profits are realized, without any

* Ure's Dictionary, article Cachemere.

■\ But if all were to turn to the growing or fine wool, where wouia come the wool for
carpets, blankets, and coarse clothing ? Still, where land is high, farms small, and keep
expensive, doubtless the fine wool is most profitable, but the course of things ought, and
we apprehend will be, that the pastures, and the manufactories for coarse wool, and
woollens, and cotton as well, v/iWfinalli/ be in the South — leaving enough for the more in-
genious and pains-taking Yankee to do with his more perfect machinery, to manufacture
\l\e finer fabrics for our own country and consumption, and ultimately for foreign markets;
after the world shall have succeeded in breaking down its colonial vassalage to England,
and established real free trade. — Ed. P. L. Sf A.

i The New York Herald.

368 DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN MARKETS.

material improvement in prices for manufactured goods. The manufacturer is thus more
favorably situated than the producer. The first can raise prices for liis fabrics by stop-
ping the sujiply, while the latter has no such alternative — he must keep on producing,
no matter what the price ; he cannot discharge his hands and let his land lay fallow,
neither can he turn his attention exclusively to the cultivation of other crops; cotton is
his staple product, and his cajoital is all invested in facilities for its production. The
manufacturer is only compelled to stop working his Jiiills, until prices for the raw mate-
rial become sufficiently depreciated to enable him to start again. Not so with the producer.
Jf the foreign demand becomes reduced by difficulties of a foreign character., and prices rapidly
fall off. he cannot stop the growth of his crop, and confine it at that stage., until prices recover and
become remunerative ; it must be picked at maturity, and a market found at some price. The
prodvicer is, therefore, at the mercy of the manufactiuer ; and, as such a large per cent,
of the crop is consumed abroad, we must not look for, or expect, any immediate change
in the relative position of the two parties.

" Great Britain is connected with every country on the face of the earth, of any com-
mercial importance ; and, consequently, through that country, we are nearly as intnnately
interM'Oven with the commercial operations of the world. Great Britain is such a large
consumer of our staple products, that we are deeply interested in her prosperity; and it
is, therefore, highly important to us, that every thing tending to her progress and advance-
ment becomes settled upon a soimd and healthy basis. We have long deprecated the
position we occupy relative to that country. It is humiliating and decidedly injurious to
our most vital interests. With greater resovtrces, with more elements of wealth within
our limits than any other nation in existence, we are absolutely dependent upon the pre-
servation of peace in even the smallest power in Europe. We are rapidly extricating
ourselves from this thraldom, but until we are completely removed from the influence
of foreign aifairs on our internal commerce, we shall periodically experience all the fluc-
tuations in prices, &c., which have, so far, in our history, marked our progress."

It is our intimate connection with the Old World that is destroying our pros-
perity. Our domestic affairs loere in a prosperous condition, and they were
becoming daily more prosperous under the system that existed prior to 1847
— that system which had for its object the bringing together of the plough,
the loom, and the anvil. The manufacture of iron having grown in four
years from 350,000 to 700,000 tons, and the production of coal from
1,000,000 to 3,000,000 of tons, these two articles alone had provided for
the farmers a market for their products almost equal to the largest amount
ever exported, and immense numbers of prosperous spinners and weavers
Avere enabled to consume largely of tiie products of the plough, while en-
gaged in fashioning other of its products, to the vast advantage of the owners
of land. In an evil hour, the farmers and planters determined upon a new
course of policy, the effect of which has been to close the furnaces, the
rolling-mills, the woollen-mills, and the cotton-mills of the Union, and to
put a stop to the building of new ones. The necessary consequence of this
has been, and must continue to be, that the men who should be working
mines and furnaces, and cotton and woollen mills, and those who should be
employed in building new ones, are compelled to fly to the west, there to
become producers of food, because they are not j^ermitted to follow their own
inclination, and remain at the East, consumers of food.

Let but the whole people of the Union adopt it as their fixed and deter-
mined policy that the loom and the anvil shall come and take their place
by the side of the plough and the harrow, and ten years will not elapse be-
fore the necessity for seeking in foreign lands a market for our surplus
food will be at an end. The owners of ploughs and harrows will then
grow rich, for they will then be enabled to return to the land the refuse of
the products of the land, and their crops will yearly increase in quantity :
whereas, let them continue the present course of policy, and they will
become poor, because they will with every year waste more labor and manure
on the roads — with every one they will more and more exhaust the land —
and with every one they will be more and more compelled to fly to the West,
there to seek new lands to be aeain exhausted.

ESSAYS ON WORN-OUT. LANDS. 369

THE MARYLAND PRIZE ESSAYS.

TO snow HOW BEST TO RENOVATE WORN-OUT LANDS.

We have read these essays, as far as published, with the attention due to
their authors and to the subject — our own apprehension is that the exhaus-
tion and desertion of lands like those in Maryland, possessing so many
advantages and resources, geographical and natural, is to be attributed, not
to any general ignorance of the proper rotation of crops, or of the indispen-
sable application of manures — nor even so much to ignorance of the general
principles of agriculture, such as the necessity for thorough draining
raid thorough tilth. All these things are generally pretty well under-
stood. In our belief the root of the evil lies deeper. It lies, if farmers
would take the trouble, and learn to trace it, in defective or mischievous
legislation. It lies in the encouragement given to foreigners to keep their
manufactories abroad, instead of forcing them to come with their capital and
their machinery here. It lies in enaWing them to ship to this country, in
the shape of manufactures, cloth, iron, &c., the food out of which these
articles are made, and which they as much represent in our country, as if
the potatoes, and the cabbages, and the flour consumed in making them, were
imported directly to the United States. There is not a yard of cloth, or a
ton of iron, or any other thing essential to national independence, for which
the water-power, and the iron and coal, and other materials might not be
found along the Potomac from Cumberland to Georgetown, and elsewhere
in our own country.

The very articles, and the only articles that can be cultivated in our OAvn
country, that will bear transportation to markets so distant as markets must
always be where the consumer is so distant from the producer, are of a nature
to exhaust the land and leave the landholder without the means to improve
it — exposing him to the necessity of going to the West, where cheap land
may be had with little capital, and where he may be sure at least of bread
for his famil)'.

There is one fact intimated in Mr. Stabler's essay, which is probably not
generally known, and in that proportion new to his readers, where he states
that land which had before been insensible to the action of plaster of Paris,
when raised by clover, or otherwise, to a certain degree of fertility, becomes
alive to the influence of that cheapest of all fertilizers, where it will act at
all ; and this, hke other facts and considerations that might be adduced,
would seem to show, that its action is not due to its attraction of fertilizing
poivers from the atmosphere. Hence it is, that we are left, so far as we
are aware, still in the dark as to the secret of its modus operandi. It
seems to be one of her hidden arcana, which JNature has so far succeeded
in covering up from the persevering scrutiny of the man of science. If in
this we are mistaken, we shah be among the first to rejoice at the exposure
of our ignorance of what is deemed a desideratum in agricultural inquiry,
for, as we trust, we have not yet to learn, that the first step in the pursuit
of knowledge is to feel our own want of it.

If Colonel Capron's opening suggestion, of the importance which ought
to be attached to the increase of money capital, in proportion to that which
exists in the land, be not altogether new, as it is not, he has yet rendered
service by the forcible reproduction of arguments too rarely insisted on and
too little attended to. There is a land mania, that prompts men to go for
quantity more than quality. Still the great question is, how Maryland and

Vol. I.— 47

370 COL. capron's essay on worn-out lands.

Virginia farmers are to command the money capital necessary to give
activity to their other resources? and here we respectfully think the means
suggested by the Colonel will fall short of, and prove inadequate to the end.
He recommends the sale of a part to raise means for improving the residue;
but, as we have more than once inquired, where all are sellers, who is to
buy? This difficulty being overcome, (and some money is assuredly neces-
sary to begin with, if a man is to realize his object within an ordinary life-
time,) and all which follows in this admirable essay makes the way clear
to the renovation of worn-out lands and dilapidated fortunes. It is this, how-
ever, this very difficulty, Avhich, to our apprehension, presents the gordian-
knot — would that, for the sake of the good old States above-named, we had
the sword of Alexander to cut it. Look at the solid columns of advertise-
ments of ^^ Lands for saW'' in the Virginia papers; and if we don't see the
same signs of embarrassment in regions nearer to the Colonel, we fear it
is not that they do not exist. How much of the land in his own county
would it require, if peremptorily brought under the hammer, to pay the debts
of the county? and what is the prospect of relief?

That something presses like an incubus on the bosom of old Maryland
there can be no doubt. What is it? And must not that something be re-
moved, before her poor lands can be made rich, and therefore does not the
answer to this problem lie at the bottom of this whole inquiry? If in the
midst of a field known to possess in a high degree the usual elements of fer-
tility, where all around looks rich and rank, promising an abundant yield,
one spot becomes sickly and refuses to groAv; don't the farmer know that
there is something wrong, and looks, expecting to find in the soil, at that
spot, superabundant moisture, or some poisonous quality working at the
root of his grain ? What then is the poison that checks the growth of the
population, wealth, and power of States like Maryland and Virginia and the
Carohnas, while all their sisters are growing apace ? States, which, were it
not impious to say so, one might think had been created by Providence in "a
moment of enthusiasm ;" and yet from which the people are constantly mov-
ing off! Look at little Delaware! Lands everywhere improving — rising
within our remembrance from 6 to 25 bushels of wheat to the acre, and from
$20 to $100 in price.

Look at the county referred to! unexcelled in natural fertility — unequalled
in the ease with which her soil may be cultivated and recuperated — yet what
do we behold in respect of her condition as evinced by her statistics? going
in the ten years previous to the last census from 20,216 down to 19,539!
Look again at the working of the system (and penetrate the secret if you
can) under which the agriculture of Maryland is laboring; and we find that
with advantages unsurpassed, if equalled — rich lands — easy navigation —
water-power — timber — lime — coal, and iron — delightful climate — open to
the ocean at all seasons — nearest to the great West — and if not pregnant of
great men, to develope her resources, never too proud to go to her neighbors
on either side in search of them ; and, after all, what do we witness ? Look
again at the census. In 1830, 446,913 population. In 1840, 469,232—
increase 22,319 — but where? Was it in the counties? Do you find any
more people there, or as many as fifty years ago, working at the loom and
the anvil, calling for the products of the plough and the harrow, that the
produce of the land may be consumed upon, or its refuse go back upon the
land? Not a word of it! — on the contrary, every thing they make for sale
goes into one great central reservoir — and the refuse, after consumption,
upon the gardens and garden-farms around Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New
York. Thus of the increase of 22,319 inhabitants in the whole State, in ten

COL. capron's essay on worn-out lands. 371

years prior to the last census, no less than 21,688 occurred in the city of
Bakimore ! leaving 631 for the 19 counties! So much for farmers and
planters wasting their substance in the cost of transportation and exchange,
yielding to the mere go-between exchanger what ought to be, all or nearly
all, divided between the producer and the consumer — as would be the case
if the fashioners of foreign goods were forced to come and settle down by the
side of the agriculturist in our own country, to buy of him to whom he sells
— for it cannot be denied, that every ton of coal, and every ton of iron, and
every bale of goods that we buy from abroad, represents, and consumes, in its
production, a certain and a large amount (the calculation is $25 worth for
each ton of bar iron) of the produce of the plough.

Yet of British iron alone, we imported in three days of last month 26,114
tons, at a single port; enough to have employed all the iron-works of Penn-
sylvania for a week, and tantamount to the importation from England in that
article alone, in three days, of $652,850 of agricultural and horticultural pro-
duce ! — the only difference being that, instead of wheat and potatoes being
sent, the British operative consumed them on the spot, kept the manure and
the profits of the manufacturer at home, and exported to ns the wheat and
the potatoes in the shape of iron. We have elsewhere shown, moreover,
beyond contradiction, how much more there is of coal and of iron consumed
in our country, when they are produced in our country, than when imported,
even at a nominally less price.

This is not the way they carry on the war in New England, where the
loom, and the anvil, the lapstone and the (tailor's) goose, are in sight of every
farmer. There the farmer sells his milk and his potatoes to the man from
whom he buys, or to him who makes in his own neighborhood his coat and
his shoes, his hats and his harness, his axes, rakes, scythes and ploughs.
He at the plough in Rhode Island — in Connecticut — in Massachusetts, can
scarcely imagine anything that is really needful, which is not manufactured
within an hour's reach of him ; and if there you don't find the country filled
with great men and stump orators exuberantly eloquent, you find all exempt
from debt — well dressed, active, lively, and going ahead: and yet, strange to
say, there are banks, and factories, and railroads, all over the countr}'- !
There are everywhere customers alongside of the producers — as Mr. Jeffer-
son recommended ; the manufacturer has taken his place alongside of the
agriculturist; and where there is combination and facility of union of
small means, for general benefit, there will there be schools and churches.
The young men will get wives and the young women husbands, obeying the
great injunction of God and the first law of Nature, to "increase and mul-
tiply," offering the highest premium and assurance for the "renovation of
worn-out land," for after all it is ^^ populatioii that makes the food come
from the rich so^7s."

If we don't give place to Colonel Capron's essay entire, it is because we
have not room for it in this number, — neither is it possible to publish the
half of the valuable suggestions we meet with in agricultural addresses.
There is in the one before us specification and exactness of detail, in the
way of outlay and income, which have not been given in his previous essays
— and which, as a mere work of example, is as salutary as such accounts are
rare, in that region. It happih^ exemplifies what deserves to be transferred
from his essay, as a copy into every school-book in the State for farmers'
sons, in place of — "command you may, your mind from play," which is not
altogether so true as that "farm accounts are absolutely necessary to carry
out any system." The last thing for which we could make an}'- pretensions
would be capacity to analyze his tabular statements — otherwise we may re-

372 COL. capron's essay on worn-out lands.

turn to this essay hereafter, making such notes, amplifying and critical, as
may seem to be appropriate. After all, the secret of his success in the simul-
taneous increase of his crops and improvement of his land, may, we appre-
hend, be found to consist chiefly in these, his own Avords: "All vegetable
productions have been consumed upon the place, and all the wheat, &c., have
been sold and converted in other feed and consumed by the teams and othei
stock."

Finally, might it not aid the distant reader, (unenlightened by the local
knowledge of those residing in Maryland,) if informed of the number of the
manufacturing population residing around a water-power, in the heart of
Colonel Capron's agricultural operations, and how far the railroad passing
contiguously along its border, if not through it, communicating equidistantly
Avith the capital of the Union and the commercial emporium of Maryland,
may have, notwithstanding the fulness and candor of his accounts, yielded
him facilities and advantages not yet altogether apparent, and Avhich may
serve to take his case very much out of the ordinary category of worn-out
farms of Maryland? To revert again to the subject of the money capital
needed for farming — Colonel Capron knows that in New England, where the
anti-bank mania has never taken root, any small farmer of industrious habits
and good character can borrow the means at a neighboring bank, for putting
up the requisite improvements and for buying manure ; but certain and be-
j'ond peradventure as he has shown to be the results of bought manure,
judiciously applied, how is the small farmer on worn-out lands in Maryland
to get the means to buy even lime enough — one thousand bushels — to manure
ten acres? Where is the bank in Maryland as in New England, belonging
to and under the management of industrious manufacturers, mechanics and
.shop-keepers, and sympathizing middling and small farmers like himself!
We ask where, and echo answers, where. No! the utmost "facility," so
called, the farmer on worn-out land, no matter how industrious, can get is,
a partial advance from his commission merchant, in Baltimore, (for even he
must be within the reach of a bank-runner and a notary,) until he can send
forward the little crop he has to sell. Let him go to one of the Baltimore
banks, however sympathizing, in its title, with the "farmer's" and the "plant-
er's" concerns, and he must first find "town endorsers," and then get ^'- ac-
commodation l''"' for sixty, or it may be, a great favor which he is made to
feel — sixty days and one renewal! Yet his lime don't begin to tell under
a year! If he travel over bad roads, or communicate by a twice a-week
mail with the Farmer's Bank — the Farmer's Bank, mind you — at Annapolis,
why even then he is told — "give us an acceptance on a good house in
Baltimore."

For all this we are not blaming the banks. They have only fallen into
the course of proceeding which might have been foreseen vi'hen they were
chartered. We are only stating the case as it is. Such are, it cannot be
denied, the sort of facilities, quoth! which it has been the wisdom of Mary-
land legislation, enacted by the Representatives of the landed interest, to
throw in the way of the industrious owners of "worn-out lands" in Mary-
land ! facilities under which the people of the countr}'' have become more
and more embarrassed, and their numbers diminished — their young people,
(the kw they breed,) going in search of facilities, either into the great cities,
there to swell the number of those who live as mere exchangers between
the plough and the loom ; or — they go away to the West, there to swell,
by transportation to the sea-board, the products of the ploughs they leave
behind them, at work on the worn-out lands that gave them birth.

GENERAL TILGHMAN's ADDRESS. 373

GENERAL TILGHMAN'S ADDRESS.

We have but this moment, when scarcely space for a hne is left us,
received General Tench Tilghman's address at the Prince George's exhibi-
tion. Its language, like its author, is easy and graceful ; but still we respect-
fully apprehend that there are obstacles to the general improvement of
Maryland agriculture, Avhich have eluded his penetration, wide and searching
as it has been. If, however, those who have large farms, much beyond their
means to bring them into productive activity, according to good systems of
husbandry, would, or could, cut off, here and there, small farms, and put on
them the necessary accommodations for tenants, and could and would " tenant
out" such portions, under improving leases, there would doubtless be an up-
rising of the country. In place of the disorder and decay which he so
faithfully portrays, a general melioration and thriving aspect would ensue —
but the cjuestion occurs again' — whence would come the tenants with means
to improve? Where men are running aAA^ay and dispersion is going on,
instead of being cut up, farms grow larger; but plant there the principle of
concentration — find out what that magnet is which draws men together, and
invites them and makes it easy for them to combine their powers in order to
give additional efficacy to their individual means, and an easier developmen*'
and application of natural resources, and then farms begin to be cut up as in
New England — for there land rises in value until a man can't afford to keep
what he don't use.

It is not so much that the men of Maryland lack the capacity to manage
large estates, but that they need the means which must always be propor-
tioned to the area to be cultivated and improved. Give to Tilghman Crawford,
on West River, the money capital to command the labor and the machinery,
animal and mechanical, and he would regenerate a whole county, provided he
could get suitable subordinate co-operatives. But it ought not to take a Craw-
ford or a Capron, for any good farmer ought to manage well any estate not too
large for its various operations, to come under his daily inspection. There
are no more exemplary specimens of finished husbandry to be found anywhere,
probably, than may be seen on Colonel Singleton's estates in Carolina,
where a single field of cotton spreads over one thousand acres. In neat-
ness and perfection of tillage, according to our observation, the rice and the
cotton plantations of the South, by no means fall behind the cultivation in
New York and Pennsylvania, if you go beyond the reach of tov.-ns and
the markets afforded by dense populations, where the loom and the anvil, the
saddler, and the shoemaker, and the hatter, are there to call for the produce
of high culture. There is — it cannot be denied — there is, in Maryland and
Virginia, that want of capital which can only be created where there is com-
bination on the spot, and population on the spot — where, in a word, the
ratio of consumers to producers is large, so that the least of time and labor
shall be lost in the act of transportation and exchange — and the refuse of its
production be returned to the great machine of production of all and for all
— the earth!

It happens, singularly enough, that in the very two counties referred to
most particularly by General Tilghman, for their laudable spirit in getting
up and maintaining agricultural societies, one of them doubly favored in that
way, both of them have been declining, not from, but in spite of these so-
cieties, during the time of their existence, so far as a sensibly diminishing
population may be considered as the sign of decay. In ten years prior to
the last census. Prince George's had fallen off 677, and Tallx)t 3000. But
we have not room to pursue the reflections sua-gested by these cxemplifica

2 I

374 AGRICULTURAL JOURNALS.

tions of the condition and wants of agriculture in our good old native State,
to which the standing of their authors would alone be sufficient to attract
the public notice. But as what may be said on these topics, in reference to
Maryland, if well founded, must be applicable to a large portion of our
country, and therefore worthy of additional consideration, we shall return to
the subject in our next — taking for a text the sentence in General Tilghman's
address, beginning — "The want of day laborers is felt everywhere, except
in the neighborhood of large cities." Agreeing with him as to the existence
of the malady, we may respectfully differ with him both as to the cause and
the remedy!

AGRICULTURAL JOURNALS INCREASING— HOW
ENCOURAGED.

While it is gratifying to see that the number of journals devoted to the
interest of this great pursuit is rather increasing, it is mortifying, at the same
time, to witness how languid is the demand compared with that which calls
new party papers into existence every day; and yet more, to see how mise-
rably and meanly the proprietors of agricultural papei's are rewarded, for
all their outlay and wear and tear of pocket and of mind and body. That
sort of reading and information which is most intimately connected with the
vital interests of the farmer and the planter appears to be held in the very
lowest esteem, and hence the necessity for placing the price of agricultural
journals below that of the meanest and the most vulgar vehicle of party trash
to be found in the country. You may find in any country, in any State in
the Union, hundreds of respectable men, very vehement patriots, and very
wise men in their own conceit, who do not hesitate to wager $10 on a horse-
race, or an election, or to give $2 and get fuddled on a bottle of champagne,
who yet hesitate and refuse to give the price of a bushel of wheat for an
agricultural journal, that shall keep them well posted up in all the practical
improvements making in the line of the very pursuit which constitutes the
business of their lives; and for ignorance of which, if possessed of a proper
pride, they ought to hang their heads in shame and confusion. True it is,
that men who have been reared in desuetude and contempt for books and book-
knowledge, rarely become alive to that greatest, and cheapest, most accessible
and most civilizing of all enjoyments, after they have attained to settled man-
hood and their habits have become fixed. Thus it is, that with them a large
portion of life which, with the man who is fond of reading, constitutes the
most delightful part of his existence, passes in sullen apathy, or in beastly
sensuality — but has such a man no thought for his children I Has he any
right to withhold from his sons, while their habits are being formed, the most
fruitful sources of knowledge in the way of their future pursuits and the most
powerful stimulus to excellence, because they have not been enjoyed by
himself? Of what, we would like to know, has a son so much right to
complain of a father, as for withholding from him the means of knowledge —
another word for virtue as well as power — which increases by all it feeds
upon, and the love of which rarely takes root unless planted in the days of
his youth? His filthy lucre he may give or withhold, for with it there is
no natural or necessary association of knowledge, virtue or happiness; a fool
for luck, has passed into a common expression — and of those who are born
to fortunes, to how many has it proved a bane and a curse ? But what words
can characterize the improvidence, not to say cruelty, of the father, who can
easily impart, and yet withholds frozn his children, the thirst for informaliou
and the means to gratify it ?

VERMONT STATE AGRICULTURIST. 375

What a curious document it would be ! What melancholy reflections it
would create, to see a catalogue of the books and journals provided for the
use of their families, by farmers well to do in the world, in m_any counties
that we wot of! How does it argue in proof of our boasted " progress," under
our much-vaunted republican government, that agricultural journals, to get
any support, must come down to or under $1 a year, and then waste half the
amount in the collection of arrearages, from subscribers who, after the first
year, remember to forget to pay ! And yet how often have we resolved that
we are the most enlightened, the bravest, the most wonderful, and the most
progressive of all the nations of the earth !

THE VERMONT STATE AGRICULTURIST.

We respectfully welcome the coming of this new member of a fraternity,
laboring as we all are, on short allowance, but with good heart, to benefit the
great productive industry of our country ; and we Avelcome our new col-
league the more heartily, as he enters on his task evidently with a high and
worthy appreciation, not only of the ends to be aimed at, but of the proper
means to be employed, and with first-rate capacity to use them with effect —
of all this the reader may judge by a single sentence.

The cultivation of the soil, says the Editor, "though consigned in olden
times only to the unlearned and unmannered of the race, appears of late to
have manifested a wonderful tendency to improvement. For many centuries
the employment of the brutish peasant, despised by the educated, oppressed
by the powerful, and neglected b)^ statesmen, has learned during the pas^
few years to claim for itself the highest rather than the lowest place in the
list of human occupations. From the classic land of Germany, from the
vine-clad hills of France, from the princely country seats of aristocratic Eng
land, from all parts of our own dear home of liberty and equahty, comes the
prolonged echo of Washington's far-famed sentiment: 'Agriculture is the
most healthy, the most useful, the most noble employment of man.' The
researches of a Davy, a Liebig, a Johnston, a Chaptal, a Dana, [a Ruffin,
and a Buel;] the influence of many men placed in the highest positions in
society; the enactments of legislatures ; and above all, the efforts of the
press, have at length roused the spirit of investigation, and set thousands of
inquiring minds upon the track of new discoveries. Men are becoming con-
scious of the true dignity of a profession so closely conversant with the infinite
wisdom and beauty of the works of the Creator. Labor has been at last
ascertained to be not the perversion, but the end of the human organization ;
and the first minds of the civilized world are no longer ashamed to till, with
their own hands, the soil from whence they sprung."

In the Editor of the Vermont State Agriculturist, we may hope to have
one, at least, who will co-operate in demanding from the government as much
for disseminating a knowledge of the sciences necessary to give the highest
degree of efficiency to agricultural labor and capital, as the government, at
the expense of the farmer and the planter, now bestows for increased effi-
ciency in the arts of war ; and by means of which, according to General
Jessup, the whole mifitia of the United States may be converted into well-
discipHned soldiers in about ninety days.

Should Messrs. Hopkins and Clarke unite with us in thus claiming for
the great art of production as much at least as is now appropriated of the
people's money for the barbarous arts of destruction, they will be the first
whose voice has been heard to cheer us in that fine of conscientious duty.

376 SOUTHERN WHEAT-GROWERS.

Most cheerfully will we step aside and leave them, as being younger, and
more alert, and powerful, to take the lead in such a path, following in their
wake at such respectful distance as we may.

N. B. The Vermont Agriculturist contains 16 pages quarto, and the price

is but $1!!

» » > » »

SOUTHERN WHEAT-GROWERS.

"Tb Whcat-Ch-owas of Georgia, and such portions of South Carolina, jSlabama, and Ten-
nessee as do business at Augusta. — The undersigned, having in progress the erection of two
merchant mills on the Augusta Canal, which it is hoped will turn out 100,000 bbls. of
flour per annum, wish to encourage the cultivation of wheat at the South. For that pur-
pose they offer and will pay the following premiums:

1st. $100 (in a silver pitcher) for the best 50 bushels of wheat.

2d. $75 for the 2d best do.

3d. §50 for the 3d best do.

4th. $25 for the 4th best do.

The grain to be delivered at the mills of the undersigned in the city of Augusta, on or
before the first Tuesday in September, 1849. It will be examined and the premiums
awarded, by three competent and disinterested gentlemen.

James L. CoLEKA:y.
John Cuxningham.

Augusta, October 13, 1S48.

There is, Ave presume, no doubt of the superior quality of flour from
southern wheat, as to dryness and capacity to endure, without souring or
getting musty, the effects of time in southern latitudes — hence the preference
given to Richmond and Baltimore flour for the great market of Rio Janeiro
and other southern ports.

It is gratifying to see the spread, in the south, of the persuasion that the
nearer the manufacturer comes to the great and expensive machine of pro-
duction, the better for all parties. The motion is a natural one, and would
take place everywhere, if vicious and monopolizing legislation did not inter-
pose to prevent it. It is as natural and mutually beneficial to have the weaver
go near the cotton with his loom, and the blacksmith go with his anvil near
to the horses to be shod and with his ploughs near the fields to be cultivated,
as it is for the mill to go to the grain to be ground. But here is an attempt
to turn labor and capital from the production of cotton to that of bread — the
consequence of Avhich will be that to the amount that the cotton-grower is
benefited, the wheat-grower is depressed by a still greater surplus of Ids
staple. What then is the remedy which applies to both and relieves both?
Clearly to increase, in our own country, the number of consumers for both
staples, to consist of persons ivho do not produce cither. The estimate is,
that in the act of bringing a ton of iron into market there are $25 of agri-
cultural products consumed — yet in three days recently there was imported
into New York as much iron as was equivalent to the importation of several
hundred thousand dollars of English or Continental agricultural products.

Georgia Manufactures. — The Savannah Republican says: — We are
gratified to learn that the United States government has made a contract
with the Milledgeville factory for the delivery of 300,000 yards of Cotton
Osnaburgs. This contract was made after a comparison by a government
agent in New York of the Milledgeville Avith other like fabrics from other
manufactories. This is not only a high compliment to the work done in
Milledgeville, but affords unquestionable proof of the remark so frequently
made, that, for obvious reasons, manufacturing in cotton can be done cheaper
in Georgia than in the Northern States.

NEW AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 377

NEW AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS.

The next best thing for a farmer, in search of knowledge of improvements
in the practice of his profession, after travelling with his eyes open and his
ears open, (for there is a good deal in that,) through old England, and New
England, is that of reading. The two may be profitably combined, but if
only one is practised, personal observation Avould seem to be the better of the
two, because then you will see and can make inquiries on the spot about a
thousand things that do not find their way into print. We would defy any
southern man, going from regions most highly favored of Providence, and
yet from which the young men are flying away, and the young women re-
maining in single blessedness — we defy any man possessing any power and
habits of observation, to go to any part of Connecticut or Massachusetts,
without seeing how indispensable are consumers near the plough to insure
prosperity to the plough. But this fact is more fully discussed and illus-
trated in all its phases in "The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil."

The purpose here is to state that two implements have lately been in-
vented in England, which it is said will '•'■ supersede ploughing!'''' The first
is a machine for cutting drains, four or five feet deep, doing it at one-tenth
the expense of manual labor; and the work so beautifully even and supe-
rior, as to admit of no question ; and every one who knows any thing of the
sources and the course of modern improvements in agriculture, knows that
deep and effectual draining is the first step which ought to be taken towards
agricultural improvement. But the expense of it has been hitherto so enor-
mous, that the richest lands in the old States have not been brought into
use : nor can they be in any State, except where there is the presence of a
prosperous and numerous class of consumers to demand and pay for the
heav}^ bulky, and perishable commodities, that would enable the farmer to
meet the expense of the operation. Even the population of New England
is not yet thick enough, to drain even that most magnificent country along the
Connecticut river. For, let us talk of population as we may, even in our
most thickly settled States, concentration (with its obvious blessings) has only
commenced. Compare, for instance. Great Britain with her 118,000 square
miles, with New York and Pennsylvania of about the same area. The first
containing, in 1840, twenty-four millions, while the two last numbered only
between three and four milhons ! But we are forgetting the two new imple-
ments w'hich it is said will '■'■supersede ploughing." The second one is a
subsoiler, by which "any given quantity of soil may be brought to the sur-
face." In favor of the benefit of subsoiling, the reasoning is as plain as a
pike-staff, and yet it hes in the compass of a nut-shell. Thus has it been
most plainly stated :

That where land has been ploughed time out of mind, the bottom becomes
solid as a road; the water is either entirely prevented from penetrating
deeper than the plough goes, or it takes a very long time in getting down ;
and when the roots and fibres of growing crops get so deep, they cannot
penetrate further, but curl round and round, the crop looks sickly, and the
farmer wonders what is the matter: where by using this subsoiler, the land
is well loosened, the water gets quickly down to the drains, the roots grow
right away, without any impediment, and the crop, of course, comes to greater
fulness and perfection. It is a fact of which the agricultural pubhc seems
not to be aware — or at least, we should say, it seems to us to be a fact, that
too much ploughing has done immense injury to the land. Its surface has
been so often scratched and exposed to the toasting (not the absorption) of
rains, like washing potatoes in a basket, that the very hfe of it has been
washed out and carried off. Now, if this subsoiler will pulverize, as is

Vol. I. — 48 2 i 2

378 WEIGHT OF FOWLS.

Stated, to any depth to let down the rain-water and the roots, and "supersede
ploughing," leaving the cultivator or harrow for surface work, to keep down
grass and weeds, its value is not easy to be calculated.

Now the next thing is to know the cost, and to get models of these things.
Who will write out for information and for drawings? Will the State Agri-
cultural Societies? will the American Institute? Nous verronsi But if an
instrument of equal importance in fashioning the products of agriculture,
instead of producing them, were announced, how long would it be before it
would be imported for the use of the manufacturer?

We have again and again, for years, called for and predicted the invention
of labor-sa\dng machinery, for ditching and draining, and behold here we
have them announced. Some years since that very ingenious machinist,
3]r. Page, of Baltimore, invented a contrivance for ditching by horse-power —
can any one tell us why it was not brought into use? If the first attempt
lacked something of effectiveness and perfection, that was nothing more than
■was to be expected ; or was it laid by under that impatient temper which
prompts men of genius to fly from one thing to another ? and why is it that
a beginning so promising as that seemed to be was not consummated and
carried into practice? We sometimes almost wish we had a ruler possessing
the munificence of an Alexander, or the combined genius and munificence
and power of a Napoleon, to offer to a Henry, a Norris, or a Page, an ade-
quate reward for applying portable steam-power to ditching and harrowing
and other agricultural purposes. If to be done by means of Indian-rubber,
the good year is not far off that we would witness its realization.

Weight of Foivls. — "A very Constant Reader" asks whether the 2 lbs.
and 2i lbs. spoken of as the average weight of chickens fed up to ninety
days old, refers to the live-weight or the weight of fowls trussed for the spit.
Of some fowls born on the 9th of June this year, the live-weights on the 7th
of September averaged 2| lbs. and 3 lbs. They were not of a large kind,
having more or less of the wood pheasant blood in them, and had been well
fed in a good walk, but were never cooped. Laying hens of the same breed,
four or five months old, averaged 31 lbs. weight. He thinks some statistics
of this kind might lead to useful results, especially with reference to the age
at which it is most profitable to send various kinds of fowls to market.
Guinea fowls, he notices, at three months old were larger than common
fowls. He asks if the price of fowls in London or in our large cities is re-
gulated by the weight; and if so, what is the average price of, say a hundred
weight of fowls three months old, averaging 2i lbs. or 3 lbs. live-weight?
In many parts of the country an egg is the same price, whether it be l^x oz.
or 2^ oz. weight, and fowls are a good deal subjected to the same rule. He
believes, however, that if there were any fixed price by weight, and poul-
terers Avilling to contract for considerable numbers, now that the railway
system is so well developed, large quantities would be sent from various
parts of the country to the London market. It would be well worth while
feeding fowls, which just now (September) are selling in many parts of the
country for Is., so as to fit them for the London market at 2s. or 2s. 6c?. —
English paper.

Weeds. — Ferns may be destroyed by perseverance in cutting them off as
they appear. Centaurea also. — Ibid.

IMMIGRATION AND AGRICULTURE. 379

IMMIGRATION AND AGRICULTURE.

We have the means of approximating the truth, as to the number of im-
migrants arriving at our sea-ports, and from what countries they come — but
couid not measures be adopted to ascertain to what trade or ocaipation the
aduhs belong, and yet more, to ivhat States they go to ''settle" on arrival?
Is it not wonderful, how little of that great element of increasing power falls
to the lot of Maryland, Virginia, the Carohnas, and Georgia, whose immense
districts, of upland counties at least, present such incalculable advantages?
Are the rulers and great men asleep in those States, or are they alive only
to the spirit of party and ofRce-hunting, that they do not look into such
questions and devise the means of sharing the labor and capital that are every
day pouring into the country from abroad ? Why do not the great men of
Virginia — for she has always abounded in great men — great in the news-
papers, and great upon the stump, great upon the race-course and great on
the floor of Congress — why do they not lay their heads together, to make
Norfolk, toward the south and west, what New York is towards the east
and north? What advantage does New York possess that Norfolk does not
possess or counterbalance ? Why not start steamboats from Norfolk to New
York and to Europe, to carry tobacco, and flour, and passengers, and bring
hack goods and passengers? If the Germans coming from the countries to
which Virginia sends her tobacco could be landed in Norfolk, what an open-
ing for them in the mountain and upland regions of the State !

There came from England, from the single port of Liverpool, during the
half-year ending June 30, 1848, in 405 ships, immigrants to the number of
65,128; and of these, how many does the reader suppose came to the United
States? Why only 62,756. The residue divided between fifteen different
places and countries. Now how many of these on arrival went south of the
Delaware? And who can calculate the amount of wealth, and the productive
power of the minds and the sinews of these 62,756 — say 125,512 added in one
year — to the resources of the States that caught them ? As to the intellectual
riches they brought — the power of genius, which transcends that of muscle,
as steam does that of horse-power, the New England States monopolize that
chiefly, because they alone have the practical good sense to set their true
value on concentration of population and variety of employment suited to all.

Poultry. — The article on Poultry, from the Newcastle Farmers' Club, is
wrong on several points Avhich we cannot here correct seriatim. The addi-
tion of a fifth toe is certainly one very distinguishing characteristic of the
true Dorking breed, whatever may be said to the contrary. The absurd
statement about Cochin China hens laying two or three eggs per day, is
copied from the second edition of Richardson's "Domestic Fowl," a work
so inaccurate as to be more Hkely to mislead than to guide the amateur.
The Cochin China is, nevertheless, a very valuable variety, and is to be pro-
cured in London, though at rather a high price. But the task of naming
prices and recommending dealers is a thankless one, which is better avoided.
Nobody Avould keep hens in "wards" who could possibly allow them to be
at large. The mode cannot be profitable, except on a small scale for high-
priced fancy breeds. There is at present no good, useful book on Poultry
that can be depended upon. One on the subject, by the author of the arti-
cles on "Ornamental Poukry," which have appeared in our columns, is now
in the press. — English paper.

380 THE CULTIVATION OF FRUITS.

ON" THE CULTIVATION OF FRUITS.

Thirty years since, '■'■ Horticulture'^ was a prominent feature in the title
of the paper commenced in Baltimore, by the senior Editor of the Plough,
the Loom, and the Anvil, under every discouragement, for the advancement
of all branches of rural industry. From that day to this, we have never
ceased to ^ipply every incitement we could think of, in the way of argument
and example, of denunciation and praise, to shame the negligent and to en-
courage those who are attentive to the cultivation of fruits and vegetables.

If we had our way, in doing what we believe would best promote the true
welfare of society, we Avould have Congress vote a gold medal, or a pension,
sooner to the man who, like Doctor Bayne, leads the way in horticulture, in
the midst of a country neglectful of that elegant, innocent, and useful art,
than to reward in that way the slayer of ten thousand guerillas. And were
we President of the United States, so help us Heaven ! we Vi^ould feel bound
to select such a man, for such a service to his fellow-men, for the governor-
ship of a province, sooner than Ave would one who could say in a public
despatch (we care not what may be his party pohtics) that " the most beau-
tiful scene he had ever beheld was when, by moonlight, he could see and
hear the crash of the houses in the thickest settled part of a Mexican town,
faUing under the force of his Avell-directed cannon-balls," destroying doubtless
the lives of hundreds of women and children.

But in all the examples we have seen to excite the proprietor of land to a
closer attention to horticulture, here are strung together the greatest number
of remarkable instances of the profit of fruit culture: for it seems, after all,
that if men are to be moved you must touch them in the ^^ pocket nerve.^^
Much more beautiful, however, is it to see a gentleman or lady prompted to
the care of fruit and flowers, under the refining inspiration of a love of such
pursuits, for their innocence and their amusing nature, and for the enjoyments
they afford them the means of imparting to their family and friends. Who
believes, for instance, that when Wilder is watching the budding and the
fruiting of a new pear, or the blowing of a new japonica; or ^Vlrs. George
Law, of Baltimore, is busy among her vines, or in her green-house, and
beautiful shrubbery; that their pure delights are contaminated by sordid
calculations of pecuniary interest ? For the mass of mankind, however, it
is true there is not so much — though with all there is some — time and means
that may be given con amore to such objects. With those, then, who are
compelled by necessity, or led by a coarser nature, to heed only such occu-
pation of time as will tend to fill the purse, the following may have its
weight.

We may add a case of a single vine of the Isabella grape, growing in the
rear of the office we lately occupied, which, spreading over a surface of some
twenty-five feet by ten, bore six hundred bunches of fine grapes — enough
to give to the family table twenty bunches a day for thirty days! Yet how
many — nay, how few, there are of farmers on a scale of 500 acres or more,
who have it in them to provide a single bunch of grapes, or an apricot, or
even a really good apple or pear in the whole year !

(From the Horticulturist.)
PROFITS OF FRUIT CULTURE.
Having seen, in a late number of the Horticulturist, an account of a cherry tree that
produced ten dollars' worth of fruit in one season, permit me to give a chapter of facts
on fruits, most of which are within my own personal knowledge.

Mr. E. Cable, of Cleveland, O., has an orchard of an hundred cherry trees, now twenty-
two years old. In the year 1S45, his crop sold for upwards of one thousand dollars.
Mr. C. manages his orchard better tlian any other person in the Union, so far as my knoW'

THE CULTIVATION OF FRUITS. 381

ledge extends. The trees are planted out twenty-five feet apart, the ground kept properly
enriched and cultivated, but no crop is put in.

Elisha Swain, of Darby, near Philadelphia, has the remains of a cherry orchard, num-
bering seventy trees, mostly of the Mayduke variety. In the height of the season, his
sales amount to upwards of eighty dollars per day. Mr. S., to ensure a good crop every
season, digs in a horse-cart load of manure to each tree in autumn.

Hill Pennell, of Darby, has twenty apple trees, of the Early Redstreak and Early Queen
varieties, that stand on half an acre of ground. In 1S4G these trees produced three hun-
dred bushels of fruit that sold in Philadelphia market for seventy-five cents per bushel,
or two hundred and twenty-five dollars for the crop.

]\Ir. Pennell has a grape vine of the Raccoon [Fox grape] variety, that covers the tops
of fourteen apple trees. It has never been pruned, but produces seventy-five bushels of
grapes yearly, that sell for one dollar per bushel. The apple trees produce good crops
of fruit, and under the trees is produced a crop of grass: thus making three crops from
one lot of ground.

James Laws, of Philadelphia, has a Washington Pliun tree that produces six bushels
of fruit yearly, that would sell in market for ten dollars i^er bushel. Five of tlie above
plums weigh a pound.

Mr. Laws has a small vineyard of Isabella and Catawba grapes, near Chester, sixteen
miles from PhiladeliAia, three-eighths of an acre of which came into bearing in 1845.
The sales amounted to three hundred dollars at eight cents per joound, or at the rate of
eight hundred dollars per acre from vines only four years old.

Brinton Darlington, of West Chester, Pa., has a Catawba grape vine, that produces ten
bushels of grapes yearly. This crop is worth forty dollars at market price.

Jacob Steinmentz, of Philadelpliia, has a Blue Gage plum tree that produces ten bushels
of fruit in a season, worth in market thirty dollars.

My friend, Eliwood Harvey, Chaddsford, Pa., the present season, gathered thirteen
quarts of gooseberries from one plant.

A gardener near Philadelphia has two rows of gooseberry plants, one hundred and
fifty feet long. One afternoon he gathered, with his own hands, six bushels of fruit, and
the next morning sold them in Philadeli^hia market for twenty-four dollars.

A gentleman of Philadelphia having two apricot trees, that produced more fruit than
his family could consume, concluded to send the balance to market, and expend the money
it would bring in purchasing wood for the poor.

Judge Line, of Carlisle, Pa. has had two Syrian apricot trees that have produced five
bushels to each tree in a season. In the Philadelphia market, they would have com-
manded one hundred and twenty dollars, in the New York market one hundred and forty
dollars.

Hugh Hatch, of Camden, N. J., has four Tewksbury Winter Blush apple trees, that in
1846 produced one hundred and forty market baskets of apples. Without any extra
care, ninety baskets of these were on hand late in the sjjring of 1847, when they readily
sold at one dollar per basket.

The following facts relative to fruit-growing near the North river, I have never seen
j)ublished. Three years ago, ]\Ir. Charles Downing, of Newburgh, N. Y., informed me
that a fruit-grower of his acquaintance in FishkiU Landing, N. Y., had gathered fifteen
barrels of Lady apples from one tree, and sold them in New York for forty-five dollars.
The same gentleman you speak of, in your Fruits and Fruit Trees of America, as having
sent to New York sixteen hundred bushels of plums in one season, has sent to New York
apricots, and received fourteen dollars per bushel for them. The above gentleman has
often said that his plum trees, which are set out about the buildings, and take up but little
room, pay him more profit than the whole of his valuable farm of two hundred acres.
Another fruit-grower in your neighborhood has sent four hundred bushels of Frost Gage
plums to market in one season, and received twelve hundred dollars for them.

Yet with all these facts before us, there is no full supply of any kind of fruit in the
Philadelphia market, except peaches. Many farmers and gardeners neglect setting out
fruit trees from a natural negligence; others dislike to pay fifty cents for a fine plum tree:
others again are afraid that everybody will go to fruit-growing, and bring down the price
to almost nothing. But we would ask, if there is any more danger of everybody com-
mencing on a large scale the culture of fruit, than there is diat everybody will commence
the raising of onions, or the making of razor strops, or the cultivation of roses?

Philadelphia^ Pa. B. G. Bosweli.

How deep Roots will go. — The roots of corn, clover, and flax will go down
three feet in a favorable soil, and even turnip roots in an open soil will go
down more than two feet.

S82 SOILS THEIR CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS.

SOILS— CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS.

For any one who reads the following, on soils and their constituent elements, no further
argument will be needed to show the expediency of the law passed at the last session
of the Maryland legislature, at the instance of Mr. Coad, of St. Mary's, for the appoint-
ment of a chemist, to traverse the state for the analysis of soils and fertilizing substances,
and for the delivery of lectures on the application of the appropriate sciences to the bu-
siness of agriculture. We are not exactly informed what measttres have been taken in
exectition of the law; but it is easy to see, or at least to hope, that in the performance
of his duties by the person appointed, the farmers may possibly at last be led, incident-
ally at least, to inquire whether they too have not a right to demand something for the
establishment of schools, fitted to diffuse, among the rising generation, some knowledge
of chemistry, botany, mineralogy, mechanics and engineering ; in return for the many
millions levied on them annually, for the maintenance of military schools and establish-
ments, and the publication of hundreds of thousands of military explorations and sur-
veys? So far, there has been too much of that tame servility to other interests and
classes, for which the best excuse is ignorance of what belongs to us ; but may we not
hope that the day is dawning when the cultivators of the soil will begin to reflect on
what is due to those who pay three-fourths of the amount raised for the support of go-
vernment; and the whole of that amount, at least three-fourths are paid for the support
of men and means that 7nay some day be needed for the work of war and bloodshed.'

We remember that soon after the law was passed, it was given out that it were a
scandal to the state not to take for granted, that the governor would not look to, or
be governed by, party views or obligations, in the matter of a purely scientific appoint-
ment; nor have we any reason to apprehend that he has been guilty of any such pros-
titution of power — on the contrary, without knowing or caring a rushlight about the party
politics of the appointee, exccj^t to hope that he would scorn to hold his trust on any such
footing, we allow ourselves to hope for the most auspicious results from this first step in
the march of public inquiry and attention to the claims of agriculture, suggested previ-
ously by senator Naill.

We need scarcely add the promise of our readiness in any hurnble way that we can,
by this journal, to facilitate the accomplishment of all the objects contemplated by the
law and the officer, worthy as he doubtless is, who has been appointed to fulfil it.

That the reader may form some definite idea respecting the composition
of soils, and of the practical value of correct chemical analysis, we selec*-
the following table from Sprengel, who stands high as an authority in all
subjects connected with agricultural chemistry. In a thousand parts of dry
soil there were found of —

Organic matter

Silica .....

Alumina ....

Lime .....

Magnesia ....

Oxide of iron

Oxide of manganese

Potash

Soda . . - . .
Ammonia ....
Chlorine ....
Sulphuric acid . , ,

Phosphoric acid . . .

Carbonic acid
Loss .....

Now, this table is very interesting and instructive to the inquiring farmer.
He learns from the analysis which it contains that the several substances to
which we have already referred, enter more or less into all fertile soils, and,
consequently, that the unproductiveness of any particular soil must be owing
to the want of some of these ingredients, in their proper proportions, or to
the presence of some deleterious matters — such, for example, as an excess
of the salts of iron. That this knowledge of the nature and composition

No. 1.

No. 2.

No. 3.

97

. . 50 .

. . 40

648 .

. .833 .

. . 778

57 .

. . 51 . ,

. . 91

59 .

. . 18 .

. . 4

8^ .
61 .

. . 8 .
. . 30 .

. . 1
. . 81

1 .

. . 3 . .

. i

2 .

. . trace . ,

, . trace

4 .

, . do. . ,

, . do.

trace .

. . do. . .

, . do.

2 .

. . do. . .

, . do.

2 .

40 .
14 .

• . 1 •
. . 1| . .
. . 4^ . .
. . 0 . ,

. do.
. . do.
, . do.

. . H

000

1000

1000

SOILS THEIR CONSTITUENT ELEMENTS. 383

of soils, when based upon accurate analysis, is not more curious than it is
practically useful, we shall now proceed to prove. It is almost unnecessary
to remark that no improving farmer will close his eyes against whatever
hght may approach him that will afford him clearer and more satisfactory
views of the composition and capabilities of that which occupies his every-
day thoughts, and upon which he and all creatures depend for subsistence
— the soil he cultivates. In reference to the preceding table, Sprenfjel ob-
serves that the soil of No. 1 was among the highest in the scale of natural
fertility, and had yielded heavy crops for sixty years without the applica-
tion of manure. The second was below the average of the district in point
of productiveness, nevertheless yielding good crops by judicious manuring.
The third was all but sterile, affording scarcely any produce ; but by the
means of superior culture and manure might be made comparatively pro-
ductive. Now, let us just take a glance at the contents of this table, and we
cannot fail to learn something that will throw considerable light on the arcana
of farming. The amount of organic matters, or that which gives peculiar
richness to a soil, it will be seen, is more than double in No, 1 than No. 3,
while the latter contains a greater quantity both of silica and alumina. Take
lime, another important substance in estimating the capabilities of soils, and
it will be seen that, while No. 1 has no less than fifty-nine parts of that
material out of every thousand. No. 2 has but eighteen parts, and No. 3
only four parts. This indicates great dissimilarity. Again, let us turn to
potash and soda, two very essential ingredients in all fertile soils, and it will
be seen that, while No. 1 possesses two and four parts respectively, Nos. 2
and 8 contain of these valuable salts only a mere trace. And, if we look
to chlorine and sulphuric and phosphoric acids, it will be seen that No. 1
contains an appreciable portion of them all ; No. 2 a much less quantity,
while No. 3 affords only a trace of their presence. It is of importance to
remark, that in the most sterile soils what is commonly wanting are salts
and phosphates. The foregoing will amply repay the closest investigation
of the practical farmer, and will show him what important aid analytical
chemistry can extend to his pursuits. Who can impartially look at these
investigations without perceiving a greater beauty, a clearer reason, and the
means of a more certain control over the various operations of the farm ?
Sprengel informs us, in reference to the second of these soils, that with good
culture and manure it produced heavy crops of clover, turnips, and potatoes,
particularly with the application of gypsum — a substance in which it will
be perceived, by referring to the table, the soil was very deficient. For
instance, how remarkably great is the difference between lime and sulphuric
acid in No. 1 and No. 2 ! Now, the remedy in this case of No. 2 appears
obvious, viz., the application of gypsum, which is a sulphate of lime, that
is, sulphuric acid combined with lime ; this manure being in both the mate-
rials, of which the soil is deficient. Agricultural chemistry affords nume-
rous instances of a similar kind ; and how much safer and more profitable
is it for the practical farmer to be guided by the unerring principles of
science in all his proceedings, than to depend merely on mere guesses or
haphazard experiments ! — Pharmaceutical Times.

Slugs. — The most effectual remedy against the depredations of slugs and
snails, is to strew fine sifted ashes, with a little soot and lime, well incorpo-
rated together, over the ground directly seed is sown, and again when the
plants are coming up, the lime and soot will form a coat over the stems and
leaves of the tender plants, until they are strong enough to resist the enemy,
and the sharp rough particles of coke or coal ashes will prevent their pass-
ing over it. The best time to sprinkle is when the dew is on the ground,
or after a shower. — Cantium.

184 DEATH OF A FARMER.

ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG AND ENTERPRISING

FARMER.

The following we take room to copy, from the Mark Lane Express, deeming it no in-
significant proof of the rising estimation in which agriculture and its successful and in-
dustrious followers are getting to be held, in a country to which we are always paying
tribute ; but — not of the right sort.

Who ever sees in an American paper, any words of resjiectful lamentation, at the
death of an eminent American farmer, as such ?

Were we to lose a Newton or a Minor, of Virginia, or a Thompson or Jackson or Jones,
of Delaware ; or a Daxis of Montgomery, or a Goldsboro of Talbot, or a Ducket of Bal-
timore county — said to be among the many crack farmers of their States resjsectively,
you would hear them lamented as good citizens, and good men, good husbands, and good
parents ; but would it touch any chord of sympathy in American bosoms, to deplore their
loss as good farmers? Is public sentiment improved up to that point in its estimation of
the most dignified and imjiortant of all human employments'?

It is indeed a painful task which falls to our lot in having to announce the
death of our esteemed friend, R. B. Harvey, of Harleston, Norfolk, cut off
in the prime of life, his age being only forty-four. We fully concur in the
eulogium passed upon him in the following remarks, extracted from the
Norwich Mercury —

On Wednesday morning, at Pulham, St. Mary, in the forty-fourth year
of his age, Mr. R. B. Harvey. The comparatively sudden demise of this
agriculturist at the moment when, having reached his hopes as a breeder of
Leicesters, and when his talent and industry had won for him the golden
opinions of his brother farmers, and had placed him in the high position as one
of the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society, can but be a matter of
deep regret to all agriculturists who hailed the attempts made by such men
as Air. Harvey, to unite the theory and science of the closet with the prac-
tice of the field. Besides his agricultural and professional occupations as a
valuer and auctioneer, Mr. Harvey found time for literary and scientific pur-
suits. He was a large weekly contributor, on agricultural matters, to the
Bury Post — and in him we ourselves have lost, not only a firm and highly
esteemed personal friend, but one to whom we are indebted for periodical
reports on the state of the agriculture of this county ; valuable both for the
accuracy of the information, and for the judgment and observation they dis-
played on all matters connected with that subject. Mr. Harvey was an
acute observer, and was gifted with an intellect beyond the range of com-
mon men. He was most energetic and zealous in the pursuit of any object
he had once undertaken — a quahty exemplified, we are afraid too fatally, in
his rapid dechne and death. On Monday se'nnight, he held an auction,
which, we are told, he continued throughout the day to conduct without
food or refreshment, although then suffering under the results of an attack
of cholera, and of anxiety for his wife's serious illness. On the Wednesday
following, he again attempted to fulfil his duty at another sale, but nature
gave way under the effort, and he was obliged to be conveyed home. Such
Avas his desire, that nothing he had undertaken should be left undone, to his
client's injury, that, although seriously ill and in bed, he made arrangements
the day after, with a friend, to secure their fulfilment, and, at the conclusion,
as if overcome with the labor, he turned himself to rest, taking an ominous
" farewell of his friend" — who felt a prescience that it was a last adieu.
On Wednesday morning he breathed his last, within a short distance of his
sick wife, who, confined by a most dangerous illness in another room, had
been unable for some time to visit the partner of her joys and sorrows. Our
deceased friend's career was short, his termination was sharp and decisive ;
but short as it was, it was marked by constant utility and industry, and by

/

CALVES. 385

a desire to move onward. The tenantry of Norfolk could have better spared
a greater man. Nay, they will never possess any member of their body
who will be more zealous in furthering the great interests of agriculture —
more earnest to maintain the high character of a Norfolk farmer — nor one
wJio better deserved at their hands the respect which is due to talent, indus-
try, perseverance, liberal feehngs, and an honest and upright discharge of
the duties of the station in which it pleased Providence to place him, and
from which he has been thus early summoned.

Flax-steep Water as a Manure for Flowers.—l used the water in which
I had flax steeped as a manure for flowers last year. I followed up the
experiment this year ; and although I was from home for five weeks, during
which time none of the plants had been watered with the flax-steep, still I
am able to say that those dahlias to which I used the water early continued
to keep ahead of those not so treated. The latter grew from two and a half
to three feet high, while those to which steep-water was applied, grew from
seven to eight feet high, when three of them broke down, the sticks being
too weak to support them against the wind ; but their beauty, from the
abundance of bloom, surpassed any thing that I have seen. I have not
manured my garden for these last four years, being determined to keep it
poor, in order to try what effect flax-water would, have in producing good
full-grown flowers in cold, worn-out soil. I am now able to assert that none
of my neighbors had such a blow of roses or dahlias as I have had ; and to
them I can refer, as they were witnesses of the fact. I had, by the use of
flax-water last year, dahlias from ten to twelve feet high, loaded with the
most perfect flowers. This rich liquid manure (for it deserves the name)
will be found invaluable to market gardeners, and growers of flowers. I
find it to annihilate the green-fly. — /. Dickson, British Flax 3Iills. [With
this communication we received a sample of the dahlia blooms in question ;
but they were so much spoiled by travelhng that no opinion of their merits
could be formed.]

Calves. — I have found the following method to rear calves the surest and
cheapest : let the calf run with the cow for a week, then shut it up, giving
it about ten minutes' sucking night and morning, having ready small par-
boiled carrots scraped backwards ; let the dairy-maid introduce the carrot
into the calf's mouth, it will soon suck it. Continue this easy process for a
few days, then cut in small pieces the boiled carrots and put them into a
trough, the calf will soon eat them greedily ; as soon as it does so, no longer
boil the carrots. Now give it as many carrots as it will eat, and put into a
little rack some good hay, with young rye and tar'^s. Thus attentively
managed, the calf Avill chew its cud in a fortnight ; gradually reduce the
time of its sucking, and finally wean it at the end of a month ; then tether,
on fine days, in good grass, still giving it the carrots at night ; let it go into
a warm, comfortable, clean pen. The cow from the beginning is either
fatting another calf or filling the pail for the dairy. In the following winter
let it have plenty of good hay and roots, Avith chopped straw and linseed, a
quarter of a pint to a quart of water, put into a jar or saucepan and placed
on the hearth on hot ashes ; in the morning it should be done but not burnt. I
have succeeded well with this simple method, and at eighteen months the
heifers have generally had their calves by their side. Should they scour
during the year, I give in balls one tablespoonful of Epsom salts, two of
flour, and two of whitening or chalk. — Anon.

Vol. I.— 49 2 K

386 THE VINE.

VINE CULTURE IN OHIO.

Cincinnati, September 17, 1848.
Dear Sir: — Your letter was handed me a few days since, on my return
to Cincinnati, having heen from home for eight months, on account of ill
health. Your correspondent wishes further information in relation to the
pruning of the vine. As stated, we usually plant the cutting at an angle of
forty-five degrees, or rather two cuttings, meeting within one or two inches
at the top, and widely separated at the bottom; that we may, if both grow,
remove one, without disturbing the roots of the other. We usually plant the
upper eye, about half an inch below the surface, and let one shoot only grow
the first year, and break out the lateral shoots from the three first eyes of the
young shoot, after which we suffer it to branch. The following February,
we cut the shoot down to three eyes, and alloAV the two strongest to grow;
and if very vigorous, we break out the laterals of the strongest shoot for
about three feet, and from the five first eyes of the other shoot, after which
they are allowed to branch without further notice. The following February,
when the vine has grown vigorously, we cut the strongest shoot down within
three feet of the ground, and tie that branch up for bearing, generally bind-
ing it in the hoop shape. The other, and weaker branch, we cut down
within five eyes of the ground. The long branch will generally throw out
blossom-buds at each eye, and when beginning to bloom, we stop the end of
the shoot, cutting it off two buds beyond the blossom; after this, we let this
shoot grow at random. The other shoot, that was headed dow^n to five eyes,
we let grow three or four shoots, according to the strength of the plant, and
break out the lateral branches up for five or more feet, according to the vigor
of the plant, to the point to Avhich we expect to prune for bearing the next
Spring. The following February, we cut out the bearing shoot or shoots of
the past season, close to the main stock. We then have three or four young
branches from five to ten feet long. Two of these we usually cut down
within five or six feet of the ground, for bearing fruit, and if there be three
remaining, cut off one of them close to the main stock, and head down the
two remaining shoots within four or five eyes of the main stock, and let two
eyes grow from each, according to the strength of the vine, and richness of
the soil, breaking out the laterals from these shoots for five or six feet, and
topping the laterals of the blossom branches, as before stated. In like man-
ner, each following year, in February, the bearing wood of the preceding
year is cut out close to the main stem, and of the young shoots, two or more
are cut down within five or six feet of the ground for bearing, and cutting
down two of the young wood within five eyes of the main stem, to produce
young wood, and if there be more young wood, cut it out close to the main
stem. Each year thereafter, the bearing wood of the preceding season is
cut ofl' close to the main stock, and new wood for the following season always
obtained from near the ground. Too much bearing wood is usually left,
from a desire to obtain a large crop of fruit. The consequence is, if the vine
is overloaded with fruit, it ripens badly, and does not bear strong young wood
for the following season. Our foreign vine-dressers are also too apt to head
the young shoots too much. In the colder countries of Europe they top the
branches of the new wood, when five or six feet high, to aid it in ripening,
and thin out the leaves, to let in the sun to ripen the fruit. In our hot cli-
mate the fruit is the better for a partial shelter from the sun. If the bearing
branches arc stopped after the fruit has sot, it is apt to check the growth of
the wood on the bearing branch. The wood prematurely ripens, and the sap
ceases to flow, and the fruit cannot ripen, but shrivels and drops off. In the
pruning, I have the Catawba in my mind. There are some varieties of de-

THE VINE.

licate growth, which require much closer pruning; and the Catawba will, in
poor soil, also require it.

The rot has been very destructive the past season, and my vineyards have,
on an average, suffered a loss of two-thirds of the fruit. But many vineyards
have escaped entirely, and the grape culture has increased so much that
we shall this season make double the quantity of wine that has been made
any previous year. My tenants, two months since, expected to make twenty-
five thousand gallons of wine. They must now learn to be contented with
eight or nine thousand gallons. The grape this season ripens better than
usual; and it will be the fault of the vine-dressers if their wine be not of
extra quality. My must is one-twelfth richer than in any former year. I
regret to say, that some of our ignorant vine cultivators will " do as they
did in Germany," break up the mark, mix it with cider, or water, and add
it to the previous pressing. It was attempted by a person whose wines I en-
gaged a few days since, but we detected the fraud, by applying the sacorcmeter.
I do not believe our grapes are more subject to rot than they are in some of
the best wine countries in Europe. My wine cooper, who is from Cham-
pagne, France, informs me, that he learns by his letters, that they have lost
four successive crops by the rot, and that many poor people have, from neces-
sitj^ cut up their vines, and planted potatoes and cabbages in their place.
In Europe, they usually turn over their ground, by trenching two feet, and
cut off all roots near the surface. On steep-side hills, we turn over the soil
from eighteen inches to two feet deep, and make sod or stone embankments
to the benches. We seldom take the trouble to cut off the roots near the
surface, and we have many fine bearing vineyards, where the ground was
ploughed only, and no surface roots cut off. But I believe the practice would
be a good one, as in a hot, dry summer, the vine will suffer where the roots
are near the surface. Where the sub-soil is clay, the roots will remain near
the surface. It might have some effect in preventing the rot, to compel the
r,oots to go lower down. In relation to our domestic wine, I risk nothing in
saying, that our dry Catawba, and sparkling Catawba wine, is destined to
take precedence of the dry and sparkling wines of Europe. No foreign wine
retains the aroma and flavor of the grape so well as the Catawba. If you
even make it into vinegar, you can tell the grape it is made from. But we
have the prejudices in favor of European wines to overcome. I will give a
singular instance to prove it. A few years since, a dozen of our winebibbers
were selected to test the quality of the wines made at the vineyard of Mr.
Resor, and my own. The Spanish Manzaniila wine, which is more' foetid
than any other of the stinking goat-skin wines of Europe, had been intro-
duced by Mr. Foote, and had become a great favorite, particularly with a
certain gentleman of our cit)% esteemed one of our best judges, and he was
one of the twelve judges selected. I slipped in a bottle of the Foote Man-
zaniila, that he had sent me as a present. Unfortunately for Mr. Resor, his
wine was turbid, and had not a fair chance. While the other gentlemen
were tasting the different bottles, and pronouncing judgment as they pro-
gressed, and separating the best from the other, my gentleman silently tasted
of all the bottles, but said nothing, reserving himself as the umpire, in case
of a difference of opinion. After tasting all, he remarked, "I will not now
say which is the best bottle, but I will say which is the worst," and placed
his hand on the bottle of Manzaniila. I replied, that "I agreed with him in
opinion, but was fearful he would change his, Avhen informed what wine it
was;" and added, "that bottle was a present from Mr. Foote, of his cele-
brated Manzaniila, that you admire so much." "Is it possible ?" said he, and
took a second glass, when he smacked his lips, and ejaculated, "Well, I de-
clare, so it is. How could I have made the mistake?" H. Longworth.

388 AGRICULTURAL FAIR AT BALTIMORE.

AGRICULTURAL FAIR AT FAIRMOUNT, BALTIMORE.

As we announced, incidentally, our design to attend the Agricultural
exhibition on the 9th ult., at Baltimore, it may be expected that we should
render some account of it; but for this we have little time, and, if possible,
less space.

We can only say, therefore, with the benefit of not a httle experience in
the way of observation of such things, that it was among the best in some
very important departments, especially when it is considered that it was the
first that has ever been gotten up in the United States; but candor compels
us to add, that, in some other branches, and such as we have been in the
habit of considering among the most essential to rural and domestic manage
ment and comfort, we might say rational enjoyment, it was one of the most
meager and deficient.

The first thing that must have struck the mind of all who witnessed it,
was, the extent and completeness of the arrangements. On the part of the
president and his assistants, nothing was omitted that forecast enlightened
by experience could suggest, or zeal and enterprise supply. It was fortu-
nate for the great interest at stake, that the incipient measures for this great
annual display of the agricultural industry of Maryland should have devolved
on the liberality and activity of such men as Mr. Glenn and Mr. Calvert,
the presidents respectively of the Baltimore Agricultural Club and of the
State Agricuhural Society. But all know how much depends, in all such
cases, on the energy of a few, while the many look on, as ready to carp in case
of failure, and say — "Ah! I said so — I told you how it would be!" as they
are sometimes slow to award the praise which is due, and which is in fact
the only reward, and even more than is looked for, by those whose energy
is only to be appreciated by the exhibition of what it brings into view' — so
much excelling, as in this case, the public anticipation.

On the part of the President of the Society, who seems, since his appoint-
ment, to have thought of nothing but how he should justify the confidence
which imposed it upon him, the wonder was as general as it was natural,
how he could have anticipated so many, even the smallest matters that were
necessary to the successful and easy working and going off of the whole
affair. For one of the largest and best exhibitions of cattle and sheep that
ever took place in this country, stalls, printed labels, food, water, bedding —
every thing was provided beforehand. There were tents handsomely con-
structed and arranged, with all the conveniences, for every committee. In
short, instead of waiting for sore and vexatious experience of deficiencies,
to indicate what would be necessary, he had every thing ready provided that
the most ample experience could suggest. Instead of waiting for supplies
of the needful hereafter, he boldly " took the responsibility," backed by
Mr. Glenn, and feeling sure that he was moving in a good cause, determined to
'■'■go aheacir^ and hence it was that, though it was the first, as we may hope,
in a long series of Agricultural Fairs ever improving and to be improved ;
there was on the ground, as we see it on board of ship — '■'■ a place for every
thing, and every thing in its ■place.'''' We choose to say thus much, as an
humble set-off' against that palpable, not to say culpable, apathy and indo-
lence on the part of hundreds who ought to feel an equal interest, and who
are yet slow to contribute in any form to the success of undertakings to
benefit and advance the principal business of their own lives.

It is not to be expected, that in a work like this, the spread of which is
equally over the whole Union, and the aim of Avhich is to disseminate prin-
ciples of the practice and of the economy of the plough, of universal appli-
cation and importance, that space could be allotted to details of personal and

AGRICULTURAL FATR AT BALTIMORE. 389

of local interest ; we must therefore content ourselves with declaring, in the first
place, the great pleasure it gave us to see and take by the hand, once more,
so many farmers and planters from all parts of old Maryland, worthily known
and distinguished for their intelhgence and patriotism — gentlemen differing, it
may be, in political opinions, but all agreeing in the soundness and wisdom
of the policy which would place the interests of the plough in the lead of
all public concerns ; and now that we may flatter ourselves with the advent
of an era, propitious to a calm examination and assertion of the claims of
agriculture, to precedence before all others, may we not hope that those who
follow it, in a sense of what is due to themselves, will hereafter make the
measure of attention to it, on the part of public men and candidates for public
favor, the test of popular confidence and the ground for public distinction ?
In token of an awakening sentiment, promising a consummation so devoutly
to be wished, we may note the unanimous adoption of the following resolu-
tions, ofTered by W. T. Earle, Esq., of Queen Anne's County, at a large
meeting of the State Society : —

"licsolvcd, As the sense of this Society, that as far as the Government of the United States
may be deemed constitutionally competent to the establishment of schools, academies, or
other institutions, for the diffusion of the sciences applicable to any art or industry; it
would better become a Republican Government, resting for support on the free will of the
people, and would better comport with the true interest and glory of the country, that
provision should first and most especially be made to disseminate a knowledge of the
sciences connected with the great art of cultivating the earth.

"ixfso/i'f(f, That a copy of this resolution be communicated by the President of this
Society, to the Members of Congress representing this State in both branches of that body,
in the hoioe that they may feel themselves called upon to use their best exertions to have
it carried out in the legislation of the country, so far as it may be deemed expedient to
make any appropriation for educational or scientific institutions of any sort."

For one, we heartily thank Mr. Earle for entering this wedge, — it being,
we beheve, the first expression on the part of a State society, of a determi-
nation to persuade our Honorable Representatives in Congress to recognise
the landed interest as really a State concern worthy of some consideration!
These resolutions will afford excuse for one meeting at least of the ^Agri-
cultural Cominitteel — which will be more than was held by that of the
Senate at the last session, aUhough, in his eloquent support of an humble
memorial in behalf of the agricultural community. Senator Johnson, who
would have referred it to a special committee, was ansAvered, that the stand-
ing committee was all-sufficient !

To return to the exhibition. That of cattle — the most important — was
perhaps the most varied, numerous, and excellent that has been anywhere
exhibited in the United States. When we say numerous, we mean not in
the number of oxen, for in New England you may sometimes see more than
a hundred yoke of very superior cattfe in a string. We mean in the
number of thorough-bred of the most distinguished races — Short-horns —
D.evons — Ayrshires and Alderneys — many of them imported or directly de-
scended from imported stock. Mr. Patterson, who kindly sent down a small
detachment from his magnificent herd, did it, as was understood, to gratify
the public curiosity, to see some specimens of what Devon cattle are, in their
full development of excellence ; and was content to let them be seen, with-
out seeking the distinction to be won by premiums — thinking very justly,
in his case, that "good wine needs no bush." The difficulty of procuring
any of his is sufficient proof at once of their purity and perfection ; and while
he goes on to import the best bulls of that race to be had in England, and to
throw off all that throw out the least blemish, even in his almost fastidious
judgment, they must continue to maintain their supremacy. We were our-
selves requested in the summer of 1847, to bespeak of him some ten or a dozen

2 K 2

390 AGRICULTURAL FAIR AT BALTIMORE.

young ones, but could only succeed in getting a bull and two heifer calves
for Colonel Hampton.

The show of sheep was truly admirable. Those from Mr. Reybold's
celebrated flock alone would have lent attraction to that department of the
show ; but when to the number of very superior Leicesters, and South Downs
besides, we add the draft from the famous flock of Colonel Ware of Virginia,
the product of such continued and skilful attention, no more need be said to
persuade those who were not present to be satisfied that the show of sheep
was enough to demonstrate that we have an ample basis on which to enlarge
the flocks of Maryland and Virginia, when the taste of the good liver and
the politician shall have been reformed into a preference for good mutton,
and a desire to have the loom near the plough, so far at least as to produce
and manufacture within these States respectively all the coarse woollens
they consume.

Though it was our wish totally to avoid even glancing at details, it would
seem to be due in courtesy to Mr. Clements, coming from another State, to
recognise not only his direct and very large contributions to the exhibition in
cattle, sheep, and poultry, but it is due to his judgment to state, that the
splendid Durham bull, so much admired, (bred by that spirited and hearty
son of Erin, Mr. Kelly,) as well as many more of the most admired animals
on the ground, were purchased through Mr. Clements' personal, and we may
add, professional, taste and agency. We understand, incidentallj'', that
Mr. James Goldsboro, of Talbot, had the good luck to secure of Mr. Clements
a lot of superior Southdown ewes, and one of Mr. Reybold's very best
Oxfordshire rams. Time will show what the cross v»'ill bring forth. What
we have further to say is, that Avhen young farmers take hold after this man-
ner, it is time for the Lloyds, and the Stevens, and the Martins, to look out,
or the Turners hi search of best mutton, may begin to turn their heads
towards other flocks.

Colonel Capron carried a wide and leading swarth as usual; and as for
Mr. Calvert, the president, it cannot be said of him that he pointed the way but
did not go it himself. The official account of particulars, which will doubt-
less appear in the American Farmer, will show tliat these gentlemen
appeared upon the ground with an eminence that we should characterize as
dangerous, if — they should ever withdraw their contributions.

Of the exhibition of fruits, of household manufactures, and of the products
of the dairy, we would fain say nothing, since the least said is soonest
mended. For ourselves, we have been accustomed to consider whatever
most evidences attention to these departments, as most auspicious of all
that makes domestic life comfortable and happy — for excellence there gene-
rally is the fruit, more or less, of housewifely thrift, and care; and who evei
yet saw a good pie in which the geod woman had not had a finger? The
prize prints of butter, from the Springfield Dairy, exhaling a sweet, rich,
grassy flavor not altogether new to us, might rival the celebrated products of
Pennsylvania dairies ; but when we considered how highly and deservedly
the reputation of Baltimore butter has risen within our recollection above all
other competitors, except that of Philadelphia, we must confess our great dis-
appointment at the meagerness of the exhibition as to number of competitors,
in that interesting branch of rural industry. The fruit from the orchards of
Druid Hill were just enough to show what might be efl^ected in that department
here, under circumstances eminently favorable to the success of all well-con-
ducted horticultural enterprises. We must not altogether forget, in this very
hasty notice, the honest mule — so sure upon the foot, and so true to the draft
— animals in whose favor and of whose value and virtues we have written,
and caused so much to be written by others, that if they had inherited the

AGRICULTURAL FAIR AT BALTIMORE 391

faculty of one of their great ancestors, they would speak in our praise.
This premium went, notwithstanding the very superior display of their kind,
where many have gone before, to old Talbot Countj'-, in honor of the spirit
of an officer of the navy — one among so many who have rendered like ser-
vices to agriculture, and who brought their sire, Peter Simple, from the shores
of the Mediterranean, to prove what a genuine fine animal of the long-eared
race is, and what he can do for his adopted country. For ourselves, we
promise never to join any party to proscribe such immigrants as the
premium Ass on this occasion, or any of his progeny. To save the last mail,
prior to our leaving for the Easton Cattle Show, and being thus cut off from
further communication with the Printer, we must close this hasty and very
imperfect sketch without time even to look it over.

Postscript. — No portion of the show seemed to attract more lively demon-
stration of a desire to go into the merit, not to say the marroio, of the subject,
than the hams exhibited for premium. The judges, strange to say, were
slow in their attendance, and in the mean time not a iew threw themselves,
it might be accidental!)^, in the way of being summoned as talesmen. As
if not satisfied with the verdict of the jury, they were brought up for a
second trial, and when we saw the prisoners at the bar, they had been so
sharply set upon, and so badgered, that they were reduced almost literally
to skin and bone. In our poor judgment, a hungry man would say, either
was good enough if there was enough of it. In view of the near approach
of the season for putting them in practice, we give the recipes by which
three of them were cured : —

Mrs. Horsq/^s [the prize] Ham ivas aired by the following Recipe — For twelve hams of
common size, take S lbs. brown sugar, half a pound crystalized saltpetre, and 5 lbs. fine
Liverpool salt; rub well with the mixture, and let them be a week in a cask with the
skins down, then make a brine strong enough to bear an egg, and add 2 or 3 quarts of
lye from hickory ashes, refined by boiling and skimming, cover the hams with the brine
and keep them down with a weight, and let them remain in it 3 or 4 weeks; then hang
up in a smoke-house, and after 24 hours, smoke with hickory wood until cured, say 6 weeks.
This ham was wrapped tliickly with timothy hay before being boiled.

Thomas DucketVs Mode of cunng the Hams offered at the Shmv, which took the Second Pre-
mium.— To 1000 weight of hams apj^ly the following mixture, well rubbed on. Five-
eighths of a bushel of fine salt, four poisids of saltpetre, two tea-cupsful of red pepper,
half a gallon of molasses, 1 gallon hickory ashes. Let the hams be packed away for 5
weeks with the rinds down. Then smoke for 3 or 4 weeks with green hickory wood
and tobacco stalks, (in which there is a certain quantity of saltpetre.) ami as soon as
sufficiently smoked, cover them with pepi^er and ashes, (well mixed,) and sew them up
in bags to protect them from the flies.

Thomas P. Slabler's Manner of curing tlie Bacon Ham exhibited for Premium. — After the
hog is put up to fatten, he is fed from 4 to 6 weeks on corn alone. When killed, suflered
to become entirely cold previous to being cut up. Each ham then well rubbed all over
with a heaped tea-spoonful of saltpetre; permit this to be absorbed by the meat, and
then rub well with the best Liverpool blown salt, filling the skin at the hock end. Place
it in the tub, skin downward, and cover the flesh side (now uppermost) with salt of the
same kind, a full quarter of an inch thick. Then let it remain fi'om twenty to twenty-five
days, according to the size of the meat. When taken out, carefully remove any salt
that may remain on the outside by washing in water, using a hair brush. Kang it up in
the meat-house, permitting no two pieces to touch each other — and smoke it constantly
for ten or fifteen days. Early in the spring rub it well all over with unslacked hickory
ashes, and rehang it as may best secure it from rats and mice.

After all, much depends on the age of the hog, his rearing and educa-
tion! For this, the genuine democratic school of the " largest liberty" is ad-
mitted to be the best, roaming where he listeth, and not put under inconvenient
restraint, until he arrives at years of sufficient discretion and experience to
hear a falling apple, or smell a chestnut or an acorn, a quarter of a mile ofT.

392 AGRICULTURAL FAIR AT BALTIMORE.

He should weigh from 140 to 160. The ham that took the second premium
(and there need be none better this side of WestphaHa, unless it be the pea-
fed ham of North Carohna) weighed, we should guess, about 13 pounds;
and the hog, therefore, probably, about 200. The hams of a hog, when cut
up for the tub, weigh about one-fifth of the whole, and they lose about one-
third in curing. Thus a hog weighing 200 will give two hams of 20 pounds
each, which will cure down to about 13 pounds.

All friends of improved husbandry, and all judges of what is indispen-
sable to its accomplishment, must have been particularly gratified at the
collection of agricultural implements and machinery. In that respect this
exhibition was very remarkable, proving clearly, how much, as we have
often said, the agricultural community is indebted to that class of manufac-
turers. As an obstacle to perfect tillage, and, of course, to abundant and pro-
fitable harvests of every thing; nothing is more prominent than the deficiency
in the number and character of the tools and machinery ivith which the
farmer works, tvhich inay be noted on almost every estate ; nor can asso-
ciated men, mind, and means, for agricultural improvement, be anywhere, or
any how, better employed, than in stimulating and rewarding such improve-
ments and inventions as will enable the husbandman to perform his work
with less labor, and at the same time more thoroughly. Some Philosopher
has declared that among the greatest benefactors of mankind, is he who in-
vents a new want. While the bon-vivant saj^s, of all things a new dish is
to be esteemed as the greatest blessing — all must agree, that he deserves
Avell, who invents the means of most easily supplying the wants we have —
and among such benefactors, he deserves to rank most conspicuously, who
invents and manufactures a new and more perfect agricultural implement.

After all, might it not have been worth while to appoint a committee to
report what proportion of the implements and machinery exhibited there,
and used in Maryland, is made within the counties ivhcre they are used, —
out of Maryland timber and Maryland iron — by men on the spot, who con-
sume Maryland beef, and bacon, and mutton, and potatoes ? We think we
saw well known and popular Yankee stamps on much of what was exhi-
bited. It Avas in view of that, that at a late dinner in the town of Lynn,
the great shoemaking town in Massachusetts, where about six hundred
lively independent citizens sat down to the agricultural dinner, being com-
plimented and toasted far beyond our humble deserts, Ave were prompted to
close some hasty remarks with — " the spread southward, of that sagacity and
ingenuity, which enable you to- draw the avooI of other states to your looms,
the iron of other states to your anvils, and the leather of other states to the
lapstones of Lynn." True, it may be said, that we ship our corn and our
flour to these eastern manufacturers of our ploughs, rakes, pitchforks, and
shoes ; but would it not be better to feed these on the farm, or find a mar
ket for them near to it — that the refuse might improve the farm, and the
expense attendant on distant markets be saved ?

Of Mr. Carey's address, ivith Avhich this great exhibition closed, his
enlightened views of the economy and practice of agriculture, as already
known by his writings, assure us that in it we shall have a valuable addi-
tion to the stock of agricultural philosophy and information.

We shall have something further to say about Mr. Ware's sheep, and
some other things ; this being but a hasty sketch, currente calamo — on the
eve of a long-intended, flying visit to the good old Eastern Shore of Mary-
land— the land of good hominy, good oysters, good ducks, good mutton,
good men, and what is more — gentlemen !

SERPENTS.

393

SERPENTS.

' The snake, renew'd in all his speckled pride
Of pompous youth, has cast his slough aside ;
And in his summer livery rolls along
Erect, and brandishing his forked tongue.' —
Detden.

WHEif I was lately at Brighton, I met
with a man who employed himself in sum-
mer in catching adders, the fat of which he
preserved and sold as a sovereign remedy
for hurts and swellings ; and some other
parts of the animal went to the apotheca-
ries to be used in their materia medica. In
catching them, tliis man used a forked stick
and a shorter one. With the first, he pinned
the adder to the ground, and killed it with
the other. He was accompanied by a dog,
who hunted for these animals ; and who,
when he had found one, contrived gene-
rally to seize it by the jniddle, and shake it
with so much rapidity against the sides of
his head, that not one adder in a hundred
had time to bite him before he killed it.
His owner, however, informed me that
^vhen this happened, his head instantly
swelled, but the swelling was almost as
quickly removed by rubbing it with some
of the fat of adders, which he always car-
ried about with him for the purpose.
Twenty-five adders yielded about half a
pound weight of fat. They feed on worms,
mice, frogs, and young birds ; and it would
appear that before the winter sets in, they
quit the open downs, where they are found
in summer, for the neighbouring woods, as
a laboring man told me he had found
nearly sixty of them clustered together in a
torpid state, while grubbing up an old tree
in one of Lord Chichester's woods. They
will, however, hybernize (if I may use the
■word) with the common snake and the
slow or blind worm,* each of these having
been found in close company with some
vipers in a torpid state, on digging a drain
in the grounds of Burwood Park, at Wal-
ton-on-Thames, a short time ago. The vi-
per-catcher whom I met with near Brighton,
assured me that he had frequently seen the
young vipers take refuge in the inside of
their mother by running into her mouth,
which she opens for that purpose, when
danger is apprehended. He also asserted
tliat they are produced alive, the ova being
hatched in the inside of the mother, from
which they probably creep, as they must
do at a more advanced state, after they

* It is a spring amusement for American farmers
to go in search of snakes while hybcrnizing, when
they find them in caves and clefts of rocks, knotted
together by hundreds. The stench is stated to be
sometimes intolerable. Bartram has some curious
particulars respecting snakes.
Vol. I.— 50

have made it their place of refuge.| He
said that, by letting vipers bite a piece of
rag, and then suddenly snatching it from
their mouth, he easily extracted the fangs,
and that he then frequently put the animals
between his shirt and skin, and brought
them away alive.

Snakes are easily tamed, an instance of
which is mentioned in Mr. White's Nattiral-
ists' Calendar : and there is a sUtflfed speci-
men of a snake now in the Zoological Mu-
seum, which, when alive, was perfectly
tame, and had been eleven years in the pos-
session of the gentleman who presented it
to that society, and to whom it showed a
strong attachment. Eton boys have always
been great tamers of snakes, and many
school anecdotes are current of the attach-
ment of these reptiles to their owners.

Snakes, unlike the viper, are oviparous,
and their eggs are linked together in a sort
of chain, and are each about as big as a
large marble. They feed on frogs, mice,
certain insects, and also on young birds. It
is supposed by some people that they de-
stroy the eggs of partridges and pheasants ;
and for this reason many gamekeepers
make a point of killing them. Snakes have
sometimes been found on the branches of
trees, which they have contrived to ascend
in search of yoimg birds. A person lately
informed me that he had found one in that
situation. A snake has been seen to swal-
low a newly-hatched chicken; and I once
observed one in the act of attempting to
swallow a full-grown frog. I was attracted
to the spot by the cries of the latter, which
were very loud and piteous. The snake
made great efforts to get the frog down
his throat, which he at last succeeded in
doing. If trampled upon, a snake which
has just swallowed a frog will at once
eject it.

The fact of snakes annually casting their
skin, or slough, is very curious. I have found
the slough of one twisted among some
young quicksets, in a hedge-row, and ap-
pearing perfectly fresh. The circumstance
of the cast-oft" skin being twisted in the way
I have found it among some twigs, seems to
prove that the snake had not been able to
rid hhnself of it without having recourse to
something not very pliable which would
assist her in the operation, although Mr.
White says, that he had found the slough in

f The mode of parturition stated by the viper-
catcher is generally supposed to be a vulgar error,
lie seemed, however, very confident that he was
right. May not the viper, like the lizard, be ovo-
viviparous ? Some naturalists are of this same
opinion.

394

BIRDS NESTS.

a field near a hedge. His account is as fol-
lows : — " About the middle of September,
we found in a field, near a hedge, the
slough of a large snake, which seemed to
have been newly cast. From circumstances
it appeared to have been drawn off back-
ward, like a stocking or woman's glove.
Not only the whole skin, but the scales
from the very eyes, were f)eeled off, and
appeared in the head of the slough like a
pair of spectacles. The reptile, at the time
of changing his coat, had entangled him-
self intricately in the grass and weeds ; so
that the friction of the stalks and blades
might promote this curious shifting of his
exuvise.

' Lubrica serpens

Exuit iu gpinis, Tcstom.' — Lucret.

'The slippery snake
Casts off its vesture in the thorny brake.'

" It would be a most entertaining sight
could a person be an eye-witness to such a
feat, and see the snake in the act of chang-
ing his garment. As the convexity of the
eyes in the slough is now inward, that cir-
cumstance alone is a proof that the skin has
been turned ; not to mention that now the
present inside is much darker than the
outer. If you look through the scales of
the snake's eyes, from the concave side, viz.
as the reptile used them, they lessen objects
much. Thus it appears, from what has
been said, that snakes crawl out of the
mouth of their own sloughs, and quit the
tail i^art last, just as eels are skinned by a
cookmaid. While the scales of the eyes
are growing loose, and a new skin is form-
ing, the creature in appearance must be
blind, and feel itself in a very awkward
and uneasy situation."

birds' nests.

" The nest of a bird is one of those daily miracles,
that, from its familiarity, is passed over without re-
gard."

His late majesty, William IV., when re-
siding in Bushy Park, had a part of the
mizen-mast of the Victory, against which
Lord Nelson was standing when he re-
ceived his fatal wound, deposited in a small
temple in the grounds of Bushy House. A
large shot had passed completely through
this part of the mast; and in the hole a
pair of robins had built their nest and
reared a brood of young ones. It was im-
possible to look at this without reflecting
on the scene of blood, which had occurred
to produce so snug and peaceable a retreat
for a nest of harmless robins.*

There is something extremely curious in
the situations which birds sometimes select
for their nests. Mr. White mentions two
remarkable facts of swallows having built
their nests in odd situations, one on the
handles of a pair of garden-shears, which
were stuck up against the boards of an out-
house : and the other on the wings and body
of an owl which hung dead and dry from
the rafter of a barn. Calling some years
ago on the Rev. Egerton Bagot, of Pipe
Hayes, in Warwickshire, I was surprised at
seeing a swallow's nest built on the knocker
of his hall door, and the parent bird in the
act of incubation. When the door was
opened, which it frequently was in the
course of the day, the bird left her nest for

* This piece of the mast, with a bust of Lord
Nelson upon it, was subs(^<iuently placed at the
upper end of the dining-room at Rushy. Both arc
nowin the armory at Windsor Castle.

an instant, but returned to it as soon as it
was shut. I afterwards learned that the
swallow hatched, and that her young arrived
at maturity. Some birds indeed show great
boldness in the situation in which they build
their nests, as if they dejoended on the kind-
ness and protection of those under whose
care they seem to place themselves. Thus
a whitethroat had its nest for three years
on a vine close to my parlour window,
where it was quite open to observation;
and a robin built on the shelf of my green-
house, which was constantly visited, and
the bird looked at while sitting ; but she
never left her nest at those times, and
seemed perfectly secure and contented.
There is something very agreeable to me
in this confidence of protection, which I
like to think that I have produced by con-
stantly feeding them in winter, and never
allowing their nests to be taken.

A robin, when its young are in danger,
has a peculiarly plaintive note, which I am
well acquainted with, and which I never
hear widiout going to its assistance, when I
generally find that a cat is prowling near
the nest containing the young birds.

I may here mention a curious fact %vhich
was communicated to me by a gentleman
who had it from Mr. Knight of Downton.
A fly-catcher built in his stove, for several
successive years. He observed that the bird
quitted its eggs whenever the thermometer
was above 71° or 72°, and resumed her
place upon the nest when the thermometer
sunk to a lower point. This fact leads us
to account for another, respecting ostriclies,
which are observed by travellers to be ab-

BIRDS NESTS.

39;

sent from their eggs in tlie day-time, but sit
upon them during the night.

Robins, more than any other birds, I have
noticed, vary the form of their nests and
the materials of which they build them, ac-
cording to the situation in which they are
placed. Thus the robin which had its nest
on the shelf of the greenhouse, surrounded
it witli a great quantity of oak-leaves ;
while another, which for two years built
among the straw which covered some sea-
cail in my kitchen garden, formed it of a
small quantity of moss only lined with
hair. Another, which built in a trained
gooseberry-bush against the wall, used also
moss and hair, with some few oak-leaves ;
and in some instances, where these birds
have used a large hole in a bank to build
their nest in, the sides of the hole have
been comj^letely filled in with a great quan-
tity of oak-leaves. I am inclined to think
that some birds, and the robin among the
number, vary the materials with which
their nests are built, not so much from the
difficulty of procuring them, as for the pur-
pose of assimilating them more nearly to
the appearance of the objects which surround
them. I have observed this in a wren's
nest, built in the thatch of a yshed, and in
another in a hay-rick, both of which resem-
bled in appearance and colour the surround-
ing objects. I have also observed that,
when a chaffinch has built its nest against
the branch of a tree, the moss or lichens
which compose the exterior part of the nest
are similar to those which are found on the
tree itself; so that it is sometimes very dif-
ficult to perceive the nest. This fact is cu-
rious, as it shows a powerful instinctive
foresight.

A long-tailed titmouse built its nest on
the branch of an elm in Bushy Park. The
branch is about the thickness of a man's
leg, and the nest is so artfully placed upon
it, and made so nearly to resemble the knot
of a tree, that it is extremely difficult to per-
ceive that it is a nest. In order to render
the deception more perfect, the nest is by
no means too large an excrescence from the

branch, as it would be if it was as large as
those built by the same species of birds in
more concealed situations. On the contrary,
it is small and compact, and covered with
lichens so nearly resembling the bark of die
elm, that, although the branch of the tree
overhangs a foot-path, along which at least
thirty workmen passed and repassed four
times a day, and the nest was not more than
two feet above their heads, it was a long
time before any one of them perceived it.

This nest has a feather fixed so as to
overhang the entrance, forming a sort of
valve, and which was pushed in or out as
the birds left the nest or came into it. It
must have been placed there to add to the
warmth of the nest, during the very cold
weather which prevailed at the time the
birds were laying their eggs.

The nest of the wood-pigeon, although
composed of the rudest materials, (only a
few dead sticks,) will be found admirably
calculated for the purpose of concealment.
How often have I observed the strong rapid
flight of a wood-pigeon from a tree, and
heard the noise produced by his wings, and
yet have been unable to discover its nest !
This has been owing to the deposits of dead
leaves and small branches v/hich have been
accumulated in various parts of the tree,
and which have exactly the same appear-
ance as the nest itself

The excrement of the young of many
birds who build their nests without any pre-
tensions to concealment, such as the swal-
low, crow, &c., may at all times be observed
about or under the nest, while that of some
of those birds whose nests are more indus-
triously concealed is conveyed away in the
mouths of the parent birds, who generally
drop it at a distance of twenty or thirty
yards from the nest. Were it not for this
precaution, the excrement itself, from its ac-
cumulation, and commonly from its very co-
lour, would point out the place where the
young were concealed : when the young birds
are ready to fly, or nearly so, tlie old birds
do not consider it any longer necessary to
remove the excrement.

Science of Cooking. — Liebig's Chemistry of
Food contains a method for cooking meat,
founded on scientific principles. It is re-
commended to introduce the joint into water
in a state of quick ebullition, allow it to re-
main in this state for a few minutes, and
then so much cold water is to be added as
to reduce the temperature down to about
160°, in which state it is to be kept for
some hours. By the application of boiling

water at the first, the albumen is coagulated,
so as to prevent the water from penetrating
into the interior of the joint and extracting
the soluble juices. — English paper.

Give us the meat — whether it be a North
Carolina pea-fed, or a Maryland corn-fed
ham, or a Philadelphia calf's head, and
" Aunt Fanny " to cook it, and we would go
against the great chemist for a premium any
day!

396

THE ATMOSPHERE, VEGETATION, &c.

THE ATMOSPHERE, VEGETATION, &C.

The atmosphere supplies the vegetable
creation with the principal part of its food ;
plants extract inorganic substances from the
gTOund, which are indispensable to bring
them to maturity. The black and brown
mould which is so abundant is the produce
of decayed vegetables. When the auttmr-
nal leaves — the spoil of the summer — fall
to the ground, and their vitality is gone,
they enter into combination with the oxy-
gen of the atmosphere, and convert it into
an equal volume of carbonic acid gas,
which consequently exists abundantly in
every good soil, and is the most important
part of the food of vegetables. This pro-
cess is sloAV, and stops as soon as the air in
the soil is exhausted ; but the plough, by
loosening the earth, and permitting the at-
mosphere to enter more freely, and pene-
trate deeper into the grovmd, accelerates the
decomposition of the vegetable matter, and
consequently the formation of carbonic acid.
In loosening and refining the mould, the
common earth-worm is the fellow-labourer
of man. It eats earth, and after extracting
the nutritious part, ejects the refuse, which
is the finest soil, and may be seen lying in
heaps at the mouth of its burrow. So in-
strumental is this reptile in preparing die
grounds, that it is said there is not a par-
ticle of the finer vegetable mould that has
not passed through the intesdnes of the
worm ; thus, the most feeble of living crea-
tures is employed by Providence to accom-
plish the most important ends. The food
of the vegetable creation consists of carbon,
hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, all of which
plants obtain entirely from the atmosphere,
in the form of carbonic acid gas, water and
ammonia. They imbibe these three sub-
stances, and after having decomposed them,
they give back the oxygen to the air, and
consolidate the carbon, water, and nitrogen
into wood, leaves, flowers, fruit. When a
seed is thrown into the ground, the vital
principle is developed by heat and mois-
ture, and part of the substance of the seed
is formed into roots, which suck up water,
mixed with carbonic acid from the soil, de-
compose it, and consolidate the carbon. In
this stage of their growth, plants derive
their whole sustenance from the ground. As I

soon, however, as the sugar and mucilage
of the seed appear above the ground, in the
form of leaves or shoots, they absorb and
decompose the carbonic acid of the atmo-
sphere, retain the carbon for their food, and
give out the oxygen in the day, and pure
carbonic acid in the night. In proportion
as plants grow, they derive more of dieir
food from the air and less from the soil, till
their fruit is ripened, and then their whole
nourishment is derived from the atmo-
sphere. Trees are fed from the air, after
their fruit is ripe, till their leaves fall ; an-
nuals, till they die. Air-plants derive all
their food from the atmosphere. In north-
ern and mean latitudes, winter is a time of
complete rest to the vegetable world, and
in tropical climates, the vigor of vegetation
is suspended during the dry, hot season, to
be resumed at the return of the periodical
rains. Almost all plants sleep during the
night ; some show it in their leaves, others
in their blossom. The mimosa tribe not
only close their leaves at night, but their
foot-stalks droop ; in a clover field, not a
leaf opens till after sunrise. The common
daisy is a familiar instance of a sleeping
flower ; it shuts up its blossom in the eve-
ning, and opens its white and crimson-
tipped star, the " day's eye,'' to meet the
early beams of the morning sun ; and then
also '• winking Mary-buds begin to ope their
golden eyes." The crocus, tulip, convolvu-
lus, and many others, close their blossoms at
diti'erent hours towards evening, some to
open them again, others never. The con-
drille of the walls opens at eight in the
morning, and closes for ever at four in the
afternoon. Some plants seem to be wide
awake all night, and to give out their per-
fume then only, or at night-fall. Many of the
jessamines are most fragrant during the twi-
light; the olea fragrans, the daphne ado-
rata, and the night stock, reserve their
sweetness for the midnight hour, and the
night-flowering sirius turns night into day.
It begins to expand its magnificent sweet'
.scented blossom in the twilight, it is full-
blown at midnight, and closes, never to
open again, widi the dawn of day ; these
are " the bats and owls of the vegetable
kingdom." — Mrs. Sontervillc

Three Faults in Nurses. — To lisp in a baby
style, when the same words in an endear-
ing tone would please as well. The reverse
should be the practice ; the voice clearly
emphatic, and each syllable clearly articu-
lated for imitation. — To tell of witches.

ghosts, or goblins. — To direct a child to act
like a man, whereas it is not becoming for
a boy to ape the man, but only to conform
his demeanour to his age : for every age has
its own peculiar decorousness.

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

397

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

Applaud not on slight acquaintance ; be
not over hasty in thy commendations.

For the deed that speaketh for thy sister
may not be owing to a deserving motive ;
nor the words of her mouth proceed from
the sincerity of her heart

By giving applause rashly, thou mayest
be reduced to recall thy opinion ; and thy
praises hereafter will not avail thy deserv-
ing friend.

Commend not thyself with thy lips ; but
let tliine actions speak in thy behalf

Yet tlie merit of thy deeds may be lost
in ostentation, and she that seeketh praise
will be disappointed therein.

Also, if thou disclaimest the encomiums
to which thou art fidly entitled, they shall
be justly taken from thee again.

For she who aifecteth to despise com-
mendation, shall not enjoy the privilege
thereof.

Be not exalted, though all men commend
thee ; for thou knowest not but the breath
of a whisper may convert their eulogies
into revilings.

Give not applause to another, because
she bestoweth it on thee ; lest the world
detect thy motive, and thy words be held
in derision.

Dost thou commend another for virtues
more conspicuous in thyself, take heed lest
thou art accounted the trumpeter of thine
own deservings.

Be not too cold in the general applause,
yet utter not thy praise without due delibe-
ration.

Praise not a woman to tlie skies, for her
most consummate perfection is inferior to
the angels.

Thy friends will not thank thee for the
extravagance of thy praise, for undeserved
commendation is the severest satire.

Rather at all times reprove than ap-
plaud ; for the child and the undistinguish-
ing fool clappeth his hand in ecstasy ; but
the judgment of the understanding examin-
eth and approveth.

CENSURE.

Be not fond of reproving, for she who
assumeth the place of a censor will be es-
teemed arrogant, and she who reproveth
others must look well to her own conduct.

For the ill example of tlie reprover is a
scandal to her office, as the mal-conduct of
the preceptor bringeth his precepts into con-
tempt.

Beware how thou censurest, lest in like
manner thou art censured.

Trust not to the appearance of a crime,
nor to the breath of report.

For as the specious show of virtue may
be hypocrisy, so the appearance of ill may
be sometimes deceit.

The news of the day may awaken sus-
picion, but justice condemneth not without
strict examination.

The report that prevaileth may be the
workings of envy ; and envy is unchari-
table and delighteth in false accusations.

Prejudice is unjust ; for the look is not the
true index of the mind ; neither doth a day
or a week discover the behaviour of a
stranger.

Be tender of the good name of others,
so mayest thou find the same tenderness
toward thine own indiscretions.

If thou art forced to condemn, condemn
with gentleness and compassion; so shall
thy praises last longer than thy beauty, and
thy reputation, from the ornament of thy
youth, become the comfort of thy age.

INSINUATION.

Let not thy praises savor of irony ; nor
thy compassion be mixed with evil reflec-
tions.

Lisinuation is sly : the breath of her mouth
is subtle, and penetrateth imobserved into
the heart of her that heareth.

It is sharp as the east wind ; it blasteth
wherever it blows.

It is poisonous as the breath of the slow-
worm ; it is venomous as the lick of the
young adder.

She affecteth to pity the backslidings oi
her friend; yet she taketli an opportunity
to spread the knowledge of them abroad.

She speaketh in all gentleness of her
neighbour, and concludetli wishing things
were otherwise with her.

She crieth, it is hard to judge ; but sayeth,
can everybody be deceived ?

The glance of her eye conveyeth evil
thoughts, and the motion of her head givedi
room for the apprehension of ill.

If she pointeth with her finger, yet sayeth
nothing, her looks are more significant than
the strongest phrase of speech.

Her silence is more destructive than die
clamors of the loudest calumny.

Insinuation is barbarous and full of guile;
she puttedi on the face of friendship to
abuse.

She smileth while she stabbetk to tiie
2L

398

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

heart; she woundeth where she preteiideth
Jove!

Be open in thy censure or censure not ;
for he who deserveth not reproof should be
free from the breath of suspicion.

AFFECTATION.

Who is she that cometh tripping with
nice, mincing steps, wliose tongue hspeth
sweetness, and whose form is not her own.

She hath put olT herself, and decked lier
with the borrowed phunes of others, by
whom she is despised.

She affecteth melody of voice, and har-
mony of speech, and wisdom, and import-
ance, and dignity of deportment.

Her dress is antic and singular, her attire
is gaudy or rich to excess.

She hath forgotten bow to tread; she
neither danceth nor walketh along.

She distorteth her features to appear
lovely; she laugheth at nothing, to show tire
beauty of her teeth.

She washeth her cheeks till the native
bloom departeth away ; then painteth with
the artificial rose.

She placetli herself in the midst of an
assembly ; she delighteth to dance alone ;
she sitteth in the foremost seat of the the-
atre.

She is pleased to hear herself speak ; she
listeneth not to the voice of anotlier.

She breaketh in upon the discourse of her
sister, and finisheth the sentence her neigh-
bour hath begun.

She taketh on her to instruct the wiser
than herself, and to teach what she under-
standeth not.

Dost thou laugh at her folly, she will pity
thy ignorance, and go on in her own way.

She is incorrigible till she seeth herself in
the form of another ; yet even that may not
make her sensible of her error.

Beware, O daughter of beauty, lest thou
art misled by affectation ; for thou wilt be
neglected by others, till, by reflection, thou
discoverest the cause, and art led to despise
thyself.

MODESTT.

Behold the daughter of innocence ! how
beautiful is the mildness of her countenance!
how lovely is the diffidence of her looks !

Her cheek is dyed with the deep crim-
son of the rose ; her eye is placid and se-
rene, and the gentleness of her speech is as
the melting softness of the flute.

Her smiles are as the enlivening rays of
the sun ; the beauty of her presence as the
silver light of the moon.

Her attire is simple ; her feet tread with
caution, and she feareth to give ofl'ence.

The young and the old are enamoured
with her sweetness ; she carrieth her own
commendation.

She speaketh not the first in the conver-
sation of women, neither is her tongue heard
above her companions.

She turneth not her head to gaze after
the steps of men ; she inquireth noi of them
whether they are going.

She givetli not her opinion unasked, nor
stoppeth her ears to that of another.

She frequenteth not the public haunts of
men, she inquireth not after the knowledge
improper for her condition.

So becoming is the behavior of modesty,
so lovely among the daughters of women !

Is there who hath forgotten to blush, who
playeth with the wanton glances of her
eyes, who replenisheth the cup when the
toast goes round, and despiseth the weak-
ness of her sister.

Shame shall overtake her in the prime of
her days, and the years of her widowhood
shall be infamous as they are many.

INTREPIDITY OP A LADY.

A HEMABKABLE instance of intrepidity
and coolness was exhibited at the Blue Lick
Springs, a few days ago, by Miss L., a belle
of Bourbon county in this State. Miss L.
and Mr. F., a gentleman from the South, on
their return from an excursion on horseback,
were riding down the long hill, about a
quarter of a mile from the hotel, at full
speed, the lady being a little ahead. At a
sudden turn of the road, the gentleman's
saddle turned, and he fell from his horse,
•^ut his foot remained in the stirrup, and the
horse, although his pace was somewhat

slackened, kept on his way, dragging the
fallen man upon the ground. The young
lady seeing this, reined in her own horse by
sudden efibrt, leaped from him v.hile he
was still in rapid motion, ran back, seized
the other horse by the bridle, and released
her gallant from his very perilous situa-
tion.

This feat was witnessed by hundreds at
the Springs, who could find no words strong
enough to express their admiration of the
daring courage of the beautiful young hero-
ine.— Louisville Journal.

AN ACUTE LADY.

399

ROSE INSECTS.

I HATE made a discovery during the last
week, which must be useful, I d.ink, to all
who grow roses extensively. I have long
kept my rose trees quite clear of green fly
and other spring vermin, by using a mixture,
the receipt for which was communicated to
my employer by Mr. Paul, the well-known
nurseryman and rose-grower, of Cheshunt.
The recipe is this : — To 12 gallons of cold
water add 1 bushel of soot and about half a
peck of unslacked lime ; stir and mix. Let
the mixture stand for 24 hours. The soot
will have come to the surface ; skim it off.
It may be afterwards used several times.
Syringe the roses from a hand-syringe or a
garden-engine. But although this mixture
is perfectly efficient during the spring, yet
about this time of the year an enemy ap-
pears on whom it has no effect. This is a
small white grub with a scaly brown head,
the scales of which are of a surprising
hardness and strength. It destroys the
fleshy part of the leaves, leaving them ske-
letons of fibres, not unlike fine lace. Though
curious, these destroyed leaves are in a
mass unsightly. I need hardly add that
this premature destruction of the leaves se-

riously injures the health and strength of
die plants. I have, till very lately, been
quite unable to get rid of this pest by any
other method than the laborious one of pick-
ing them off by hand, ^^diich, in large col-
lections, is all but impracticable. The lime
and soot mixture, tobacco-water, snuff, sul-
phur, I have all tried in vain. I find, how-
ever, that by adding 1 lb. of soft soap to the
12 gallons of lime and soot water, this grub
is effectually and quickly destroyed. The
soft soap should be dissolved in warm wa-
ter before it is added to the other ingre-
dients.— Williai7i Corvell, Haikybiiry, Hert-
ford.

The reason for giving place to things like
the above, from English papers, ought to be
obvious to all. They often atibrd hints that
may be turned to practical account for otlier
purposes than the one for which they were
originally used. In this case, for instance,
does it not occur that this mixture of soot
water, and lime and soap, might be used
for destroying the fly in the tobacco-beds
and on various other occasions, such as in-
sects on beds and vegetables, and shrub-
bery in gardens, &c.

AN ACUTE LADY.

Ladt Browne and I were going to the
Duchess of Montrose's. The evening was
very dark. In the close lane under her park
pales, and within twenty yards of the gate,
a black figure, on horseback, pushed by, be-
tween the chaise and the hedge, on my
side. I suspected it was a highwayman ;
and so I found did Lady Browne, for she
was speaking, and stopped. To divert her
fears, I was just going to say, " Is not that
the apothecary going to the duchess V when
I heard a voice cry " Stop !" and the figure
came back to the chaise. I had the pre-
sence of mind, before I let down the glass,
to take out my \vatch, and stuff it within
my waistcoat under my arm. He said,
" Your purses and watches." I replied, " I
have no watch." " Then your purse." I

gave it to him ; it had nine guineas. It
was so dark that I could not see his hand,
but felt him take it. He then asked for
Lady Browne's purse, and said, " Don't be
frightened, I will not hurt you." I said,
" No, you won't frighten the lady V He re-
plied, " No, I give you my word I will do
you no hurt." Lady Browne gave him her
purse, and was going to add her watch, but
he said, " I am much obliged to you ; I wish
you good night;" pulled off his hat and rode
away. " Well, ' said I, " Lady Browne, you
will not be afraid of being robbed another
time, for you see there's nothing in it."
" Oh ! but I am," said she, " and now I am
in terrors lest he should return, for I have
given him a purse with only bad money,
that I carry on purpose."

Evils of Taciturnity. — Persons advanced
in years are prone to taciturnity ; and it is
to this circumstance that the diseases of the
lungs, which so often carry them off, are in
a great measure to be ascribed. The lungs
need exercise as well as the muscles ; and
by reading aloud, by singing, and conversa-

tion, they may be preserved in a state of
health. The advanced age of schoolmas-
ters and otlier public speakers may perhaps
be attributed to the exercise given to their
lungs. Hence the importance to the agf.d
of preserving an erect posture, to give their
lungs full play.

400

THE BEAUTIFUL.

EFFECT OP EARLY IMPRESSIONS.

As an evidence of the apparent trifles
that make lasting impressions, and are some-
times followed by the most important re-
sults; and to show, too, how carefully parents
should watch all the influences that may
serve to give a set to the character, and to
jeopard the happiness of their children, a
case occurs within our remembrance, to
which we may now allude, as no reader
can guess at the parties; the fond, the de-
voted, the congenial, and the gallant bro-
ther, to whom alone the secret was confided,
having long since followed the subject of it
to "that undiscovered country from whose
bourn no traveller returns."

The case was that of a young lady of sur-
passing personal beauty, and the highest order
of intellect and feeling. Just then passing
from childhood to womanhood, she was on a

visit to Washington, and passing, in a pic-
ture gallery, from one object to another, a
young gentleman, worthy of her w^hose pu-
rity he wished to guard from ofience, con-
trived adroitly, and as he thought at the
time without its being perceived, to put
aside one which might do for the inspection
of artists and professional eyes, but not, as
he thought, proper for hers. Unfortunately,
as it may have been, for her, she saw
enough to discern the nice honor and deli-
cacy of the action and the motive ; and,
whether, unconsciously, she was already
prepossessed, from that moment he became
the idol of her heart and dreams. After
promise of reaching the highest points in
the •' steep ascent," he fell into an early
grave, and she — she " fled also as a shadow
and continued not !"

THE GRAVE OF THE BROKEN-HEARTED ONE.

Mat the softest drops from the fount of tears,

That holiest thoughts impart.
Fall, pure at the grief of childhood's years.

On the grave of the broken heart.
When the early springs their violets bring.

May the purple blossoms part ;
And the maiden fragrance ever cling

Round the grave of the broken heart.

May the hues of the rainbow linger here,
With the shades of even blending;

While the murmurs of nature fill the ear.
Like the chants of saints descending.

Should the sunmier's sun look with ray so
strong

On its young and tender flower,
Let the leafy trees spread their shades along
To temper his scorching power.

But as evening comes, and he sinks in the
wave.
While the hours of the day are dying,
Let his last soft beams kiss the peaceful grave

Where beauty and youth are lying ;
And when winter's snows in their white-
ness shower,
Oh, pure may they rest on her clay!
And pure may they fade in the sunbeam's
power.
As she faded from earth away !

THE BEAUTIFUL.

How beautiful, and bright, and fair
The impress that '< God's " mercies bear !
His pencil paints the blooming flowers
That laugh beneath the summer hours :
It is his fragrance that the rose
Upon the wind so freely throws ;
Alike beneath his powerful hand.
The hills and mountains at command.
Arose in majesty and height.
Mementos of his power and might.
The young moon shining upon high.
The snow-capp'd pillars of the sky.
The hopes that rise when troubles darkle,
The glow-worm lights that gleam and
sparkle j

The Borealis, lovely light,
That crimsons o'er the northern night ;
The ignis fatuus of the fen
That dances o'er the lonely glen —
All tell the power of that high hand
That holds us in its great command.
To love all beauty, is a joy
That savors least of earth's alloy.
It seems a remnant of that state,
Ere sin, and wo, and strife had date ;
A lingering memory of the light
That shone arovmd man's first birthright.
Oh ! it with joy can gild the span
Of e"en tlie loneliest, lowliest man !
Emilx.

®l)c Iplottigl), tl)t loom, mitr tl)( ^nml

Vol. I. JANUARY, 1849. No. VII.

THE SLAVE QUESTION.

[We invite the attention of our readers to the following letter of Mr. Carey, of this
city, to an eminent citizen of the Nortli ; the more especially as it makes apparent the
grounds of the harmony it would earnestly inculcate between the North and the South,
on the most exciting topic of the day.]

Dear Sir : — The great question of the day is that of Slavery, its exten-
sion or its limitation, its perpetuation or its extinction. It seems likely to
swallow up almost all others. Whigs abandon the party with which for
years they have acted, and vote for "free soil" candidates to whom, as
Democrats, they have always been opposed ; while Democrats vote for Whig
candidates, in the hope to find in them the men least likely to sanction inter-
ference with their rights of property ; and yet, of all who talk so loudly .and
sometimes act so strangely, scarcely a single one seems disposed calmly to
examine the subject with a view to ascertain what are the effects likely to
be produced by the measures they advocate, upon the condition, physical,
moral, intellectual, and political, of the objects of their solicitude.

How shall we free ourselves from the curse of slavery ? Such is the question
that now stands foremost for consideration throughout a majority of the
States south of Mason and Dixon's line. Throughout the Union, all desire to
see by what means the nation shall be freed therefrom, and the question has
been repeated times without number in every State, without having ever as
yet, to my knowledge, produced a satisfactory reply. The abolitionist
answers by a refusal to eat the sugar of Louisiana, or to wear the cotton of
Georgia, preferring to feed and clothe himself by aid of the labor of the
Hindoo, who, nominally free, labors a whole month for two rupees — about
one dollar — and dies of the pestilence that follows a famine resulting from
the excessive poverty produced by taxation ; and to that he is subjected for
the support of armies that are kept on foot for the purpose of compelling him
to give to the collector o( rents half or two-thirds of all the miserable product
of labor employed in the cultivation of high and poor lands, while surrounded
by low and rich ones that have relapsed into jungle, because of his inability to
continue the system of drainage established before India had become the prey
of European conquerors. If, happily, he survives the famine and the pesti-
lence, he sells himself for a term of years, to be transported to Demerara or
Jamaica, there to perform the labor of a slave, and to endure treatment
similar to that to which was due the disgraceful fact, that the slaves libe-
rated at the period of emancipation were fewer in number than had been
imported, whereas, from the superior treatment of American slaves, the three
or four hundred thousand barbarians that were imported are now represented
by three or four millions of comparatively civilized men.

The abolitionist refuses to consume slave-grown cotton, because he thinks
that while his labor is so valuable the slave can never become free, and
that by diminishing the market for the product of his labor, he himself will
become less valuable to his owner, and that thereby will be produced in the
latter a disposition to set his bondman free. In this opinion he does not
stand alone. It may be found in every English journal. The people of Eng-

VoL. I.— 51 2 12 401

402 THE SLAVE QUESTION.

land would supersede the use of the sugar of Cuba and Brazil, and the cotton
of America, substituting the product of the half-starved and wretched Hindoo
for that cf the well-fed laborer of Georgia and Alabama, with a view to dimi-
nish the vnlue of the slave, and thus facilitate his emancipation. It is held to
be impossible that men should become free while worth six or eight hundred
dollars each, but that they will certainly become so, if their labor can be
rendered so valueless that they themselves will become a burden to their
owners. Such is the almost universal impression ; and having found it recently
in a letter addressed by you to the Rev. Mr. Danforth, 1 avail myself of the
opportunity to examine how far it is correct, believing it can be shown that
while it is one which tends greatly to maintain the existing alienation
between the people of the Northern and Southern portions of the Union,
and is, therefore, injurious, it is not less erroneous, and will not stand
examination.

Your views on this subject are thus given : " It [slavery] may be abo-
lished in all of them when slave labor ceases to be profitable : when
labor in the cotton growing States is of no more value than it is in many
parts of Europe. No one would accept a slave, white or black, in Ireland."
As nothing in this world can remain stationary, the value of labor must
either increase or diminish — i. e., it must become either m.ore productive of
the commodities required for the convenience and comfort of man, or it must
become less so. In one of these directions lies freedom. In the other, con-
tinued slavery. If the almost universal view, which you have thus expressed,
is correct, every one who desires that all men may become free should unite
in the effort to diminish the productiveness and consequent value of slave
labor, thereby impoverishing the slave and his owner, and the necessary
consequence of such an effort must be increasing hostility between the
North and the South. If, on the contrary, it is incorrect, and if freedom be
likely to follow naturally from an increase in the productiveness, and conse-
quent value, of slave labor, then every man, North, South, East, and West,
should be disposed to unite with his fellow-men in the effort to promote that
increase of value, thereby enriching the master while improving the condi-
tion of his bondsmen; the necessary consequence of which must be increasing
hamnony between the various sections of the Union.

One of these Anews is true, and the other is false. The great mass of the
community believe, with you, that truth is to be found in the first ; but I be-
lieve that it will not be difficult to show that it must be sought for in the
last, and it is with a view to show, as I think conclusively, that such is the
case, that I address you this letter, well convinced that you would rejoice to be
satisfied that the course towards freedom lies in the direction of measures
tending to enhance the value of the negro, and that those who would follow in
it must adopt a policy directly the opposite of that which has ruined Ireland,
impoverished the land and its owner, and rendered the Irishman a burden
from which his oivner — for such he is — is glad to free himself by aid of
■wholesale clearances, by evictions from lands which the poor tenant has him-
self reclaimed, and by the destruction of tenements which the poor occupants
themselves have built, careless whether their unfortunate late inhabitants
perish in the immediate neighborhood, die of starvation in the wretched
cellars of Liverpool, fall a prey to ship fever in the passage to Canada, or
freeze to death on the inhospitable shores of the St. Lawrence.

Throughout the world, and in all ages, freedom has advanced with every
increase in the ratio of wealth to population. When the people of Eng-
land were poor, they were enslaved, but with growing wealth they have be-
come more free. So has it been in Belgium and in France. So is it now in
Russia and Germany, and so must it everywhere be. India is poor, and the

THE SLAVE QUESTION. 403

many are slaves to the few. So is it in Ireland. Freedom is there un
known. The poor Irishman, hmited to the labors of agriculture, desires a
bit of land, and he gives the chief part of the product of his year's labor for
permission to starve upon the balance, happy to be permitted to remain
on payment of this enormous rent. He is the slave of the land-owner,
Avithout even the slave's right to claim of him support in case of sickness,
or if, escaping from famine, he should survive to an age that deprives him
of the power of laboring for his support. England employs fleets, paid
for out of taxes imposed on starving Irishmen, to prevent the people of
Brazil from buying black men, and women, and children, on the coast
of Africa, while holding herself ready to give white men, and women,
and children, to any who will carry them from her shores, and even to add
thereto a portion of the cost of their transportation ; and this she does with-
out requiring the transporter to produce even the sHghtest evidence that
they have been delivered at their destined port in " good order and well-
conditioned." When Ireland shall become rich, labor will become valu-
able, and man will become free. When Italy was filled with prosperous
communities, labor was productive, and it was in demand ; and then men
who had it to sell fixed the price at which it should be sold. With growing
poverty, labor ceased to be in demand, and the buyer fixed the price. The
laborer then became a slave. If we follow the history of Tuscany, we can
find men becoming enslaved as poverty succeeded wealth ; and again may
"we trace them becoming more and more free, as wealth has grown with conti-
nued peace. So has it been in Egypt, and Sicily, and Spain. Everywhere
poverty, or a deficiency of those aids to labor which constitute wealth, is,
and has invariably been, the companion of slavery, and everywhere wealth,
or an abundance of ploughs, and harrows, and horses, and cows, and oxen,
and cultivated lands, and houses, and mills, is, and has as invariably been
the companion, and the cause, of freedom.

Wealth tends to grow more rapidly than population, because better soils
are brought into cultivation; and it does grow more rapidly whenever peo-
ple abandon swords and muskets and take to spades and ploughs. Every
increase in the ratio of wealth to population is attended with an increase in the
power of the laborer as compared with that of landed or other capital. We
all see that when ships are more abundant than passengers, the price of
passage is low, and that, on the contrary, when passengers are more abund-
ant than ships, the price is high. When ploughs and horses are more
plenty than ploughmen, the latter fix the wages, but when ploughmen are
more abundant than ploughs, the owners of the latter determine the distribu-
tion of the product of labor. When wealth increases rapidly, new soils are
brought into cultivation, and more ploughmen are wanted. The demand for
ploughs produces a demand for more men to mine coal and smelt iron ore,
and the iron-master becomes a competitor for the employment of the laborer,
■who obtains a large proportion of the constantly increasing return to la-
bor. He wants clothes in greater abundance, and the manufacturer be-
comes a competitor with the iron-master and the farmer for his services.
His proportion is again increased, and he wants sugar, and tea, and coffee,
and now the ship-master competes with the manufacturer, the iron-master
and the farmer : and thus with the growth of population and wealth there is
produced a constantly increasing demand for labor ; and its increased pro-
ductiveness, and the consequently increased facility of accumulating weaUh,
are followed necessarily and certainly by an increase of the laborer's pro-
portion. His wages rise, and the proportion of the capitalist falls, yet now
the latter accumulates fortune more rapidly than ever, and thus his interest

404 THE SLAVE QUESTION.

and that of the laborer are in perfect harmony with each other. If we de-
sire evidence of this, it is shown in the constantly increasing anaount of the
rental of England, derived from the appropriation of a constantly decreasing
proportion of the product of the land: and in the enormous amount of rail-
road tolls compared with those of the turnpike : yet the railroad transports
the farmer's wheat to market, and brings back sugar and coffee, taking not
one-fourth as large a. proportion for doing the business as was claimed by the
owner of the wagon and horses, and him of the turnpike. The laborer's
product is increased, and the proportion that goes to the capitalist is de
creased. The power of the first over the product of his labor has grown,
while that of the latter has diminished.

Such having been, and such being now, the case in all countries of the
world, it would certainly seem probable that it would be so with the negro,
and that if we would desire that he should acquire that complete control over
his actions, and over the fruits of his labor, which constitutes freedom, we
should seek to pursue that course which must tend most to the augmenta-
tion of wealth, and consequently to the increase of the value of the slave to
his master, because of the increased productiveness of his labor. In con-
firmation of this view, we may see that, throughout this country the amount
of freedom is everywhere in the ratio of wealth to population, i. e., in the
ratio which the machinery of production, seeking labor for its employment
bears to the labor seeking to be employed. The man of Massachusetts —
and still more, the woman — enjoys a greater amount of freedom than the
man or woman of Pennsylvania, and the latter are far more free than their
neighbors of Virginia, although all equally free in the eye of the law.
The negro is more free in the rapidly growing Georgia and Tennessee,
than in decaying Virginia and South Carohna. It cannot be otherwise.
When wealth grows rapidly the demand for labor increases more rapidly
than the number of laborers, and thus is produced a tendency to the adop-
tion of labor-saving machinery, by which the exertion of man is rendered
more productive. With each step in this progress the value of the laborer
rises, and with each he acquires more control over the application of his la-
bor and its proceeds, being better fed, better clothed, better lodged, and
better taught; and thus every increase in the price of the slave is
evidence that the day is approaching when laborers Avill determine for
themselves to whom they will sell their labor, and what shall be its
price>

If this view is correct, and it is in accordance Avith the experience of all
ages and all nations, it would appear obvious that those who desire the
emancipation of the slave, should desire to co-operate in the measures that
would tend most rapidly to augment the wealth of the Southern States, and
to oppose all measures tending in the .opposite direction, and that such is the
true anti-slavery policy I entertain no doubt. How is it to be done ? To
this question we may, I think, obtain an answer, by looking to those portions
of the South in which wealth is now in-creasing most rapidly, to wit, Geor-
gia and Tennessee, whose policy has tended most to the introduction of the
jnachinery of manufacture, and contrasting ,their condition with Virginia
und South Carolina, whose policy has tended most to the limitation of the ef-
forts of the people to the single pursuit of agriculture. The former have
obtained cotton and woollen machinery, and furnaces, and forges, by aid of
which there has been created a demand for a vast amount of labor that
would otherwise have been wasted, and the necessary effect of this has been
an increase in the value of the property of the man who had labor power to
sell, i. e,., the owner of slavesj and he has grown rich while the condition of
his people has steadily improved, whereas South Carohna has driven capital

THE SLAVE QUESTION. 405

abroad in search of employment,* and her people are now flying from their
plantations, frequently abandoning them absolutely because of inability to
obtain purchasers at any price whatsoever.

When men are limited to the single pursuit of agriculture they are ne-
cessariiy poor, and they must become poorer every day, and with each step
in this progress those who labor become more and more subject to the will
of those who do not. In such a state of things, the men can earn little, because
there is no demand for the labor that is not required in the field, and the
women and children are idle from want of any demand whatsoever for their
labor. The owner of the land cannot rely on aid in harvest time, and it is
useless for him to plant more than he can calculate upon being able to ga-
ther, and thus he is obliged to support many hands that are of comparative-
ly little use to him. Place the mill and the furnace in his neighborhood,
and there is at once produced a demand for the surplus labor of one part of
the year, while securing a sufficient supply for the other, and thus are the
productiveness of labor and the value of the laborer both augmented.

The direct effect of the location of machinery for the production of cloth
and iron in any neighborhood is to produce an increased demand for labor
and a rise in its price, and the owner of that machinery is thereby stimu-
lated to exertion to meet the change. His capital is invested in spindles and
looms, or in a furnace, and they must be made productive. At thirty yards
per loom, per day, he might live, but at forty he would grow rich. The
slave would give him the former quantity, but the freeman would give him
the latter one. He desires to give to the bondman the stimulus that is
felt b}'^ the freeman, and he fixes his task at 30 yards, paying for the sur-
plus as over-work. At once the slave becomes, to a considerable extent, a
seller of his own time, and a receiver of wages. Such is the course of
things now at the South, and such must it continue to be, and thus the in-
crease of wealth in the form of the cotton mill or the furnace, while tending
to enrich the owner of slaves, tends equally to the enfranchisement of the
man who is held as a slave.

The mill brings people to the neighborhood, and new demands for labor
arise, and with each step there is an increase in the value of labor, and in
the power of consuming its products. Houses are wanted, and stone quarries
become valuable, while the demand for timber enables the land-owner to sell
his trees instead of killing them. His land increases in value, because
of the facility of exchanging food and cotton for cloth and iron ; and he
himself grows rich, because he is enabled readily to return to the land the
refuse of its products, in the form of manure, thereby increasing his crops.
A demand arises for numerous smaller articles of food, and gardens and lit-
tle farms appear, the high price obtainable for such portions of land offering to
the great land-owner a strong inducement to the division of his land. The
slave who has earned wages in a mill may become an owner of land, or his
fellow-slave may cultivate a few acres of cabbages, and peas, and beans,
required to meet the demand that has arisen, paying to his master a fixed
sum in lieu of his services, retaining the balance as wages. He thus becomes
a payer of rent. Each step thus made, is but the preparation for a new and
greater one, and those who may examine the subject will see such steps beino-
made throughout the South, and always in the ratio of the growth of wealth.

* That State has always greatly restricted the application of capital to the formation of
banks at which her own people could obtain the aid required to enable them to improve
their lands, and the natural consequence has been, that it has sought employment abroad.
She was always among the largest holders of stock in the United States Bank.

406 THE SLAVE QUESTION.

Ill Mississippi and Louisiana, slaves have their little pieces of land, the pro-
ducts of which they sell to the highest bidder, who is very frequently their
master. To such an extent is this carried, that I have known a single planter
from the latter State to be charged, on his visit to the North, wn'th $2500 belong-
ing to his ])eople, to be applied to the execution of their orders for commodities
of various kinds. Here is a step towards freedom, and all that is needed to
bring about perfect freedom is the pursuance of that course which tends to
increase the value of land and labor, by bringing together the consumer
and the producer, thus diminishing the waste of labor and of manure on
the road and in the work of transportation and exchange, by the vast extent
of which both the land and its owner are now being exhausted.

Throughout the world the tendency to the division of land has existed in
the ratio of the growth of weahh, although counteracted sometimes by laws
like those now existing in England, the effect of which is to repel capital
from land and to drive it into manufactures and commerce. In Russia, and
Hungary, and Mexico, poor nations, land is held in large quantities. In Bel-
gium and Tuscany, the richest portions of continental Europe, it is held in
small ones. In India, under British rule, the village proprietor has disap-
peared, to be replaced by the great Zemindar. In New England, land is
divided, but as we pass South and West, with diminishing weahh, we find
land becoming less valuable and held in larger quantities.

That the growth of Avealth and the tendency to the division of land, and
freedom of man, in the Southern States, have been slow, has resulted from
the fact that their policy has tended to the exhaustion of the land and impover-
ishment of its owner, who has thus been compelled to fly to new l-ands to be
again exhausted. In Virginia and South Carolina, but particularly in the
latter, there is a tendency towards actual depopulation, the necessary conse-
quence of which is the accumulation of large bodies of land in the hands of
individuals, who become poorer as their possessions increase in size, because
of the constantly diminishing power of combination for any purpose of im-
provement. In Georgia, on the contrary, there is a rapid increase of popu-
lation with a corresponding increase in the productiveness of labor and in
the value of land, accompanied by a tendency to its subdivision, and to the
consequent freedom of man.

It is a common impression, that the people of South Carolina have ex-'
hausted their rich lands, and that they are moving away from poor ones,
yet nothing can be more erroneous. They commenced upon poor soils, as
has been done in every country of the world, and they are now flying from
meadow lands capable of yielding the finest artificial grasses, of which they
have millions of acres untouched — from river bottoms uncleared — from
swamps undrained — and from marl, and lime, and iron ore, all of which
exist in almost unlimited quantity. Nature has done for that State every
thing that could be done, but man has, as yet, done nothing but exhaust the
poor soils upon which the work of cultivation was first commenced, and there-
fore it is that their agricultural reports, and their newspapers rej^eat, year
after, the question, " What shall the cotton planters do ?"

"This," says the editor of the South Carolinian, in one of his papers now
but a few w-eeks old, " is a question, daily asked by our planting friends.
There seems, " he continues, " at present great solicitude as to the policy
which is to be pursued by them in pitching their next crop. We hear the
cry of less cotton and more grain ringing from one end of the State to the
other. We are not surprised thafmany planters who plant heavily should
say their present crop will bring them in debt if the ruinous prices continue
much longer. No planter can make both ends meet who receives only four

THE SLAVE QUESTION. 407

or five cents for his cotton, and has to pay the present exorbitant prices for
bagging-, bale rope, pork, mules, sugar, coffee, salt and iron. Mules are
high, pork is high, bagging and rope are up to the prices of the twelve and
fifteen cent times of cotton, and sugar, coffee, iron, and salt steadily stand at
the old rates. If to expenditures for these necessary articles, the planter
has to add his negro clothes, shoes, hats, and blankets, he will have nothing
left to remunerate him for his labor. These are really matters which they
should ponder over, and a system of planting which does not repay for the
labor and investment of capital engaged in it, we reasonably think would
soon be abandoned. But it will not be. Our planters are taught no other
systems ; they do not know how they will supply the vacuum which would
be made by an immediate abandonment of the cotton crop. It would take
several years before they could perfect, with the strictest economy, those
arrangements which would render them entirely independent of it as a mar-
ketable crop. Therefore the step taken should be wisely considered before
adopted, and the utmost caution should be observed in making, what we
sincerely believe would be, if once begun, a radical change in our system of
agriculture. We therefore advise for the coming year, a reduction simply
of one-third of the cotton crop throughout the State ; devoting at the same
time, the land thus thrown out of the cultivation of this crop, to the produc-
tion of grain ; and the increase of labor which would thus be given, to the
proper manuring and improved tillage of the cotton planted, and the general
improvement of the plantation. By this process the cotton lands would be
increased in fertility, and the increase of grain which would follow, would
greatly facilitate the rearing of mules, hogs, cattle, and sheep ; and in a
short time the whole State could render itself independent of the exactions
of our Kentucky neighbors, who kindly supply us with all such things,
simply at the expense of the prosperity of our agricultural population; for,
m practice, they annually sweep the country of all the surplus cash which
is afloat, in payment for their bacon and mules. We would, if this system
were adopted, soon be able to produce as much cotton on fifty acres as we do
now on one hundred ; and the investment of the agricultural profits of the
State at home, although they might be small, would have a wonderful influ-
ence on general prosperity, and build facilities throughout our now desolate
and almost unapproachable State, which would not only enchain our own
sons to her borders, but induce capitalists to come into our midst, to make
their dollars tell, by learning us a lesson of practical enterprise. We say to
the planters, raise less cotton, more grain, more mules, more hogs ; make
your own negro clothes ; raise sheep — make your own blankets ; erect tan-
yards, encourage shoemakers and hatters — in fact, artisans of all kinds to
settle permanently amongst you ; labor at making your soil rich, and do not
devote all your energies to wearing it out ; and soon all things will go well
with you. You will not make so many bales of cotton ; in tact may not cut
such a swell on your factors' books ; but take our word for it, you will have
happier slaves, richer lands, more thrift and fewer debts, and sleepless
thoughts, to harass your hours of rest."

It is impossible to read this without being struck with the fact, that, while,
from the exhaustion of her original poor soils, and her inability to clear and
drain rich ones, that State is unable to produce cotton in competition with her
neighbors, she is a large importer of other agricultural produce. Her chief
city is supplied with hay from the North, notwithstanding her abund-
ance of rich meadow land. She consumes the pork of Ohio, and she uses
the mules of Kentucky ; and thus, while seUing her products at the low
price that is necessarily consequent upon her distance from the place at
which her food and cotton are to be converted into cloth, she buys of others

408 THE SLAVE QUESTION.

food, mules, &c., at the highest price, because of her distance from the place of
production. She wastes latjor and manure upon the road, and is then sur-
prised at the exhaustion that results necessarily from such a course of
policy.

The remedy for all this may, it is supposed, he found, first, in diminish-
ing the quantity of cotton ; but that is already diminishing so ra})idly that
the great cause of apprehension throughout the State seems to be that its cultiva-
tion must soon cease, because of inability to produce it. She desires to dimi-
nish the supply of cotton, Avhile her people are flying from her to seek the
Avest, there to produce more cotton. Second, the lands are to be manured,
but we are not told from Avhence the manure is to come. The State has
scarcely any consumers of agricultural produce except those who are engaged
in its production, and their consumption yields but little manure. Her
horses are always on the road, wasting the manure yielded by her hay and
her corn, and her rice and cotton are consumed abroad, the consequence of
which is, that of what is yielded by the land nothing goes back, and the
land and its owner become impoverished together. Her population dimi-
nishes. Everybody is seeking to find elsewhere a better place for employ-
ing his capital and his labor. Under such circumstances it is useless to
talk about artificial manures, and her swamps and river bottoms, in which
manure has for ages accumulated, will not pay the cost of clearing for the
raising of three or four hundred pounds of cotton to the acre. Give her a
consuming population that will make a market on the ground for the
tons of potatoes, and turnips, and hay, and the milk, and the veal, that will
be yielded by rich soils, and the State will become one of the richest of the
Union. It is population that makes food come from the rich soils, as we see to
be the case in Belgium, and England, and New England ; and it is depo-
pulation that drives men back to the poorer ones, as is shown in Ireland,
India, South Carolina, and Virginia. The people of Ireland are flying from
each other as if from pestilence, and yet that unfortunate island, in which
men are restricted almost entirely to the cultivation of the land, offers us
now the chief European market for our surplus food, while South Carolina,
destitute of consumers, is one of the principal markets of populous Ohio
for her surplus products. Whenever the former shall begin to consume on
the land the products of the land, she will have manure to keep in cultiva-
tion her poor soils, and she will acquire ability to clear and drain the rich
ones, and then she may export hay instead of importing it. Ireland, like
South Carolina, abounds in rich soils untouched. She has millions of acres
of bog that could be drained with far less labor, and at far less cost, than
have been required for similar lands in England, and it is estimated that
three millions of these acres would afford food for six millions of people ;
but, also, like South CaroHna, she is compelled to waste on the road the la-
bor and manure yielded by the poorer soils now in cultivation, and is
thereby rendered too poor to clear and drain the rich ones, which never
have paid, and never can pay, the cost of preparation, without the presence
of a consuming population requiring the potatoes, and the turnips, and the
hay, of which the earth yields by tons, and not by pounds or bushels.

The third and last remedy is, that of " encouraging" shoemakers, and hat-
ters, and artisans of all kinds to settle in the State ; but it is difficult to see
what encouragement can be given in accordance with the doctrines of South
Carolina. All that she can say to such men is — "You may come among
us, bringing with you your machinery, and applying your means to
the erectionof houses and mills, and so long as it suits our purpose we will
give you labor, and food, and cotton, for cloth, but if prices abroad should
fall, we will cease to exchange with you, and you may then abandon your

THE SLAVE QUESTION. 409

buildings and remove elsewhere. Our duty to ourselves requires that we
should sell in the dearest market and buy in the cheapest one, and we can
offer you no encouragement other than that we have staled." To this the
maker of hats, or shoes, and cloths, or iron, objects. He says, " I can com-
pel you to come to me in the large markets of Lowell or Manchester, with
your cotton, and your food, for which I will give you hats, or cloths, or
shoes, and if from failure of crops or other circumstances you fail to come,
I have still the market of the world before me ; but if I go to you, and you
then fail to exchange with me, I can have no other market, and I shall be
ruined. Make me secure that you will take my cloth, and give me for it
the potatoes, and the turnips, and the milk, and the veal, required for my
people, and the cotton required for my works, allowing me something for the
use of my capital, and for my skill, and I will come among you ; but until
you shall do so, T will stay where I am." To do any thing of this kind w-ould
not be in accordance with the doctrine of buying in the cheapest and sell-
ing in the dearest market.

The " encouragement" that has, thus far, been afforded to those who
have desired to make a market in the land of its products, may be seen from
the fact that scarcely a mill, or a furnace, or a factory south of Mason and
Dixon's line has failed to ruin its owner. The commencement of such
works has always been hailed as likely to give value to both labor and
land, but with the first revulsion in English trade, the market for its products
has disappeared, because the first duty of the planter has been held to be that of
buying in the cheapest and selling in the dearest market. It is unnecessary
however, to go south of Pennsylvania to see the same operation. To bring
into activity the coal mines of that State has required an investment of fifty
millions of dollars, and the result has been that, Avhile the consumers have
been benefited by a reduction of one-half in the cost of fuel, and the farmers have
been given a market for their food greater than that afforded by all Europe,
the unfortunate people who paid for the labor by which the works were
made, have been ruined, because, at brief intervals, the " encouragement"
by means of which they had been led to engage in the work, has been
withdrawn, leaving them and their customers, the employers of steam, to
breast the changes produced in foreign markets by variations of policy that
could not have been anticipated, and against which they could not have
guarded. If " encouragement" means any thing, it means protection
against these revulsions, and until South Carolina shall resolve to protect
the artisans that she desires to have to come and make a market for her
products, they will assuredly remain where they are.

That State is the poorest of the Union, for its size. It is the only one
whose population diminishes. Virginia stands next. Both are, emphatical-
ly, the land of free trade, which consists in being compelled to go abroad to
make exchanges that they would gladly make at home. Such freedom is
only apparent. In a natural state of things the awl and the last go to the
hides and the food, and where they do not do so, it is because of some obstacle,
the invention of man. Of all the States of the Union, South Carolina is the
one in which the planter exercises the least volition as to the place at which
he will make his exchanges — the one, therefore, in Avhich he himself is
least free — and the only one in which it is proclaimed that slavery is the
natural condition of a large portion of mankind.* The apparent freedom of
trade and the real freedom of man, do not, therefore, harmonize with

* After the suppression of the Peasant war in the fifleenth century, it was decided in
tlie Hungarian diet that the slavery of the people should be" universal and eternal." Thia
is the nearest approach to the South Carolina doctrine that I know.

Vol. L— 52 2 M

410 THE SLAVE QUESTION.

each other. Passing from that State into Georgia, Tennessee, Louisiana,
or Kentucky, and thence into the Northern States, we find with each step
an increasing tendency towards protecting the laborer against the unceas-
ing fluctuations consequent upon the existence of the artificial system of
England, which has thus far been maintained only by aid of colonies Avhose
inhabitants could be compelled to send the raw materials yielded by the
great machine of production, to a distance of thousands of miles, by land and
water carriage, in quest of the httle and easily transported machines of con-
version, the spinning-jenny and the loom, the awl and the last, Avith infi-
nite loss of labor, and with certain exhaustion of the land : and with each step
we find a corresponding tendency towards perfect freedom of thought and
action in all classes, from the highest to the lowest.

If these views are correct, the true way to bring about the gradual abo-
lition of slavery must be to endeavor to increase the value of Southern
land and Southern labor, to the advantage of both master and servant ; a
measure that can be accomplished only by an increase in the ratio of spades
and ploughs, and mills, and furnaces, and other of the machinery which
constitutes wealth, to population. If the Southern man desires to do this, he
must "encourage" the owners of such wealth to come, or to stay, among
them, and the only manner in which this can be done, is to render the'm
secure that they are not to be left high and dry at the first instant of change
abroad. In no country has the plough prospered at a distance from the loom
and the anvil. In none can it prosper, because where the machinery of con-
version is distant, the loss of labor is/«r greater than would be the quantity
required for the production of all the cloth and all the iron required for the
consumption of those who produce the raw materials : food and cotton.

There is not a single county in Virginia or South Carolina in which there
is not absolutely wasted, for want of regular demand for it, more labor than
would make all the cloth and all the iron consumed in it : not one that does
not waste on the road, and in the procuring of wagons, and carts, and horses,
and mules, more than would be required to m.ake all their cloth, and all their
iron : not one in which the loss from the want of the manure that is wasted on
the road and in distant markets, is not greater than the value, raw material
included, of all the cloth and iron they consume : not one in which the loss
from cultivating lands yielding 8 or 10 bushels of wheat, or 200 to 300
pounds of cotton, in sight of rich lands that would yield tons of potatoes, is
not double the value of all the cloth and iron they can afford to buy. There-
fore it is that the land-owner is poor, and the land is poor, and labor is
of little value, and the laborer himself is cheap enough to be sold for ex-
portation to other States in which the loom and the anvil are taking their
place by the side of the plough and the harrow.

The way to the abohtion of slavery is simple. It needs nothing but that
we arrest the progress of depopulation by enabling men to live together,
combining their exertions, and thus rendering them more productive of the
commodities and things which are required for the maintenance and gradual
improvement of their condition. By such a process the farmer and planter
obtain the advantage resulting from the presence of prosperous consumers
of food, and they are thereby enabled to clear and cultivate rich lands, en-
riching the poor ones with the refuse of the products of all, and thus in-
creasing the productiveness of labor, and the value of labor and of land.
In the effort to accomplish this, the farmer and planter need protection against
the endless fluctuations of foreign policy, and the day is not, as I think, far
distant, when it will be universally admitted that protection is emphatically
a planter and farmer's measure. When that time shall arrive each day will

THE SLAVE QUESTION. 411

see an increasing tendency towards the perfect freedom of all classes, black
and white, and towards the most perfect harmony and good-will among the
various sections of the Union.

Properly examined, there is no difference in their interests, and there is no
good reason why such harmony should not prevail. Every man that is kept
in the factories of Massachusetts or New York, or in the coal-mines and fur-
naces of Pennsylvania, becomes a consumer of food — a customer to the
farmer and planter. Every man that is compelled, as now, to quit those facto-
ries, mines, or furnaces, flies to the West, to become a producer of food or cotton,
and therefore a rival to the farmer and planter. The more customers, the
higher is the price of food and cotton, of labor and land. The more rivals,
the lower are the prices of all. The great machine is the earth, and the
great interest is that of the cultivation of the earth. The little machines are
those which convert the food and the cotton intocloth. The great machine tends
to attract the small ones, and in the natural course of things, the latter will
always go to the former, with constant increase in the productiveness of labor
and land. The system of England tends to compel the product of the great
machine to come to the small ones, with vast loss of labor and manure,
producing diminution in the value of labor and land, as may be seen in all
her colonies. That disturbing cause tended greatly to produce our Revolu-
tion. It has alienated Ireland. It palsies Canada. It has ruined India,
and the West Indies. It compels the people of the Union to fly from each
other, and to raise cotton and corn in Texas and Iowa, when their labour
might be twice as productive if employed in converting the cotton and corn
of South Carolina and Virginia into cloth. It diminishes by at least one-
half the return to, and the wages of, labor throughout the Union. The pro-
tective system, now almost universal, is but a measure of resistance on the
part of those who cultivate the earth, against a great wrong, and when it
shall come to be fully understood that such is the case, it will be seen that
throughout the whole length and breadth of the land, among freemen and
slaves, there is a perfect harmony of interests, and all hcstihty between the
men of the North and those of the South will pass away.

The natural addition to our population is now almost 000,000, enouq-h, if
applied to the work of converting food and avooI into cloth, and food and
ore into iron, to make, in a single year, a market for all our surplus food.
The immigration in a year has, however, already reached 250,000, and were
it once distinctly understood that the producers of food and cotton were deter-
mined to obtain their cloth and iron from those who consumed their food while
converting, on the spot, their cotton into cloth, and their ore into iron, it would
soon reach half a million, embracing artisans of every description, and thus
would be made a market on the land for all the products of the land. The
Carolinian would then make his own coarse cloth instead of buying it, and he
would export his food and his cotton in the shape of yarn, and the people
of the Eastern States would then make fine cloths instead of coarse ones,
and with each step in this process, the labor of man, black and white,
would become more valuable, and all would become more happy and more
free. Ten years of eflicient protection to the farmer and planter in their
efforts to seduce the loom and the anvil to take their places by the side of
the plough and the harrow, would do more towards solving this great ques-
tion, now esteemed so diflicult, than " free-soil" votes and Wihnot "pro- -
visoes" could accomplish in a century. ^

I remain, dear sir, with great regard, yours very truly,

Henry C. Carey.
Burlington, Dec. 7, 184S.

Nathan Appleton, Esq.

412 MR. morse's farm.

A LARGE FARM FOR NEW ENGLAND— ITS USES AND

PRODUCTS.

Ix the Vermont State Agriculturist, is an interesting sketch of Mr. H. S. Morse's Farm,
from which we extract the following, to gratify tlie curiosity of the southern reader.

There are perhaps few farms in our section of the country that, for beauty
of location, natural advantages, and successful management, can be compared
with that of Mr. Henry S, Morse, of Shelburne. It comprises about 1100
acres, lying in a body — the soil embraces every variety, without running to
extremes in either direction. The rock which forms its base is the red sand-
stone, found commonly in the western part of Chittenden County. The
strata of this rock, as well as of the soil, dip towards the east. Most of the
land is rolling; the difference of level between the highest and lowest points
being about 175 feet. The lowest land is the lightest, the heaviest clays
being found at the greatest elevation — an arrangement very favorable tQ
drainage, as day bottoms are of all things most tenacious of water. Much
of the land is quite stony, which affords another advantage, in furnishing
abundant material for walls and covered drains, besides the mechanical and
chemical improvement secured to the soil by the processes of degradation
and decomposition. There is no waste land on the farm ; the whole of it
being available for pasture, if not for cultivation, excepting about 300 acres
of heavy timber. The whole is valued at about $40 per acre.

Mr. Morse's main object is the growth of wool, and consequently he raises
only so much of other produce as is required for the support of the farm.
He mows 250 acres, tills about 50, and pastures the remainder. His stock
consists of 1700 sheep, and neat cattle and horses sufficient to supply the
farm with dairy produce and perform the necessary labor. His produce last
year was as follows : wheat 150 bushels, oats 300, corn 200, rye 90, pota-
toes 1500, carrots 200, hay 350 tons, sugar 1000 lbs., wool 5600 lbs., pork
3000 lbs., and 5 acres of peas used for feeding sheep, without threshing.
He recommends the Long John potatoes as less liable to the rot than any
other variety he has raised, and the experience of many others in this vici-
nity tends to confirm his opinion. This is not the very best kind for table
use, being often wet ; but this defect may be in a measure prevented by
planting only on warm, light soil.

Mr. Morse has taken great pains with his meadow lands ; his method being
to spare no trouble and expense in preparing the ground in the first place,
and then keeping it up by top dressing, in preference to breaking up anew.
Much of his land was originally too wet. To remedy this evil, he has con-
structed four and one quarter miles of covered dram at different periods, at
an expense of upwards of one dollar per rod, and finds it a profitable invest-
ment. He has likewise imported from abroad 30,000 cedar rails for fencing,
and his boundaries may be known at once by the neatness and permanent
appearance of his fences and gates. All his rail fences are eight rails high,
with stakes like posts, connected by oak caps, and evidently proof against
all assailants. He finds a fence made of half-wall, with three rails on the
top, to be the most economical. Whole wall is soon thrown down by the
frost.

Mr. Morse's sheep are a mixture of Merino, native and Saxony. Be-
ginning with a flock of native sheep, he used Saxony bucks for a iew years
previous to 1837, when finding his fleeces rather light, he crossed with the
Merino, and has continued to use Merino bucks ever since. His average
clip is now a trifle over 3 lbs. He is a great advocate for feeding peas in
the straw to sheep, and has fatted in this manner some of the finest wethers

SPRINGFIELD FARM. 413

ever exhibited at Brighton market. The expense of this mode is very trifling,
much Jess than that of corn feed, as the difference in preparation overba-
lances the excess in the yield of the corn.

Some of the finest meadows on the farm have been formed from wet
and broken lands, at great expense. In some cases he has constructed a
drain at the bottom of a ravine, and then scraped down the banks so as to
smooth the whole surface. His average yield of hay is a ton and a half to
the acre.

On the whole, the farm of Mr. Morse may be considered a fair specimen
of successful management, according to the system of our heavy wool-
growers. We have, however, little doubt, that if this noble track of land
were divided into several smaller farms, the product, under a man as skilful
as the present, would be proportionally increased. Many of our farms,
like Mr. Morse's, are too large. It is physically impossible for one man to
tax to its utmost the capacity of so extensive a district. The entire product
of this farm, for the past season, at present prices, would equal about $5.00
per acre. Take from this the expenses, and we fancy the profit would
hardly reach 6 per cent, on the capital invested. If it does, Mr. Morse
must carry on his operations by a cheaper method than we wot of. If it
does not, then are the prevailing notions of the unprofitableness of farming
not without foundation. Here then is room for improvement. Surely our
agriculturists will not continue to be satisfied with 3 or 3 per cent, when
by a proper application of science and skill, a proportional profit might be
obtained. But of this more hereafter.

I SPRINGFIELD FARM. \

- RESIDENCE OF GEORGE PATTERSON, ESQ.

Our worthy contemporary says in the preceding, " it is physically impos-
sible for one man to tax to its utmost the capacity of so extensive a district."

If we could have had the pleasure of his company lately, we won't say on
what day, under an " October sun," in a ride over a farm of 1000 acres, he
would have seen that "one man," and one mind, is capable of laying down,
and carrying out, with great precision of plan, and great exactness in the
realization of results, the progressive improvement to very high capacity,
from a state of extreme barrenness, a farm of 1000 acres of land. Where
we remember to have seen large fields, barren in all except broom sedge,
incapable of yielding twofold from the seed, are now magnificent fields
of corn yielding more than GO bushels, wheat more than twenty ; and per-
fectly clean, well drained, splendid fields of grass. The fences all of locust
posts and chestnut rail, or worm-fence of chestniit, eleven rails in height —
which have cost probably not less than 820,000.

You do not see here a single acre bursting with plethora, produced by
the offer of a silver cup, and running away with all the manure that all
hands could rake and scrape ; but large fi.elds of from 50 to 100 acres, taking
each its turn, in a well-digested invariable system of rotation, but regularly
improving from year to year, until at last it may be left to sustain itself on
the solid foundation of its own renovated and re-estabhshed vigor and re-
sources.

True, it has been done at great expense, but must not means always be
adapted to ends 1 The chief instruments of melioration have been thorough
draining, thorough tillage, and hme. The land has not been scratched, but
ploughed. The drains have been made with stones from fields picked over

3m3

414 CULTURE OF CEANBERRIES.

eleven times; and lime may have been applied at the rate of thirty or forty
or even fifty dollars an acre ; but at what price would you calculate the value
of land that will give 60 bushels of corn, twenty of wheat, and two tons of
hay to the acre ? And besides, is there not some intrinsic value in the
pleasing- reflection, when you stand in your portico and overlook your broad
acres, that I am not only " monarch of all I survey," but that, Avith its heavy
crops, its improved flocks, and unequalled herds of cattle that wax fat and
kick, / made it all what it is ?

Any fool, if his purse is long enough, may turn his back for ever on the
graves of his ancestors, and go to Kentucky or elsewhere, and buy a farm
already rich and im.proved to his hands — but what money can buy the
pleasing consciousness of having yourself restored to miOre than its pristine
fertility and beauty, the beloved spot of your nativity, where, in joyous and
innocent boyhood, you trapped the partridge, tamed the young squirrel, and
tracked and shot the poor timid rabbit as he sat sleeping in his form on the
sunny hill-side ! But with some, there is no pleasure nor value in any thing
but in counting the almighty dollar ! And so does that become the very apple
of their eye, that you shall see men ambitious of political distinction, eager for
office, and ostentatious in some vulgar display of wealth, acquired with-
out merit, and used in ways equally devoid of liberality and taste ; who are
yet too penurious to subscribe to journals founded expressly for the enlight-
enment of their own pursuit ! What record should we have of improve-
ments and discoveries in the art of cultivation, — what progress, in fact,
could we hope for, if it depended on such men?

CULTURE OF CRANBERRIES.

This wholesome and palatable fruit might, we think, be made to give at once variety
and profit to the labor of Southern agriculturists in many situations where it is totally
neglected — even where nature seems to point it out as a matter worthy of particular
attention.

Cranberries are growing w^ild near Annapolis and other parts of Maryland, but we are
not awaro that any farmer has taken the hint to improve them by culture. For those on
his table he probably sends to the grocer, and the grocer to the New England farmer.

For the benefit of those who keep their eyes open, looking out for new things that may
be turned to account in place of wheat, corn, and tobacco — tobacco, wheat, and corn —
we give the following from the Vermont State Agriculturist, the editors of which will
begin to think we are drawing rather freely on their newly opened fountain: but, since
we would go to the worst sources for valuable knowledge, we do not see why we should
refuse to draw it from the best.

The cranberry {pxycoccus macrocarpus) is a native of Vermont. It is
found in many swamps and wet places, among the rushes and other plants
generally occupying such grounds. It naturally prefers the soil and mois-
ture of marshy districts, and is usually raised upon such ; but instances are
on record where it has been successfully grown on dry upland, and with a
great improvement in the quality of the fruit. It is surprising that so little
attention has been paid in our State to this very profitable crop. Cranber-
ries, when once well set, require no care or culture; wdiile they occupy most
advantageously lands unfit for any other useful plant ; jneld from 125 to 400
bushels per acre ; and command a ready market at an average of $2 per
bushel, with only the expense of gathering. This latter operation is now
performed by rakes, so that, at a low estimate, an acre of cranberries may be
made to produce more in solid cash than 0 acres of good corn.

We have received a communication from Mr. Abiezer Alger, of Bridge-
water, Mass., in answer to some inquiries in regard to the cranberry ; the
substance of which, together with such information as we can glean from

CULTURE OF CRANBERRIES. 415

other sources, we lay before our readers. Mr. Alger has taken several pre-
miums for his crops of cranberries, from Massachusetts societies, and lives
in a district where their cultivation is successfully carried on. He says:
" The fall of the year is the best time to set out the vines. The soil (bog
meadow) needs no preparation beyond a covering of sand about two inches
deep. Take them up with the soil in which they grow, and set them out,
two or three feet apart. After one or two years they will spread themselves
over the whole ground, and will require no hoeing. I never knew an in-
stance of their running out after they are once well set. It is beneficial to
keep the water on them from December till about the first of April, and after
that time to keep it level with the surface of the ground, so as to keep the
roots moist during the first part of the season. If there should be a frost
when the cranberries are in blossom, or before they begin to ripen in the
fall, it will destroj^ the crop. You will probabiy have a few cranberries the
second or perhaps not until the third year after planting."

A writer in the Massachusetts Plowman relates an experiment in plant-
ing cranberries from the swamps, on good corn ground, in hills far enough
apart to admit the cultivator and clean hoeing. The transplanting was done
early in spring; they bloomed about midsummer, and bore fruit the same year.
The fruit was large and handsome, and many of the hills bore a pint of berries.

An article in the Cultivator for 1846, states that Sullivan Bates, of Bel-
lingham, Mass., raises cranberries in great abundance by transplanting them
from low grounds to high. He plants them in drills twenty inches apart,
(does he plant roots or seeds?) and seven inches in the drill. His success was
complete. He gathered from one acre aboutybwr hundred bushels of cran-
berries in one season. The soil must be such as will not bake. The supe-
riority of upland cultivation has also been attested to by others.

The editor of the American Agriculturist says that Mr. William Hall, of
Norway, Me., sowed the berries in the spring, on the snow, in a boggy piece
of land about 3 rods square. The seed took well, rooted out the weeds, and
produced accordingly.

The extract following is from the Farmer's Dictionary:

" The oxycoccus macrocarpus is readily cultivated by transplanting in
spring the cranberry sods, or selecting plants and transferring them to a
light soil, rather moist. The runners can be layered, or seed sown in the
spring. They grow rapidly, covering nearly every thing, and are but little
subject to the attacks of insects. . The plants are set about 18 inches apart,
in rows, and kept clean at first. The yield increases for several years, and
becomes as great as 400 bushels per acre in five years, although 200 are a
good average. The fruit is gathered by rakes, which seem to prune the
plant at the same time. When the berries are intended for keeping, they
should be rolled over a gently inclined plane of wood, to remove such as are
soft and rotten. They keep well for a year in tight casks filled with water,
and headed close. The fresh fruit commands $1 50 per bushel in New York."

From these accounts it seems to be certain, that although the natural soil
of the cranberry is the swamp, and great crops have been grown on such
lands ; yet it has been successfully cultivated on uplands, and with an evi-
dent improvement in the quality of the fruit. As the product is large, Avith
but little outlay, it is well worth the attention of our agriculturists, especially
when they may have a tract of land which cannot, without great expense,
be made fit for any other crop. Doubtless there are many others of our
native berries, such as the whortleberry, the blackberry, and the raspberry,
which would repay cultivation; and if some one else does not anticipate us,
we shall probably try them at a future day. We hope at all events, that our
farmers Avill try the cranberry ; it ofl^ers great inducements to the cultivator

416 THE PROTECTIVE POLICY.

THE PROTECTIVE POLICY.

To the Editors of the Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil :

Sirs : — There is an honest but radical difference of opinion entertained
by leading agriculturists on the best mode of promoting industrial pursuits,
and more especially that of farming. In the earnest endeavor to foster a
home-market by associating the manufacturing and landed interests in the
same category of protection, one of the parties appears to underrate the
incidental advantages of a commercial marine, and the no less paramount
importance of foreign intercourse for the exchange of surplus commodities.
The other party, as devotedly attached to what it considers a principle in
political economy, contends that no system of policy can be just or profitable
which does not affect alike every honest occupation, and which does not
open the widest possible avenues to trade.

The comparison usually made between the actual condition of England
and the United States is not altogether a fair one. The British empire may
be said to rival this country in the extent of her landed possessions ; and it
makes no difference whether the colonies to which I allude be near or far
distant from the centre of government. We find, then, that the same policy
virtually actuates both the cabinet of London and Washington ; and that is,
to allow industry, as a general rule, to take the most natural direction. If
Lowell in Massachusetts, is eminently adapted to manufacturing purposes,
so is Manchester in Lancashire. If South Carohna, Tennessee, or Illinois
are essentially agricultural states, so are the East and West Indies. It
would be as impolitic to force manufactures in the latter as it would be
to force agriculture in the former.*

In this aspect the prosperity of all nations in the main depends upon a
happy adjustment or balance of trade ; their object is to produce at the least
possible cost the greatest amount of commodities which conduce to the com-
forts, or satisfy the wants of themselves and each other. Thus it happens
that the duty and interests of nations, as of individuals, are identical and go
together. Were the worst enemy of England in these United States to
devise the most effectual means of prostrating her people and government,
it would be by keeping out her manufactures through a prohibitory tariff.
Her home-market (by which I mean not merely that of the British isles but
of her colonies) would not suffice to consume the fruits of her industry ; and
many of her factories would necessarily stop, at a ruinous sacrifice of capital

*XoTE. — The subjects of Great Britain have as much right to estabHsh the manufacture
of cotton or woollen goods in the colonies, as citizens of the United States in Indiana or
Missouri; but they find it more profitable, luider existing circumstances, to invest their
capital otherwise, and to labor for a better purpose. The only difference between them
is that the citizens are free to make their purchases or exchanges wherever they choose,
whereas the over-taxed subjects are restricted to the home-market. The protection, then, to
certain manufactures in the British empire, which require a large capital, does no more
good to Ireland or Canada than would a similar protection to Maine or Florida. A iew
favored spots would be monopolized by capitalists for manufacturing purposes, and the
country immediately around would measurably flourish — at the expense of the whole
country, however, which would have to pay a higher price for the articlestlius protected.
The invitation to English operatives to cross the Atlantic and to transfer their compara-
tively light machinery to where the more bulky agricultural implements and produce are
located, would do very well, if they could accomplish that Herculean task and bring their
masters' capital also with them: the foreign market would then be rendered unavailable
on account of the higher prices ranging there than here at home. It may look like a
paradox, but it is not the less true, that getting high prices for our labor or produce is not
always a proof of doing a good business. Protection, like the Indian's gun, may cost more
than it comes to, according to the old saying.

THE PROTECTIVE POLICY. 417

and labor. So would it be with the most important interests of this country,
if England should prohibit tlie introduction of our agricultural produce.

Under the impulses of mutual convenience, villages and towns are thickly
settled in almost every flourishing agricultural community throughout the
land : the farmer, the shoemaker, the tailor, the blacksmith, the school-
master, the doctor and lawyer are thus brought into immediate proximity
without any extraordinary or unconstitutional eifort on the part of this
government to produce such a desirable object. These settlements are
forming in a manner unexampled, in countries where protection to particular
branches of industry has been pursued as a political hobby for several
generations. In this happy land manufactures everywhere abound, and
meet with the reward due to a spontaneous growth of native industry.
When in the natural order of things, factories spring up in the South, we
are heartily pleased with the prospect of benefit to all parties concerned :
a demand exists, or facilities are afforded by water-power, surplus popula-
tion, &c., and we hail with delight the capitalist who supplies the demand.
But how different is the case when, to accommodate or enrich a few thousand
manufacturers of certain articles, several millions of fellow-citizens are
directly taxed to the extent of the protective duty imposed. It is in vain to
oppose the common sense of mankind by citing the acknowledged advan-
tages lesulting from proximity of markets and equivalent returns of manure
from the consumers to the producers, because no artificial system or partial
policj'' can adequately compensate, in a national point of view, for the loss
occasioned by a restraint on the natural instincts of industry — a loss con-
sisting of labor and capital misapplied or not turned to the best account.
We admit that as far as Old England is concerned, or even New England,
the concentration of labor and capital has produced the outward appear-
ances of prosperity, but certainly not the reality of happiness in the mother,
if it has in the daughter. However, until the first rules of arithmetic are
proved to be fallacious, purely agricultural districts, if left to their own dis-
cretion, will continue to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest markets
they can find, without respect to patriotic considerations : and they are right
on principle. The planter who sells his tobacco at the highest price the
world can afford to give, can also afford to pay the highest price for manure
to renovate his land, come from where it will. The cotton-grower is the
last to complain of things as they are, because in his case the most valuable
portion of his produce is retained on his farm in the shape of manure.
Those even in the West who dispose of their pork, corn, wheat, cheese,
apples, lard, &c., in distant markets, have no reason to find fault as long as
they are thriving, and find their land able to bear the draught made upon it.
The cause of exhaustion in the old-settled Atlantic States, was an error
which any of us might have made under the circumstances of bygone days,
when land was cheap and abundant, when prices almost justified an aban-
donment of general rules in husbandry. The present occupiers of the soil
have to retrieve past errors by strict economy, untiring energy, and the aids
which science freely offers her votaries. The Marylander and Virginian
require no extraordinary protection ; or if they did, they are too proud to
ask for privileges which they would deny their fellow-citizens engaged in
other pursuits than those of agriculture.

" It is an ill wind which brings no one any good," and if it should happen,
in the course of events, that the unsettled affairs in foreign countries occa-
sionally throws goods into this market at a great sacrifice, the consumers are
benefited, although our large manufacturers meet with a temporary reverse
in their business. But who can expect uninterrupted good fortune ? Is
government to be held responsible for the ups and downs of life, for acci-

Yoi,. I.— 53

418 THE PROTECTIVE POLICY.

dents by fire or flood, and all the ills which flesh is heir to ? It has been
regarded an injury to native authors to publish foreign productions of the
press at half their original cost ; it should be remembered, howeA^er, that
where one American writer feels the effects of such competition, thousands
of readers derive profit from the perusal. Let the manufacturers of novels
and printed caHcoes on this side the Atlantic earn public approval and suc-
cess through their own merits, and not by protective enactments. Every
branch of industry is indirectly protected by just laws, without the necessity
of resorting to the narrow Chinese pohcy of holding as little communion as
possible with our neighbors. When the colossal manufacturing establish-
ments in England become a wreck, and the operatives reduced to a state of
anarchy by the force of continental example, there will arise a necessity for
availing ourselves of such resources as are now unprofitable. Our present
attitude towards all the world is eminently liberal and friendly ; our deal-
ings with foreign countries are mutually beneficial : let us accept the gifts
which God oflers us and be thankful. If we are wise in our generation we
shall hold fast to our present policy — the future will provide for itself.

R. S. W.

Washington County, D. C.

Notes on the foregoing, by the Editors of the Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil.

Does Manchester possess any natural advantage for converting cotton and food into
cloth tliatis not possessed by Tennessee? Does not, on the contrary, Tennessee, having
the cotton on the ground, together with the food, possess greater natural advantages than
Manchester? Does not every county in Tennessee waste annually more labor of men
and women, and boys, and girls, and horses, and wagons, absolutely unemployed, than
would convert into cloth all the cotton produced within its limits? Would that labor be
wasted if Tennessee possessed the spindles and the looms required for the work of con-
verting it into cloth? Does not every county in Tennessee pay twice as much annually
for the transportation of its products to and from Lowell and Manchester as would pay
for the spindles and the looms required for giving employment to her surplus, and conse-
quently waste, labor, in the work of converting the cotton into cloth? Is not that payment
now made annually, and would it not, if once applied to the work of procuring spindles
and looms, constitute a permanent addition to capital that would supersede in a great
degree the necessity of fiuther waste of labor ? Were such an investment once made,
would not every county in Tennessee obtain its cloth — and its iron too — in exchange for
labor that is now wasted for want of employment? Would it not then buy its cloth cheaper
than it does under the existing system? Would it not then have a grsater demand for
food, accompanied by a diminished necessity for applying labor to the production of
cotton ? Woidd it not then obtain in the market of the world a higher price for its sur-
plus cotton than at present? Would it not then buy in the cheapest market and sell in
the dearest one, and does it not now buy in the dearest and sell in the cheapest one ?

Does not the planter now sell his products cheap and give his manure into the bargain?
Does not this exhaust the land ? Does not the land diminish in value ? Is it not less
valuable in Virginia and Maryland than it was forty years since ? Do not men run away
from it ? Is not population stationary ?

Does die planter " who sells his tobacco at the highest price the world can give," grow
richer? Does he not, on the contrary, grow poorer? Is he not, even at this moment,
meditating contrivances to shut out his Ohio competitor, lest he should himself be ruined '*
Is he not in danger of being driven from the cultivation of tobacco as the South Carolinian
has been driven from that of cotton? If so, what then will be his resource? Will he not
be compelled to abandon the land and fly to the West, as his neighbors have done? Will
he not then be flying from the neighborhood of marl and lime untouched, and from the
vicinity of coal and of water powers diat would, if properly improved, enable him to pro-
duce all the cloth and iron that he could use while finding a market for all the food he
could raise? Has not the system of Maryland and Virginia been one of universal ex
hanstion, because they have made no market on the land for the products of the land?

Has any revulsion Udcen place within the last twenty years, that has not had its origin
in England ? Have not revulsions been frequent ? Have they not ruined three-fourths
of those whose factories or furnaces have given such heartfelt pleasure at " the prospect
of benefit to all the parties concerned?" Has not the effect been to ruin the small manu-
facturers throughout the country, and to drive the business of converting food and cottoa

THE PROTECTIVE POLICY. 419

and wool into cloth into the hands of great capitalists who can afford to incur large risks,
in the certainty of repaying themselves by large profits ?

Does not every man who is shut out, or driven out, from a factory, a furnace, or a coal
or iron mine, seek to raise food? Is not every diminution in the number of persons em-
ployed in converting food and wool into cloth, attended with an increase in the number
of producers of food and wool 1 Is not every increase in the number of producers
attended with an increase in the amoimt of surplus products, an increase in the difficidty
of finding markets, an increase in the amount of transportation, and a diminution in the
quantity of cloth and iron that can be obtained in return for a given quantity of labor 1
Does not every increase in the number of his customers tend to enrich the farmer and
his land, and does not every increase in the niunber of his rivals tend to impoverish both?
Is it not, then, a mistake to look at these revulsions as questions merely ati'ecting "great
manufacturers,'' when their immediate effect is, as now, to deprive hundreds of thousands
of persons of the power of obtaining wages, and to compel them to choose between re-
maining at home in idleness, perhaps to starve, or to fly to the West, there to become
rivals to the farmers and planters, to whom they have thus far been customers ?

Finally — Does the power to consume cloth and iron, domestic and foreign, increase
with the diminution of protection, or does it decrease? Was it greater in 1841 and "42,
under low duties, than in 1S34, '5, and "6, under high ones? Is it as great in 1848,
under low duties, as it was in 1846, under high ones? Will it be as great in 1849 ? Did
not the power to consume iron double itself in the period from 1843 to '47? Will it be
as great in 1849 as it was in 1847? Had the tariff of 1842 remained untouched, would
it not have increased almost fifty per cent. ? Is not the case similar in the cotton and
the wool trades ? If so, are not the comforts of the people diminished instead of being
increased by the reduction of those duties which were supposed to press so iieavily upon
the people?

We have put all these questions, not with a desire to press our correspondent to
answer them publicly, but with a wish that he and many others, who entertain like
opinions, should reflect upon, and provide answers to them, that will be satisfactory to
themselves; and to enable them so to do with advantage both to themselves and their
neighbors, we would recommend to their perusal the work to which we ourselves owe our
instruction on the subject, entitled, " The Past, the Present, and the Future," and
that he may not apprehend that his judgment may be jierverted by the perusal of it, we
may add that the Editor of the London Economist, a powerful teacher in the school of
free trade, speaks of it in the highest terms, awarding it the high praise of having over-
thrown the favorite and popular theory of Ricardo. We confess that it came over our
own minds as the rising sun above the mists of the morning, clearing up subjects thereto-
fore overhung with doubts and shadows, and revealing truths the more acceptable and
agreeable because you are made to feel that here at last you have the truth, standing on
the immutable basis of the natural law that belongs to the case ! It is by the author of
the same work of which M. Coquelin, among the cleverest of French writers on political
economy, speaks so favorably, as reported by Mr. Walsh in one of his late letters, copied
from the Living Age into the National Intelligencer.

Mr. Carey is, like our correspondent, a full believer in the advantages o£ perfect freedom
of trade, and during many years he as fully believed that the course towards free trade
lay in the direction indicated in the letter we have now given. Further examination
satisfied him that the introduction of the system of protection into this country had
resulted from the existence elsewhere of great disturbing causes, that must be removed
before freedom of trade would become possible, and that those who most desired to see
arrive the period when commerce should be perfectly unrestricted, were those who
should most desire to see established an efficient system of protection by aid of which the
farmer and planter might be enabled to attract the loom and the anvil to take their
natural place by the side of the plough, with economy of time and manure, and with
profit to the land and its owner. We pray our correspondent to study his work, and
when he shall have done so, and reflected upon its contents, to favor us with rej^lies to
some of the questions we have addressed to him.

Gas for the Farmer. — A steam-engine was lately erected on the farm of Barsalloeh, for
the purpose of threshing, and it was considered a wonder in its day ; but what will be
thought of a complete gas- work erected, and gas burning every night on the farm of Mr.
Walker, Corsmalzie, Wigtown ? It has been always thought that the residenters in a
town can only enjoy the luxury of gas, but this is a proof of the contrary ; and it is more
than probable that Mr. Walker's example will be followed by many more farmers here,
especially if they acquaint themselves with the small outlay and trouble it costs, besides
also the less risk of danger arising from carelessness of servants in setting fire to barns
and stables, &c. — Wigtownshire Free Press.

420 AGRICULTURAL ADDRESSES,

AGRICULTURAL ADDRESSES, NUMEROUS AND
VALUABLE.

Extracts from the jldJress of the Hon. Ebenezeh Jacksok, delivered before the Agricultural
Society of Middlesex County, at Middletoiim, Connecticut.

One might, with a pair of scissors and some discrimination, make up a
monthly journal of extracts from agricultural addresses alone, delivered
from year to year in the United States. A journal which would be more
valuable, ten times over, to the farmer and planter, than certain slang-
whanging party hebdomadals that constitute all the intellectual meat and
drink (we might say garbage) of many in the country, who deny to them-
selves and their sons works designed and calculated to enlighten them in
the very line of their chief and often their only profession. But, alas, the
quadrennial distribution of patronage has made almost every farmer a seeker
and expectant of office, of high or low degree — leading him to neglect his
legitimate and reliable pursuit : just as the horse that gets an occasional and
premature bite of sweet, succulent, and unsubstantial green food, afterwards
pines away before a full rack of nutritious dry provender.

Far more useful would it be to the nation, if Congress would publish the
extracted spirit of these annual contributions to agricultural knowledge, by
such men as Marsh of Vermont, and Gray of Massachusetts, and Emer-
son of Pennsylvania, and Carey of Maryland, and many others whom we
could name, than to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, for which the
farmer is taxed, to publish conjectural statistics of agriculture, and recon-
noisances and reports connected with the bloody and barbarous art of war.

Our own difficulty, with sixty-four pages at command every month, is
not m finding, but in so selecting as to do justice, and satisfy ourselves and
the public, from the mass of useful matter that offers ; and then, in respect
of addresses, they are usually published and circulated by the societies for
whom they are prepared, and therefore less needing a place in our columns.
We have been rarely more agreeably entertained and instructed than in the
perusal of the one from which we have cut the following passages, descrip-
tive, at the time, of two drawbacks on the progress of agricultural improve-
ment in the good old state of Connecticut, whose firm, moral " platform"
was established in those days when, as we are told, the man who should dare,
sacrilegiously, to " spit in the church," was made, under a certain code of
laws, to stand with his tongue in a split stick J

The residence of the author of this extract, a gentleman of uncommon
polish of mind and manners, is one of the most improved and delightful, in
all that superbly beautiful region around Middletown, in praise of which too
much cannot be said, when seen as we saw it, in the "sere and yellow leaf"
and the soft mellow haze of an " October sun." As you approach the
town over hill and dale by an excellent road — such as are only to be met
with in the dense populations that various industry only can support — the
landscape changes with every point of view, embracing, on every side, neat-
looking homesteads in the midst of small, well-cultivated farms, divided into
woods and meadows and small fields, all enlivened by flocks and herds and
pigeons and poultry enough to awaken, as they did in the minds of those
long shut up in large tovv-ns but who have been reared in the country, a
lively remembrance of that period

". When nature pleased, for life itself was new,
And the heart promised what the fancy drew."

The breath of early frosts had touched the foliage with just chill enough in

AGRICULTURAL ADDRESSES. 421

it to bring out the lively and varied tints which lend to our forests such un-
rivalled beauty at that early period of the waning year, and as occasionally
an autumnal leaf went twirling away before the wind to share the common
lot of all perishable things, it might easily be imagined, as it has been made
to say to the inquiry, " Where goest now ?"

" The rude winds bear me onward
As suiteth them, not me,
O'er dale, o'er hill,
Through good, through ill.
As destiny bears thee.

" What though for me one summer,
And three-score for thy breath,
I live my span —
Thou thine, poor man,
And then adown to death !

" And thus we go together,
For, lofty as thy lot

And lowly mine.

My fate is thine.
To die and be forgot."

Yes, let us repeat that, for the cool, quiet, and healthful temperature of
rural and moral life, commend us to a summer sojourn in Middletown or its
vicinity, where he who listeth may combine the pleasures of occasional soh-
tude, or relieve the ennui of continued retirement, with the conveniences
and excitement of city residence. For this he may have recourse to the
village coffee-house, the school, the church, the daily market, and the daily
mail —

" Messenger of grief
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some."

Almost every residence, even in town, is surrounded with trees and shrub-
bery and vines and cultivated grounds, so favourable to repose and to health-
ful and refined recreation of body and mind ; and if, moreover, you would
see a lingering specimen of matronly dignity — a true type of those good
old times that impressed on our domestic and public character the genuine
stamp of virtue and patriotism, not yet quite obliterated in the " progress"
of a larger liberty — seek, in that case, the privilege of paying j^our respects
to the venerable relict of the patriot Dana, in the magnificent villa provided
expressly by a wealthj^ son for the residue of her declining years. How re-
freshing to see opulence thus yet sometimes consecrated by filial piety, and
fortunes well earned, yet better employed !

Middletown has, it is believed, attracted to its vicinity a portion of the
wealth of Boston, to be there invested in summer retreats. One of the most
prominent and admirable of these is the mansion and ornamented grounds
of Mr. Lloyd of that city, in view from Mr. Jackson's door, and from whose
address we have been led away by the enthusiasm inspired by the charms of
the country where he dwells : —

" The agriculture of New England has heretofore been affected by two prominent
causes, both of which have operated as extensively and prejudicially in this as in any
other section of it. One of these causes has been the prevalence of a speculative spirit,
which has tempted great numbers to prefer the delusive paths of commerce, or the
crowded ranks of the learned professions, to the more sure, though moderate, prospects
of agriculture. The fatal experience of the last few years has dissipated the dreams of
thousands, who have gladly exchanged the harassing and uncertain toils of the counting-
house, or the long-deferred hopes of professional reward, for the heaUhy, independent,
and unfaihng pursuit of husbandry. The same faithful monitor has awakened all
classes of tlie community to the necessity of econojny, and of establishing the founda-

3N

422 MR. Carey's address.

tions of public and private prosperity, not upon the deceptive basis of commercial or
financial speculation, but upon honest industry, solid credit, and moderate expectations.
The evils which we have suffered, and still sutfer, are undoubtedly grievous ; but. if they
have the effect to bring back the public mind to a healthy tone, and to establish a less
fluctuating standard of value in the business concerns of life, posterity will have cause
to bless the chastening hand which arrested us in the road to extravagance and ruin.

" Another form in which this impatient ambition has operated to retard our agricultu-
ral advancement, has been the emigration of the young and enterprising to the fertile
regions of the west. At an early period of her history, the products of New England
not only sufficed for the support of her population, but a considerable surplus was annu-
ally exported. The vast solitutles of the Ohio and the Mississippi had not tlien been
invaded, and none had returned to inflame, by glowing pictures of their exuberant rich-
ness, that discontent to which human nature is so prone. But when the veil was rent ;
when the interposing forests had bowed before the swelling tide of population, disclos-
ing boundless prairies of seemingly exhaustless fertility, what more natural than that the
inhabitants of a stubborn soil should become dissatisfied with their lot, and rush to seize
the tempting prize which nature so bounteously offered? But, like all extravagant hopes,
how often have those of the western emigrant been doomed to disappointment! The
difficulties and privations which attend settlements even in the richest territories of the
west, and the diseases generated by the very fertility of the soil, have caused many to
return to their early homes, and have convinced the rising generation that the induce-
ments for removal are frequently outweighed by its disadvantages, and by those nume-
rous comforts and privileges which the emigrant abandons when he quits the paternal
homestead. Of what avail are cattle upon a thousand hills, if the loss of health be the
price of their acquisition, or what is the advantage of granaries filled with corn, when
plenty reduces its value to one-fourth of its price in New England? Such, too, has be-
come the disorder and depreciation in the circulating medium of those States most fa-
vored by soil and climate, that this inconvenience adds no small item to the catalogue of
the emigrant's disappointments. He looks back with longing eyes to his native land ;
he remembers its pure and wholesome air — its lovely scenery — its neat and comfortable
dwellings — its peaceful villages — the abodes of law and order — and wonders by what
fatuity he could have consented to deprive himself and his children of those manifold
blessings. The present sound financial condition of the eastern section of our country,
contrasted with that of any other portion of the confederacy, is a signal proof that the
prosperity of communities does not so much depend upon local advantages as upon in-
dustry, economy, and education. People dwelling in high northern latitudes have always
possessed more energy, and become more permanently wealthy and powerful than those
of milder climate, and even among ourselves we may sometimes remark in the occu-
pants of a rocky and difficult soil, more of thrift than in districts where the earth yields
plenteously with little labor.''

MR. CAREY'S ADDRESS.

As we anticipated, we have had the pleasure to find in the American
Farmer, Mr. Carey's Address at the late first meeting of the Maryland State
Agricultural Society, and, moreover, to find in its contents the full realiza-
tion of what we e.xpected in the way of pleasure and instruction. We
might say of pleasure, because of its instructing and usefully suggestive cha-
racter. The general interest of the occasion, it being the first meeting of a
state society, as well as the vigor of thought and language that marks this
performance — many of its suggestions being equally applicable to the whole
country over which this journal spreads — as well as respect for the wishes
of numerous and increasing patrons in Maryland, ail combine to make it
proper that this address be preserved in the pages of " The Plough, the
Loom, and the Anvil."

If, in the mean time, we may indicate passages which struck us with
most force, and yielded particular gratification, they were those in which the
orator dwelt on the importance of fulness and exactness in farm accounts,
and that in which he asks emphatically, and as it were in a tone of just resent-
ment, "How long, sir, shall we continue to think that our agriculturists
need no particular and especial training to fit them for their calhng ? That

MR. Carey's address. 423

mere physical ability, the capacity to labor, and that remarkable shrewdness
which is almost the birth right of our race, are all that is requisite to lead
them to distinction in their profession !"

Heartily do we rejoice to see from such a quarter a new impetus given
to the motion of that ball. If agricultural societies will everywhere join
in this inquiry, we shall soon have the right sort of answer from the repre-
sentatives of farmers and planters, who are bestowing millions every year
for dilFusing information and instruction on subjects less civilized and na-
tional, and much less comporting with the public welfare; and right ready
are we to hail the accession of Mr. Roberts' powerful pen to the same cause.
May we not hope that his remarks, concise and to the point, in support of
the power of Congress to appropriate public money for schooling in the use
of the plough, as well as in the guidance of the rudder and the sword, may,
through the president of the society, or some other heed-worthy channel,
reach the members of Congress, along with copies of the resolutions unani-
mously adopted at a full meeting of the society, at the instance of Mr. Earl —
in conformity, as it now appears, with the suggestion of Mr. Carey.

We will venture to say, on behalf of the author of those resolutions, that
their phraseology was shaped not by any doubts of his own, but probably
with reference to the different opinions which might possibly be entertained
by some members of the society. The great point has been to get the
tvedge entered, and now, where, as in this case, an important result depends on
a concert of movement, general and determined, we all know how much
the success of such movements depends on agitation, especially by the
public press. And, truly, what will not agitation effect in countries where
public opinion challenges through the press the attention of public men ?
See what agitation did in England in a few years, even against the will of
the agriculturists, in favor of " free trade" — a ivee trade under which our to-
bacco alone pays more duty than ought to be expended in the entire main-
tenance of this republican government.

We hope to see early signs of the force of public opinion in the sensi-
bilities, however slowly awakened, of the representatives of the planter and
farmer in Congress, where the agricultural committee of the Senate slept
out the last session without once coining together to confer on subjects ex-
pressly referred to them! Even the terrapin, when torpid, or shamming to
be so, can be put in motion when fire is laid upon his back ; and we hope
their agricultural constituents will adopt seme such expedient to put their
representatives in motion, driving them, when appropriations are asked for
naval and military instruction, to refuse one dollar, until a like sum at least
is given for instruction in sciences equally conducive to proficiency and to
more substantial honor in the use of the plough.

With no leisure to study the question, we have always been of opinion
that the best shape that could be given to appropriations for disseminating
" a knowledge of the sciences for cultivating the earth," would be ^ pro
rata appropriation among the States, to be, under their councils, used for that
purpose, and that in each State should be established a school for rearing
teachers on the plan of the West Point Academy, whose eleves, according to
General Jessup, are competent to convert the whole militia of the United
States into well-disciplined soldiers in ninety days : and what, pray, would
not men equally versed in geology, mineralogy, chemistry, mechanics, and
civil architecture and engineering do towards disciplining the labor and eco-
nomizing the materials and capital employed in agriculture ? Why, then,
should, we repeat, not the cultivators of the soil, who have the ball in their
own hands, determine that it shall be dojie? Let us hope that a change is
coming " o'er the spirit of their dreams." Let no dispute be raised in the

424 TOBACCO TRADE WITH ENGLAND.

first instance about details; but get a simple appropriation for a /)ro rata
appropriation out of the proceeds of the public lands or the common trea-
sure for each State, restrictintr the State only to its application to agricidtu-
rul education, and leaving all else to the people of the States, to determine
in what manner to apply it. This need not interfere Avith the establish-
ment of a home or an agricultural departinent at Washington ; and why
should not this interest, greater than all others united — the one by and on
which all others live and move and have their being — have a department to
represent and defend it, and to give a voice in the public councils, as well
as the army and navy ? There ought to be both a department of agricul-
ture and a department of manufactures, for the collection and arrangement
of the statistics of both. With more light, their interests would be seen to
harmonize instead of conflicting, and those at the plough and the harrow
w^ould see that, as between them and those at the loom and the anvil, a wise
policy of the country would tend to fuse and amalgamate, instead of sepa-
rating them from each other, and a degree of high and permanent pros-
perity never yet dreamed of, would be the common destiny of all.

OUR TOBACCO TRADE WITH ENGLAND.

FOR THE CONSIDERATION OF THE PLANTER.
While we are allowing European governments, and especially that of
England, to play at "see-saw" with our great industrial pursuits, so that,
like children on a plank, with a pivot in the centre, our manufacturers are
constantly singing, " Flere we go — up — up — up" — and, " Here we go —
down — down — down," — these dear lovers of what they call '■'■free trade,'" are
treating the cultivators of one of our great staples, as described in the fol-
lowing extract from Mr. Dodge, the indefatigable agent of that interest, to
Mr. Webster, when the great expounder was in the State Department :

'• Whilst in London I prepared and sent to my highly esteemed friend, the Hon. ]\Ir.
Jenifer, chairman of the select committee on the tobacco tratle, an address to the tobacco
planters of the United States, in vidiich I presented the question of our tobacco relations
with Europe in several new points of view, and by which it will be seen that Europe
obtains over $35,000,000 revenue on an amount of our tobacco, costing in the United
States less than $7,000,000 ; whilst we have admitted, free of duty from Europe, an
amount of its produce more than equal to one-half of all the exports of our domestic pro-
duce to the same countries of Enro[)e; and, as the annual average amount imported into
the United States from llie various countries of Europe, from 1st October, 1S35, to 30th
September, 1838, was $97,251,334, of which $54,597,477 was subject to duty, and as
the total average amount of revenue obtained by the American government for the two
years ending 31st December, 1838, by the importations from all parts of the world, was
§16,SGG,017, it may safely be estimated that, as a large proportion of die articles coming
from Europe were admitted free of duty, that the revenue which the United States has
derived from the importations from Europe has not exceeded $10,000,000 annually; so
that, if this revenue should be equalized on the total average importations from Europe,
say $y7.'251,334, it would only amount to a duty of about ten per cent., whilst Europe is
obtaining a revenue of at least $35,000,000 from our tobacco alone. There is certainly no
reciprocity in such a state of things."

The consumption of $10,000 of segars daily in New York, proves how much more
freely iron and coal, and cloth and leather, and hats, and every thing else that represents
and is made up in fact of the prnducls of the plmti^h, are consumed when they are made m
our own country, near to the plough. Yes, the estimate is $10,000 worth daily. If the
farmer has the iron manufactory close to his farm, he puts iron to a thousand uses that
he woidd not if it had to come from England, even though there he might get it cheaper
apparently, but not really, because he cannot in that case pay for it half so easily as if
the people were close by him, who would consume his produce while they made his
iron. For want of the iron-malcing consumers close at liand, he uses wooden keys to
his ox-yokes, and wooden hinges to his doors and gates, and wooden axletrees to carts,
and rope instead of chain traces. But the tillers of the soil, thank God, are heginnhig
to learn a thing or two! We can see that even by the way that the Plough, the Loom,
and the Anvil, is spreading over the whole country, and especially in the South and West.

THE KACE-HORSE. 425

REARING OF YOUNG RACING STOCK.

Under all circumstances, there is too much resemblance between the
speculations of the Turf and a lottery; but, as the prizes it exhibits are
vakuible, the most effectual means of obtaining them should be adopted.
It signifies little what care and circumspection have been exercised in the
selection of stallions and mares, Avith a view of breeding racers ; the prospect
of success is very limited indeed at the present day, unless the produce be
reared according to the improved system acted upon in our first-rate racing
establishments. Such was the pertinacity of opinion, combined with loner-
established prejudices, and in direct opposition to the daily acknowledged
fact of dry and warm countries having been the first to produce the horse
in perfection, that it is only within a very few years that young thorough-
bred stock has been reared in the manner in which it should be reared. A
thorough-bred colt may now bo said to be in training from the day on which
he is dropped, so great is the care taken to force him into shape and sub-
stance.* Not only is he drawing from the teats of his dam the milk of a
highly fed animal, and consequently, in itself highly nutritious, but, before
he is twelve months old, he eats nearly two bushels of oats per week. The
time for expansion of frame is youth, and, when we see a two-year-old at
the post, with eight stone four pounds on his back, which is to be seen in
every meeting at Newmarket, and looking like a horse able to carry a light
man after hounds, Ave most cordially assent to the answer given by the most
experienced Newmarket trainer of the present age to the question. What is
the best method of rearing a racing colt? "First observe," said he, "that
the blood, or cross, is good; secondly, breed him as you would a sheep, from
a roomy dam; and thirdly, give him as little green meat as possible, and as
much corn as he will eat." The trainer we allude to has now retired, but
he had all the young stock of the Duke of Grafton, and many of the first
and most successful sportsmen in England, through his hands, and the annual
disbursements of his establishment exceeded ten thousand pounds. That
dry, and "hard food," as it is called, is the natural food of the parent stock
from which our race-horses are descended, is beyond all doubt; and that the
firmness of their acting parts is attributable to that, and to the warmth and
dryness of the climate, is also admitted. Is it, then, to be wondered at, that
breeders of horses, and not only of race-horses, have at length found out
that dry food and warmth have the same effect in the Temperate as they
have had, and now have in the Torrid Zone? that they have discovered that,
when colts are bred on rich succulent food, and subject to a humid atmo-
sphere, the bulk of the body increases out of proportion to the strength of the
bones; and to these predisposing causes are also to be attributed most of the
false points which we find in horses, such as fleshy shoulders, deficiency of
muscle, weak, pasterns, and flat feet? Virgil discovered this nearly two
thousand years ago, and, when speaking in praise of Epirus, as suitable to
the breeding of horses, emphatically observes.- —

"Continno has leges afternaque fcedera certis,
Imposuit natura locis." Georg. 1, 1. GO.

So careful, however, now are some of our principal and most successful
breeders of race-horses to avoid these evils, that aot only has a thorough-bred

• An American gentleman, who visited several of the studs in the neighborhood of
Doncaster, thus expresses himself: "I was much astonished to find that tlie little ibals of a
few months old had shoes on, and gave evidence of having been carefidly groomed from
the time they were able to bear this attention. I think I saw foals of eight months old
as large as our yearlings — yearlings as large as our two-year-olds, and two-year-old colts
as large as our three-year-olds." — New York Spirit of the Times, Novembc}^ 2S, 1840.

Vol. I.— 54 2x2

426 THE RACE-HORSE.

colt eating grass ad libitum become a rare sight, but he is not suffered to be
exposed to rain, even in the midst of summer, no, not even to a temporary
shower. The effect of rain upon horses' backs is found to produce the worst
of diseases — glanders, for instance, as is well known to all cavalry officers
who have been on service with their regiments; and it cannot be innocuous
to the highly-bred foal, or colt. That he should be sheltered from the cold
of winter, need scarcely be insisted upon here, although we are rather in-
clined to think, that, in the generality of breeding establishments, he is more
exposed to weather in the winter than he ought to be. There is no objec-
tion to a moderate allrjwance of carrots, and a little green food ; but, according
to the old Greek proverb, A%%oi jSio^, a>.?.a 8iaita, another life, another diet,
we must hear no more of the "natural food" of an animal insisted upon by
many, who is so far called upon to outstrip the laws of nature as to begi^n to
work at fourteen months old, and to appear at the starting-post at two years
old, displaying the form, character, and strength of one nearly arrived at
maturity. Neither is the land on which a racing-stud is situated oftentimes
sufficiently considered; but a want of such consideration has been the source
of great Itss. It is in vain to expect success unless upon that which is dry,
and consequently of sound subsoil; and what is termed "upland ground"
is most favorable. Walls, independently of security, are preferable to hedges,
for enclosures to breeding paddocks, as the latter harbor flies, which are very
injurious to young stock, and also to their dams, in hot weather; but the
present small dimensions of breeding paddocks, not exceeding a quarter of
an acre, and many still less, preclude the use of hedges.

Racing colts are physicked when foals, and periodically afterwards; their
hoofs, also, are pared with a drawing knife, that, by shortening the toe, the
heel may have liberty to expand. Physic, in this case, may be tei'nied the
safety valve, and such it is in reality, for this system of forcing nature can-
not be free from danger. It is found, however, materially to promote growth,
as indeed does the work that our racing-colts perform at such a very early
age. Muscular action produces muscular strength, and growth will be the
result. We have seen a colt that measured upwards of fifteen hands in
height on the day twelvemonth which he had been weaned from his dam.

Kacing-colts can scarcely be handled too soon : —

"Dum faciles aziinii juvenum, dum mobilis a?tas,"
as Virgil says of the bulls; and Horace illustrates the necessity of early
erudition of the human species by the excellence of horses which have been
well broken in when young. The first breaking in of colts is also alluded
to by Ovid, who, like Horace, is in favor of very careful treatment of them^
and reminds us of the necessity of it in the following beautiful line : —

"Frcenaque vix patitur de grege captus equus."
The system of breaking colts, however, is not only thoroughly well under^
stood in our racing establishments, but is accomplished with much less
severity than it formerly was, and consequently with less danger to the
animal.*

* Tlii.s would seem to be a proper place to insert an extract which we remember to
have published some ej<i;hteen years since, in the Turf Register and Sporting Magazine,
from a letter received from that eminently sagacious and successful turiman ColoneIi
William R Joiinsox — cut out by nature to be a great man in any walk of life wliich
accident or choice might have led him to adopt. And pray, courteous reader, why should
we not stop a moment to pay our humble tribute to one, of whom Jack Randolph said —
if he had not chanced to eat lobster for supper the night before, Henry would not have
been beaten, nor the South eclipsed, in the memorable race for $.20,000, on the, among
turfmen, ever to be remmnbered 27th May, 1823 — only think — twenty-five years ago!
alas how time slips away! Well then of the Colonel, with his white hat, if he were dead

THE RACE-HORSE. 427

The time of foaling is one of great interest to owners of valuable brood
mares, and particularly so when the produce is engaged, perhaps heavily,
or when they are of what is termed a running family. The attention of the
stud-groom is directed by sundry forewarnings, the most palpable of which
is what is called "waxing of the udder," and appearance of milk, which
generally precede parturition two or three days, but in some instances more.
As the mare brings forth on her legs, there is little fear of the foal being
overlaid by the mother; but the less she is disturbed the better, lest she
should trample on its legs. Her treatment afterwards is now so well under-
stood, that nothing requires to be said about it; but a bran mash, with from

who would not agree with us in saying he was a man of very remarkable powers of
intellect! And what if liis great skill and judgment of man and liorse have been dis-
played chiefly on the race-track; who doubts that with his intuitive quickness of perception,
and command of his temper, he would have been equally distinguished at the Council-
board or the battle-fieUn Where has the man been known to excel him, wherever he
has been tried, for quickness of apprehension and soundness of judgment in matters of
business — in convivial powers and in true-hearted hospitality! Who ever got within his
bailiwick, that did not find a seat at his mahogany, and there forget, for the nonce, this
uncharitable world and its stratagems and cares. Of all the men we have known, none have
excelled him in lightning-like velocity, if we may so say, in the action of his mind — and
for judgment how to bet, on a view of the horses after the first heat, ■who could you name
to match him? Be the question or the problem what it may, his turn and habits of mind
are such as to bring him on the instant to a conclusion as correct as if he were to ponder
it, as some would, for an hour. It is related of him, that he was once standing on the
Capitol grounds at Richmond, conversing with his friend D. B., when an old associate
of theirs, who had seen better days, came along, somewhat out at the elbows, and first
approaching B., asked him to lend him $5 until next day. Really, said B., I have not as
much about me, or I would with the greatest pleasure. As quick as thought. Colonel J.,
knowing what would come next, said — "Here B., Ill lend you $5." Perhaps this is no
place for such anecdotes, but yet we do like, be it confessed, to go even a little out of our
way, and at the risk of being charged with flattery, to show kind remembrance of old
friends, who, in days of brighter sunshine, it may be for us both, we were always glail to
take by the hand with a true grip — to seize such opportunities, when they do occur, to
speak well and justly, of those whom we esteem, is in fact one of the few enjoyable
privileges of the chair Editorial, and it may be when tlie old Colonel is finally "let rfoitvi"
or trains of}', we may have gone before him, and therefore choose we not to wait for, we
would fain hope, a distant day — so "here's a health to you, Tom Brown," — ah! for one
more reunion, as in "auld lang syne," under the spreading branches of the venerable elm

at the , the "boys," those wlio are still on the track and see this, will know where —

Minge, "Oh! don't you remember?" Shade of Tyrone Powers, do the shadows of friends
ever meet to repartake, as in their halcyon days, "the feast of reason and the flow of
soul?" But "away with melancholy," and so, returning to our extract on rearing colts.
The Colonel wrote us many years since on the management of young stock for the turf;
and instead of a long yarn, in his own brief and sententious way, said —

"I keep my colts tolerably fat, though not overloaded with flesh — turn them out in good
weather, and keep them up in bad — taking care not to let the horse-colts smell or see other
horses more than can well be avoided."

While we are on this subject, we will add some judicious observations, sent us by a
friend, in a Report of the Committee on Mares and Colts, at the late exhibition of the
Onondago County (New York) Agricultural Society. The observations apply to the rear-
ing of the best coach-horses, a matter justly esteemed of great importance in that county, and
hence the heavy tribute paid to it annually by all the Southern States for harness-horses.
"As to the management of mares while breeding, it is the opinion of your committee
that if the owner of the mare will drive her himself — and drive her prudently — not at
heavy draught — not at breaking up green sward for instance, but at cross ploughing, har-
rowing, and ordinary farm wagon-work — careful always to drive her slow on the road —
the mare better be worked even up to the week of her foaling, than to lie still; but she
should in all cases be allowed to rest at least one month thereafter. As to her feed while
breeding, we think she should be kept on simple, cooling food during the period of gesta-
tion, up to the fifth month certainly; after that when the fcetus is fully formed and com
mences to grow rapidly, she should have more nutritious food — a moderate allowance,
say six or eight quarts of oats or oatmeal per day should be given her. This, you may
rely upon it, will insure a larger, better developed and more thrifty foal tlian the ordinary

428

THE RACE-HORSE.

four to six ounces of nitre dissolved in it, given as soon as she has brought
forth, keeps off fever. The great preventive of accidents to foals, is the
simple contrivance of rollers on the sides of the door-frames, which secure
them from being injured as they rush out of the hovel or shed by the side
of their dams, especially in cases of alarm.

Some persons prefer purchasing to breeding young racing stock, and it is
difficult to determine between the advantages and disadvantages of the systems.
It is true that, in the first case, the purchaser has a certainty of some return
for his money, inasmuch as he gets his colt or filly, which the breeder may
never get, after incurring a great expense on the mare. The price of a
promising yearling, from three to five hundred guineas, is a large sum to
begin with ; and we cannot, in this instance, say with Varro, " that a good
horse is known from the first." If purchased after he has appeared in pub-
lic, at two years old, of fashionable blood, and having run in front, he is not
to be purchased much under a thousand guineas, which is a large sum to
realize, when added to concomitant expenses. Nothing but the immense
amount of stakes for young racing-stock can justify such a speculation. For
example, in 1824, a filly of the Duke of Grafton's won four thousand four
hundred and fifty guineas, public money, by only starting tAvice.

One of the principal drawbacks from the prospects of success in a racing
establishment, is a complaint called the Distemper, a sort of catarrhal fever,
the cause of which is generally attributed to atmospheric influence, and also
to any other which may produce what is termed a cold. Unlike common
catarrhs, however, the distemper will run through a whole stud of horses;
and if it do not, as it frequently does, end in an affection of the lungs, it
leaves a lassitude behind it, which requires some time to remove. As a hot
sun, with cold winds in spring, and the humid air of the autumn, are the
chief predisposing causes of this complaint, an even temperature in the
stable, and warm clothing when out of it, together with avoiding exposure
to extremes of heat and cold, are the best safeguards against its attacks. It
may be compared to a frost over the blossoms, which in one night blasts all
former hopes of a crop.

A most interesting event to a breeder of thorough-bred stock is the trial
of their racing powers, which at once decides the question of their being
Avorth the expense of training to run or not. There is a great deal of judg-
ment necessary in the act of trying even old horses, but still more so is re-
quired to form a just estimate of a young one, from the difficulty of knowing
when he is quite up to the mark, as well as of keeping him there till it may

straw-stack system of keeping breeding mares. It has been discovered by the great
chemist Liebig, that of all the food of animals, there is none that contains more of the
constituents of muscle than oats, hence their importance to the groM'ing fetus.

'■As to the management of colts, we would notice another, perhaps more prevalent and
more mischievous error than the preceding; we allude to the idea that a colt as soon as
it is weaned must be toughened, by being fed sticks and straw, and left with no shelter
warmer than a stack or board fence.

"This abominable heresy we desire to annihilate. There is no fact connected witli
rural economy to which we challenge the experience of the most stingy farmer even with
more confidence, than that all animals require a generous supply of wholesome food, and a
warm, dry bed in winter, i^articularly during the first year of their lives.

"Let any one who doubts try it this winter. Let him give his colt during the very cold
weather at least a quart of oats or oatmeal per day. and he will find it repaid more than
four-fold in the superior size and symmetry of his horse. An animal that is but half-fed
and exposed to all kinds of weather, (particularly while young,) becomes rhevmiatic — is
drawn out of shape, and grows up ill-favored and comparatively valueless. The secrets
of the great success in breeding horses for which the Arab has always been distinguished,
are in the fewest words these: 1st, he never sells a mare; 2d, he never starves a colt.'" —
Edits. P. L. ^ A.

THE RACE-HORSE.

429

he convenient to try him ; — and it is not always so, owing to bad weather,
the trial of young things being generally very early in the year. This sub-
ject, however, coming more properly under the head of Training the Race-
horse, will be treated of at a future time.

But we have not yet spoken of the form of the race-horse, which we will
now describe; and as nothing can be considered characteristic of a species
but what is perfect of its sort, we will so far endeavor to make the pen per-
form the task of the pencil, as to portray his cardinal points, as nearly perfect
as such means will admit of. Nature herself, perhaps, rarely exhibits per-
fect models in the animal world, leaving the completion of her skill to human
sagacity; neither is undeviating symmetry absolutely necessary in a race-
horse. In every composite, however, beauty consists in the apt connection
of its parts with each other; and just proportions in the hmbs and moving
levers, coupled with that elegance of form in which there is no unnecessary
weight to oppress the muscles, so peculiar to the highly bred race-horse, is
all that need be insisted upon in a racer. It is nevertheless hard to say
"what horse will make a racer, and also what will not, until put to the test;
for how many horses have appeared which the eye of the sportsman would
not wish to study, and yet have proved themselves very capital runners?
This excellence, however, in those "cross made horses," as they are termed,
not misshapen ones, arises, as has been before observed, from their possess-
ing parts conducive to speed and action, not, perhaps, very strikingly dis-
played, but by means of greater length and depth, and a peculiar manner
of setting on of the acting parts, enabling them to excel others, much hand-
somer to the eye, but wanting in either proper declivity, length, or, what is
still more probable, in circular extent of those parts. Thus, as the wise
man, according to the Stoics, alone is beautiful, so is a race-horse to be
admired solely for those points which make him a good race-horse.

Although symmetry and proportion form a perfect figure, and they become
deformities when any of the component parts exceed or fall short of their
due proportions, yet it is not always necessary to measure by the standard
of perfection. Suffice it, then, to state the generally approved points of the
English race-horse.

We commence with the head, not merely because it has always been con
sidered as the most honorable member in the human frame, but as it is one
of the leading characteristics of the thorough-bred horse. His broad angu
lar forehead gives him that beautiful expression of countenance which no
other breed possesses ; and the tapering of the face from the forehead to the
muzzle forms a striking contrast with the large face of the cart-horse, and
the forehead scarcely wider than the face.

Head of a Racer.

Head of a Cart-horse.

The race-horse should have a black, lively, and rather prominent eye
which denotes a sound constitution ; and as horses do not breathe through

430 THE RACE-HORSE.

the mouth, but only through the nose, the nostrils should be rather expanded
and flexible, that they may accommodate themselves to quickened respira-
tion, as the speed of the animal increases. But they should not be over
large. "Naribus no)i angustis,''^ says Varro, and he is right. Beauty in
the head of the race-horse, however, is only a secondary consideration to
the manner in which it should form a junction with the neck, as on that,
in a great measure, depends the goodness of his wind in a race. His jaws
should not only be thin, and not approach too near together at the throat,
but they should not extend too high towards the onset, or they will impede
his freedom of breathing. The neck of all horses should be muscular; but
what is called a loose neck, in a race-horse, is not so objectionable as in a
hunter, and is considered as indicative of speed. Bat as the head of a
horse may be called the helm which guides his course, changes and directs
his motions, it is not only desirable that, as he cannot move his head but
Avith the muscles of his neck, those muscles should be pliant, but that he
should also have what is termed a good mouth. It is asserted, that the weight
of the head and neck, the effect increasing with their distance from the trunk,
adds to the speed of the horse by throwing his weight forward; but this is
no argument for additional weight or length in those parts, which ought to
be duly proportioned to the trunk. The neck of the race-horse should be
in no extreme, but rather long than otherwise, and not too much arched.

As horses are said to go with their shoulders, these may be considered
as highly important points. They vary in form more than any other part
of the horse's frame. Those of Flying Childers rose very high and fine
tow^ards the withers; whereas a firkin of butter is said to have rested, un-
supported, on the withers of Eclipse, when in covering condition. Upright
shoulders, however, being an impediment to speed, obliquity of the scapula
is absolutely necessary, but we do not insist upon their running fine at the
withers. We consider the shoulders of Eclipse to have resembled those
of the greyhound, wide at the upper part, and nearly on a line with the
back. Large, or even what are called coarse shoulders, contribute greatly
to strength, and are no impediment to speed, if there is proper declivity of
the scapula or shoulder-bone. The wn'thers, when high or thin, should enlarge
gradually downwards, and there should be four or five inches between the
fore-thighs, but less between the fetlocks or ankles and the feet.

The true position of the limbs is a most material point in the race-horse,
as it causes him to stand over more ground than one which is otherwise
formed, although possessing a more extended frame. One of these essential
points is, the setting on of, and length in, the fore-arm, or part from shoulder
to knee in the fore-leg; and another is the declension of the haunch to the
hock in the hind-leg, which is termed "Avell let down in the thigh." It
is from having those points in excess that enables the hare to describe a far
greater circle, and cover more ground at one stroke than any other animal
nearly double her size. In fact, the arm should be set on at the extreme
point of the shoulder, which ensures this act of extension, and also adds to
the declivity of the shoulder. The knee should be broad and flat, and if
appearing somewhat prominent, the better. All the Herod legs had pro-
minent knees, and no legs stood work better than they did. Concussion in
galloping is diminished in legs so formed. The cannon or shank, from knee
to fetlock, should be of moderate length in the race-horse, (longer than in
the hunter,) and, above all, the leg should appear flat, not round, with sinews
and bones distinct, and the former appearing to be very firmly braced. The
pastern of the race-horse should be long, lax, and rather small than other-
wise; length and laxness serving as springs, and smallness contributing to
agility, and consequently to perseverance or bottom. Some comparison will

THE RACE-HORSE. 431

hold good between this point in a horse, and the "small of the leg," as it
is called, of a man, in contradistinction to the calf. Under the pressure of
fatigue, no man complains of the "smrt// of his leg" giving him uneasiness,
but his calves often give him notice that he has done too much. The hoof
of the race-horse should be of moderate size, in proportion with the leg
above.

We have already alluded to the bone of the thorough-bred horse, which
much exceeds that of any other variety of this animal in its compactness and
solidity; which qualities, as the span in the gallop must give a shock in
proportion to its length, are admirably adapted to the race-horse. We cannot
say of him, what Job said of the behemoth, that "his bones are like bars
of iron;" yet, as in proportion to the muscular power of the animal, is the
dense quality of the bone, that of the race-horse need not, nor should not,
be large. Experience teaches us, that bones very rarely break ; fractures,
when they do occur in racing, being almost invariably in the joints; and
rather small bone in the leg of a race-horse, supported by broad and well-
braced sinews and tendons, placed distinct from the bone, and forming what
is called a flat and Aviry leg, is most desirable, and found to be indicative,
not only of speed and endurance, but likewise of soundness in severe work.
It is only those who are ignorant of the anatomical structure of animals that
fix the basis of strength in the bony substances alone, not considering the
rhuscular appendages, which constitute the mainspring of strength and
action.

As the strongest bodies owe their vigor to the milk they receive in their
infancy, our recommendation to keep brood mares well will not be considered
as unsuitable; but the connection between milk and bone is also deserving
of a remark. When animal bones are divested of their oil and jelly, the
earth which remains is chiefly lime, united with phosphoric acid. It is
worthy of notice, that phosphate of lime is found in abundance in milk.
This seems to indicate, that Nature thought fit to place, in the first nourish-
ment of animals, a quantity of osseous matter, with a view to the necessary
celerity of the formation and growth of the bones in the earliest stage of their
lives. This is one of the numerous instances of the beneficence of the
Creator, exemplified by the science of chemistry, and shows the advantages
to be expected from a good flow of milk in a mare that is well fed ; and it is
a remarkable fact, that the nearer the female approaches to the period of
parturition, the more is the milk charged with this calcareous phosphate.
Nor is it until the digestive organs of the foal are sufficiently strengthened,
to answer the purposes and work of animalization, that this earthy salt
disappears.

But to proceed with the form of a race-horse. The race-horse should have
length, but the length should be in his shoulders and in the quarters ; that
is, the part posterior to the hips, and not in his back. To give him that ele-
gance of form for which he is so conspicuous, there should be no acute angle
nor any straight line. His shoulders should go into his neck at the points,
vnperceived, and his back should sink a little behind the withers, which giv^es
his rider a good seat, and does not in the least diminish his strength. On
the contrary, horses with very straight backs are generally deficient in their
fore-quarters, as well as in their action ; and we have known some very good
racers even what is termed hollow-backed.* There should be a little rise in
the loins, just behind the saddle; but the race-horse should not be too closely
ribbed up. The ribs should stand out from the spine, producing \yhat is

• Monsieur Tonson, for an instance. — Edits. P. L. Sf A.

432 THE RACE-HORSE.

called a round barrel, together with depth of carcass, a formation which not
only g-jves strength of body and constitution, but, by admitting the intestines
to be comfortably lodged within the ribs, imparts freedom of breathing, acti-
vity and beauty to the whole frame of the horse, other parts being proportional.
These useful points, however, must not be carried to an extreme, or the
horse may be what is termed "too heavy for his legs;" and we knov/ that
light-bodied horses save their legs much in their gallops, which accounts for
mares and geldings standing the severity of training to a later period of life
than stallions, by reason of the former requiring less work, from not generally
carrying so much flesh as the latter.

There is no part, excepting the head,* so truly characteristic of high breed-
ing in the horse, as his haunch. If a httle of the elegance of the parts,
however, is diminished by the width of the hips, it will be recompensed by
increased strength in the animal, as is the case with broad-shouldered men;
and when accompanied with good loins, these protuberances of the ilium can.
scarcely be too great for the purposes of power and action. We next come
to the thigh, the form and substance of which is most material to the race-
horse ; for although horses are said to go with their shoulders, the power
to give the impetus in progressive motion comes from behind. In all animals
endowed with, and requiring extreme rapidity of motion, the thigh is fur-
nished with extraordinary powers and length; the hare, for example, Avhose
thighs are let down to a great extent for their size, and the lower part of the
hinder leg placed under them, as that of the racer should be, from a proper
curve of the hock. The speed of the ostrich arises from the power of the
muscles from the pelvis to the foot; and the thigh of the fighting cock is a
point much considered by breeders of those birds. It is not necessary that
a race-horse's thigh should be very large, but it should exhibit well-developed
muscle. Descending lower in the limb, we arrive at the hock, a very com-
plicated joint, but the form of which is most important in the race-horse. It
should be large and lean, and the point of it projecting behind the bod)'-,
which greatly increases the power of the lever in action, as will presently
be most satisfactorily shown.

The medium height, about fifteen hands two inches, four inches to a hand,
is the best for a race-horse. As the long beam breaks by its own weight,
so large animals have rarely strength in proportion to their size. In fact, if
there were any land animals larger than those we know, they would hardly
be able to move at all. On the English Turf, however, the very large horses
that have appeared at various periods of its existence, have, with a very few
exceptions, not been found so good under high weights, as those of a medium
height; and several instances are on record (Meteora, Whalebone, Barker,
Phantom, Lapdog, and others, for example) of the best horse of his year
being very nearly the lowest.

* We lately heard it remarked, by a connoisseur as well as amateur of the horse, Colo-
nel Nicholas Goldsborough of Maryland, that wherever the forehead came up sharp and
pointed between the ears, experience had taught him to expect a true game spirit. The
Morgan horse, coming from the Norman, through the Canadian, but getting his power of
endurance from the blood-horse, is remarkable, as are the brave little Canadians, for breadth
belivccn the eyes. It indicates sense, courage and fidelity. As for the indispensableness of
blood to all great achievements — who was surprised to find the first horse that ever trotted
twenty miles within the hour, (Trustee lately at New York,) springing at once from the
loins of a bred horse? (Trustee sire of Fashion.) In the Old Turf Register, vol. 2,
page 163 — 165, will be found a list of sixty distinguished race-horses, only two of which
measured above fifteen hands. In a general way, it may be laid down that the form is
best which is composed most nearly of the essential properties o£ the rabbit, greyhound^
and ostrich. — Edits. P. L. ^ A.

MESSAGE OF THE GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA. 433

MESSAGE OF THE GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA.

EXTRACT FROM AND NOTE ON.

" All who are. familiar with the upper portions of the State know that few, if any of its
productions, will bear the expense of transportation, by the ordinary means, to a market
and leave any profits to the producer, except the article of cotton, which is not grown at
all in the region bordering the mountains ; and even that, at the present low prices,
leaves but a small net income when the charges of transportation are deducted. All
descriptions of grain may be transported to our markets from any of the Northern cities
at a less expense than from the mountain region, where it is grown in abundance; and,
with facilities of transportation, might and would be increased to almost any extent.
Lime, which is found in abundance in York and Spartanburg Districts, of superior qua-
lity, is shut out even from the market in this place, on account of the difference in the
expenses of transportation, by the Thomaston lime. For the same reason our great marts
are closed against the iron produced in the interior, and they are supplied from Europe
and the Northern States. The same remarks will apply to almost every article of pro-
duction, the transportation of which is expensive on account of its weight or bulk; and I
venture to predict, that unless greater facilities of transportation are supplied, the health-
iest and most favored portion of the State will become tenantless. Heretofore they have
found a market for their agricultural productions amongst their cotton-growing neiglibors,
but at the present low prices they [the cotton growers] will find it their interest to raise
their own supplies.''

And does not all this prove the wisdom of such legislation as shall in-
cline the machinery and the consumers to go to the food and the materials,
instead of sending the food and materials to Lowell and Manchester? just as
the farmer and planter find it their interest to have the grist-mill and the
blacksmith shop, and the shoemaker's shop, near at hand, even on the land,
if they could have them there — and when at hand, is not the produce of the
mill and the anvil, and the lapstone, much more freely consumed? are not
men and beasts better fed, and horses and men oftener and better shod? and
is there not vastly more demand for food and materials ? What is it in the
power of steam and of railroads, that they should have so vastly increased
the wealth and population of the world, but their faculty of saving time, and
thus adding to the productive capacity of existing laborers ? just as if labor-
ers had in reahty been added in number equal to what manual labor could
effect in the time that is saved, and by the ,power that is thus added ?
"Time is money ;" and all the time that is unnecessarily lost, between the
maturity of the crop of cotton or wool, or corn or wheat, and the conversion
of that cotton or wool into cloth, and the consumption of that corn or wheat,
is just so much money thrown away, as the man would throw away money
who locks his surplus cash up in an old chest, or hides it in some secret
drawer of his secretary, instead of putting it out at interest, or into active
employment. The uplands of South Carolina ought to be employed in
sheep husbandry, for one thing — wherein much value is condensed in little
weight, and therefore more cheaply transported.

But the world is waking up to a conviction of the violence which is done
not onl)^ to every local interest, but to the very laws of nature, by " man's
inventions," when they force the loom and the anvil, against all obvious
propriety and convenience, to work away off at a distance from the plough
and the harrow, that furnish their materials and the food of those who labor
at them ; and hence it is that we see, in spite of political dogmas to the con-
trary, manufactories of cotton are forcing their way into Carolina, Georgia,
and Mississippi; and hence it is that Ave are every day meeting with signs
like the following, from the Mississippi Independent :

"We learn from the Carrolton (Miss.) Flag of the 13th inst. that a cotton factory is
being established in Choctaw county, 11 miles south of Greensboro. It will be in full
operation by the first of January next.

Vol. L— 55 2 0

434 Roberts' resolutions.

" We also understand that efforts are being made to form a company for the purpose
of establishing a similar factory in Covington county. We hail these enterprises as ' signs
of the times.' "

But here is another sign :

Georgetown Cotton Factory. — We understand that this factory will go into opera-
tion again on and after Monday next, (this day.) We regret that it did not prosper in
the hands of our enterprising fellow-citizen, Mr. Bomford. We hope that it is now placed
beyond the possibility of failing. The beneficial effects, on its renewing operations, will
soon be felt by our industrial population and merchants. — Georgetown Advocate.

Such is the course of things, and such it must ever be until the poh'cy of
protection shall be the fixed public sentiment of the country, and a fixed fact
in its legislation. Col. Bomford buys an immense water-power for a song —
establishes a factory that promises all that could be wished, and it fails —
and all are sorry for him. His property is sold at a great sacrifice ; and then
should his successor in the undertaking be ruined, all will be sorry for him.
Our policy in regard to protection and free trade is ever fluctuating ; and
manufacturing becomes a system of lottery, in which many draw blanks,
Avhile just enough to keep up the excitement draw an occasional high prize.
So will it ever be until we have a system of our own, estabhshed on a solid
foundation, that shall attract investment by something like certainty in the
results, however moderate these results may be. Our Southern friends
desire to have factories located among their plantations, to give value to their
land and their labor; but we fear they will hope therefor in vain, so long as
every man who makes the effort shall continue to be added to the list of
those who have been ruined by the perpetual fluctuations consequent upon
a dependence upon the variations of English poHcy.

ROBERTS' RESOLUTIONS.

On the power of the General Government to create Schools for instruction in the art of Agricul-
ture, as ivell as in the art of War, by Edward P. Roberts. Editor of the American
Farmer, and Chairman of " the Committee appointed to make a report on the various subjects
connected with the Exhibition," held at Baltimore, in November, 1848, by the Maryland State
Agricultural Society.

The resolutions to which the report refers, were submitted by Mr. Earle, unanimously
passed, and published in the last number of '-The Plough, the Loom, and the Axvil."

A memorial having this object in view was presented last winter, by the Hon. Reverdy
Johnson, wilit eloquent and forcible remarks in support of it, to the Senate of the United
States, and reierred to the Committee on Agriadlure, who — never held a single meeting during
the session.'.'.'!

" Your committee are highly pleased at the resolution of the society, in-
voking the aid of the general government in the establishment of Institu-
tions ' io disseminate a knowledge of the science of cultivating the earth,^
as also at its accompanying one, requiring the president to communicate the
former to our representatives in Congress. Of the constitutionality of such
appropriations, the writer of this report does not entertain the slightest
doubt — their beneficial efTects all will admit. The first grant in the consti-
tution gives power to Congress to legislate for the ' general welfare'' — and
certainly none will deny that agriculture hes at the very foundation of the
welfare of the people of the Union ; it is the source whence its Aveahh is
created, its welfare promoted, and its prosperity insured : three-fourths of
our population are engaged in agriculture ; these by their productions sus-
tain the other fourth, and produce the raw materials by which the industry
of the country is carried on : and such being the case, it would be strange,

APPLYING DUNG TO WHEAT. 435

indeed, if they are not to come within the meaning of the term ' general wel-
faref for whose benefit the very first grant of power to Congress is given.
The power here contended for, is an expressly granted one, and does not
rest upon the more precarious basis of an implied or incidental one. If the
agricultural interests have an identity with the '■general welfare'' of the
country — and who will deny that they have — then do they come within the
beneficent action of the grant of power, and as a just and inevitable deduc-
tion, Cono-ress has the constitutional competency to appropriate money, or
which is equivalent to it, to grant portions of the public lands, to establish
and endow agricultural schools or colleges in the several states. Time after
time Congress have made grants of the public domain to the new states for
the establishment of institutions of learning, and the promotion of internal
improvements. These things have been done not under express, but under
the implied powers of the government. Congress has the right under the
constitution to regulate coiitmerce with foreign nations — so, also, to establish
a navy and raise armies ; but there is not a word in the way of positive
grant about employing the navy to protect commerce ; neither is there a
word about establishing naval schools — and yet, our naval force is employed
in every sea in the protection of commerce, and w^e have a naval school
instituted to educate naval officers — and a military academy to educate our
army officers. Whence comes the authority for the exercise of these
powers ? Not by any express constitutional grant ; for in this light the con-
stitution is silent — but from the power of implication. The presumption
being, that the power to create carries with it, m the first case, that of pro-
tecting, and in the two latter, that of educating the officers who are to com-
mand the navy and army when created. Now, then, if an inferential
power can be exerted so substantively in behalf of commerce, and lor teach-
ing men how best and most scientifically they may destroy their fellow-men,
why, we would ask, is it, that the express grant of power in behalf of the
^ general welfare^ should be considered a dead letter? We would further
ask, if the people of the new states can have large appropriations made them
for purposes connected with their ' tvelfare,'' how is it, that the ' olcV states
are to be denied, when they ask for kindred appropriations ?

" Your committee having had their attention called to this subject by the
resolution alluded to, have felt it to be their duty to thus briefly give their
views upon the constitutional branch of the question.

"Edward P. Roberts, Chairman of the Committee."

Applying Dung to JVheat. — The operations of life are on the surface of
the earth, and the most plausible theory of the food of plants supposes thai
it is derived as much from the atmosphere as from the soil. We may also
infer that new elements will be produced from the manure and the air, and
which may be imbibed by plants. From these grounds, I have long been
of opinion that the farm-yard dung, which is now laid on the bare fallows
for wheat, might be more beneficially applied as a top-dressing in March on
the growing plants. The dung being evenly and thinly spread over the
land, it may lie for one or two months ; and being then harrowed, it will form
a top-dressing for the plants, of no common value, of the minute particles of
dung and soil, and a bed for grass-seeds of a sort that they never receive.
A matrix of different substances, in a finely reduced and comminuted
state, resembles the "alluvium" of nature, in which plants so very much
delight to grou\ J- D«

436 WHO SAYS — "speed the plough?"

WHO SAYS— "SPEED THE PLOUGH?"

As we violate no custom, we hope we do not violate propriety, in placing the follow-
ing letters in the body of our journal. We might fill a Number with extracts favorable lo
the object of our enterprise, and hopeful of our success, from a view of the manner in
which that object has been so far pursued.

If these testimonies of support come from one quarter more than another, it is from the
West and the South. From the South, the common sentiment is — " Send us your journal;
it's just the thing we wanted:" and the same indication comes from Pennsylvania and
Ohio. All that is now needed to place us on a i^latform that will stand is, that the
patrons we have will average one additional one. Some, in isolated places, may not
find that easy ; while others could, almost for the asking, send four more at least. When
we say that support comes chiefly from the South and West, we mean that it is there
more equally spread over the country. But this makes the more conspicuous the good
will of friends to our enterprise in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, who encouraged
us to embark in it. What more could any man say in its behalf than that praise vouch-
safed by such an one as Samuel Lawrence, of Lowell, who volunteered the declaration
that the best cure for the evils of the times would be, that every man, woman, and child,
should read " The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvilf while Mr. W. S. King, of Wood-
land Farm, Rhode Island, whom we have not the honor to know personally, says it will
be with him "a labor of love' to go about extending its circulation! Adverting to these
cases, as they occur, must not make the many friends who have elsewhere made up
clubs of four and even many more imagine that we are for a moment unmindful of their
great kindness. We trust ingratitude is not in our nature, whatever other bad ingre-
dients may be. We might, if we had space and time to go over our files, pick out ex-
tracts like the 'following, from South Carolina, Virginia, Georgia, Maryland, Delaware,
Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, and New York, Florida, Pennsylvania, North Caro-
lina, and Louisiana.

My Dear Sir : — Accompanying this I send $20 on account of the follow-
ing subscribers to your inv^aluable periodical

My engagements have prevented me from doing as much for the good
cause hitherto as I could have wished, but I trust the leisure of the winter
will affljrd me abundant opportunity of proving the interest I feel in your
undertaking.

Mr. Patterson, of Cross Creek, promises to secure a good list in his neigh-
borhood; and I expect the cordial co-operation of Mr. George Wilson,
of West Alexander.

I shall take an early opportunity of calling public attention to the "Plough,
Loom, and Anvil," in the three papers of our town, and cannot but hope
that it will obtain a large circulation in a county so essentially tariff ^.s ours.

With my best wishes for the success of your patriotic labors,

I am, dear Sir, very truly yours, Robert R. Reed.

P. S. — Monday morning. On coming to town this morning I added four
more names to the list, which you will find below. All have paid except
Mr. , who is absent from home just now. Yours, &c. R. R. R.

Dear Sir: — Your friend Mr. Lawrence Avas not mistaken in supposing
that I would feel a deep interest in your undertaking. It is well calculated
to promote the best interests of our country, and I trust you will receive that
encouragement which your patriotic attetTipt deserves. The time, I trust,
has arrived when the people begin to see their true interests. At the same
time that we introduce improved processes of agriculture, we should endeavor
to create a market for our increased products. I hope the time is past when
the laboring men of the country will permit their interests to be the sport of
trading politicians. My sympathies are with the laboring classes, and my
interests are purely agricultural. It is natural, therefore, that I should think
this the great concern of the country. " The profit of the earth is for all :
the king himself is served by the field."

I had the pleasure sometime ago to send, through our postmaster, Mr.

THE SHEEP IN ITS VARIOUS FORMS. 437

Hadden, fiA-e names, including my own, as subscribers to "The Plough,"
&c. After the presidential election is over, and the smoke of the battle is
cleared away, I may do myself the honor of sending you a few more names.
With much respect, yours, &c. N. Ewing.

Buena Vista, Del., December 2, 1848.
Dear Sir: — I have long been a reader of your productions, and have
derived much valuable information from them.

Most cordially do I wish success to " The Plough, the Loom, and the An-
vil." Set me down as a permanent subscriber; that is, during our joint
lives. Send the work to Buena Vista, Del., till further orders. I wish my
sons to study it. Very truly your friend,

Jno. M. Clayton.

THE SHEEP IN ITS VARIOUS FORMS.

Wise men regard with suspicious eye the assertions of those who profess
to accomplish a variety of dissimilar effects by a single cause. It is custom-
ary to be jealous of the pretensions of " Universal Restorative," " Heal All,"
or any other panacea warranted to cure diseases of all symptoms or all origins.
And the proposal to adapt one breed of sheep to cdl circumstances of food,
climate, and situation, making it answer all the purposes for which sheep
are usually employed, seems justly to meet with similar distrustand suspicion.

From the varied habits of sheep, the widely different circumstances in
■which they are placed, and the opposite results which the several kinds are
intended to produce, we are at once led to doubt the practicability and value
of the scheme. We are induced still further to view the proposition as con-
trary to the order of Nature, when we consider the fact that there is scarcely
any animal which appears under so many forms as the sheep. In Persia
and other parts of the east it is found with a tail of twenty pounds weight ;
at the Cape of Good Hope the tail is worth as much as all the rest of the
carcass; there and in other parts of Africa the sheep have clusters of horns,
to the number of five or six ; in Madagascar the same horns and tails are to
be seen, the ears hanging down like those of a hound; about Aurengabad,
between Agra and Bengal, they are found without any horns at all, but so
strong that, being bridled and saddled, they will carry children of 10 or 12
years of age; the so-called sheep of Chili somewhat resemble camels, being
hair-mouthed and hunch-backed, and they are used for carriage and field
labor; those of China are small, with short tails, which, however, are a lump
of fat; Tercen, in his voyage to Surat, mentions sheep with bent snouts and
pendent ears, with wool more coarse and stiff than goat's hair; in Africa, to
the north of the Cape of Good Hope, they never eat grass, only succulent
plants and shrubs; in Thibet the sheep have large broad tails; in Natolia
these tails are laid in carts on wheels ; in Anspach, in Germany, a small
sort exist that are shorn twice a year, and also lamb every spring and autumn ;
in Juliers and Cleves, also, they are said to lamb twice a year, and bring two
or three at each time — five sheep have brought twenty-five lambs in a year;
on the slave coast of Africa, the sheep have no wool, "but," says the old
Dutch traveller, Bosman, "the want is supplied with hair, so that here the
world seems inverted, for the sheep are hairy and the men are woolly" —
this hair forms a sort of mane, like that of the lion, on the neck, and the
same on the rump, with a bunch at the end of the tail ; the Javanese sheep
have tails weighing occasionally forty or fifty pounds, having a coat of red
and white hair; four-horned sheep are numerous in several parts of Tartary,
and a few have six horns, with wattles under the throat. — Agricultural
Gazette.

2o2

438 THE EAST AND THE WEST.

WHY THE EAST CANNOT COMPETE WITH THE WEST.

BY COL. T. J. CAEMICHAEL, SING-SING.

Having spent my early life in the State of Ohio, where the farmer
suffered so much for want of a market, before the days of steamboats, canals,
and raih'oads, and witnessed the immense chanq-e which these inventions
and improvements have made in the wealth and prosperity of the west, by
affording a ready market for the lighter and most valuable products of the
soil, I confess I was surprised on taking up my residence on the North
River, to find the farmers here trying to compete with the great West in the
same products, instead of turning their attention to the more bulky and perish-
able articles, for which they have a good market, and against which they
may defy all western competition.

Now let us try my position mathematically. And for that purpose give
a farmer on the Hudson River one hundred acres of the best arable land, at
a cost of one hundred dollars per acre, and a western farmer, say in Wis-
consin, the same quantity at five dollars per acre — which is a full price for
arable lands in that country under improvement. Now let each farm be
located within the same distance from navigation, and allow the expenses
of seeding and gathering of crops to be the same, and let the whole premises
East and West be put into wheat.

First, the eastern farmer must manure at an expense of at least S5 per
acre, and if he is very fortunate he may raise 25 bushels per acre, or 2500
bushels in all. This is good for 500 barrels of flour. Take flour at $5 per
barrel, and he has $2500. Now deduct 10 cents per barrel for transporta-
tion, $50. Now deduct the interest of cost of one hundred acres, $700, and
manuring, $500, and you have $1300.

Now let us look at the operations of the western farmer, who, with the
same labor, minus manuring, is sure of an average of thirty bushels per
acre — say 3000 — which is equal to 600 barrels of flour; deduct $1 per
barrel for freight, and at the same price in market he has $2400; deduct in-
terest on the cost of land, $35, and he has $2305; now deduct the proceeds
of the eastern farm, $1300, from that of the west, $2365, and you have $1365
balance infavor of the western farmer,raore than the entire proceeds of the east-
ern farm. Our eastern farmer asks then. What shall we do ? Our fathers used
to make fortunes in raising grain? It is answered that your fathers lived
in another age of the world, and were governed by circumstances; you see
the progress of the means of transportation — you see the enormous growth
of the West — you feel the competition of that quarter in the lighter articles —
you also see the higli prices of bulky and perishable products in your mar-
ket, without taking the advantage of such a state of things. By perishable
products, I mean potatoes, turnips, beets, carrots, cabbage, fruit, and all other
vegetables — together with fresh beef, mutton, pork, &c.

Now let us cultivate a farm on the North River, with some of these arti-
cles, all of which are about equally profitable. Suppose the same farmer
should plant 50 acres in potatoes, and the same number in turnips, after
manuring as for wheat. The potatoes should produce 200 bushels per acre,
10,000 bushels. These at three bushels to the barrel, are equal to 3333
barrels, worth at least as many dollars in market, clear of freight. Now
your fifty acres of turnips should yield 400 bushels per acre, 20,000 bush-
els, or 0606 barrels, Avorth half a dollar per barrel clear of freight, $3333;
to which add the crop of potatoes, $3333, and you have $6666. From this
sum deduct manuring and interest, $1200, and the balance is $5466 from
one hundred acres.

THE EAST AND THE WEST. 439

Now instead of marketing the turnips, (wliich are a bulky article,) let us
adopt the European practice of purchasing; stock in the interior of the coun-
try from the breeders, and fatten it for the market. It has been demon-
strated that 60 bushels of turnips, and 600 weiorht of hay properly fed, wilt
fatten ten sheep, or one cow, in the best manner for the shambles, in the
space of two months. Sheep and cattle can be purchased in the interior
of the country, in low condition, for half their market value when fattened.
This process here, as well as abroad, will yield the farmer a liberal in-
crease.

On my late visit to Europe, I found that they adapted their business and
products to their location. In districts at a distance from market, they raise
grain and breed stock, while these more convenient turn their attention to
growing vegetables and fatting stock ; and it is to this practice of making
two professions, viz. fatting and breeding, that I attribute most of their suc-
cess. In farming, like every other business, a man should never have "too
many irons in the fire at once," some of them are liable to get burned. He
who turns his attention either to one branch or the other, is the most likely
to come out successful in the end. Who employs a physician to perform
the duties of a surgeon, or a carpenter to build a brick or stone M'all ? And
with deference I submit to intelligent farmers, whether there is not as much
difference in the modes and rules of breeding stock and fatting it, as in that
of raising grain and bulbous roots ?

It seems almost incredible to an American, that in many parts of Great
Britain and France the farmers pay $20 per acre rent per annum, by the
hundred acres, and yet they drive a thriving business, by adapting their
products to their location, and yet it seldom happens that similar articles are
higher there than in the New York markets.

I am inclined to think there is a mistaken opinion very general among
our farmers, that they should produce at least as much of certain crops as
they consume ; as well may it be held, that every farmer should doctor his
family, plead his law, or preach his gospel, — when he can purchase cheaper
than produce, or realize a greater income by selling one thing and buying
another, why not do so ?

Men are the sport of circumstances, when
Circumstances are the sport of men.

That farmer must play a losing game who will not adapt his business to
circumstances and location. — Am. Quart. Jour, of Jig. 4' Science.

Every reader, on perusal of the above, can make for himself the necessary allowance
for dilference of " circumstances," and thus see how far the observations of the writer
(whicli, for the soundness of his general principle, is not to be questioned) apply in his
own locality. Of one thing nothing can be seen to be more clear than the fact, that those
in the old worn-out parts of the Southern States, at any considerable distance from and
cost of transportation to market, and who yet persist in making grain crops and tobacco
crops, in competition widi the western producer of these commodities, is in the way, if
he would but see it, of a galloping consumption of all that is left him of his paternal
estate. There is nothing left him but to change his course and objects of husbandry to
things that won't bear being brought from die West, and, for consumption of them, he
must draw the loom and the anvil near to the jilough and the harrow. He must strive to
compel the government to the enactment of laws that will force the manufacturer to
place his estabhshments in our own country; but how can he do that? Where is he to
get the operatives, when, by admitdng foreign manufactures, you force him to work in
competition with die starving operatives in English mills? If you won't give some as-
surance of something like permanent investment and reasonable returns to men who
would embark dieir capital in manufactures, what is the obvious alternative? Why,
clearly that the men who would be working in cotton mills and woollen mills, and coal
mines and iron mines, consuming your bulky and perishable things that can't bo brought
from the West, will go diemselves to the West, and rely for a living at least on the
plough and the harrow j for, after all, men must have bread and meat for themselves, their

440 KATE OF WA.GES IN GREAT BRITAIN.

wives, and their children ; and who would desire to see them reduced in our country to
the pay of tlie laborer in the factories of Leeds and Manchester '? What is that 1 Read
and see.

RATE OF WAGES IN GREAT BRITAIN.

We copy the following article from the Lowell Courier. The writer, Mr. Aiken, is
agent of tlie Lawrence Mills in Lowell.

During the autumn of 1847 I visited Europe, and, while in Great Britain,
spent several weeks in the manufacturing districts. I was admitted with
entire freedom to the linen factories at Belfast, Ireland ; to the machine
shops and cotton factories at Greenock and Glasgow, in Scotland ; to a lar2;e
Avoollen factory at Leeds; to several of the machine shops and cotton mills
at Manchester ; to a lace factory at Derby ; and to the shops at Sheffield
and Birmingham. All the processes in the several manufactories were shown
to me, and all my inquiries were answered without reserve and to my entire
satisfaction. The rate of wages paid to the operatives and the cost of pro-
duction were of course points which I could not overlook. I wastmiformly
attended by the proprietor or manager of the factory, and the information re-
ceived was immediately noted on my memorandum book, from which I take
the following particulars regarding wages :

The operative in all cases boards himself out of the wages paid.
In the linen mill at Belfast, wages from lid. to 13d. per day ; average 6s.
a week ; equal to $1 4-1.

In the cotton mills which I visited at Greenock and Glasgow, in Scotland,
wages ranged from 4s. to 8s. 6d. sterling a week ; average not over 7s. 6d. ;
equal to $1 80.

In the large woollen mill at Leeds, wages ranged from 6s. to 10s. sterling a
week ; average not over 9s.; equal to $2 16.

In the two best cotton flictories I visited at Manchester, one of them spin-
ning fine lace-thread from No. 200 to No. 400, and the other spinning No. 40
mule-twist, the average wages paid to men, women, and children, as given
me by the proprietors, was r2s. a week ; equal to $3 88. At the same time
the proprietors informed me that their rate of wages was considerably above
the general rate ; and, in accordance with this statement, I found in these
two mills much the best clothed and best looking sets of operatives I saw in
any factories in Great Britain.

As another test of the cqst of labor, I ascertained from the proprietors
themselves, who, in some instances, submitted to my inspection their private
weekly minutes of cost, that No. 40 mule-twist was produced and packed
for market at a cost of 2d. per pound on labor. And this embraced me-
chanics and all other labor employed about the establishments.

Skilled labor is also much cheaper in Manchester than in Lowell. In one
mill, much larger than the new mill of the Merrimac Company, I was in-
formed that the head overlooker, having a general superintendence of the
whole mill, received £1^ a week, equal to 240 a day; and the overseers of
particular rooms from 27s. to 80s. a week, equal to $1 08 and $1 20 per
day.

My general conclusion was that labor in the cotton manufactories in Man-
chester was at least thirty-three yter cent., and in the woollen at Leeds at least
fifty per cent, cheaper than similar labor, at the same time, at Lowell.

Very respectfully, John Aiken.

BONE-DUST. 441

BONE-DUST.

Nearly all recent experiments seem to corroborate former statements
relative to the very great utility of bone-dust when properly applied, and
many farmers are availing themselves of this valuable article to increase
the fertility of their soils. But, if its properties and effects were more ge-
nerally understood, none but judicious applications would be made, and it
would, doubtless, be in much greater demand, and, as a consequence, all
bones would be preserved in a fresh state, and mills would be erected pur-
posely to prepare them, and an article decidedly superior to that at present
employed would be obtainable.

Some interesting facts and inquiries, in regard to its use, have been pre-
sented to us of late, that we deem well worthy of publication. They were
received from an inteUigent gentleman residing in Bucks county, Pa., and
are the results of his own experiments, which he is prepared to substantiate.
He states that, in 1845, he applied ten bushels of bone-dust (cost $4) on
three-quarters of an acre of clover sod, and obtained eight bushels of wheat,
extra, worth $10. His land was ploughed the first of September; after which
the dust was applied broad-cast, and then cross-ploughed quite shallow, sowing
the wheat September 25th. The subsequent season he manured with barn-
yard manure the rest of the field for corn ; but says the corn and oats have been
decidedly superior Avhere the bone-dust was applied, and now produces a
much larger quantity of clover. In 1846, he applied 110 bushels (cost $44)
on seven and a-half acres of oat-stubble without other manure, and gathered
118^ bushels of wheat, and thinks, had the season been favorable, the yield
would have been even 140 or 150 bushels. In 1847, he applied 100 bush-
els, with six loads of yard manure, on seven acres of clover sod, and ob-
tained 206 bushels of wheat. He says, by leaving some pieces without
bone-dust, he has satisfied himself that it is more efficacious than a covering
of yard manure.

In the fall of 1847, he mixed two bushels of bone-dust Avith ten of fine
soil, keeping it moist during the winter, and, in the following spring, placed
one handful under each hill of corn, thus applying not over two bushels to
the acre, and obtained ten bushels the acre m.ore corn than on that portion
to which ashes and plaster were applied. The soil was a loamy one, and
he remarks that its effects are more visible on loam or clay than on sand,
and that the dust used was obtained at the button manufactories.

He also observes that it is less perceptible on land that has been recently
limed, and states that he applied bone-dust and caustic lime together on one
portion of a field, and on another pure bone-dust, and the result was that
double the quantity of wheat was produced on that portion to which the
dust was applied alone. He further states that the experiments of his
neighbors corroborate those of his own, and then, in conclusion, Avishes our
opinion in regard to the cause of the failure. A correct explanation of this
phenomenon would be full of interest as well as value; but, owing to our
limited knowledge of the action of the phosphates, it is exceedingly diffi-
cult to arrive at an accurate conclusion : nevertheless, we submit the fol-
lowing remarks as the result of our brief reflections. And, in order to be
clearly understood, we shall be obliged to rehearse some matters of fact that
may not be generally known. Bone-dust prepared from fresh bones that
have not been exposed to the action of the atmosphere, or any other modi-
fying agencies, contain about one-third of their weight of animal, the re-
maining two-thirds of earthy matter, five-sixths of which is phosphate of

Vol. I.— 56

442 BONE-DUST.

lime, the rest principally carbonate of lime. This is the composition of the
bone-dust employed in England with such beneficial results. iS'ow, some
of the most eminent chemists differ in their views in regard to the cause of
the increased luxuriance in the growth of vegetation, produced by the ap-
plication of this article — some attributing it exclusively to the phosphates,
and others to both the phosphates and animal matter.

The latter opinion we consider decidedly preferable, though some experi-
ments would lead to an adoption of the former. Embracing this view, then,
■we can easily conceive that there may be cases where the animal matter
may be more efficacious than the phosphoric acid, and also the reverse.
For instance, in those soils that are abundantly supplied with the phosphates,
the increased fertility resulting from the use of bone-dust will undoubtedly
be occasioned by the animal matter. In an example of this kind, the pre-
sence of lime in the soil will be of value, for it will hasten the decomposi-
tion of the organic portion and render it more imrnediatel}'- available.
Hence the reason that some assert that bone-dust is of more utihty on calca-
reous soils than on others.

But the dust obtained from the button manufactories undoubtedly con-
tains a less per centage of animal matter, it being eliminated during the
bleaching process; therefore the efficacy of the article used in Bucks
county may principally be attributed to the action of the phosphates. Now,
what changes does the phosphate of lime undergo after being incorporated
with the soil before it is in an available form ?

The answer to this we will preface with a few remarks. It is well
known that the effects of bone-dust are often verj' lasting, being perceptible
for several years after its application. This, we imagine, results from the
strong affinity existing between the acid and the lime, and the insolubility
of the compound in water, which would, of course, be inert unless dis-
solved. It is for this reason that a patent was granted to J. B. Lawes, Esq.,
in England, in 1842, for a method of preparing it. It was to decompose
the ground bones by the addition of as much sulphuric acid as would libe-
rate enough of the phosphoric to dissolve the phosphate of lime. The free
phosphoric acid is thereby ready to combine with the various alkaline earths
contained in the soil. In this state, when applied, its operation would be
immediate and prompt, consequently not so lasting as when employed in
its original condition. Of course, cases occur when this mode of aj)plying
it would be advisable. We conceive that a similar change takes place with,
the phosphate of lime in the soil to that described when saturated with sul-
phuric acid ; that is, there must be some acid present to assist in dissolving
and partially decomposing it, when it will be in a condition suitable for vege-
table aliment.

That such acids exist in soils, there can be no doubt, and to them we
would attribute the decomposition of bone-dust, that would proceed rapidly
when they were in liberal quantities, and slowly when not. On those soils
Avhere it continues to operate for a long series of years, doubtless the quan-
tity of acids is verij small, so that the chemical changes that are necessary
to render the phosphate of lime available proceed very slowly; and when
its effticts soon cease, the opposite of this exists. Admitting these views to
be correct, we can easily account for the failure in question, where caustic
lime was applied in connection with bone-dust ; for caustic lime, which is a
strong base, would at once unite with all the acids in the soil, thus leaving
none to dissolve and decompose the phosphate of lime, which would conse-
quently remain inactive for a long time. But, in addition to this, the caustic
lime would also liberate the ammonia formed during the decomposition of
the vegetable matter in the soil, and thus prove injurious in two ways. The

FENCE LAWS IN MARYLAND. 443

same result might be anticipated, though to a less extent, on lands that had
been recently limed, for it requires a long period for caustic lime to absorb
from the atmosphere its equivalent of carbonic acid.

This view of the subject would lead us to believe that phosphate of lime
Avould be comparatively inactive on soils that contain potash and soda in
large quantities, for these alkalies would also neutralize the acid. Now, it
is known that soils derived from the disintegration of the metamorphic
and plutonic rocks are highly charged with these alkalies, the felspar
yielding potash, and the albite soda — both these minerals forming com-
ponent parts of these two classes of rocks. The soils in Philadelphia
county are mostly derived from these rocks ; hence we can anticipate the
effects of phosphate of lime when applied to them. Experiments have
been made with it in this vicinity, and we were recently informed by a gen-
tleman who has made applications of it, and has satisfied himself that it is
of no utility on his land. Doubtless, if it were mixed with earth and satu-
rated with diluted sulphuric acid, it would be equally as visible here as
elsewhere. Bone-dust, however, may be useful on such lands if the alkahes
have been greatly exhausted by long cultivation ; and indeed it may be
known to produce good effects when this change has not taken place ; but,
in such instances, we would attribute it principally to the animal matter,
which would operate on such soils with as much facility as most others.

Then, to sum up our remarks, we are induced to believe that, when the
good eff'ects of the use of bone-dust are owing to the animal matter, it is
most effectual on soils that contain lime ; but when to the phosphate of lime,
on those soils that have not been limed and are not abundant in alkalies.
And, as the bone-dust obtained at the button manufactories contains less
animal matter than that prepared from fresh bones, we think it can be used
to the best advantage on soils of the latter class, unless it be acted upon by
sulphuric acid, as before described, when it will act with nearly equal prompt-
ness on both. These remarks, as premature as they may be, are offered to
the public with the hope that they may awaken a spirit of inquiry in refer
ence to this article, which we beheve, if judiciously applied, will be of vast
utility. P.

Laboratory of Mount Airy Agriniltiiral Institute, Nov. lith, 1848.

THE LAW AS IT STANDS IN MARYLAND, ON THE
SUBJECT OF FENCING.

The Editor of this journal, in attendance at the meeting of the Agricultural
Convention in his native State of Maryland, in October last, honored with
an express invitation to take a seat, and participate in the deliberations of
that body, and seeing no one disposed to present to its consideration several
subjects which seemed to him to demand investigation and exposition, thought
he might feel so far at home as to venture upon submitting some of them
for reference to committees. Several of them were referred accordingly,
and among the rest, one on the subject of the fence laws of the State —
one on the necessity of further legislation to promote the extension of
sheep husbandry, especially by removing the great obstacle to the prosecu-
tion of that industry which exists in the ever-recurring depredations by
dogs ; and another suggestion was, that the inspection laws of the State,
under which the planter's tobacco, and the farmer's flour, and the dairy-
man's butter, are made liable to the expense of inspection, and in some cases
to forfeiture, not by any arrangement between the seller and the buyer, but
by pubhc authority, and at heavy expense to the producer.

444 FENCE LAWS OF MARYLAND.

We did not undertake to vouch for any state of facts, or to aver the ne-
cessity'- for, much less to prescribe any remedial legislation, but to suggest
inquiry ! Well, in the two first cases, relatino- to fences and to sheep, it is
very gratifying to find reports, in the records of the proceedings, as pubhshed
in the American Farmer, and we cheerfully leave it to the reader to say
whether the subjects were entirely supererogatory and barren, or whether
the results have not been useful and suggestive of measures needful for the
security of the farmer, or at least satisfactory and valuable as matters of in-
formation.

We have indulged in these preliminary remarks, because there is an ex-
pression in the report of the committee that might bear the construction of
implying that the law was already clear and well known, and the inquiry
of course superfluous. " Of course it at once sets at rest the idea, that it is
the duty of the land-owner ' to fence out' stock, and imposes upon the stock-
owner the duty of fencing it in," says this report.

Truly we are well pleased, as Ave believe many of our readers will be,
to learn that such is the latv, for we will venture to say, that until it was
here proclaimed by a gentleman himself well learned in the law, there was
not one farmer in twenty aware of the fact, that, if he chooses not to go to
the enormous expense of " fencing out" his neighbor's stock ; if, on the con-
trary, he has a field of luxuriant wheat growing on land adjoining his neigh-
bor's pasture, and he chooses, as every man naturally would, to avoid the
expense of fencing it in, and his neighbor's cattle come from his pasture
and destroy it, that he can recover the full value of his Avheat. Yet such
it seems is the law; but not without some qualification, for it appears, on
examination of the law as it stands, that the " idea" holds good to the extent
of no less than six counties, which have been made exceptions to the
common law, to wit, Mlegany, Washington, Baltimore, Cecil, Kent and
Caroline. The good people of these couaties, as here reported, choose to
be compelled to " fence out their neighbor's stock."

If we can find room we shall follow these remarks, with a copy of this,
as we must consider it, very opportune and useful report ; for the sugges-
tion of which we shall persist in claiming some little credit, just as may the
humble footpad, or even the cawing crow, on whose notice of its where-
abouts, huntsmen at a loss sometimes retrieve their game at a critical period
of the chase. In the mean time be it remembered, that unless in the coun-
ties aforesaid, where the obligation to "fence out their neighbor's stock"
has been self-willed and self-imposed by the inhabitants, any farmer or
planter who chooses to restrict his own stock within limits, however narrow,
is under no lawful necessity to provide any other fencing or enclosure. He
may sow his wheat and plant his corn or tobacco, in any one of his own fields,
though entirely unenclosed, and be as sure of indemnity for injury, and as
mucii entitled to it in law and in morals, according to this report, as he Avould
be a^rainst a neighbor who should rob his corn-house because it happened
to have no lock on it. How is it in other States ?

What a saving this is to a man who has occasion for but little stock; only
his work-horses, cows enough for milk for his family, and oxen for his cart!
How much more economical in some cases to keep them up and soil them,
or to enclose a field expressly for them, than to be making miles of worm-
fencing, which consume so much time and involve enormous expense in
" righting up" and repairing, and (unless of chestnut rails) to be every ten
years renewed. All this, now it seems, is not a necessity imposed by law,
(except in the counties aforesaid,) but is one voluntarily assumed ! Yet
what would the farmer think if a law were made, that imposed on him, for
the maintenance of churches or school-houses, a tax equal to that which he

VERMONT AND MARYLAND HUSBANDRY COMPARED. 445

thus voluntarily incurs, in " fencing out" his neighbor's stock ? We happen
to know that one gentleman in Maryland has been put to the expense of
$15,000 for his post and rail fence, and that he had put up many miles of worm-
fence besides, of eleven heavy chestnut rails to the panels, and we believe
the common price of such rails is $50 to the thousand, dehvered along the
tributaries of the Chesapeake ! Thus at that price a fence of 1000 panels
would cost for the material, supposing 10 rails for each panne], the snug htlle
sum of $500, the interest of which is $30 a year for ever, to say nothing of
the wear and tear and general loss of principal and interest ! and all this, it
would seem, is a self-imposed expense, uncalled for by the law, except in
seven counties, and except to the extent that the farmer may judge it indis-
pensable to "fence in his own stock," from his own crops. Let him calculate
how much better it would be to lay out the labor and money now expended
in out-line and in cross-fencing, in the purchase or making manure to enrich
lots, to provide green food for soiling, or even to buy provender.

It may at least beguile a lonely hour some snowy day at his fireside, to
follow the subject through its details as it affects his pocket ; having flushed
the game, we leave our readers to pursue it, joining cordially in the thanks
we claim for the committee, for what we venture to call the revelations con-
tained in their report, of things new to most of those who are, like ourselves,
not learned in the law. But now that the laws will be tinkered but once in
two years, instead of annually for three months, at the expense of the farmer
and the planter, may we not hope that common people may have some
chance to know what they are, before they are changed. Heretofore they
have been as easily modified, complicated, and confused, as the contents of a
kaleidoscope.

VERMONT AND MARYLAND HUSBANDRY COMPARED.*

In the preceding number we expressed the apprehension that we might
not have time for this comparison; nor can we make it now, except in some
strong points of view, which, we are aware, must leave it very incomplete.
Enough, however, may be suggested to set the reader to thinking; and that,
let us tell him, is half the battle gained in a contest between error and truth.
In fact, the great difficulty, according to our observation, in the way of me-
liorating the condition and character of the American farmer, is to get him
to think! If you could, would you see him, for example, go even three
times, instead of three thousand times, through his own gate, that either
strikes the ground and (hags before it reaches half-way to the post, or else
falls with such force against it that you may hear the dreadful concussion
a mile off? Would you see him losing $50 worth of time in a year in pull-
ing down and putting up bars, to say nothing of occasional destruction of
his crop when they are not put up? Would you see him stooping to the
pummel of his saddle for seven years to avoid the limb of a tree, in his daily
ride, that one stroke of a hatchet would remove ? No — you cannot get them
to think! ! But enough of that. The two States that we are going to com-
pare, in some points of view differ somewhat in size, but not so much as in
some other things — Maryland having 11,000 square miles, or 7,000,000
acres, while Vermont has but 8,000, according to Danby, or 5,120,000 acres.
Now see the difference in their agricultural pursuits and economy, and

* Virginia and South Carolina might be embraced in the comjJarison, and tlie parallel
would run on all-fours without much halting.

3P

44G VERMONT AND MARYLAND HUSBANDRY COMPARED.

the results to which they have conducted these two old sisters of the
republic.

In Vermont winter lasts, and cattle and sheep are fed, five months in the
year — sheep at a cost per head per annum, as we have often been told, of
Avhat would actually fetch from $1 to $1 15, while in Maryland they are
rarely if ever fed, except when the snow covers the ground, which does not
average a week in the year — when they have, scattered on the snow, some
corn-blades, or perhaps sheaf oats ; and, with all these disadvantages, the
Vermonter has the sagacity to go strong upon cattle, and sheep, and wool, and
hay, and potatoes, and milk, and butter, and cheese, &c. ; content to let the
Marylander beat him in horses, (the most precarious and expensive invest-
ment that can be made in animal flesh or power,) and in wheat, and corn,
rye, and tobacco, all of which the earth yields by bushels and pounds,
instead of tons ; and which, at last, are all sold away off the farm, yielding
no return to the land that produced them. Let us follow the comparison
more exactly on some points indicative of the sources that go to produce
increase of population, and political power, and appreciation of land, and the
contrary.

Horses.

Cattle.

Sheep.

Wool.

Potatoes.

Hay.

Value of Fulling- AVoollea

lbs.

bushels.

tons.

products, mills, factories.

Vermont, .

. 62,402

384,341

1,681,819

3,699,235

8,869,751

83U.739

2,00S,737 i'-i'J 95

Maryland,

. 92,220

226,714

257,922

488,201

1,036,433

106,687

457,466 39 29

Now, what is the lesson in the political economy of the plough, that this
view of these States teaches ? Does it not go to show that wise States, when
not made subservient to the colonial policy of other countries by the subser-
vient policy of their own, will keep the loofn and the anvil near to the
p/oKgh? where nature, if left alone, would place them, as naturally as she
places the country mill near to the corn-house. And what, reader, is the
effect of a course of husbandry that does keep them together, and enables
the farmer to consume on the land the products of the land ? Why, the
effect is just this ; that, as here we see, Vermont, Avearing her garments of
snow five months in the year, in 1790 begins on a basis population of only
85,416, and runs it up in 50 years to 291,948; while Maryland, the favored
of Providence, starting at the same time with a population of 819,128, has
gone in the same period up to only 470,000 ; — the former doubling her
man capital more than three times over, the latter not half doubling hers
once!

Now, will agricultural societies look into questions like these, and compel
their legislators to do their duty, instead of flying humbugs to amuse, or set-
ting clap-traps to catch ignorant voters? Will the people choose well-
informed, intelligent, thrifty, and industrious farmers, of good, plain, sound
sense, to make their laws; or will they be ever cajoled by conceited, shallow-
pated, flippant doctors and attorneys, who covet the high office of legislator,
and then desecrate it by making it a ladder to climb into Congress, as another
stepping-stone to some office to be found in the executive chamber ? Would
it not be well that Maryland, and every other State, should have occasion-
ally full surveys and returns made up of all her agricultural and other sta-
tistics, and shape their legislation accordingly ? What is the use of the
free government, of which we boast so much, if the faculties which God
Almighty has given us are not exercised for the improvement of our natural
resources, our industrial employments, and our political and social condi-
tion ? In Maryland and Virginia it has been a soi-t of monomania to decry
and denounce combinations of men and capital to establish manufactories.
The senseless cry of monopoly has been raised against them, as if those

dyers' madder in the united states. 447

(who, not having individually the means, would combine to erect them) were
mad dogs. It would be better, wiser policy, to go into the other extreme,
and encourage such combinations by exempting the property from taxation.
In Vermont their manufactories have given rise to ten towns within her
8,000 square miles, with populations ranging from 2 to 10,000. In Mary-
land there are but four such in the compass of 1 1,000 square miles. In Ver-
mont the farmer sells potatoes and mutton, in Maryland wheat and tobacco!
wheat averaging throughout the State not more than seven or eight bushels!
Let us hope that we may grow wiser, as this is said to be the age o( progress!

DYERS' MADDER IN THE UNITED STATES.

We take the following from one of our exchange papers :

" We notice with much interest that the cuUivation of mackler is engaging considera-
ble attention in tliis country, and particularly in Ohio, where, for several years, the ex-
periment has been attended with very satisfactory results.

" The last report of the Patent Office contains a statement of Mr. Joseph Swift, near
Birmingham, Ohio, in relation to his success in the culture of the article, which would
seem to setfle the question of its practicability and profit. Mr. S. is probably the most
extensive cultivator in the Union.

"The yield per acre, Mr. Swift believes, can be reasonably estimated at 3000 lbs., the
clear profit on which would be about $300, a generous return certainly upon the capital
and labor invested. As regards quality, this madder was pronounced superior to most
of the madder imported, and no difficulty was found in selling it wherever it became
known.

" The importations of madder within the last two and a half years amount to about
17,000,000 lbs., at a cost of $1,800,000, chiefly from France, Holland, Belgium, and Eng-
land. As the culture of the article is found to be both easy and profitable on our
own soil, there is no good reason why we should not save ourselves the expense of its
importation, and in regard to this article be independent of foreign countries.

"Although a portion of our foreign supply of madder is from England, that couritry is
itself a large importer from Turkey and France, not having succeeded well in growing
it at home. She consumes annually about Grj,000 to 70,000 cwt. of the foreign article.
Our agriculturists, besides supplying the constantly increasing demand of our own dyers
for this article, may find a good market in England also."

Such are the effects of bringing the loom to the neighborhood of the
plough. An acre of land can be made to yield $300 worth of madder;
whereas the same quantity of land applied to the production of wheat would
yield scarcely $20. With every step in the process of bringing the loom
and the anvil to the side of the plough, the farmer is benefited, because
Avith each he finds new and more profitable modes of employing his labor
and his land. Wherever the, three are found united, the owners of ploughs
and harrows grow rich, but wherever the plough alone is found, its owner is
poor.

Might not the Committee on Agriculture, in the Senate of the United
States, which held not one meeting during the session, have found, even in
this subject, something worthy of investigation on which they might at least
have founded a report ? No one questions the fact, that with proper en-
couragement we might soon supply ourselves with all the madder now
imported for the use of our manufacturers, and make it an article of profitable
export. No States or counties are better adapted to its growth than Dela-
ware, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, all of which were represented in the Com
mittee on Agriculture, and the chairman of which is from Pennsylvania,
Yet, as we have before said, so much were they thinking of other things and
other countries, that they held not one meeting during their protracted
incubation of nine months — and the probability is that they will hear not one
word of reproach for such dereliction of duty, either from an Agricultural
Society or from any paper in the Union, except this.

448 SHEEP-HUSBANDRY IN MARYLAND AND VIRGINIA.

ON SHEEP-HUSBANDRY IN MARYLAND AND VIRGINIA.

At the ]ate meeting of the Maryland State Agricultural Society, the fol-
lowing report was presented by an experienced and enlightened farmer of
Talbot county.

From it, the reader may judge whether the subject is not worthy to beget
the solicitude and united action of every landholder in the State. Will it
do so — or will the matter be allowed to stop here ? — Nous verrons. Unfor-
tunately there are too many, even landholders, seekers after popularity ;
w^ho fear to propose or advocate measures which may restrain the sovereigns in
the enjoyment of the largest liberty : even that of keeping dogs, (which, hke
certain people's slaves, are starved if not trained,) not to catch the things
which they ought to catch, but to catch the things which they ought not to
catch — and Tpanicuiarly other people^ s sheep .' In the neighborhood of the
Long Old Fields, in Prince C4eorge's, you might as well hang a purse up on
the highway, and expect to come back and find it, as to trust a valuable fat
sheep beyond the range of musket-shot, and a sharp look-out at that. It is
characteristic, perhaps yet more of the sheep-stealing dog than of the other
rogue, that he has the sagacity to leave his master's flocks unmolested,
while he travels off miles from home in pursuit of other people's. And
what, far from mitigating, rather aggravates the grievance is, that with respect
both to the thief and his dog, it's ten to one but they desecrate names indi-
cative of all that is eminent and noble among men and beasts. When you
do catch them, which rarely happens, it's ten to one but the owner answers
to the name of Caesar or Pompey, Antony or Brutus, while the dog implies
the opposite of what he is : so true is it that

" a cur may bear

The name of Tiger, Lion, or whate'er
Denotes the noblest or the fairest beast."

Crowded as we are, our Hmits do not permit us to go into an examination
of the question, how, and with what great profit, the number of sheep bred
in Maryland and Virginia might easily be doubled ; and hoAv every county
in the State should have its little woollen factory, to supply itself with all its
clothing. The pursuit of the subject at the first glance of it, will lead to a
comparison of the husbandry of now snow-clad Vermont, with that of Mary-
land— the farmer in the former going in for objects that either involve little
labor, comparatively, in the work of production and transportation; or where
much labor is applied, the product is consumed on the ground, and the re-
fuse returned to the ground for the enrichment of the land and its owner ;
while we should be led to show how Maryland persists in a contrary course,
and hence diminution of population, enlargement of farms, and lessening of
all other capital proceed steadily together. This is the mere outline of the
picture that sketches itself at the first glance at the statistics of the two
vStates ; Maryland being one-third the larger of the two. But it would take
time that we have not at command to fill it up, and so we give that which
will better repay the attention of the reader :

Col. N. Gohhboraugh, of Talbot, from tlie Committee on Sheep, also appointed at the
first meeting of the Society, presented the following report, which was read and adopted :

REPORT ON SHEEP.

The committee appointed at the first meeting of the Maryland State Agricultural
Society, by virtue of a resolution declaring that the '' Farmers of Maryland suffer great'
loss by being debarred from the profits of sheep-husbandry — reconmiending that the
subject be properly considered, and especially whether some and what legislative
measures could be taken to encourage that branch of agricultural industry by some
stringent provisions as to sheep-killing dogs, or otherwise," — respectfully report : — that

SHEEP-HUSBANDRY IN MARYLAND AND VIRGINIA. 449

they have bestowed much reflection on the subject, and are deeply aware of its great
importance.

Various laws have already been passed, touching sheep-killing dogs ; but the question
recurs, whether that great interest may not be further protected 1 The impression
strongly pervades the agricultural community, that the vast number of useless and
worthless dogs which prowl about the country is the fruitful source of the great losses
sustained, and of the injuries inflicted on their flocks. There seems to be an absolute
passion existing in all ranks of life, to keep thrice as many dogs as are required for any
useful purpose; and it is but right, that those who delight in being surrounded by sucli
unnecessary appendages, should pay for the gratification — luxuries having been always
held to be proper subjects for taxation. This, hov/ever, is an exceedingly delicate sub-
ject to approach, and tlie course proposed may be regarded by some as an infringement
on the privileges of the citizen. Can it be possible that, in a coimtry where equal rights
are guarantied to all, that a large and highly respectable class of citizens shall be sub-
jected to heavy losses merely for the gratification of a hitherto unrestrained propensity,
not essential either to personal comfort or productive of any real benefit — which may
be avoided, or at least mitigated and lessened, by the exercise ol a spirit of liberal con-
cession, and the joint action of all honest and thinking men.

It may be remarked, that the greatest sufferers are those who reside in the vicinity of
towns and villages, whence the half-famished prowlers sally forth at night and commit
irreparable injuries on our flocks. A farmer may give notice to liis neighbor that he has
seen very ecjuivocal conduct in his dog, plainly indicating that if not already, he will
shortly become a sheep-killer — the intimation is received with incredulity, and conse-
quently without the slightest precaution in the premises. Shortly thereafter, the dog is
caught, " flagrante delicto,"' and what remedy has the sufferer whose splendid flock of
sheep has been mutilated or destroyed 1 Why, he informs his neighbor of the fact, and
if he will not destroy his pet, the law at i^resent provides that the injured nwn may go
himself with an officer, and have the dog destroyed. This is his only remedy — this his
sole redress. But who pays for his losses ? — echo answers, who ?

Your committee, therefore, present for the consideration of the society, the following
suggestions, under the firm belief that they will prove to be remedial for the evils com-
plained of, or at any rate greatly contribute to their mitigation.

Further legislation must be invoked on this subject, so momentous to the farming
interest, and to effect which, petitions should be got up and numerously signed for future
presentation to the General Assembly of the State. Now, that the prejudices and predi-
lections of our citizens may not be too suddenly and violently assailed by causing a tax
to be laid on all dogs — let a law be passetl, securing to every free white male citizen,
and none other, the privilege of keeping one dog, exempt from taxation. For a second,
kept by the same person, or in the same faniUy, a tax of $ — ; for every additional dog let
the tax be doubled or trebled, so that if it does not amount to actual prohibition, a com-
plete check will be given to the unreasonable multiplication of the number of dogs. It
will be perceived that the tax thus laid will create a fund, which should be placed under
t^e control and supervision of the Commissioners of the Tax or Levy Courts of tho
counties, as the case may be — which said fund shall be applied to remuneration of per-
sons who have sustained injuries or losses by the depredation of dogs. Appraisers
should be appointed in each election district, by the proper tribunals, to place the tnie
value on the sheep destroyed or mutilated— and to give a certificate thereof. It should be
the duty of appraisers not to place an equal valuation on good and bad sheep alike — but
truly according to value — for it may so happen, that one farmer may lose a valuable
buck for which he has paid a large figure, for the improvement of his flock ; while his
neighbor may have had one destroyed, which should have been subjected to the knife
years before. This, however, is not the proper time to carry out the minute details
which should be contained in a bill — suggestions as to what may be done, being the
chief aim of the committee.

But there is another enemy of the ovine race whose cr.se is to be considered and pro-
vided for, viz.: that s"teulthy depredator, the Ibx. No means are known to your commit-
tee either for preventing the increase, or causing the destruction of these wily animals,
but by the employment of fox-hounds — they are too cunning to he trapped, and can be
reduced only by successful jiursuit. May not exception be made to the taxing of hounds
— but in lieu thereof, the law should contain express provisions, that all ibx-hounds
should be kept in kennels, in order to eflectually preclude their depredations — and it
will be found that the owners of them will be thereby subjected to a siifTicient tax,
without any other imposition.

As a further argument for reducing the number of dogs, it may be safely affirmed that
the frightful disease, canine madness, will be diminished in the same ratio — hydrophobia
invariably originating with the dog. It may be asserted without fear of contradiction,
Vol. I.— 57 2 p 2

450

FARM ACCOUNTS.

that many of the large number of dogs now permitted to roam at large, are neither half
fed nor cared for ; and what are the consequences ? It has been proclaimed by that dis-
tinguished man, the late Judge Peters — that " not only sheep-killing, but diseases and mad-
iiess, in dogs, are frequent effects, either immediate or consequent, of keen and lono- con-
tinued hunger ; which stimulates to gorging voraciously on whatever esculent they find •
and not seldom on putrid and unwholesome food. The rabid and feverish thirst for
blood, is a species of mania; and it is sometimes the forerunner of complete canine mad-
ness. Sheep-killers can often be distinguished by a sharp and wild yell, very different
from the tones of other dogs."

It seems scarcely necessary to pursue the subject further ; every encroachment on pri-
vileges long enjoyed, on all habits and customs — is viewed with distrust by the many,
even when a satisfactory reason cannot be assigned therefor. But it is firmly believed,
that a law passed containing the provisions suggested in this report, will finally redound
to the benefit of all classes of the community.

In conclusion, as some time must necessarily elapse before legislation can possibly be
had on this subject, the Committee, with great deference, will suggest a method by which
sheep are greatly protected from all midnight depredators. It has been established, be-
yond tlie possibility of doubt, that, in a neighborhood notorious both for the depredations
of rogues and dogs, a flock of 80 to 100 sheep has been protected, for several years, by
suspending half a dozen bells to the necks of so many sheep. The effect is, that those
timid animals, when pursued by men or dogs, immediately betake themselves to flight,
and the sound of the bells will be heard over a neighborhood, and cause some one to
come to the rescue ; indeed, the pursuit is often abandoned, without other extraneous aid.
No species of stock requires so little attention to its well-being as sheep, in our climate ;
and it is well ascertained that the quantity of wool raised, jn our whole country, is insuf-
ficient for the supply of our factories and our immediate domestic wants. Every con-
sideration, therefore, impels us to come to the protection, preservation, and increase of
This most useful and valuable race of domestic animals. Your committee may present it
as a fit subject of gratulation to every cultivator of our soil, that vast improvement has
been made in our flocks, of latter years-; and that Maryland may now boast of as fine
mutton sheep as can be found in any state in our broad Union.

All of which is respectl'ully submitted. N. Goldsborough, Chairman.

ON KEEPING FARM ACCOUNTS,

AND ON THE ECONOMY OF SMALL FARMS COMPARED TO LARGE ONES.

In an address by Mr. Carey, of Maryland, delivered at its late meeting
at Baltimore, and by its request, to the State Agricultural Society, the ora-
tor adverted with originality and force of thought, and singular perspicuity of
style, to various subjects, and among others, to the importance of keeping
')nore exact farm accounts. And truly, it may be asked, how can any
farmer feel satisfied or safe in his position, who does not know the amount
of outlay and income, as well as the yield, from year to year, of each field,
to the end that he may judge whether he is moving a-head, or, it n)ay be
imperceptibly, drifting astern? The books abound in forms of English
accounts, but they are much more unsuitable to American farmers than
English processes and implements. For what better object, it may be asked,
could a society offer a liberal premium, than to the person who should pre-
sent the simplest and most efficient and practicable form of keeping farm
accounts, adapted to the husbandry, the institutions, and the economy of
different States ? We hope they will think of it.

Mr. Carey says of the size of farms :

" It is as clear as the demonstration of one of Euclid's or Legendre's propositions, that
the smaller the surface from which a given amount of produce is obtained, the greater
the profit to the producer, because the less the labor required to produce it. Figures
will show this more clearly than words. I shall assume for this purpose a medium rate
of production, say 40 bushels of corn to the acre, and for highly improved land, one,
wliich though high, is clearly within our reach, say 80 bushels per acre: the cost of culti-

THE ACTION OF PLASTER OF PARIS. 451

vation, the same in both cases, I shall put at $5 per acre; the proposition reduced to

figures will then stand thus :

20 acres, at 80 bushels per acre, 1600 bushels, at 60 cents, . , $960 00

Cost of cultivation, at $5 per acre, 100 00

Profit, $860 00

40 acres, at 40 bushels per acre, 1600 bushels, at 60 cents, . . 960 00

Cost of cultivation, at $5 per acre, 200 00

Profit, $7(30 00

Difference in favor of smaller surface, $100 OO

" The amount of seed grain required, and of labor in the harvest, will, also, be less
npon the smaller surface. The result will be similar at any other rates of production,
or cost of cultivation, and in any other crop. Add to this, that the smaller farm will
require less fencing:, less ditching. (ca=teris paribus,) and less labor in the transportation
of manures to the field, and crops to the depot of the farm; and the proposition may be
held to be demonstrated. We have very little idea, in this country, of the extreme pro-
ductive capacity of the soil. Accoimts occasionally reach us of extraordinary crops,
raised in our own State; and the remarkable fertility of the deep alluvial soils of our
great Western Valley is known to all. But I refer those who desire to see something
like an approximation to this extreme, to the accounts given by the Rev. H. Colman, in
his ' European Agriculture,' of the results of the ' allotment system,' which is beginning
to be practised on some of the large estates in England."

But, with deference, we think the size of the farm should be, in a great
measure, regulated by the capital at command of the cultivator, and on his
own capacity for thai pursuit ; and it is but too true, unfortunately, that in
our country, capital generally bears a very small proportion to the land. This
is a point which needs, as we have often thought, to be more carefully dwelt
upon, with a view to a remedy, if any can be suggested. Col. Capron gives
us a notable item of $3000 expended for manures in one year, and with
profit; but even that, in reference to the size of the farm, is much below
the expenditures in England, where it is contended that a man applying to
rent 250 acres, should be prepared to show that he has a money capital of
$12,500, or $50 an acre. Suppose a man to possess capacity and turn of
mind well adapted to the business of agriculture, and to have the requisite
capital ; and we should say that 500 acres would not overtask his abilities,
and that within that range every thing — his capital, his force, his own mind,
might be made to tell profitably.

♦ • I

SOME SUGGESTIONS ON THE ACTION OF PLASTER

OF PARIS.

BY PROFESSOR NORTON, OF TALE COLLEGE.

The following communication from Professor Norton, of the School of Chemistry ap-
plied to Agriculture, is the best explanation we have seen of the action of gypsum, and
of the reason why it acts powerfully on some soils, and is inert on others. Still, it seems
somewhat wonderful that so small a dust of it — half a bushel, in some cases, to an acre —
scattered over growing clover, in the spring, should so soon descend and become incor-
porated with, and act upon, the soil ; but so it seems it does.

New Haven, Dec. 11, 1S4S.

Hon. J. S. Skinner, —

Dear Sir: — I have read with interest the various articles in the Decem-
ber number of your valuable journal; and desire to remark briefly upon one
paragraph relative to the effect of plaster of Paris, or gypsum. This para-
graph is upon the 369th page, and the essential part oif it is as follows: "Mr.
Stabler states that land which had before been insensible to the action of

452 THE ACTION OF PLASTER OF PARIS.

plaster of Paris, when raised by clover, or otherwise, to a certain degree of
fertility, becomes alive to the influence of that cheapest of all fertilizers,
where it will act at all ; and this, like other facts and considerations that
niioht be adduced, would seem to show that its action is not due to its attrac-
tion of fertilizing poivers from the atmosphere.''''

The idea that plaster of Paris acted wholly by the absorption of ammonia
from the atmosphere, originated with the great German chemist, Liebig; and
the sanction of his name has given it general credence. I believe that in
this matter, as in several others relating to agricultural science, he has erred
through a lack of practical knowledge, and perhaps through the strong
temptation to promulgate beautiful theories.

I think that experience points most plainly to at least a decided modifica-
tion of his opinions. The instance above cited is one which the ammonia
theory fails to explain. I at this moment recall one of a yet more decided
character. I know of several localities, where, in adjoining fields, plaster
exerts on the one a very marked influence, and on the other is of no use
whatever. These two kinds of land are uniformly treated in the same man-
ner, and always have been ; yet this difference remains. There is no doubt
but ammoniacal manures would do good on both of these soils; and yet, on
one of them, the use of plaster never repays the outlay. Clearly we must
look for some new explanation. This is to be found in the chemical com-
position of plaster. It is composed of lime and sulphuric acid, and is known
to chemists as sulphate of hme. Now sulphuric acid is well known to be a
powerful manure on manj^ soils, and it is unnecessary to praise Hme. In
the case of the two adjoining fields above mentioned, the soil of one was
formed from a species of shale, which contained scarcely a trace of either of
these substances; and that of the other from a rock which had a pretty good
supply of both. The inference in such a case is irresistible. We find the
soil known to be without the constituents of plaster benefited, while the other
remains unchanged ; now ammonia should produce the same effect on both,
if to supply it were the use of plaster. We must, therefore, conclude that
the mineral constituents of the manure were of primary importance here.

Mr. Stabler's case is rather different. Here the soil must first be brought
up to a certain degree of fertility, and then plaster acts. This will not seem
strange when we consider the composition of the soil ; that ten or twelve
mineral ingredients are requisite to fertility. Plaster only contains two of
these; and if others besides be wanting, the addition of it will of course not
supply them. But when they are added, by green cropping or otherwise,
the gypsum tells at once.

In all land, then, where plaster produces no decided effect, we may expect
to find the constituents of that manure already present.

These are but hints upon a subject which Avould require very many pages
for its full discussion.

Plaster undoubtedly has a strong tendency to the absorption of ammonia,
and probably is often of benefit in that way;'"so that I would not so much
condemn Liebig's theory, as simply unite another with it ; these two causes of
benefit to the soil affording an explanation to almost every case of perplexity.
Much is yet to be learned on this subject ; but the above view will, I think,
be found correct in its main features, as well as practical in its appHcations.

I enclose a copy of the last circular issued from our laboratory, as I can-
not remember having sent you one before. We have a fine class now of ten
students, and our numbers are increasing; but not so fast as the demand for
instruction in agricultural science. AVe shall not be able to supply it for a
long period, even if our numbers are more than doubled.

I am, Sir, yours respectfully, John P. Norton.

PUBLIC DAIRIES. 453

, PUBLIC DAIRIES— PUBLIC THRESHING-MACHINES.

No reader of foreign acjricultural and horticultural annals but must be
sensible of the more rapid progress which would result to the march of both
these industries, if societies and institutes, having ample funds from State
and public patronage, would devote a little of their surplus energy ( ? ) and
means in this direction. Every day something recalls the mind to the use-
fulness of such an association, and such arrangements. How easy would
it be to appoint a committee for the express purpose of importing specimens,
models, drawings, books, &c.

Here we have, for instance, in a late agricultural gazette, an allusion to
a recent work, explanatory of the " Management of Public Dairies in Switz-
erland," under which

" Each member of the association brings his evening and morning milking to the com-
mon dairy. It is measured, and an exact account kept of each delivery.

* * * Thus by means of tlie common dairy each member exchanges the amoimt
of several days' milking for an equal quantity of milk, the produce of one day, which
is converted into butter, cheese, &c.. the same day, on premises arranged for the jjur-
pose, and by a person whose knowledge and skill insure the most advantageous
results."

Now any one may imagine that in small towns and villages, and thickly
settled neighborhoods, where every man keeps cows, many or few, what
a convenience such an establishment must prove. Instead of getting often
a little indifferent butter, that won't pay the expense of taking it to market,
the man may wait one or two weeks, or even months, and then get it in a
lump of the best quality, having previously engaged it. Let us then see
the rules and management of such an establishment. But whose business
is it to import it 1 Such things don't strike the bookseller. Well, in this
case, the Editors of the Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil, have ordered
that, as they will do all books of that sort.

Then, again, in the same paper, we see that in Switzerland, threshing-
machines, and steam threshing-machines, are established on similar prin-
ciples. The writer says he has seen a steam threshing-machine on wheels,
which was " very easily drawn from place to place.'''' This was a private
speculation, and was, with the necessary men, hired out at so much a day,
or at a certain toll for the grain threshed, as the farmer pays at the country
mill for grinding.

We have often thought, and still think, that if this government would offer
Messrs. Norrisfe Brother, and other engine-makers, half as much for a ma-
chine to ditch or plough by steam, as it would give for a machine that would
blow up a ship and kill a thousand men at one discharge, ten miles off, we
should, years since, have had ditching, and draining, and ploughing, all
done bv steam, with as much saving of labor and time as steam now
accomplishes for the mamifacturer and the merchant.

All this will happen, when we have really attained that high degree of
civilization which follows freedom, wealth, and population. At present we
are not half-way on the march, for the producer is yet in the rear ranks of
society, instead of being in the front. In a state of barbaric nature, the
Avarrior stands at the top of the list ; so he does yet, but not so much head
and shoulders above all others as he did, even half a century ago. Among
real barbarians, the exchanger stands next to the warrior, and the producer
last, and so it is still, but the farmer is coming up. TFe have seen him
sensibh' gaining on the other classes that live on him, even in our own
time. He begins to have sense enough now to see, and self-respect enough
to assert, that, as he feeds all other classes, he has some right to something

454 CORN AND CARROTS.

like a proportionate share in the power of legislation for the whole. Still,
however, he is only beginning to see his rights and his consequence ; but as
yet it is only a dim view that he catches, such as we get looking through a
dark glass dimly at an eclipse. And hence it is, that you can see a people,
such as the American people, numerous, powerful, enlightened, free ; with
old women enough to beat offall invaders with broomsticks ; submitting to pay
twenty millions of dollars annually for military establishments and schools,
and in return, to take for themselves some statistical facts and conjectures,
cut out of newspapers, and made up in one of the bureaus of a public de-
partment ! Ah, we are a wonderful people !

CORN AND CARROTS.

Fine Yield of Corn. — We learn from the Port Tobacco, Md. Times, that on Col. Wm.
D. Merrick's Glavis farm, twelve barrels and three bushels of corn were taken from a
single acre. The acre selected is much inferior to many others, and the yield of this
acre is " but a fair average of one hundred and fifty circimijacent acres of the same field."
This is all certified to.

That would make sixty-three bushels to the acre, worth say 50 cents, or
$31 50 per acre. This is fully equal to the production in the West — nine
thousand four hundred and fifty bushels from one field. We should like to
know the price that such land will command — the kind of corn, and how
many acres to a plough ? And again, why it is that the population of Charles
county, where this corn is supposed to have been made, had diminished five
hundred in population between 1820 and 1840? But look here again —

Crreat ^grindtural Yield. — Capt. Nye has raised this season, on his farm at Clinton
Place, near Newark, N. J., six hundred and three bushels of white or Belgium carrots to
the acre, an amount of produce probably never exceeded in that climate.

Now if Col. Merrick could have had, as Capt. Nye had, the manufac-
turer along side of the agriculturist — the consumer near the producer — then
the same land might have been employed in producing tons instead of
bushels. Here we see one acre producing ten times as much money, gross
sales, in New Jersey, as in Maryland — but in New Jersey the loom and the
anvil are near to the plough, while in Maryland they are a great way off.
Corn, of which the earth bears little, will bear keeping and transportation,
carrots will not. In Jersey they make their ploughs and their wagons for
themselves and others. In Maryland, they send to Jersey and other North-
ern States for them. If that most magnificent of all water-powers, the great
falls of Potomac, were not prevented, bj' " man's inventions," from being
put to the uses for which a bountiful Providence designed it, we should have
from Montgomery county, too, the substitution of six hundred and three
bushels of carrots instead of forty bushels of corn, as noted in the following:

Montgomery County, Md. — There is a great deal of land in our county, whioli, a few
years ago, would scarcely pay for its cultivation, tliat now produces well. We know of
one lot of one hundred acres of such land, that last year produced over eight hundred
barrels of corn. We also know of some smaller lots, on which ten barrels per acre were
raised. Much of this description of land, now poor, but readily improved at a low cost,
can be purchased very cheap. — RockviUe Jaur.

But let us " live and learn." True it is, let us hope, that we are

learning; but are not cultivators of the soil the slowest to learn of all the
classes that make up human society ? Is there one among them, on an
average, who ever undertakes to study the political causes of the fluctua-
tions and depressions that take place in the price of his staples. Here is
a journal devoted to that object, but will they encourage a work which
urges them to think for thcrnselves? In Charles county we have, we
won't say how— few subscribers.

HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS. 455

THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY OF MASSACHUSETTS.

Any Southern reader would have a right to look upon a full statement of
what has been done in the hard,cold, rigorous climate and soil of Massachusetts
for the advancement of horticulture, by Dearborn, Wilder, Walker, French,
Breck, and their associates, as an exaggeration, a little tinged with coleur de
rose. For ourselves — seeing is believing, and tasting is the naked truth —
still we shall make no attempt at describing what we have there seen, in the
way of fruits and flowers, as well in and around the magnificent villas and
highly cultivated grounds around Boston, as in their Exhibition Hall. If it
were not for the indomitable perseverance of that people, and the well-rooted
love of such pursuits, which no vicissitude now can shake or wither, we
might have some fears for the effect of iVlr. Wilder's retirement from the
presidency, so much against the wishes of the Horticultural Society; but,
however engrossed with the labors of the business-man, the passion for this
beautiful occupation of the heart and mind, once established, as with him, and
becoming, as it were, second nature, will insure in him always a ready, and
reliable counsellor in case of emergency; and with such coUaborateurs the
Massachusetts Horticultural Society may ever be looked to, as the great pa-
rent tree, ready at all times to supply grafts and scions for the whole country.

As to the stocks upon which the country may draw, in the apple depart-
ment, and in respect of the fruit yielded by the zeal of which we have often
spoken without exaggeration, we might be content to refer to the following
list of specimens exhibited by the friend whom we took the liberty at the
late festival to designate for the variety and extent of his contributions. We
might be satisfied with stating the number in the aggregate ; but we prefer
to give the entire list for once, to show to our Southern friends who think
they do well, and really do excel, when they can show some half dozen
varieties of apples — sometimes neither the best, nor the best cared for. They
will here see that when there is a ivill there is a way!

Be it remembered that Mr. French is an amateur fruit-grower of inde-
pendent fortune, not following the cultivation of fruits as a trade ; though if
he did — and honestly, it would not be easy to find a more useful or honorable
pursuit — far more so than that of politics or war when followed as a trade.

Mount Monatiquot, Braintrce, September 25, 1848.
Hon. J. S. Skinxf.r: — Dear Sir, I send you, according; to your request, a list of the
Apples exhibited by me at the late Triennial Exhibition of the Massachusetts Horticultural
Society. (The list contains but a part of the variety I have in cultivation.)

Porter, Sugar Sweet,

French's Sweet, Yellow Newtown Pippin,

Winter Gilliflower, Royal,

Bahimore, Doininisk or Lord's,

Canada Reinette, JMin-pliy,

Monstrous Pippin, Spice Apple,

Seeknofurther, Adams' Sweet,

Blenheim Orronge, Parmain,

Kenricks Autumn, Grovenstein,

Golden Russett, Lysconi,

Fall Greening, Blooming Red,

Hawtliornden, Denver's Wintef Sweet,

Jonathan, Been Apple, (sweet.)

Nonsuch, Roxbury Russett,

Dutch Codlin, Pennock,

Sweet Greening, Nonpareil,

Wine, Yellow Bellflower,

Long Nonsuch, Hoary Morning,

Wales Apple, Long Russett,

16 varieties names lost — 74 varieties in all,
Yours, with respect,

Ribston Pippin,

Pomme d Apis,

Fearn's Pippin,

Black Apple of Cox,

Ross's Nonpareil,

De Neige,

Wellington,

Hubbardstown Nonsuch

White Seeknofurther,

Baldwin,

Pumpkin Russett Sweet,

Esopus Spitzenberg,

Seaver's Sweet,

Fallawater,

Ruggles,

Large Striped Red,

Mele Carle,

Gardner's Sweet,

Burrasoe.

B. V. Fhench.

^i

456

TABLE .OF PRICES.

35
3U

15

C
25
2
3
4

I

4G.000

Philada.

Boston.

TABLE OF PRICES.

Louisville^ Kentucky, Sept. 14, 1S48.
Messrs. Editors : Gent. : — I give below the form of a table which,
when filled up, would interest your readers, and enable them to prove the
correctness of your theories, that the cultivation of rich soils not only lessens
the money price of labor, but increases the wealth of the laboring classes.
If the consumer of food should be by the side of the producer, it is im-
portant that the loct/s in quo should be in a district of a larger food-producing
capacity. The seed should be sown not on the sandy plains of New Jersey
or the " stony land" of New England, but on the rich alluvials wherever
they can be found, and at points easily accessible and salubrious. I give
the prices, &c. in and around this city: with )''our facilities of obtaining in-
formation, you can readily fill out the table with the prices of the same
articles at Manchester, Glasgow, Lyons, and other places where our food is
now consumed, and where are made the articles we consume.

Louisville.

Value of land suitable for vegetables, and 3

miles from city — per acre, . . . $1.25

Corn-producin;^ capacity of land in the vici-
nity, and without manure — per acre, . . 45

Value of lots in the suburbs, per square foot, 1.43

Price of brick laid in the wall, per M, . C.50

Ordinary laborer's wages per day, . . . 75

Wages of journeymen mechanics per day, . 1.25

Female house servants, per week, . . . 1.5U

Farm laborers, i)er month, .... 10.00

Taxes, on $100 property, ....

Average prices for the year, at retail.

Coal, per bushel, 12

Hard wood, per cord, ..... 2.50

Hay, per ton, 8 00

Apples, per bushel, ..... 25

Flour, per bbl 4.5()

Corn meal, per bushel, .

Potatoes, per bushel.

Butter, per lb., ....

Eggs, per doz., .....

Turkeys, per lb., ....

Chickens, per pair, ....

Cabbages, per head, ....

Pork, per lb., .....

Beef, per lb..

Population of Louisville, say

We shall feel very much obliged to any friend or friends of domestic industry, who
will fill up these blanks for towns from New Orleans to Boston, and when we get
tlieir letters, we can make out and publish a table. This letter was mislaid, or would
have been sooner published.

INSURE YOUR LIVES.

We have room for but a line, but gladly use that ; — so much do we wish
to let our friends in the country know how practicable and how advisable it
is for them to ^et insurance on their lives, and thus save their families from
future want, by a small present payment. How easy for every one to re-
trench enough to cover this object ! In another number we will explain,
having time now only to call attention to the advertisement of the Connecti-
cut Mutual Life Insurance Company, on the cover of this number.

MIGRATION OF BIRDS.

457

MIGRATION OF BIRDS.

It is a curious fact that the males of mi-
grating birds, or at least of some species,
arrive some weeks before the females. An
experienced and intelligent bird-catcher as-
sures me that the male nightingale gene-
rally makes its appearance in this country
about the first of April, and the female
about a month afterwards ; and that his
song increases in power, and is longer con-
tinued, when the period for the an'ival of
tlie female is near at hand. A favorite bush
having been selected, the nightingale awaits
the appearance of his mate in or near it,
singing his song of love, and greeting her
arrival with all the little blandishments of
affection. Wlien she begins to sit, his song
is less frequent and less powerful, and ceases
soon after the young are hatclied.

The black-cap, whose song is scarcely
less pleasing than that of the nightingale,
arrives also some time before the female,
and calls her to him in the same manner.
I have one of these birds in my possession :
his song is wild and sweet ; and, as Mr.
White says, when he sings in earnest he
pours forth very sweet but inward melody,
and expresses great variety of soft and gen-
tle modulations, superior, perhaps, to those
of any of our warblers, the nightingale ex-
cepted.

The bird-catcher above referred to showed
me his call-birds, and gave me some proofs
of their skill. On seeing strange birds, they
immediately begin their call, which is suc-
ceeded by their song, and this seldom ceases
till the wild birds are trapped. He says
the call-birds then show a degree of plea-
sure which cannot be mistaken ; and he
seems persuaded that his birds are fully
aware of the purpose for which their call
and song are required.

The wheat-ear arrives about the middle
or end of March, and builds its nest in rab-
bit-burrows. At least they do so occasion-
ally, as I have had one brought to me which
was found in digging out a rabbit. A shep-
herd, whom I met on the Brighton Downs,
informed me that these birds are annually
getting less numerous, and Ibrsaking those
haunts which they formerly most frequented.

Magpie* oongregate in considerable num-
bers : sometimes from twenty to thirty in a
flock. Probably the want of wood keeps
them together as a precautionary measure ;
and they have a scout, like the crow, who
looks out for danger while his companions
are feeding. They are wild, and take long
flights on beang disturbed.

The periodical flight of birds is very cii-
rious. That in tlie spring is much less con-
VoL. I— 58

siderable than the autumnal one ; Septem-
ber, October, and November being the chief
months for the passage of various kinds of
birds. Bird-catchers state that the flights
take place from daybreak to twelve at noon,
and sometimes from two o'clock till it is
nearly dark. Birds fly against the wind,
during their passage, with the exception of
the chaffinch, who tiies across it. The male
chaffinches are observed to fly by them-
selves, and are shortly followed by the fe-
males. This is also the case with the tit-
lark.

Birds flock together in February to choose
their mates ; and probably in the autumn,
for the purpose of leading their young to
places where they can procure food, or en-
joy a cliinate congenial with their nature.
Many flocks of birds, however, appear and
disappear in places where they had not
previously been seen for many years Our
assemblages of birds, however, are nothing
wlien compared with the flocks of the pas-
senger-pigeon (Columba migratoria) of Ame-
rica. Audubon, in his Ornithological Bio-
graphy, gives a curious and interesting ac-
count of the flight of these birds. He says
that, in passing over the Barrens, a few
miles from Hardensbuvgh, he olwerved the
pigeons flying from north-east to south-west
in greater numbers than he had ever seen
them belbre ; and, feeling an inclination ta
count the flocks that might pass within the
reach of his eye in one hour,, he seated him-
self on an eminence and began to mark
with his pencil, making a dot for every
flock that passed. In a short time flnding
the task impracticable, as the birds poured
in in countless multitudes, be rose, and,
counting the dots already put down, found
that one hundred and sixty-three had been
made in twenty-one minutes. He then tra-
velled on, and still met more as he proceed-
ed. The air was literally filled with pigeons;,
the light of noonday was obscured as by
an eclipse, the dung fell in spots not unlike
melting flakes of snow, and the continued
buzz of wings had a tendency to lull hi*
senses to repose. Throughout the- day, im-
mense legions were still g&ing by^and, on
his arrival a little before sunset at Louisville,
distant from Hardensburgh fifty-five miles,
the pigeons were still passing in undimi-
nished numbers, and they continued to do
so lor three days in succession.

Mr. Audubon makes the following curious
estimate of the number of pigeons con-
tained in one only^ of these mighty assem-
blages. Taking a column of one mile in
breadth, which he thinks is far below the-
2Q

458

PLANTS AND SEEDS.

average size, and supposing it to pass over
■without interruption for three hours, at the
late of one mile in a minute, it will give us
a parallelogram of one hundred and eighty
miles by one, covering one hundred and
eighty square miles. Allowing two pigeons
to the square yard, we have eleven hundred
and fifteen millions one hundred and tliir-
ty-six thousand pigeons in one flock. As
each pigeon daily consumes fully half a
pint of food, the quantity necessary for sup-
plying this vast multitude must be eight
millions seven hundred and twelve thou-
sand bushels a day. Nor is the account of
their roosting places less curious. One of
these, on the banks of the Green River in
Kentucky, was repeatedly visited by Mr.
Audubon. It was in a portion of the forest
where the trees were of great magnitude,
and where there was little luiderwood, and
the averiige breadth was about three miles.
On arriving there about two hours before
sunset, few pigeons were to be seen. A
great number of persons, however, with
horses and wagons, guns, and ammunition,
had already established themselves on the
borders. Two farmers had driven upwards
of three hundred hogs from their residence,
more than a hundred miles distant, to be
fattened on the pigeons which were to be
slaughtered. The sun had set, yet not a
pigeon had arrived. Every thing, how-
ever, was ready, and all eyes were gazing

on the clear sky, which appeared in
glimpses amidst the tall trees. Suddenly
there burst forth a general cry of " Here
they come." The noise which they made,
tho>igh yet distant, is described as like a
hard gale at sea passing through the rigging
of a close-reefed vessel. As the birds ar-
rived, they were knocked down by thou-
sands by the pole-men. As they continued
to pour in, the fires were lighted, and a
magnificent, as well as wonderful, sight
presented itself The pigeons, arriving by
myriads, alighted everywhere, one above
another, until solid masses, as large as hogs-
heads, were formed on the branches all
round. Here and there the perches gave
way under the weight, with a crash, and
falling to the ground, destroyed hundreds
of the birds beneath, forcing down the
dense groups with which every stick was
loaded. The pigeons kept constantly com-
ing, and it was past midnight before a de-
crease in the number of those that arrived
could be perceived. The noise made was
so great that it was distinctly heard at three
miles from the spot. Towards the approach
of the day the noise in some measure sub-
sided, and long before objects were distin-
guishable, the pigeons began to move ofi" in
a direction quite different from that in which
they had arrived the evening before, and at
sunrise all that were able to fly had disap-
peared.

PLANTS AND SEEDS.

Few things appear to me more curious
than the fact, that the seeds of various plants
and dowers, which have lain dormant in
the ground through a succession of ages,
have vegetated on being exposed to the
air, or have been brought into action by the
application of some ^compost, or manure,
agreeable to their nature.

Tliis was shown in trenching for a planta-
tion a part of Bushy Park, which had pro-
bably been undisturbed by the spade or
plough since the reign of Charles I., or still
longer perliaps. The ground was turned
up in the winter, and in the following sum-
mer it was covered with a profusion of the
tree mignionette, pansies, and the wild
raspberry, plants which are nowhere found
in a wild state in the neighborhood ; and, in a
plantation recently made in Richmond Park,
agreat quantity of the foxglove came up after
some deep trenching. I observed a few years
ago the same occurrence in a plantation in
Devonshire, the surface of which was co-
vered with the dark blue columbine. A

field also, which previously had little or no
Dutch clover upon it, M'as covered with it
after it had been much trampled upon and
fed down by horses ; and it is stated, from
good authority, that, if a pine forest in
America were to be cut down, and the
ground cultivated, and afterwards allowed
to return to a state of nature, it would pro-
duce plants quite dilierent from tJiose by
which it hail been previously occupied. The
Hypecoum procunibens was lost in the Upsal
garden for forty years, but was accidentally
resuscitated by digging the ground in which
it had formerly grown. A species of Lobe-
lia, which had been missing for twenty
years in the Antsterdam garden, was tmex-
pectedly recovered in the same manner.
There is a very curious account in Monson's
Preludia Botanica, of the appearance of a
species of nuistard. Sisymbrium Iris, after
the fire of London, and another species,
Sisymbrium Panonicum, made its appearance
suddenly among the ruins, after the fire of
Moscow, and continues abundant there ever

PLANTS AND SEEDS.

459

since. A gentleman tells me that he saw
a crop of barley where oats had been sown,
in Glamorganshire, and the farmer assured
him that the ground had not been stirred
before for thirty years. A similar circum-
stance occurred in Scotland. So completely
indeed is the ground impregnated with
seeds, that if earth is brought to the surface,
from the lowest depth at which it is found,
some vegetable matter will spring from it.
I have always considered this fact as one
of the many surprising instances of the
power and bounty of the Almighty, who
has thus literally filled the earth with his
goodness, by storing up a deposit of useful
seeds in its depths, where they must have
lain through a succession of ages, and which
only require the energies of man to bring
them into action. In boring for water lately
at a spot near Kingston-on-Thames, some
earth was brought up from a depth of three
hundred and sixty feet ; this earth was
carefully covered over with a hand-glass, to
prevent the possibility of any seeds being
deposited upon it, yet iri a short time plants
vegetated from it. If quick-lime be put
upon land u'hich, from time immemorial,
has produced nothing but heather, the hea-
ther will be killed, and white clover spring
up in its place.*

The care which is taken to supply the
ground with those seeds which, being of a
farinaceous nature, would not preserve their
vital powers through a succession of ages,
as other seeds do, is very curious. Many of
them are deposited by crows, and other birds
and animals. The Rev. Mr. Robinson,-]-
in his Natural History of Westmoreland
and Cumberland, says, that " birds are natu-
ral planters of all sorts of trees, dissemi-
nating the kernels upon the earth till they
grow up to their natural strength and per-
fection." He tells us that early one morn-
ing he observed " a great number of rooks
very busy at their work, upon a declining
ground of a mossy surface, and that he
^vent out of his way on purpose to view
their labor. He then found that they were
planting a grove of oaks.t The manner
of their planting was thus : They first
made little holes in the earth with their
bills, going about and about till the hole

* The Dhh/mndon flexifoUum was seldom to be
found by even the keenest muscologists. Dr. Gre-
ville discovered a patch of it where heath had been
burnt in Devonshire, and since that it has been
found in several places in Scotland and elsewhere
iu similar situations.

t This being told by a reverend gentleman, we
must believe it; but the probability is, they in-
tended to return and disinter them, as the dog does
the meat he buries.

J I have observed in another place that rooks
probably bury seed for the purpose of feeding upon
them in the winter.

was deep enough, and then they dropped
in the acorn, and covered it M-itli earth and
moss."' " The yoimg plantation,'' Mr. Ro-
binson adds, " is now growing up to a thick
grove of oaks, fit for use, and of- height for
the rooks to build their nests in. The sea-
son was the latter end of autumn, when all
seeds are fully ripe."

Mr. Edwards observes that even the
droughts of the autumn continue to increase
and propagate seeds and plants ; for, by
causing deep chinks or chaps in the earth,
the seeds of trees and larger plants that re-
quire depth are lodged at proper depths for
their growth, and at the same time secured
from such animals as feed on ihem.

Mice bury a great number of seeds for
their winter store, many of which vegetate:
and some seeds are provided with a sort
of down, by which they are carried, with
the help of the wind, to great distances :
others fix themselves on the ground by
means of a glutinous substance attached to
them.

It is a curious fact, that more recent de-
posits of earth, such as peat, leaf-mould, &c.,
produce little or no vegetable substances,
while, as has been shown, soil, from what-
ever depth it is brought, is imi)regnated
with seeds, which grow freely on being ex-
posed to the influence of light and air.

The coral reefs in the South Seas are
first of all covered with marine substances
— then with the excrements of birds, in
which are undigested seeds that spring up
and flourish in the deposits which have
been formed on the reefs. So various are
the ways in which a beneficent Providence
has enabled the earth to produce food for
the benefit of his creatures, making a small
migrating bird, or an insignificant insect, the
instrument of his power and goodness.

The influence which particular soils have
on the colors of flowers is very curious.
Whoever has attended to the growth of the
better sort of tulips knows that, by planting
them in too rich a soil, the colors will run ;
and unbroken tulips, that is, new varieties
from seed, sooner obtain their perfect colors
by being removed from one soil to another.
If a common wild primrose is taken up,
and the root separated and planted in an-
other soil, the blossom loses its brilliant yel-
low hue, and becomes of a pale brown or
light chocolate color.

The tendency observed in plants to fol-
low light, which is so necessary for them,
makes them display a power approaching
to real motion. The following exemplifica-
tion of this tendency is taken from the Me-
moirs of the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences at Boston.

460

MANUAL OF MANNERS.

In the spring a potato was left behind in
a cellar where some roots had been kept
during the winter, and wliicli had only a
small aperture at the upper part of one of
its sides. The potato, which lay in the

opposite corner, shot out a runner, which
first ran twenty feet along the ground,
then crept up along the wall, and so
through the opening by which light was

admitted.

MANUAL OF MANNERS.

Much of what follows under this head
may seem to be rather intended for, if not
particularly adapted to the other half of the
human race ; but as the aim is to exhibit
the moral principle of good breeding, which
is of universal applicability, we choose to lay
up this manual of manners in the Mothers'
Department, and if gentlemen never go
into their departments for any worse pur-
pose than to study the princijjles of good
manners, all we have to say is, that they
would have less occasion to pray " forgive us
our trespasses."

The subject will be treated under the
heads. Politeness, Demeanor, Outward Ap-
pearance, Visiting, Conduct at Table, Amuse-
ments and Recreations, Conversation, Occu-
pation of time. Choice of Books, Punctuality,
Business Correspondence, Confidential In-
tercourse, and General Maxims.

POLITENESS.

As man is a social being, that science
must be an important one which teaches
him how to conduct himself in society. It
is called politeness, and all real politeness
is, and must be, founded on moral principle.
Manners and morals indeed are so nearly
allied, that politeness is nothing more than
a sort of philosophical combination of the
two ; while what is called etiquette possesses
too often very little share of either.

Politeness is the art of pleasing. It is to
the deportment what the finer touches of the
pencil are to the picture, or what harmony
is to music. In the formation of character
it is indispensably requisite. " We are all,"
says Locke, " a kind of chameleons, that take
a tincture from the objects which surround
us." True courtesy, indeed, chiefly con-
sists in accommodating ourselves to the
feelings of others, widiout descending from
our own dignity, or denuding ourselves of
our own principles. By constant intercourse
\vith society, we acquire what is called po-
liteness almost intuitively, as the pebbles of
the sea-shore are rendered smooth by the
friction of the waves. But, like every other
branch of education, it is more easily ac-
quired in youth than when the mind has been
formed, and the liabits confirmed, by in-
crease of years.

A striking characteristic of courtesy is,
that it is more calculated to win esteem

than either wit or learning is; because it
has a tendency to gain for us the respect
of our fellow-creatures, while any appear-
ance of superiority or pretension only ex-
cites ill-will.

Religion itself teaches us to honor all men,
and to do tmto others as we would that
others should do unto us. This includes
the whole principle of courtesy, which in
this assimilates to the principle of justice.
It comprises, indeed, all the moral virtues
in one, consisting not merely in external
show, but having its motive in the heart,
and moulding and guiding the disposition.
The politeness which superficial writers
are fond of describing, has been defined as
" the appearance of all the virtues, without
possessing one of them ;" but by this is
meant the mere outward parade, or that
kind of artificial adornment of demeanor,
which owes its existence to an over-refine-
ment of civility, or rather to a too strict com-
pliance witli etiquette. What is forced or
formal is contrary to the true character of
courtesy, which is prompted and guided
by superiority of mind : one of the essential
characteristics of politeness being goodness
of disposition, and the inclination always to
look at the Ijright side of things.

The principal rules of politeness are : —

To subdue the temper.

To submit to the weaknesses of our fel-
low-men.

And to render to all their due, freely and
courteously.

To do this effectually it requires — judg-
ment to recommend ourselves to tliose whom
we meet in society ; and discrimination, to
know when and to whom to yield ; as well
as discretion to treat all with deference due
to their reputation, their station, or their
merit.

Sincerity is another essential character-
istic of courtesy. It is the want of this
M'hich makes society what it is said to be,
artificial.

Good breeding, in a great measure, con-
sists in being easy, but not indifi'erent; good
humored, but not familiar; passive, but not
unconcerned. It includes, also, a sensibility,
nice, yet correct, a tact, delicate, yet true.
There is a golden mean in the art, which
it should be every one's object to attain,
without descending to obsequiousness on the

POLITENESS.

461

one hand, or to familiarity on the other.
In poHteness, as in every thing else, there
is tlie medium between too much and too
little — between constraint and freedom ; for
civilities, carried to extreme, are wearisome;
and mere ceremony is not politeness, but
the reverse.

The true Christian is the truly courteous.
" Religion," says Leighton, " is in this mis-
taken sometimes, in that we think it imprints
a roughness and austerity upon the mind
and carriage. It doth, indeed, bar all vanity
and lightness, and all compliance ;" but it
softens the manners, tempers tlie address,
and refines the heart.

A failing in conduct, or an infirmity of
temper, is more easily excused in society
than any deficiency in politeness. To please,
one must possess that indescribable charm
which real refinement alone can impart,
and which true politeness only knows how
to appreciate.

Arrogance is one of the greatest obstacles
to courtesy. He who presumes too much
on his own merit, shows that he does not
understand the simplest principles of polite-
ness. Pride is highly culpable. No man,
whether he be the king on the throne, or
the meanest beggar in his realm, possesses
any right to comport himself with a haughty
or discourteous air towards his fellow-man.
The poet truly says —

" What most ennobles human nature
Was ne'er the portion of the proud 1"

A kind word, or a gracious smile, will secure

that good-will, which a haughty demeanor,

or a high look, may forfeit for ever.

The really courteous man has a thorough
knowledge of human nature, and can make
allowance for its failings. He is always con-
sistent with himself. The polite alone know
how to make others polite ; as the good
alone know how to inspire others with a
relish for virtue.

A taste for literature generally tends to
improve the manners, and to cherish in the
mind a desire for the refinements of society;
though many literary persons do not culti-
vate this taste as they ought. Men of erudi-
tion are often deficient in address, because
they have neglected the outward appear-
ance, and the cultivation of the manners,

considering these as beneath their notice.
They have lived more among their books
than in society ; and while they have been
improving and enriching their minds, they
have paid comparatively little attention to
the ordinary courtesies of life ; whicli men
of inferior pretensions, the children of this
world, wise in their generation, assiduously
cultivate. Such persons are not so ignorant
of human nature as not to know that man-
kind generally look no deeper than the sur-
face ; and that in society, showy accom-
plishment is too often preferred to real
merit.

True politeness makes life agreeable
Without it the observances of society de-
generate into cold and idle ceremony. It
prompts us to be on good terms with every
one ; or, if otherwise, it furnishes us witli
the tact to conceal our feelings and our dis-
likes. A well-bred man seldom complains
of the want of proper attention on the part
of others. Self-possession is one of the es-
sential points of his character; and he is not
easily induced to forget his own place, or
be guilty of any thing calculated to deprive
him of that proper respect wliich he feels to
be his due.

A truly well-bred man shows his polite-
ness also by the encouragement and affabi-
lity with which he treats those who may
appear abashed in his presence. He feels
a pleasure in relieving the distress of one
who thus discovers his embarassment and
want of breeding, and strives to put him at
ease with himself and with all around him ;
for therein consists the great art and charm
of true politeness.

Another characteristic of politeness is, that
it is differently illustrated in different indivi-
duals. The clergyman, for example, is,
and ought to be, more dignified and affable
than the member of any other profession,
yet the latter may be equally well-bred in
his way. Society respect only such a tone
as is in unison with a man's condition and
character : pretension or assumption being
quite foreign to good breeding. Like all
arts, however, politeness has its limits, and
the well-bred man knows his own position
too well ever to consider it necessary to step
beyond it.

SNOW-STORM SONNET.

Old father Winter's powdering o'er his hair;
Grim Vanity ! he's gray enough already, —
For one so old, he ought to be more steady.
Yet he's as fickle as the springtime fair.
But yesterday, his was a balmy breath —
To-day he blusters, sending out his frost
To nip the buds, and smite with sudden death
The tender flowers that venture forth to peep

2 a2

If cruel Winter yet has fallen asleep :
The daring act their gentle Ufe has cost. —
Thus died Louise, our tenderest summer

flower,
So meek, so mild, so beauteous in her bloom ;
The blast of winter howl'd around her

bower,
She shrank away, and hid within the tomb

IVIackellab.

462

COOKERY.

COOKERY.

Les Anglais ne cuissent leurs legumes qu'a I'eau ; encore ne sont ils qu'i moiti6 cuits.— ^. P. but la

Cuisine Anglaise.

capable of producing is developed ; and that
any rank or disagreeable taste that may be-
long to them is got rid of. The means of
effecting these three things lie in a very small
compass. The first is attained by boiling
them a sufficient time ; and the second and
third by changing the water several times
during the operation of boiling, and by the
addition of a little sugar, salt, or spice, as
the case may require it. As an instance
of the mode by which the most unpleasant
flavor may be destroyed in a vegetable
production, and the most agreeable of which
it is susceptible rendered predominant, we
shall relate a circumstance that occurred to
ourselves, a few years since.

Being at Bourdeaux, we one day gave a
dinner, at the hotel in which we lodged, to
a few English friends whom we had met
there. Anxious to taste, and let our guests
taste, a gigot d Vail, (a leg of mutton and
garlic,) a dish for which the Bourdelais cooks
are celebrated, we ordered one as part of
the repast. When the roast was placed
upon the table at the second course, it ap-
peared to us all to be a gigot avx haricots, (a
leg of mutton and dried kidney-beans ;) but
the meat was delicious, and the beans cer-
tainly superior to, and having a ditl'erent
flavor from, any haricots we had ever tasted
before. Vexed, however, at what we con-
sidered an inattention to our orders, we
summoned the landlord, and begged to
know why, when we had ordered a gigot
a I'ail, he had presumed to send up a gigot
aux haricots?

" I have shown no inattention," be re-
plied, "and made no mistake. The dish
of which you have just eaten, and which
your guests seem to have liked, was a gigot
a I'ail, and what you have mistaken for
beans is garlic."'

" Is it possible!"' we exclaimed. Again
we tasted the garlic ; its rankness was gone,
but there was in it a delicious flavor for
which we could not account. After apolo-
gizing to our host, — " If the question be not
indiscreet, and the matter no secret, how
can you impart this delicious flavor to gar-
lic'?" we asked.

" There is no secret in the case," he re-
plied ; the process is very simple. The
garlic is thrown into five difierent boiling
waters, with a little salt, and boiled five
minutes in each. It is then drained, and
p)it into the dripping-pan under the roasting
mutton."

The advancing spring renders it incum-
bent on us to say something about vegetables,
in the cooking of which, so as to render them
wholesome and easy of digestion, our cooks
are wofully deficient. In England and
America, animal food seems to be the prin-
cipal article of nourishment, bread or other
vegetables being only an accompaniment
necessary to enable us to swallow die meat,
and being scarcely deemed a palatable food
if taken alone. The fact is, that among us
the cooking of vegetables is in so primitive
a state as to be almost wholly confined to
boiling them, or rather to parboiling them,
in water, with the addition of a little salt,
and perhaps of a little pearlash, to keep
them green. Of course we do not allude
here to potatoes and other roots. Cabbage,
broeoli, and cauliflowers are extremely nu-
tritious and wholesome when properly pre-
pared, but are, especially the former, ex-
ceedingly indigestible when served up in
the usual English mode, half raw, to be
eaten with meat and melted butter. Greens
of every kind, turnip-tops, and colewort, a're
not only agreeable to the palate, but good
purifiers of the blood, and have a gentle
cathartic action, provided they are not
eaten without undergoing a sufficient quan-
tity of boiling before they are prepared for
the table ; for to eat them simply boiled is
to swallow them as the hungry hog would
devour a thistle. Endive is a delicious ve-
getable when it has undergone the culinary
art, though in England it is scarcely ever
used but in the form of salad. Lettuces
are also delicious when dressed in various
ways, as are also cucumbers, which with
us are used only in their raw state with
vinegar, thereby engendering, if eaten to
excess, that most afflicting malady, the cho-
lera morbus. Spinach, a most wholesome
and digestible vegetable, one adapted to the
most delicate stomach, and which acts most
beneficially upon the system, is, when eaten
in its unsophisticated state — that is to say,
its leaves plain boiled — one of the rankest
and most disagreeable of the garden tribe ;
and yet it is served up in this state at our
tables. We could enumerate a great many
other delicacies of the kitchen garden either
not used by us, or rendered unwholesome
by our mode of cooking them.

The principal things to be attended to in
the cooking of vegetables, is to take care that
ihey are sufficiently softened to be digesti-
ble ; that tlie most grateful flavour tliey are

TPIE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

463

Since our return to England, we have
often had this dish dressed ; and no guest
of ours, until he was told of it, ever disco-
vered that ho had been feasting upon garlic.

The next thing to which we must direct
the reader's attention is spinach, a vegetable
which we cannot too strongly recommend.
It must be prepared as follows: —

After being carefully picked and washed
four or five times in abundance of ■water,
let it be put into boiling water containing
some salt, in a large vessel where it may
have plenty of room. The leaves that rise
above the water must be pressed down.
When the spinach is about half done, take
it off the fire, strain it, and prepare some
more boiling water and salt, in which it
must be again boiled till sufficiently done.
The moment it is so, throw it into a cul-
lender and keep pouring cold water over it
for some time ; then make it into balls, and
with your hands press out every drop of
water it contains; afterwards chop it very
fine until it becomes almost a paste.

Now put a lump of butter into a stew-
pan, and place the spinach upon the buttex;
let it dry gently over the fire. When the
moisture is evaporated, dredge it with a
little fiour, then add a small quantity of good
gravy, with seasoning to your taste ; let it
boil up, and serve it up with sippits fried in
butter.

The Parisians are very fond of spinach
with sugar, which is a great delicacy, and
may be prepared in the following manner :
— Boil some good cream just before you put
the spinach in the stew-pan with the butter.
When you have added the flour to the
spinach as before directed, together with a
little salt, put in the cream with some sugar
and nutmeg, let it simmer for ten minutes,
then serve it up on sippets, with a very small

quantity of pounded lump-sugar strewed
over it.

We now come to endive, than which no-
thing can be more grateful to die palate
when nicely prepared.

The endive, after being well picked and
washed, must be parboiled in lour iliflerent
waters, to destroy the bitterness peculiar to
it. It must then be boiled in salt and water
until done, when it must be thrown into
cold water, squeezed and chopped line. It
may then be put into a stew-pan upon a
lump of butter, and a few young onions
chopped very small added to it. Lot it dry,
then dredge it with half a table-spoon-
ful of flour, and add some gravy, some sea-
soning, and two lumps of sugar ; let it stew
very gently during a quarter of an hour,
then serve it up, either alone on sippets,
or under sweetbreads, fricandeau, or mutton
chops.

We conclude this article, with a mode of
dressing cauliflowers with Parmesan cheese.

Having boiled the cauliflowers, prepare
a sauce in the following manner. Into a
quarter of a pound of butter, rub a table-
spoonful of flour. Then put it into a stew-
pan ; as the butter melts, add by degrees
half a pint of water, or a little more if you
re(]uire more sauce. Stir the whole itntil it
boils ; after it has boiled a couple of minutes,
take it from the fire, and when entirely
off the boil add the yolk of an egg beat up
with a little lemon juice and half a table-
spoonful of soft water. Shake the stew-pan
till the whole is mixed and the sauce set.

Now powder the cauliflowers with rasped
Parmesan cheese. Then pour the sauce
over them ; when the sauce is firmly set
upon them, cover the surface with rasped
cheese and bread crumbs, and brown it with
a salamander.

THE "WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

CHASTITY.

WouLDST thou be honored of thy Crea-
ator ; wovddst thou be happy in thyself;
wouldst thou be lovely in the eye of man?
Without chastity thou wilt be neither of
these.

For its loss is the loss of peace and satis-
faction to thy soul ; and the consequences
too often the worst that can befall thee.

He that robbeth thee of it, will despise
thee, and expose thy want ; and she that
hath in secret forfeited her own will hold
tlice in much contempt.

Behold the house of incontinence ; the
mark of infamy is indelibly stamped on
the threshold and on the posts of the door.

At die window sitteth misfortune, forcing
a smile ; and within are remorse and dis-
ease, and irretrievable misery.

The children of her house are the curse
of their mother, and their hves the growing
monuments of their infamy.

Art thou chaste 1 Boast not therefore ;
the security of thy possession is as brittle
as glass, that may by accident fall and be
broken.

Be on thy guard, for thou knowest not
the weakness of thy nature, nor the power
of temptation.

Is there a man widi whom thou delight-
est to talk, let not thine ear be too familiar
with his discourse.

464

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

Doth he teach philosophy and entertain
thee with the researches of knowledge,
yet beware lest he instruct thee too far.

Is lie accounted modest and sober and
virtuous, depend not on the tfuth of these
pretences.

Doth he promise thee fair ^ doth he pro-
test in the sincerity of his heart he mean-
eth no harm? Yet believe him not; nei-
ther put contulence in his discretion.

Doth he only ask a kiss of thy cheek?
Indulge not his frequent request, lest the
sweetness thereof inflame him to desire,
and the poison of his lips descend into thine
own bosom.

Taste not the wine when the bowl goes
a second time round; join not often with
him in the sprightly dance ; nor sufler op-
portunity to overtake thee.

By avoiding temptation thou mayest pre-
serve thy chastity ; but man is the serpent
of deceit, and woman is the daughter of
Eve.

ACQUAINTANCE.

Who is she that biddeth thee good mor-
row ; that kisseth thy cheek at parting, and
giveth thee an invitation to her house ?

She is an acquaintance ; believe her not ;
go thou to her home, tarry awhile and thou
wilt find her out.

The coldness of her respect will appear
in thy welcome, and the distance of her be-
havior will pall thine entertainment.
' Doth she i^romise thee much in thy pros-
perity, and wish an opportunity to oblige
thee, thou shalt see her avoid thee in the
day of thy trouble, her door will be shut
against thee, and thy name estranged from
her knowledge.

Doth she sympathize in thy misfortune ;
doth she tell her sorrow for thy present dis-
tress ; yet her cheek is dry, and she for-
getteth thee the moment she turneth from
thee.

Doth she rejoice to see thee, yet her eye
sparkleth not ; is she sorry for thy departure,
yet her countenance altereth not.

Good ofliccs are familiar to her tongue ;
but, if thou claimest her promises, she is
astonished, and knoweth not what thou
meanest.

She calleth herself thy friend to tliy face,
and owneth to a third person she hath
some knowledge of thee.

Trust her not with thy dealings; let her
have no knowledge of thy ways ; for she is
the spreader of scandal, and inquireth after
news to divulge it.

Avoid also the number of her sisters ;
nor let them find out the way of thine
house.

FRIENDSHIP.

As the tenderness of a mother in the
hour of thy distress ; as the love of a father
in the day of thy trouble, so is the help of a
friend in the time of need.

Dost thou think thou hast many friends;
do they profess much love ; are they lavish
in tlieir promises of kindness ? Be not
credulous, nor rely on the form of set
speeches.

The breath of the mouth is cheap and
costeth nothing, and the tongue moveth slip-
pery within ; but the heart is often unac-
quainted therewith.

Hast thou tried their sincerity : hast thou
experienced the veracity of their promises;
have they served thee when thou stoodst
in need of their assistance 1 Yet, for all
this, beware how far thou confidest in
tliem.

Try them once and again, and at the third
time they may cast thee off, ai>d say thou
troublest them too often.

Hast thou a friend, put it not in her
power to be much thine enemy, if thou canst
avoid the necessity thereof; for thou know-
est not how slight an occasion may turn her
heart against thee. '

Thy bent of inclination, thy agreeable
accomplishments, may excite many to a
show of amity for a while ; but friendship
dwelleth not in outward appearance.

Thou art not indebted for their kindness;
the favor thou receivest is but the price of
thy talents, and their own interest the mo-
tive of their good-will towards thee.

There are those who make friendsln'ps
on purpose to betray; who confer obliga-
tions that they may exact obedience.

Who think they have a right to com-
mand thee ; thy life and thy reputation,
they will boast as the efiect of their tender-
ness, and thy success as their care towards
thee.

Have no confidence in these ; neither de-
sire to be intrusted with the privacies of
their actions.

Who giveth thee a secret and enjoineth
thy silence, she doth it that she may have
the pleasure of telling it herself

Yet let not thy distrust stir up ingrati-
tude. The favor of the day deserveth the
thanks thereof till the injury of to-morrow
cancels the obUgation.

Is there a friend indeed, thou wilt know
her when thy acquaintance forsake thee.
Will she defend thy innocence when all
men accuse thee falsely ; will she bear re-
proach unjustly for thy sake, take her to
thy bosom ; she is a jewel of a high price,
a diamond of inestimable value.

€lie pioitgl), tl)t loom, antr tl)e ^nml

Vol. I. FEBRUARY, 1849. No. VIII.

THE TRUE AND PROFITABLE MODE OF DIMINISHING
THE SURPLUS PRODUCTION OF COTTON.

We have desired to impress upon the minds of our readers the great truth
that " population makes the food come from the rich soils, while depopula-
tion drives them back to the poor ones," and that if they desire to bring into
activity their river bottoms, their swamps, their marl, and their lime, it can
be accomplished in one way, and one alone, and that is by bringing to their
sides the loom and the anvil, that those who drive the shuttle and strike the
hammer may eat on the ground the food that is needed for their sustenance
while engaged in converting the wool into cloth, and the ore into iron, for
the use of those who produce the food. Had we needed confirmation! of the
correctness of this view, we should have found it in the message of Governor
Johnson, of South Carolina, an extract from which was given in our las'c
number, (page 433.) He tells us that scarcely any of the productions of
the State, cotton excepted, will bear transportation to market ; that it is
cheaper to import grain from the Northern States to the towns and cities on
the seaboard, than to bring it from the interior of the State ; and that lime
may be imported from Maine into Columbia, sixty miles inland, at less cost
than it can be obtained from the vast deposits within the State itself. She
has few consumers at home ; and she makes no roads; and the reason why
she does not is, that her population is so widely scattered that the cost of
making them is greater than can be borne. It is the land of free trade and
abstinence from governmental interference, and yet the people are unable to
make roads without governmental aid. Canada is in a situation precisely
similar. She has no consumers, nor can she have ; for s/ie has perfect free
trade with Britain, and is thereby impoverished, and she has thus far but
twenty miles of railroad. India wants consumers that she cannot have
while she shall continue to have perfect free trade ivith Britain, and there-
fore India makes no roads. South Carolina can send to market cotton, of
which the earth yields by pounds, and so can India; but neither of them
can send to market food, of which the earth yields by tons ; and they have
on the ground no consuming population to bring it forth.

South Carolina is becoming depopulated, and the necessary consequence
is that men fly from the vicinity of rich lands to seek the poor ones at the
heads of the streams in Texas, or Arkansas. She makes no roads, and her
chief city is supplied with hay and grain from the North, while meadow
lands abound, and swamps and river bottoms ask in vain for drainage to
enable them to furnish tons of food for men, and horses, and cattle, in place
of the pounds of cotton, or pecks of corn that are obtained in " the mountain
region" of the State. Lime abounds, and fuel abounds, and poor soils,
whose produce would be trebled by aid of lime, abound, yet it is found
cheaper to import it from the northern extremity of the Union, than to
quarry and transport its own. The State is almost destitute of consumers,
and therefore it is that she is dependent upon other States for large supphes
of many of the products of the earth, while other States are enabled to supply
those products because consumers are numerous. In every part of the

Vol. I.— 59 465

466 MODE OF DIMINISHING

earth, and in every age, it has been seen that in every advancing nation the
supply of food has grown faster than population, facilitating the acquisition
of the necessaries and comforts of life, while in every declining one the
supply has diminished more rapidly than population, the difficulty of obtaining
the necessaries of life increasing with the diminution of numbers. Let our
readers cast their eyes over the world, and they will see that among the most
scattered people starvation is a matter of constant occurrence,* while if they
desire to find the people who consume most largely, they must seek them in
the densely peopled Belgium, in England, and New England.

What is now true of South Carolina bids fair speedily to become true of
others of the Southern States. Their whole system is one of exhaustion,
followed by emigration. Men now fly from Alabama, as heretofore they
have flown from Maryland, and Virginia, and Carolina. In every Southern
paper we are struck with the number of "movers," — of men who are
abandoning the vicinity of rich lands to seek in the West poor ones similar
to those they have already exhausted, for exhaustion must come Avherever
men are unable to return to the land the refuse of that which they take from
the land. The effects of the system are well described in an address re-
cently delivered before the Georgia Agricultural Society, by Mr. W. Tyrrell,
represented to be the owner of three thousand acres of the best cotton lands
of that State. From that address the following is an extract :

" Unless we reform our present system of tillage, we soon shall be absolutely ruined.
By excessive cotton culture we are fast bringing about a state of things in which our
negroes and our lands will be alike worthless. The abandoninent of our old and worn
plantations in Georgia for the cultivation of the fresh virgin soils at the Southwest, which
has served the turn of so many when cotton was at a fair price, will not be available
under an entirely different condition of things, in the markets of die world. As the latter
change in the progress of nations, unless we alter our system of agriculture, and wisely
adapt it to the wants of civilized man, what has hitherto been to us a prolific source of
wealth, will hereafter bring to us poverty and degradation. Abolitionists need not
trouble themselves about the manumission of our slaves, nor politicians about establishing
new competitors in planting, in California and New Mexico. The competition will soon
reach a point where the ownership of this species of property will cease to be profitable
or desirable, unless we produce breadstuff's, wool and provisions, as well as cotton ; and
thereby imprcwe instead of exhausting our lands.''-[-

Everywhere throughout the South, the excessive cotton culture is spoken
of as the cause of the present depression, and as likely to be the cause of the
total destruction of value in labor and land, to be attended with ruin to their
owners. Such being the case, we might naturally suppose that there had
been a very great increase in the product by which the markets of the world
had been overwhelmed; but that no such increase had taken place, we pro-
pose now to show, in proof of the proposition that where the consumer does
not take his place by the side of the producer the exhaustion of the land, at-
tended with diminished returns to labor, is a necessary consequence.

In the following table we give the amount produced, the average price,
and the sum estimated to have been yielded by the crop for the years from

* The most populous part of Ireland (Ulster) is, even now, comparatively prosperous.
The most distressed is that in which the population is the least dense, Connaught. The
present state of that unfortunate country is due, not to over-population, but to over-taxa-
tion by the government, the landholders, and the manufacturers of England. Of what is
taken from the land nothing goes back upon it.

j- These views in relation to the question of slavery, and the effects of diminished pro-
duction on the condition of the slave, are very common, but they are incorrect. See the
question discussed in our last No. in the letter from Mr. Carey to Mr. Appleton. They
show, however, the probable destruction of the value of all property from the want of
that diversification of employments which arises when the loom and the anvil take their
place by the side of tlie i^lough.

THE SURPLUS PRODUCTION OF COTTON.

467

8-6 cents

,

$74,820,000

. 10--2 " .

66,708,000

8-2 "

55,468,000

6-0 "

57,120,000

8-1 "

65,772,000

5-9 «

56,522,000

7-8 "

65,520,000

. 10-1 "

71,811,000

7

65,800,000*

1 5

51,000,000

1840 to the present time, and an estimate for the crop now coming into
market.

1840 870,000,000 pounds

1841 654,000,090 " .

1842 674,000,000 « .

1843 952,000,000 « .

1844 812,000,000 « .

1845 958,000,000 « .

1846 840,000,000 " .

1847 711,000,000 " .

1848 940,000,000 " .

1849 1020,000,000 " . supposed

The average product of the last three years is 890,000,000, being almost
precisely the same as that of 1840, ahhough the population of the cotton-
growing States must have increased twenty-five per cent, or considerably
more than a miUion of souls, and although all the energies of this greatly in-
creased population have been given to the extension of the cultivation
of their great staple. The reason for this is to be found in the fact that men
are everjMvhere exhausting the land, impoverishing themselves, and flying
to seek new land, when if they were to return to the land the refuse of its
products, they Avould become rich, and thus be enabled to clear and drain
the richer soils, by which they are everywhere surrounded. Throuo-hout
the whole South the tendency has thus far been in the same direction
in which have travelled Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina, which
abound in fertile soils, from which men are flying as if from pestilence,
while those who remain cultivate large surfaces of exhausted lands, from
which they obtain small crops.

To all this the South Carolinian would answer that he had been exhausted
by the tariff' — that if he had had perfect free trade with Great Britain, and
with the world, he would have grown rich, because of the increased demand
for cotton that would have resulted from his own increased power of con-
suming cotton fabrics ; but that he has been taxed for the support
of avaricious manufacturers at the North, who have grown rich at his
expense, while his market has been diminished by reason of his diminished
power of consumption, in consequence of having to give forty bales out
of a hundred for the support of monopolists, &c., &c.

How far this view is borne out by facts, we propose now to inquire :

The consumption of the British Empire for the three years previous to
the last has been as follows — in millions of pounds :

1845.

1846.

1847

United Kingdom,

157

141

74

Colonies,

85

87

67

242 228 141f

The colonies of Great Britain enjoy all the advantages of perfect fi-ee
trade, which should, according to many of our teachers, produce the highest
prosperity, and yet their power of consumption tends to diminish when it
should increase, because of the exhaustive nature of their trade Avith the
mother country. The latter is determined to be the great workshop of the
world, and that she may be so, India is compelled to send cotton produced
at a distance of sixty days' journey from the Ganges, and rice to feed the man

* For this table, and all others used in this article, except when specially acknowledged
to be derived elsewhere, we are indebted to an article on the Cotton Trade, by Professor
McCay, of the University of Georgia, pubhshed in the Merchants' Magazine of December
last.

•J- Burns's Glance, quoted by Professor McCay.

468 MODE OF DIMINISHING

who is to twist the cotton, and then after the lapse of perhaps a couple
of years, the same cotton and rice find their way to the hills in the form of
cloth, to be consumed by the producer of cotton, who obtains one yard where
he would have five could he manufacture it at home, and cultivates poor
lands while surrounded by rich ones that he is unable to clear or drain.
His position and that of the South Carolinian are precisely the same. Both
V)Oukl make their exchange at home if they could. Both are compelled to
make their exchanges abroad, at great loss of labor and manure, and this
they call freedom of trade !

The exhaustive nature of the process is manifested in the diminished
consumption at home as well as abroad. Ireland can have no manufactures,
and she is ruined because she, hke the other colonies, is compelled to waste
on the road, and in idleness, the labor that should be applied to the conversion
of food and cotton into cloth, and food and ore into iron. Her power of con-
suming cotton is daily diminishing, as is that of the north and west of
Scotland.

The export of cotton yarn and cloth by Great Britain to other countries
has been as follows — in the first six months of

1845. 1846. 1847. 1848.
Millions of Pounds.
European States, . . 100 94 69 81
All other countries, . . 65 52 69 49

Throughout the whole of Europe there has been a determination to throw
off the colonial system, and to bring the consumer, with his loom and his
anvil, to take his place by the side of the plough and the harrow of the pro-
ducer, and the result may be seen in the gradual decline of the export of
cloth and yarn to the continent. Has that, however, been attended with a
diminished power of consuming cotton ? On the contrary, the continental
consumption of American cotton, Avhich was in 1844 but 309,000 bales, rose
in 1845 and 1846 to 437 and 430 thousand, and is estimated this year, not-
withstanding the disturbances, at 420,000. In 1847, because of the high
prices, it fell to 340,000, the reduction being in nearly the same proportion
Avhich the production of that year bore to the average of the two previous
years.

The advantage of trading directly with the consumer of cotton, thus
superseding the necessity for depending on Enghsh merchants and English
mill-owners, and diminishing the machinery of exchange and the cost
of exchange, will be seen from a comparison of the regularity of movement
in the direct with the great changes in the indirect trade, as follows :

1845.

1846.

1847.

1848.

Direct, bales,

437

450

309

420

Indirect, millions of pounds,

100

94

69

81

We see that the export to "all other countries" has undergone great
changes; having been 65 in the first half of 1845, falling to 52 in 1846,
rising to 60 in 1847, and falling to 49 in 1848. The downward tendency
of the system is here made manifest. It was arrested in 1847 by the repeal
of our tariff of 1842; the effect of which was to cause a vast influx of cotton
goods into this country, the 14 millions of yards of the first six months of
1846 being replaced by 49 millions in 1847, making a difference of about 8
millions of pounds. In 1848, the 49 milhons fell to 33. If, now, we deduct the
increase in the trade with this country, we shall obtain the following quan-
tities as the export to all •' other countries" than the European states : —
1845—65; 1846—52; 1847—61; 1848—43. The natural tendency is
to have the loom seek the plough, and there exists in almost every part of

THE SURPLUS PRODUCTION OF COTTON. 469

the world that exercises in that respect the power of self-government, a de-
termination that it shall take its natural and proper place.

The export to France of the crop of 1847, was 241,000 bales. In 1848
it increased to 279,000 bales.

Here, at home, the consumption has grown with remarkable rapidity ; and
here we have exhibited in full force the beneficial effect of the approxima-
tion of the plough and the loom.

American

Average for

Increase,

American

Average for

Increase,

Year.

consumption.

three years.

per cent.

Year.

consumption.

tliree ye.ars.

per cent.

Bales.

Bales.

Bales.

Bales.

1843 .

. 3-25,000

305,000

3-4

1846 .

. 423,000

386,000

9-0

1844 .

. 347,000

321,000

5-2

1847 .

. 428,000

413,000

7-0

1845 .

. 389,000

354,000

10-3

1848 .

. 523,000*

458,000

10-0

The consumption has thus increased almost 60 per cent, in ten years ;
and whereas the advance of 1843 over the average of the three preceding
years was only 3*4 per cent., that of 1845 over the then preceding three
years was about ten per cent.; and that of the past year, if here correctly
represented, is equally great when compared with the three past years.

The change that has taken place in the last five years is most remarkable ;
and shows the advantage to the planter of the system that tends, by diver-
sifying the pursuits of a nation, to render productive its whole labor power.

In 1845, the quantity consumed by the people of the British empire, was . 242 millions.
While that consamed by the people of the United States was about . . 170 "
In 1847, the consumption of the former had fallen to .... 141 "

While of the crop grown in 1847, the consumption of the Union has been 243 "

Among the most important facts is the steadiness of the growth of the
home demand, compared with the unceasing fluctuations of the foreign one;
and thence may we derive a useful lesson as to the importance of looking
more to our home markets, and less to those abroad, than we have been accus-
tomed to do. It is impossible to trace the history of the last twenty-five
years without being struck with the extraordinary revulsions resulting from
changes of policy on the part of the government and the monetary institu-
tions of Great Britain, against which no one could guard, and which have,
consequently, spread ruin in every part of the world connected with that
country, and exactly in the ratio of their intercourse with her. The people
of the Union have suffered most heavily in times past; and if they have on
this occasion escaped comparatively unharmed, the fact is due to the in-
creased independence that has resulted from the existence of the tariff of
1842.

The great cotton consumers of the world are now the people of the Union.
Being only 21 millions in number, their power of consumption is greater by
fifty per cent, than that of the almost countless millions of British subjects;
and their power in this respect has been increasing, while that of all the
colonies of Britain has been diminishing. Great, however, as it is now, it
gives but eleven pounds of cotton per head, or an average, after deducting
that which is used for other purposes than clothing, of about 35 yards of cloth

* " The New York Shipping and Commercial List, which is the highest authority on
the subject, gives 007,000 bales as the American consumption for 1848. Of this 523,000
bales was delivered to the factories at tlie North, and 75,000 was the estimated con-
sumption at the South and West. This estimate is probably too low. Certainly the
amount allowed for Georgia is not so large as it ought to be.'" — Professor McCaij.

It must be borne in mind, that, by the consumption of 1848, is meant that of the crop
that commenced to come to market in September, 1847, and closed in the summer of
1S48. The power of consuming cotton at home was maintained during that time by tlie
effect of the famine in Europe in 1847 ; but since that time many mills have been closed,
and there is now no disposition to build new ones, for those in existence are working
without profit, and frequently at a loss.

470

MODE OF DIMINISHING

■to each. This is less than one-half of what would be consumed, were the
labor power of the nation rendered productive by the close approximation of
the loom and the anvil to the plough and the harrow. Were the policy of
the nation such as would enable the farmers and planters to obtain in their
immediate neighborhood the furnaces, the forges and the rolling-mills, the
cotton and the woollen mills, required to supply their wants, and to give
them a market on the ground for their surplus food and surplus labor, now
to so vast extent wasted — and to enable them to save the labor now wasted
on the road — and the manure now wasted on the road and in distant
markets — the home consumption of cotton would probably rise to 400 millions
within less than seven years.

Had the tariff of 1842 been, from the first, adopted as the settled policy of
the nation, there would be, at this moment, in existence at least a hundred
cotton mills, and possibly treble that number, more than we now have. Al-
lowing, however, only 150, and the consumption of each to be but 1000 bales
per annum, here would be a demand for 60 millions of cotton, accompanied
everywhere by a greatly increased power of consumption, because of the in-
creased value of labor and land. The substitution of the tariff of 1846 for that
of 1842 m.ade during the first year a considerable market for the products of
English looms; but the effect has been general impoverishment; and while
many mills have been closed, the building of others has been arrested, and
the market for foreign cloths has already, even in the present year, follen to
two-thirds of that of"l847.

Year.

1845 (First six months of)
1S46 "

1847 " «

1848 " "

CaIipoe3,

printed and dyed.

Yards.

8,803,000

6,360,000

20,972,000

19,220,000

Calicoes, plain.

Yards.

7.963,000

5,367,000

22,131,000
9,950,000

Other cottons.
Yards.

4,809.000
2,480,000
5,734,000
3,996,000

The consumption of 1848 over that of 1840, consequent upon the change
of tariff, is less than twelve millions of yards, or as much as would be pro-
duced in eight mills, consuming cotton at the rate of 2000 bales per annum.
The cotton-growers have gained these eight ; and they have lost a hundred
and fifty that would be now in existence, had the tariff of 1842 been
adopted as the settled policy of the country.

The power of consumption in the South, at the present time, is less by
one-third, so far as that power is derived from cotton, than it was nine years
since, notwithstanding the vast increase of population. The crop produced
in 1839 paid for commodities and things required by the planter and his
hands to the extent of 74 millions of dollars, whereas that of the present
season gives a purchasing power to the extent of only 51 millions. Had
this power grown only with the growth of population, it would be 92 mil-
lions ; but it ought to grow more rapidly, and should at this moment far
exceed 100 millions ; whereas it is but 51 millions. Had the tariflf of 1842
been adopted by the South, and were we now consuming a hundred and
fifty thousand bales more than we now are, as we should be doing, the ba-
lance would produce more in the markets of the world by probably thirty
millions of dollars than we now obtain for the Avhole. The planter would
thereby gain not only these 30 millions, but the price of the 150,000 bales
in the bargain ; and, in addition, he would have been improving his land by
\hc cultivation of food to be consumed at home, instead of raising cotton to
be sent abroad. In estimating it at 150,000 bales, we feel well assured that
we are far short of the truth. The growth of the power of consumption,
Avhen men are enabled to live together, combining their efforts to make
their joint labor productive, can scarcely be estimated. The consumptioa

THE SURPLUS PRODUCTION OF COTTON. 471

of iron doubled from 1843 to 1847, and the prosperous makers of iron con-
sumed largely of cotton. The furnaces and rolling-mills are being closed,
and the consumption of cotton is being reduced. Had the South adopted
the tariff of 1842, the products of iron would have gone ahead still more
rapidly, and more cotton would have been consumed, and the price of cotton
would have been higher, enabling the planter to make railroads on which
to use the iron, and thus to get his cotton to market more cheaply, and thus
to accumulate the means to improve his plantation, and to build mills, and
thus to augment the demand for iron. Every step in the approximation of
the consumer to the producer is a gain to the latter. Every step in the op-
posite direction is a loss to him.

Everywhere throughout the South there is an impression that there is
an over-production of cotton, and that it must be reduced. What would
have been the state of affairs but for the vast increase of the home demand?
England could consume no more than she does at present. Her colonies
have that perfect freedom of trade for which the Carolinian sighs ; yet their
consumption diminishes, and it increases nowhere hut where there is pro-
tection.

The difficulty does not consist in orer-production,but in wn(/er-consumption.
Let the planter make a market on the land for the products of the land —
let him pursue the course that is needed to give to every county in the Union
its place where cotton, or wool, or iron ore, can be converted into cloth or
iron, thus making a market for the surplus labor and food, and saving the
manure ; and before two years shall elapse the demand will overtake the
supply, enabling him to realize abroad for what can be spared to go into the
general market of the world such prices as will give value to his labor and
his land. Everywhere throughout the South there exists a desire for com-
bination of action to diminish the supply, but these are weak inventions that
can result in no advantage. They want combination of action to increase
the demand. The supply can be diminished in one way alone, and that is
by making a market for food ; and that can be done only by bringing the
consumers of food to take their places by the side of the food and the cotton.
Let that be done, and the power to produce cotton will grow, while the
necessity for depending on cotton will diminish ; and with each step the
planter will become a more independent being, enjoying more and more
that reed freedom of trade which results from determining for himself what
he will produce and where he will make his exchanges, instead of that
bastard freedom of trade which consists in raising cotton, because he can
raise nothing else that will sell, and sendTng it abroad when he would prefer
to exchange it at home.

We take the following from a late number of the Carolinian:

" We are the slaves of tyrannical systems, and must work out our own redemption at
home :

' Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not, who would be free,
Themselves must strike the blow?'

" Yes, there is reason for all the distress which pervades tlie country, and that reason
points to the remedies which are to be used in the cure of the disease. Economy and
independence furnish the words of the maj^ic key.

" Let the planter make himself independent by producing all tliat he consumes, and
he will soon see where the secret of success lies. The bread that he eats — the animal
food that he consumes — the steeds which he rides and drives — the mules which perform
his farm labor — die wool which clothes his laborers — the leather for shoes and harness —
all these things are sold to the planter at a profit ; and when he pays for them out of his
cotton crop, it is all swept away. Let the planter make all that he can on his planta-
tion— let him rear all the domestic animals he may desire for use, or more if he can, and
let him plant marketable crops, not for exchange as he now does, but for cash to be paid
to him, to be invested permanently, or to be spent in the education of his children, and
he will find tliat instead of every year growing poorer he is actually growing richer.

472 LEAVES THEIR VALUE.

" Let the planters of the South commence and pertinaciously adhere to this system,
and in three years there will not be a single man from Tar river to the Rio Grande who
will desire the aid of an Agricultural Convention to help him out of difficulties arising
from the low price of a staple which from its frequent fluctuation in value renders it not
only an uncertain income, affecting the interest of the planters alone, but one which
brings in its train ruin to all who deal with the planters."

The advice is excellent, but why is it that it should now be needed ? Why-
have not all these things been done long since ? Why are they not now done ?
It is because they could not and cannot be done. In the natural course of
thino-s the consumer of food and cotton seeks to place himself where
the food and the cotton together grow ; but eve^-y attempt that has thus far
been made to bring about this union has been attended with failure, because
of the perpetual changes resulting from the English system of policy. Ca-
nada has no factories, and she can have none. Nova Scotia has no furnaces,
and she can have none, although coal and iron both abound. The manu-
facturers of Ireland have been ruined. Those of India have also been ruined,
and each successive province added to that great empire has been exhausted ;
and thus has it been rendered necessary to add province to province, and
kingdom to kingdom, to keep up the revenue. The Avhole policy of Eng-
land tends to produce the state of things now existing at the South, and the
protective system is but a necessary measure of resistance to it on the part
of the planters and farmers of the world. Were there no nation in the world
but the people of the United States, they Avould constitute a community per-
fect in itself, capable of supplying all their own wants, and they would be
better supplied, and at far less cost of labor than at present. The Avealth
now wasted on ships and wagons emploj^ed in dragging about the world
the food and the cotton that are yielded in return to labor that would be better
employed in the work of converting both into cloth and food, and ore into iron,
would then take the form of furnaces and mills, and the power of consuming
food and cloth, and iron, would be doubled, because the labor required for
their production would be reduced by more than one-half.

LEAA^ES— THEIR VALUE.

What shall I do with my Leaves? Are they good for any thing? asks
a correspondent. Do with them ! good for any thing ! Why treasure them
to be sure, as if they were coin of the realm; they are good for every thing
which a gardener has to do. Th?y are the best of all shelter, the best of
all materials for bottom-heat, the best of all soil, the best of all drainage, the
best of all manure. It is true they contain little or no nitrogen, but they rot
cjuickly, are full of saline matters, on which every thing that bears the name
of plant will feed gluttonously, and from their peculiar structure allow air to
pass in and water to pass out with perfect freedom.

If we wish to know what leaves are good for, we have only to burn them,
and see what a quantity of ash they leave behind. All that ash is as much
food for other plants as beef and mutton are for us. It is the material which
Nature is perpetually restoring to the soil in order to compensate for the
waste which is produced by the formation of timber. In wild land, trees
are annually thus manured ; were it otherwise, a wood would be a roof of
life overshadowing a floor of death. If we can remove the leaves from our
plantations, it is only because of the artificial richness of the soil in which
they grow. This sufficiently indicates the value of leaves, which are in
truth hardly less important in their death than they were in their life,
though in a different way.

SWAMP MUCK AS A MANURE. 473

ON THE USE OF SWAMP MUCK AS A MANURE.

All that is said, that has a local bearing, in the Vermont State Agriculturist, from
which tlie following remarks are taken, applies with equal truth to many other States —
especially, as we know, to the Western Shore of Maryland, and to other Southern States.
On the Eastern Shore, the farmers do begin to luiderstand the value and use of a mate-
rial which nature has kindly provided, as she has done many others, if man would only
take the hint ; but blind are the eyes of ignorance, and laziness is not the companion
that will open them. The spirit of inquiry and research must be implanted in youthful
minds, or it rarely takes firm root, and parents who have been reared in ignorance of
books and journals that would instruct them in a better knowledge of their profession,
don't like to have their children more wise than themselves. Hence you so rarely see
the farmer, averse to reading himself, put an agricultural book or journal in the w^ay of
his son, and hence we have in vain offered them the most profound works in six volumes,
for §12, the half of which, with many hundred engravings, cost more than $30 : we
allude to the Farmer's Library and Monthly Journal of Agriculture, bound, the subscrip-
tion price of which, in sheets, was $15.

Probably no district is better supplied with swamp muck, in a condition
and in situations suitable for the purposes of husbandry, than Vermont.
But, strange to say ! the vast deposits of this cheap and eflective fertilizer,
though found on almost every farm, are very seldom drawn upon. Our
farmers do not seem to be aware of its valuable properties, or they consider
it too much trouble to drain their marshy grounds merely for the purpose
of procuring it. Experiments have also been made with it which have very
much disappointed the expectations formed, since many who have tried it,
regarding all soil as fruitful in proportion to its blackness, have im.agined
that muck, which is as black as coal, must be the very quintessence of
nutriment. But this criterion is by no means a reliable one. It is indeed
true that muck or hunms, or vegetable mould, or geine — they are all the
same — is a fertilizer, but as it is in great measure insoluble, in the absence
of other substances with which it combines, its action is at best but feeble.
Let us, however, inquire out the elements which it is capable of supplying
to the vegetable organism, the conditions under which those elements are
adapted to the wants of the plant, and the means necessary in order to this
preparation.

The general term muck or humus is applied to the black or dark-broAvn
substance left as the result of the decay of vegetable matters. It consists of
those elements of plants which are drawn from the soil, including the salts
and mineral matters which constitute the ashes of the plant, together with
a large part of the carbon which entered into the composition of its vegetable
fibre. This vegetable fibre is the chief constituent of all plants, and the
decay of the latter involves that of the former. It consists chemically of
carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in these proportions :

52'5 carbon,
42'3 oxygen,
52 hydrogen.

100 parts by weight.
When burned in the open air, or in oxygen, its hydrogen and carbon com-
bine with its oxygen, and form water and carbonic acid, which escape as
gases, and nothing of the vegetable fibre remains. The hydrogen always
burns first. When there is not sufficient oxygen to burn the whole, as in
the case of charcoal-making, the hydrogen burns and the surplus carbon re-
mains in the form of coal. This coal contains, besides carbon, a small por-
tion of various salts, which constitute the ashes of ordinary combustion.
(These are not constituents of vegetable fibre, which is universally the same
Vol. I.— 60 2 b 2

474 SWAMP MUCK AS A MANURE.

substance, but vary in different plants.) Now, impossible as it may seem
to the^conmion apprehension, the processes of burning and decomposition
are actually the same, the only difl^erence being that in the one a few-
moments accomplish the result, the flame and intense heat which accom-
pany it being the consequence of the condensation of a process which
requires perhaps years in the slower progress of the other. The same
amount of heat is actually developed in the one case as in the other, though
given off by slow degrees, and through so long a time that it is not perceived
at any one moment ; the products are in both cases the same ; and the
residuum the same. To be sure the mechanical textures of the two sub-
stances, muck and charcoal, are dissimilar; but when cliemkally examined
they present the same general characteristics. The muck, however, which
is found in our swamps will not be found exactly similar in constitution to
hard wood or pine coal, because, though vegetable fibre whose decomposi-
tion furnishes the carbon of both be universally the same, the amount
of ashes or alkalies and earths which result from the decomposition varies
with the plants which furnish the material. Thus oak, niaj)le, and all
other hard woods, contain more potash and lime than pine and hemlock ;
whence hard wood ashes only can be used for soap-making. The leaves of
hard wood trees make a better compost than those of pine, partly for a
similar reason. The rushes, and other marshy plants which furnish the
material for the greater portion of our swamp muck, contain much less of
these alkalies and earths than upland plants, and the muck made from the
former is, therefore, not so rich as that produced from the latter. Never-
theless swamp muck contains a considerable proportion of them, and since
these mineral elements are the only ones furnished directly by the soil to
the growing plant, and as the crops taken off the land must be used for
other purposes than manure, a clear profit is gained by applying swamp
muck — equal in value to the amount of ashes it contains.

But its mineral elements are not the only contributions to fertility fur-
nished b}^ this substance. The carbon of plants is not derived directly from
the soil, but is separated by the leaves and roots from the carbonic acid gas,
which is continually supplied to the atmosphere by combustion and decay.
All substances containing carbon give off", during the process of putrefaction,
more or less carbonic acid, which is formed from the combination of the
carbon Avith the oxygen of the air. This gas is a constant element of the
atmosphere, but is continually changing; being produced on the one hand
by fires, decomposition, and animal respiration, and consumed on the other
by the leaves of plants, which decompose it and return to the atmosphere
the oxygen it contained. Thus a most beautiful system is maintained : the
vegetable world supplies the animal, not only with food, but also with the
vital principle of the air it breathes : while the animal furnishes the plant
both with the necessary elements of growth, and with the gaseous compound
from which its fibre is formed. Now the union which takes place between
the carbon of muck and atmospheric oxygen is a slow one, occupying years
before the carbon is all consumed. Hence for a long period muck will fur-
nish plants, on the very spot where they need it, with a chief element
in their structure.

Again : pure humus is very sparingly soluble in water at ordinary tem-
peratures; but when mixed with strong alkalies, as quick-lime and potash,
or quick ashes, it becomes converted into humic acid. This with an excess
of lime, or with the other alkaline bases in the soil, forms a class of salts
denominated hiimales, which are freely soluble in water, and are thus fitted
for absorption by the roots of plants.

We see then that pure muck applied to soils is comparatively inert, being

SWAMP MUCK AS A MANURE. 475

useful only on account of the small proportion of mineral substances it con-
tains— that its effects in furnishing a supply of carbonic acid are lasting —
and that when composted with lime it is rendered useful by combination with
other matters in the soil. So much for its chemical character.

Its mechanical properties add much to its value as a manure. It is
exceedingly light and porous, so that when applied to clay soils their texture
is thereby loosened, and rendered more permeable to the roots of plants,
while yet its affinity for water is so powerful that on sandy lands it prevents
the effects of drouth. It will imbibe three-fourths of its weight of water
without becoming wet, so that in light soils its tendency is to retain mois-
ture, and in heavy ones to permit the excess of it to escape downwards by
loosening their texture. Furthermore, its absorbent powers are of infinite
service in the barn-yard, where it is the very best material for mixing with
animal manures. Composted with these it prevents excessive heat, takes
up the juices and gases which would otherwise escape, and is itself in a
measure decomposed by the action of the substances they contain. Two
parts of muck carefully mixed with one part of stable manure are said by
those who have tried the experiment, to be equal in value to three parts of
pure stable manure.

From this hasty review of the origin and nature of muck we draw the
following practical maxims : —

JMuck in a pure state is beneficial to old lands.

Its good effects are very laucli augmented by composting with lime and
unleached ashes.

Jt is invaluable as an absorbent of the Juices of animal manure.

Its effects are lasting.

If j'^ou have any muck beds on your farm, have a few hundred loads of
it dug and thrown in heaps during summer or fall, when the water is low.
It will have a few months to drain before you will want to draw it. If the
ground is sufficiently firm to bear a team, haul out enough of it to cover
your yards and hog-pens a foot deep before you put up your cattle, and
during winter keep the surface of your manure heaps covered w-ith it. Or
if you do not keep much stock, and lime is cheap in your neighbourhood,
compost it in fall with quick lime, at the rate of one barrel of lime to a cord
of muck, and let it remain until the following spring. Ashes may be sub-
stituted for the lime in the proportion of 1^ to 1. We speak from expe-
rience when we say that you will find this compost, especially on light
lands, and for fruit trees and vines of all descriptions, superior to any stable
manure of whatever kind. Its effects are not so sudden as with some other
specifics, but they are certain and durable.

We hope that the immense deposits of this article, so frequently found in
our swamps and intervales, will soon be taxed for the benefit of the farmer.
Time has been, perhaps it has not yet passed away, when Vermont farmers
thought hardly of Providence for placing them in a land of rocks and moun-
tains, and sandy pine plains, while they neglected the materials given them
to work wnth, and refused to employ those agents which nature has placed
at their disposal. Time was, when bad crops were attributed not to natural
causes, for of these nothing was known, but to the direct interference of
supernatural power. But men are beginning to reason on the subject of
their business. These superstitions are passing away, and we trust soon to
see the day when the light of science shall illumine every object in the path
of the husbandman, as clearly as it now does the caverns of the miner, or
the laboratory of the physician.

To gardeners and fruit growers in Burlington we can furnish an excel-
lent article of muck, which will be dehvered to order, durnig the vdnter.

476

THE PREMIUM HONEY AT BALTIMORE.

THE PKEMIUM HONEY AT BALTIMORE.

THOUGHTS ON "WAR, AS IT CONCERNS THE FARMER AND PLANTER.

There were some beautiful specimens of honey, and of improvement in
the structure of bee-hives, at the great State Fair at Baltimore, in November,
presented by Mr. Whitman and others. We are not informed who took
the premium, but this we know, that one of the exhibitors, friend Stabler,
of Montgomer}'' county, has had the kindness to send us some of his, all the
wav to the City of Brotherly Love : an act of obliging remembrance from an
old friend, the more willingly registered, as our contemporaries of the press
run very much ahead of us, in their occasions to acknowledge things of this
sort. By-the-by, as these " Christmas boxes" and " New-Year's gifts" often
come, like Almanacs, a long time before their time, is there any reason why
an equal license may not be taken after the day has passed ? In that case
we would venture to whisper that it may not yet be too late to send us a
New- Year's gift in the shape of a club — of subscribers.

As to the honey, it was eaten with the addition of far-famed Philadel-
phia butter, not only for its own sweet sake, but in pursuance of the in-
junction, " Butter and honey shall ye eat, that ye may know to choose the
good and refuse the evil."

Every one has heard the anecdote of the snufT-maker, Avho grew rich in
the practice of his trade, and as usual, " set up his coach," but had in him
too much honesty and truth to repudiate his calling, as some do who rise
from meaner employments to live in palaces, and set themselves up for

jxclus

When the builder asked the honest snuff-maker for his

coat-of-arms, to be painted on the panel of his coach, he told him to give a
man with finger and thumb regaling his olfactories with a pinch of Maccabaw,
and under it to write :

"AVho'd have tlionght it,
Nose has bought it !"'"

Now for the hieroglyphic sign of that trait which distinguishes the Stabler
family, we would recommend.

"Brethren, give diligence to make your calling sure."

We are sometimes tempted to wish that all the world would turn Quakers,
so that industry, and usefulness to our fellow-man, might be substituted
throughout the world, for frivolity and war, of which Ave always think with
horror, as a scandal to civilization and Christianity — and especially where
people boast of being their own rulers.

THE PREMIUM HONEY AT BALTIMORE. 477

" I hate that drum's discordant sound,

Parading round, and round, and round :

To thoughtless youth it pleasure yields,

And lures from cities and from fields.

To sell tlieir liberty for charms

Of tawdry lace, and glittering arms ;

And when Ambition's voice commands,

To march, and fight, and fall in foreign lands.
" I hate that drum's discordant sound,

Parading round, and round, and round :

To me it talks of ravaged plains,

And burning towns, and ruin'd swains,

And mangled limbs, and dying groans,

And widow's tears, and orphan's moans;

And all that misery's hand bestows,

To fill the catalogue of human woes."

To us belongs the peculiar disgrace of a RepiibUcan government taxing
the peaceful Farmer and Planter to the amount of twelve or fifteen millions
of dollars amiuaUy, to keep up warlike establishments and schools, because,
forsooth, some day or other, we may have war— for if not otherwise, we can
easily provoke it — and would it not be a pity, after having made the people
pay some 2 or $300,000,000, not to have war every twenty years ? Cannot
any one see that, otherwise, this enormous amount, sweated out of the sub-
stance of the fanner, Avould be absolutely thrown away ? If we would have
an excuse for this enormous expenditure, every year, so as to cajole the
people into paying it, we must have war now and then ! — but then let any
man of common sense, Avho can add two and two together, ask himself
whether, even as a means of self-defence against possible (for it is barely
possible) invasion from abroad, it would not give us more physical strength
and power of making ourselves respected, if, instead of throwing away
these $15,000,000 every year, we were to expend the same amount in im-
proving, by appropriate instruction, the rising generation in agriculture and
peaceful arts; thereby increasing, beyond calculation, their productive capa-
cities; and also, in developing the internal resources of the country, by open-
ing and expediting all the channels of exchange between the producer and
the consumer ? 4 or 500,000,000 dollars is the least that has been expended,
in time of peace, on the army and navy, since the war with England. Now
let any farmer, at his fireside, take his pencil and calculate how many
thousand miles of railroads and canals such a sum would have built, and
how many teachers might it have j^repared in State Normal Schools, to in-
struct in common schools the sons of farmers in agricultural chemistry and
geology, in vegetable and animal physiology, in the principles of mechani-
cal philosophy as involved in the structure of all agricultural machinery,
the principles of civil engineering, &c. The cost of publishing one military
reconnoissance or nautical exploration, would place, for instance, "■The Ele-
ments of Agriculture,''^ a 25 cent book just published by Carey & Hart,
in the hands of half a million of boys, and thus sow the seeds of knowledge
that would prevent war, and in place of it, yield a rich harvest of national
honor — the honor of being the best informed, and, as a consequence, the most
peace-loving and just of all nations ! Have landholders, for whom we are
laboring, no interest in questions of this sort ? If they have not, who have ?

Let us hope that we may regard the resolutions presented by Mr. Earle
and passed at the Maryland State Society, combined with many other cor-
roborative symptoms, as ominous of a change of public sentiment — and of a
change obedient thereto in the action of Government — on these subjects ;
conducive alike to the honor of the country, and to public liberty. Be it
our duty to use our humble means to accelerate such a change ; and oh
that in this we could have the press-gang to assist us !

478 THE CORN TRADE OF EUROPE.

THE CORN TRADE OF EUROPE.

[From the London Mercantile Gazette, Dec. 1.]

"The grain trade is completely paralysed by the continued arrivals of enormously
large supplies of foreign grain, flour, and pulse, and prices decline week after week, in
the Britij^h markets, not from an abundance of home grown produce, but from the con-
stant influx of foreign grain. By the official account recently pubHshed of the imports into
Great Britain it appears that, during the month ending 5th of November, 39-i,939 qrs.
of wheat, and 228, 952 cwt. of foreign manufactured flour, were imported, and that duty
was, within the same period, paid on 506,720 qrs. wheat and 251,182 cwt. flour. Taking
all kinds of grain and pulse together, the iminense quantity of 796,168 qrs. were re-
ceived, and duty was paid on 908,090 qrs., exclusive of the flour above mentioned. Can
any surprise, therefore, be felt at the present depressed state of the trade ? There is
certainly no immediate want for these large supplies, and general opinion being opposed
to a rise, no one is inclined to buy more than necessary for present use. Stocks in granary
are consequently accumulating ; more is pressed on the different markets than the con
snmptive demand can take oft", and the English grower is everywhere undersold. Hitherto
the bulk of the foreign supply has been from the Baltic, and from France ; now, however,
receipts are beginning to come to hand from America, and in a short time we may
expect arrivals from ports lying east of Gibraltar. As a sample of what America is
likely to do, we have only to call attention to the imports into Liverpool during the week
ending November 27, consisting of 124,000 barrels of flour, 19,000 quarters of wheat, and
upwards of 50,000 barrels of Indian corn. Business has, as may easily be conceived,
been quite prostrated, and the prices of wheat, previously much depressed, have further
receded 2s. per quarter at all the leading markets in the kingdom."

As the present policy of our rulers tends to compel our farmers to " com-
pete in the great grain markets of the world" with the poorest people of the
world — with those who have made no market on the land for the products of
the land, and are therefore in the full enjoyment of that freedom of trade
which compels them to make abroad those exchanges which they Avould
prefer to miake at home, and to waste on the road and in foreign markets the
manure that would render their labors doubly productive — we deem it not
amiss to present to their view, occasionally, the state of those markets, that
they may appreciate at their full value the advantages to be derived from
further dependence upon them. We are now importing many millions of
dollars of food in the form of iron, and coal, and the labor expended in the
work of twisting and weaving our cotton, while " the great grain markets"
are being choked by the products of the serf of Russia, and the impoverished
people of Sicily, and Egypt, and Poland, and to such an extent as to render
it totally impossible that we should compete for those markets except at
prices that must be ruinous to the farrner, whose land is thus deprived of
value while he himself is rendered unable to purchase the apparenthj cheap,
but really dear products of foreign looms and furnaces. We cannot obtain
the foreign market, and we close the domestic one, thereby driving the miner
and the furnace-man, and the worker in cotton or wool, to seek the West,
there to become producers of food — thus burning the candle at both ends.
Such has been the course of Virginia and South Carolina, and what has been
the result? Whenever they shall determine to make their exchanges at
home, they will thereby place themselves in a position to become two of the
most prosperous States in the Union, but not until then. The experience of
all countries and all ages goes to show that the plough never has prospered
and never can prosper at a distance from the loom and the anvil.

Can it be that any American farmer or planter can read the above, from a
London paper, with indifference, or without seeing how directly such items
bear upon his pursuits and his condition ? Yet so we fear it is, and it is to
avyaken his sensibilities and to lead him to think that we have established
this journal. We would have the cultivators of the soil reflect, that unless
the pohcy of the government is such as to multiply consumers of their pro-

BUTTER MAKING. 479

duce, and to insure them fair remuneration to their labor, it were useless for
him to study the means of keepincf up and augmenting- the fertility of his
land — nor will he do it long while the world is glutted with his surplus pro-
ducts. It is only m remunerating markets, to be found near the land, that
teachers are to be found to instruct in the ways of its improvement — science
'never comes, nor will industry dwell long, where there is no certainty of
reward. These are questions which we would exhort our friends of all
parties to study for themselves. Make a good market, and farmers will
soon become skilful.

Until that is done, we in vain publish accounts of 100 bushels of corn and
50 bushels of wheat to the acre. If we would compel the manufacturer to
take his place by the side of the agriculturist, such crops would become too
common to be thought extraordinary.

BUTTER MAKING.

Messrs. Editors of the Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil :

Having noticed an article in the last number of your paper, relative to
" butter making," in which it is recommended to apply " hot water or
steam" to the milk or cream, to prevent the butter from tasting of the tur-
nips fed to the cows, and deeming the remedy rather an impracticable one,
and having discovered a plan which is equally effectual and much more
economical and convenient, I will submit it to you, and if you deem it worthy
of a place in your columns, you are privileged to insert it. My plan is to
take the whole turnips, or any other roots which we desire to feed to the
cows, and place then'i in the midst of the cut straw or corn stalks in the
steam-box, and steam them until they are soft. During the steaming pro-
cess, the unpleasant smell of the turnips will escape from the box, it being
not perfectly tight, and ai the same time they will impart a palatable flavor
to the straw or stalks, which will cause the cows to devour the whole with
great eagerness.

Since we commenced steaming the turnips with the stalks, the cows
have increased greatly in the quantity and quality of the milk over that
given when the turnips were fed raw and the stalks dry ; and we are now
selling the butter for the highest market price. The cows fill themselves
on this feed as they would on grass, and give a fair quantity of milk. We
steam only twice a week, the box being large enough to hold a sufficient
quantity to supply 12 cows with all they will eat for 3 days. We use coal
for fuel with which to get up the steam, and it requires but about 150 lbs.
per Aveek, or 7.5 lbs. for one steaming.

When we have not turnips or other roots to steam with the straw or
stalks, we mix a small quantity of hay and bran with theiPi, by which the
mass is rendered palatable.

The amount of provender saved by this process is astonishing, and the
cattle do equally as well as when fed with good hay.

John Wilkinson.

Mount Airy Agricultural Institute, Germantown, Dec. 12, 1848.

Gooseberries and Currants. — The following are six good varietiesof Gooseberries, flavor
being the principal consideration : Red Champagne, Woodward's Whitesmith, Pitmaston
Greengage, Keen's Seedling Warrington, Yellow Champagne, and Red Turkey. With
regard to Currants, you may be very well satisfied with the Red Dutch and White Dutcli.
Half your plantation of Red Currants may, however, consist of Red Dutch, and the other
half of Knight's Large Red. We are not aware of any White Currant superior to the
White Dutch. — English Paper.

480 CLIMATE BEST SUITED TO THE COTTON PLANT.

DEPRESSION OF MANUFACTURES.

"There are at the present time, says tlie Pawtneket (R. I.) Gazette, more spindles
stopped, and more operatives out of employment, in our town, than we have known at
any time since 1S29. Our manufacturers have been disposed to keep their wheels
moving as long as they could without heavy losses to themselves. As to profit, one of
our citizens said to us a few days since: 'The only account I have been able to keep
M'ithoutany degree of certainty, for some time j^iast, is on the loss side of the book.' The
mills which have been stopped, are, in most cases, owned by men perfectly solvent, and
who are now able to discharge any liabilities resting upon them, but who were, perhaps,
doubtful as to their continuing able, if they continued to manufacture goods and sell them
at ruinous prices, or lock them up in a storehouse. What the final result of this stagna-
tion will be we are not able to predict.

" When we take into consideration that the British factories have been almost on half
time during the past year, and a number of our own factories not working full time, we
may conclude that there are at present enough of factories to make enough of clothing in
one year, to supply the world for two, for at present the markets are still glutted." —
Scientific Jlmcrican.

The tariff of 1846 was to make cloths so cheap that consumption would
be greatly increased. They are cheap, but labor is cheaper, and the market
is glutted because of the inabihty of the laborer to buy. The workmen of
Pawtucket — and the workwomen of Pawtucket — and the workmen and
workwomen of hundreds of mills — and the workmen in the coal mines — and
in the furnaces and rolling-mills — are earning low wages, even when em-
plo3^ed, and many are absolutely idle — and the consequence is that there is
a glut of every thing, labor included. Were the tariff of 1842 to be re-
enacted, the glut of labor would cease, because there would be a demand
for workmen and workwomen, who would then earn wages to enable them
to be consumers to the farmer, and they would enable the manufacturer to
buy wool and cotton to the further benefit of the farmer. The farmer and
the planter are the real sufferers by the present system, and they it is that
are to benefit by a change. They should never forget that every man who
is driven from the loom and the anvil is forced to take to the plough — and
every one becomes, necessarily, a rival, when he would gladly be a cus-
tomer.

THE CLIMATE BEST SUITED TO THE COTTON PLANT.

DIFFERENT KINDS OF COTTON — INSTANCE OF YANKEE ENTERPRISE.

The following article is copied more particularly for the sake of preserving the tables
of the mean temperatures of places in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.

Speaking of the climate of Georgia and South Carolina, the writer merely remarks :
"The hilly parts, 200 miles from the sea, are agreeable and favorable to health." He
might have gone further, and have safely cliaracterized the climate of the mountains of
Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Kentucky, and Virginia, as unsurpassed in the world,
even in the most delightful parts of Italy. Such was the opinion, as expressed on per-
sonal observation, by the Mbc Corrca De Scrra, (a travelled man of vast research,) wlio
declared that the world could not supply a region of country more favorable to longevity.

One of the most remarkable instances of Yankee enterprise which has fallen luiderour
observation, is the undertaking of a Down Easter, living, we believe, in Charleston, S. C,
to establish a cheese dairy in these mountains.

On the watch for a traveller's early breakfast at that capital liotel, the United States,
Philadelphia, we chanced to file in next to the proprietor of this mountain dairy, who
told us he had purchased in these mountains a farm of twenty acres! This was his ful-
crum, or resting point, from which his one hundred head of cattle went abroad daily to
luxuriate over mountain and valley, the young cattle demanding no feeding whatever
throughout the year. He had sixty cows at the pail, and is probably the only cheese-maker
in all these " diggings.*' What a glorious climate, and what a broad and propitious field
for the exercise of Yankee industry! If it lay north of the Hudson, and if there were
any thing like permanence in the policy of the government, how it would teem with fao-

CLIMATE BEST SUITED TO THE COTTON PLANT. 481

tories, and dairies, and tanneries, and with hundreds of thousands of active human
beings ! !

In inquiring more particularly into the climate best suited to the Ameri-
can Cotton Plant, not only in its native country, but in the countries
where its culture is most successfully conducted, we must remember what
both Baron Humboldt and Professor Dove have pointed out, that while
Europe has a true insular or sea climate both in Avinter and summer, North
America inclines to a continental climate in winter and to a sea climate in
summer ; that is, has a cold winter with a cool summer. But northern and
central Asia have a true continental climate both in Avinter and summer, or
a cold winter and a hot summer. Notwithstanding this, we must also recol-
lect, that though each locality may participate in the characteristic climate
of its continent, yet that all places near the coast will have more or less of
an insular climate, Avhile those in the interior, such as are of a continental
nature, though in varying degrees.

The different kinds of cotton cultivated in the United States of America
appear, in the present day, and as far as we have been able to procure satis-
factory information, to be varieties of one species; that is, that the Georgiaa
is the Sea Island carried into the interior ; the Sea Island itself was origin-
ally introduced from Anguilla, one of the West India islands. The New
Orleans does not differ specifically from the Sea Island cotton, and is admit-
ted by the planters of the Southern States of America to be identical with
the plant of Mexico, from whence indeed they import their finest seeds. It
is probable that it was from the neighboring coast of Mexico that the indige-
nous cotton of that country Avas introduced into the West Indies, and from
thence it was taken to the Island of Bourbon. Hence Ave may account for
Gossypium Barbadense being identical in species Avith both the New Orleans
and Sea Island cottons as Avell as Avith Bourbon cotton, as is evident from the
colored representations given of these three varieties by Dr. Wight.

The Mexican plant is not a native of the temperate regions of that coun-
try, but of the Tierras Calientes, or hot districts. It is produced, for instance,
in the neighborhood of Vera Cruz, and is described as growing spontane-
ously near Valladolid, a toAvn situated on the great plain of the peninsula
of Yucatan, described by Humboldt as one of the Avarmest regions in equa-
torial America. Mr. Stephens states that the spontaneous growth of cot-
ton around that town had led to the erection of a cotton factory in the place.
Mr. Norman, in his " Rambles in Yucatan," says: " The cotton plantations,
or rather the districts where the material is raised that is consumed in the
manufactory in this city, are to the north, and known as the Tizemen dis-
trict. The same spot is seldom cuhivated for two successive seasons. After
the crop is gathered, the ground is suffered to be overrun Avith Aveed's and
brushwood ; Avhich, Avhen years have elapsed, are cut doAvn and burned, and
the field is replanted." This rude method of culture is adduced only to
show hoAv little attention is paid to the plant in its native country. But as
it is desirable to knoAv something precise respecting the climate of one at
least of its native districts, Ave take from Professor Dove the folloAving notice
of the means of observations made at Vera Cruz for thirteen years. This
toAA'n, situated on the coast in N. lat. 19-12, and W. long. 96-9, has a mean
temperature of 77°-02, Avith a difference of only 12°-42 between the hottest
and coldest months : thus —

Jan.

69-98

Feb.

71-60

March.

73-40

April.

77-18

May.

80-42

Junp.

81-86

July.

81-50

Auk.

82-40

Sept.

80-96

Oct.

78-44

Nov.

75-38

Dec.

7106

Vol. I.— 61

2

S

482 CLIMATE BEST SUITED TO THE COTTON PLANT.

The Mexican cotton has been introduced into Texas, as well as into Lou-
isiana and Alabama. In the Southern parts of Texas, where the climate is
described as being- very congenial, " the plant does not require to be renewed
more frequently than once in three or four years to yield a crop superior in
quality and quantity to the annual planting of Louisiana." Mr. Kennedy
informs us, in his work on Texas, that cotton planting commences there in
February, and picking begins at an earlier, and continues for a longer pe-
riod than in the United States; also that the average return on the acre is
considerably greater in Texas than in the States, and the expense of cultiva-
tion considerably less, in consequence not only of the greater richness of the
soil, but also of the superior mildness of the climate. The cotton is, more-
over, of a superior quality, and that " planters of acknowledged veracity
stated that it is not uncommon to pick 4000 lbs. of seed cotton from an acre
of ground." But in connection with this statement we must not forget that
Mr. Spalding, himself an American cotton planter, says, " The besetting sin
of agricultural statements is their exaggeration."

Mr. Featherstonhaugh, after crossing into northern Texas, in about lat.
33° 40', from the United States, observes that he had never seen the cotton
plant growing in greater perfection before ; for in the cotton districts he had
passed through, the plant was a low, dwarfed bush, not exceeding two feet
in height, but here the bushes were five feet high, often bearing 300 bolls,
and yielding from 1500 to 2.500 lbs. of seed cotton to the acre. This gives
from 25 to 30 per cent, in weight of raw marketable cotton. He states that
it is considered a fair crop if one bale of 450 lbs. to the acre of such cotton
is produced. The most successful cultivation of cotton in the United States
is in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. In the southern parts of these
States — as, for instance, in the latitudes of New Orleans and of Mobile, there
is little frost, and the winter is considered mild, Avith considerable heat in
summer; but this is tempered to a great extent by the pleasant and salutary
effects of the sea breeze, which sets in from the Gulf of Mexico for a great
part of the dny. There are heavy dews at night, and frequent showers
occur both in spring and during the summer. In the interior and more
northern parts of these States, (which are in some parts elevated from 500
to 1000 feet above the level of the sea,) frost is expected in October, and
continues till near April ; sometimes occurs even in May, so as to injure,
though it does not then destroy, the cotton plant. The heat of summer is
considerable, but still tempered by the influence of the Gulf of Mexico, and
of the numerous great rivers, as well as by dews and occasional showers of
rain. The cultivation of cotton is commenced about the beginning of April,
when the land is still saturated with the winter rains, and difficulty is some-
times experienced in getting the land sufiiciently dry. Otherwise a good,
shower of rain is essential when cotton is first sown, and it is desirable also
to have occasional showers during the planting, ploughing, and hoeing sea-
sons. The bolls of cotton begin to open about the middle of July, and con-
tinue doing so until the frosts come on in the middle or end of October. The
yield is about 400 lbs. of clean cotton to the acre.

In order to have a precise idea of the climate of the most favorable cotton
districts, and for the advantage of comparing them with that of other coun-
tries into which it may be wished to introduce the American cotton, we se-
lect, from Professor Dove's Tables, as published by the British Association,
the following mean temperatures of places in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi,
and Alabama, as indicated by their initial letters.

CLIMATE BEST SUITED TO THE COTTON PLANT.

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484 CLIMATE BEST SUITED TO THE COTTON PLANT.

The climate of Georgia is somewhat warmer than that of CaroHna, but
the low flat country of both is moist and unhealthy. The spring is com-
monly rainy, the heat of summer is considerable, but reUeved by the gentle
winds which blow almost daily from the sea. The winds change from S.E.
to S.W. about the end of July, but variable, from storms of thunder and
lightning, and the heavy rains of July and August. The cold weather sel-
dom commences until about the beginning of December, and terminates in
March ; but the winter is usually mild, and snow seldom falls near the sea,
and soon melts away. The hilly parts, 200 miles from the sea, are agree-
able and favorable to health. The winter is colder ; snow falls to the depth
of five or six inches. Though the above Tables are sufficient to give a ge-
neral idea of the climates, it would be desirable for agricultural purposes to
have also the maxima and minima; for a night of frost may destroy plants,
as great heat with drought will be equally injurious from drying them up.
Cotton is sown in April, picking commences in July or August, and conti-
nues till November, and, on the coast, sometimes even to December. The
returns per acre are about 125 lbs. or 130 lbs. of Sea Island cotton to the
English acre. Of the short staple cotton, Mr. Spalding states that in the
hill country, from the Mississippi to the Carolinas, not more than 500 lbs.
of seed cotton, or 1-50 lbs. of clear cotton, can be obtained to the Enghsh
acre, — [Ure, i. p. 115.) The short staple cotton is cultivated all the way
from the southern borders of Virginia to the south-western streams of the
Mississippi. The mean quantity over all is given by Mr. Spalding at 125
lbs. of both Sea Island cotton wool and of the short stapled wool to an Eng-
lish acre, but the amount of labor is much greater for the former than for the
latter. — (f/re. Cotton Manufacture, i. p. 116.)

In comparing the climate of the above cotton regions with that of other
countries, it is necessary to remember the peculiarity of American climate,
with which this article was commenced, and also how much the best cotton
districts are influenced by the Gulf of Mexico or the Atlantic ocean. The
climate to the west of the Alleghany mountains is considered more mild than
that under the same parallels in the Atlantic States, and by some even to
the extent of 3° of latitude. This has been explained by the warm air of
the Gulf of Mexico being driven up the basin of the Mississippi as well as
that of the Ohio. The configuration of the valley being north and south no
doubt favors the course of the southern winds, while the valleys of the At-
lantic States being transverse, oppose any such transmission, or the migra-
tion of plants. The majority of the places of which the mean temperatures
have been adduced being on the sea-coast, necessarily participate to some
extent in the peculiarities of insular climate, that is, of seasons moderately
contrasted. But still the differences between the hottest and the coldest
month of the year is much greater than at Vera Cmz, that is, than 12° ;
being at Mobile, Galveston, and New Orleans, 27°.23, 29°. 10, and 29°.96,
respectively. But in the interior, at Natchez and at Vicksburg, the differ-
ences are greater, being 32°. 09 and 31°. 57. On the Atlantic States the
differences are nearly as great as those on the south coast, being 31°.73
at Savannah, and 31°. 09 at Charleston, while in the interior the differences
are much greater, being 3G°.02 at Augusta, and 38°. 80 at Columbia. The
apphcation of these facts we shall pursue in a subsequent article.

The Stomach. — I firmly believe that almost every malady of the human frame is con-
nected with the stomach ; and I must own I never see a fashionable physician myste-
riously consulting the pulse of his patient, but I feel a desire to exclaim — Why not tell
the poor gentleman at once, "Sir, you have eaten too much; you've drunk too much; and
you liave not talcen exercise enough!" The human frame was not created imperfect. It
is we ourselves who have made it so. There exists no donkey in creation so overloaded
as our stomach.

THE RACE-HOESE. 485

ACTION.

As amongst the Egyptians, the lion was the hieroglyphic of strength, so
was the horse of agility; and truly nothing displaj's it more elegantly than
he does, when gamboling in a state of liberty. In the race-horse, action, as
in eloquence, is the next thing to substance; and virtus in actione, should
be the horse-breeder's motto. But the action of the race-horse is of a nature
peculiar to his calKng. He must not only possess great stride in his gallop,
the result of just proportion in his limbs and moving levers, but also a quick-
ness in repeating that stride, or he would lose in time what he gains in space.
It is then when stride and quickness are united, that the fleet courser is pro-
duced ; and in his race with Diamond, Hambletonian is asserted to have
covered twenty-one feet at a stroke at the finish of it; and Eclipse is gene-
rally believed to have covered eighty-three and a half feet of ground in a
second, when going at the top of his speed, which, by a calculation by Mon-
sieur Saintbel, amounted to about twenty-five feet of ground covered at a
stroke.

The action most approved of in a racer, as describing the greatest extent,
with the least fatigue to the animal, is what is termed on the Turf "round
action;" that is, when, on a side view being taken of a horse in his gallop,
his fore-legs appear to form a wheel or circle. Different ground, however,
requires different action; and a large, long striding horse may be beaten on
a hilly, or turning course, by one of a smaller size, but with a shorter stride,
which prevents the Newmarket courses being a certain criterion of a good,
runner at Epsom, which is very trying ground, by reason of its acchvity, for
the first half mile. The state of the ground, likewise, whether wet or dry,
soft or hard, tells so much in a race, as often, to give it to a horse very little
thought of at starting, as was the case with Tarrare, winner of the St. Leger,
at Doncaster, in 1826. The celebrated Euphrates, the winner of so many
gold cups, and who ran till he was in his teens, was nearly a stone below
his usual form, after even a hard shower of rain. This variation of fleetness
corroborates our assertion, that the virtue of -what is termed blood is me-
chanical, or, what is the same thing, that the excellence of all horses is
mechanical, and that the smallest deviation from a true formation of the
acting parts operates so powerfully as to render them, under certain exer-
tions, nearly valueless.

\Y1KD.

It is true, "speed wins the race;" but to make it available to the race-
horse, it must be accompanied bj'' endurance, or "bottom." A great pro-
moter of this is clear wind, or freedom of respiration, the want of which
makes the war-horse rebel in the manege, the hunter run into his fences,
the draught-horse fall, as if he were shot, and the racer either stop, or bolt
out of the course. In fact, when the organs of respiration are faticjued, all
animals are nearly powerless. The cause of good wind may be distinguish-
able to the eye, and arises chiefly from depth in the forequarters, which
implies a capacious thorax or chest. However wide a horse may be in his
foreparts, he wiU not be good-winded unless he is, at the same time, deep.
But still wind in the race-horse depends on something more, on the nature
of his constituent and component parts, which, if in proper proportion, im-
part to him strength and agility, giving him that easy action which will not
readily fatigue these organs of respiration; and so enable him to run on,
when others, less gifted by nature than himself, are forced to slacken pace.
The good effect of clear wind in a race-horse is in fact two-fold ; first, it gives

2s3

486 THE RACE-HORSE.

him signal advantage in a race; and, secondly, horses thus organized require
less work to make them fit to start.

The following passage on this point is worthy of remark: "When the
animal powerfully exerts himself, a more ample supply of pure blood is re-
quired to sustain the energies of life, and the action of the muscles forces
the blood more rapidly through the veins; hence the quick and deep breath-
ing of a horse at speed; hence the necessity of a capacious chest, in order
to yield an adequate supply, and the connection of this capacity of the chest
with the speed and the endurance of the horse; hence the wonderful relief
which the mere loosening of the girths affords to a horse blown and distressed,
enabling the chest to expand, and to contract to a greater extent, in order to
yield more purified blood; and hence the relief afforded by even a short
period of rest, during which this expenditure is not required, and the almost
exhausted energies of these organs have time to recover. Hence, likewise,
appears the necessity of an ample chest for the accumulation of much flesh
and fat; for, if a considerable portion of the blood be employed in the growth
of the animal, and it be thus rapidly changed, there must be provision for its
rapid purification; and that can only be effected by the increased bulk of the
lungs, and the corresponding largeness of the chest to contain them."*

Certain thorough-bred horses would deceive an inexperienced observer as
to the real state of their organs of respiration, by an appearance of difficulty
of breathing, which, in reality, they do not possess. The term for this ap-
parent defect is, in one instance, hard breathing, or high-blowing, and in
another " cracking the nostrils." Of the first description was the celebrated
Eclipse, whose breathing in his gallop could be heard at a considerable dis-
tance ; and of the latter (still more common) may be reckoned many of the
best racers of past and present days. Indeed, a race-horse cracking his
nostrils in his exercise, and snorting well afterwards, are considered indica-
tive of good windedness. On the other hand, when a race-horse becomes a
roai'er, which is a common effect of a severe attack of the epizootie, called
the Distemper, he is rarely able to struggle in a race, although there have
been several instances of winners under such very unfavorable circum-
stances.!

TEMPER.

Temper is a property of much importance to the race-horse, subject as he
is to its influence under more trying circumstances than most other descrip-
tions of horses. In the first place, his fine and nearly hairless skin, softened
and cleansed as it is by frequent copious perspiration, is so highly sensible
to the friction of the wisp and brush, as to induce him to try to rid himself
of this tormentor, by attacking the person who is dressing him, and thus
becomes vicious in the stable. It will also be recollected that he is at this
time, perhaps, in the very highest state of condition and good keep of which
his nature is susceptible. On the race-course, again, he has often to en-
counter the (to him) unnatural sound of music, and many strange objects ;
perhaps two or three false starts before he gets into a race ; and too often
when doing his best in a race, very severe punishment both by whip and
spur. It is in his race, however, and chiefly in the last struggle for it, thai
the temper of the race-horse is most put to the test ; and, if really bad, he
either runs out of the course, to the great danger of his rider, and to the

* Library of Useful Knoidcdge, Farmers' Series, "The Horse," p. 182.

f Mr. Hulls Qiiiblcr, an Eiiglisli horse, atl'orded an extraordinary instance of stoutness,
He ran, in December, 1786, round the fiat Newmarket course, in ffty-scven minutes and
ten seconds: and tliis year, (1848.) Trustee, V)y the sire of Fashion, trotted at New York
twenty miles within the hour. It takes blood to do such things. — Ed. P. L. ^r ^.

THE RACE-HORSE. 487

inevitable loss of his owner and those who have betted on his winning-, or
he " shuts himself up," as the term is, and will not head his horses, although
in his power to do so. It is evident, then, that breeders should not send
mares to stallions of known bad temper, as nearly all those propensities are
found to be hereditary; and Ave could name one or two of the best horses of
the present day, who are generally rejected as stallions to breed racers from
by reason of these propensities.

It would be absurd to draw a comparison between the English race-horse
in training, and the horse of tlie Desert, "educated," as Mr. Gibbon elo-
quently says of him, " in the tents, among the children of the Arabs, with a
tender familiaritj^ which trains him in the habits of gentleness and attach-
ment." Nevertheless, we are inclined to believe that the tempers of many
naturally quiet horses are made uncertain, and oftentimes decidedly vicious,
by want of proper judgment, as well as of good temper, in those who have
the management of them. Brutes, like men, demand a peculiar mode of
treatment, when we require them to do their utmost for us; and it is certain
that this principle holds good in regard to both, namely, that, in general,
kindness gains its point, cruelty provokes resistance, and a proper degree
of severity produces obedience. The panther, in the fable, knew who fed
her with bread, and who pelted her with stones ; and we may be assured,
that so noble and high-spirited an animal as the horse feels with acuteness
sensations of pleasure and pain.

We often hear it asserted that the British thorough-bred horse has dege-
nerated within the last few years, and is no longer the stout and long-
enduring animal that he was in the bygone century, particularly during the
Jast twenty years of it. We are inclined to believe that there is some truth.
in this. fVe do not think we have such good four-mile horses, as they are
termed, as formerly, ivhich we consider easily accounted for. They are
not wanted, very few four-mile races being now run, even at Newmarket, or
in the country, and, therefore, a different kind of race-horse is sought for.
It may, however, be true, that the inducement to train colts and fillies, at a
very early period of their lives, for these short races, has had an injurious
effect on their stamina, and, consequently, on the stock bred from them.
Formerly a horse was wanted for a lifetime, now he is cut up in his youth
to answer the purposes of perhaps but one day ; — a system, we admit, quite
at variance with the original object of horse-racing, which was intended to
benefit the community, by being the means of producing, as well as display-
ing, the constitutional strength of the horse in its very highest perfection.*
Another cause may have operated in rendering thorough-bred horses less
powerful than they were, or less capable of enduring severe fatigue. During
the period of high weights and long courses, horses and mares were kept on
in training until after they had arrived at the age of maturity, neither did
they begin to work so soon ; whereas now, no sooner have they won, or run
well for some of our great three-year old stakes, than they are put into 'ihe
stud to produce racing-stock, which is perhaps to be used much in the same
manner as they themselves have been used, or, we should have rather said,
abused.

But, admitting this alleged falling off" in the powers and performances of
the British thorough-bred horse, it may be the result of causes unconnected
with those already noticed. Although there may be no era of greater intel-
lectual brightness than another in the history of any animal but man, yet, as
is signified by Plato in the eighth book of his Republic, there have always

• May we hope this will meet the eye of certain correspondents of the New York
« Spirit of the Times V'—Ed. P. L. ^ A.

I

488 THE RACE-HORSE.

been periods of fertility and sterility of men, animals, and plants ; and that,
in fertile periods, mankind, as well as animals, will not only be both more
numerous, but superior in bodily endowments, to those of a barren period.
This theory is supported by the relations of ancient historians, in the accounts
they give of animals which nowhere exist at present, and in the properties
they ascribe to some of those which now do exist.

But to return to the alleged alteration for the worse in the British race-
horse. We admit the fact, that he is not so good at high weight over the
Beacon at Newmarket, or any other four-mile course, as his predecessors
were, whose descent was closer than his is to the blood of Herod and Eclipse,
and the descendants of that cross, said to be the stoutest of any. Neverthe-
less he is, in his present form, more generally adapted to the purposes to
which the horse is applied. He has a shorter, but more active, stroke in his
gallop than his predecessors had, which is more available to him in the short
races of the present time than the deep rate of the four-milers of old times ;
and as he is now required to start quickly, and to be on his legs, as the term
is, in a few hundred yards, he is altogether a more lively active animal than
formerly; and, as such, a useful animal for more ends than one. In former
days, not one trained thorough-bred horse in fifty made a hunter. Indeed,,
few sportsmen had the courage to try the experiment of making him one.
He went more upon his shoulders, as well as with a straighter knee, than
the modern race-horse does, and required much greater exertion in the rider
to pull him together in his gallop. All those sportsmen, however, who
remember such horses as the late Earl Grosvenor's John Bull and Alexan-
der, must admit, that, in form and substance, they were equal to carrying
the heaviest weight across a country, and the last-mentioned horse was the
sire of several very powerful, at the same time very brilliant hunters. But
as it is action after all that carries weight, the thorough-bred horses of this
day are not deficient in that respect, unless undersized ; and there are more
thorough-bred hunters at this period, and have been more for the last thirty
years, than were ever known before. This improvement in action also qua-
lifies the full-bred horse for the road, whereas formerly not one in a hundred
was fit to ride off turf. Indeed daisy-cutters and thorough-bred horses were
nearly synonymous terms ; but at present a young lady on a bit of blood is
an every-day sight ; and a young gentleman on any thing else in the parks,
or on his road to hounds, is become rather a rare one. This is a very saving
clause to breeders of race-horses, as a market is now generally found for
such as are undersized, or tried to be deficient in speed for racing; whereas
in former days a bad race-horse was, like Rosinante, neither saleable nor
pawnable.

SPEED.

All animals in a state of domestication exhibit powers far beyond those
that are natural to them in their wild state, and writers on the horse have
advanced to the utmost verge of possibility, in recording the maximum speed
of the English race-horse. Most of the instances stated by them, such as
Flying Childers having run a mile in a minute, are unsupported by autho-
rity, and therefore not worthy of regard.* 7'hat the horse, however, has
ever been considered tlie swiftest beast of the forest, may be gathered from
the frequent allusions to his fleetness by inspired as well as by heathen wri-
ters. Thus, the chariot-horses of Oenomaus, King of Elis, were said to be
begotten by the winds, emblematical of their prodigious swiftness ; and Ho-
mer represents the steeds of Achilles to be the produce of Zephyrus (the

• We have not seen it contradicted, that Firetail, in 1772, ran a mile in one minute
and four seconds. — Ed. P. L. ^ A.

THE RACE-HORSE. 489

west wind, said to be the swiftest of any) and Podarge, whose name signifies
speed. Nor is Virgil far behind the rest in his encomium on the fleetness
of his colt, which he makes to challenge the very whirlwind itself. As it
is speed, however, that wins the race, it is most essential to the race-horse
provided it be accompanied by stoutness ; and unless we wish to fly through
the air like Pacolet on his wooden horse, we may be contented with the
speed of the present English race-horse. Perhaps the following is a /air
specimen ; and as it is of a late date, the same uncertainty does not attach to
it, that hangs over the unsupported traditions of our earlier racing days. In
1832, Theodore, the property of the Honorable Edward Petre, and winner
of the Doncaster St. Leger Stakes, ran the distance, being one mile seven
furlongs, or two miles, all but one-eighth part of a mile, in three minutes and
twenty-three seconds, carrying eight stone six pounds. He was trained by
the late Mr. Croft, who also trained the second and third horses in the same
race.*

EXPENSES OF A BREEDING RACING-STUD.

Some persons must be breeders of race-horses, but whether to profit or
loss, depends on various circumstances. Amongst them may be reckoned
the following : — Judgment in selecting the parent stock or blood ; conve-
niences for keeping the produce well and warm, and on land suitable to
breeding; and plenty of money at command, to enable a breeder to purchase
mares of the very best racing families, and to put them to the best of stal-
lions. When this is the case, we think breeding (we mean quite distinct
from risk in racing) would seldom fail to pay, if the foals were sold ofT at
weaning time, or even at a year old, A few years back, eight of the Earl
of Durham's yb«/s realized £200 a-piece; and, still later, several of Mr.
Nowell's (of Underley Hall, Westmoreland) yearlings fetched the enormous
sum of £500. No doubt, in all studs great loss is sustained by a certain
proportion of the young stock which promises to be small and not worth
training; but here breeders are often deceived. For example, the late Lord
Grosvenor sent Meteora, the best mare in England of her da}^ to Chester
Fair, when two years old, to be sold for £10, because she was considered
as too small ; and he also suffered Violante, the best four-mile racer of her
day, to be sold, untried, for £50, but fortunately purchased her again. The
great prices, however, occasionally paid to breeders for some horses, (4000
guineas, for example, to the Earl of Jersey, for Mameluke, the like sum for
Priam, and 3000 guineas a-piece have lately been given for other three-year-
old colts,) make up for the loss inseparable from such as, by mis-shape,
diminutive size, and casualties, are culled out, and sold for what they will
fetch, which seldom amounts to much.

VALUE OF STAKES AND PRIZES.

Agamemnon is made to say, that that man would be rich who had trea-
sures equal to the value of the prizes the horses had won, which he offers to
Achilles. We are inclined to think, that if this king of Argos could come
amongst us now, he would find prizes more valuable than any contended for

* Uncas ran the mile at E. Feliciana, Louisiana, in 1'452, 1'48, 1'47^.
Beta, at Nashville, in 1'45, 1'45, 1'57, 2'01.

The two-mile heats were run by Ann Hays, at New Orleans, in 3'435, 3'42^.
The three-mile heats were run at the Union Course, Long Island, by Treasurer, in 5'42.
The four-mile heats were run by Fashion, on the Union Course, Long Island, in 7'32^
7'45, May 10, 1842.— iff. P. L. §■ A.
Vol. I.— 62

490 THE RACE-HORSE.

in his time ; and that sterhng cash, and not " the bubble honor," is the main
object of the British sportsman on the turf. But here is the inducement to
incur the great expenses of a racing breeding-stud. It is possible that a
three-year-old colt might have won last year, at three starts, the enormous
sum of 83.50 guineas.* But even this is comparatively trifling when com-
pared with the doings on the turf in the New World. A produce stakes of
5U00 dollars each, 1000 forfeit, is to be run for over the New York Union
Course in 1848, for which the produce of twenty-nine mares are named ;
and, supposing all to come to the post, the owner of the winner would be
entitled to receive 145,000 dollars ! The stakes closed in January, 1839,
and the distance to be run is four miles.

COLOR OF THE THOROUGH-BRED HORSE.

The beaut}-- of forms observable in the animal system is subordinate to their
general utility, and they please us in proportion to their aptitude to unite these
two objects. We admire the elegant make of a swan, but the pleasure is
doubled when we behold the ease and dignity of its motion. The colors, how-
ever, which Nature has bestowed with such profusion upon the surface of
some of these animals, birds in particular, exhibit beauties independent of apti-
tude, and could only have been intended for their adoinment. The prevailing
color of the thorough-bred horse is peculiarly elegant and cha?^te, being a bright
bay, with black mane and tail, and black legs to correspond, although occa-
sionally relieved with a small white star on the forehead, or a white heel of the
leg. It is remarkable, that what may be termed vulgar colors, such as light
sorrel, or dun, or brown with mealy muzzle, are very seldom met with in the
thorough-bred horse ; and we know but one instance of the piebald, and very
few roans. t Black is not common nor approved of, although several of our
best racers, ahnost all the Trumpator blood, have been of that color, Smolensko
amongst thein. The real chestnut prevails a good deal, and is quite equal to
the bay in the richness and brightness of its hues. Such was the color of
Eclipse ; and, as is the case with game-fowls, in the breeding of which there
are instances of a reversion to the original color, after fifteen descents, it is not
uncommon for thorough-bred stock to be chestnuts, although got by a bay stal-
lion out of a bay mare, or from sire and dam of any other color, provided the
blood runs back to his. Eclipse's source. Indeed, a small dark spot which
that celebrated horse had on his quarter has been frequently found in his de-
scendants in the fifth or sixth generation.

It is an old and trite saying, that " a good horse cannot be of a bad color ;"
nevertheless, colors of horses are, to a certain extent, indices of their physical
powers. Such has proved to be the case with men ; and it was found in the
ill-fated Russian campaign, that men of dark complexions and black hair bore
the severity of the climate better than men of an opposite appearance to them.
It is, however, rather a remarkable fact, that by far the greater number of
eminent English prize-fighters have been men of light, not dark complexion.
The ancients reckoned thirteen colors of horses, giving the preference to bay
(badices).J

* Vide Racing Calendar, 1834, for amount of the twentieth Riddleswortli stakes, at
NewiTiarket; the Derby and Oaks, at Epsom; and the St. Leger stakes, at Doneaster.

+ See The Corker, by W. Sketchley, Gent. Lond. 1814. General Washington owned
and ran one called the " Roan Colt." — Ed. P. L. Sf A.

t General Jackson preferred the iron-gray; and hi.s performances of one sort and
another on the turf were long strides in his advancement to the Presidency. — Ed
P. L. &f A.

ENGLISH TABLES. 491

ENGLISH TABLES,

USEFUL TO THE READERS OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURAL WRITINGS.

As it is not convenient to be changing sterling into American currency in all cases of
quotations from English journals, it will be well for every reader in the cotmtry to bear
in mind that the pound sterling for ordinary calculations may be regarded as about equi-
valent to five dollars, the English shilling to 24 cents, or say a quarter of a dollar, and
the English penny to two cents.

The stone weight, so often met with in English agricultural writers, sometimes means
eight pounds, as for instance, when applied to meat ; otherwise, according to the follow-
ing tables, the most authentic to be found, 14 pounds would be understood as a stone.

No little perplexity is often experienced by ordinary readers, in understanding the true
meaning of the terms employed to convey what writers intend to be understood, when
speaking of measures of capacity, measures of weight, surface, volume, &c. We give,
therefore, here from the London Literary and Scientific Almanac for 1846, the following
useful tables, or such at least as we supjiose may be so, to many of our readers. These
tables will be found convenient for reference from time to time.

WEIGHTS AND MEASURES.

William the Conqueror introduced into England what was called Troy
Weight, from Troyes, a town in the province of Champagne in France, now
in the department of Aube ; where a celebrated fair was held. The Eno-lish
were dissatisfied with this weight, because the pound did not weigh so much
as the pound in use at that time in England, Hence arose the term Avoir
Du poiDs, which was a medium between the French and ancient English
weights.

All MEASURES OF CAPACITY Were first taken from Troy v/eight, and several
laws were passed in the reign of Henry III,, enacting that 8 lbs. Troy of
wheat, taken from the middle of the ear, and well dried, should make one
gallon of Wine measure ; and eight such gallons made a bushel.

Avoirdupois weight was first made legal in the reign of Henry VIL, and
its particular use was to weigh provisions and coarse heavy articles. Henry
fixed the stone at 14 lbs., which has been confirmed by a recent act of par-
liament.
Agreeably to the Act of Umformity, ivhich took effect 1st January, 1826,

The term measure raay be distinguished into seven kinds, viz.: length,
surface, volume, specific gravity, capacity, space, time, and motion.

The several denominations of these measures have reference to certain
standards, which are entirely arbitrary, and consequently vary among dif-
ferent nations. In this kingdom,
The standard of Length is a Yard.

Surface, is a Square Yard, the ^ of an Acre.
Solidity, is a Cubic Yard.
Capacity, is a Cjallon.
Weight, is a Pound.

The standards of angular measure and of time are tne same in all European
and most other countries.

1. Measures of Length.

The imperial standard yard is divided into three feet, and each foot into
twelve inches, and its length is fixed, (see act of Pari. 5 Geo. IV. c. 74,) by
reference to the length of the pendulum vibrating seconds in the latitude of
London, in a vacuum at the level of the sea; the former being to the latter
in the proportion of 36 imperial inches to 39-139.3 imperial inches. The
length of the seconds pendulum at Greenwich is 39-12929 inches; at
Leith Fort, (nearly in the parallel of Glasgow,) under the same circum-
stances is 39-1555 imp. inches; and at New York, 39-1017 imp. inches.
The imperial standard yard may, however, be more distinctly defined as the

492

ENGLISH TABLES.

distance between the points of oscillation and suspension of a pendulum
vibrating (in a mean solar day in a vacuum at the level of the sea) at Lon-
don 90088 times. The Scots' standard ell (the use of which is now abo-
Lshed) measured 87 imperial inches. The French standard measure,
(which is defined as the ten-millionth part of the quadrant of the terrestrial
meridian,) measures 39'371 imp. inches, the French toise 76-735 imp.
inches, and the French foot 1 •06577 imp. foot. The French decimetre
measures 3-937 inches, the centimetre -3937 of an imp, inch, and the mil-
limetre -03937 of an imp. inch.

An inch is the smallest lineal measure to which a name is given, but
subdivisions are used for many purposes. Among mechanics the inch is
commonly divided into eighths. By the officers of the revenue, and by
scientific persons, it is divided into tenths, hundredths, &c. By engineers
it is frequently divided into twelve parts called lines, each of which may be
made to represent one inch, and the inch one foot.

Pole

Fur-
longs.

Inches.

Links.

Feet.

Yards.

or
Perch.

Chains.

Mile.

7-92

1

12

1-515

1

36

4-545

3

1

198

25

16-5

5-5

1

702

100

66

22

4

1

7920

1000

660

220

40

10

1

63360

8000

5280

1760

320

80

8

1

3 inches make a palm, 4 inches a hand, 5 feet a pace, and 6 feet a
fathom.* In Cloth Measure 2| inches := 1 nail, 4 nails = 1 quarter, and
4 quarters = 1 yard.

The Surveyor's Chain contains 4 poles, or 22 yards, or 66 feet, or 792
inches, which being divided into 100 links, gives 7-92 inches for each link.
The square Chain is equal to 484 square yards, or 1-lOth of an acre. The
Geometrical Pace is 5 feet, the Military Pace two and a half feet.t

3 miles form 1 league, 60 geographical miles, or 695 English miles equal
1 degree, 360 degrees equals the circumference of the Globe, or any circle.

cloth measure.

Scotch and Irish linens, all sorts of woollen cloths, muslins, ribands, cords,
tapes, &c., are measured by the yard.

Dutch linens, called Hollands, are bought by the Flemish ell, and sold by
the English ell. The Flemish ell is also used in measuring tapestry.

The yard in cloth measure is the same as in Long Measure, but differs in
its divisions and subdivisions.

21 Inch

Nails

Quarters

Quarters

Quarters

Quarters

Inches

Feet

make 1 Nail . . nl.
1 Quarter . . qr.
1 Yard . . yd.
1 Flemish ell . Fl. ell.
1 English ell . Eng. ell.
1 French ell . Fr.' ell.
1 Hand, used for height of horses.
1 Fathom, uyed in measuring depths.

* The fathom is ii.scd in sounding to ascertain depths, &c., and for measuring cordage,
■j- The pace is a measure taken from the space between the two feet of a man in walk
ing, usually reckoned at 2^ ft., but the geometrical pace is 5 feet.

ENGLISH TABLES.

49^

LONG MEASURE.

This measure is used to measure all things that have length, height and
depth, without regard to breadth.

An inch is the smallest lineal measure to which a name is given, but the
length of a mile is not the same in every country. The Scotch and Irish
miles were formerly about 1| English, but are now the same as English.
A Spanish and Polish mile is about 3^ English. A Swedish, Danish, and
Hungarian mile is from 5 to 6 English miles. A Russian mile or verst is
about I of an Enghsh mile ; and the French toise is about 6 feet
The Dutch mile is . . . . 8101 yards.

Roman .... . 1628 «

Arabian .... . 2148 "

Persian Parasang . . . 6086 "

4 Inches . . make 1 Hand . . hd.

7~ Inches ... 1 Link . . Ik.

12

Inches
2^ Feet

3 Feet

5 Feet (a geometrical)

6 Feet
51 Yards

4 Poles, or 100 Links
40 Poles, or 10 chains

8 Furlongs, or 1760 yards
6 Miles

Geographical Miles, or 691:
English Miles .

Decrees

60

860

1 Foot

1 Pace

1 Yard

1 Pace

1 Fathom

1 Rod, Pole, or Perch

1 Chain

1 Furlong

1 Mile

1 Leaofue

ft.

pace.

yd.

pace.

fath.

rod, I

ch.

furl.

mile.

lea.

des'. (

1 Degree .

The circumference of the Globe or any
Circle.

II. Measures of Surface.
The imperial square yard contains 9 imperial square feet, and the imperial
square foot 144 imp. square inches ; the circular foot, (that is a circle whose
diameter is 1 foot,) contains 113-097 square inches; and the square foot
contains 183*346 circular inches (that is circles whose diameters are each
1 inch). The French square foot contains 163*563 imp. square inches, and
the square decimetre 15-506 imp. square inches.

This measure is used for all kinds of superficial measuring, such as land,
paving, flooring, roofing, tiling, slating, plastering, &c., &c., and any thing
having length and breadth only.

Flooring, roofing, thatching, &c., are measured by the square of 100 feet,
and bricklayers' work by the rod of 16| feet, the square of which is 272^
feet, though this is partly a cubic measure, as the brickwork is reckoned to
be one and a half brick thick.

Square Inches.

Square Links.

Square
Feet.

Square
Yards.

Square
Pole or
Perch.

MO

CO o

» o

0)

o

<

62-726

1

144

2-295

1

1296

20-661

9

1

39204

625

272-25

80-25

1

627264

10000

4356

484

16

1

1568160

25000

10890

1210

40

2-5

1

6272640

100000

43560

4840

160

10

4

1

2 T

494 ENGLISH TABLES.

Land is measured by a chain, called Gunter's Chain. It is 4 poles, or
22 yards long, and consists of 100 equal links, each "J.

Ten chains in length and one in breadth, or 100,000 links, make an acre.
(HO Acres == 1 Square Mile.

30 Acres = 1 Yard of Land.

100 Acres = 1 Hide of Land.

40 Hides = 1 Barony.

in. Measures of Volume.

The imperial cubic (or solid) yard, contains 27 imperial cubic feet, and
the imperial cubic foot contains 17'^S imperial cubic inches. The cylindric
foot (that is a cylinder 1 foot long and 1 foot in diameter,) contains 1357*17
cubic inches. The spherical foot (that is a sphere 1 foot in diameter) con-
tains 904-78 cubic inches ; and a conical foot (that is a cone 1 foot in height
and 1 foot in diameter at the base) contains 452-39 cubic inches. The
cubic foot contains very nearly 2200 cylindrical inches ; (that is cylinders
1 inch long and 1 inch in diameter,) it contains very nearly 3300 spherical
inches, (that is spheres 1 inch in diameter;) and it contains very nearly
6000 conical inches (that is cones 1 inch in height and 1 inch in diameter
at the base.) The cubic metre contains 34-31GG imperial cubic feet ; the
cubic decimetre contains 61-027 imperial cubic inches, and the cubic centi-
metre contains -061027 of an imperial cubic inch.

SOLID OR CUBIC MEASURE.

A cube is a solid body, and contains length, breadth, and thickness,
having six equal sides. A cube number is produced by multiplying a
number twice into itself, thus 64 is a cube number, and is produced by
multiplying the number 4 twice into itself, as 4 x 4 x 4 = 64.

1728 Inches make 1 Foot.

27 Feet 1 Yard

40 Feet of Rough, or > ^ rr t i

50 Feet of Hewn Timbers • ' 1 Ton or Load. ;

108 Feet 1 Stack of Wood

128 Feet 1 Cord of Wood.

277| Inches ... ... 1 Imperial Standard Gallon.

2218 J Inches 1 Imperial Standard Bushel.

The English foot is to the Paris foot as 1 to 1-065977.
The English square foot is to the Paris as 1 to 1-136307.
The English cubic foot is to the Paris as 1 to 1-211277.
IV. Standard of Specific Gravity.
The imperial cubic inch of distilled water, (according to act of Parliament,
before cited,) weighed in air by brass weights, at the temp, of 62° Fah.
therm, (the barometer being at 30 inches,) weighs 252-458 imperial Troy
grains : and at 391 or the maximum density, it weighs 253 imperial Troy
grains ; consequently, the imperial cubic foot of distilled water at 621 weighs
997-137 imperial avordiipois ounces. The cubic foot of water is commonly
reckoned to weigh 1000 ounces, or 62^ lbs. avoirdupois weight. The
cubic centimetre of distilled water at 391 weighs 1.5-540 imperial Troy
grains, and the cubic decimetre 155-40 imperial Troy grains, or 2-206
pounds imperial avoirdupois weight.

DIVISION I. AVOIRDUPOIS WEIGHT.

This weight is used in almost all commercial transactions, and in the
common dealings of life.

By an act of parliament passed the 5th of October, 1831, and which came
into efiect on the 1st of January, 1632, it is directed that all coals, cinders,

ENGLISH TABLES.

495

and culm, sold from and out of any ship or vessel in the port of London, or
at any place within the cities of London and Westminster, or within the
distance of 25 miles from the General Post-office, in the city of London,
shall be sold by weight, and not by measure.

Coals sold in any quantit}' exceeding 500 lbs. are to be delivered to the
purchaser in sacks containing either 1 12 lbs. or 224 lbs. net ; 10 such sacks,
or 2240 lbs. make a ton, equal to 20 cwt. ; 251 cwt. are equivalent to
1 chaldron. A barge load or keel is 21 tons, 4 cwt.; and a collier, or ship
load, about 20 such keels, or 424 tons.

By an act of Parliament which came into effect on the 29th of September,
1822, bread must be sold by the pound avoirdupois, and bakers are pro-
hibited from selling by the peck loaf with its subdivisions.

Flour is sold nominally by measure, but actually by weight, at 7 lbs.
avoirdupois to a gallon, 14 lbs. to a peck, &c.

By a late act of Parliament the legal stone is, in all cases, to consist
of 14 lbs. avoirdupois ; 8 such stones 1 cwt. ; 20 cwt. one ton, &c.

Troy Grains.

Drams.

Ounces.

Lb.

Stones.

Qrs.

Cwts.

Ton.

437-5

10

1

7000

250

16

1

98000

3,584

224

14

1

196000

7108

448

28

2

1

784000

28672

1792

112

8

4

1

15GS0000

5734^10

35840

2240

100

80

20

1

8 Pounds = 1 Stone
14 Pounds = 1 Stone
2 Stone = 1 Tod
6^ Tods = 1 Wey
2 Weys = 1 Sack
12 Sacks = 1 Last

Peculiar Weights belonging to this division

Cwt. qr. lb.

0

0 14^

0

1 0

1

2 14

3

1 0

39

0 OJ

Used for Meat.

Used in the Wool Trade.

We were lately conversing with a gentleman of character and intelligence not sur-
passed by any cultivator of the soil in this or any other country. His residence is near
Darien, Georgia. He approved entirely of the doctrines maintained in this journal, as to
the mutually friendly connection between American ploughs and American looms and
anvils, and. to our surprise, maintained with the utmost confidence, that, for manufact-'^res,
there might be obtained, in Georgia, white labor as abundant and cheaper than in Massa-
chusetts. There is no doubt that the same thing may be affirmed of the region of Vir-
ginia, where the power for manufactories is superabundant, and where demand would
soon be followed by abumlance of materials, as timber, wool, iron, &c. But for the '■ last
thirty years" the Virginian has been convinced, he says, that there is nothing like that
'• free trade" under vvhich the whole tide-water country has been as dormant as a find
buck shot down in his tracks.

Connubial Statistics. — The Lowell Offering states that in one mill, during the past
eighteen years, eighty-two of the " boys," and four hundred and five girls have been
married during five years ; and from another mill one hundred and eighty-seven of the
girls have been married during five years; and from a single room in another corpora-
tion twenty-eight were married in one year.

496 THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI.

"THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPL"

Messrs. Editors, — Under the above headin or, in your number for this month,
you have expressed very just views in relation to the subjects treated of in
a httle pamphlet of mine, which was a republication of a series of newspaper
articles. This series has since been continued ; and in subsequent articles
I have endeavored to show what fabrics the West are now prepared to manu-
facture with profit, and have fully stated these to be the coarser description
of cotton cloth, or sheetincrs, at and under number 14, heavy drillings, tick-
ings, and cottcn flannels, &c., on which we have such an immense advan-
tage in transportation, and which require so little skill in the fabrication ;
and the opinion, that as soon as we should begin to erect mills for such ma-
nufactures, the East would not attempt to compete with us, was thus quali-
fied. The object of this communication is to place myself right before those
who have read your comments.

Of the 2,200,000 bales of cutton produced in this country, over 1,000,000
bales are probably made up into these coarse cloths. Cheap food, cheap
power, (coal at 2^ to 5 cents a bushel,) cheap material, and cheap transporta-
tion, give to Lower Ohio an advantage, in the manufacture of these goods,
of at least 20 per cent, over New England, and of 30 per cent, over any
position in Europe. Here, then, should be the locus in quo for the manu-
facture of these goods. As for female labor, (unskilled labor, just now,) we
have it in great abundance. You of the East have employments of every
kind for such labor, while we have comparatively none for it, save in our
cities. The United States is the only agricultural country on earth in which
females do not labor in the fields ; and, in our western rural districts, in every
family there is probably an average of two females above the age of fifteen,
Avho would be glad to work for three years in a convenient and respectable
cotton factory at less than eastern prices. For the manufacture of these coarse
fabrics, three years are sufficient for our purpose. Under the admirable
Lowell system, the operatives at fine, as well as coarse work, average only
about four years in the mill. The erection of the mills I have advocated
would give profitable employment for our females at the very time when their
labor at home is comparatively unproductive, say from fifteen to eighteen ; and,
in most cases, they would obtain a better education during their three years at
the mill than at home. The working up of this million of bales here, at pre-
sent prices, would pay our carriers about one and a half millions of dollars more
than they now receive, and would distribute among the laborers in the mill
and the field, the liome (actors and stockholders, the enormous sum of sixty-
two millions of dollars per annum. We should then control, not only the cot-
ton, but the cotton fabric; — not the laces for the rich, but the covering for the
masses; — the material and the product that has become a necessary of life to
the savage and semi-barbarian, as well as to civilized man.
, The advantage before stated applies as well to foreign as western demand ;
for we have, on the banks of our rivers, and above our coal beds, every mate-
rial in the greatest abundance and perfection for ship-building. The county
of Perry, Indiana, scarcely a nail's breadth on our map, has full 200.000 acres
of wild land, a large part of which is subject to entry with soldiers' warrants,
at a cost of seventy cents an acre ; its surface is hilly, but its soil is fertile ; in
most of its hills, and above high-water, are horizontal strata of rich bituminous
coal, averaging over four feet in thickness; above is the primeval forests of
oak, poplar, chestnut, ash, black walnut, hickory, cherry, maple, and guin, in
quantities sufficient for the construction of a navy; the Ohio borders this.
county for fifty miles ; and, from nearly every one of its townships timber can

THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI. 497

be floated in the spring to the Ohio, by the Anderson, Deer, Bear, and Oil
creeks, (rivers ;) under the surface is the best of iron ore ; within a few miles
are the rich hemp fields of Davis county, Kentucky ; in Missouri are rich and
convenient beds of copper; and all around is the cheapest food on earth.
From this point ships of five hundred tons can be taken to sea with full freights
during six months of the year. Why, then, should we not supply ships for
the maritime districts of the world, now nearly denuded of timber, after they
have borne our coarse cotton fabrics to the most remote consumers ? Why
should we continue to send our peculiar staples, corn, meat, and cotton, to be
combined at Manchester into cloth, and then sent to China in ships made of
the fresh-water timber of the St, Lawrence ?

I, for one, deprecate the introduction among us of a manufacturmg caste ; I
would afford no encouragement to hand-loom weavers, or the makers of tapes-
try and laces. Let these fabrics be still and for ever made where labor is
cheap; but, unless we soon create a division of labor, and make a market for
our agricultural products at home, we shall soon be cursed with the caste
referred to.

You have doubtless observed that, within the last few years, a very large
proportion of the foreign emigrants are mechanics and manufacturers; a
large portion seek homes in the West ; their preference is for the country
and a freehold ; but, as agricultural products are now at a low price, they
are crowding into our cities, and bringing and communicating tlie vices of
the districts from which they come. The only means of prevention before
us are the reduction of agricultural labor; the working up of more of our
materials ; and the adoption of the Lowell system, by which but a few years
of labor in the mill are required.

To my apprehension, we are just nov,- in the transition state. In a very
few years more the prices of our great staples must fall to a point much lower
than now; and land and labor must correspond. Then we shall have a
mania for manufacturing every thing. The general proposition will be —
manufacturing labor, ex necessitate rei, must receive a higher reward than
agricultural labor. As our people are peculiarly impulsive, they who can
will rush at once into the new business; many will not have counted the
cost; many will rely on general principles, and fail in consequence of their
ignorance of qualifying causes. Whatever is unwisely done will not only
affect ourselves, but the sections of the East with whom we should compete,
and the Eastern cities by which Ave are supplied with foreign goods.

The Eastern factors and manufacturers, from Portland to Richmond, are
mainly dependent on this great valley for their profits; if we are prosperous,
so are they ; if we are depressed, so are they ; if we cannot pay for what they
have sold, and have made to sell us, they are ruined. It is their interest
that we should increase in wealth by every means in which Avealth is
produced ; if we waste our labor in keeping up the expensive machinery
of exchanging cheap and bulky articles, we have nothing to pay for the cost
or profit of what is made abroad for us ; but if our labor is mainly employed
on the machinery of production, we can pay the highest profits on what we
obtain from others.

If we now manufactured at home our axes, scythes, and chains, our coarse
carpets, coarse cottons, &c., and then sent our surplus wheat, corn, and
pork, to foreign markets, in vessels built of our cheap timber, and rigged
with cordage made of our cheap hemp, we could give profitable employment
to your Eastern artisans on fine work, and insure a satisfactory business to
your factors who furnish us foreign luxuries.

And now, let me ask you, who are endeavoring to teach us how to grow
lich and independent by bringing the loom nearer the cotton, to teach us

Vol.!.— G3 2x2

498 THE IRISH POOR IN LIVERPOOL.

how to make and operate the loom and the spindle. You once gave us,
month after month, the cost and the profits of the plough; you detailed all
the best experiments made in the field. Now let us have, in detail, the cost,
and the most profitable way of using the anvil.

Your machine-shops, as is said, now lack work; we need machinery, but
we do not know how and where to get that machinery which will do the
best and most work. If your machinists will show us the relative capacity
of their machines, how we can obtain them, and how use them, and what
profit we can make by using them, we may send on more orders than can
he filled.

Suppl}"- us with the tools to make our coarse fabrics out of our heavy and
bulky materials, then show us how to use these tools most advantageously ;
and, while we consume largely of and pay promptly for your costly broad-
cloths, lawns, fine muslins, and imported silks, we can afford to pay more
for the product of your seaboard fisheries than we now have to spare for all
our imports. Yours, respectfully, Hamilton Smith.

Louisville, Ky., Oct. 29, 1848.

THE IRISH POOR IN LIVERPOOL.

" The Liverpool vestry have been appealing to Sir George Grey for relief from the
prospective immigration of the Irish during the approaching winter: it has already com-
menced. Frightful consequences are api)rehended from the outbreak of cholera among
the crowded thousands. Last year, sixteen medical officers perished from fevers caught
in attending the sick: and so great a mortality occurred in the permanent local popula-
tion, thai districts have been extensively depopulated, 4000 houses are uninhabited, and
an expense of $40,080 incurred. The fare from Dublin to Liverpool is only Is., whilst
it is 4s. to return. Sir George Grey, in reply, held out no hope of assistance."

Such are the results of the separation of the loom and the anvil from the
plough and the harrow. Ireland abounds in rich lands untouched. She is
capable of affording abundant food to quadruple her present population; but
the colonial system has deprived her of all her consumers of food, and the
producers are ruined. Forced to fly, as do the people of Virginia and South
Carolina, they make their way to Liverpool or Glasgow, there to starve in
wretched cellars, unless they can find means for further emigration, perhaps
to die of ship fever on the way to Canada. England is now paying the for-
feit of her system. Her Indian customers have been ruined ; and every
week furnishes new evidence that the power of India to consume foreign
cloths has diminished, because of the impoverishing effect of a system that
compels men to waste on the road the labor and the manure that should be
applied to the work of production. Ireland is ruined ; and the latest journals
express the strongest apprehensions of the efTect likely to result from the
immense immigration of poor people who would stay at home if they could,
and who could do so were it not that they have been limited to agriculture as
their sole means of employment. The last number of the Westminster Re-
view [Oct., 1848] speaks of the "certain and rapid deterioration in the con-
dition of the bulk of the people of this island (Great Britain) consequent on the
constant overflow into it of the increasing mass of Irish misery, without other
limit than the reduction of our native population to the same level of squahd
Vv'retchcdness." Famines occur in all countries in which the consumer does
not take his place by the side of the producer, and pestilence follows in the
wake of famine — and yet we have wise economists who teach us that the sys-
tem which has ruined Ireland and India is the one under which we shall be-
come most prosperous. Let them repeal the tarifl^of 1840, ineffective as it is,
and they will have full opportunity to study the eflTect of the colonial system.

PRACTICAL HINTS FOR SMALL GARDENERS. 499

PRACTICAL HINTS FOR SMALL GARDENERS,

WHICH LARGER ONES MAY DO WELL TO HEED.

We once got a lecture, by letter, from the late John Randolph, of Roanoke, for allowing
a correspondent of the Turf Register to say that Eclipse was sb-ed by Duroc, instead of
got by him. Ho said it reminded him of an old maid in Virginia, who called a certain old-
fashioned coin a loato'-reen. The word cloaca in the following means the jirivy.

Manures. — Although it is as vain to attempt to keep a garden in good
heart without manure as it is to try to preserve a good state of bodily health
w^ithout a sufficiency of food, there are parties to be found every day who
think the experiment worth trying. Because they keep neitlier horses nor
pigs, they will not go to the expense of buying those substances b)^ which
the exhausted energies of the earth are restored. The starved ground,
through this ungenerous treatment, is unable to repay the toil expended on
it, and dwarfish and unhealthy productions are the result. Although the
subject is one not very proper to be presented to ears polite, it is neverthe-
less of the utmost importance, and a k\v lines devoted to it will not be very
badly spent. The question of manures may be called a national one, inti-
mately connected with our weaUh and happiness, and any one who points
out the most economical modes of fertilizing the land confers a benefit on his
fellow-creatures. Our observations now refer to small gardens, but a prin-
ciple will pervade them applicable in some degree to the largest farms.

The resources of an ordinary house and garden, if properly husbanded,
Avill go far towards manuring a good-sized piece of ground. All vegetable
refuse, leaves, stalks, &c., should be collected into a heap, and when tho-
roughly rotted, will make the very best manure for flower-beds or for plants
in pots. The flower-garden will never require a dressing more powerful
than good leaf-mould — some special things, roses, for instance, excepted. If
the sweepings of paths and of sitting-roonis, or of the house generally, which
contain a good deal of sand, are mixed with this vegetable refuse, in a year
a good compost will be ready for use. Wood ashes are highly beneficial for
any purposes, but ciaders are not desirable things except in heavy clayey
soils. The fine soft ashes arising from coal, thoroughly burnt, may be
always used with advantage. Bones, old rags, cuttings of hair, &c,, are all
useful ; and the amount of these things in a year from a small family is very
great. Those who live in country places may often have road scrapings for
the trouble of fetching, and these are great improvers of a manure heap.
All these matters should be turned occasionally, and used when thoroughly
rotten and incorporated.

But the cloaca is the grand source of manure when properly managed,
■which is not the case in one instance in ten. In most houses there is a
common receptacle, into which all substances, liquid and solid, are thrown,
becoming in the process of accumulation a great nuisance, and a still more
formidable one when removal becomes necessary. Now a little manage-
ment will prevent the nuisance, and turn the aflair to the best account. The
cloaca and the dust-hole should always be adjoining, that the dust and ashes
from the house may be spread over the surface of the former every day.
Bad odors are thus neutralized, and the whole contents are removed without
any unpleasantness. One thing, however, must be sedulously attended to
in connection with this arrangement : no slops must be allowed to find their
way into this receptacle, or the object will be defeated. All liquids brought
out of the house in the morning must be disposed of in another way. If
you have no kitchen garden, or no meadow land, get rid of these slops by
the common sewer. If you have a larger garden, or land, have some heaps
of hungry soil always ready, and saturate them with the contents of the

500

FOREIGN PROVISIONS.

slop-pail. By removing these heaps and placing others, every thing will
be saved, and a most efficient manure provided at small expense. AVhen
the cloaca is emptied, the mixture must stand for a year, and be turned over
two or three times before it is used. If these regulations are observed, more
comfort will be secured in domestic arrangements, and every thing will be
available for the land.

" Plaindealer" is a little too plain for us. His denunciation of seeds-
men, and of agricultural implement-makers, is too indiscriminate and sweep-
ing for our columns. That impositions are frequently practised, it needs no
ghost to tell us ; but will " Plaindealer" tell us among what class of people
rogues and cheats are not to be found ? — or can he designate a profession or
class of people more useful to the farmer than the honest seedsm.an, and the
manufacturer of sound, Avell-made agricultural implements and machinery —
to whose ingenuit)', by-the-by, the farmer is much more indebted for labor-
saving contrivances than to his own class.

Than imposture, in regard to the genuineness and the soundness of seed
and fruit-trees, nothing can be more pernicious, or worthy of exposure and
denunciation ; and if " Plaindealer" will specify cases, he shall find us not
backward in stigmatizing them with all our power ; but who does not know,
of that class, gentlemen as public spirited and as trustworthy as among the
same number of cultivators ?

How often, among farmers, do we find people ready to take advantage of
the public credulity to put oif some wonderful kind of wheat or potato, or
corn, springing from some miraculous origin — a few grains found in a
mummy-box, or in a pigeon's crop, of which the fortunate owner has a small
parcel that he will let go as a great favor at 200 per cent, over the market
price !

Foreign Provisions. — The following table has been published of the
exports "from the United States to Great Britain during the last five years.
The increase in all articles of animal food, such as bacon, pork, butter, and
cheese, appears, says the Mark Lane Express, absolutely astounding.

EXPORTS FROM THE UNITED STATES TO GREAT BRITAIN.

Articles.

1S43.

184-1.

1S45.

1S46.

1847.

Oil, sperm, gls. . .

32.5944

295867

907597

626633

638780

Oil, whale, gls. . .

68728

345656

184898

84356

209299

Staves, m. ...

467

85

331

2560

2074

Naval stores, brls. .

145066

270317

279263

305654

245779

Beef, brls. . . .

6886

43117

41188

80820

66473

Tallow, lbs. . . .

3653614

4657200

5243440

612.5452

5924156

Hides, No. . . .

8882

33107

41179

67058

24481

Pork, brls. . . .

3230

10280

14140

13001

73940

Bacon, bales . . .

656328

350189

96907

530026

14367105

Lard, lbs

4569484

8976805

5678675

8211389

17798770

Butter, lbs. . . •

1059776

521829

530549

515519

1235071

Cheese, lbs. . . .

2313643

5278965

5934202

6840373

13662280

Wheat, biisli. . .

22238

2010

974398

2544563

Corn, bush. . . .

89073

13.5688

1192680

15526525

Flour, brls. . . .

19436

167296

35355

1015244

2457086

Cornmeal, brls. . .

3

29

1

50165

713083

Rioo, tierce

9216

16125

18127

38271

48618

Wool, lbs

610625

349576

plops, lbs

4166

68894

72252

441006

THE PLOUGH, THE LOOM, AND THE ANVIL. 501

ON THE RELATIONS OF THE PLOUGH, THE LOOM, AND

THE ANVIL.

LETTER FROM COL. CAPRON.

Laurel Factory, December 21, 1S48.

My Dear Sir : — To answer your letter of the 3d, with satisfection to you
or myself, would require more time and reflection than I have been able to
give it since it came to hand — and the closing up of the old year, with all
the multifarious interests under my charge, will prevent me replying fully
to your inquiries for some weeks to come.

Your letter shall lie before me to remind me, (if that be necessary,) of the
duty I owe you, and the great cause you are so ably advocating, in the
Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil, and shall receive my attention at the first
practicable moment.

It is of vital importance to the Southern States — in fact their only salva-
tion— diversity of employment with a home market, is what tliey want.
Let every man, woman, and child become producers as well as consumers,
in some of the various pursuits which will naturally spring up, by the con-
junction of the plough, the loom, and the anvil, within their own borders, (as
is the case in Massachusetts,) and the Southern States will be the great
States of the Union.

There is no obstacle, either in climate, soil, or population, but what would
yield to the march of improvement; if once the really great talents of the
South be directed to this object, with one half the energy and ingenuity dis-
played in making a President, or in trying to reason themselves into the
belief that it is legislating " at the expense of the many for the benefit of the
few,'''' that causes the universal diffusion of wealth amongst the teeming
population of the Eastern States, and their rapid advancement to wealth and
prosperity — whilst at the same time the sparse population of the Southern
States are taking the L'ishman's advance of two steps backwards to one
forward. Very truly yours, Horace Capron.

The stumbling-block which keeps the Northern manufacturer from coming with his
skill, and his possession of, or his ability to command capital, to put them both in force in
various branches of manufacture in the South, (where so many natural advantai^es exist,)
is the apprehension that in the South it is impracticable to make sure of tlie i-ccpiisitc and
suitable labor. Without possessing, on this point, the full and exact knowledge that would
enable us to speak with that degree of confidence which would be proper, and which
we should desire to do, as a faithful interpreter or organ between the North and the
South; and, aware that Col. Capron, educated in the North, and possessing, in an eminent
degree, capacity and experience, could give the requisite information ; having been now
for a series of years managing a large factory in a sjiarsely settled slave-holding country,
we applied to him for his views, of which this is the first instalment, or rather "note of
preparation." Thus much to explain the preceding letter, and such as he may find
leisure to favor us with hereafter, on a subject which is every day engrossing more and
more of public attention. To us there seems to be something wanting in the public sen-
timent, and in the legislation of Maryland and other Southern States, to attract capital
from the great commercial emporiums more into the country. Each county should have
its little woollen factory and savings bank, ready to lend money to industrious mechanics,
and manufacturers, and farmers, to buy materials, and imjilements, and lime, and ma-
nures. Something should be done — we can't exactly say what — to resist the centripetal
force which draws all the surplus labor, all the surplus population, and all the surplus
capital from the country into one great commercial city. It would be far better for a State to
have ten towns scattered over it, of 10,000 inhabitants each, than to have 100,000 in one
corner of the State. In the first case, almost every man would have the loom and the
anvil near his plough. He could supply his consumer with little or no loss of time, or
cost of transportation. In the last case, the cost of going and coming, of sending and
fetching, consumes a great part of his substance. Let the constant study of the farmer
and planter be — to draw the manufacturer to the side of the agriculturist. Let such be
the spirit and tendency of all legislation that bears on the landed interest.

502 COMMON SENSE IN THE UNION.

"COMMON SENSE" IN "THE UNION."
During three years of laborious attention, ensuing the 4th of March, 1844,
while conducting the Farmers' Library, in New York, with anxiety for its
success, the greater as our pay was specific, and otherwise satisfactory, our
old friend Ritchie, of the Union, could never find time to bestow on our
Jabors one word of editorial sympathy and encouragement, although he often
expressed, and doubtless felt a wish to do so. As, however, it was obvious
he had much higher objects to look after, there was left to us only the mortifi-
cation never to be able to command a single friendly pat on the back, with a
word of benediction, from an old brother chip of the press — the more rea-
sonably to be expected, as then, at least, we had given no political offence by
attempting, as now, to reconcile the interests and combine the influence of
our countrymen, working at " The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil." On
the contrary, during the period referred to, under a sense of responsibility
for the interests of others, which we had no right to put in jeopardy by
mingling political opinions with practical instruction, we had so held on the
even tenor of our neutral way, as to elicit, gratefully be it acknowledged,
expressions of good-will from a great number of leading presses politically
affiliated with the Union — so much so, that, vain as it turned out to be, the
hope was not altogether unnatural, that these expressions reaching it from so
many friendly sources, might move the great central organ to echo some of
them on a low key — anyhow ! Well, at the termination of that three years'
engagement, feeling the hand of time beginning to press more heavily, and
seeing not a " shot in the locker" for a rainy day, we determined to launch
a smaller bark on our own hook, and in it put afloat once more, in the hope
that, with untiring industry in the cause of those who believe Avith us in the
natural friendliness of the plough, the loom, and the anvil, some further ser-
vice may yet be rendered to them all, and especially to the first; and some-
thing be yet garnered up in the way of a little property for the down-hill of
life. This might seem presumptuous, but had we not seen older and not
more diligent — though it may be more skilful and lucky chaps, empowered
to furl their sails at the going down of the sun, hop ashore, and snapping
their fingers in the very face of Miss Fortune, sit down and laugh at the
vicissitudes of political life, with ample means to enjoy all the luxuries of
sense and all the pleasures of imagination ? Didn't we, in fact, hear Col.
Wilder, presiding at the late magnificent Horticultural Festival in Boston,
relate how a gentleman, even at threescore-and-ten, being laughed at for com-
mencing to plant fruit trees, answered that he felt bound to discharge the
debt he owed to his predecessors ; and actually lived, for many years, to en-
joy the dehcious fruits of his septuagenary plantations !

As now, however, we were heretically attempting to bring about a union
of the American plough, loom, and anvil, we abandoned, of course, all hope
of a kind word for our enterprise from the " Union " aforesaid ; but, tugging
at the oar, and asking only for bread, Avhat was our surprise to have, from
the sling of our old friend, a great stone cast with violence by some powerful
hand, at our little bark, with obvious intent to crush it at a single throw, de-
nouncing its contents as a baggage of absurd — ridiculous — preposterous —
nonsense ! — made up of infectious contraband, to be eschewed by the very
class of our fellow-citizens for whom we have been laboring, through good
and evil fortune, all our lives ! A worse than wooden horse, pregnant with
doctrines deserving only the countenance of that odious class of monopohzers
(the manufacturers) whose very position and calling it is, by the bye, to
demand and fashion the raw material, and to pay for and consume, the pro-
ducts of the planter and the farmer, whose true interests we are endeavor-
ing to promote !

COMMON SENSE IN THE UNION. 503

For this compendious denunciation of the Plough, the Loom, and the
Anvil, by the correspondent of the Union, some comfort may be found, how-
ever, in the very many approvals which every day brings, similar to the
following, from the Hon. Caleb Smith, of the House of Representatives :

" The only sound principle of political economy is that which ycru so ably advocate —
to place the Loom and the Anvil in the immediate vicinity of the Plough, that the pro-
ducts of the earth may be converted into the various forms which the wants of the com-
munity demand, without the waste of labor required to trans]Jort them to remote points
to etfect this conversion, and return them in their varied forms to supply the wants of the
consumer."

Such is the doctrine which we must still be allowed to advocate until con-
vinced of our error, if error it be ; and " Common Sense" may rest assured
that if he wishes to arrest its progress, particularly in the South and JVest, he
must be up and doing; for, although some half-dozen, in Virginia particu-
larly, atnong whom the Union circulates, as it does everywhere, have fol-
lowed his advice to let go the handles of "the plough," at least fifty others,
for one of these, have come to take hold of them ; and if ever there was,
within our observation, a revolution of public sentiment at work on any
subject, there is one in progress in the South and West in favor of a policj'-
■which shall compel the light machines of conversion to come and take their
place by the great and expensive machine of production. One has onh^ to
look at the public journals to see that this sentiment has been gathering,
like a young storm, within the last six months. Vires acquiret eundo. The
people begin to see that that is " comirion sense," and it will require some-
thing more than old stereotyped assertions to arrest it.

Never having been favored by the Union in the way of an " exchange,"
even with a weekly, it was only after several weeks, and then by mere
chance, that our attention was called to this attack on our journal that ap-
peared in it on the 17th of December last, under the signature of" CoiDmi-n
Sense." Every part of our February number is at this moment in the hands
of the printer, and a large portion of it in type, and it is therefore impossible
to bestow upon him any thing like measure for measure.

It was the " common sense" of the people who lived in ante-revolutionary
times that induced them to protest against the colonial system, by aid of
which Great Britain was to be made the workshop of the world. It was
"common sense" that taught them that under a system which separated the
plough, the loom, and the anvil, they must ever remain poor, as have Canada
and all the other colonies of Great Britain, and therefore it was that they made
the Revolution. It was " common sense" that prompted the earliest adminis-
tration of the government to desire to protect American industry. It was
"common sense" that led the patriot Jefferson to see how indispensable it
was that the manufacturer should take his place by the side of the agricul-
turist. It was " common sense" that prompted South Carolina to adopt the
system of protection at the close of the war of 1812. " Common sense"
made the tariff of 1828. "Common sense" taught the people that they
were ruined under the Compromise Act, and made the tariff of 1842.
"Common sense" it is that is now at work to alter the tariff of 1840, and
thus enable the planter and farmer to enjoy that real freedom of trade which
results from making their exchanges with their neighbors, who consume on
the land the products of the land, rather than that bustard freedom of trade
by which men are compelled to depend on foreign markets, and to pray for
potato rots, that they may find a market for their surplus corn.

1'he z/n-" common sense" of the few is at war with the " common sense"
of the many. It repealed the tariff of 1842, and it would sustain that of
1846, in defiance of the experience of the present year. We go for the
" common sense" of mankind, against the uncommon sense of those who

r)04 COMMON SENSE IN THE UNION.

would direct them, and therefore it is that we advocate the policy by aid of
which the farmer and planter shall be enabled to return to the land the
refuse of its products, with constantly increasing return to his labor, rather
than that which tends to compel him first to exhaust his land and then to
run away himself, as the people of Virginia and South Carolina are now
doing.

In due season we shall return to this subject. In the mean time, how-
ever, we would suggest to our friend " Common Sense" [he should change
his signature to Uncommon Sense,] that he should read the questions
appended to an article in our January number, and qualify himself to answer
them. A more careful study of the subject, Avould, we believe, satisfy him
that the course advocated by this journal is the one that would most tend to
improve the condition, physical, moral, and political, of the people of the
Union. There are more things in this world than are as yet " dreamt of
in his philosophy."

P. S. — To the exclusion of some prepared matter, we beg leave to refer
to the notice of" Common Sense" the following extracts, much more to his
taste than any thing we could say. They are from an able and ingenuous
work on the agriculture and resources of the British Colonies, written by a
loyal subject of the crown, on the very eve of that Revolution which, while
it made us independent in name, left us, for certain national ends, from that
day to this, more or less subject to the colonial policy of the mother country.
If the mantle of this author has not fallen on " Common Sense" of the Union,
it would be difiicult to say who can show better title to it. The doctrine of
both leads precisely to the same result, to wit : to " carrying off the surplus
population from the central and northern colonies," and thus " keep off the
dangerous rivalship which there is much reason [for England] to fear from
the manufactures and commerce of the northern colonies." The danger,
let her and let "Common Sense" be assured, is now as great from the
Southern and Western States, as then they were from the northern colonies,
and Avhen that danger shall have been consummated, we shall then, and
only then, cease to be colonies.

The author had been advocating the policy of opening new countries and
encouraging emigration to the West ; and, for that purpose, recommended
that government should provide means at Fort Pitt : but our canals and
railroads, and the Tariff of 184G, and the doctrine of "Common Sense," are
far more efficient — and hence the paralysis cf all the old Atlantic States.

"In case of such a settlement being mad'-, the whole vahiable part of that continent,
the southern division of it, would then be in the tlesirable state of improvement: the
population, from being so spread round a great extent of frontier, would increase without
giving the least cause of jealousy to liritnin, land would not oidy be plentiful, but plen-
tiful wb.ere our people wanted it; whereas at present, the population of our colonies,
especially the central ones, is confined; they have spread over all the space between the
sea and the mountains, the consequence of which is, that land is become scarce, that
which is good having become all planted or patented, the people therefore find them-
selves too numcrmts for their agrinillurc. ichirh is the frst step to be nninvfacturcrs. that step
which Britain has so much reason to dread* Nothing therefore can be more political, than to
])rovide a superabundance of colonies to take off all those people that lind a want of land
in our old settlements; and it may not be one or two tracts of country that will answer
this purpose; provisicju sliould be made for the convenience of some, the inclinations of
others, and every measure taken to inform the people of the colonies that were growing
too populous, that land was plentiful in other ])lnces, and granted on the easiest terms;
and if such inducements were not fbimd snfhficMit ibr thiiniins: the country considerably,
government shinilil by all means be at a part of the expense of traiiyportins; them. Notice should
be given that sloops shoidd ulu-uys be ready at Fort Pitt, or as much hi'^hcr on the Ohio as it is

* Is not the correspondent of the Union of the same opinion ?

NEW YORK CANAL TRADE. 505

navis;abk, for carrying all families, without expense, to whatever settlements they choose-
on the Ohio or the Mississippi. Such measures, or similar ones, would carry off that
surplus of population in the central and tu»ihern colonies, which has been, and will every day be
more and more the foundation of their mannfactiires. They never could establish such
fabrics, whil^ the plenty of good land in a good climate was so great as to afford every
man an opportunity of settling-, for while that was the case, none would let themselves
as workmen in a manufacture. Consistent widi these ideas, we see that those colonies
where the good land is most pientifid in a good climate, the manufactures are trifling, or
none to be found, which is the case witli the tobacco colonies and with the southern ones;;
but in the northern settlements, where these circumstances are different, we there find,
many fabrics.*

'• Notlnng can be more fortunate than the navigation of the Ohio quite to the Apala-
chean mountains, at the back of the centre of all our colonies, since by that means people-
may, with only a small or a moderate journey, arrive at a navigation that will carry them
through all that iinmense tract which we may in future colonize, a part of which we are-
now about to settle, and yet more of which I am urging the propriety of likewise settling.
Were it not for this vn<t navigation, to the very spot almost that one wijuld wish to have
it, there would be difficuhies in the people getting to the countries we wanted them to
settle in; but as we possess this great advantage, it would be unpardonable not to make
effectual use of it, in case the establishment of new colonies did not of itself draw the
■•A'hole surplus of population away from those provinces, ^/le numbers in which want so much
to be tkinned.f

'•Nor is the advantage of drawing off people from the northern colonies confined to
the prevention of manufactures ; it is further of vast consequence to take them from coun-
tries that produce nothing valuable in a British market, and fix them in others abounding
with staples of high importance to the commerce and manufectures of the mothei- cmintry:
this single idea ought to be the corner-stone of all the regulations and measures adopted by this
country in her transactions with America; and if it is well i:)ursued in future, will keep off
the dangerous rivalship, which there is so much reason to fear, from the manufactures and com/-
tnercc of the norlltern colonics."

New York Canal Trade. — The Albany Evening Journal gives the following official
statement of the articles which have arrived at the Hudson River by all the canals
during the last four years.

The following is a comparative statement of the aggregate value of the articles :

1846. 1847. 184S.

The Forest, . . . $8,589,-291 $8,798,373 $16,994,45^

Agriculture, . . . 33.662,818 54.6-24.849 37,336,390

Manufactures, . . . 4,80-5,799 C,024..518 3,S34,360

Merchandise, . . . 276.872 517,i594 593.61f>

Other articles, . . . 3,770,466 3,127,080 2,210,623'

Total, . . . #51,105,256 $73,092,414 $50,960,461

There has been a steady increase in bacon, cheese-, and butter.

Bacon, . . . ll>s. 4,000,500 4,902,000 8,1S3,285

Cheese, ..." 35,560,118 40,844,000 43,278,526-

Butter, ..." 21,477,657 22,724,000 23,729,997

While flour, wheat, rye, and corn fell oft" in 1848, barley steadily increased — as in

1S46. 1847. 1848.

1,427,953 1,528,090 1,548,197

Wool flucttxated most in

1S46. 1847. 1848.

8,866,376 12,044,000 8,529,331 '

* So we are going to find many fabrics in tlie South and West, or there is no truth in
the signs of the times. The Nordiern States (the^i ceasing to be colonies) are going to
make our laces and fine fabrics of wool, and cotton, and silk — wliile the North and West
will make their ow^n coarser fabrics.

The very best of negro clothing is now made at Augusta, Georgia. The ball is rollings

•j- So probably thinks our friend " Common Sense."
Vol. I.— 64 2 U

506

ELEMENTS OF AGRICULTURE.

ELEMENTS OF AGRICULTURE,

For the use of Piimary ami Secondary Srhools. Translated from the French, by F. G. Skinxer,
Junior Editor of the ^^ Plough, the Loom, and the Jtnid."

By the well-known and popular house, Messrs. Carey & Hart, (the pub-
lisliers,) a copy of this little work has been laid on our table for examination,
and we have not the slightest hesitation in saying, with entire confidence,
that it is one of the books which has been wanting for the sons of planters
and fanners, and ought to be in the hands of every boy in the country, who
can read, and has sufficient capacity to understand the siiriplest propositions.

It differs Irom other catechisms, and is new in this important particular —
that instead of being gotten up in the form of question and answer, thus
allowing room for the matter to be committed to memory without being un-
derstood ; in this case the information is first given, and at the end is a series
of questions, so skilfully framed as to draw from the pupil such answers as
cannot fail to show that he has or has not studied the chapter ivith attention.
This will be better understood by giving a single Lesson, as for example :

THE DIFFERENT OBJECTS EXISTING IN NATURE.

8. The art of agriculture requires some knowledge of the diii'erent objects that exist
upon the surface, and in the interior of the earth. It presupposes, consequently, some
acquaintance vv-ith natural history, and principally with botany, a science that treats of
plants and their properties.

9. All bodies that exist upon the surface, or in the interior of the earth, are divided
into three classes, called the kingtloms of nature, namely : 1. The animal kingdom, which
includes man and all animals. 2. The vegetable kingdom, in which are included al
vegetables, from the largest tree to the smallest plant. 3. The mineral kingiloni,to wliicli
belong all rocks, stones, earths, and metals.

10. Among the beings that exist, some are endowed with life, such as men, animals,
vegetables, or plants; tlie others are inanimate, or without liie, as minerals, rocks, earths,
&c. The first are called organic bodies; the second, inorganic bodies.

11. The organs are those parts of a body created for the maintenance of life.

12. It is easy to establish the distinction that exists between the beings of the three
kingdoms. Those that belong to the animal kingdom grow, live, feel, and are gifteilwitli
the faculty of moving themselves, or locomotion. Those of the vegetable kingdom grow,
and live; a proof of this last property is the faculty that they possess of nourishing and
reproducing themselves. Those of the mineral kingdom grow only, and this growth takes
place in a manner contrary to that of organized bodies. These last increase always from
the interior to the exterior, whereas minerals increase by tlie addition to their surface of
small panicles that adhere to them.

13. The life of animals and vegetables exhibits a difference worthy of remark: it is
that vegetables seem to be endowed with the reproductive power in all their parts.
Thus, when the limb of a tree is cut off and planted in the earth, it may produce another
tree. Tliis is not the case with animals.

14. Minerals, and other brute bodies, united in large masses in the bosom of the earth,
form rocks that are in a continual state of decomposition. The particles derived froin
this decomposition constitute, by their mixture with organic remains, the different species
of soil that are cultivated. In other words, soils are composed of a tnixture of organic and
inorganic remains.

QcESTioNs. — 1. The art of agriculture presupposes a knowledge of what? 2. AVhatis
botany ? 3. Into how many kingdoms is nature divided? 4. What are organic and in-
organic bodies? 5. What are organs? 6. How do we distinguish between the beings of
the three kingdoms ? 7. How do inorganic bodies increase ? 8. Wliat remark can be
made upon animal and vegetable life ?

The whole work is thus divided :

Part First. — General Notions on the .^rt of Cultivating the Soil, and of the different Ob-
jects that e.rist in Nature. — Divisions in the Art of Cultivation. — The different Objects
existing in Nature.

Vegetable Anatomy and Physiology. — The Organs of Plants. — The Root. — The Stem and

ELEMENTS OF AGRICULTURE. 507

Leaves — Functions that they fulfil in the Act of Nutrition. — The Organs of Reiiroduction.
— Fruit. — Germination. — Moral Reflection!?.

The Reproduction of Vegetables. — Reproduction by Generation. — Re])roduction by Propa-
gation— Layering. — Multiplication of Plants by Grafting. — Lroculating.

Part Second. — General Consideration of the Soil. — The Causes that Aflect the Value of
the Soil. — The Mineral Parts of the Soil. — Silex, or Silica. — Clay. — Carbonate of Lime. —
Plaster, JMarl, Magne.~ia, Iron. — The Organic Parts of the Soil. — The Formation of Humus,
and its Properties. — The Action of Humus in the Soil.

The Physical Properties of Soil. — Te.xture and Depth of the Soil. — Situation of tl:e Sur-
face.— Sul)soil. — The Effects of Climate on Vegetation. — The Effect of Climate upon Cul-
tivation and upon Animal Economy.

Part Third. — Amelioratms. — General Vievi^s of Manures, Ameliorators, and Stimulants.
— Liming Land.s, or the Use of Lime as an Ameliorator. — Marl as an Ameliorator. —
Clay and Sand as Ameliorators.

Stimulants. — Ashes. — Plaster. — Paring and Burning.

Manures. — Formation, Composition, and Action of Manures. — Litter, and Liquid Jlanures.
— ]\Ianagement of Manure. — Varietiesof Manure. — Folding Sheep. — Animalized JNlanures.
^Vegetable Manures.

Finally, we have no hesitation in adopting- the Preface of tne translator, as
indicative of the nature and value of the " Elements" before us :

When it is considered that a very large majority of the millions who are constantly in
training at our country schools are to be cultivators of the soil, and that on their gen'efal
intelligence, with some knowledge of the principles of their own profession, must in a
great measure depend, not only the prosperity of American agriculture, but the perma-
nence of our free institutions; every lover of his country must reflect with regret on the
want of more diffusive and perfect systems of general education, and especially on the
absence of a plain, intelligible, elementary work on the principles of agrimllure, for the use of
our common schools. This want, it is now confidently believed, has been sujiplied by
what is here oflered, entitled "Elements of AGniccLTunE Fon the Use of Common
Schools," which has lately appeared in France, under the auspices of the department for
public instruction, and been sanctioned, As will be seen, by the strong recommenda-
tion of men of the highest distinction and authority for learning and benevolence.

Tliislittle work is purely elementary in its character, and so plainly written, that while
the principles are brought within the comprehension of children who have attained their
twelfth year, it cannot fail to be entertaining and auxiliary, if not instructive to their
teachers. If in itself it does not make those who study it accomplished agriculturists, it
will at least pave the way for their becoming such, by explaining the rudiments of those
sciences with which Agriculture is naturally connected.

As will be perceived, by reference to the table of contents, the work is divided into
three Parts. Tlie first treats of Natural History, explaining, in a clear and simple
manner, the difierence between Organic and Inorganic Substances, Animal and Vege-
table Life, Vegetable Reproduction, &c. The Second Part treats, in like perspicuous and
intelligible style, of Clijiate, and its effects upon animal and vegetable life. Mineral
Manures, more properly called by the French writers ameliorators, and Animal and
Vegetable Manures, with their management and application, make nj) the Third Part.
Finally, it has been slightly modified, as was needed, to adapt it to the soil and climate
of the United States.

This little work, destined, as we believe, to find its way into every school
in the Union, is very appropriately

" Dedicated, by the Translator, with unaffected respect, and a hioh sense
of the true dignity of their profession, to the teachers of youth in the
United States : the followers of a pursuit the most responsible and honorable
when properly understood ; and yet, in proportion to its importance, the
least honored and the worst paid, of all others."

In this instance there can be no objection on the score of cost, since the
price is, as already stated, but twenty-five cents.

We will send it to any one who will remit us one, two, or five subscribers
to " The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil." The postage will be 4 or 5 cents.

508 CORN PRODUCING CAPACITY OF CLARKE COUNTY, VA.
CORN-PRODUCING CAPACITY OF CLARKE COUNTY, VIRGINIA.

To the Editors of the Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil :

Gentlemen : — While looking over the Alexandria Gazette, some time since, I was
struck with an account of a great crop of corn, grown by Mr. Blair, near Washington,
D. C. It has given me a desire to inform you (who I suppose take an interest in such
tilings) of the product of some of our Clarke lands. To commence, I will give an
account of what I consider a most remarkable crop of corn, grown by myself, in 184C,
upon 1"2^ acres of land, rented of Mrs. P., (a neighbor of mine.) and for which I agreed
to pay one half in case the crop amounted to 10 bushels or more ; if less, two-fifths.
The lot had been used as a meadow for twelve years, the timothy had given place to a
sward of English grass. It was ploughed in the latter part of March, as deep, and the
slice turned as fiat as could be done, with one of our large three-horse Barshear ploughs,
than which there can be no better for our limestone country. It was harrowed twice,
once with the furrow, and again diagonally. It was then laid off 4^ feet, the rows run-
ning north and south, care being taken not to disturb the sward. The corn was rolled
in plaster and dropped as near 2^ feet in the row as could be guessed at. The season
being very fine, we were not particular in thinning, so that in many places there were
four stalks left in the hill. W^ith the exception of a little corner, in which we ran a few
furrows one evening, (not that it was wanted, but because we had not anything better to
do, having just finished working our own crop,) it was not touched by any implement
during the season. Although it was a very wet summer, and the neighboring fields
exceedingly grassy, when the corn was cut olf of this lot, there was not a spire of grass
or a weed to be seen, and the land was as light as an ash-bank, so to speak. When the
corn was gathered I gave to Mrs. P. one half, which amounted to 100 bushels of good
corn, besides several of nublins. So much for 1846 : now for 1848. There is an
island in Shenandoah river, containing within the enclosure, (which i^ of stone,) 103
acres, of which, 2 acres produced 100 bushels of oats; 51 acres produced 1530 bushels
of wheat; 50 acres produced 400 bushels of corn, which is not an average crop for the
land. The island belongs to Mr. G. H. B., whose word I have for what is stated above.
(3Ir. G. H. B. was for many years a subscriber to the American Turf Register, and is
perhaps known to you.)

Now, Messrs. Editors, you see what we can do with the plough, and Col. Ware showed
you at the Baltimore Fair what we are doing in the way of sheep. If you will come on
next Fall, we will be most happy to give you an opportunity to judge of them in the shape
of grass-fed saddles, in which it is thought we excel. Hoping that you may be the means,
tlu-ough your valuable journal, of bringing the loom and the anvil to the plough,

I am your subscriber, and obedient servant, Nathaniel Buhwell, Jr.

3Iill Wood, Clarke County, Va., December 2G, 1848.

We should like to know from the intelligent and respected writer of the above account
— perspicuous and interesting as it is — what was the kind of corn cultivated, and what
is the usual price of land in that region ? Is their corn usually sent to market, and at
what distance, and kind, and cost of transportation per bushel, or is it converted for the
most part into beef and mutton? Do they corn feed through the winter the bullocks
brought down from Monroe, Bath, and Greenbriar, and other counties? What is the
usual time and cost of buying these bullocks? How long are they fed with corn — and
with what quantity — and at what cost? What per centage is usually added to the
weight of the bullock, and is any account taken of the value of his manure, and what is
it estimated at? Being fed on corn, it ought to be very rich. In England they feed on
oil cake, for the sake of the additional value to the maautre : otherwise, and without
reference to that, they would not go to the expense. But such is their estimate of the
value of oil cake manure, that, the incoming tenant is required to pay one half of the oil
cake bill, fed to cattle that he never saw, on account of the benefit of the manure which'
is to enure to him, and which was provided by the outgoing tenant ! Has any one in
this country made any practical inquiry into these matters ? If not, ought it not to be
done? — or does it become farmers to go on acting the part of unreasoning beings, fijliow-
ing in the exact wake of those who went before, even though the course should lead to
deterioration of lands and dispersion of the cultivators of lands? Do, gentlemen, friends
of Clarke county, of whom we had the pleasure to see and make acquaintance, some at
the White Sulphur in 1847 — let us liear from you on these subjects. Do you still think
you can compete with Albemarle in the skill and in the productiveness of your hus-
bandry? We ask for information. Editors P. L. & A.

P. S. — Can there be a more superfluous expenditure of the small means at command
nf Agricultural Societies than to go on offering premiums for large crojjs on single acres.
Would not premiums fur the best answers to such questions, for instance, as we have
here hastily put, be more useful ?

ADDRESS TO THE PLANTERS OF HANCOCK CO. 509

ADDRESS TO THE PLANTERS OF HANCOCK CO., GA.

" To the Planters of the Cotton Growing Stales. — The time has at last arrived, and which
might liave been foreseen, when you are obliged to look into your condition ; and if you
desire to better it, the examination must be thorough. For many years after the cidtiva-
tion of cotton became the chief object of Southern agriculture, money invested in land,
negroes, mules, &c., made better returns of profits than its legal interest, or than labor
applied to most other objects of industry. This is far from being the fact now; and it is
this depreciation of the value of our labor, compared to the value of labor applied to
other objects and by other peo])le, that makes it our duty to look for the cause and find
a remedy if we can, luiless, indeed, we are willing to sacrifice our property and lose our
equal position among the States. It sometimes happens that men sufler themselves to be
brought to the brink of ruin because the approach is so slow as to be almost imperceptible ;
and even then, when seen and felt, rather live upon the hope that the times will change,
than by a vigorous examination of the remedy, retrieve their prosperity.

"The planters of the cotton growing States for years have seen their lands growing
poorer, and the price of their staple product gradually declining. Like the ebb tide, every
receding wave leaves the sandy beach a little more exposed ; and unlike the tide in this,
that there will be no reflux wave of prosperity if our agricultural policy is unchanged.

"We flatter ourselves that the political troubles which now interrupt the regular labor
of all Europe, are the causes of the present depressed price of our cotton. Li this we
deceive ourselves; the effect is but a shade in the price. As all experience proves that
the price or value of any commodity whatever depends upon the quantity produced and
the demand for it. If all the tillers of the earth were to produce bread, it would have
very little exchangeable value, and this is more certainly true of every article of less im-
portance ; and so if we continue to increase the quantity of cotton, the price will coiuinue
to decline. To understand effects from causes, we must avoid fallacies : and that of ex-
pecting better prices when Europe shall become tranquil, is shown by the fact that the
article had been for a series of years declining before her present troubles began. The
true cause of the depressed, if not ruinoits, condition of cotton planters, is therefore clear
enough, the over-production; and to this cause may be referred the fact within our expe-
rience that large crops uniformly lower the i^rice, and short ones increase it. We need
not find fault with the English or French, or the New Englander, (if anybody has been
silly enough to do so.) for buying our cotton at 4^ cents instead of 15 cents — it is our own
folly and over-production that is the cause.

"If we intend to recover our former prosperity, and preserve even the present value of
our lands and negroes, we must understand not only our present condition, but what it
is likely to be in future. The inquiry may very properly begin with our lands, for they
are the most important, and we may take for granted the fact never yet disputed and in-
controvertible, that no country can long continue to be prosperous where the system of
agriculture practised by its people uniformly, year by year, impoverislies the soil. What
would have been the present condition of England, Belgium, Germany, and our Northern
States under our system of cultivating the earth 1 We can best answer the question by
taking a survey of our own country, which will tell our future history.

" The lands of the Southern States, taken as a whole, including that portion of the valley
of the Mississippi properly southern, when first settled were more valuable (latitude,
climate, soil and extent considered,) than those of any other country. To be within the
bounds of truth, they would produce (with bad tillage) 30 bushels of Indian corn and
8 or 10 cwt. of seed cotton per acre; less than half a century has reduced their pro-
ductiveness in the older States to 12 bushels of corn and 3 or 4 cwt. of cotton. Continue
the same destructive system, judge of the future by the effects of the past, and om- pro-
gress to ruin will be accelerated as our lands are impoverished, and in a few years we
shall be ready if not compelled to abandon the country. But it inaybe said, as has often
been said and done by the planter, that he will continue to make cotton, to buy more
negroes, to make more cotton; and when his jilantation is totally ruined, move to Ala-
bama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and finally to Texas. Shall we delude ourselves by resort-
ing to this merely temp"brary expedient? for in truth it is no remedy, as it increases for a
time the quantity of cotton, and does not restore the M'orn-out lands. But if it benefited
the emigrant from the old State temporarily, a moment's reflection will show its utter in-
sufficiency to meet our case. The same agriculttn-al folly and improvidence which has
impoverished the lands of the older cotton growing States, is already felt in Alabama,
and will most certainly produce the same result in all the cotton growing States. The
time may therefore be computed from Georgia and Carolina statistics, and is not very
distant, when we shall be presented with the startling fact that we can produce neither
corn nor cotton."

2 u2

510 DAIRY COWS.

The above extract from an address to the planters of Hancock County,
Georgia, is worthy of the most earnest attention of all our agricultural
readers, whether engajred in the raising of cotton, or tobacco, or wheat, or
Indian corn. It exhibits a fair view of the course of operation througiiout
the whole of this vast country. Every thing that is raised on the land is
sold from off the land, and it and its owner become impoverished together.
Constant taking out of the meal-bag and putting nothing in, soon brings a
man to the bottom.

It is urged that every man shall raise less cotton, but something must be
substituted. Were it not, the remedy would be worse than the disease.
What then shall it be ? Indian corn? Of that there is already a super-
abiindance, and it is too bulky to go to distant markets. Wherever the earth
yields largely, the product must be eaten on the ground, or it is worthless.
The planter cannot raise potatoes, or turnips, or carrots, of all of which the
earth yields by hundreds of bushels, because he has nobody at hand to con-
sume them. Give him a consuming population, and he will obtain as many
bushels of those commodities as he now obtains of /joimrfs of cotton, and then
he will make the poor land rich by aid of the manure yielded by the food
produced on rich ones. Population makes the food come from the rich soils.
Let every planter commit to memory this single sentence, and let him unite
with his neighbors in this effort to procure the adoption of the measures re-
quired for bringing the loom and the anvil to take their natural places by the
side of the plough and the harrow. Let him do this, and he will find the
growth in the home-consumption of cotton so rapid that in a little time he
will be enabled to obtain {or half the quantity sent abroad larger returns
than he now has for the whole. The talk about over-production will then
cease, for he will then enjoy that real freedom of trade which consists :n
applying his land and his labor to the production of either food or cotton,
instead of being, as now, compelled to flood the world with cotton, because of
his inability to raise any thing else, and to receive for it five cents per pound,
instead of the ten that he would have were he less dependent on its culti-
vation.

DAIRY COWS.
As to the best breed of cows for the dairy, I should say, from some ex-
perience, that a good Alderney will equal, if not surpass, any other breed ;
I have two, mother and daughter, (the latter I bred, and is a beautiful animal
and has now her second calf;) they produce together upwards of 400 lbs.
of good yellow butter in 12 months, and the skim-milk is as good as new
from some cows ; generally, the cream churns sooner, and the butter is
primer than from most other breeds. I have a six months' old calf from the
old Alderney by a thorough-bred short-horned bull, which promises to make
a fine cow ; it has most of the properties of a good dairy cow, with a touch
equal to a thorough-bred short-horn. I think, for quantity and qualit}^
there is no kind of cattle that will surpass a good Alderney, (not even an
Ayrshire,) or a cross with a good thorough-bred short-horned bull, for dairy
purposes : this cross will also be found to feed well when done with for the
dairy. I do not breed from my heifers until they are about two years old,
and the)r are kept well, but not expensively. I know nothing of the Kerry
breed, but should imagine they are more suitable to their poor native soil
than good, rich grazing land ; at least, I think they would not pay either for
dairy or butcher for the extra good keep. A good sow or two are indispen-
sable where cows are kept ; they have been very profitable the last few
years. T. Q. W. R.

ON FARM MANAGEMENT.

511

THE CHEESE TRADE.

It is said that the following particulars are
autJientic, and may be relied on.

The Western Reserve Chronicle says, —
By a reference to the books at the canal
olfice, we are enabled to state the amount
cleaa-ed for market during the last six years,
viz. :

1842
1843
1844

Lbs.
1,23U,1C)S
2,415,177
3,944,404

1845
1S4G

1847

Lbs.

2,995,370
4.763,723
6,599,170

The Albriny Journal gives tbe following
statement of the amount of cheese received
at Albany and Troy during the past twelve
years :

1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841

Lbs.

14,060,000
15,500,000
13,810,000
14,530.000
18,820,000
14,170,000

1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847

Lbs.
19.004,000
24,331,000
26,677,500
27,542,861
35.560,180
40,814.000

The following are a part of the exportations
of cheese from the State of Ohio :

Lbs.
Trumbull . . . 4,000,000

Portage .... 2,000,000
Geauga .... 250,000

Madison .... 200,000

Aslitabula . . . 5,000,000

Five counties, . . 11,450,000
It appears, then, that the State must export

at least twelvemillionsof pounds of cheese —

probably much more.

Of butter, the counties engaged in exporting

are much more numerous. The following

are part:

Lbs.
Carroll .... 75,000

Crawford . , , 200^000

Geauga . . . 50,000

Harrison . . . 250,000

Hancock . . , 35,000

Huron . , . 100,000

Musldngum . . . 200^000

Morgan . . . 20,000

Trumbull . , . 160,000

Nine counties, . . 1,020,000

The export of the State is probably about
four milbons of pounds. The dairy products
of Ohio are, therefore, very large.

ON FARM MANAGEMENT.

Prize Essay — By J. J. Thomas.

The great importance of performing- in the
fcest manner, the different operations of agricul-
Inre. is obvious to every intcllia-ent mind, for on
this depends die success of farming. But a trood
performauce of single operations merely, does

not constitute the best farmer. The perfection
of the art, consists not only in doins^ everything
well, individually, but in a proper adjustment
and systematic arrangement of all the parts, so
that they shall be done, not only in the best man-
ner and at the right time, but with the most ef-
fective and economical expenditure of labor and
money. Every thinir must move on with clock-
v/ork regularity, \vithout interference, even at
the most busy seasons of the year.

As this subject includes the whole routine of
farming, in a collected view, as well as in its
separate details, a treatise upon it might be made
to till volumes ; but this being necessarily con-
fined to a few pages, a general outline, ■'A'ith
some remarks on its more essential parts, can
only be given.

Capital. — The first requisite in all undertak-
ings of magnitude, is to " count the co.st." The
man ^vho commences a building, which to finish
would cost ten thousand dollars, with a capital
of only five thousand, is as certainly niined, as
many farmers are, who, without counting the
cost, commence on a scale to which their limited
ineans are wholly inadequate. One of the
greatest mistakes which young farmers make in
this countiy, in their anxious wish for large pos-
sessions, i.s, not only in purchasing more land
than they can pay for, but in the actual expen-
diture of all their means, without leaving any
even to beqin the great work of farming. Hence,
the farm continues for a long series of years
poorly provided with stock, with implements,
with manure, and with the necessary labor. —
From this heavj' drawback on the profits of his
land, the fanner is kept long in debt ; the bur-
then of which not only disheartens him, but pre-
vents that enterprise and energy -s\'bich are es-
.sential to success. This is one fruitful reason
why American agriculture is in many places in
so low a state. A close observer, in traveling
through the country, is thus enabled often to de-
cide from the appearances of the buildings and
premises of each occupant, whether he is in or
out of debt.

In England — where the enormous taxes of
different kinds, imperiou.sly comjiel the cultiva-
tor to fai-m well, or not farm at all — the indispen-
sable necessity of a heavy capital to begin with,
is fully understood. The man who merely renf.st
a fanii there must possess as nuich to stock it
anil commence operations, as the man vs'ho buys
and pays for a farm of equal size in the best
pai'ts of western New-York. The result is, that
he is enabled to do every thing in the best man-
ner; he is not compelled to bring his goods pre-
maturely to market, to supply his pressing
wants ; and by having ready money always at
command, he can perform every operation at
the very best .season for product and economy,
and make purchases, when necessary, at the
most advantageous rate. The English fanner ia
thus able to pay an amount of tax, often more
than the whole product of farms of equal extent
in this country.

The importance of possessing the means of
doing every thing at exactly the ri?,d)t season,
cannot be too highly appreciated. One or two
illustrations may .set this in a clearer light. Two
farmers had each a crop of nita-baga.s, of an
acre each. The finst, by hoeing his crop early,
while the weeds were only an inch high, accom-
plished the task with two days work, and the
young plants then grew vigorously and yielded
a heavy return. Tlie .second, being prevented
by a deficiency of help, had to defer his hoeing

612

ON FARM MANAGEMENT.

one week, aud tlicn three days more, by rainy
■weather, miikiiig ten days in all. During this
time, the weeds had sprung up six to ten inches
high, so as to require, instead of two days, no
less than six days to hoe them ; and so much
was the growth of the crop checked at this early
Stage, that the owner had li'O hu.'^hels lesson his
.acre, than the fanner who took time by the fore-
lock. Anotlier instance occun-ed with an intel-
ligent farmer of this State, who raised two fields
of oats on land of similar quality. One field
■was sown very early aud well put in, and yield-
ed a good profit. The other was delayed twelve
days, and then burried ; aud although the crop
•was within two-thirds of the amount of the
former, vet that difterence was just the clear
profit of tlie first crop ; so that with the latter,
the amount yielded only paid the expenses.

Admitting tliat the farm is already purchased
and paid lor, it becomes an object to know what
else is needed, and at what cost, before cxiltiva-
*ion is commenced. If the buildings and fences
are what tliey should be, which is not often the
case, little immediate outlay will be needed for
them. B ut if not, then an estimate must be made
of the intended improvements and the necessary
sum allotted for them. These being all i'l order,
the follov%iiig items, requiring an expenditure of
capital, will be required on a good farm of 100
acres of improved land, that being not far fi^om
the size of a large majority in this State. The
estimate wU of course vai-y considerably with
circumstances, prices, &.c.

1. Live Stock.

The amount will vary with the fertility and
products of the land, its quality, and situation
•witli regard to market. The ibllowmg will ap-
proximate the average on good farms, taken at
tlie spring of the year, or commencement of
vrork :

3 liorses, at $80 $240

1 yoke oxen "•'

8 milch cows, at 815 120

I 10 steers, heil'ers and calves 70

20 pigs, at $3 60

■ 150 sheep, at S2

Poultry, sav

300

1 wheelbaiTow 4 00

1 pointed shovel 1 25

1 grain shovel, or scoop-shovel 1 2.5

1 pick 1 50

1 mall and wedges 2 50-

2 axes 4 00

1 hammer 0 50

1 wood-saw 1 50

1 tuniip-hook 0 75

1 hay-knife 3 00

2 apple-ladders, (for gathering,) 1 50

2 large baskets 1 25

2 hand baskets 0 50

1 tape-line, (for laying off land,) 2 00

2 sheep-shears 2 00

1 grindstone 3 00

1 steelyard, large, and one small 2 OO

1 stable-lantern 0 50

1 cun-ycomb, one bi^ush 0 75

1 half-bushel measure 1 00

20 grain-bags 8 00

1 ox-chaiu 3 00

1 crowbar 2 00

1 sled and fixtures 30 00

Total S870

2. Implements.

2 plows, fitted for work S20 00

1 small plow, do 6 00

1 cultivator, best kind 7 00

1 drill barrow 5 00

1 roller 5 00

1 haiTow 10 00

1 fanning mill 20 00

1 straw cutter 15 00

lrooti3licer 8 00

1 farm wagon, with hay rack, &c 70 00

a ox-cart .' 50 00

1 horse-cart 45 00

1 double fami-hai-ness 30 00

1 horse-cart harness 18 00

1 root-steamer, or boiler 20 00

1 shovel and one .spade 2 50

3 steel-plate hoes 2 25

gdunvforks 2 25

Shay forks 3 00

2 hand rakes 0 25

1 revolving horse-rake 8 00

2 gi'ain cradles 8 00

2 scythes 4 00

Total $437 OO

Other articles might be incUided, as .subsoil
plow, sowing machine, &;c. A thrashing ma-
chine is not named, as it is fjctter la employ
itinerant tlira.shers, and save capital. To the pre-
ceding amount ought to be added one-tenth the
expense of fencing the fai-m, as fences need re-
ne\\ing at least once in ten j-ears. E very fanner
should also be supplied with a small set of car-
penter's tools, which would cost about twelve
dollars, for repairing implements in rainy
Aveather, and other useful purposes. This set
should include saw, hammer, augers, planes,
adz, mallet, chisels, square, breast-bits, &c., and
by the convenience and economy afforded,
would soon repay their cost.

3. Seeds.

2| bu.sh. clover seed, for 10 acres Sl5 00

2 " com, " 6 " 1 00

30 " potatoes, " 2 " 7 00

3 lbs. rata baga seed, " 1 " 1 50

2 " field beet " " I " 1 00

2 " caiTot " " I " 1 00

30 bush, seed ■wheat, "20 " 30 00

10 " oats, " 5 " 2 .50

10 " barley, " 5 " 4 00

Total $63 00

4. Labor.

Supposing the owner to labor with his own
haniis, as every o^vner .should, so far as is con-
sistent with a general superintendence of all
parts, which would probably amount to one-half
the time, — he would need besides through the
season two men and one boy, and in tb.e winter
one man ; during haying and harvest he would
require two additional hands. The men, board-
ing them.<elvcs, could be had for fifteen dollars
per mouth in summer, and twelve in winter; if
boardeil, the co.-it of their ineals would make up
the deficiency in wages to the same amount. —
The expenditure needed then, would be,
2 hired men 8 months. 15 per month... $240 00
1 •' boy " 6 " ... 48 00
Day labor in harvest 32 00

Total $320 00

ON FARM MANAGEMENT.

513

5. Maintenance J3T Animals.

Cattle and sheep would need hay till fresh
pa.stui-f!, and horses hay, and also a good supply
of oalw till after harvest. All would he benefited
by a liberal feeding of roots, including swine.
The amount of all these supplies needed, would
be about

7 tons of hay «42 00

200 bushels of oats 50 00

\ 400 " roots 50 00

Total S142 00

RECAPITULATION.

Live Ptock $f?70 00

Implements 437 00

Seeds 63 00

Labor 320 00

Maintenance of Animals 142 00

Total $1,832 00

The amount, of capital needed the first year, in
stocking and conducting satisfactorily the opera-
tions of one hundred acres of improved land,
several items being doubtless omitted.

If this is a larger sum than the young farmer
can command, let him purchase only fifty acres,
and reserve the rest of the purchase money
which would be needed for the 100 acres, to
commence with on the smftUcr farm ; and he
will scarcely fail to make more, than on a larger,
wth every part subjected to an imperfect hur-
rying, ami irregular management. He may cal-
culate perhaps on the returns of his crops in au-
tumn, at lea-st to pay his hands. But lie mu.st
remember that the first year of fanning is at-
tended \\ith many expenses which do not usually
occur afterwards ; ^vhich liis crops may not re-
pay, besides suppoi-ting his family and paying
his mechanic's and merchant's bills. The first
j'ear must always be regarded with uncertainty ;
and it is better to come out at the end, on a mod-
erately sized farm, well tilled, and in fine order,
with money in pocket, than on a larger one, in
debt ; and hired hands, a class of men not to be
disappointed and who ought not to be, -waiting
for their jjay. There are a far greater ntimber
of farmers embarrassed and crippled by placing
their estimates of expenses too low, than of those
who swing clear and float freely by a full pre-
vious counting of cost.

Size of Faiims. — After what has just been
said, the cultivator ^vill perceive in part the ad-
vantages of moderately sized famis for men in
moderate circumstances. The great disadvan-
tage of a superficial, skimming culture, is obvi-
ous w^ith a moment's attention. Take the corn
crop as an illustration. There are a great many
farmers to my certain knowledge, whose yearly
product per acre does not exceed an average of
twenty-five bushels. There are other fanners
whom I also well know, who obtain geJierally
not less than .sixty bushels jier acre, and often
eighty to ninety-five. ISTow observe the differ-
ence in the profits of each. The first gets 2.'50
bushels from ten acres. In doing this, he has to
plow ten acres, haiTow ten acres, mark out ten
acres, find seed for ten acres, plant, cultivate,
hoe, and cut up ten acres, besides paying the in-
terest on ten acres, worth from three to five hun-
dred dollars. The otlier fanner gets 250 bush-
el.s from four acres at the farthest ; and lie oidy
piow.s, plants, cultivates, and hoes, to obtain the
BaJno amount, four acres, which from their fine
Vol. I.— 65

tilth and freedom from grass and weeds, is much
easier done, even for an equal surface. The
same reasoning applies throughout the farm. —
Be sure then, to cultivate no more than can be
done in the best manner, whether it be ten, fifty,
or five hundred acres. A fi-iend who owned a
four hundred acre fami, told me that he made
less than his next neighbor, who had only seven-
ty-five. Let the man who applies a certain
amount of labor every year to his fann, i-educe
its dimensions until that labor accomplishes
everything in the very best manner. He will
doubtless find that the amount of land will thus
become much smaller than he .supposed, more so
than most would be willing to reduce it ; but on
the other hand, the nett proceeds from it will
augment to a greater degree than perhaps could
possibly be believed.

But "let me not be misunder.stood. Large
fiirms are by no means to be objected to, pro-
vided the owner has capital enough to cultivate
every part as well as some of our best small
ones are cultivated.

As an example of what may be obtained from
a small piece of land, the following products of
fifty acres are given, and are not more than I
have known repeatedly to be taken from good
land by several thorough farmers :
10 acres wheat, 35 bush, per acre, at Sl.OO, $350

5 " com, 90 " •' .40, 180
2 " potatoes, 300 " " .20, 120
1 " ruta-bagas, 800 " " .10, 80

6 " wint. apples, 250 " " .25, 37.5
6 " hay, 2J-tons " &.00 90

10 " pasmre, worth 60

5 " barley, 40 bush. " .40 80

5 " oats, 50 " " ■^ao 50

Total products of fifty acres of very fine land, $1,385
This aggregate yield is not greater than that
obtained by some \\\\o might be named fi'om a
similar quantity of land. Good land could be
brought to that" state oi' fertility very easily at a
total cost of one hundred dollars per acre, and
then it would be incomparably cheaper than
many large poor farms at nothing ; for while the
fifty "acres could be tilled for three hundred and
eighty-five dollars, leaving one thousand dollars
ne'tt profits, large poor farms hardly pay the
work spent upon them. One proprietor of .such
a farm declared — " It takes me and i^iy hired
man all summer at hard work to get enough to
pay him only."

Laying out Farjis. — This department is very
much neglected. The proper disposition of the
different fields, for the sake of economy in fenc-
ing, for convenience of access, and for a full
command of pasture and protection of crops at
all times, has received compai'atively little at-
tention from our agricultm-al writers and from
fanners.

Many suppose that this business is very
quickly disposed of; that a very few minutes,
or hours at most, will enable a man to plan the
aiTangemcnt of his fields about right. But this
is a great en-or. Even Avhen a fann is of the
simplest form, on a ilattmiform piece of ground,
many things are to be borne in mind in laying it
out. In the first place, we all know that the
fenchig of a moderately sized farm costs many
"hundred dollars. It is very desirable to doit
well, and use at the same time as little material
as possible. To do this much will depend on
the shape of the fields. A certain length of
fence will enclose more land in the fonn of a
sqjiare, than in any other practicable shape.
Hence fields should 'approach this foi-m as nearly

514

ON FARM MANAGEMENT.

as possible. Again, the disposition of lanes is
a matter of conse(iueiice, so as to avoid unne-
cessai'y length and I'encing, and occupy the
least quantity of ground.

But these rules may be materially affected
by other considerations. For instance, it is very
desirable that land of similar quality maj' be in
the same enclosure. Some may be naturally
too wet lor any thing but meadow or pasture ;
BOme may be much lighter, and susceptible of
plowing, while others are not; some may be
naturally sterile, and need unusual manuring,
with green crops. All these should, as iar as
practicable, be included each in its own sepa-
rate boundary. The situation of surface-drains,
forming tlie boundaries of fields, may influence

their shape ; facilities for irrigation may have
an essential bearing ; convenience for watering
cattle is not to be forgotten. Where, in addi-
tion to all these considerations, the kmd is hilly,
still more care and thought is required in the
subdivision, which may possibly require years
of experience ; but where fixed fences are once
made, it is hard to remove them ; hence a pre-
vious thorough examination should be made.
A farm road, much used for heavy loads, should
be made hard and firm, and cannot be easily
altered ; it should consequently be exactly iii
the right place, and be dry, level and short —
the shape of adjoining fields even conforming
to these requisitions ; but a road little used
should not interfere with the outlines of fields.

A specimen of laying ont a farm is given in
till preceding plan. It is of the very simplest
ki: d, or a right-angled parallelogram, on nearly
le^ el land — a form that often occurs. It lies on
one side of a public rond, which is lined with
fi r"st trees. The middle enclosure on the road
contains the dwelling, the barn, and other out-
buildings. It is planted with trees for shade,
ornament, and domestic enjoyment — not set " all
in a row," but in the graceful or picturesque
Btj'le which distinguishes a beautiful natural
landscape. On one side are the fruit, kitchen,
and flower gardens — the lot containing them
being oblong, to separate certain portions of the
fi-uit garden for pigs — the sovereign remedy
for the curculio ; the orchard may occupy the
lot adjoining. The remain ier of the farm is
divided into fields nearly square, each being
entered fi-om the lane by a good gate. These
fields may be increased or lessened in size with-
out altering the position of the lane. They
should always be sufficiently numerous to admit
a good rotation, and to separate at all times the
pasture fi-om the tillage land.

In laying out a fann with a very uneven sur-
face, or irregular shape, it would be best to draw,
first, a plan adapted to smooth ground, as the one
just given ; and then vary the size and shape of
the fields, the distance of the lane from the cen-

tre, its straightness, &;c., acsording to the cir-
cumstances of the case.

Fences. — The kind of fence used, and the
material for its construction, must depend on
circumstances and localities. A good fence is
always to be preferred to an imperfect one ;
though it cost more, it ^vill more than save that
cost, and three times the amount in vexation be-
sides, by keeping cattle, colts, and pigs out of
fields of grain. A thriving farmer, vi-hose whole
land, except a small part ■with stone wall, is en-
closed by common rail fence, with upright cedar
stakes and connecting caps at the top, finds tliat
it Jieeds renewing once in six j-ears. He ac-
cordingly divides his whole amount of fences
into six parts, one of which is built new eveiy
year. All is thus kept systematically in good
repair. Stone walls, if set a foot bclo-w the
surface to prevent tumbling by frost, are the
most durable fence. Hedges liave not been suf-
ficiently tried. The English hawthoi-n is not
well adapted to our hotter and drier climate ;
and though sometimes doing well for a time, is
not to be depended on. The buckthorn in New-
England, and the Newcastle and Washington
thonis in Pennsylvania and Delaware, have suc-
ceeded finely.

Gates. — Every field on the farm should be
entered by a good self shutting and self-fastening

ON FARM MANAGEMENT.

515

pate. A proper inclination in hanging will se-
cure the tbruier rcijuidite, and a good latch,
properly constructed, the latter. Each field
should be numbered, and the number painted
on the gate-po.st. Let the farmer who has liars
instead of gates, make a trial of their compara-
tive convenience, by taking them out and
replacing them without stoiiping, as often as he
does in one year on his tarm, say about six hun-
dred times, and he cannot fail to be satisfied
which is the cheapest for use.

Buildings. — These should be as near the
centre of the farm as other considerations -will
admit. All the hay, grain, and straw, being
conveyed from the fields to the barn, and most
of it back again in manure, the distance of draw-
ing should be as short as possible. This will,
also, save much traveling of men and of cattle,
to and fi-om the different parts of the farm. The
buildings should not, however, be too remote
from the public road ; and a good, dry, healthy
spot should be chosen. The dwelling should be
comfortable but not large — or it should, rather,
be adapted to the extent of the land.s. A lari^^e,
costly house, with small farm and other build-
ings, is a b;id indication of management. The
censure of the old Roman should be avoided,
who, having a small piece of land, built his
house so large that he had less occasion to plow
than to sweep.

The barn and out-buildings .should be of ample
extent. The barn should have space for hay,
gi-ain, and straw. It is a matter of great con-
venience to have the straw for littering stables,
housed, and close at hand, and not out of doors,
under a foot of snow. There should be plenty
of .stables and sheds for all domestic animals.
This provision will not only save one-third of
the fodder, but stock will thrive much better.
Cows Nvill give much more milk — sheep will
yield more and better wool — and all will pass
through the winter more safelj'. The M'ood-
house near, or attached to the dwelling, should
never be forgotten, so long as comfort in build-
ing fires, and economy in the use of fuel, are of
any importance.

A small, cheap, moveable horse-power should
belong to every establishment, to be used in
churning, sa^wins wood, driving \vashing ma-
chine, turning grindstone, cutting straw, and
slicing roots.

There should be a large root cellar under the
barn, into which the cart may be dumped fi-om
the outside. Oue great objection to the culture
of rutabagas and beets, in this countiy, — the
difficulty of winter keeping, — would then vanish.

Both barn and houfte cellars should be well
coated on the bottom and sides, with water-lime-
mortar ; which is a very cheap and effectual
way to exclude both water and rats.

Choick of I.Mi'LEME.vTs. — Of those which
are much used, the very best only should be
procured. This will bt; attended with a gain
every way. The work vv'ill be easier done and
it will be better done. A laborer who, by the
use of a good hoe for one mouth, can do one
quarter more each day, saves, in the whole time,
an entire week's labor.

Choice of Animals.— The best of all kinds
should be selected, even if costing something
more than others. Not "fancy " animals, but
those good for u,se and profit. Cows should be
productive of milk, and of a form adapted for
beef; oxen, hardy, and fast-working ; sheep,
kept fine by never selling the best ; swine, not
tlie largest merely, but those fatteniujj best on

least food. A Berkshire, at i.'00 pounds, fat-
tened on 10 bushels corn, is better than a " land
pike" of 300 fattened on 50 bushels.

Having now taken some notice of the neces-
sary items for commencing farming, it remains
to glance a little at

soils and their management.

Soils are of various kinds, as heavy and light,
wet and dry, fertile and sterile. They all re-
quire different management, in a greater or less
degi'ee.

Heavy soils are often stronger and more pro-
ductive than light ; but they require more labor
for pulverization and tillage. They cannot be
plowed when very wet, nor so well when very
dry. Although containing greater or less por-
tions of clay, they may be distingushed, as a class,
from lighter soils, by the cloddy surface the fields
present after plowing in dry weather ; by their
cracking in drouth ; and by their adhesiveness
after rains.

Sandy and gi-avelly loams, also contain clay,
hut in smaller quantity ; so that they do not pre-
sent the cloddine-ss and adhesiveness of heavy
soils. Though possessing generally less strength
than clay soils, they are far more easily tilled,
and may be worked without difficulty in wet
weather; they do not crack or bake in drouths.
Indian corn, rutabagas, and some o'Jier crops,
succeed best upon them. Sandy soils are very
easily tilled, but are generally no't strong enough.
When made rich, they are fine for some succu-
lent crops.

Peaty soils are generally light and free, con-
taining large quantities of decayed vegetable
matter. They are made by draining low and
swampy grounds. They are fine for Indian
corn, broom corn, barley, potatoes, and turnips.
They are great absorbers, and great radiators of
heat ; hence they become wann in sunshine,
and cold on clear nights. For this reason they
are peculiarly liable to frosts. Crops planted
upon them must, con.sequentlv, be put in late-
after spring frosts are over. Corn should be of
early varieties, that it may not only be planted
late, but ripen early.

Each of these kinds of soil may be variously
improved. Most of heavy soils are much im-
proved by draining ; open'drains to cany off the
surface water, and covered drains, that which
settles beneath. An acquaintance covered a
low, wet, clayey field with a net work *f un-
derdrains, and from a production of almost
nothmg but gras.s, it yielded the first year forty
bushels of wheat per acre — enough to pay the
expense ; and admitted of much easier tillage
afterwards. Heavy soils are also made lighter
and freer by manuring ; by plowing under coat-
ings of straw, rotten chips, and swamp muck ;
and in .some rare cases, by cartina: on sand-
though this is usually too expensive for practice.
Subsoil plowing is very beneficial, both in wet
seasons and in drouth ; the deep, loose bed of
earth it makes, receiving the water in heavy
rains, and throwing it off to the soil above, when
needed. B ut a frequent repetition of the opera-
tion is needed, as the subsoil gradually settles
again.

Sandy soils are improved by manuring, by the
application of lime, and by fi-equently turning in
green erop.s. Leached ashes have been found
highly beneficial in many place.?. Where the
.subsoil is clayey, which is often the cape, and
especially if marly clay— great advantage is de-
rived from shoveling; it up and spreadinjj it oa

616

ON FARM MANAGEMENT.

tho surface. A noia;libor li.iii Uventy bushels of
wheat per arre on land thus treated, while the
reet of the field yielded only fi%'e.
, Masuiies. — These are first among the first of
requisites in successihl farm management. They
are the sti-oiig moving power in agricultural
operations. They are as the great steam engine
whii'h drives the vessel onward. Good and
clean cidtivation is, indeed, all-important ; but it
will avail httle without a fertile soil; and this
fertility must be created, or kept up, by a co-
pious application of manures. For these contri-
Ijute directly, or assist indirectly, to the supply
of nearly all the nourislnnent wliich plants re-
ceive ; it is these, which, [Produced chiefiy from
the decay of dead vegetable and animal matter,
combine most poweriuUy to give new life and
vigor; and thus the apparently putrid mas.s, is
the very material -wliich is converted into the
most beautiful foims of nature ; and plants and
brilliant ilowers .spring up from the decay of old
forms, and thus a continued succession of de-
Htruction and renovation is canied on through
an unlimited series of ages.

Manures possess difi'orent degrees of power,
partly from their inherent richness, and partly
from the rapidity ■with which they throw off
their fertilizing ingredients, in assisting the
growth of plants. Tiiese are given olf by solu-
tiou in water, and in tlie form of gas ; the one
as liquid manure, which, running down, is ab-
Borbeil by the fine roots ; and the other as air,
escaping mostly into the atmosphere, and lost.

The great art, then, of saving and manufactur-
ing manure, consists in retaining and applying
to the heft advantage, these soluble and ga.seous
portions. Probably more than one-half of all
tho materials which exist in the country, are
lost, totally lo;?t, by not attr'nding to the drainage
of stables and farm yards. This could be re-
tained by a copious application of straw ; by
littering with saw-dust, where saw-mills are
near ; anl more especially by the frequent coat-
ing of yards and stables \vith dried peat and
Bwamp luuck, of which many parts of our State
furnish inexhaustible supplies. I say dried peat
or muck, because if it is already saturated with
"^\Mtf.'r, of which it will often take in five-sixths
of its o%^n weight, it cannot absorb the liquid
portions of the manure. But if it will absorb
nvc-sixths in water, it will, when dried, absorb
five-si.\ths in liquid manure, and both together
form % very enriching material. The practice of
many faiT.iors, shows ho'Ar little they are aware
of the hundred.s lliey are every year losing by
suffering tiiis most valuable of their farm pro-
ducts to escape. Indeed, there are not a few
wiio carefully, and very ingeniously, as they
suppose, place their barns and cattle yards in
such a manner on the sides of hills, that all the
drainage from them may pass olf out of the
"tvay into the neighboring streams ; and some
one mentions a farmer, who, w\\h preeminent
shrewdness, built his hog pen directly acro.'^s a
stream, that he might at once get the cleanings
■wa.shei away, and prevent thoir accumulation.
He o'( course succeeded in his wish ; but he
might, ■with almost equal propriety, have built
his granary across the stream, so as to .shovel
the wheat into the water when it increased on
bis bauds.

Tho loss of manure by the escape of pas is
often very great. The proof of tliis ■was finely
exhibited by Humphrey Davy, in an experi-
ment, pf;rformed by iilling a large retort from a
heap of fermenlujg manure, placing the beak

among the roots of .some grass. Nothing but
vapor left the vessel, yet in a few days the grass
exhibited greater luxuriance round "the beak of
the retort tlian any of the suiTounding portions.
Hence the superiority of unfermented manure —
the rich portions are not yet lost. And hence,
too, tlie importance of preventing this loss by an
immediate application and plowing into the soil,
and also by mi.xing it in composts with muck,
peat, swamp mud, and even common earth in a
dry state, — and of preventing its escape from
stables and yards, by a daily strewing with dried
peat, lime or plaster.

The superiority of unfermented manure ban
just been mentioned, which is by many doubted.
But the very facts on which these doubts rest,
only prove it's efficacy. For, they say, " I have
always found fresh manure to be attended with
little effect the first yeai', while it yet remains
fresh ; but afterwards, when fermentation and
decay had taken place, the benefit was great
and striking." But here is the proof at hand,
that not until the rich, soluble and gaseous jtarts
had \vell penetrated and been absorbed by the
soil, was their powerful and invigorating infiu-
ence exei-tod upon the growing plants. Fresh
manure is generally hi a state not readily mixed
^vith soils ; it is thrown into large lumps over
the surface, some of ^vhich are plowed in and
others not, but none of them prove of immediate
u.se to the crops. But on tho other hand, fer-
mented manure, from its ready pulverization,
admits of an easy admixture. Let fre-sh manure
be thoroughly ground down and worked into
the soil by repeated harrowings, and two or
three jjlowings, and its influence will be like
magic.

Swamp muck has often been spoken of as
manure. But those >vho expect great and strik-
ing results from its application, will be disap-
pointed, as the writer has been. Even with
ashes, it is much less powerful than stable ma-
nure, not only bccau.se it possesses less inherent
richness, but because it has less soluble parts,
and consequently imparts its strength more
.slo'.vly to growing plants. But this quality only
makes it the more enduring. By decoction in
water, vegetable mold loses a small portion of
its weiglit by solution ; but if the remaining in-
soluble portion is exposed to air and moisture a
few months, another part may be again dissolv-
ed. Thus, peat, muck and all decayed vegeta-
ble fibre, becomes a slow but lasting source of
nourishment to plants.

But it is, when shoveled out and dried, to be
mixed with fann-yard manure, as a recipient for
its evanescent parts, that peat or muck becomes
preeminently valuable. Some parts of the State
abound ■with inexhaustible .supplies in almost
every neighborhood ; many land owners have
from twenty to a hundred thousand cubic yards
on their farms, lying untouched, while half-
starved crops are gro^wing in the adjacent fields.
There are whole counties .so well supplied with
it, that if judiciou.sly applied, it would doubtless
double their aggregate products.

All ne;it farming, all profitable fanning, and
all satisfactory farming, must be attended ■with
a careful saving of manures. The people of
Flanders have long been distinguished for the
neatness and excellence of their famis, ■vvhich
they have studied to make like gardens. The
care with ^^•hicll they collect all reftise materials
which may be converted into manure and iu-
crea.se their compost.s, is one of the chief rea-
sons of the clcanliucss of their towns and resi-

ON FARM MANAGEMENT.

>17

dcnccs. And were tliis subject fully appreciated
aud attended with a corresponding practice
generally, it would doubtless soon increase by
millions the agricultural products of the State.

But there is another subject of scarcely less
magnitude. This is a sj'stematic

HoTATioN OF Crop.s — If manuring ia the
steam engine which propels the vessel, rotation
is the rudder which guides it in its progress. —
Unlike manuring, rotation does not increase the
labor of culture ; it only directs the labor in the
most effective manner, by the exercise of judg-
ment and tliought.

The limits of this paper do not admit of many
remarks ou the principles of rotation. The fol-
lowing courses, however, have been found
among some of the best adapted to our State :
I.. 1st year — Com and roots vs^ell manured;

2d 1/ear — Wheat, sown with clover seed,
15 lbs. per acre ;

3d year — Clover, one or more years, ac-
cording to fertility and amount
of manure at hand.
II.. 1st year — Corn and roots, with all the ma-
nure ;

2d year — Barley and peas;

3d year — Wheat, sown with clover;

4th year — Clover, one or more years.
III.. 1st year — Corn and roots, with all the ma-
nure ;

2d year — Barley:

3d year — Wheat, sown with clover;

4th year—Va^Xare ;

5th year — Meadow ;

fith year — Fallow;

7th year — W^lieat ;

8th year — Oats, .sown with clover;

9th year-— Pasture, or meadow.
The number of fields must correspond with the
number of the changes in each course ; the first
needing three fields to carry it out, the .second
four, the third nine. As each field contains a
Clop each, in the several successive stages of the
course, the whole number of fields collectively
comprise th.e entire series of crops every year.
Thus iu the last above given, there are two fields
of wheat growing at once, three of meadow
and pasture, one of corn and roots, one of bar-
ley, one of oats, and one iu summer fallow.

Operations in the order of Time. — The
vital consequence of doing every thing at the
right season, is known to every good farmer. —
To prevent confusion and embarrassment, and
keep all things clearly and plainly before tlie
farmer at the right lime, he should have a small
book to caiTv in his pocket, having every item
of work tor each week, or each half month, laid
down before his ej-es. This can be done to the
best advantage to suit every particular locality
and difference of climate, bj' marking each suc-
cessive week in the sea.son at the top of its res-
pective page. Then as each operation several-
ly occurs, let him place it under its proper head-
ing ; or, if out of season, let him place it back
at the right time. Any proposed improvements
can be noted down on the right page. Inter-
esting experiments are often suggested in the
couriie of reading or observation, but forgotten
vv'hen the time comes to try them. By record-
ing them in such a book under the right week,
they are brought at once before the mind. Such
an arrangement as this will prevent a great deal
of the confusion and vexation too often attendant
on multiiiirious care.s, aud assist very essentially

in conducting all the farm work with clock-work
regularity and satisfaction.

In reviewing the various items which are
most immediately essential to good farm man-
agement, some of the most obvious will be —
capital enough to buy the farm aud to stock it
■well ; to select a .size compatible with these re-
quisites ; to lay it out in the best manner ; to pro-
vide it well with fences, gates, and buildings ;
to select the best animals and the best imple-
ments to be had i-easonably; to bring the soil
into good condition, by draining, manuring, and
good culture ; to have every part under a good
rotation of crops ; and every operation arranged,
so as all to be conducted systematically, ^^•ithout
clashing and confusion. An attention to all
these points would place agriculture on a veiy
different footing from its present condition in.
many places and with most farmers. The
business then, instead of being repulsive, as it
so frequently is, to our young m.-^n, would be at-
tended with real enjoyment ami [ilcasuro

But in all improvements, in all enterprises, the
great truth must not be forgotten, that success
is not to be expected without diligence and in-
dustry. We must sow in spring, and cultivate
■well in sunnner, if we would reap an abundant
harvest in autumn. Wlien yve see yoimg farm-
ers commence in life without a strict attention to
business, vv'hich they neglect for mere pleasure,
^vell may we in imagination .^ee tiiture crops
lost by careless tillage — broken fences, unhinged
gates, and fields filled with weeds — tools de-
stroyed by heedlessness, property ■wasted b'y
recklessness, and disorder aud confusion triumph-
ant ; and unpaid debts, duns, and executions,
already hanging over the premises. B ut, ou the
other hand, to see cheerful-faced, ready-handed
industry, directed by reason and intelligence,
and order, energy, and economy, guiding the
operations of the fann — with smooth, clean
fields, and neat trim fences — rich, verdant pas-
tures, and fine cattle enjoying them, and broad
vi'aving meadows and golden harvests, and
■wa.ste and extravagance driven into exile, v/e
need not fear the success of such a farmer —
debts cannot stare him iu the face, nor duns en-
ter his threshold.

It is such enterprise as this, that must place
our country on a substantial basis. Agriculture
in a hiffhly improved state, must be the means,
which next to the righteousness which traly ex-
alts a nation, will contribute to its enduring pros-
perity. All trades and commerce depend oa
this great art as their foundation. The cultiva-
tion of the soil and of {)lants was the earliest oc-
cup.ation of man ; it has in all ages been his
chief means of subsistence ; it .still continues to
furnish employment to the great majority of the
human race. It is truly the great art of peace,
as during wars and commotions it lias languished
and declined, but risen again in strength and
vigor ■when men have lived at peace with each
other — it has then flourished and spread, con-
verted the ■wilderness into life and beauty, and
refreshed and adorned nature ^vith embellished
culture. For its calm and tramjuil pleasures —
for its peaceful and healthful labor.< — away from
the fretful and feverish life of cro'wded cities, —
" in the free air and beneath the bright sun of
heaven," — many, who have spent the moniing
and noon of their lives in the anxious cares of
commercial life, have long sighed for a scene
of peace and quietude for the evening of their
days.

2 X

518

ON DRAINING LAND.

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF DRAKXING LAND.

We ivmcmboi- well tho time when the idea
of I'crtility and heavj' products was so inti-
mately and thoroughly blended with that of
moisliire, that wherever we saw a piece of land
that was constantly moist,, so tliat no water
laid on its surftice, we set down that spot as
one thiit would not fail to bring a heavy crop —
especially of grass ; and we have our doubts
•whether there was i»ot a time when this was
the common impression. Inquiry, reflection
and experience are, however, now doing for
Agriculture what they have sooner done for
other pursuits; and now, fortunately, the viind
is brought to vorlc at every Uirn, and empiri-
cism and prejudice are made to give way before
investiiration and proof Now the Farmer is
taught by the exercise of his reason, and, even
without knowing it, by the principles of agri-
cultural chemistry, that a settled, abiding
moistitrc in land, resulting from some obstruc-
tion to the escape of water, either rain or spring
water, is incompatible with that degree of
warmth which is one of the indispensable con-
ditions to the development and growth of ve-
getables. Hence, as the Fanner who walks or
rides over his estate, and sees a sunken or a low
spot, which in the driest weather shows signs
of constant dampness, indicated by coarse
aquatic grasses, or oilierwise, he says to himself,
' There is a portion of my capital lying dead and
inert. I must therefore contrive .so to drain it
that the water will not settle upon or in it, and
thus givo it life and activity. Then I shall have
removed the only obstacle which prevents it
from yielding a heavier crop cither of grain or
grass, than any other equal portion of my estate ;'
— for the Farmer ought to lay it down as a rule,
that even where he proposes to lay down his
land in grass, it should yet be so well drained
as to be well adapted to the growth of grain.
Land so laid dry, will always give, with equal
richne.s.s, a better crop of cleaner and more
valuable hoy. than that which is too wet to pro-
duce grain. Let him who wants to see heavy
crops of clean, nutritious timothy hay. go to the
naturally dry, hilly land.s, such as George Pat-
terson'.s. Gov. Howard's, or N. Bosley's, on the
Gunpowder, in Maryland. True, there are
many fields that arc well adapted to the growth,
and produce heavy crops, of tobacco or grain, that
would not yield, and at all events not more than
one crop, of timothy, or herd's grass, as it is

called in different parts of the conntn" ; bat that
is owing, not to the absence of moisture, but to
some other condition of the land — to too much
of one and too little of another kind of soil, and
to other circumstances, not to the want of moi.st-
ure. MoLsture, it is undeniable, is essential to
the growth of all vegetables, according to the
laws of vegetable phjsiology, but not tixed,
peut-np moisture. Its departure, like its com-
ing, should be free and natural. If we appear
to dwell too much on this subject (of draining),
it is because it is impos.sible to pass along
through the country without being struck with
the quantity of land, on almost everj- estate, the
very best land on it, which is made sick and
unproductive of all wholesome growths, by cir-
cumstances thatprcvent theescape of redundant
moisture; audit is among the foremost of our
wishes, to see the minds of land-holders pos-
sessed of the conviction that it is idle to be
sighing and scheming for more land, or repining
at the inadequacy of their income, while they
have already .so many acres that lie waste and
unproductive — paying interest but yielding no
dividend, for want of draining, grubbing, clean-
ing and manuring.

At a late meeting of the Scotch Highland So-
ciety, at Dumfries, an interesting discussion took
place on Draining as " among the foremost '' of
the means for agricultural improvement. The
particular te.'ftimony to which we would invite
the attention of the reader is that of Mr. Elliot :

Prof .Johnston said — I am quite sure that the
general statements which Mr. Elliot has made
must have produced an impression upon the
meeting. At the same time I know the farmers
.so well, that I am sure nothing will so nnich
satisfy them, or the landlords either, as showing
that the propo.sed improvement will jmt money
in their pockets (hear, hear). Now IMr. Elliot
has drained largely, and I know suecessliiily
(applause) : you will excuse me, therefiirr, if I
ask what are the results of his own draining ?
He is one of the most enterprising drainers in
Dumfriesshire and is, therefore, a noble exam-
ple. I should like him to let the strangers here
know what are the results during the_ eight
years which he has been employed in draining ?
i would a.sk first, what have been the general
results of draining on the whole farm ? — bow
much h;is it increased the produce ?

Mr. Elliot said — I have a statement wln'ch
sho\\s the improvement. Before, my land was
partly wet and partly dry ; one-half, nearly, has
not been drained ; bat the principal improve-
ment on the whole has been by draining. The
result I will read to you :

POTATO WASHER.

519

Produce of the Oat Crop on the Farm.

Ist year, ISM 4-4 atler one sown.

2d " 18:i8.« 5()

3d " ie39 t)-5 "

4th " 1840 6-8

5th " 1841 8-4

6th " 184J 7-6 "

7th " 184:j 8-5 "

8th " lb44 8 3 "

Barley Crop.

1st year 82 after one sown ; a small quantity

this year sown on a piece of the
best land.

2d " 54 after one.

3d " &-2

4th " l(i-2

5th " 10-1

6th " 11-7

7ih " ll>-.5 "

8th " 11-8 "

Tims showina; that I realized by draining an
increase of more than double the original pro-
duce (Applan.se).

Prot'es-sor .Jolinpton. — It appears from Mr. El-
liot's statement that he has doubled the produce
of oats and barley in eight years. Now I linow
he can give u.s farther information. The second
question I would ask is this : he has stated that
if the whole farm was drained, it would have
produced a greater increa.se. Now, can Mr.
Elliot give us the detailed result of one part of
the farm — what it was worth when he began,
and what it is worth nQ\\' ?

Mr. Elliot. — One moor I drained which everj'
one who knew it declared to be perfectly use-
ies.s. It was not worth 2s. an acre. There
were ninety-one acres of it ; and one gentleman
pre.sent who ob.sorved it told me that it never
could be improved. I drained it, however, at
an expense of nearly i."tJUO. A great part of it
vvas covered with water-lilie.s, rushes, whins,
heather, and gall-roots; but the first year, after
liming and fallowing, it yielded 3,500 bu.shels,
nearly 40 bushels to the acre {Applnuse). The
second crop was equal. This year I have a
crop of oats, after turiiip.s, upon 12 acres of it,
yielding 46 bushels to the acre ; of potatoes I
had a heavy crop, and of turnips also a good
one {Applause). Another moor of 43 acres I
drained at an expen.se of nearly £300. The first
crop, after fallowing and lime,' gave 42 bu.shels
an acre. This was upon land that was previ-
ously not worth 2s. an acre (Loud applaiixi'.)

In answer to a question from the Chairman,
Mr. Elliot said his laud was situated at an ele-
vation of aBout two hundred feet above the level
of the sea.

Profe.ssor.Tolinston explained, in an.swer to a
question sent in to him, that four and three-tenths
and so on, occurring in Mr. Elliot's speech,
meant tJiat one seed gave four and three-tenths
— that where he had only four once, he now got
eight .seeds ofl' the .^^ame land.

By the bye, does it occur to the farmer, that
•when by drnhiin^, he doubles the produce of
an acre, he doubles the value of his land ? that
it is far better than getting an additional acre of
the same value — because, it takes only half the
labor to cultivate one acre that it does to culti-
vate two, and yet he arrives at the same result
as to the quantitj^ of produce — in other words,
reaps an equal reward, at half the expense ?
An acre of naturally fertile land rendered un-
productive by superfluous moisture, and the
crop of which is doubled by draining, is more

profitable than an acre the produce of which ia
doubled by manuring-^ecause, altliough the
process of draining in the first instance, may be
more expensive than that of manuring an acre
of poor dry land, yet the manured land will be
much sooner exhausted and reduced again to
unproductiveness, than that .«ort of land which
usually requires draining. Besides, it is abso-
lutely disreputable for a farmer to have on his
estate at every turn, these valuable spots —
sometimes one acre — sometimes more, some-
times less — which ask only to be drained to
give him the most valuable return for his labor;
but ^^hich in the condition they are left, throw
up worthless or unwholesome grasses, exhale
malaria, generate rot among his sheep, and fe-
vers in his family. A friend of ours once ob-
served, '• Sir, when I go to see a gentleman
farmer, if he does not invite me to ride over his
estate and look at his crops, I always suspect it
is because it is full of gullies and bogs, and
naked and miry spots ! "

True, it may be answ^ered that draining is
very expensive ; and so it is, on a large scale
and under many circumstances ; but this, with
manj-, is a mere pretext for procrastination and
want of enterpri.se. It might often be etfected,
as by Mr. So.mers, a plain farmer below Not-
tingham, in Maryland, by cutting a common
ditch, and in the bottom of it laying two poles,
side by side, covering these with cedar brush
carefully laid down, and then with sods and
dirt, and plowing and sowing over the whole.
The increa.sed crop in a single year would pay
the expen.se, besides leaving the land, as in hia
case, worth $20 Or S30 an acre for ever after,
instead of being a qnaifmire. Who has not re-
marked that indolence has a very inventive
genius of its own when it seeks to excuse itself
for its inactivity and love of repo.se ?

POTATO WA.«HER.
We are not aware that the machine or uten-
.sil, described below, is generally known, though
we are sure it ought to be in general use where
any considerable number of potatoes are raised,
more especially where they are cultivated for
feeding stock. The fir.st we ever saw was
brought from Scotland, and the only one except
one that we got him to have made after it, and
was in use, by Mr. Be van, manager for the late
estimable R. Caton, Esq., of " Brookland-
Wood," near Baltimore : a gentleman of un-
common amiability and various knowledge^
one who possessed a thousand times more of a
spirit to be useful to the country and his fellow
men, th.au many who derided his enthusiasm,
without emulating the generous impulses in
which it was founded and the u.seful purposes
to which it would have prompted him.

520

INFLUENCE OF PASTURE ON SHEEP.

This potato washer is one of the most labor
saving contrivances we have seen in operation.
True, it seems to be a small affair, bnt every
thing that saves a minute is important in a coun-
try like ours, where, above all others, labor is
high and " time is monet/."

The aimexed sketch of a machine for wash-

ing potatoes, which is used in Nottinghamshire,
may be acceptable to some of your readers. It
is easily made by any village w'orkman. and
will be found very effectual. It is simply a
churn-like cylinder, with open bars placed at
such a distance as to prevent any of the pota-
toes from falling through, except very small
on«s, the lower part of which as it revolves,
passes through a trough of water.

It may be made to be easily unshipped, like
a churn, or fixed more permanently, as in the
sketch. AVhere many potatoes are used, or
where it is requisite to wash them for starch-
making, it will be found a very valuable acqui-
sition.— M. J. B. [We have long used a wash-
er similar to that here figured — differing from it,
indeed, but in one particular: that one, howev-
er, of considerable importance. The arms here
represented as containing the sockets in which
the axle of the cylindiical frame revolves, are
in our machine not vertical and straight, but
arched, and terminating in extremities over-

banging the ground, considerably beyond the
cistern to which they are attached ; the cylin-
der, too, revolves not in sockets pierced in these
arms, but in Ys at the side of them ; and aftei- —
by its revolution — the potatoes in it have been
cleaned, chains from the extremities of the anus
are hooked into eyes on its axle, and as the ro-
tation proceeds, these, winding up on the axle,
lift the cylinder out of the water, and bring it
to a Y)Osition overhanging a box or barrow
whicli has been placed beside the cistern. The
trap-door being opened, the potatoes fall into
this barrow and are easily removed.]

THE INFLUENCE OF PASTURE ON SHEEP REARED ON IT.

BV MR. WILLIAM HOGG, STOBOHOPE, PEEBLES.SHIRK.

Sheep, as thoy exist in this country, have a
tv.-()fold character — a general character, or what
belongs to them as a species, and a particular
character, or that temperament of constitution
■which they derive from the pasture on which
they are bred. The qualities es.sential to them
as a species are, producing wool each year after
being one year old, shedding two im.'isor teeth,
cloven-footed, wild ; for domcsticalion is an ar-
tiiicial state, otlected only alter ctmsiderable in-
timacy, and tasting of human fond — this recon-
ciles sheep to human company and human kind-
ness, and disposes the creature to look to man
for lu'lp in every emergency. These inherent
peculiarities b(dong to ,«liccp as a species. Re-
fore tracing their connection witli the pasture, it
will be nece.«sary to state that pa.sture may .just-
ly be considered as of two divisions — dry, firm,
lea pasture, often less or more intermixed with
heath. This .soil pi-oduccs the finer grasses,
though not ill great abundance ; the animal
■which it rears is small sized, of a compact form,
hardj-, excretions of all kinds small, constitution
sound, oonsiderulilo How of animal s[)irits, not
easily overcome with privations, and, as the

system in all its parts is, as it were, crowded to-
gether, it is subject to inflammatory diseases,
whether raised by external injury or by the sup-
pres.sion of its natural evacuations. Another
description of pastures are such as are spread
out on an easy, downy surface. Here fioui-ish
all tlie strong coar.^^er grasses, with a good part
of those found in the former division ; but they
are here rough in the stem, and bold far more
fluidity — all the plants peculiar to a damp, deep
•soil arrive here at per'ection, nnil a soft. hiHiy
(ptality pervades the whole. The animal hero
feeds to excess — viscera increase to a great size
and weight — the carcass is large, loose, and in-
compact— staples of the wool gener.ally huig, in-
clining rather to coarseness, if pains be not taken
to keep the Hcece pure — not much animation —
and, for the most part, in tlioir iil'ih year, swell
out to a great btlly. The constitution does not
now become invariably unsound, it rather be-
comes unwieldy, and burthensome for the ani-
mal to search for and gather its food ; evacua-
tions at all times profus<t. and that mitural pur-
gation connnon to all sheep in spring is here a])t
to be continued well into summer, which not a

INFLUENCE OF PASTURE ON SHEEP.

521

little delays the animal's mendinar. The diseases
peculiar to such a constitutiou aud such a pas-
ture are of a plethoric description. If the spir-
its are broken by any misfortune, ill-usai;e,
[friijht by doe;s] or a severe winter, the rot, with
all its enfeebling symptoms, appears. Should
this disease not manifest itself, yet the creature
falls into an unprosperous, unthriving condition,
having slight signs of sundry diseases though
tlie exclusive sjanptoms of none. It, however,
turns useless and dies. From these facts it must
not be surmised that I suggest this as the com-
mon fate of entire stocks bred on soft pastures.
Though the constitution is far from being un-
sormd, yet it is quite inferior to those reared on
the first division : it is not so strong and hardy.
The soft constitution is burthened with infirmi-
ties and disabilities which the former is alto-
gether unconnected with, and an interruption
of thriving, which ill-usage or ill seasons bring
on individual .sheep of this constitution, generally
terminates in the rot. or ailments similar to it. —
Again, almost each •listinct pasture gives a tinge
to tlie Beece ; this tincture is generally attribut-
ed to the color of the upper stratum of the soils:
and, when we consider how a.ssiduously thriv-
ing sheep amuse themselves on disruptions or
openings of the stratuiii, this cannot be doubted ;
yet there is an imbuing quality in the herbage
which communicates a tinge to wool independ-
ent of that in.serted into it by^ friction ; but
wliether this is produced by the (piality of its
food after being eaten, or is imparted to the v/ool
as tlie animal traverses its pasture in search of
food, I can scarcely determine. But pasture ex-
ercises an almost uncontrollable power over the
shape. If it does not interfere too much \vith
the breed, the pasture will adjust the size to
what it can itself support ; but how it determines
the external shape remains as yet unaccounted
for. In some cases the shape is imexception-
able, that is, the figure, motion, and mien of the
stock indicate strens:th, spirits, and health ; in
others, it is ill-proportioned or defective in those
points wh'ch ensure animation and activity. —
The most common as well as the most hurtful
defects are. low and thin in the fore quarters,
coarse and lumpish in the posteriors, narrow or
sharp-backed — its cait oblique and ambling, I
splay-footed, &c. Though the last two are con-
spicuous among individuals, they can scarcely
be said to be peculiar to a stock in general, but
the obstinacy with which any of these defects
resist a change for the better indicates they are
communicated by the .soil, are interwoven with
the constitution, and. if .strenuous and uninter-
rupted means are used for their removal, they
may, in a small measure, disappear, or the distin-
guishing peculiarities of the deformity not be so
strongly marked. But, rather than relinquish
the animal altoi^-ether, if vigorous exertions are
still made for their utter suppression, the con-
stitution not unfrequeutly yields with the strug-
gle— it falls into an unprosperous, sickly state.
and, finally, ends in being an unprolitable, use-
less creature. Indeed, man, for no end what-
ever, regularlv and constantly interferes with
the propagation of .sheep, though accession of
fre.sh blood be necessary at times, for keeping
the animals healthy, recruiting the spirits, in-
creasing animation. &c.; yet an often transmis-
sion of 7(ea' blond fcrossing with a different
breed] into the progeny prevents the spirits from
acquirina; a permanent and steady How or the
body from settling- uito a fixed aud useful pro-
portion of strength. From, au actual survey of
Vol. I.— G6

the position, altitude, and qualities of such an
extent of hill-p.a.sture as is generally set off as a
sheep-farm, one accustomed to the rearing of
sheep stocks, and to notice the connection which
exists between the animal and its pasture, may
di.scover with tolerable certainty whether the
con.stitution will be hardy or sickly — whether
of a large or small bone — whether yield a scanty
or abundant fleece ; and, from these peculiari-
ties, may be enabled to say, with an accuracy
which may be depended on, and which will be
found in general to be correct, what are the most
prevalent disea.ses to which the stock is liable;
Isut the properties in the soil which so forcibly
confer the external figure have never yet, that I
know, been discovered. Wherever that plastic
power re.sides, 1 am convinced that the way and
manner which the .sheep accustom themselves
to, in pasturing their allotted range, has not a
little influence informing the exterior shape;
and it is certain that the method of pasturing is
regulated by the .soil, .so that still the qualities of
the pasture lie at the foundation of all peculiar-
ities, whether natural or acquired ; but yet an
uneasy manner of collecting the food, if contin-
ued in for a length of time, may come in to the
aid of tho.se occult qualities in the soil which give
the shape, and enable them to act with greater
and more certain vigor. It may be thought that,
if the figure of each individual in the stock is
unexceptionable in its first application to the
pasture, there will be no dilficulty in perpetuat-
ing this shape almost to any length of time; the
reverse, however, is certain. The pasture may
accord with the proper figure — may support it
in its mo.st important points ; but if an adverse
property reside in the pasture, it will impercep-
lihly alter the original form, by imposing on
each succcfisive crop of lambs that mo7ild and
manner which it- is its own exclusive property
to give*

There is a train of circumstances which never
fail to alter the true sliiqic, nut only of the sub-
ject on which they immediately act, but also on
their progeny. Supposir-an'individual .sheep, or
say stock of .sheep, are reduced very low in
habit by the sufferings of a severe winter : First
seascm they somewhat shrink from the true figure;
but .suppose, as is often the case, that for two or
three seasons the same privations continue, the
departure from the true figure is evidently on
the increase, is transmitted to the issue, and the
deformity becomes in a sense liabitual, though
not in so absolute a degree as that which tlie
.soil imposes. In this case, if good seasons and
prudent mana^-ement cooperate, a restoration of
the right shape is jiossible ; but to establish a
true and fasliionable form on a stock \vhose
plastic influence seems to confirm a defect in
the shape is impo.ssible. The change of stocks
from the Heath to the Cheviot breed has not a
little altered the disposition, look, and manner
of sheep ; but when all traces of the former are
completely obliterated, and the peculiarities of
the latter startlingly confirmed, what reprehen-
sible points the pasture was the cause of in the
old breed are still found to be blcmi.shes in the
new. From the above notices, it may be in-
ferred that tlie proper figure and shape of some
stocks can with far greater easiness be brought
to a just proportion of parts, and kept at them

* So. too, we have maintained as to grain, tobacco,

fruit, &.C. — Nature will not be forced ; .soil and cli-

mate will force things connected to them to alter

then- nature to suit them while t/ity remain unchansed.

[Ed. Farm. Lib.

2x2

522 MASSACHUSETTS SAVINGS INSTITUTIONS.

as a right standard, tliRn others where the
qualities in the soil operate to the production
and continuance of defects. This is found
in fact to be the case. Some stoclcs require
little attention : others, if the manager make
strenuous and incessant endeavors to esta-
blish a useful figure, may, perhaps, enfeeble

can convey no perfect notion to another
person's mind of the dissimilarity which
exists between sheep stocks reared on dif-
ferent pastures; one single look over them
would make the idea more distinct, and
more certain of the inequality, than any
words can convey ; but the fact tliat each

the whole system by too frequent accessions j ))asture impresses its peculiar shape, air,

of new blood; for, to continue sheep pro-
fitable, healthy, and beautiful, the line shoidd
not be too often disturbed with intromissions
from other families, however pure.

To write ever so explicitly on this subject

and manner, need not be doubted, and this
vmlikeness exists after every safe method is
taken to bring them to a uniformity.
Jour, of Highland and jlgr. Soc. of Scotland.

* MASSACHUSETTS SAVINGS INSTITUTIONS.

There are in Massachusetts forty-one institutions for savings. The returns of these
institutions are made up to the 30th of September, 1848, and show the following aggre-
gates :

Number of Depositers C9,S94

Amount of deposits $11,970,447 64

Public funds 1,37-3,C22 89

Loans on public funds 2.5, (iOO GO

Bank stock 2,025,721 01

Loans on bank stock 173,740 00

Deposits in banks, bearing interest ....... 91,862 44

Railroad stock 89,527 99

f Loans on railroad stock .....,.., 309,925 00

Invested in real estate ......... 92,935 10

Loans in mortgage of real estate ....... 4,171,483 67

Loans to county or town ........ 1,424,IJ86 56

Loans on personal security ........ 2,410,171 68

Cash on hand 152,964 41

Rate and amount of ordinary dividend for last year . . . 461,774 88

Average annual per centage of dividend last five years . . 5 66

Annual expenses of the institutions ....... 36,404 96

How numerous and frequent are the sources of instruction to men who once acquire
the habit of thinking ! — a habit far more important and more rare than most people appre-
hend.

These " Savings Institutions" in Massachusetts, in which are deposited §11,970,447, by
very nearly 70,000 people, are over and above the regular banking establishments, both
of which are scattered all over the State, so that any industrious and ingenious man can
borrow the means of " setting up" any new business, which for the most part consists in
manufacturing something for the supply of the Southern man, who has at home much
greater facilities — that is natural facilities — for manufoctiu-ing them for himself — except
that he — the Southern man — is taught from his cradle to hate banks, and manufactories,
and combinations of skill and capital. Hence he is thrown for ever more and more in
the power of those whose sagacity teaches them to favor the combination of individual
skill, and .'Strength, and money. Hence these rmmerous banks, and savings-banks, and
factories, all over New England. Hence concentration, thickening of population, increase
of wealth and power — hence it is that when in New England you see a plough at work
in the field, if you cast your regards over the horizon, within vie"w, you can see the
steeple of a church, a neat school-house, and a village where people are at work at the
loom and the anvil, ready to demand the products of the plougli, the harrow, the orchard,
the garden, and the dairy; and the farmer makes his exchanges without loss, by good
roads, and he consumes moreof the produce of the loom and the anvil, while the weaver
and the smith consume more of the products of the plough and the harrow, because all
get their supi)lies and make payments, with vast economy of time and money. Oh that
Southern farmers would but think for themselves, and not permit demagogues to think
f>r them !

N

PARASITICAL PLANTS WILD-FOWL.

521

PAKASITICAL PLANTS.

I HAVE heard a curious idea advanced,
that all mucilaginous seeds must undergo
the process of passing through the stomach
of birds before they will vegetate. This
was particularly asserted with regard to the
seeds of the mistletoe.

The first introduction, and the subsequent
growth of this parasitical plant, are wrapt
at present in much mystery. Many ]5ersons
suppose that birds are unintentional plant-
ers of the mistletoe, by rubbing or cleaning
their beaks, after they have been partaking
of its mucilaginous seeds, against the branch
of a tree.

Various attempts have been made to pro-
pagate the mistletoe, by depositing the seed
between the forks of trees, and by inserting
it in the bark ; but they have hitherto failed.
The seeds also of the ivy seldom grow,
though planted with the greatest care, even
under walls; yet, if dropped by birds upon,
or even in the crevices of walls, they will
grow spontaneously and thrive luxuriantly;
and this is one of the circumstances which
have led to the supposition that the seeds
of the mi.stletoe and ivy must undergo
some process, favorable to their germina-
tion, in passing through the stomach of
birds.

Mr. Knight, the intelligent florist in the
King's Road, informed me that, having been
requested by a lady to endeavor to preserve
a favorite mulberry-tree, which for many
years had flourished on her lawn, but which,
with the exception of one very large branch,
was either dead or decaying, he waited till
tlie sap had ascended, and then barked the

branch completely round near its junction
with the trunk of the tree. Having filled
three sacks with mould, he tied them round
that part of the branch which had been
barked, and placed above them one or two
old leaky watering-pots which were kept
constantly full of water, which gradually
distilled from them, and rendered the mould
in the sacks sufficiently meist for his pur-
pose. Towards the end of the year he ex-
amined the sacks, and found them filled
with numerous small fibrous roots, which
the sap, having no longer the bark for its
conductor into the main roots of the tree,
had thus expended itself in throwing out.
A hole having been prepared near the spot,
the branch was sawn ofl" below the sacks,
and planted with them, the branch being
propped securely. The next summer it
flourished and bore fruit, and is still in a
Arriving state.

Hearing this fact, I was led to examine
the small round mossy substance frequently
attached to the branches of the dog-rose in
our hedges, which I had often admired, but
been unable to account for. I found that,
in consequence of the bark on the branch
on which it is fixed being removed by some
insect, the sap in receding throws out roots ;
these, from exposure to the air, produce the
mossy ball in question, which becomes the
nest or hybernaculum of the insect.* This
idea might be followed up practically in
this country, as I have lately heard it is in
China ; and the more uncertain method of
grafting or budding to increase our stock of
plants might be abandoned.

WILD-FOWL.

The Cape geese, which are kept in the
large ponds in Richmond Park, used to
have their nests on the island in one of
those ponds. In consequence, however, of
their eggs having been frequently destroyed
by the rats, they took to building in some
oak pollards, near the water, from whence
they conveyed their young in safety. I
have questioned the keepers as to their
mode of doing this. Their opinion is,
that the old birds get the young under
their wings, and then descend the tree. It is
more probable,ho\vever, that they carry them
one by one in their mouths. I knew an in-
stance of a wild duck, who had its nest in
a pophir-tree, which overhung a piece of
Water, in Staffordshire, and who thus con-

trived to convey its young with safety to
the water.

The history of wild ducks is curious. In
consequence of the drainage of the Lincoln-
shire fens, the quantity which visit them is
much diminished, and many of the decoys
are abandoned. In 1765, an extraordinary
flood prevailed,when most of the Lincolnshire
fens were inundated. The decoy at Heck-
ington, near Sleaford, was that year visited
by incredible quantities of ducks — the ave-
rage number taken during the season being
400 dozen, or 4800 a week. They appear

* If this mossy substance be examined, the larvsB
of an insect will be found belonging to the genus
cynips. Another species produces the gall-nut;
and the birch-tree is subject to a siiailar disease. _,

524

FRIENDSHIP OF ANIMALS.

to quit this country in the spring, and to re-
turn about the time of harvest, ahhough
some breed in low and retired situations,
and occasionally in meadows. These birds,
however, would seem to have different ha-
bits from those which migrate. If the eggs
of a wild duck are placed under a common
duck, the young, when hatched, imme-
diately exhibit the perfectly wild nature of
their origin, and hide themselves with won-

derful cunning. If old ones are caught and
pinioned, they are, I believe, never known
to breed. In the tidal waters of the estua-
ries of the Lincolnshire coast, they are shot
in hard weather by men who approach
them, lying flat in small boats called " gun-
ning shouts,^' carrying very large duck-guns.
The charge is a pound or a pound and a
half of shot. One man vi'as known to kill
JE200 worth of ducks in one season.

FRIENDSHIP OF ANIMALS.

" 'Tis often seen
Adoption strives with nature." — Shakspeare.

Animals which are imable to associate
with their own species will sometimes form
most strange attachments. I had last year
a solitary pigeon, which being unable to
procure a mate, attached itself to an old
barn-door fowl, whose side it seldom left at
night, roosting by him in the hen-house.
The cock seemed sensible of the attach-
ment of the pigeon, and never molested it,
or drove it from him. I had also a tame
hedgehog, which nestled before the fire on
the stomach of an old lazy terrier dog, who
was much attached to it, and the best un-
derstanding existed between them. I have
also seen a horse and a pig associate toge-
ther, for want of any other companions ;
and Gilbert White mentions a curious fact
of a horse and a solitary hen sjiending
much of their time together in an orchard,
where they saw no creature but each other.
The fowl would approach the quadruped
with notes of complacency, rubbing itself
gently against his legs ; while the horse
■would look down with sausfaction, and
move with the greatest caution and circum-
spection, lest he should trample on his
diminutive companion.

At Aston Hall, in Warwickshire, I re-
member to have seen a cat and a large
fierce bloodliound, who were always toge-
ther, the cat following the dog about the
yard, and never seeming tired of his so-
ciety. They fed together, and slept in the
same kennel.*

A gentleman residing in Northumberland
assured me that he had a tame fox, which
Vi'as so much attached to his harriers, and
they to him, that they lived together, and
that the fox always went out hunting with
the pack. This fox was never tied up, and
was as tame, playful, and harmless as any

* The Godolphin Araliian, the great root of the
brod-horse stflck of Entrlan.l, formed a strong at-
tachment to a cat, so that both portraits appear on
the same print. — JiEs. P. L. & A.

dog could be. He hunted with the pack
for four years, and was at last killed by an
accident.

But a most singular instance of attach-
ment between two animals, whose natures
and habits were most opposite, was related
to me by a person on whose veracity I can
place the greatest reliance. He had resided
for nine years in the American States, where
he superintended the execution of some ex-
tensive works for the American govern-
ment. One of these works consisted in the
erection of a beacon in a swamp iir one of
the rivers, where he caught a young alli-
gator. This animal he made so perfectly
tame, that it followed him about the house
like a dog, scrambling up the stairs after
him, and showing much affection and do-
cility. Its great favorite, however, was a
cat, and the friendship was mutual. When
the cat was rejiosing herself before the
fire, (this was at New York,) the alligator
would lay himself down, place his head
upon the cat, and in this attitude go to
sleep. If the cat was absent, the alligator
was restless ; but he always appeared
happy when the cat was near him. The
only instance in which he showed any fe-
rocity was in attacking a fox, which was
tied up in the yard. Probably, however,
the fox resented some playful advances
which the other had made, and thus called
forth the anger of the alligator. In attack-
ing the fox, he did not make use of his
mouth, but beat him with so much severity
with his tail that, had not the chain which
confined the fox broken, he would probably
have killed him. The alligator was fed on
raw flesh, and sometimes with milk, for
which he showed a great fondness. In cold
weather he was shut up in a box, with
wool in it ; but, having been forgotten one
frosty night, he was found dead in the
morning. This is not, I believe, a solitary
instance of amphibia becoming tame, and
showing a fondness for those who have
been kind to them. Blumenbach mentions

MANUAL OF MANNERS.

525

that crocodiles have been tamed ; and two
instances have occurred under my own ob-
servation of toads knowing their benefac-
tors, and coming to meet them with con-
siderable alacrity.

Colonel Montagu, in the Supplement to
his Ornithological Dictionary, relates the
following singular instance of an attach-
ment which took place between a Chinese
goose and a pointer. The dog had killed
the male bird, and had been most severely
punished for the misdemeanor, and finally
the dead body of his victim was tied to his
neck. The solitary goose became extremely
distressed for the loss of her partner and
only companion ; and probably having been
attracted to the dog's kennel by sight of her
dead mate, she seemed determined to per-
secute the dog by her constant attendance
and continual vociferations ; but, after a lit-
tle time, a strict friendship took place be-
tween these incongruous animals. They
fed out of the same trough, lived under the
same roof, and in the same straw-bed kept
each other warm ; and, when the dog was

taken to the field, the lamentations of the
goose were incessant.

Some animals of the same species form
also strong attachments for each other. This
was shown in the case of two Hanoverian
horses, who had long served together during
the Peninsular war, in the German brigade
of artillery. They had assisted in drawing
the same gun, and had been inseparable
companions in many battles. One of them
was at last killed ; and, after the epgage-
ment, the survivor was picqueted as usual,
and his food brought to him. He refused,
however, to eat, and was constantly turning
round his head to look for his companion,
sometimes neigliing as if to call him. All the
care that was bestowed upon him was of no
avail. He was surrounded by other horses,
but he did not notice them ; and he shortly
afterwards died, not having once tasted
food from the time his former associate was
killed. A gentleman, who witnessed the
circumstance, assured me that nothing could
be more affecting than the whole demeanor
of this poor horse.

MANUAL OF MANNERS.

THE DEMEANOR.

One of the maxims of Goethe was, " Re-
spect for self governs our morality — respect
for others, our behavior." Though possess-
ing the brightest mental endowments, one
is apt to be overlooked in society, if the pro-
prieties of the demeanor are not attended
to. It is not meant, however, that the ex-
ternal deportment should be studied in pre-
ference to the improvement of the mind ;
but that both should be cultivated together.
On this point it may be sufficient to say, that,
while a genteel address and polite air are
absolutely essential to the demeanor, to
secvn-e at once admiration and esteem; it is
tlie improvement of the mind which should
adorn the deportment.

The ladies, owing to their natural desire
to please, aided by their agreeable manner
and courteous address, have always an
amiable and attractive appearance. Women
possess more refinement, tact, and delicacy,
and are certainly gifted with a nicer discri-
mination than the stronger sex ; they have
a finer perception of the correct, and are
quicker in detecting the weak points in the
character and deportment. An easy, unre-
strained demeanor, so far from being an
encroachment upon nature, as we may
sometimes hear remarked, is nothing more
than what may be called "free nature's
grace."

It should always be kept in mind, that

every person has a right to courteous treat-
ment. This we claim for ourselves, and
should be willing to concede to others, as
their due. Democritus, who was known as
the laughing philosopher, recommended to
every one " to have honey within and oil
without;" meaning, doubtless, to have a
good temper in the disposition, and good
manners in the life — an excellent advice,
and which, if acted upon, would prove jier-
manently conducive to one's tranquillity and
comfort.

One of the first attributes of demeanor
is a modest deportment, which adds lustre
to the brightest accomplishments. Without
modesty, beauty fails to charm. It is indeed
the brightest gem possessed by woman, and
an essential part of the character of a well-
bred man. It may be said to form a safe-
guard to the other virtues ; for no man
woidd ofier insult to a woman, if lie did not
find encouragement in her own free de-
meanor.

Presumption, equally with rudeness, is
strenuously to be guarded against. An ar-
rogant look never gains esteem ; and the
most unassuming persons in society are
generally those whose merit is the greatest;
Avoid every indication of vanity and self-
conceit ; and, in the presence of others,
never betray any expression of weariness
or indifierence, for to do so is a proof of
vulgarity.

526

MANUAL OF MANNERS.

On the Continent, the proper cultivation
of the demeanor, as a distinct branch of
education, is one of the first tilings taught
to a child. In this country, the economy of
the manners is not paid so much attention
to as its importance to society deserves.

While on the subject of the demeanor,
we shall say a word or two regarding affec-
tation. This is a deviation from, at the
same time that it is an imitation of nature.
It is the effect of bad taste, and of mistaken
notions of one's own qualities. The other
vices have each a particular object, but
affectation pervades and renders disagree-
able the whole conduct and behavior.
Beauty itself loses its attraction when dis-
figured by affectation. Even to copy from
the best models is wrong, because the imita-
tion can never be so good as the original.
Counterfeit coin is not so valuable as the real,
and, when discovered, it cannot pass current.

In religion, affectation, or, as it is fitly
called, hypocrisy, is reprehensible in the
highest degree. However grave be their
deportment, of all affected persons, those
who, without any real merit, make too great
pretension to piety, are certainly the most
culpable. The ntask serves to conceal in-
numerable faults ; and, as has been well
remarked, a false devotion too often usurps
the place of the true. The conduct of peo-
ple, which must be taken as an evidence of
their pretensions, ought at all times to be
conformable to their profession. " When
God alone is all we are concerned for, we
are not solicitous about mere human appro-
bation."

Vanity is inexcusable ; it not only cor-
rupts the manners, but it tends also to de-
base the morals. Ridicule cannot make it
more odious than it is. It has only one
good point, and that is, that it serves to con-
sole its possessor with the thought that he
deserves better than he receives.

Affectation in old age is peculiarly disa-
greeable ; yet many cannot alter their habits
with their years, or suit their conduct to
their change of circumstances. It is hum-
bling to see persons with gray hairs atfect
youth and gaiety. They only render them-
selves ridiculous by attempting to dazzle by
unsuitable pretensions, when their season
is past. Many carry this feeling, or rather
this failing, so far that they will even deny
their age, when the wrinkles on their fore-
head betray it but too plainly.

If you wish to possess the good opinion
of your fellow men, the way to secure it is
to be actually what you pretend to be, or
rather to appear always precisely what you
are. Never depart from the native dignity
of your character, which you can only main-
tain irreproachable by being careful not to

imitate the vices, or adopt the follies of
others. The best way, in all cases, you will
find to be to adhere to truth, and to abide
by the talents and appliances which have
been bestowed upon you by Providence.

Amongst strangers maintain an easy re-
serve, and be not too free even with friends.
Be polite to all, but familiar with none;
and on every occasion grant to others the
same indulgence which, in the same cir-
cumstances, you would claim for yourself.

OUTWARD APPEARANCE.

The neglect of the outward appearance
indicates either a little mind, or a disregard
of the opinion of your neighbors. One should
always be neat and clean in person and in
dress, because this is an evidence of respecta-
bility. No man who has any regard for him-
self, or any respect for the society in which
he moves, will be slovenly in his appearance
or careless in his attire. It is true, there is
a danger of being too particular ; but every
one is entitled to follow his own taste as to
dress, provided he dresses suitably — that is,
according to his age, circumstances, and sta-
tion in society. Foppery ought, in every
respect, to be guarded against.

It is ridiculous to see the absurd figure
which some thoughtless persons make of
themselves by being too gay in their apparel.
All unnecessary ornament and decoration
of the person, in men particularly, should
be carefully avoided. A superfluous display
of rings, chains, and other articles of jewel-
ry, is no proof of gentility or of wealth. In
lAost instances it is a sure sign of vulgar
breeding or vanity: as is also the practice,
much more honored in the breach than the
observance, of using scents and perfumes to
an immoderate degree. What is fashiona-
ble is not always genteel, just as what is
genteel is not always fashionable; and one
may be in the mode without any vain show
in appearance or over-nicety in dress.

The young of either sex, but particularly
the female, ought to regard their external
deportment and appearance as to a certain
extent essential to character. To dress sim-
ply and without ostentation, is a mark of
modesty ; and it will be sufficient to some
ladies merely to hint, that too much finery
often draws attention to features which, in
themselves are perhaps, not particularly at-
tractive. BiU, in endeavoring to avoid every
thing like display, young ladies especially
should be careful not to fall into the opposite
extreme — that of prudery. There is more sin-
cerity, if there is less nicety, in the conduct of
a really virtuous woman than there is in that
of a prude ; and some degree of freedom, so
far from being incompatible with the strictest
virtue, is one of its principal privileges.

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

527

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

COMPLACENCY.

Timorous as the tender fawn, pliant as
the bending osier, gentle as the young tur-
tle, and affable as courtesy itself, is the
daughter of complacency.

She maketh friends wherever she goeth ;
she is loved by all the children of men.

Her behavior winneth the stranger, and
endeareth her to those of her acquaint-
ance.

Do her steps lead to the house of mourn-
ing, she cometh not in dancing; neither
doth the lightness of her heart disgust the
wedded to calamity.

She weepeth with those that weep ; she
laugheth with those who laugh; she sing-
eth in the house of gladness, and rejoiceth
in the joy of her neighbors.

She giveth not her advice to the stranger,
nor openeth her lips among a crowd of
visitors till after the rest have spoken.

She fashioneth her behavior to the mode!
of others ; wherefore all must approve the
resemblance of themselves.

In the strait betwixt two, she is silent;
she divulgeth not herself, that either may
know to condemn or approve.

Art thou deceived, she will mildly en-
deavor to set thee right ; but if thou art fro-
■ward to be instructed, she will permit thee
to enjoy thy opinion undisturbed : so shalt
thou praise her when thou findest out thy
error for having so modestly left thee in thy
deception. I

She is the sister of moderation ; she de-
nieth none the privilege of thinking for
themselves.

She urgeth not belief where a doubt is
remaining, nor dcnieth a scruple the power
of conviction.

Dost thou admire her steps ; wouldst thou
reap the advantages thereof; yet be cau-
tious lest she lead thee astray.

Follow not a multitude till they lead
thee into evil, nor fear to draw back when
thy sister goeth wrong, though she be
offended at thy singularity.

Be not over courteous, lest thy modesty
sufler ; fear not being accounted unfashion-
ably virtuous, lest thou afterwards reproach
thyself

Better is the reviling of the world to the
innocent, than the reflections of self-reproach
to the guilty.

Complacency will endear thee to the
world, but virtue to thyself and thy Crea-
tor.

The love of many bringeth gladness to
the heart ; but happiness is only the com-
panion of the upright.

ELEGANCE,

As the diamond is an ornament to beauty,
so is elegance to the behavior of a woman.

Art thou modest — art thou chaste — is thy
reputation unsullied — is thy fame spotless
as the new-fallen snow — yet elegance will
make thee still more worthy admiration.

As the crow or the raven, which devours
carrion on the hills of the north, differs from
the singing bird of 'the Canaries, so dif-
fereth the elegant woman from her that is
wanting therein.

As the elegance of dress adds grace to
beauty itself, so delicacy in behavior is the
ornament of the most beautiful mind.

Discover not the knowledge of things it
is not expected thou shouldst understand ;
for, as the experience of a matron ill be-
cometh the lips of a virgin, so a pretended
ignorance is often better than a show of real
knowledge.

Undistinguished levity giveth hourly of-
fence, and the form of solemnity becomes
unseemly when it lasteth too long.

Is there a word that will otfend ; is there
a tale thy companion chooseth not to hear;
avoid it in thy discourse ; so shall she honor
thy prudence and applaud thy good nature.

Art thou lettered, let not the difficulty of
thy speech puzzle the ignorant, lest, instead
of admiring thy knowledge, they condemn
thee for pride and affectation.

Yet let thy words be choice as the matter
of thy speech, nor pervert the elegance of
thy phrase to suit the gross apprehension of
the weak and injudicious.

Perspicuity will never force thee to be
indelicate, or to forget thou shouldst support
the elegance of a woman.

Let thy actions be proportioned to thy
speech; so shalt thou gain respect; for
whoso setteth a watch over the breath of
her, lips will preserve the work of her hands
free from blame.

FRUGALITY.

Give nothing foolishly away.

Whoso scattereth abroad, will find her-
self the loser ; who throweth her substance
away, shall lift up her hands empty in the
day of necessity.

The hand which lavishly distributeth it*
goods will at length close its fingers in
emptiness.

Profusion lasteth not for ever ; the daugh-
ters of riot will become the children of
poverty.

Who streweth her money in the streets it
not generous ; who giveth it VEunly away is
as guilty of waste.

528

MULTITUDE OF BEINGS IN THE UNIVERSE.

Hast thou enough, preserve it for thine
own use ; hast thou too much, bestow it,
tliat those who merit may not want bread.

What thou bestowest on the deserving, is
not the vohintary gift of thine hands, but a
debt thou ovvest, and art bound in justice to
pay.

The meritorious are entitled to thy super-
fluities : if thou keepest it from them, thou
committest an act of injustice, and wrongest
thy neighbor of his right.

If tliou givest it to the undeserving stran-
ger, thou givest away the property of an-
other ; it is no charity.

Sayest thou these things are mine, I may
use them as I list :

Canst thou employ them to thy comfort,
thy honor, or thy advantage, thou hast then

no superfluity; if otherwise, they are not
thine : they are put into thine hands for the
use of others, and they will be required of thee.

Be frugal, therefore, in that which thou
employest for the use of those who need,
as in that which thou keepest for thyself

Waste not the substance of the deserving
poor, nor wrong him of his inheritance.

His merit is a right, and as just as thy
immediate possession.

Who hath riches that are a burden to
herself, she is not frugal.

Doth she waste them by hoarding tlieni
in secret ; doth she cast them away in riot
and profuseness ; she cheateth herself, and
abuseth her trust : for the miser and the
prodigal defraud both the world and tliem-
selvcs.

ROSES.

In cultivating roses, nothing delights in
rich soil more than this handsome flower.
They should always be planted in a com-
position of stiff loam, rotten dung, night
soil, and leaf-mould. Where roses have
grown strong after three or four years' stand-
ing, they may be taken up, the ground well
renewed, the roots close pruned, as well as
their shoots very much thinned, and then
planted in the same situation — they will
then produce as fine blooms as when first
transplanted from the nursery. This should
always be done in the early part of Novem-
ber. Roses bloom M'ell the first year after
being transplanted, if carefully attended to.
Tliey should, when transplanted, have a
strong stake attached to each standard to
preserve them from the wind moving them,
and then well mulched round. During the
winter, the ensuing spring and summer,
they should be plentifully stipplied with
liquid manure.

In pruning roses, the following observations
are useful. With the exception of Teas and
Chinas, December and January are con-
sidered the best months for pruning; many
sorts, such as the Hybrid Chinas, Hybrid

Bourbons, with some of the strongest grow-_
ing Noisettes and Bourbons,require very little
pruning ; about every third year they should
be pruned in close, so as to make them pro-
duce new wood, and to prevent the plants
getting too old and ugly in appearance. The
Persian Yellow requires merely to have just
the top of the shoots taken off, it being found
to flower only on the last year's wood. An-
other excellent plan for Standard Hybrid
Chinas, many of the Pillar roses, and Stand-
ard Climbers, is to prune them in quite
close, just after they have done flovvering :
they will then produce new shoots the same
|ummer, and flower abundantly the next
season. February and March are consi-
dered the best months for pruning Teas,
Chinas, and Bourbons.

For protecting roses when planted out on
their own roots, such as Teas, Chinas, and
Bourbons, dry Moss, Fern, or small Sjiruce
Fir boughs, may be stuck round the plants,
which will very much protect them froni
sharp frosts ; also, the crown of the roots
should be covered with rotten manure early
in December, which should be dug in the
following sirring.

MULTITUDE OF BEINGS IN THE UNIVERSE.

Ox our globe there are supported at least
800,000,0UU of human beings ; but it is capa-
ble of supporting twenty times that num-
ber, or sixteen thousand millions, if all its
desolate wastes were cultivated and peo-
pled. Besides man, there are numerous
orders of other sensitive beings; there are
at least 500 species of quadrupeds, 4000
species of birds, 3000 species of fishes, 700
species of reptiles, 50,000 species of in-

sects, besides thousands which the micro-
scope alone can enable us to perceive — at
least sixty thousand species in all. If every
species contain about 500,000,000 of indi-
viduals, then there will be no less than
30,000,000,000,000, or thirty billions of in-
dividuals belonging to all the different
classes of sensitive existence on the surface
of our globe.

€l)c pioiTsl), tl)c loom, mitr t\)t %nml

Vol. I. MARCH, 1849. No. IX.

PROGRESS OF PUBLIC OPINION AT THE SOUTH AND

WEST.

From almost every portion of the South and West, and by ahnost every
mail, we obtain evidence of the growing popularity of the doctrine that if
the farmer and planter would grow rich, they must endeavor to induce the
owners of looms and anvils to come and take their places by the sides of
their ploughs and harrows. Men are everywhere learning to see that unless
they consume on, or near the land the products of the land, their farms and
plantations must be exhausted, and they must themselves become impover-
ished. Everywhere they are opening their eyes to the fact that they waste
annually more labor than would build mills and furnaces by aid of which
they could convert their food and their cotton, or wool, into cloth, or their food,
their coal and their ore into iron. Everywhere they are opening their eyes to
the fact that when cloth and iron can be paid for in potatoes, and turnips, and
hay, and milk, and veal, and other things of which the earth yields largely,
the product of rich lands, they are cheap, because obtained in return for
little labor, whatever may be the nominal price ; whereas when they must be
paid for in wheat or cotton, of which the earth yields by bushels, or pounds,
they are dear, because obtained in return for much labor. Everywhere
they are awakening to the great fact that " population makes the food come
from the rich soils," and that if they would cultivate such soils they must
make a market for those commodities of which the earth yields by tons, and
that are too bulky for transportation. Of the evidences of this gradual change
in the state of public opinion that have come to our notice through the
public press and our personal correspondence, there is none that has struck
us more forcibly than that contained in the recent message of the Governor
of Missouri ; and we do not Icnow that we can better occupy a few of our
pages than in giving place to this able view of this great question.

THE ADVICE OF A WESTERN MAN TO WESTERN MEN,
And of one whose party predilections would lead him to the adoption of tlie doctrines
of the Treasury Report — and therefore it is entitled to careful consideration.

" This subject of mternal improvement is one of vast importance to our country ; hut
the subject of establishing manufactories is another of equal importance ; and although
the two are in their nature very unlike each other, yet the encouragement of either would
produce a similar effect upon the country; that is, improve the )n-ices of the j^roductions
of the soil, and diminish the prices of manufactiured articles. The operation of each is
better illustrated by an example.

" From this place, 20,000 bushels of wheat and upwards — the growdi of this year

has been or will be shipped. The average price of this wheat in this place, and pro-
bably for the whole length of the Missouri river, has been about fifty cents per bushel.
In St. Louis, an average price for the same wheat has been about eighty cents. This is
a difference of thirty cents; and twenty cents of this is proliably for freight. The tax
for freight, on the 20,000 bushels of wheat shii)ped from this place for this year, will
then be $4,000. From every district of ten miles, including both sides of the Missouri
river, we may safely calculate that an equal amount of wheat of the present crop will be
shipped. This would make for the Missouri river, say 600,000 bushels, and the freight
on this amount would be $120,000. Now, if the liver was well improved, at least half
Vol. I. — 67 2 Y 529

530 PUBLIC OPINION AT THE SOUTH AND WEST.

this amount paid for freight would be saved to the wheat grower, say in round numbers
the sum of $G0,000 in shipping the present years crop ; and the next is expected to be
much larger. This sum, properly expended, would put the Missouri river in a very safe
navigable condition. And this is but one article of export, nothing being said of the re-
duction of freights on the great number of imports. And what is here said of the Mis-
souri river is applicable to the other rivers, and to railroads and canals, in proportion to
the demand for transportation on them. This is the improvement side of die question.

" The great anxiety in our State to improve rivers and construct railroads is the result
of a strong desire to open good ways for the conveyance of our raw material to the manu-
facturing districts of country, to be exchanged for their fabrics. If, instead of improving
rivers, constructing railroads, and digging canals, the amount of money necessary to make
these improvements was expended in erecting manufactories through the country, then,
in a short time, a large amount, say one-half of our population, would be taken from the
cultivation of wheat and employed in spinning wool and cotton, and hemp and flax, and
in working up the iron, lead, copper, and other metals of the country, and in making
glass, stone, and earthen ware, and the one thousand other articles demanded by the
wants of the community. If half the people were taken from the wheat field, the growth
of wheat would be diminished one half, and the demand for that product would be in-
creased, and the price doubled ; and with little or no charge for freight, because the fac-
tory should be in the neighborhood of the wheat grower. And in this state of atfairs,
while the farmer would be getting a higher price for his wheat, he would obtain his
manufactured articles at lower prices. His wheat wovdd bring him more, because he
would sell it without paying freight; and he would buy his manufactured articles cheaper,
because they would come free of similar charges.

"It seems, then, that the improvement of our rivers, the construction of railroads, dig-
ging canals, and the erection of manufactories, would each aflect the prices of products in
the same manner, but perhaps not in the same ratio. It is important, then, to inquire
which course of policy should be encouraged first. About 12,000,000 of dollars are in-
vested in the Lowell factories. These would probably make double as many fabrics as
our State would consume, and it might take twice the above sum to improve our rivers,
and construct the contemplated roads, and the necessary canals. It might, then, be well
to give every possible encouragement to manufactories, as the first and most profitable
step to be now taken. But the encouragement of these, as well as our agricultural pur-
suits, would soon demand the adoption of a system of internal improvements. Our sur-
plus fabrics, as well as our surplus products, might soon demand other markets. But our
first move should be to rear the factories.

" DIVISION OF PURSUITS.

" In a previous message, the necessity of diversifying our pursuits, with the view of
enhancing the value of all labor, was earnestly urged. This matter may not strike the
public mind so forcibly now as it might have done a few years back ; because, for the
l^resent, many of the productions of the soil are in fair demand and produce compara-
tively good prices; but this was not the case a few years back, nor need we expect it to
continue so for many years to come, unless we increase the variety of our pursuits and
the <lemand for our products at home. The causes of the present increase in prices may
be but temporary. One is the failure of crops in Europe. This may cease with the re-
turn of better seasons. The other is the repeal of the high tariff". This may be re-enacted
before another year passes.

" These are, tlien. but temporary causes, and we need something more permanent to create
a demand and enhance the prices of our products. This would be more certainly ef-
fected by a proper division of labor than by any other cause.

"At this time, wheat and corn, beef and pork, hemp and tobacco, are our staples : and
to these we may add a few horses and mules. But nearly our whole population is en-
gaged in agriculture, and almost every man raises as much wheat, corn, beef and pork,
as his necessities require ; and many as much as would .supply a dozen families; and
those who ilo not raise a supply are apt to be imthrifty fanners, with but little means of
buying from others : and hence, there is frequently no demand, or else a ve,ry dull market
ibr tlie surplus articles produced.

•'It is plain to the senses of every one, that if by any accident or unusual occurrence —
a bad season — a destructive hail-storm — a visit from noxious insects — or any other cause,
only half crops are produced to feed our whole population, the demand would be greater
and the price doubled. If one-half of our pojmlation .should cease to work, the same re-
sult as to demand and prices would follow. The idleness of one-half of our pojiidation
would opertite on the other — the working half — as a lamine in Europe does upon the
people ol'our Union. The idleness and thefattiine would each increase the demand and
enhance the value of food. But each cf these causes would of necessity give but a teiii

PUBLIC OPINION AT THE SOUTH AND WEST. 531

porary value. The idleness in our State, and the famine in Europe, if continued, would
each be followed by an exhaustion of the means to purchase, and both classes woulil sink
from the condition of purchasers to that of beggars. But if half of our population, instead
of ceasing to work, should only cease to cultivate the soil, and should engage in some
other equally profitable employment, then, the whole population, having still to be fed by
the labor of one-half, the same increased demand for the products of the soil, and an equal
or greater enhancement of prices would follow ; and this increased demand and enhance-
ment of prices, being based on a proper division of pursuits, the means of j)aying would
always be certain, lasting, and increasing. And, this change of pursuits effected, the other
half of our population might also expect better profits from their labor than they can now
reap by cultivating the soil. If all this be true, then it becomes important to inquire how
we shall divide our pursuits. If we can encourage manufactories, we shall accomplish
this object to a great extent, and, probably, in no other way so successfully.

"But this matter can be better illustrated by examining the manner in which our pre-
sent system of afiiiirs actually oiDcrates. Say a number of our citizens want a quantity of
domestic shirtings and sheetings. To get them, their first operation is to raise a quantity
of wheat. This is shipped to the South and exchanged for cotton ; and this cotton is
shipped to Lowell, and there hands are employed to make it into sheetings and shirtings.
These hands must be fed , and if the usual exchange of products which ought to exist in
every country, be carried out in this transaction, then our citizens, at the time of sending
their cotton to Lowell to be made into cloth, should also send a quantity of meal and
flour, and pork, and beef, and butter, and lard, to feed the manufacturers, and to pay, in
part, for the labor. The shirtings and sheetings completed, they are shipped back to our
citizens, and delivered to them on the payment of the expense of shipping the cotton to
Lowell, the expense of shipping food to the same place to feed the hands, the ex-
pense of shipping the fabrics back to our citizens, the value of the labor bestowed on the
fabrics, and the profits of the owner of the factory. This is the best phase in which the
operation of exchanging our products for those of the eastern manufactories can be placed,
because in any other there are many intervening charges by other persons not mentioned
here. Now it is evident that the shipping of the cotton to Lowell, the shipping of the pro-
visions to feed the hands, and shipping the shirtings and sheetings back, are all expenses
that might be saved by having this work done at home. And in addition, we could get
hands cheajier here, and feed them cheaper than in Lowell, while performing the labor.

"But this matter can be made still more striking by another illustration, even more
simple and plain in its nature than the preceding. For our wheat, in this part of our
State, a fair average price we may say is fifty cents per bushel. For plain shirtings a
fair price with us is ten cents per yard. At these rates a bushel of wheat will buy, in
our market, five yards of such shirtings. This same wheat is worth in Boston, an average
price of one dollar and twenty-five cents per bushel. The same shirtings in the Boston
market are worth five cents per yard. Then the bushel of wheat there, would buy
twenty-five, instead of only five yards of such shirtings, being a difierence of twenty yards
in the value of the bushel of wheat here and the value there. This twenty yards, then,
in every twenty-five, is ■what we lose by shipping our cotton to Lowell, to have it manu-
factured for us, and our provisions to the same point to feed the manufacturers on, instead
of employing and feeding hands to do the work at home. The example here given ap-
plies with equal force to other articles, and the only reinedy for this evil, the only mode
of saving this great loss, that can present itself to our minds, is to manufacture at home.

" MANUFACTORIES.

" If we manufacture at home, our heavy materials, our provisions, and the manufac-
tures of hemp and tobacco, our horses and mules, would be shipped down stream to the
South, and exchanged for cotton. This exchange would absorb a large portion of our
surplus products of the soil. The cotton, a light article, might be brought up stream at
proper seasons of the year for a very small cost. To manufacture it, would require a
large portion of our population, and those having to be fed, would consume the balance
of our surjjius provisions; and thus the agricultural part of our population would be well
provided for. With equal care, the manufacturing part should be encouraged ; and they
could not suffer, once fairly under headway, because we have all the means of manufac-
turing here cheap and abundant. We have good water-power, and plenty of fuel, and
both are cheap and easily obtained. Real estate is abundant, at the lowest prices. Pro-
visions are plenty, and, at double their present value, would be much cheaper than they
are in places where manufactories have succeeded well. The fabrics produced, at half
the prices many of them are now selling at in various parts of our State, wonld still be
much higher than the same fabrics at Lowell. Our provisions then would cost the manu-
facturer less and his fabrics would sell for more than in other places : and still our

532 PUBLIC OPINION AT THE SOUTH AND WEST.

farmer would sell his provisions higher and buy his shirtings and sheetings and other
articles lower than he now does.

" If these are facts, they arc of deep interest to our population, and deserve to be well
considered by your body.

"The encouragement of manufactories would also widen the field of agricultural pur-
suits. It would encourage wool-growing, to which business no country is better adajited
than ours; and it woidd extend the hemp-growing business: and by manufacturing tiiose
articles, we should reap from them more than double the profit. It would encourage the
growth of all our staples, to be exchanged lor cotton, for the use of our factories, and all
jnirsuits, and give new life and vigor to our p)Of)ulation, and increase their wealth and
comfort.

" If it be so essential to the interests of our cotmtry to encourage manufactories, then it
becomes a matter of deep interest to the Legislature to ascertain the best mode of giving
that encouragement.

'•It is true that the two political parties into which our coimtryhas been divided, have
differed as to the best mode of encouraging manufactories, one party being for a high
taritf to protect them, while the other claimetl that they had protection enough under a
low tariff'; but in these diflcrences, it should always be remembered that whatever may
be the party division as to the best mode of accomplishing the object, yet the simple fact
of making these things — of manufacturing the necessaries or luxuries of life — is neither
whig nor democratic policy, exclusively, any more than making corn, wheat, hemp, or
tobacco : but making them is and ought to be the policy of the whole coimtry — of every
jjolitical party.

" But the question before us now is one in regard to the best manner of encouraging
manufactories in our State. The eflect and operation of a high tariff upon them was
sjioken of in my message to the last legislature, and then an efibrtwas made to show that
a high tariff would retard the establishment of manufactories in our State, and whether
successfully or not, the position then assumed has not been controverted."

What was the argument of the CTOvernor in his previous message, -we do
not know; but sure we are that if he had examined the question carefully,
he would have arrived at a different conclusion. The natural place for the
loom is by the side of the cotton and the food, and that for the, furnace is by
the side of the food and the ore ; and there they would long since have been
but for the existence of great disturbing causes, Avhich it is the object of this
journal to point out, and of the protective system to remedy, and thus bring
about gradually that state of things which is predicted by the Secretary of
the Treasury in his last report — perfect freedom of trade.

That officer tells us distinctly that "the belief is erroneous" that the manu-
facturers, if now protected by a tariff adequate to enable them to continue
their operations in despite of the unceasing fluctuations abroad, and thus to
place the loom and the anvil by the side of the plough, will continue to de-
sii'e protection. He asserts distinctly that as " they increase in number,
skill, capital, and products, they will cease to desire to perpetuate high
tariffs." " When," he adds, " they attain this condition, and their fabrics
exceed the home demand, they will desire free trade, to open to them the
foreign markets. In England," as he further says, " this is now the case,
and there manufacturers are the great advocates of free trade, as our manu-
facturers in time will be, and ultimately unite with all other classes in de-
siring the abandonment of all tariffs and custom-houses, and the repeal of all
restrictions on commerce."

It is perfectly obvious from this admission of the Secretary, that the road
to ultimate perfect freedom of trade lies through the adoption of a decidedly
protective tariff — one that will enable men to adopt the course indicated by
the Governor of jVIissouri, combining their efforts with a view to make the ex-
tortions of all more productive, and thus obtain by the labor of half a dozen
hours a larger amount of food and clothing than they now obtain for that of a
dozen. That they should be enabled to do so, it is indispensable that the
nation adopt that policy which will tend to prevent the necessity for ex-
hausting poor soils, and then flying from the neighborhood of rich ones, as

PUBLIC OPINION AT THE SOUTH AND WEST. 533

is now beinij- done in ever}' part of the Union, but most especially in Vir-
ginia and South Carolina. Men are everywhere running away from each
other, every man seeking to roll his own log, although all see that two can
roll a log that a thousand, each acting separately, could neither roll nor lift.
On this subject of combination of action, the Ex-Govei-nor appears to have
very correct views. He tells the people of the State that

" The best plan is, in every section of our country where one is demanded by the wants
of the community, tor the people to combine their means, as tliey would in the eonstrnctiou
of a railroad or any other improvement. To be profitable, a manufactory of almost any
kind should be constructed on a large scale, and that would require a large capital —
such an amount as would seldom be found in the possession of one man, and such an
amount as it would not be desirable for one man to ]iossess.

" If this be so, then factories ought to be established by companies or associations of
persons. And this being so, it becomes important to ascertain the best mode of organ-
izing and governing these companies or associations, so as to reap the advantages to re-
sult from a combination of their means, without subjecting ourselves to the injuries which
such bodies often inflict upon a conuniuiity."

His views in regard to the legislative action required to facilitate combina-
tion, are in some respects very sound, although in others not so much so. He
is decidedly in favor of general laws for the purpose, thereby avoiding special
legislation, and there he is very right ; but he is doubtful about permitting
associations without imposing upon the associates an amount of liability that
would, in its effects, tend to prevent association. Very little reflection is
needed to see that this is injudicious. He says that they should combine as
they do for the making of railroads, and that they may do so, all that is
needed is that they should be so permitted to combine. The makers of
railroads are never hampered with responsibilities such as fetter persons who
trade in money, or who make cloth, and the reason is, that the roadmaker is
everywhere looked upon as a friend whose aid is to be invited, whereas the
making of cotton or iron are too frequently regarded in a different light, and
yet the latter are greater friends to the farmer than the former. The road-
maker enables the farmer to go to market. The cloth or iron maker brings
the market to his door, and enables him to sell that portion of his labor that
is not needed on his farm — that of his sons and daughters, and that of his
wagon and horses — his timber, and many other things that could not be sold
by aid of the best roads in the world.

It is full time that the planters and farmers of the South and West should
acquire the habit of association, and that they may do so, it is essential that
they should free themselves from all those restrictions on the exercise of the
right of association that we have imported from abroad — from countries in
which the few alone were permitted to associate for the formation of joint-
stock companies, that they might monopolize the benefits that were to be
derived from combination of action. Throughout Europe there is a tendency
to the abolition of those restrictions. In England, so recently as the last
centur}'', no joint-stock company, with transferable shares, was lawful, even
although all the parties were liable. Step by step, with growing civilization,
we see a change, and the day is not far distant when it will come to be,
recognised both there and here, that all men have a right to associate for
trading, or manufacturing, or roadmaking, or money-lending, on such terms
as they may think proper to agree upon, provided only that perfect publicity
be given to their proceedings, so that every man who trades with them may
know the terms on which they trculc

In no part of the world do corporations so much abound as throughoiu
New England, and therefore it is that the losses by corporations are there .so
small. There are there no monopolies. Men make banks when and where
they please ; and if they find there are too many, some of them wind up their

2 y2

534 MR. wilder's agricultural remarks.

business : and they do so almost as unhesitatingly as in other States the shoe-
maker closes his shop and removes elsewhere, when it is found that shoe-
makers have become too numerous. The consequence of this is, that they
have the best banking system, and the soundest currency in the world ; and
the sole reason therefor is that there the trade in money is 7)iostfree.

What has been best said on the habit of association, and its advantages,
may be found in Mr. Carey's work, " The Past, the Present, and the
Future," page 229, which we will take an early opportunity to insert, for it
is one of the subjects most necessary to be studied, and yet is it the one
which is the least studied and understood by the practical farmer.

MR. WILDER'S AGRICULTURAL REMARKS.

Among the best signs of the times, is the institution of meetings of the members of the
legislature, and others, at the seats of 8tate Governments, during the sessions of Assem-
bly, to discuss agricultural questions. These discussions will be quite appropriate, and
no less useful, should they embrace the obligations of the general government to provide
for agricuhural, and civil, as well as for military instruction — and if, moreover, they should
bring under consideration the obligation of that same government so to shape its policy
as to bear beiieticially on the interests of the plough — for without the products of the
farmer, M'hat would become of all the other more special interests for the care of which
departments of government are created, and secretaries appointed, and immense sums of
money expended in various forms ?

In their meetings at Albany, the question has been started, how far they should
sanction the recommendation of the Governor for a School of Agriculture ; and as
usual, instead of uniting first to demand that from the government, they are likely to be
diverted from the main object, by disputes about details. Let each State, we should say,
first compel Congress to reduce the appropriations for the army and the navy, and give
the amount for agricultural education in each State. Why dispute, on a question \Wq
this, about how much chemistry has done for agriculture ?

Let them take up the course of instruction at West Point, only substituting the plough
and the spade for the cannon and the sword, and leaving all the rest as it is, and we un-
dertake to say that teachers so instructed, only applying chemistry and mechanical phi-
losophy to the analysis and composition of plants and grasses, instead of rockets and gun
powder — to the structure of wagons and threshing-machines, instead of gun-carriages. —
yes, we undertake to say that if the government will fill the country with teachers so
instructed, they woidd add as much to the agricultural as they are now doing to the
blood-shedding ca])abilities of the country ; and that they would win more true glory for
this Republic by preventing war, than is to be wori by an unbroken series of the most bril-
liant victories won in fields of blood. But of what avail is one poor feeble voice like ours
in the cause of humanity and truth ? — when not a press, nor an agricultural society in the
land, will unite in the demand, except that of Maryland?

Of the meetings referred to, after such men as Wilder and Teschemacher, and Gray,
Walker, French, Brooks, Read, &c., become enlisted and prevailed on to "give in their
experience," there ceases to be any occasion to dwell on their utility.

in a chance number of a Boston paper, we find the following. We say a chance num-
ber, because according to the wisdom of our rulers in Post-oftice matters, while tlie meanest
hebdomadal in the land has the privilege of exchanging /j-ff/y with every newspaper in
it,of whatever size, no periodical is allowed to receive one, although every mail might bring
it matter germane to its own, with statistical and other items worthy of more extended cir-
culation. Ah! we are a wise — a wonderful people !

From the Boston Daily Evening Transcript.

We subjoin the remarks of the Hon. Marshall P. Wilder, promised
yesterday, at the last Legislative Agricultural meeting at the State House:

The President introduced the discussion, by saying the subject was one
paramount in importance to any other that concerns the cultivator of the
soil. It is the great preliminary movement on which the farmer founds his
expectations of a bountiful harvest, the sheet-anchor of his hopes. Although
he might pkntgh deep and well, yet, without some correct knowledge of the
substances he uses to fertilize the seed he buries in the earth, his success is

MR. WILDER's agricultural REMARKS. 535

almost as uncertain as the mariner's who would plough old ocean without
chart or compass.

A soil of inexhaustible fertility, he said, was an imaginary idea ; and
although mother earth would yield kindly to the full extent of her ability,
yet the time would come, sooner or later, when even the rich prairie lands
of the West would demand a return of the fertilizing elements which have
been abstracted by vegetation. It is a matter, then, of vast importance, to
learn how these materials can be procured at the cheapest possible price,
and in a form to be applied with the greatest economy.

Mr. Wilder proceeded to state that he was no chemist, and made no pre-
tensions to farming, except as it is connected with gardening and the horti-
cultural art.

He had made some experiments with manures, some of which he would
relate. He did not wish to be understood that he undervalued stable or
barn-yard manure, but such as was purchased from the stables of the city,
ly the cord, when deprived of straw or decomposed, was in reality only half
or three-fourths of a cord. To obtain a real solid cord of manure, equal in
quahty, and at less price, had with him been a great desideratum, and he
believed he had succeeded, by making a compost of meadow-muck, crushed
bones, and leached ashes, in the following proportions :

One cord of meadow-muck, having been exposed to the action of air and

frost at least one year . . . . . . . . . $1 50

Twelve bushels leaohed ashes . . . . . . . . 1 20

Six bushels crushed bones ........ 1 50

Labor ............. 30

Total cost per cord .......... 450

The bones and ashes were mixed together while the latter were in a damp
state ; and when fermentation had taken place, these were incorporated with
ti e meadow-muck. In this condition the mass should remain until heat is
generated again, when it will be fit for use.

He had found this compost equal to any stable manure for root crops,
grass land, gardening purposes generally, and for fruit trees. For the last
t.vo years, he had mixed his stable manure with the compost, and also had
added to it one-eighth part in bulk of fine refuse charcoal from the depots of
venders. This can be purchased at five dollars the cord, delivered, and
does not much increase the cost above named.

Mr. Wilder said, that since Liebig first promulgated his opinion as to the
wonderful influence of charcoal in rooting cuttings of plants, and as a com-
ponent part of soils, experiments have been making verifying its importance,
i-le also informs us, that the volatile gas which arises from our stables and
manu:o heaps, and descends in the rain and snow, and which we call
ammonia, is the great fertilizer of the earth. To secure this subtile element,
Mr. W, had added charcoal to his compost heaps, and as he thought with
great advantage. It is very durable, if not indestructible ; a substance of
great porosity, and we are told, he said, by chemists, that it will absorb
90 per cent, of its bulk of ammonia ; but its beneficial effects are supposed
to arise from its power of retaining this volatile gas, and yielding it up only
as it is washed out by rains, or as the vital force of the root searches for food.
He did not consider it a fertilizer in itself, but that it was a medium of
administering nourishment, having used it with good success for greenhouse
plants for many years.

Mr. Wilder said the compost (with the charcoal and stable manure com-
, ned) was the best he had ever used as a general manure. On fruit trees
iu- effects were remarkable.

In the spring of 1847, he planted a square in the nursery with imported

536 MR. WILDER S AGRICULTURAL REMARKS.

trees from England, this compost having been spread and ploughed in.
These trees were from four to five feet in height, and although it is not
usual for trees to make a large growth the first year, they acquired branches
of three to four feet, and were so handsome as to command $1.25 each for
a row of fifty trees, without any selection.

In June last, which is very late to set out trees, he prepared another
square on rather poor land, and planted trees just received from England,
upon it. The soil had been thrown up to the frost the previous winter, and
the compost here was applied in the trenches, near the roots. Mr. Wilder
exhibited two shoots, which had grown from those trees since they were set
out in June. The shoots were four feet in length, and the wood hard and
well ripened.

It is stated that on old beds, where charcoal had been burned ten years
before, the corn and wheat to this day are uniformly better than en the
adjoining lands, being more vigorous, of a darker green color, and producing
larger crops. A farmer remarks, " I sowed fine charcoal over my grass
land in strips ; these strips have increased one-half in product, and without
any apparent diminution for five years."

Mr. Wilder mentioned several instances showing the beneficial effects
arising from the use of fine charcoal, one of which, in the Stale of New
York, was an extraordinary product of wheat crop.

Says an English gardener, " My compost consists of nothing but loam and
charcoal, without a particle of manure of any sort ; and I never saw the
plant that did not deHght in it, and every plant under my care has some
charcoal used about it."

As a deodorant or disinfector, Mr. Wilder related the following experiment
which appears in a late English paper :

Two fluids, and charcoal from peat, were prepared especially by different
chemists for the purpose of depriving night-soil, stable and pig-stye manures
of their offensive smell — the fluids both proved ineffectual, but the charcoal
not only entirely and instantly neutralized and destroyed the offensive odor,
in each of these substances, but also deodorized the fluids themselves.

Mr. Teschemacher said that the vast and almost inexhaustible subject of
manures had always united itself in his mind with three great considera-
tions :

1. On the nature of the crops to be raised.

2. On the nature of the soil from which these crops were to be obtained.
8. And the most important one — the nature and application of the manure

itself. He should be obliged to condense into a brief form what he had to
say on all these heads. Every one knew, if clover was wanted, a large
quantity of lime was wanted ; for tobacco, potash or soda.

In England, after many years' cultivation of wheat, all the cow-yard
manure that could be heaped on the ground, would not raise any more until
bone dust was added ; and with this many acres, hitherto considered barren,
had given excellent crops. The size and quality of turnips had been found
lo be much benefited by the use of the soluble phosphate of liuie.

(3ne (juestion then is, what does the crop we require abstract from the
soil during its growth and maturity?- This question is answered by the
various analyses of the crops which are now found in every ao;i"iculiural
treatise. But another and niuch more important question now arises : it is
this :

What part of the ingredient puts more bone and muscle into the animals
which feed on them, and can we by particular measures increase in these
crops the quantity of their ingredients ? The first part of this question has
been answered by Liebig's last treatise. We knew before Liebig was born

MR. WILDEr's agricultural REMARKS. 537

that the bones of animals wpre chiefly formed of the phosphate of lime, hut
we did not know that the phosphates of other alkahes formed considerable
part of the muscle ; this he has satisfactorily proved. In the lime district
of Switzerland the cattle are much larger than where lime is scarce in the
soil — and the great test of the quality of a crop is by its nutritious action on
the animal, more than by its appearance or even weight ; now it is evident
that by offering as food to these crops a manure abundantly supplied with
these ingredients, combined with others insuring a luxuriant groivth, we
enable them to obtain a maximum thereof. My experience shows in the
same weight of grain a difference of thirty per cent, in their ingredients,
dependent on the difference of the manure; hence the consideration in the
nature of the crops is of much interest. On the nature of the soil — All soils
are composed chiefly of sand (silica), clay (alumina), lime, magnesia, some
organic matters as sources of carbonic acid, and a few oxides of the metals.

Sand (silica) is chiefly of use to strengthen and stiffen the stems ; for this
purpose it must be dissolved by an alkali, (potash or soda.) This is usually
found in clav, which as an ingredient of the soil or of the compost heap, is
invaluable, although it never enters into the organization of the plant.

When the chemist analyzes a mineral containing alumina, it is almost
impossible for him to wash it free from the alkaline substances which he has
used in his analysis — it grasps and retains these with the most invincible
obstinacy, as clay in its natural state is always combined with small portions
of silica and potash or soda.

The President has spoken highly of charcoal, but by no means too much
so, as an absorbent of the useful part of manure — ammonia. I have experi-
mented several years with this substance, in various ways, and can amply
confirm all he has said. Clay, however, I think if possible more retentive
than charcoal, certainly more so as regards potash and soda, and may be had
where charcoal is hardly to be procured. Clay, then, well pulverized by
frost, is a most valuable addition to the compost heap ; and a soil containing
a fair proportion of clay may, by manuring, be rendered the most permanently
rich of any.

A light soil allows the valuable salts of the manure easily leached through
by heavy rains, and one with too much clay does not permit them to mix
freely, so that the roots of the crops can get access to their nourishment.

The farmer, who studies the nature of his soil, will, while manuring
liberally, be able to manure much more economically, than one who knows
nothing on the subject. It is probable that the great differences of opinion
which exist in the use of lime and plaster have arisen chiefly from igno-
rance on this subject.

I have not time to dwell on the third part of this subject, but will state
that in the Isle of Thanet, on the river Thames, where much seed wheat is
grown, and where seeds of vegetables and herbs are grown to a large extent,
the compost heaps are formed as follows: three or four inches of pretty good
loam and turf, then six or eight inches of sea-weed brought up from the
beach in the immediate vicinity, then six or eight inches of farm-yard manure,
then loam, and soon, until the heap is several feet high. This is left twelve
months to decompose — the grains raised are beautiful, large, plump, and
heavy — now here the ingredients are clayey loam to absorb — sea-weed con-
tains soda and a good proportion of the phosphates — the barnyard manure
besides its soluble salts contains ammonia, and the solid parts are by fer-
mentation converted into charcoal and humus, which absorb the ammonia
und preserve it for the use of the crop. Here then is not only every ingre-
dient the plant requires, but also the storehouse of alumina and charcoal,
from which it extracts its food as wanted.
Vol. L— 68

/

538 IRON BUSINESS IN VIRGINIA.

I remember a discussion on tiie subject of whether manure was better
used in a green state or after it had been kept for a year or more and had
become a black saponaceous mass. The question appeared to be settled in
favor of this latter state, and this agrees with my own experience. If a
manure heap be fermented under a good cover, it is converted into a black
carbonaceous mass, containing nearly all the ammonia condensed in its pores,
and is a most powerful manure.

But, gentlemen, I will not continue this subject. I am still a learner, and
shall be happy to acquire knowledge from gentlemen present.

Lieut. Governor Reed, Hon. Mr. Brooks, of Princeton, Hon. Mr. Leonard,
of Norton, Hon. J. C. Gray, Messrs. Buckminster, of " The Ploughman,"
Bartlett, of " The Cultivator," and other gentlemen, took part in the dis-
cussion.

The same subject of manures is to be resumed next Tuesday evening.

IRON BUSINESS IN VIRGINIA.

" We noticed a few days since, and with gratification, too, a statement in the 'Lexington
Valley Star,' of the prosperous condition of the iron establishments in the county of Bote-
tourt, Va. We were gratified, tliat these manufacturers were able to sustain themselves
against the ruinous free trade policy of our government, even though those of our own
State could not. But it seems the statement was erroneous, in some respects, at least, for
the ' Fincastle Whig,' in correcting it, says, ' we feel satisfied that there is not a business-
man in the country, but is convinced of the fact, that every man engaged in the iron busi-
ness in Botetourt for the last tv/elve months has lost money by the operation. Out of the
five furnaces enumerated by the 'Star,' in the county of Botetourt, as being in a. prospercms
condition — tiw, if not three, under the blighting effects of the British Tariff o{ 1S4(3, have
been compelled to stop business — and in some cases, their proprietors, formerly inde-
pendent, are now bankrupt. So mucli for the operation of the Fire Trade Tariff in the
countv of Botetourt. We have no doubt the same is true, not only in relation to other
counties in Virginia, but throughout the whole Union.' "

What is the comment of a genuine " Common Sense" on the above ?
Must not those who worked in those furnaces be converted from being cus-
tomers to being rivals of the farmer ? — and must not the farmer, instead of
finding his market on the spot, and saving his time, and keeping his manure
on the farm — must he not go to making corn and wheat, that must be sent
at great expense to distant markets, there to meet the competition of men
who live on pumpernide, and who are bought and sold with the farms to
which they belong, as so many cattle and sheep? — for such is the condition
of millions in Russia, our great rival in the corn markets of Europe.

DEPOPULATION OF THE SOUTH.

"An unusually large number of movers have passed through this village within the
past two or tinee weeks. On one day of last week, upwards of thirty wagons and
other vehicles belonging to emigrants, mostly from Georgia and South Carolina, passed
through on their way, most of them bound to Texas and Arkansas." — Grecnsborongh {Ala.)
Beacon.

Everywhere throughout the South, men are thus seen flying from each
other, and from rich soils. The address of Governor Seabrook to the Agri-
cultural Society of South Carolina, recently received, and which we pro])0£e,
on a future occasion, to notice at full length, describes as existing throughout
that State, an amount of rich and unoccupied lands that perfectly astonishes
us; yet her people are seeking the West, to repeat upon poor soils, at the
heads of streams, the work of exhaustion. To clear the rich lands of the
river bottoms, and to drain the swamps, combination of action is indispensa-
ble, and that can never be obtained until the loom and the anvil are brought
to take their places by the side of the plough and the liarrow.

EASTERN SHORE OF MARYLAND LAND. 539

WHAT MAY BE DONE WITH EASTERN SHORE OF MARYLAND

LAND,

FROM WHICH PEOPLE ARE RUNNING AWAY TO THE WEST; OR INTO THE

LARGE TOWNS.

Martin GoldsborougK s Statement — with Notes by the Editor of " The Plough, the Loom, and

the Anviiy

Lot No. 1. On the plot, 1 acre, 1 perch, from which I cleaned up 50 bush.
10 lbs., which is 40 bush. 8 lbs. per acre.

Land, white oak soil. (a) Lnproved in 1835, kept in grass for 7 years,
then in wheat until 1847, when I had a good growth of clover. I grazed
it off, broke the land in July, which was done as shallow as 1 could : say
1| to 3 inches deep, then prepared with treble ploughs. (6) Seeded and
put in with the same ploughs on the 17th or 18th of October, 1847.

S. Chamberlain's Plot.

A. R. p. bush. lbs.

Lot No. 2 is made up of 1 1 20 Product 44

Lot No. 3 is made up of 2 1 20 " 70

Lot No. 4 is made up of 1 3 00 " 64 24

5 2 00 178 24

Giving 32 40 to the acre.
Ground, white oak soil, prepared as above, seeded as above; and on lots
3, 4, had a light dressing of manure.

Lot No. 5 contains 5 acres 18 perches ; product 150^ bush., which is
about 30 bush, per acre.

Land, part loam, part white oak, prepared as in No. 1. Seeded in three
different lots, 17 bush, of wheat — Closs ivheat.

1 acre of corn produced 75 bush.

Land, loam, 3 years in succession in Avheat, the 4th year in corn, and
gave the above. Planted 4 ft, 4 in. by about 3 ft. The ground had a
dressing of marsh-mud and sand, and farm-yard manure — about 90 loads of
the former and 45 of the latter per acre. Broken in May, and planted on
the 20th. There was 172 missing hills on the acre, and many hills with
but one stalk.

I will make oath to these statements if required.

Talbot County, 3Id. Martin Goldsborough.(c)

(a) It were much to be wished that this " white oak soil," — a common designation in
Maryland — could be more exactly described. It is not enough to say that its primitive
growth was white-oak. It ought to be, and doubtless will be, analyzed carefully, and
the results published, by the State Agricultural Chemist. The soil of what is emphatically
called " The Swamp,'' on West River, is a white-oak soil, which, after rain, runs together
in a hard compact mass, causing it to be called pewtery. It seems to be unmixed with
sand, and when dry rubs into an impalpable smooth powder, like wheat flour. The
original growth of that land is celebrated over the country as the finest description of
white-oak ship timber — the next best timber after live-oak. Can Mr. Goldsborough's
" white-oak soil" be of the same description ? Both are, we presume, flat countries. The
swamp certainly is, and underlaid w-itli a thick stratum of a yellower or brownish clay,
almost as hard as stone.

(6) There is coming into fashion in Maryland, an implement arranged with two, three,
and we believe even four or five little ploughs, arranged a little in advance of each other,
and at an angle across the land, so that the one in the rear runs just clear of the land
thrown by the one in advance. They run, of course, very shallow, and are getting to be
very popular for seeding grain in fallow land. Perhaps after some time, when a few
more thousand of the " Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil'' get into circulation, as it no^v
circulates, not locally, but over the whole Union, the makers of agricultural implements
will wake up to a sense of the benefit they might derive from advertising on the cover

510 EASTERN SHORE OF MARYLAND LAND.

of this journal, and sending for insertion in it, gratuitously, all descriptions and cuts illus
trative of ncio agricultural inventions. We liave only to add that this is a matter that
concerns them more than us. One word more : tlie nearer the loom and the anvil come
to the plough, the better both for him at the plough, and for him icho makes it.

(c) We hope never to see a Maryland farmer called upon or allowed to " make oath'' to
the truth of a positive .statement — for with the farmers of that State, we hope neverto seeany
man dare come in competition, who would not be believed by his neighbors as implicitly
on his simple word as on his " affidavit :"' the very form of which is, in some States, care-
fully conned over and prescribed, to tie down competitors for dollar premiums, in the
strictest terms that suspicion <-ould devise against a known habit of lying and fraud.

In still further proof of what land wUl fetch, in more senses than one, on the Eastern
Shore, we take, without leave, the following extract from a letter received some weeks
since from a valued friend in Talbot County. Though the letter was a friendly one, de-
signed only for our own eye, the facts are of public interest, and he must excuse us, as we
omit names. What be says of sea-weed, or sea-ware, sometimes improperly called kelp,
(which is altogether a ditferent sidistance,) reminds us of some experiments detailed to
X1.S, many years since, by a most respectable farmer, and which we will relate when we
have room.

"What do you think of land selling within four miles of here for ffJO an
acre ? I know an instance of it, and the purchaser is a hard-fisted, working
farmer, who has made a small fortune by hard knocks, having come in, as
the sailors call it, at the ' hawse-hole.' The farm is not rich, but for beauty

of situation cannot be surpassed. bought a good farm three

miles below St. JVIichael's, a few days ago, at $40 an acre. It is considered
a good ])urchase, but situated on the waters of Choptank, where there is no
sea-weed, which we consider as indispensable as the Virginians do a mint-
patch.

"I killed, a few days ago, 38 hocfs, which averaged 215 lbs., raised in
the way you most approve, on principles of the ' largest liberty,' and none
exceeding 18 months old, and many about 12 months. Three raised in a
stye weighed from 300 to 380 lbs. (15 months old). How the Yankees can
make them weigh, at IG and 18 months old, from 500 to 600 lbs. I cannot
imagine. Next year I shall make an improvement on my stye, by giving
the pigs access to a marsh in warm weather, which I think will conduce to
their health.

" I made an experiment this year of a compost made of king-crabs, which
abound in these waters. I do not know wjiether you are acquainted with
this interesting testaceous animal, but think you must have it on the Pa-
tuxent. I mixed them with rough straw, soil, &c., and the appearance of
the manure is rich, — the crabs, shells and all, decomposed. I made also
294 loads of prime manure under my sheep, to say nothing of my main
sutnmer compost, in which I penned my cattle from May until November,
on the usual materials, sea-Aveed, woods leaves, straw, &c., and lubricated
with 1300 skates. An experiment I made Avith guano on wheat was not
successful.

" I wonder you have not drawn some matter from Humboldt's New Spain.
In the 2d volume is a beautiful essay on the agriculture of that country.
There the origin and progress of the potato is discussed, and its failure,
from cutting the seed, predicted. He wrote in about 1803 or '4."

Notes on Pigs. — The great weight at which the Yankee pigs arrive at an early age, is
no doubt the result, in a great measure, of peculiarity in the breed, and then again dillerence
in the manner of rearing.

In New England, every meal the hog eats costs money, and the Yankee has the saga-
city to count the cost of every thing. The hog diere never goes at large, whereas, at the
Soutli, he goes routing and grunting where he listeth — oftentimes turning uj) his master's
meadow.s, sometimes luxuriating in his corn-field, and sometimes i'easting even on the
<lainties of the garden. But why not, says the reader, get these New England jjjgs in
the Soutli ? Because " circumstances ahers cases," and besides, it has been done, again and

EASTERN SHORE OF MARYLAND LAND. 541

again. The fat, short-legged, simple-hearted pig of New England, that waits to be fed,
and, unlike his countryman, knows not. nor ever dreams how to weather dillieulties,
would perish in the sunny South, where the rule is "Root, hog, or die." There the hog is
remarkable for his industr}'' and enterprise. How long would it take a fat New England
pig to run a mile in time of a North-wester, to pick up a shower of chestnuts or acorns in
one direction, and as far in another to the persinnnon trees 1 " It's an ill wind that
blows nobody any good,'' but no wind can blow good to hogs that can't go in search of
what the wind throws upon the ground. The New England hog, from the day he is
littered to the day he breathes his last, is kept stuifed with as much as he can eat. His
is not a life of vicissitude and romance — of starvation and satiety. It is one monotonous
alternation o[ sleeping and eating, and as, in New England, where the loom and the anvil
are everywhere near to the plough, every Ihing can be sold and turned into money, the
Yankee knows he must have a breed that will yield the greatest weight of fat pork in
the shortest possible time — for he can estimate tlie money value of every pint of butter-
milk he eats, and of every apple. Get the same breed in Maryland, and treat them in
the same way — keep them always pampered — let them never wake but to eat, and keep
them always clean, and you can have them weigh as much, and in as short time, as the
Yankee pigs, of which here are some memoranda. For instance, Mr. Bingham, of Cam-
bridgeport, killed four pigs of one litter, one year and one day old, which weighed

3UG, 318, 394, and 398. Total, 1470.

Mr. Amos Wood, of Boston, bouglit a sow that then weighed 59G lbs., one year after-
wards she weighed 110(3, having gained 510 lbs. in 3(15 days. Her food was varied
every day, and once every week she ha<l a salt fish, and the water it was boiled in. At
Easton, (not Maryland, but) Bristol, Mass.. Mr. Cyrus Lathrop killed a pig which at twenty
months old weighed 742 li)S. He measured 9 inches through the ribs, was 5 feet round
tlie neck, 7 round the body, and was G feet 2 inches long. He was nnjDromising as a pig,
but took a start in April, and gained in one year GG5 lbs. ! Let us hope that, as money is
so hard to be raised for agricultural uses, that societies will give away no more premiums
for fat hogs unless it be "with a proviso!'' that they shall exceed some of these old
familiar cases, of which, while our hand is in, we will give a few more. Thirty years
ago, there were slaughtered in Boston, on the day they had been but one year in this
world, eating and drinking, ten brothers and sisters, which weighed three thousand seven
hundred and sixty-three pounds, or an average of 376. They were purchased at five weeks
old, by an innkeeper, and fattened in his stable-yard. They were fattened on the wash
and refuse of the tavern kitchen, until November, when they got, besides, until tliey "bit
the dust," about ninety bushels of corn meal !

^ Note upon a Note. — The reader will do well not to infer from the above, that common
" pot liquor," in which hog meat has been boiled, and from which it chiefly derives its
substance, is good for hogs. In relation to the very case just stated, we once received the

following :

" Mr. Editor : — In compliance with your nrg-ent request, I proceed to
state the substance of my remarks, in conversation with you, concerning the
effects of certain kinds of feed on the constitutions of the hog- and the cow.

" And, first of the hog : I have observed that the common pot iiijuor, from
the boihng of pork or bacon, to be injurious to confined hogs, and of no
benefit (if not an injury) to those running at large. In my opinion, it pro-
duces a disposition to mange. I think that the large hogs, fed in Boston, by
Mr. Patterson, with kitchen swill, must have had but little pork in its com-
position.

" And next of the cow. I was informed, by an old gentleman who prac-
tised the veterinary art in Baltimore, for several years before his death, that
he believed that most of the complaints of the cows in Baltimore, originated
from feeding on slops, composed in part of the boilings of beef and pork. I
bought some Baltimore cows one Fall, and found them much weaker and
more difficult to winter, for their appearance, than any I ever fed ; and it is
my opinion, that this disposition was produced by feeding on such slops as
I have above described. And I am of the opinion, that it is contrary to
nature and injurious to the health and constitution of any animal to feed on
its own kind. The best feed I have ever given to hogs is milk ; and it is,
at the same time, the worst for dogs. Rich pot liquor will fatten dogs, and

2Z

542 SHEEP-KILLING DOGS.

kill hogs. If these observations are considered worthy a place in your
paper, you may insert thern. A Rough Farmer.

"&. Dmningo Farm, May 21, 1819."

In the Baltimore market, thirty years ago, there were two hog? exhibited by John Har-
bnrger, of Lancaster County, Pa., that weighed 1743 pounds. One girted C feet 3, and
one was 9 feet 1 inch long, from the root of the tail to the end of the snout. One was
18, the other 14 months old. The last six months prior to their being weighed, they had
been fed entirely on milk and corn. What better could they ask ? The above was their
live tocight. What the difference is between gross weight and weight when cleaned, with
other particulars interesting to be known to every practical farmer, but which not one
farmer out of an hundred can tell, ofl-hand, may be learned from the following, with
which, for the present, we conclude our swinish notes. The information v.'as given
thirty years ago, to the Senior Editor of "The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil," by a
" Statistical Philosopher'^ of Princess Anne, Somerset County, Maryland ; and for fat turkies,
good oysters, good apple-toddy, fox hunting, and card jilaying, (we mean fifty years ago,
in old Col. ■W*****'s time,) a man might go further and be in a worse place than Somer-
set County — for " peach" you would go still lower down into the Old Dominion — down
into friend Wise's bailiwick.

I have inspected the memoranda of a practical economist for a series of
years, and from a variety of experiments have formed the following table of
ten hogs, fatted chiefly on corn.

Days of fatting ......... 45

Weight, when put up , 1257

" when killed j 728

" when cleaned 1366

Weight of hams, shoulders, and middlings 909

" of hams and shoulders ...... 752

« of leaf, fat 138

" of feet, heads, and backs ...... 319

" of hams, shoulders, and middlings, when smoked . . 733

" of hams and shoulders, when do. ..... C07

Hence it appears that the gain in fatting is nearly one pound per day.

J . , rioss in cleaning .... 20"^

, hams, shoulders, and middlings . .67
tion to the J , , , ,, t-r. I per

, < hams and shoulders . . . 55 > ^^

entire hog ) , r r . ml centum.

, "^ leaf, lat 10

l^loss in smoking .... 20j

< » » <

SHEEP-KILLING DOGS.

"Alone, in wanton mischief he pursues
Alone in reeking blood his jaws imbrues;
Chasing amain, his frighten'd victims round.
Till death in wild confusion strews tlie ground j
Then, wearied out, to kennel sneaks away,
And licks his guilty paws till break of day."

The Ohio State Board of Agriculture held its annual meeting at Columbus
on the 0th of December, and evinced a very laudable sensibility to the im-
portance of tbeir duties : nor could that be better done than by the re-
election of Mr. Allen Trimble as President. They determined to hold a
State Fair in the month of September next — the place not yet agreed upon,
recommended the patronage of agricultural papers, and the " Ohio Culti-
vator" in particular ; also that the proprietors of newspapers would devote
a portion of their journals to agriculture. It is just this which will at last
destroy the attempt bj' appropriate journals, devoted exclusively to the sub-
ject, to establish an agricultural literature for the country. In the first
place, farmers care so much less for knowledge of principles and progress
in their own business, than they do for parly politics, that where twenty
party papers do well at from $o to $10 a year, even Bateman, with all his

GROWTH OF AGRICULTURAL WEALTH IN OHIO. 543

industry, can hardly keep his "Cultivator" going at $1; yet these half-
supported, half-starved agricultural journals, furnish the materials for the
agricultural department of the party papers. What ought to be thought of
the man who calls himself a man and a father, who is rearing his sons to be
cultivators of the soil, and who yet hesitates to lay aside $5 a year for agri-
cultural journals designed to instruct them in the very business by which
they are to gain a livelihood, and respectability by some knowledge of the
principles of their profession ! We ask every farmer who is a father to put
the question to himself ! But of all this we had no design to say one word ;
so we return to the proceedings of the State Convention, only to note, for the
present, some of its most important resolutions, as follows :

"Resolved, That the President of this Board be authorized to offer a premium oi Fifty
Dollars for the best essay on the character, comjjosition, and improvement of SoiLs ia
Ohio.

"Also a premium of Fifty Dollars for the best essay on the relation that the agricul-
tural, manufacturing, and mechanical interests sustain to each other. The essays to be
furnished on or before the day of the next annual meeting of the Board.

"Resolved, That Messrs. Springer, Medary, and Sullivant, be appointed a committee
to report to the next meeting of the Board, a select list of fruits best suited for cultivation
in the northern, central, and southern portions of this State, vtrith such remarks on the
subject of pomology as the committee may deem proper.

" Resolved, That this Board ask the Legislature at its present session to pass a law re-
quiring the township assessors to ascertain as correctly as possible the amount of each
kind of grain and other farm produce raised in each township annually, together with the
number of acres of land occupied with each kind of crop.

"Resolved, That inasmuch as great damage is annually done by dogs,* in the de-
struction of sheep ; and consequently many of. our agriculturists suffer great loss or are
deterred from engaging in this branch of agriculture therefore, this Board memorialize
the Legislature, at their present session, to pass a law imposing a tax on dogs, of such sum
as they may deem necessary, to protect the interests of the wool-growers of Ohio.

"Resolved. That the President of this Board be requested to procure some suitable
person to deliver an Address at the State Fair to be held next September."

Now supposing the loss in other States to be in proportion, and taking the
census of 1840 for the number of sheep, and the annual loss by dogs is
$600,000, or the interest on a capital of $0,000,000 ; but it seems that Ohio
has, since 1840, increased her flocks of sheep from 2,028,401 to 3,677,171 :
at that rate, by the next census she will have 4,000,000 of sheep. Surely
the owners of that amount of property ought to be able to contend against
the owners of sheep-killing dogs, in a contest for influence even with the
most rabid hunters after popularity and offlce on the part of law-makers !

GROWTH OF AGRICULTURAL WEALTH IN OHIO.

Horses and Mules. Cattle. Sheep. Hogs.

In 1838 .... 430,527 1,217,874 2,028,401 2,079,746

C TTnr*p'^ 4Q'T .500 )

In 1848, ] {\°\-^^^ o no^> i 494,607 983,822 3,677,171 1,879,089

( >lules, 2,098 ^ ' ' ' ' ' '

The apparent diminution in cattle and hogs is explained by the following note from
the "Ohio Cultivator," from which these returns are taken. The enumeration was prev
bably made after the sheej) of the last lambing season were six months old, so that we
have nearly the whole number of them ; but very much les.s than the actual number of
horses, cattle, and hogs.

Note. — The fijregoing tible does not include horses and cattle under two years old,
mules under one and a half years old, and sheep and hogs under six months- old, on the
lirst day of June last.

Total value of Horses, §16.850,841. Total value of Mules, $78,955. Total value of
Cattle, $9,729,920. Total value of Sheep, $1,988,310. Total value of Hogs, $2,341,106.

* In 1840, the estimate was $80,000, as the value of sheep killed by dogs in Ohio that
year. One farmer had fifty killed in one night.

544 CULTIVATION OF COTTON IN INDIA.

CULTIVATION OF COTTON IN INDIA.

In former articles we have endeavored to extract some principles as ap-
plicable to 'the successful culture of American Cotton. I'he chemical
constituents of the soil did not, upon the whole, appear to be of greater
importance than its physical state. A high degree of summer temperature
seemed essential, with, at the same time, considerable though not excessive
moisture. The practices of agriculture seemed indeed to be varied chiefly
in reference to the more or less moist state of the atmosphere. The quantity
of cotton required by our manufacturers being so immense, it is not extra-
ordinary that they should wish to be supplied from a variety of sources.
India has generally been looked to as the country most likely to supply a
greatly increased quantity in a short space of time ; chiefly because it
already produces largely not only for the consumption of its millions of in-
habitants, but also for export both to this country and to China. But the
quality of Indian Cotton not being generally approved of by our spinners, it
has been thought that careful culture might improve its nature, and also that
where one species was so extensively cultivated, another might be success-
fully introduced, especially into a country which is so frequently described
as including every variety of soil and climate.

It would be extraordinary if no attempts had been made to attain so
desirable an object as the production of an article greatly in demand in
Europe, and which would appear to be of benefit to the country producing
it as an article of export. On inquiry, indeed, we find that a vast number
of experiments have been made by the East India Company for a long series
of years, indeed from the year 1788 to the present period, and in spite of
failures enough to have deterred most other governments from persevering
in what appeared a hopeless undertaking. These experiments commenced
with inquiries, and were followed up Avilh the distribution of seeds to culti-
vators, and the establishment of government farms : the despatch of planters
from America for growing the cotton in India, as well as of machines for
cleaning it, and of presses for packing it. These were followed by a repe-
tition of the same measures at successive times, and in new localities ; and,
if we except some very recent ones, all without any great effects having
been permanently produced. The efforts of the government have been
aided by the co-operation of Agricultural Societies, as well as of individuals
in difl^erent parts of India, and all with no better success, and this in a
country where the same efforts have established the manufacture of indigo
and of sugar, and improved the preparation of silk, and the collection of
opium.

India is so vast a country, and its different parts vary so much from each
other, that it will be difficult to make any observations which are equally
applicable to all ; we shall therefore divide our inquiries into these experi-
ments, and our observations on them into certain great divisions of the
country, where there is some general similarity of soil and of climate, with-
out paying any great attention to a chronological series. First of all we
shall notice the province of Bengal, not tjiut it is peculiarly a cotton country,
or that its cotton is of a superior quality, though Dacca, one of its districts,
was long celebrated for its muslins. We mus'. premise, however, that the
province of Bengal has nothing to do with what is commonly called Bengal
cotton, which is produced, we beheve, entirely in the distant and dry north-
v/est provinces, and exported from Calcutta, the capital of Bengal. But we
select Bengal because it affords the requisite temperature, is near the sea,
and is conspicuous for moisture of climate. Numerous experiments, more-

CULTIVATION OF COTTON IN INDIA.

545

over, on the culture of cotton, have been made, by individuals, by the Agri-
cultural Society of India, and by two of the American planters, within its
limits. A notice of its climate may prove interesting to horticulturists, as
the Botanic Garden of Calcutta, from which so many plants are received in
this country, is situated in and is under the influence of the climate of
Bengal.*

The province of Bengal, now divided into several districts, lies between
21° and 27° of N. latitude, and is about 350 miles in length, with an average
breadth of about 300 miles. It is throughout a flat champaign country,
bounded to the S. by the Bay of Bengal, and the dense forests, intersected
by numerous rivers, called the Sunderbunds. The northern frontier, which
runs westward from Assam, is formed by a belt of from 10 to 20 miles io
breadth, of a tall grass and tree jungle, which runs along the foot of the
lower Himalayas. On the east it is bounded by the Cossya hills and other
low ranges in Tipperah and Chittagong, while the west is confined by the
low hills which stretch from Rajmahl towards Birbhoom and the Juno-le
Mehals. This wide expanse of plain is intersected by the mighty Ganges,
the wide-spreading Burrampooter, and by numerous other navigable streams,
which, however, often change their course, washing away an estate in one
place, covering another with sand, and leaving some intermediate part a
stagnant marsh. These rivers, moreover, overflow their banks about the
month of August, and inundate the country to a great extent. In autumn
they drain off", but as the agriculturist wishes to retain a supply of moisture,
embankments are made to retain the water even over extensive fields.
Besides these, there are numerous tanks and jeels, i. e. " shallow lakes or
deep morasses," so that every thing tends to increase the moisture of the
climate. But the effects of a raging sun with drought are occasionally felt,
when " the earth is iron and the sky brass."

The seasons are divided, as over a great part of India, into three : that is,
the hot, the rainy, and the cold. The hot weather begins with March, and
steadily increases until the rains come on, early in June. But occasional
storms, with rain, occur, which relieve the intensity of the heat. During
the first two months of the rains, the falls are incessant, but during the two
following months intermissions are frequent. On an average, 60 inches of
rain are said to fall in Calcutta, but Prinsep gives 59'83 as the average for
three years. If the rains cease early in September, intense heat is expe-
rienced, men become sickly, and plants languish. As the weather becomes
colder, the moisture which is evaporated during the day is deposited during
the night, and fogs obscure the sun till late in the morning. The cold being

• Calcutta, the capital of Bengal, in lat. 22° 23' N., and long. 88° 28' E., and situated
only a little above the level of the tides, has a mean temperature of about 78°.

Jan.

66-2

Feb.

69-8

March.

80-0

April.

85-4

May.

85-7

June.

83-7

July.

81-8

August.

82-0

Sept.
82-8

Oct.
79-2

Nov.

74-2

Dec.

C6-6

The thermometer ranges from about 45° to 75° in the cold season, when a dry wind
blows from the N.E. in the day ; but at night there is dampness with cold. In the hot
season, or from the beginning of March to the middle of June, the temperature rises
gradually from 80° to about 90° — 95° in the shade, and reaches to 100° — 110° in the open
air. Though no rain falls, the wind blowing frona the S.W. is loaded with moisture in
its course over the Bay of Bengal. In the rainy season the temperature is high and
equable, but the Orchid-house-like climate is oppressive, from the combination of heat
with moisture, and still more exhausting when, towards the latter half, the wind veers to
the S.E.

Vol. I.— 69 2 z 2

546 EFFECTS OF FREE TRADE IN CANADA.

combined with moisture is felt as severe but not invigorating, and though
the thermometer does not fall to the freezing point, ice is obtained by ex-
posing shallow vessels to the effects of the free radiation which takes place
in the more open parts. In the more eastern districts showers are more
frequent during the dry months of the year, but the moisture of the climate
is still greater, and increased by the exuberant vegetation and clumps of
trees in even the cultivated parts, while on the frontiers this is still more the
case : the dense forests and jungle of grass, often 20 feet high, not only add
aqueous vapor to that already in the atmosphere, but prevent the free
evaporation of water from the undrained surface.

In such a climate we may expect that wild animals will abound and
insect life be rife. The farmer, indeed, complains that tigers and leopards
carry off' his cattle, Avild hogs crunch his sugar-cane, and birds destroy his
seed when sown, and his grain when in the ear. But from the peculiarity
of climate he can easily obtain two crops off' the same field, one being rice or
other cereal, the other some one of the numerous millets, pulses, or oil-seeds.
He also cultivates the sugar-cane, indigo, mulberry, tobacco, saffiower, &c. ;
but prides himself especially on his clumps of mangoes and of bamboos, or
his plantations of cocoa-nut, areca, or wild date, the last valuable only as
yielding sugar, while the bassia affords saccharine matter in its flowers for
an intoxicating liquor, and a valuable oil in its seeds. In such a climate the
culture of a plant like American cotton, which requires heat and moisture,
does not appear to be impracticable.

< • « ■ >

EFFECTS OF FREE TRADE IN CANADA.

The aggregate value of manufactures exported from Great Britain to all the British
North American Colonies, for seven years, is as follows :

1840 .... £2,847,963 1844 ... . £3,044,225

1841 .... 2,947,001 1845 .... 3,550,614

1842 .... 2.333,525 1846 .... 3,308,059

1843 .... 1,751,211

During these years there has been a constant stream of population to
these provinces, yet their power of consumption does not increase. With
the exception of a few small woollen factories, they have scarcely any thing
like manufactures. They have the most perfect freedom of trade with
England, and yet their consumption, per head, appears to have been less
than in 1840. They return to the land nothing of what they take from the
land, and they grow poorer instead of richer. Therefore it is that the
farmers of Canada are now seen transferring themselves to the Western
vStates, that they may enjoy at least that amount of protection which is
afforded by the tariff' of 1846, insufficient as it is to exercise that attractive
power which would draw the loom and the anvil to take their true and
natural places in the vicinity of the plough and the harrow.

The increase in our consumption of bar, pig, and railroad iron, without
taking into consideration the value added by subsequent processes, between
1848 and 1847, was equal to the ivhole consumption of British mcnntfac-
tures in all her North American possessions. Would it be possible to pro-
duce a stronger fact to illustrate the effect that is produced by the approxi-
mation of the consumer and the producer ?

Were these colonies free, their first step would be that of having a tariff
of protection. They have free trade, by which they are ruined. We had
protection, by which we were becoming rich, but our farmers and planters
did not appreciate the fact that protection is, and always must he, a farmer^ s
and planter's measure.

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

547

[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by John S. Skinner & Son, in the Clerk's Office of the
District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.]

THE AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL-BOOK.

SECTION I. — CATECHISM OF AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

FIRST LESSON.

1. Agriculture is the art of cultivating the soil.

2. The object of the farmer in cultivating the soil is, to raise the largest
crops, at the smallest cost, and with the least injury to the land.

3. For the intelligent cultivation of a farm, a knowledge of the nature of
the crops raised upon it, of the soil upon which they grow, and of the
manures applied, is absolutely requisite.

I.— OF THE NATURE OF THE CROPS RAISED.

1. All vegetable substances consist of two parts, one
which burns away in the fire, called the organic part,
and one which does not burn away, called the in-
organic part.

Here tlie teacher will burn a bit of straw or wood in tlje
candle, (fig. 1,) and show that one part burns away, and
that another very small part — the ash — does not burn away.

2. In all vegetable substances the organic part is
very much the greater. It forms from 90 to 99 out of
every 100 lbs. of their weight.

11.— THE ELEMENTARY SUBSTANCES FOUND IN THE ORGANIC
PART OF PLANTS.

1. The oro-anic part of plants consists of four elementary bodies, known
by the names of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen.

2. Carbon is a solid substance usually of a black color, which has no
taste or smell, and burns more or less readily in the fire. Wood-charcoal,
lamp-black, coke, black-lead, and the diamond, are varieties of carbon.

The teacher will here exhibit a piece of charcoal, and show how it burns in the fire,
or in the flame of a candle. He may also draw the attention of his pupils to the
remarkable difference in appearance between charcoal and the diamond, though
essentially the same.

3. Hydrogen is a kind of air or gas which burns in the air as coal gas

Y^rr 2 does, but in which a candle will not burn, nor an

animal live, and which, after being mixed with
common air, explodes when it is brought near the
flame of a candle. It is also the hghtest of all
known substances.

Here the teacher will take a goblet or champagne glass,
will put into it some pieces of zinc or iron filings, and
pour over them a small quantity of oil of vitriol (sul-
phuric acid) diluted with twice its bulk of water, and
then cover the glass for a few minutes. On putting in
a lighted taper, an explosion will take place. He will
then repeat the same experiment in a phial, into the
cork of which he has introduced a tube, (say a bit of the
stem of a clay pipe— fig. 3.) After a short time, when the hydrogen gas produced
has driven out all the common air from the bottle, a light may be applied to the jet,
when the gas will take fire and burn. The cork and jet may now be taken out of
the bottle, and a lighted taper be introduced into it, when tlie taf)er will be extin-
guished, while the gas itself will take fire and burn at the mouth of the bottle.

548

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

Lastly, if the teacher possess a small balloon, he may fill it
■with the gas by attaching it to the mouth of the bottle, and may
thus show that the gas is so light that it will carry heavy bodies
up with it through the air.

4. Oxyo-en is also a kind of air or gas. A candle
burns in it with great brilliancy ; animals also live in
it; and it is heavier than hydrogen gas or common
air. It forms one-fifth of the bulk of the air we
breathe.

The teacher will here exhibit a bottle of oxygen gas, (fig. 4,)
and show how rapidly and brilliantly a lighted taper
burns when introduced into it. The least troublesome
mode of i^rcparing oxygen gas is to rub together, in a mor-
tar, equal weights of oxide of copper and cldorate of
potash, to put the mixture into a common Florence flask,
and to apply the lamp as in fig. 5.
Oxide of copper is prepared by heating a piece of sheet copper to
redness in the fire, allowing it to cool, and then striking it with
a hammer, when scales of oxide of copper fall oil The oxide
employed in the j)reparation of the gas may be washed out of
the flask, and employed again for any number of times.
When prepared in this way, the properties of the gas may be
shown in the flask by introducing a lighted taper or a bit of red-
hot charcoal at the end of a wire. Or if the teacher wish to
collect a bottle of gas, he may do so by fitting a beat tube and
cork into the mouth of the flask, (see fig. 11,) and collecting it
over water, in the same way as when a retort is used. See lig. 7.
A very elegant method of jireparing the gas is to put a few grains
of red oxide of mercu)-y into the bottom of a test tube, and to apply
the heat of a lamp. Oxygen will be given off — as can be shown
by putting into the tube a half-kindled match, and showing how
rapidly it burns up — while metallic mercury will dis-
til ofi' in brilliant minute globuks. This experiment
the teacher may use to illustrate the meaning of the
word oxide. (See page under Oxide of Iron.)

5. Nitrogen is also a kind of air difTering
from both the other two. Like hydrogen, a
taper will not biirn nor will an animal Hve in
it ; but unlike hydrogen, it will itself not burn,
and therefore does not take fire Avhen brought
near the flame of a candle. It is a little lighter
than atmosi)heric air, of which it forms four-
fifths of the bulk.

The teacher will here exhibit a bottle of this gas,
and show that a lighted taper is extinguished
when introduced into it, (fig. 0.)

The easiest mode
of preparing ni-
trogen is by mix-
ing together a
quantity of sal-
ammoniac with
half its weightof
saltpetre, both in
fine powder, and
heating them in
a retort over a
lamp. The gas
which comes off
is collected over
water. See fig. 7

AGRICULTURAL CHEMLSTRY AND GEOLOGY.

549

6. The greater number of vegetable substances contain but three of these
elementary bodies, viz. carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen.

7. Among the more common substances which contain only these three,
we may enumerate starch, gum, sugar, the fibre of wood, oils, and fats.

QUESTIONS.

AGRICULTUnE.

1. What is agriculture '?

2. What is the object of the farmer in
cuhivatinif the soil?

.3. What ought the farmer especially to
know that he may work intelligently'?

THE JfATCRE OF VEGETABLES.

1. Of what parts do all vegetables con-
sist ■?

2. Which of these two parts is the greater
in quantity ?

the

ELEMENTARY SUBSTANCES CONTAINEB
THE ORGANIC PARTS OF PLANTS.

1. Of what elementary bodies does
organic part of jilants consist?

2. What is carbon?

3. What is hydrogen?

4. What is oxygen ?

5. What is nitrogen ?

6. Do all vegetable substances contain
these four elementary bodies ?

7. Name the more common substances
which contain only these three elements.

SECOND LESSON,
m.— OF THE SUBSTANCES FOUND IN THE INORGANIC PARTS OF PLANTS.

1. The inorganic part of the plant contains from eight to ten different sub-
stances, namely, potash, soda, lime, magnesia, oxide of iron, oxide of man-
ganese, silica, chlorine, sulphuric acid, or oil of vitriol, and phosphoric acid.

Here the teacher may exhibit to his pupils, — potash in the form of the common
pearl-ash of the shops; soda, in tliat of the common soda of the sliops ; lime and
magnesia, in the forms of qtdck-lime and calcined magnesia ; oxide of iron in the form
of riist of iron ; silica, in the form of a piece of flint, rock, crystal, or quartz ;
a bottle of chlorine gas, one of sulphuric acid, (oil of vitriol,) and one containing
a little phosphoric acid, or burnt bones, in which phosphoric acid is present.
By placing these substances before the eyes of his pupils occasionally, and allowing
them to look at, handle, and taste them, they will soon become familiar with their
names, and with their several qualities.

2. The common potash of the shops is a white powder, which has a
peculiar taste called an alkaline taste, and which becomes moist and at last
runs to a liquid when exposed for a length of time to the air. It is obtained
by washing wood ashes (the ashes left by Avood when it is burned) with
water, and afterwards boiling the liquid to dryness.

The teacher will here allow his pupils to taste the potash, that they may become
familiar with the meaning of the word alkaline as applied to taste. (See page 550,
note to Sulphuric Acid.)

3. The common soda of the shops is a glassy or crj^stallized substance,
which has also an alkaline taste, but which, unlike potash, becomes dry and
powdery by being exposed to the air. It is manufactured from sea salt.

The teacher will show a crystal of the common soda of the shops, and explain the

meaning of the word crystallized.
The common potash and soda of the shops are called b}-- chemists carbonate of potash

and carbonate of soda respectively.

4. Lime or qitick-Mme is a white earthy substance, which is obtained by
burning common limestone in the lime-kiln. It has a slightly burning taste,
and becomes hot and slakes when water is poured upon it.

The teacher will exlnbit a piece of quick-lime, will allow his pupils to tasteit, and will
pour water upon it, that it may fall t6 powder. They will thus become familiar
with the word slake.

5. Magnesia is the white powder sold in the shops under the name of
calcined magnesia. It has scarcely any taste, and is extracted from sea
water and from those varieties of limestone rock called inasnesian hmestones.

550 AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

6. Iron is a hard bluish-gray metal, which is manufactured in large quan-
tities in our iron-works, and is used for a great variety of useful purposes.

The teacher will here explain the word metal, by showing that such common metals
as iron, copper, lead, silver, and gold, have a lustre and weight not possessed by wood,
stones, and other substances to which the name of metals is not applied, and that
they can be beat out under the hammer, or are malleable.

7. When polished iron is exposed to the air, it gradually becomes covered
with rust. This rust consists of the metal iron, and of the gas oxygen,
which the iron has attracted from the air, and hence it is called an oxide
of iron.

The teacher will explain more fully, that, when metals combine with oxygen, they
form new substances, to which the name of oxides is given, and illustrate this by a
reference to the red oxide of mercury, which, by the heat of the lamp, he had resolved
or decomposed into oxygen gas and metallic mercury. (See note to Oxygen Gas.)

8. Oxide of manganese is a substance very like oxide of iron, which
occurs in soils and plants usually in very small quantity.

9. Silica is the name given by chemists to the substance of flint, of rock
crystal, of quartz, and of common sandstone.

10. Chlorine is a kind of air which has a greenish-yellow color, and a
strong suffocating smell. A taper burns in it with a dull smoky flame. It
exists in common salt in large quantity.

The teacher will exhibit a bottle of this gas, and inay advert to the remarkable fact
that this very noxious gas forms more than half the weight of the very wholesome
substance, common salt — 100 lbs. of common salt containing 60 lbs. of chlorine.

This gas is readily prepared by pouring muriatic acid on black oxide of manganese in
a common flask, (fig. 5,) and applying a gentle heat. If the flask be of colorless
glass, the smell and color of the gas and its effects on a burning taper may be
shown, as in the case of oxygen in the flask itself in which the gas is prepared.
Like oxygen also, it may be collected over water, which in this case should be warm,
by fitting a bent tube into the mouth of the flask.

11. Sulphuric acid, or oil of vitriol, is a very sour, burning liquid, which
becomes hot when mixed with water. It is manufactured from burning
sulphur, (brimstone,) and it exists in common gypsum, (plaster of Paris,) in
alum, and Glauber and Epsom salts.

The teacher will here exhibit the oil of vitriol, and show its oily character by pouring
it from one vessel into another — that it becomes hot when mixed with cold water,
and that a bit of straw when put into it is charred or burned black.

He will also explain the meaning of the term arid or sowr. Besides being more or less
sour to the taste, he may show that acid substances redden vegetable blue colors,
such as decoctions of violets, of red cabbage, of a blue substance sold in the shops
under the name of litmus; while alkaline substances, such as hartshorn, (ammonia,)
common soda, pearl-ash, or quick-lime, restore the blue color again after an acid has
reddened them.

12. Phosphoric acid is also a very sour substance, which is formed by
burning phosphorus in the air. It exists in large quantity in the bones of
animals.

Fig. 8. If the teacher possess any phosphorus, he may here show how

it burns with while fumes in the air, and may collect these
white fumes — which are phosphoric acid — by holding over
them a cold glass or metal plate, or he may simply burn
the phosphorus in a little cup under a large glass, (fig. 8.)
A still simpler way of making his pupils acquainted with
phosphorus and pliopj)horic acid, is to take a common luci-
fer match, of the variety that kindles without explosion, and
to rub the end of it on the sand-paper so gently as not to
kindle it. If it be now brought near the nose, the smell of pliosphorus will be per-
ceived. If it be again rubbed so as to take fire, it will burn with a white flame, and
will, for a short time, give a white smoke. This white smoke is phosphoric arid. A
hundred pounds of phosphorus, when burned, form 227^ pounds of phosphoric acid.

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

551

13. The ashes of all our usually cultivated plants contain, in various pro-
portions, all the substances just described.

14. Some plants have more ash than others. Thus 100 lbs. of hay may
leave 9 or 10 lbs. of ash, while 100 lbs. of wheat leave less than 2 lbs. of
ash.

15. These substances exist in different proportions in the ash of different
plants ; the ash of wheat, for example, contains more phosphoric acid than
that of hay, while that of hay contains more lime than that of wheat.

QUESTIONS.

1. Of what substances does the inorganic
part of the plant consist?

2. What is potash?

3. Wliat is soda '?

4. What is hme ?

5. What is magnesia 1

6. What is iron?

7. What is oxide of iron 1

8. What is oxide of manganese 1

9. What is sihca ?

10. What is chlorine?

11. Whatis sulphuric acid or oil of vitriol*

12. What is phosphoric acid?

1 3. Are all these substances to be found in
the inorganic parts of plants ?

14. Do all plants leave the same quantity
of ash when burned?

1 5. Does the ash of different plants con-
tain all these substances in the same propor-
tion?

TfflRD LESSON.

OF THE INORGANIC FOOD OF PLANTS.

1. All plants require constant supplies of food in order that they may Uve

and

3.

roots
4.

part,

5.

from

6.

they

Fig. 9.

Plants obtain their food partly from the air and partly from the soil.
Plants take in their food by their leaves from the air, and by their
from the soil.

Plants require two kinds of food, organic food to support their organic
and inorganic food to support their inorganic part.

The organic food of plants is obtained partly from the air and partly

the soil.

The inorganic food of plants is wholly obtained from the soil in which

grow.

7. The organic food of plants, taken from the air, is chiefly
in the form of carbonic acid gas.

8. Carbonic acid gas is a kind of air which has no color,
but has a peculiar smell. Burning bodies are extinguished
by it, and animals die in it. It is heavier than common
air, renders lime-water milky, and is taken up by its own
bulk of cold water. It is the cause of the boiling up of
soda water, and the frothing of beer, and forms nearly half
the weight of all limestone rocks.

Here the teacter will prepare carbonic acid gas, by pouring dilute
muriatic acid (spirit of salt) upon bits of limestone or of the com
mon soda of the shops, in a tall covered goblet, (fig. 2,) or in a
bottle, (fig. 11.) He will show that a burning taper is extin-
guished by this gas; but that it does not, like hydrogen, take fire
itself; that it is so heavy tliat it may be poured from oiia

552

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

Fig. 11.

Fig. 10. glass to another, (fig. 9 ;)

that, when poured from
a large tumbler glass, a
common candle maybe
put out by it, (fig. 10 ;)
and that when passed
through clear lime-wa-
ter, (fig. 11.) it makes
it milky — forming car-
bonate of lime.

Lime-water is made
byputting a little quick-
lime into a bottle, filling
up with water, shaking,
and then allowing the
whole to settle.

9. The propor-
tion of carbonic acid gas in the composition of atmospheric air is very small,
the latter being composed almost entirely of a mixture of oxygen and
nitrogen gases. Five gallons of air contain about four of nitrogen and one
of oxygen, but in 5000 gallons there are only two gallons of carbonic acid

10. Plants drink in a very large quantity of carbonic acid gas from the
air.

11. Plants spread out their broad thin leaves in great number through
the air, and are thus able to suck in the carbonic acid from a large quantity
of air at the same time.

12. This suction is performed by means of a great number of very small
openings or mouths which are spread everywhere, especially over the under
surface of the leaf.

13. The leaves take in the carbonic acid only in the day-time, at night
they give it off.

14. Carbonic acid consists of carbon, or charcoal, and oxygen. Six lbs.
of carbon and 16 lbs. of oxygen form 22 lbs. of carbonic acid.

15. The composition of carbonic acid gas is ascertained by burning char-
coal in oxygen gas, when the carbonic acid gas will be formed.

The teacher will show this experiment by introducing a piece of red-hot charcoal into
a bottle of oxygen gas, (or into a flask full of it, prepared as in fig. 5,) until the char-
coal is extinguished, when, upon putting a lighted taper into the bottle, he will find,
carbonic acid has been formed, for the taper will be extinguished.

16. Plants retain the carbon only, and return the oxygen to the air.

Fig. 12. 17. By putting a few green leaves under a

large glass full of fresh spring water, and setting
them out in the sunshine, small bubbles of oxygen
gas will be seen to rise from the leaves, and col-
lect in the upper part of the glass, (fig. 12.)

It maybe useful to the teacher to know that a/ew drops
of sulphuric or muriatic acid will promote the pro-
duction of these bubbles of oxygen gas. The oxygen
is supposed to be derived from carbonic acid con-
tained in the water ; of which the leaf takes up the
carbon, and sets free the oxygen. Hence, if pure boiled water be used, no oxygen
will be separatinl by the leaves. But when bubbles have ceased to appear in spring
water, in conser|uoiico of the carbonic acid being all decomposed, if a few drops of
sulphuric acid be added, bubbles will again be given off, showing that they are not
due altogether, or in all cases, to the presence of carbonic acid.

18. The leaves of plants also drink in watery vapor from the atmosphere.

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

19. The vapor absorbed by the plants serves to moisten the leaves and
stems, and partly to form the substance of the plants themselves.

'^0. From the soil plants take in carbon in the form of carbonic acid,
huMiic acid, and some other substances which exist in the black vegetable
matter of the soil.

If the teacher wishes to form humic arid, he has only to dissolve a little common soda
in water, to boil the solution upon finely powdered peat or rich dark soil, pour off
tlie solution after it has stood to settle, and add weak spirit of salt to it. From it
flakes will fall, which are humic acid. This humic acid consists of water and car-
bon only.

21. Plants derive nitrogen from the soil in the fornns of ammonia and
nitric acid.

QUESTIONS.

1. Do plants require food, as animals do ?

2. Where do plants obtain their food ]

3. How do plants take in their food ?

4. Do plants require two distinct kinds
of food ?

5. Whence do they obtain their organic
food ?

6. Whence do they obtain their inorganic
food ?

7. In -what form do plants take in their
organic food from the air ■?

8. What is carbonic acid gas?

9. Does carbonic acid gas form a large
part of the atmospheric air?

10. Do plants drink in )nuch carbonic acid
from the air ?

11. How can plants drink in so large a
quantity of this gas from the air if it contain
so little?.^

1 2. How do they suck in the gas ?

13. Do leaves suck in carbonic acid gas
at all times ?

14. What does carbonic acid consist of?

15. How do you prove the composition of
carljonic acid ?

IG. Does the plant retain both the carbon
arid the oxygen contained in the carbonic
acid that is absorbed by its leaves?

17. How do you show that the leaves give
off the oxygen gas ?

18. Do the leaves of plants drink in any
thing else from the atmosphere ?

19. What purpose tloes this vapor serve?

20. In what form do plants take in carbon
from the soil ?

21. In what forms do plants derive nitro-
gen from the soil ?

In the preceding pages, we have commenced the publication of what is
ultimately to be thrown together in a small volume, designed to make an
"Agricultural School-Book," containing, however, much matter commendable
to " children of a larger growth." After the establishment, in all countries,
of schools for investigating and teaching the principles of Theology, of Medi-
cine, of Law, and all that art and science can do to give greater efficacy to
warlike operations, the world seems at last to be ready to tolerate the study
of the various scientific facts and principles on which success in the great
art of cultivating and preserving the productive powers of the earth, so
essentially depends.

As far, then, as this slow but propitious direction of public sentiment may
in any degree be encouraged by our humble means, we shall cheerfully
apply them, and know not how we can better do so, for the present, than by
placing hand-books on agriculture within the reach of every farmer's and
planter's son, so cheap that all may possess, and so plain that all may com-
prehend them.

The Junior Editor of "The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil," — F. G.
Skinner — has already, through the agency of Messrs. Carey & Hart, the
publishers, offered one such work — " The Elements of Agriculture," —
translated from the French, and there published at the public expense, under
the auspices of the Department for Public Instruction. It is hardly neces-
sary to say that in this case, as in that, no pretension is made to original
authorship : on the contrary, the strongest proof of the value of the work
here presented is that this Catechism of Agricultural Chemistry is by Jumes
Vol. I.— 70 3 A

554 RAILROAD IRON.

F. W. Johnston, M. A., Chemist to the Agricuhural Chemistry Society of
Scotland, and has already passed through twenty editions in England, being
here put forth only in a somewhat modified form, without alteration in any
matter of substance, except by inserting some notices of nutritive substances
not so much employed in England as in our own country. It was thought
better, too, to follow the plan of the French work — " The Elements of Agri-
culture,"— by separating the questions from the matter to which they relate,
and throwing them at the end of each lesson, so that the one and the other shall
not be so immediately connected in the mind of the student as to make the
whole rather an affair of simple memory than of real study and knowledge.
With this explanation, the work will be committed to the judgment of the
reader, in the full persuasion that it may serve at least to awaken those who
have at heart the character as well as the profits of agriculture, to the con-
viction that it too is a pursuit which calls for the exercise of intellect, and
on which science may confer dignity as well as success.
< • ♦ » »

RAILROAD IRON.

Most of the main lines of Railroads in tljis country have been engaged during the
past year in re-laying their tracks with heavy rail. The following is given as the quan-
tity of iron wliich has been contracted for in England, for this purpose ;

Tons.
Syracuse and Utica ........ 25u0

New York and New Haven 6000

Eastern 2000

Boston and Worcester . . . . . . . . , 4000

Western 5000

Vermont Central 8000

Vermont and Massachusetts 4000

Rutland 8000

Old Colony 2000

Boston and Providence lOOU

Stonington 1000

New Haven and Hartford 30U0

Concord and Portsmouth . . . . • . . . 4000

Lawrence ........... 2000

Boston and Lowell 1000

Utica and Schenectady ......... 2000

Tonawanda .......... 2000

Buffalo and Attica 4000

Ramapo 20U0

Somerville about 2000

Total number of tons, 60,000

Whatever amount of provisions, the products of the field, the orchard, the garden, and
the dairy, was consumed by the operatives employed in digguig and smelting the ore,
and in manufacturing these 66,000 tons of iron, may be considered as that amount of
such produce shipped from England to the United bltates. Under existing circumstance.**,
probably not a dollar of such produce was made in the United States; for how, in ordi-
nary times, can the cultivator of our soil compete with the slaves of European despots,
who live on old black rye bread, called pumpernicle ? Let us then abandon the ptmiper-
fucle jjolicy, and let the farmer say that he who makes my iron must be a consiuner of
tlie produce of American ploughs. Have we not iron ore enough, and has not a Virginia
member of the Legislature asserted that in that State there are 21,000 square miles un-
derlaid with coal ? Yet Virginia, to the last gasp, cries out " Free trade ! Free trade!"
which means vassalage to England and English looms and forges.

< » » » »

On Listening to Evil Ileports. — The longer I live, the more I feel the importance of ad-
hering to the rule which I have laid down for myself in relation to such matters: —
" 1. To hear as little as possible whatever is to the prejudice of others. 2. To believe
nothing of the kind till I am absolutely forced to it. 3. Never to drink in the spirit of one
who circulates an ill report. 4. Always to moderate, as far as I can, the unldndness
which is expressed toward others. 5. Always to believe that, if the other side was
heard, a very dilferent account would be given of the matter." — Carus's Life of SimeO'H.

THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE. 555

"THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE."

Of all benefactors, we look upon those as most entitled to our esteem, whose conver-
sation and writings give us most food for agreeable and salutary intellectual digestion :
and among works of this character, none performs that office better, in our humble judg-
ment, than that of which the title stands at the head of these lines.

Political economy has been the chosen theme for men of the highest order of intellect,
and yet for the most part they have, in the treatment of it, ended with making "confusiou
worse confounded."' We say it with deference, and with an unaflected consciousness
that the fault may, in our own case, be rather in the reader than the writer — yet we are
apt, be it confessed, to conclude that when the writings of men of indisputable abilities,
perplex instead of convincing, it is for the most part because the writer has not himself
had a clear view of the law that belongs to his subject, and thus if he start on an erro-
neous principle, is himself dazzled in pursuit of an ignis fatuus, which he takes for
a reality, and so bewilders without enlightening the reader who attempts to follow him.

The strong charm of Mr. Carey's book consists with us in his seeming to have first
discovered the law — (for there is one which lies at the bottom of every question) — the
natural, universal law, on which the politics of agriculture rest, and being satisfied of
the truth of that, you can then, under all modification of circumstances, trace results with
all the satisfaction and confidence with which a man proceeds even on ice when hehwws he
is treading on a safe foundation — and thus it is that political economy, hitherto forbidding
from its abstruseness, or disgusting you with its contradictions, is made in these pages a
captivating science. So strong is the natural relish for the truth in the mind of every candid
inquirer, that all follow it with eagerness when they are sure they are on the right track.

Such, we confess, are the feelings which with us grow stronger on every recurrence to
the pages of " The Past, the Present, and the Future." Another, and a powerhd charm is,
that the volume exhales throughout a spirit of benevolence, and inculcates a horror of
war, as at once the seed and the fruit of tyranny and barbarism.*

That the work from which we have taken an entire chapter for this number has not
been more prolific of commentary by our own Reviewers, we must ascribe, we suppose,
to their higher powers of discrimination, and their juster appreciation of what better falls
in with the popular taste. Nevertheless, it may be allowed us to find some satisfaction
in the proofs we have seen, that however singular we may have been in offering our
humble testimony to its rare merits, on the ground of original discovery, writers among
the first in England and France have expressed a like opinion of its character and claims
on the score of the originality and truth of its theory.

That we might not break the chapter, we have borrowed for it half the space usually
assigned to the " Mother's Department,'' and if it had been placed there altogether, it
would have been but another proof of the value we place upon that division of this jour-
nal, and of our desire on all occasions, to impress upon her the truth of the declaration
that the Past does indeed say to woman — '' If you would be a happy wife, mistress of
your own home, and surrounded by your children, love those who cultivate peace."

MAN AND HIS HELPMATE.
The savage derives his subsistence from the poorest soils. He roams
abroad and shoots the deer : but leaves to his unhappy helpmate the task of
carrying it home on her shoulders, and that of preparing it for his con-
sumption. He helps himself, and when there is sufficient for both she may
eat. When it is otherwise, she may starve. She is his slave, ever ready
to prostitute herself to the stranger for a mouthful of food, a bead, or a nail.

* Voltaire thus expresses himself on the subject of war : " A hundred thousand mad
animals, whose heads are covered with hats, advance to kill or to be killed by the like
number of their fellow-mortals covered with turbans. By this strange procedure they
want to know whether a tract of land to which none of them has any claim shall belong
to a certain man whom they call Sultan, or to another whom they call Czar, neither of
whom ever saw, or ever will see, the spot so furiously contended for ; and very few of
those creatures who thus mutually butcher each other, ever beheld the animal for whom
they cut each other's throats ! From time immemorial tliis has been the way of mankind
almost all over the earth. What an excess of madness is this! and how deservedly
might a Superior Being crush to atoms this earthly ball, the bloody nest of such ridiculous
murderers 1"

556 THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE.

The man who cultivates the rich soils of the earth sees in woman the
source of his greatest happiness. The companion of his hours of enjoy-
ment, he turns instinctive)}^ to her for solace in the hours of affliction. He
labors, that she may rest. He economizes, that she may enjoy the comforts
and luxuries of life : while she regards him as the chosen partner of her
existence, and the father of her children ; and, as such, entitled to exclusive
possession of her affections.

If we trace the history of woman in Athens we may see the gradual
decline of her influence as incessant wars brought poverty and depopulation,
and as the cultivation of the fertile soils was more and more abandoned,
until we meet, on the one hand, the Hetaeras, constituting an important ele-
ment of society : and, on the other, the female slave, engaged in the severest
labors, and not unfrequently perishing for want of food : while abroad,
women and children are involved with husbands and fathers in the atrocious
punishments that follow resistance to the orders of a rapacious military aris-
tocracy, eager to divide among themselves the plunder of subject cities.

if we look to Rome in the prosperous days when the fertile lands of
Latium, cultivated b}^ their free owners, gave food to numerous cities, we
may see woman respected, and respecting herself. If we seek her in the
days when population had declined, and cultivation had been abandoned to
slaves, and when Italy had ceased to aflbrd food for her greatly diminished
numbers, we find her type in Messalina and Agrippina, Poppaa and Faus-
tina.

In modern Italy, with the decay of population and of wealth, we see
thousands of women, who have witnessed the massacre of their husbands
and their sons, driven abroad to perish of starvation, or subjected to the last
outrages by hordes of wandering barbarians, Franks or Germans, while in
Lucrece Borgia, or Beatrice Cenci, we find the type of woman in the higher
ranks of life. In the poorest parts of Italy, those in which land is least
divided, may now be found the wealthiest women : while the wife of the
poor serf slaves in the field to obtain a small allowance of the poorest food.
Increasing inequality of condition and increasing crime are thus the inva-
riable attendants of poverty and the abandonment of the fertile soils of the
earth. If we desire other evidences of this, we may turn to France in the
terrific days of the Merovingians.: and there we find the sex a slave to the
worst passions of men, the subjects of female barbarians occupying thrones,
who are known to history by the names of Fredegonda and Brunechild :
women almost unmatched for crime.

Exhausted by wars of conquest under Charlemagne, we find France a
prey to invasion from every side, by barbarians who respected neither age
nor sex. The cultivation of the land was abandoned, and the people who
escaped the sword perished of starvation. Poverty and depopulation gave
birth to the barbarism of the feudal system, for which the world stands her
debtor. With each step in its progress men were forced to resort to poorer
soils : and with each we see the poorer freeman gradually losing control
over his actions, and becoming daily more and more the slave of his lord.
With each, we see the honor of his wife and daughter becoming less and
less secure, until at length we find the droit de jambage et de ndssage
universally asserted, and so generally exercised that the eldest born of the
tenant is held more honorable than the others : it being probable that it was
the child of the lord. Concubinage becomes universal, and bastardy ceases
to cause any feeling of disgrace. Dissolute queens provide mistresses for
their husbands, while princes, styled " the good," or " great," number their
concubines by dozens, and bdtards and grand batards fill the high offices

THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE. 557

of state, and monopolize the great dignities of the church : or distinguish
themselves as ecorr.heurs, or flayers of the unfortunate peasant, whose wife
perishes of starvation while they accumulate vast fortunes and take rank
among the good and great. Later queens find in the easy virtue of their
maids of honor, security for the adhesion of their partisans : and gentlemen
find in rape one of the inducements to the invasion of the unfortunate lands
of Italy or Spain, Germany or the Netherlands. Cities and towns are
sacked, and nobles and gentlemen gorge themselves with plunder, while
women and children ask in vain for food. Titled prostitutes next direct the
affairs of state, and women suffer at the stake for errors of opinion : while
wives and daughters of the poor serfs labor in the field, seeking in vain from
the miserable soils they cultivate the means of supporting life. Unceasing
wars and universal poverty are accompanied bj^ excessive inequality, and
by the dissoluteness of manners that invariably attends the absence of all
control on the part of the many, and the consciousness of the possession of
unlimited power on the part o[\.\\efew. Duchesses now publish to the world
the histories of their amours, and princesses of the blood are honored by the
notice of Montespans. Queens and kept mistresses are compagnons du
voyage, and Brinvilliers furnishes poisons to enable amorous wives to change
their husbands. Thus, by degrees, we reach the period when incest ceases
to be a crime, and the representative of majesty takes his mistresses indif-
ferently from among the daughters of others, or his own. The pare aux
cerfs, or royal academy for prostitutes, maintained at the cost of millions col-
lected by taxes on salt and all other of the necessaries of life, next occupies
the time and mind of the sovereign : while a du Barri holds the helm of
state. Arriving at the period of the Revolution, we see poissardes heading
insurrections, while queens, princesses, and duchesses, are dragged to prison,
preparatory to being made to feel the weight of the revolutionary axe ; and
indiscriminate murder: noijades and fasil/ades : sweeps off by thousands
miserable men, whose wives and daughters, reduced perhaps from affluence,
are forced to beg their bread from door to door, or seek a refuge from starva-
tion in the horrors of public prostitution.

In nothing is the brutalizing effect of perpetual war more fully exhibited
than in the total want of respect for female life or honor, that is shown in
every portion of the history of France. The " bans bouchers^'' of Charles
the Bold spare neither women nor children. The Bourguignons and Ar-
magnacs spare none. The Turkish allies of France sweep off the women
and children of Italy by thousands into captivity. On the other hand, Diana
of Poictiers is more conspicuous in history than her royal and more youthful
lover : and the head of the house of Bourbon is rarely mentioned but in
company with his mistress, la belle Gabrielle : while thousands feel for the
sorrows of the unhappy La Fayette, who would find it difficult to bestow a
thought upon the unfortunate women of Milan, Mantua, or Naples, Ghent,
or Bruges, whose husbands and sons are mowed down by thousands, while
they themselves are made to endure the last indignities to which their sex
is liable, and their daughters are forced to seek in prostitution the means of
obtaining food. The history of that unfortunate country is one of perpetual
poverty, and a record of total inability to resort for support to any but the
poor soils : and the man who derives his subsistence from those soils is always
a barbarian : and not the less so because he chances to wear a cocked hat
and feathers. Extreme inequality in the condition of the different portions
of the female sex, is one of the characteristics of barbarism : and in every
portion of the history of France is exhibited the same inequality that is now
shown in the poor girl who, unable to purchase fuel, sleeps in the day and
works by night in the stable that she may derive from the proximity of animals

3 a2

558 THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE.

a supply of heat, on the one hand, and the vast fortune of the Duchesse de
Praslin, on the other.*

If we look at the condition of the sex in the present day, we see the re-
suhs of perpetual war, in the fact that women still labor in the field : in the
aversion to marriage on the part of the men : and in the absolute necessity
for the dot. An unportioned woman has no chance of marriage : while
those who have portions see their husbands but for a moment, before forming
a connection that is intended to last for life. Carriages de convenance are
universal, and frequent adultery is the necessary consequence : while tens
of thousands of women see no immorahty in the formation of temporary
unions. Foundling hospitals enable them to dispose of their offspring, to
perish by hundreds in the hands of hireling nurses paid out of the proceeds
of taxes imposed upon the honest and virtuous laborer, whose unremitted
exertions are insufficient to enable him to procure a miserable subsistence
for his wife and his children : and who lives on, a creature without hope,
while mistresses and female stock-gamblers, titled and untitled, have boxes
at the opera, and sport their gay equipages on the day of Longchamps :
while queens and princesses have palaces that count almost by dozens, and
young ladies, just married and become enceinte, publish the fact throughout
the kingdom, to be received as cause for rejoicing by the poor man who
sees his wife or daughter dying for want of food. Under such circumstances,
it is not extraordinary that in meeting three young Parisians we should
have reason to feel assured of the middle one being a bastard : that being
the proportion of illegitimate to legitimate births.

In England the position of the sex has been widely different. More than
any other portion of Europe has the soil of that country been exempt from
the horrors of war, the effect of which is seen in the fact that the cottage of
the laborer figures in every portion of the English landscape, affording the
strongest evidence of the long existence of internal peace. The husband-
man has been there exempt from the necessity of seeking protection within
the walls of the town. There he has, more than in almost any part of
Europe, been enabled to economize the machinery of exchange by living on
the land that he cultivated, and thus has saved the cost of transporting him-
self to his work, and that of transporting the products of his labor to his
place of residence : and, still more important, he has had a place upon
which he might bestow those hours and half hours that in France are ne-
cessarily wasted. He has had a home of his own, and having the thing, he
has made the word to express the idea.

In no part of Europe has the feeling of perfect individuality existed to the
same extent as in England, and that it has there existed has been due to the
fact that there, more than elsewhere, has internal peace existed, permitting
man to place himself on the spot upon which his labors were to be applied.
The home of the individual man required a mistress, and the choice of the
man was influenced, necessarily, by the fact that she was to be his com-
panion in his home, distant perhaps from the homes of other men, and that
he was to be dependent upon her kindness and affection for the happiness
of his life, and for the care of his children. Peace and the growth of wealth
tended therefore to give to the weak woman power over the strong man :
whereas war has, in all ages, tended to render her his victim.

With each step in the progress of wealth and population, we may see an
improvement in the condition of woman, from the day when powerful barons

• " The trousseau of JNIademoisclle Martignon, wlio is going to marry the Baron de
Montmorcnci, is to cost a hundred thousand crowns ($1 1(J,0UIJ). Tliere are to be a bund
red dozen of chemises j and so on, in proportion." — French Newspaper.

THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE. 559

contested the rights of the heiress of Henry I., and the poor Saxon neif was
sold to slavery in Ireland ; and that when the daughter of Torquil Wolf-
ganger presided over the revels of Front de BcEuf ; to those in which the
throne was filled by the masculine Elizabeth : but with the following cen-
tury came a long period of internal war and waste, to be followed by one of
extreme demoralization ; that of the reigns of Nell Gwynn and the Duch-
esses of Portsmouth and Cleveland. Royal and noble bastards then abounded.
From the Revolution of 16S8, until we approach the close of the last cen-
tury, wealth and population gradually increased, and the people were better
fed, better clothed, and better lodged than in any former period : the effect
of which may be seen in the improved condition of the sex. Many of the
abominations which marked the early years of the century had passed away
before the commencement of the great war. Kings ceased to have mis-
tresses to aid in the management of the affairs of state, and fleet marriages
became less common. With that war and its enormous waste we find,
however, a new state of things. The few now become immensely rich,
while the many become poor. The price of corn rises, and that of man
falls. Landholders become too great to manage their own affairs, and they
must have great tenants, with great farms. Cottages disappear, and alms-
houses become filled. Labor ceases to yield food, and women seek to have
bastards that they may obtain allowances, and thereby obtain husbands.
Indiscriminate intercourse becomes so common as in some degree to arrest
the growth of population ;* while thousands of children perish of neglect and
want of food. Great club-houses, and houses of prostitution increase in a
ratio corresponding to each other, and thus we find that each step in the
progress of war and waste : necessarily accompanied with growing inequality:
is attended with a deterioration of the condition of the sex.

With the long continued peace and the consequent growth of wealth,
there has been a gradual improvement in the condition of the sex, in Eng-
land, but bondagers, i. e. female field-laborers, still figure in the leases of
Northumbrian landholders ; half-starved women are yet conspicuous among
the habitues of gin-shops : sales of wives with halters round their necks
have not yet disappeared: women and girls still labor in coal mines, and
sometimes in a state of perfect nudity : and adultery is not unfrequently the
consequence of marriages in which property and not inclination is consulted.
A state of society in which exists inequality to the extent to which it is
found in England, is not favorable to female honor. Heavy taxes tend to
produce poverty, and mischievous regulations bar men from finding employ-
ment, and hence marriage is far less universal than it ought to be. Taxes
and regulations tend to produce a large class with money to spend and with
no employment for time, and hence a disposition for gallantry that would
not otherwise exist. The steady and regular application of time or talent is
the best security for morals, and that is invariably seen most to exist where
labor yields the largest reward. All men would marry, if all could do so
with safety to themselves. In such a state of things, the exceptions are
only sufficient to prove the rule. The universal possession of property is
the best guarantee for the security of property, and the universal possession
of wives and families is the best security for morals ; for husbands and
fathers are interested in the repression of every thing tending to promote
immorality.

In Scotland, improvement would appear to be less certain. There, entails

* It was stated twelve or fifteen years since by a clergyman : we think the Rev. Mr.
Cunnint^liam : that the morals of his parish were improving; and the reason given for
this belief was, that bastards had become more nuinerotxs, from which fact he inferred
that indiscriminate intercourse had become less common.

560 THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE.

increase in number. There, sheep have taken the place of men whose
cottages have been burned, and who have been compelled to seek refuge
within towns and cities: and with their homes the sex has been compelled
to lose the pride of female honor. Glasgow presents a scene of wretched-
ness rarely equalled among civilized men, and houses of prostitution exist
in the ratio of one to twenty-eight ! Such are the results of the increasing
power of land, and diminishing power of man.

Perpetual peace abroad and at home has given to the United States con-
stantly increasing wealth, and every man has been thereby enabled to feel
that he might marry without hesi^ation. All, therefore, do marry; and
hence the rapid increase of population : and hence the general morality.
Bastardy is rare. If we seek to find it, it must be among the people who
cultivate the poorer soils. Thirty years since, it abounded among the Ger-
mans of Pennsylvania, who raised small crops from the heavy clay ; and
then women labored in the fields : but it has gradually diminished as popu-
lation and wealth have grown, and as they have been enabled to combine
the inferior lime with the superior clay, and have thus obtained a better soil.
Receding gradually, it may yet be found in the counties more distant from
the city, where a scattered population still obtain small crops from poor
soils. It may be found in all those counties in which poor farmers sell all
their hay, and buy no lime. In general, however, it exists to a very small
extent ; and the sex, respecting themselves in a higher degree, are re-
spected, in a degree unknown to other portions of the globe. Dowry is
rarely thought of.* Marriages de convenance scarcely exist. The mar-
riage tie is held sacred,t and all because each man has, or can have, his own
home, Avithin which he is sole master, except so far as he defers its manage-
ment to its mistress, whose control within doors is most complete ; but there
she stops. J Everywhere is manifested towards the sex : old and young:
rich and poor : high and low : a degree of deference elsewhere unthought
of.§ They travel unprotected for thousands of miles, fearing no intrusion,
and encountering none of those discomforts to which they are exposed in
every part of Europe. || With marriage, the task of providing for the family
is assumed by the husband ; and woman then is left to the performance of

* " We buy our wives with our fortunes, or we sell ourselves to them for their dowries.
The American chooses her, or rather ofiers himself to her for her beauty, her intelligence,
and the qualities of her heart; it is the only dowry which he seeks. Thus, while we
make of that which is most sacred a matter of business, these traders affect a delicacy,
and an elevation of sentiment, which M'ould have done honor to the most perfect models
of chivalry.'' — Chevalier.

f " You may estimate the morality of any population, when you have ascertained that
of the women ; and one cannot contemplate American society without admiration for the
respect which there encircles the tie of marriage. The same sentiment existed to a like
degree among no nations of antiquity ; and the existing societies of Europe, in their cor-
ruption, have not even a conception of such purity of morals. — M. de Eemcniont.

" The marriage tie is more sacred among American icmkmen than among the middle
classes of various countries of Europe." — Chevalier.

i " Not only does the American mechanic and farmer relieve, as much as possible, his
wife from all severe labor, all disagreeable employments, but there is also, in relation to
them, and to women in general, a disposition to oblige, that is unknown among us. even
in men who pitiue themselves upon cultivation ol' mind and literary education." — Clicvalirr.

§"One of the first peculiarities that must strike a foreigner in the United States is the
deference paid universally to the sex, without regard to rank or station.'' — LyeJl.

II " We have allowed the administration of the customs to adopt practices unworthy of
a civilized nation. It is inexplicable that they should have imposed \\\wn the French,
who believe themselves the most poli.shed nation of the earth, rules, in virtue of which
their wives and daughters are personally examined and felt, in filthy holes and corners,
by female furies. These scandalous brutalities of the agents of tlte treasury are inex-
cusable, for they iirodiice nothing to the revenue." — Chevulier.

THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE. 561

the duties of the household, and the care of her children: and everjnvhere
the labor incident to the performance of those duties is lightened by improved
machinery.* In no part of the Union, however, is she seen to the same
advantag-e as in Massachusetts, where man derives from the cultivation of a
naturally sterile soil returns to labor unknown to those who cultivate the
prairies of the West : and where may be seen, congregating in thousands,
female operatives among whom bastardy is unknown. The greatest of all
the moral phenomena of the world is to be found in the city of Lowell, and
the enlightened traveller w^ill find in its examination abundant compensation
for a failure of his visit to Niagara.!

With each step in our progress south, men cultivate poorer soils, and the
power of combination diminishes ; and with each such step the value of
female labor, and the power of woman to provide for and defend herself,
diminish, until we find her and her children becoming the property of
another. That all may become free, and that woman everywhere may
acquire power over her own actions, determining for herself who she will
marry and who she will not ; that she may everywhere obtain a home in
which to devote herself to the performance of those duties for which she
was intended, the happy wife becoming the mother of children educated to
be useful to themselves, their parents, and society : it is essential that wealth
should be permitted to increase. It does increase most rapidly where men
cultivate the most fertile soils ; and that those soils may be cultivated, com-
bination of action is indispensable. The consumer must take his place by
the side of the producer. With each step of increase in the density of popu-
lation, the power of combination increases, the consumer and the producer
being enabled more and more to place themselves by the side of each other.
Population and wealth increase most rapidly where women are most chaste,
and where they are most chaste they are most valued : whereas, where
neither population nor wealth is permitted to increase, woman is, and must
ever be, a slave and a prostitute ; and man a barbarian, cultivating the
poorest soils.

The PAST says to the sovereign of the present : " If you desire that
woman should occupy the position for which she was intended by her
Creator, cultivate peace."

To the landlord it says : " If you desire that your lands shall become
valuable, avoid war, and permit wealth to increase, that woman may be
chaste and population grow."

To the laborer it says : " If you desire that the honor of your wife and
daughter be respected, labor to promote the maintenance of peace."

To woman it says : " If you Avould be a happy wife, mistress of your own
home, and surrounded by your children, love those who cultivate peace."

* " The inventive spirit of the people of New England, and of their descendants
throughout the Union, is displayed in the production of machinery for economizing the
time and labor of their wives.'' — Chevalier.

•j" " The factories at Lowell are not only on a great scale, but have been so managed as
to yield high profits, a fact which should be impressed on the mind of every foreigner
who visits them, lest after admiritig the gentility of manner and address of the women,
he should go away with the idea that he had been seeing a model mill, or a set of gen-
tlemen and ladies playing at a factory for their amusement.'' — Lyell.

" Morning and evening, and at meal times, seeing them passing in the streets, well
dressed, and again, seeing suspended on the walls of the factories, among the vases of
flowers, and the shrubs which they culti\'ate, their scarfs, and their shawls, and the hoods
of green silk with which they envelope their heads, to secure them from the heat and
dust in walking, I said to myself, This is not Manchester." — Chevalier.

Vol. L— 71

562

IMPROVED HARROW.

IMPROVED HARROW.

3Ioimt Airy, December 31, 1848.
Messrs. Editors, — I hereby submit the following drawing and description
of a harrow recently improved and constructed under my direction, for the
use of the Mount Airy Agricultural Institute Farm. This harrow is con-
structed somewhat after the plan of the Geddes harrow, differing from it in
the following particulars : — The teeth are inserted into three timbers instead
of two in each half: the number of teeth are increased in the same ratio :
the angle formed by the side 2:)ieces meeting the centre ones is much more
obtuse than in Mr. Geddes's harrow, being 52°. It also has handles at-
tached, which, with the teeth, are made of round iron. The claimed advan-
tage of the additional side-timber is, that it admits of an addition of one-third
to the number of teeth in the implement, without placing them so near as to
cause them to clogg with rubbish, which naturally accumulates between
ihem. By increasing the angle formed by the junction of the side and
centre timbers, greater width is obtained in the implement with the same
material, by which the same team will perform one-third more work in a
given time. By the aid of the handles, the harrow may be relieved of any
obstruction gathering between the teeth with much greater ease and flicility.
By attaching the draught-hook on the top of the frame, and opposite the
two front timbers, the tendency of the harrow to draw up in front is ef-
fectually remedied. I consider the round teeth preferable to the square
ones, for these reasons, viz.: they are less liable to clog, as they present
no flat surface, and can be fitted into the timber with much less difficulty

THORNAGE AGRICULTURAL STEAM COMPANY. 563

and expense, and are also much less liable to split the timber when indis-
creetly driven, all danger of which is avoided in the use of the round teeth,
by driving them with a thin strip of leather on one side of the tooth, so
placed as to cause the greatest stress longitudinally of the timber. The
timbers are all of one size, being 3 inches wide by 21 deep. The frame
should be made of good oak : if white oak cannot be procured, red elm may
be used with economy : in the absence of both, Avhite ash may be used.
The centre timbers are six feet long ; the front side pieces are four feet ;
the middle side pieces are three feet nine inches ; and the rear side pieces
are three feet six inches in length. The teeth are so arranged that by once
passing over the ground the whole surface is moved and pulverized. They
run one and three-fourth inches apart from centre to centre. The teeth are
made of inch round iron, eleven inches long, extending five and .one-half
inches below the timber, and are thirty-eight in number. The handles are
made of I round iron, with a deep thread cut on the lower end, and screwed
into the rear side pieces between the first and second teeth, as shown in the
figure. They are bent at a right angle eighteen inches above the timber,
on which is placed a wooden handle. The braces are of wrought iron,
curved, as represented in the drawing, being secured to the timbers by
half-inch iron bolts. The braces also serve as hinges, the draught-rod
passing through them both, with a nut upon the rear ends. The convenience
and utility of the handles will be obvious to all who have had experience
with the use of this implement : — its triangular shape, with joint in the
centre, renders it more convenient than any other arrangement for stony and
stumpy grounds.

Most respectfully, your obedient servant, Dennis Johnson,

Pupil Mount Jliry Inslitvte.

It would have been well to have given the wngAi of these harrows. To us they fooA; rather
heavy. The price is stated to be $15.

< » » • >

THORNAGE AGRICULTURAL STEAM COMPANY.
In the year 1847, a number of gentlemen in the neighborhood of Thornage
formed themselves into a company, under the above title, for applying steam-
power to the threshing of corn, and for other purposes. On Monday last
the first annual meeting was held to receive the report of the superintendent
as to the working of the engine under his charge. The accounts, after
deducting all expenses, showed a return of nearly twenty per cent., and the
shareholders agreed to accept a dividend of ten per cent., and to form a fund
with the surplus to meet contingencies. It is highly gratifying to those
concerned in the enterprise, as well as to the public generally, to find, that
this first attempt at introducing steam-power for agricultural purposes, into
a vicinity where its benefits Avere not previously appreciated, has been
attended with so much success. Lord Hastings, Mr. F. Astley, Mr. Spar-
ham, IMessrs. Boyd, Mr. J. Page, Mr. H. Burrell, Mr. Sheringham, Mr.
Woodcock, and other eminent agriculturists, are shareholders of the com-
pany. It is only right to add, that it was owing to the indefatigable
exertions of Mr. H. Burrell that this great agricultural benefit has been
obtained. — Norfolk Chronicle.

For Ridding Gravel Walks of G-rass. — I have found the following plan very effectual : —
I have a water-tight chest on wheels, holding about 50 gallons; a large bucketful of salt
is put into the box, and it is filled up three parts with boiling water, wheeled into the
garden, and applied hot from a watering-can with a rose, giving a liberal dose; 24 hours
will tell a tale. H.

[Yes ; but what happens the next year, or the year after? Are not the weeds stronger
than ever ?]

564 PENNSYLVANIA ANTHRACITE COAL TRADE.

PENNSYLVANIA ANTHRACITE COAL TRADE.

We are not without apprehension that the retired farmer, exckisively en-
gaged in practical agriculture, and anxious only to augment his income by
the increase of his crops, and his flocks and herds, will be apt to exclaim at
the sight of the following tables — How do these statistics concern us, and
had you not in lieu of them better give us what is commonly and properly
called practical matter ? But is it not proper that every gentleman in the
country should be possessed of these condensed views of the progress and
condition of great Ijranches of national industry, the prosperity and the de-
cline of which are so obviously and intimately connected Avith that of agri-
culture ^ Let the farmer remember that every bushel of coal, from the
moment that the pick is struck into the mine, until it travels to the furnace
and the factory, and until it is there converted into iron or cloth, begins and
continues throughout the whole process, lo consume and to represent so
much of tlie products of the plough ! — and that when coal, delved in our
own mines, is substituted by that which comes from other countries, the coal
heavers of these other countries consume the products of the ploughs of the
poorest, the most enslaved, and the most degraded people on earth ; while
those who, in our own country, are thus driven from the coal mines, must
either suifer for want of employment, or go back for relief to the West, and
on cheap lands become rival producers of corn, wheat, and wool. The
same we have proved to be the case where imported iron takes the place of
our own. It is not, reader, that we feel called upon to plead the cause of
the manufacturer, from any particular affection for, or anxiety about him,
per se, but that we regard his presence, and his prosperity, as indispensable
to the well-doing of the farmer and the planter. As for ihe fantasy of free
trade, it may do well enough to amuse philosophers and closet politicians ;
but is not adapted to the world as it is — and if we would live in the world,
we must live with the world. If ever there was a country under the sun,
that could depend on, and that ought to develope its own resources, ours is
that country : for while other nations are defective either in territorial limits
or in climate, for the production of many things essential to national inde-
pendence, what is it that we do not possess both the soil and the climate to
produce 1 — coffee, perhaps, excepted, and that by no means an essential,
though custom has made it comfortable to enjoy it. Is there any species oi
provisions that we cannot raise for ourselves ? — any mineral or material for
manufacture that Ave have not in abundance — iron — coal — timber — water-
power — salt — sugar — wool — cotton — ample capacity and resources for Avine,
oil, silk, and even tea ! Is not our situation, then, essentially different from
that of «// other nations, and ought not our policy to differ accordingly? As
for England and her eternal cry of " free trade," about Avhich she has ever
kept thoAvord of promise only to the ear, her Avhole course of legislation has
been to make that little island the Avorkshop of the Avorld. Make commerce
free, and England would be ruined — her capital would take wings and come to
where the food and the materials for manufacture are cheapest, and then we,
exempt from her enormous load of public debt and taxation, Avould succeed to
her vast manufacturing and commercial power. ThenA\'e should have real,
not bastard free trade ; and that is Avhat we are looking to. Can any proposition
be plainer, than that it is the interest of the agriculturist to give all the en-
couragement he can to the manufacturers ; for the more they flourish, the
more able they will be to repay the planter and the farmer for their pro-
duce ! And yet, for endeavoring in every form, as we shall continue to do,
to illustrate the truth of this, we sometimes get (almost all of them, but not

PENNSYLVANIA ANTHRACITE COAL TRADE. 565

many in the aggregate, from Virginia) letters, withdrawing subscriptions —
of which we have no right, and do not pretend to complain.

From the Pliiladelpliia Commercial List.

In accordance with our usual custom at the commencement of the new year, we pre-
sent our subscribers witli a Statement of the Anthhacite Coal Trade for the past yt ar.
We have also prepared several tabular statements, showing tlie auiouat of coal sent to
market annually, from the dilierent coal regions, from the commencement of the trade in
1820, to the jiresent period.

Having been employed to prepare a tabular statement of this trade for the purpose of
being engraved on the new Map of Pennsylvania, we have carefully examined the
records kept by the various companies, of the supplies forwarded by the ditferent canals
and railroads, in order to insure entire accuracy. It will be seen that some slight errors
have been discovered and corrected, in our former statements, and we now present our
tables as embracing the official returns of this trade, from its commencement to the pre-
sent period.

The vast importance of the coal trade can readily be imderstood by referring to these
tables, which show its astonishingly rapid increase. Only twenty-eight years since, and.
the total supply of coal sent to market was 36') tons, now it exceeds 3,100,000 tons, even
in a year of great depression in various branches of manufactures, particularly iron, in
the make of which a large quantity of coal is consumed.

Previous to 1820, the use of Anthracite Coal was unknown as fuel in this country, anil
it was considered an article of doubtful combustion ; in fact, some of the early pioneers,
in their endeavors to bring it into use, were treated as impostors. Now it is used ex-
tensively as fuel along our extended seaboard, from Maine to Louisiana, as well as in
the interior.

The tliree principal coal fields of Pennsylvania are each about sixty-four miles in
length by five miles in breadth, embracing an area of 325 square miles, or 208,000 acres
each — forming an aggregate of 975 square miles, or 024,000 acres.

When we consider that Pennsylvania is the only State in the Union which possesses
Anthracite Coal in any quantity, we may be permitted to ask, what would be the condi-
tion of her sister States, if she were suddenly annihilated, with her mountains of coal
and iron '? How melancholy would their condition be in regard to these indispensable
requisites of civilized life, without which no nation can really be independent!

This trade gives employment to a vast number of persons in various ways. It has
caused the constrOction of some of the best canals and railroads not only in the State, but
in the world. It furnishes employment to laborers, in digging the canals and making the
railroads ; to mechanics and artisans, in constructing cars, and locomotives, and boats ;
besides the iron used for rails, as well as other materiahs. In the ground, coal is worth
only 30 to 40 cents per ton — all the other expenses in procuring it are paid for labor.
It furnishes employment to miners, boatmen on the canals, brakemen and laborers on the
railroads, carters and others employed in its delivery, besides the large number of sea-
men engaged on board of vessels employed in transporting it to various places on the
seaboard. In fact, the coal trade furnislies the best nursery for seamen in the United
States, if we except the whale fisheries, and it is soon destined to exceed that important
trade, which has hitherto prepared the best seamen in the world. In case of any sudden
emergency in defending our extended seaboard, M'e should have a large body of active,
bold, and intelligent men, trained for our public service and ready for any emergency.

The coal trade has more than trebled the coasting-trade of Philadelphia within twenty-
five years. In 1822 there were cleared from this port 4 vessels, carrying 181 tons of
coal; in 1825, 11 vessels, carrying 1123 tons; in 1840,644 vessels, carrying 03,137 tons.
In 1847, the total number of clearances from Richmond alone, comprised 2 ships. 36
barks, GOl brigs, 4771 schooners. 774 sloops, and 5200 boats and barges — total, 11,444
vessels, carrying 064. -521 tons of coal.

In the construction of the various canals and railroads leading to the coal mines, up-
■wards of forty-five millions of dollars have been expended. But who will pretend
to calculate the enhanced value of the land, where once the panther and the bear
roamed ! — the desert has been made to bud and blossom as the rose, and smiling villages
and populous towns have sprung into existence as if by magic.

With such facts before us, and the importance of the coal trade to the Union, is it not
surprising tliat our government has not afforded ample protection and encouragement to
this trade ? What operations can be more entitled to protection in a national point of
view 1 We confess we cannot conceive any.

The following table shows tlie quantity of coal brought from each coal field, annually,
from the commencement of the trade to the 1st of Jainiary, 1849 : —

3B

566

PENNSYLVANIA ANTHRACITE COAL TRADE.

THE ANTHRACITE COAL TRADE.
Table showing the quantity of Coal sent to Market annually, from its commencement, in 1820,

to 1848, inclusive.

PREPAKED FHOM OFFICIAL DOCUMEIfTS.

Total

Lehigh.

Total
Schuylkill.

Total
Lacka-
wanna.

Total
Pine
Grove.

Total
Lykens
A'alley.

Total

Shamo-

kin.

TO.VS.

Total
Wyo-
ming.

Total

Supply.

Increase and
Decrease.

Years.

TONS.

TONS.

TONS.

TONS.

TONS.

TONS.

TONS.

TOSS.

1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1820
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848

305

1,073

2,441

5,823

9,541

28,396

31,280

32,074

30,232

25,110

41,7.50

40,966

75,000

123,000

106,244

131,250

146,522

225,937

214,211

222,042

225,591

* 142,807

271,913

267,125

376,363

430,993

522.518

643,5uS

680,193

6.500

16,767

31,360

47,284

79,973

89,984

81.854

209,271

252,971

226,692

339,508

432,045

523,152

433,875

442,608

452,291

f585,.542

541,504

677,313

840,379

1,086,068

1,236,581

1,572,794

7,000

42,700

54,000

84,500

111,777

43,700

98,845

104,500

115,387

76.321

122,300

148,470

192,270

205,253

227,005

251,005

266,072

318,400

388,200

434,267

5,500
9,978
16,720
10,665
19,227
19,463
15,306
31,437
22,879
27,719
31,208
55,346
61,233
56,938

5,439
6,430
0,005
5,372
5,302
6,176
181

2,000

-

4,104
11,930
15,928
22.154
10,098

9,870
13,087
10,135
12,640
14,904

47,340
57,740
114,906
178,401
188,003
289,898

365

1,073

2,440

5,823

9.541

34,896

48,047

63,434

77,516

112,083

174,734

176,820

368,771

487,748

376,636

575,103

698,484

887,632

746,181

823,479

867,045

964,255

1,107,732

1,2«2,532

1,623,459

2,002,877

2,333,494

2,970,597

708 L

1,167 L

3,583 L

3,718 L

25,355 L

13,151 L

15,387 L

14,082 L

35,567 L

62,351 L

2,386 L

191,951 L

118,977 L

72,112 D.

198,467 L

123,381 L

189,148 I.

141,451 D

77,298 I.

43,566 L

97,210 I.

143,477 L

154,800 L

360,927 L

379,418 L

330.617 L

037^103 L

From the above statement it will be seen that the total quantity of coal sent to market
from tlie commencement of the trade, has been 22,000,000 tons. Of this quantity the
Scluiylkill region lias furnished 11,859,150 tons; the Lehigh, 5,050,327 tons; the Lacka-
wanna, 3,392,572 tons.

The business in the Lehigh region is carried on cliiefly by incorporated companies.

* Great Freshet which injured the canal.

■\ Of the coal brought from the Schuylkill mines, tlie following quantities have been
brought down on the Reading Railroad, the balance of course has been received by the
fcchuylkill Canal : —

Ton.s. Tons. Tons. Tons.

1841 . 850.00 I 1843 . 239,255.00 I 1845 . 822,481.04 I 1847 . 1,350,151.10

1842 49,902.00 I 1844 . 241,492.10 | 1846 .1,233,141.10)1848 . 1,210,232.03

The total supplies sent from the Schuylkill, on the railroad and canal, in 1848, have
been : —

Port Carbon

Poitsville
Schuylkill Haven
Port Clinton

Total

By Railroad, Tons.

372,509.05

199,990.07

501,560.10

• 142,172.01

. 1,216,232.03

By Canal, Tons.

257,706.19
34,971.01

125,409.13
18,514.09

436,602.02

Total supply in 1848.

1,052,834.05

PENNSYLVANIA ANTHRACITE COAL TRADE.

567

The following table shows the quantity of coal forwarded by each company and by indi-
viduals, from this region, annually : —

LEHIGH COAL TRADE.

The total quantity of Coal shipped from the Lehigh Coal Mines, annually, from the commence-
ment of the trade, in 1820, ^o 1848, inclusive, has been as follows:

1

Lehigh

Coal

Company.

Beaver
Meadow
Company.

Hazleton
Company.

S. Loaf,
now Dia-
mond.

Buck
Mount'n
Comp'y.

Summit.
Spring
Moun'n.

Wilkes-
barre
R.R.

Cran-
berry.

Total
Lehigh.

Years

TONS.

TONS.

33,617
38,426
38.595

43,845 >
* 26,224
45,159
54,692
70,335
77,230
85,870
109,110
84,930

TONS.

TONS.

TONS.

TONS.

TONS.

TONS.

TONS.

1820
1821
1822
1823
1824
1825
1826
1827
1828
1829
1830
1831
1832
1833
1834
1835
1836
1837
1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
1845
1846
1847
1848

365

1,073

2,440

5,823

9,541

28,396

31,280

32,074

30,232

25,110

41,750

40,966

75,000

123,000

106,244

131,250

146,522

192,320

159,564

142,071

102,212

*78,166

163,742

138,825

219,245

257,740

274,663

334,929

336.569

16,221
33,826
50,441

»21,247
31,082
43,950
70,168
70,266
98,109

105,595
86,641

7,550

29,039

*17,170

31.930

26,814

2,866

1,843

6,391

- 54

2,844
13,749
23,914
46,103
50,847
71,101

17,908
32,840
65,531

5,865
10,247
10,425

18,605

365

1,073

2,440

5,823

9,541

28,396

31,280

32,074

30,232

25,110

41,750

40,966

75,000

123,000

106,244

131,250

146,522

225,937

214,211

222,042

225,591

* 142,807

271,913

267,125

376,363

430,993

522,518

643,568

680,193

The following Table shows the Imports of Foreign Coal into the United States, an-
nually, from 1821 to the 1st July, 1848. The duty on Foreign Coal under the present
Tariff, is 30 to 45 cents per ton, on board :

1821 .
1822
1823 .
1824
1825 .
1826
1827 .
1828
1829 .
1830
1831 .
1832
1833 .
1834

22,122

1835

34,523

1836

30,433

1837

7,228

1838

25,645

1839

35,665

1840

40,257

1841

32,302

1842

45,393

1843

58,136

1844

36,508

1845 .

72.978

1846f

92.432

1847+

71,626

1848

49,969

108,432

153,450

129,083

181.551

162,867

155,394

141,526

41.163

87,073

85,771

156,855

148,021

196,251

• Great Freshet, wliich injured the canal.

•j- From 1st December, 1846, to 30th June, 1847.

+ For the year ending 30th June, 1848.

568

OVER-PRODUCTION OF COTTON.

In July, 1789, a law was passed laying a duty of two cents per bushel on Imported
Coal. Ill 1790, the duty was increased to three cents. In 1792, the duty was increased
to 4^ cents, and in 1794 to 5 cents per bushel. This duty was continued until 181G,
when it was changed to 5 cents per heaped bushel. In 1824, the duty was increased to
$1.50 per ton. In 1832, the duty was raised to $1.75 per ton, which was continued ui.til
the present Taritl", in 1846, reduced it to from 30 to 45 cents per ton.

The Coal Trade for 1849 will show a considerable increase over that of 1848. A
satisfactory arrangement has been entered into between tlie Railroad Company and the
Schuylkill Canal, in reference to the charges for Toll on Coal, which will prove adva:-t
tageous to all those who have made investments in the stock of these companies.

GRAIN.

MEASUREMENT OF GllAISf, ETC., BY THE PUBLIC MEASUIIERS OF PHILADELPHIA.

The following Table shows the Measurement of Grain, Seeds, Salt, and Coal, annually, foi- the

last eleven years.

1838
1839
1840
1841
1842
1843
1844
184.5
1846
1847

Wheat.

319,

449,
770,
467,
462.
484.
526,
792,
983,
947.

18481723

513

980^

205

2-133

770

384 i

6671

502 i

923

598

694^

Corn.

Bushels.
593,296
4.55,3703
602,858^
781,278?
492,951
518,67U
640,459
768,486?
665,178
1,093,264
1,302.3181

Eye.

Bu.shels.

163.085

115,933f

133,891*

51,3711

36,334

68,013i-

95.227^.

85,357i

30,829

78,972

46,900,^

Barley.

Bushols.

48,162i

48,1.52i

36,542^

44,336

35,978^

20,042

58,600

46,630^

40,339

38,210

62,5541

Oats.

Seeds.

Bushels.

Bushels.

272,104i

22,944 i

302,274i

11,5931-

298,473i

18,2481-

167,508i

19,704?

194,908

25,198?

372,713i

27,773 i

375,578?

42,358 *

3,57,677i

31,434

350,942

15,864

369,171

7,528

327,733?

9,7701

Beans. Coal Bit

Bushels. Bushels.

1,40U

327i

698i

3,0401

],616i

l,580i

1,402?

3,930|

3,895

676

459

138,712

86,452

Il65,740

118,108

9,068

131,909

97,000

261,838

348,261

268,760

357,827

Salt.

Bushels.

356,4071
291,568
257,143
326,132
151,250
174,134i
217,815i
146,451
237,463
246,438
00,474

OYER-PRODUCTION OF COTTON.

''We have seen very intelligent contemporaries, who agree with us on the necessity of
some equilibrium in our capacity for production and consumption, who estimate our ex-
cess, already, at 800,000 bales, and who are of opinion that the corresponding ratio of
labor should be at once diverted into other channels. On this predicate, the transition
would be one-third from cotton, which, vi'ith all due deference, we think rather too vio-
lent. It would, probably, excite fears, alike injurious to agriculture and commerce, by
disturbing the laws of supply and demand, which are most beneficial, when most secure
from sudden and great interruption. We have selected the medium course, as the most
advisable — let us say, tliat 400,000 bales ought to be omitted from the production, which
would be one-sixth of a full average crop, as noticed by us a few months since, and the
capital thus liberated would establish and work machinery to the value of $12,500,000.
Let the proceeds be invested in additional cotton mills, and so on,' from year to year, until
a third of, or even one-half, the crop of the United States shall be manufactured at home.
When this or any approximate result shall be attained, then good prices for cotton will
be permanent, with the upward slide in our favor, from the very tendency of tlie
cliange.''

We take the above from the " Commercial Times," of New Orleans.
The remedy for the over-production of cotton is to be found in the increase
of the consumption, and net in the reduction of its cultivation. In the five
years which followed the passage of the tariff of 1842, the home consumption
of cotton was dntililed. Restore that tariff, and it would a.nain double itself
in five years, and it would then be found that the planters would obtain more
from the export of a million of bales than they now do from the whole crop,
while the food that they Avould then raise would find a market on the land,
enablinq- them to improve its power of production, instead of exhausting it,
as now they do.

THE PLANTING AND THE MANUFACTURING INTEREST. 569

CONNECTION BETWEEN THE PLANTING AND THE

MANUFACTURING INTEREST.

In the followirg passage, which we take from an article in the Philadel-
phia " North American," the estimate of the home consumption difiers mate-
rially from the authorities we have followed, but our chief object in offering-
it to the consideration of our readers is that of showing the manner in which
the present tariff operates as a bounty on the consumption of the cotton of
India, and tends to produce that surplus of American cotton, of which the
planter complains, and by which he is ruined. How long, we ask again,
will it be before he will learn that the plough never has prospered, and
never can prosper, in the absence of the loom and the anvil ?

" It is a fact not generally known on this side of the Atlantic, that the principal im-
ported cotton goods, which enter into competition with those made in this country, are
manufactured almost exclusively of cotton grown in the British East India possessions,
w^liich, on an average for a succession of years, costs one penny, or two cents of our
money, per pound, less than the American cotton.

"To illustrate this fact more clearly, it should be known that no cotton twist, or warp,
from Nos. 5 to 20, except occasionally for home use, has been spun in England, within
the last twenty years, of any thing better than East India cotton ; and that all cotton
filling, or weft, under No. 30, is spun of the same material. In this country the factories
rarely, if ever, spin, for manufacturing puri:)o.ses, any cotton yarn finer than the numbers
above named ; and they use the American cotton exclusively, at an average cost of two
cents per pound above the value of the cotton used by the British manufacturer in making
the same fabrics. It is, 'therefore, a natural consequence that, under a high protective
American tariff, the consumption of American cotton is greatly increased, and that of the
East Indies decreased ; while, under a low or free trade tariff^ the consumption of Ameri-
can cotton is materially decreased, and that of the East Indies increased. These facts,
of so much interest to American cotton planters, will be clearly demonstrated by reference
to the tabular statements contained in Wiliner & Smith's European Times, by which it
will be seen that, from the first of January to the fifteenth of October, 184G, when the
tariff of 1842 was in full operation, 1,002,150 bales of American cotton, and 240,380 bales
of cotton from other countries, were consumed in Great Britain. During the same year,
it is estimated that there were over 500,000 bales of American cotton consumed in this
country by oiir own manufacturers; making an aggregate of 1,502,150 bales of American
cotton consumed in both countries. Only about one-sixth of that nimiber of bales, the
product of other countries, it will be remembered, was consumed during that periotl.
From the same authority it appears that, from the first of January to the thirteenth of
October, in the year 1847, when the tarift'of 1846 was in oyjeration, there were consumed
in Great Britain only 631"), 560 bales of American cotton, and 242,630 bales of cotton of the
product of other countries. And it is estimated that, owing to the distressed situation of
our manufacturers, there were not more than 300,000 bales consumed in this country;
making only 936,500 bales of American cotton actually consimied in both countries
during that period. It will be seen from these statements, that whilst the consumption
of American cotton decreased 505,590 bales under the tarifi" of 1846, the consumption of
cotton grown in other countries increased 2250 bales; — and fiu-ther, tliat nearly one-thirtl
of all the cotton consumed in Great Britain during the jieriod last named, that is nuder
the tariff' of 1846, was imported from British possessions; and the reason for this large
decrease in the consumption of American, and large increase in the consumption of other
cotton, is obvious — the English manufacturers were mainly engaged in producing coarse
fabrics, which constituted almost the only description of cotton goods they could send
liere to advantage, and which were the best calculated to breakdown the manufacturing
establishments of this country."

The Mississippi — The Mississippi river runs through nineteen degrees of latitude, a
space extending from the northern part of Ireland to the Rock of Gibraltar. At its source
the winters have the rigor of those of Norway, and at its mouth the seasons are those of
Spain. The fir and the birch grow about its northern springs — and the palm, the live-
oak, and orange at the Balize. It is closed by ice in November in its northern course,
which is melted early in the spring, before it has floated within many hundred miles of
its mouth. " Lone, wandering, but not lo.st," it flows for the first four hundred miles
through a high, prairie-like country, until it is precipitated over the fidls: then, having de-
scended from the high shelf of land it has lately watered, it flows for the next seven hund-
red through one of the most beautiful regions. — Neio York Literary World.
Vol. I.— 72 3 b 2

570 ON THE CULTIVATION OF ONIONS.

ON THE CULTIVATION OF ONIONS.

A PKIZE ESSAY.

We have observed that " town cows" always go, each herd, to its particular part of
the commons to pasture, neither of the herds, though there may be a dozen, ever in-
vading the grounds of another — so beggars in towns have each their particular walk.
When the cows come home, from the pasture on the farm, or from the commons, you'll
generally see precedence yielded to some old dame, one that has won the distinction
rather by hard knocks diun by amiable manners. All this is well described by Bloom-
field in the " Farmer's Boy," where the clattering dairy-maid bawls out to Giles, " Go
fetch the cows !" (We've a great mind to copy the whole poem.)

" Straight to the meadow then he whistling goes ;
With well-known halloo calls his lazy cows :
Down the rich pasture, heedlessly they graze ;
Or hear the summon, with an idle gaze ;
For well they know the cow-yard yields no more
Its tempting fragrance, nor its wintry store.
Reluctance marks their steps, sedate and slow;
The right of conquest, all the law tliey know:
The strong press on, the weak by turns succeed,
And one superior always takes the lead;
Is ever foremost, wheresoe'er they stray;
Allowed precedence, undisputed sway:
With jealous pride her station is maintain'd,
For many a broil that post of honor gain'd.''

Well, thus as with cows, in appropriating the commons, so with farmers and me-
chanics, as to the production and manufacture of certain things. They seem to be sur-
rendered by a sort of prescriptive right to particular places, without any obvious reason
why they should not be produced in a thousand others as well —

Newark-, New Jersey, for light wagons; Troy, for post-coaches; Lynn,, for shoes; and for
onions, Weathersfield, Connecticut, where Paulding, speaking of the women, says, rather
ungallanily, that at a certain season of the year,

" their knees

"Are rough as shag-bark walnut trees."

We have often wondered, when residing south of the Delaware, as we should ever
have done, if we had not been (speaking of cows) poked out of it ; we have often
wondered why they should go to the Mohawk for brooms, and to Connecticut for onions,
— but it seems they know how to make onions in Vermont as well. As soon as we saw
the following in that excellent, because highly intellectual and moral paper, " The School
Journal and Agriculturist," we determined to preserve it in the pages of the " Plough, the
Loom, and the Anvil." One thing only had wellnigh deterred us from publishing it.
Reader, would you know what that was? It was when we came to those lines wliich
we have italicized at the end of section 2 ! We very much apprehend that in those lines
is disclosed the very reason why the cultivation of the onion is monopolized by the Yan-
kee. Well, be that as it may, here is a prize essay on its cultivation, which will leave
no excuse for those who profess to be convinced of the expediency of every farmer
making all he can " witlmi himself" There is in this essay a corroboration of a remark-
able fact which we heard some years since, for the first time, from Mr. Clapp, who en-
joyed the post of Postmaster at some town in New England, under that glorious spoil-
system of alternation vvliich tends to make of every man in place a hypocrite or a beggar.
He told us that onions did the better for being grown perpetually on the same ground .'

CULTIVATION OF ONIONS.
[From a Premium Essay by J. W. Proctor, Esq.]

The culture of onions has increased so much, within a few years, in this
vicinity, that it has become one of the staple products of the county, [Essex
Co., Mass.] In the town of Danvers, more money is realized by the sale
of the onion than in any other product of the soil. Products of so much
value, and commandinfr so much attention, are fit subjects of inquiry ; and
if there be any facts relating to their cultivation not generally known, it may
be useful to have them brought forward.

ON THE CULTIVATION OF ONIONS.

571

In making these inquiries, our attention has heen directed almost entirely
to practical cultivators, without reference to scientific treatises. Our intention
being to tell their story, as near as possible, in their own way.

We shall treat of the subject in the following order:

1. The preparation of the land.

2. The manure best adapted to promote the growth.

3. The raising and planting of the seed.

4. The care necessary to be applied while growing.

5. The blights and injuries to which the crop may be liable.

0. The time and manner of harvesting.

1. As to the preparation of the land.

Differing from most other crops, the onion grows well on the same land
for an indefinite number of years. Instances of continued appropriation of
the same pieces of land to the growing of onions, for ten, fifteen, twenty ^
and even thirty years, have come to our knowledge. It is the opinion of
many that the crop is better after the land has been thus used a few years
than at first.

Rarely, if ever, have we known the onion sown upon the turf when first
turned over. It is usual to subdue and pulverize the soil, by the cultivation
of corn or some other crop. Not unfrequently the first year with corn, the
second with carrots, and afterwards with onions. It is important, before the
seed is sown, that the surface be mellow, finely pulverized, and clear of
stones or other impediments to the free and unobstructed use of the machine
for this purpose. The finer and more uniformly mellow the surface is made,
the better. Shallow ploughing, say from four to six inches deep, is usually
practised. Once plousfhing only in the spring, and frequent harrowings,
are practised. Before the ploughing, the dressing is usually spread upon
the surface of the field, so as to be covered or intermixed in the furrow.
The mingling and subdivision of it is effected by the use of the harrow.

Whether it would not be advantageous, occasionally to stir the land to the
full depth of the soil, is a point on Avhich there is a difference of opinion :
most of the cultivators inchning to the use of shallow ploughing only.
There are some facts tending to show that occasional deep-stirring of the soil
does no harm to die onion crop, but on the contrary is decidedly beneficial.
As for instance, onions do better where carrots have grown the year pre-
ceding, than after any other crop. The carrot necessarily starts the soil to
the depth of ten or twelve inches. Possibly there may be some other in-
fluence upon the soil from the plant itself. Our belief is, that the thorough
and deep stirring of it, is the principal preparatory benefit.

2. The manure best adapted to promote the growth.

Any strong manure, well rotted and finely subdivided will answer. But
the general impression seems to be, that manure from stables, where the
horses are freely fed with grain, is the best ; and that it should be at least
one year old, because it will not be sufficiently rotten in less time. All
agree that the dressing for the land should be kept near the surface, well
mixed, and as fine as possible.

Leached ashes are also a valuable manure in the cultivation of the onion ;
more so when leached than before. All kinds of ashes are advantageously
applied on onion land.

Compost manure, made of meadow mud and the droppings from the
cattle, we have known to be advantageously applied on onion fields ; but we
have many doubts as to this being the best application of this kind of manure.
A more lively and quickly operating manure is better for the onion ; one
that will give them an early start, and advance them as fast as possible, in
the first part of the season. The utmost vigilance and activity is used by

572 ON THE CULTIVATION OF ONIONS.

our cultivators in getting their land ready, at an early period of the season,
for the reception of the seed. It is the first field labor of the spring. The
use of compost manure will depend much upon the constituents of the soil
with which it is mixed. If the soil be a sandy loam, with a porous subsoil,
the compost will do tolerably well ; but if it be a black soil, with a clayey
subsoil, such as are most of the lands where onions are raised in this vicinity,
stable manure, or muscle-bed, or leached ashes, or a mixture of these, will
be a better application. The quantity ordinarily applied annually is from
four to five cords to the acre. Whatever is applied should be generously
applied. It will be in vain to expect full crops of onions without full manuring.
When the manure is collected, it is benefited much by a free application of
elboiv grease in its preparation. The cultivator of the onion imist work
early and late and in good earnest. A^othing short of forcible and perse-
vering labor ivill answer. No one who is afraid of soiling his hands, or
the knees of his trousers, will do to engage in this business. Close work,
at the proper time, is the only sure, guarantee of a good crop.
3. The raising and planting of the seed.

In relation to the onion, as well as all other vegetables, much care is
necessary in the selection of the plants for seed, and the cultivation of the
seed. By the application of this care, the character of the article raised
may be modified almost at pleasure. Until within a few years the flat onioti,
hollow about the stem, has been preferred. The thinner the handsomer.
But it is now understood, that the round, thick, plump onion, is preferable
in many respects. It is found to have a decided preference in the market,
commanding ten per cent, more in price. By selecting those of most desirable
form, which ripen Ihe earliest, and carefully setting them for seed, where
they will not be exposed to the impregnation of the baser sorts, the quality
has been materially changed and improved. These peculiarities in the
onion were first noticed in this vicinity by Mr. Daniel Buxton. He was
careful to select in the field before the crop was gathered, such onions as he
preferred, and to preserve them for seed.

By so doing, the seed which he raised soon acquired a character superior
to any other. Many of those who had been accustomed to raise their own
seed in the ordinary way, laid it aside, and purchased seed raised by Mr.
Buxton, and found their account in so doing. There are three varieties of
tlie onion raised in this vicinity — the Silver-skin, the Bed, and the White
onion. The silver-skin is the predominant species, and more cultivated
than all others. The red is preferred by some — sells better in some foreign
markets, but does not yield so abundantly. The white onion yields as well
as either of the others, is milder and preferable for immediate use ; it will
not keep as well, and is not fit for exportation ; which is the principal use
made of our onions.

The common drill machine is used for the distribution of the seed. This
admits of regulation, so as to scatter it more or less thick ; and in this there
is room for the application of sound judgment. The usual quantity sown is
about three pounds to an acre. As a general rule, we should say, one
pound of good seed was the proper quantity for a quarter of an acre of land
of good quality well prepared. It is desirable to have the seed planted as
thick as they will grow fairly, both to secure a good crop, and prevent the
onion growing too large. Onions from one to two inches in diameter being
preferred to those of a larger size. The skilful cultivator carefully looks
after all these incidents relating to his crop.

4. The care necessary to be applied while growing.

Much of the success of the crop depends on this care. At first the plant
ifi extremely tender, and requires to be handled with much caution. Any

ON THE CULTIVATION OF ONIONS.

derano-ement of the fibres or roots of the young plant, is attended with pre-
judicial consequences. Much attention is necessary to prevent weeds gain-
ing the ascendancy ; and in eradicating the weeds. Want of due care in
this is often the cause of failure of a crop. We have known, the present
season, a highly promising crop to be injured tiventy per cent, at least, by
permitting the weeds to remain unnoticed one iveek too long. This is espe-
cially true when there has been a want of due care in preventing the scat-
tering of the seeds of the weeds on the land in the years preceding. Care
should be taken, both that no weeds shall ripen their seed upon the land,
and that no weeds shall be found in the manure. In this respect, warm
stable manure, muscle-bed, and ashes, have a decided superiority over all
other manures. Perhaps there is no plant more liable to be injured by
weeds than the onion. The fibres it sends out are very numerous, minute,
and tender ; any fracture of any of these necessarily impairs the perfection
of the plant. When the land is in the proper condition, two careful weed-
ings are all that may be necessary. The rest of the stirring of the ground
that may be required to promote the growth, can be done with the Onion
Hoe — an instrument specially constructed for the purpose, moving on wheels,
and adapted to the width of the rows. It is calculated to pass between the
rows of onions — being either drawn or pushed. The wheels cover a space
of about one foot in width, and the length of the cutting blade is also about
a foot. The length of the handle is about five and a half feet. The usual
distance between the rows is fourteen inches, and as the hoe takes a breadth
of twelve inches, it cuts over all the ground, excepting a strip of two inches
along each row. The cost of the hoe varies from $1.25 to $1.50. It Avas
invented by Mr. Joseph Bushby, of Danvers, an intelligent and successful
cultivator of garden vegetables, about 25 years since ; and was used by him-
self and neighbors only for about ten years. It has now come into general
use, and saves much o{ back-aching labor. The distance between the rows
can be varied according to the quality and condition of the soil. Keeping
the ground well stirred, loose, and free of weeds, greatly facilitates the bot-
toming of the onion. There is no plant that will better reward diligent care
in the cultivation. The entire difference between a bountiful crop and no
crop at all, often depends on this. The old maxim, " a stitch in time saves
nine," applies with great force in raising onions.

6. The time and manner of harvesting.

When the tops begin to wither and fall, then it is usual to start the onions
from their bed, and throw them together in rows — say eight or ten growing
rows into one. After they have lain thus about one week, they are stirred
and turned with a rake, and in about one week more, when the ground is
dry, and the weather fair, they are gathered up by cart-loads, and taken to
the barn. Here they are sorted and cleared of refuse leaves, and then they
are in a condition to be bunched or barrelled.

It should be remarked, that a large part of the labor of tveeding, gathering,
and sorting the onion, can be performed by children from ten to sixteen
years of age. Boys of this age, when properly insti-ucted, will do about as
much as men. They are more nimble, and can come at the work with
greater facility. The sorting of the onion is frequently done by girls as well
as boys. From three to five dollars a week, at one cent a basket, are
usually earned by them during the period of harvesting — Avhich includes
the months of September and October. After the crop is taken off, if the
surface is sloping, it is useful to plough furrows about one rod apart, to keep
the surface from washing. Unless this is done, all the herbage being gone,
much of the soil will be likely to be misplaced, by the melting of snows and
running of water in the spring.

574 ON THE CULTIVATION OF ONIONS.

The inquiry arises, whether the growth of the onion is limited to soils of
particular character, or whether it can be cultivated upon any good soil, with
proper attention. We know that there is a popular impression, that there
are but few places in which the onion can be cultivated advantageously.
So far as our own observation has extended, this impression is in a great
measure erroneous. Like every other plant, the onion grows best on very
good soils, in very good condition. But we have known very fair crops, on
plain, hght land, after the same was well saturated with mamire, muscle-
bed, and ashes. A good substratum must be laid before a good crop can be
expected ; and this being done, a crop may be expected on almost any soil
that will support other vegetables.

If we were asked what course is best to be pursued with land, on which
onions have never been raised, to bring it into a condition for a successful
cultivation of the crop, we should say — Begin by ploughing to the full depth
of the nutritive soil, and during the iirstand second years, thoroughly subdue
and mellow the soil by the cultivation of crops of corn and carrots, with
liberal dressings of manure ; then thoroughly incorporate with the soil a
dressing of strong manure and muscle-bed, just covering this dressing ; then
harrow the surface thoroughly, and clear it of all roots, weeds, or other ob-
structions ; then apply a coating of lively, well rotted manure to the surface,
and bush harrow it; and then it will be in a condition to receive the seed,
which is to be inserted as soon as the opening of the spring will admit of its
being done.

We are aware that we make the raising of the onion dependent upon
severe labor and vigilant attention. We know that it cannot be successfully
done without these. But it is not labor lost. No cultivation, within our
observation, better repays for the labor and incidental expenses. We have
known, the present season, acres that have yielded their owners a net in-
come of more than three hundred dollars ; and we know that a man with
two boys can well attend to half a dozen acres of such cultivation. Surely,
when as at present, there is no limit to the demand for the article, and a
ready cash market, those who have acres and are willing to labor, need not
be in want of a fair compensation for their labor.

As samples of the present year's product in the town of Danvers, Ave state
the following that have come under our notice :

Names. Acres.

John Penslee . . . . 3 . . .
Daniel Osborn & Son . . .11-
James P. King . . . . I5 . . .

Aaron C. Proctor .... 1^ ...

E. & D. Buxton . . . 6^ . . .

Henry Bnshby . . . . 4 .
Joseph Bushby . . . 3 . . .

YieldincT an averao-e of more than 500 bushels to the acre

Product.

1,080 bushels.

870

"

C60

(1

600

a

2,750

II

2,000

<i

1,500

"

Advice in Poidtry Keeping. — The principles upon which I rely for suc-
cess in keeping hens, are, 1st, to have two breeds — a few to hatch and rear
the chickens, and twice the number of everlasting layers, as eggs are more
profitable than chickens ; 2d, to get a hatch as early as possible in spring,
and to keep them well ; these never cast their feathers like the old birds,
and if they begin to lay in autumn, lay more or less all winter ; 3d, never to
keep old fowls (none but fovorite fowls ought to be kept more than two
years ;) old birds lay larger eggs than pullets, but not nearly so many ; 4th,
to give them the best barley I could get, and as much as they could pick up
once a day in summer, and twice in winter ; they are not only more pro-
fitable, well kept, but the eggs are better. — English Paper.

THE MARYLAND STATE AGRICULTURAL CHEMIST. 575

THE MARYLAND STATE AGRICULTURAL CHEMIST.

"Dr. Higgins, the Chemist, has, we understand, removed his Laboratory to Easton,
where he is now assiduously engaged in his great work. He has been met there by the
farmers, in the best spirit, and their attention has been in various ways attracted to his
labors."' — Jnn. Free Press.

The above, from the " Baltimore Patriot," is the first and only notice we
have seen of the whereabouts and of the operations of the State Agricultural
Chemist. Doctor Higgins has a wide field for usefulness before him, and
while we trust, we doubt not he will cultivate it Avell.

The very presence of an officer thus traversing the countrj'', will wake
the farmers up to a consciousness that in the great scale of human industry
agriculture is " some," and the best results in a great manufacturing pro-
cess, (which agriculture really is,) are not to be achieved but by some know-
ledge af the nature of the materials employed, and of the laws of nature on
which all results, profitable or otherwise, in a great measure depend. Per-
haps, as the very worm will turn when trodden upon, farmers will at last
begin to inquire why it is that they maintain great military and naval
schools, while their representatives (so called) dare not ask for one dollar
for instruction in the great art of production.

The number of our patrons on the Eastern Shore of that good old State,
and the interest we shall never cease to feel in the prosperity of all her sons,
warrant a curiosity to know, when allowable, the result of Doctor Higgins's
analysis of their soils and materials — their fine " white oak" wheat soil, their
marsh mud and their marls. On the left hand side of the road coming into
Easton from Queen Anne's, and not many miles out, Ave stopped to look at
the operation of marl-digging, near the road, which seemed to be attended
with a quantity and cost of manual and animal labor to make it doubtful if it
would pay ! How would it compare, for instance, with the following Irish
marl, of which Dr. Kane gives the analysis :

White Marl.

20-72

. 0-74

0-32

. 0-02

0-53

. 77-04

trace.

. 1-03

Blue Marl.

SiHceous sand

2-35

Alumina

. 0-36 .

Oxide of Iron

0-24

Phosphaie of Iron

. 003 .

Carbonate of Magnesia

0-43

Carbon-dte of Lime .

. 90-98

Organic Matter .

2-42

Water ....

. 2-52

99-33 100-40

The following analysis is given by the same author, whose valuable work
ought to find a place in every farmer's library. This may serve to hint, in
some measure, to a certain friend whose plough we once found in autumn,
laid by, where it had laid by his corn in the summer, and who, therefore, shall
be nameless — Avhat he has to expect from his use of king-crabs in his com-
post, making to the value of the shells, the addition for the animal matter.
How much is to be added on that account, it is not easy to say, as we could
never see in these odd-looking creatures. any thing but shell and legs.

Crab-shell.

Lobstor-.shell.

Oyster-shell.

Animal Membrane

. 28-6

44-76

0-5

Carbonate of Lime

. G2-8 .

. 49-26 .

98-5

Phosphate of Lime

. 60

3-22

1-0

Salts of Soda

1-G .

. 1-50 .

. - -

Phosphate of Magnesia .

. 1-0

1-22

•

100-0 10000 100-0

576 THE ECONOMIST.

Dr. Kane says that almost all the bogs in Ireland rest on marly bottom,
intermixed with beds of clay, or of limestone gravel, in such manner that
these wastes, where they become unnecessary for fuel, contain underneath
\he best materials for their own reclaiming. So it may be w'ith the marshes
along our whole seaboard ; and as we get so little in return for fifteen or
twenty millions expended annually on the army and navy, we venture here
to make one suggestion ; and that is, that to the corps of coast-surveyors, should
added, in time of peace, the corps of sappers and miners. Let them accom-
pany the coast-surveyors, whose beautiful maps extend to a certain distance
from the shores of all our rivers and creeks. We have seen, for instance, an
exquisite map of Blakeford, in Queen Anne county, made in the regular
course of coast-surveying. Well, what we would propose is, that these
miners might indicate on these maps not only the extent of the marshes, and
the rise and fall of the tides, (to indicate whether drainable or not,) and the
elevations of the adjacent dry land along the shores within the scope of their
survey — all of which may, for aught we know, be done now ; but they should
also indicate any large deposits of shells or marl, or bog, fit for fuel. In a
word, we would get all out of them that we could, in return for the hundreds
of millions expended in time of peace to prepare for war! In the mean-
thne, we Avish all honor and success to the State Chemist.

"The Economist" is the title of a paper to be issued early in April, at
Cannelton, Indiana, to be published weekly. The Editor — Charles H.
Mason — says :

" We shall endeavor to show to the cotton planter that there is more economy in work-
ing up his staple by the cheap coal of Indiana, than by the expensive coal of England.
To the Western grower of Ibod, we shall undertake to prove that there is more economy
in feeding the spinner and Aveaver on the banks of the Ohio, than in Manchester, Glas-
gow, or Lowell. In short, we shall endeavor to show whatever economy and profit
there is in developing the natural resources of the country, and, in so adjusting our capital
and labor in agriculture, manufactures, and their auxiliaries, that all may harmonize and
yet no one unduly preponderate."

It would be superfluous in us to say that we approve heartily the objects
of " The Economist," but we may add that we have every confidence in
the ability and resources of the Editor to make his work acceptable and
valuable to all who would be familiar with the industrial resources of his
country, and the best and most economical manner to develope and apply
them.

JJmo to tnake a Horse Sure-footed. — A singular account of the manner of the ancients
in breaking their horses, and rendering them sure-footed when galloping over the mcst
irregidar and dangerous grounds, is related by Vegetius. The Parthian horses were
lighter and hardier than those of the Cappadocians or Medes, and were the best 'war
horses. A spot of dry level ground was selected, on which various troughs or boxes filled
with chalk or clay, were placed at irregular distances, and with much irregularity of sur-
face and of height. Here the horses were taken for exercise, and they had many a
stumble and many a fall as they galloped this strangely uneven course; but they gradually
learned to lift their feet higher and to bend their knees better, and to step sometimes
shorter and sometimes longer, as the ground required, until they could carry their riders
with ease and safety over the mo.st irregular and dangerous places. Then it^was that
the Partliians could fully put into practice their favorite manctuvre, and turn upon and
destroy tlioir unsuspecting foes. They were as formidable in flight as in attack, and
would often turn on tlie back of the animal, and pour on their jJursuers a cloud of aiTOWS
that at once chani'cd the fortune of the day. — English Paper.

NEW INDUCTIONS IN AGRICULTURE. 577

NEW INDUCTIONS IN AGRICULTURE.

BY DOCTOR R. T. BALDWIN, OF WINCHESTER, VIRGINIA.
Messrs. Editors of the Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil :

The inductions I have drawn from the practical facts which have passed
under my personal observation, since my attention has been directed to the
subject of agriculture, differ so materially from the received opinions of the
present day, that I have been induced to submit them for your considera-
tion : under the hope and expectation that you or some one equally quah-
fied, will correct them if they should prove to be erroneous. With this
view, I shall state them in distinct, substantive propositions.

1st. It is not true that any plant which the farmer is interested in cul-
tivating, derives its principal nutriment from the carbonic acid gas of the
atmosphere. Although air is indispensable to vegetable as well as to ani-
mal life, it is equally true that no animal can live without food, and no plant
exist in an impoverished soil without manure at the root.

2d. That the only food of plants known to the practical farmer is manure,
or the residue of putrefaction. Neither water, oil, carbon, phlogiston, nor
the sulphates, nitrates, muriates, carbonates, silicates, phosphates of soda
and potash; nor the carbonates, sulphates, phosphates of ammonia, lime,
magnesia ; nor acids, nor alkalies, have ever been proved to be the aliment
of plants, unconnected with the putrefied substances which may contain
them.

3d. It is not true that different vegetable matters, during their growth,
extract different fertilizing salts from the earth. For lands exhausted by
continued cultivation in one kind of grain will not produce a more remune-
rative crop of any other kind.

4th. It is not true that lands under cultivation cannot be made to pre-
serve their natural fertility without manure ; on the contrary, lands natu-
rally poor may be made exceedingly fertile without the addition of manure,
of any kind whatever.

5th. There is no natural disintegration of the soil in a state of repose,
and a formation of alkalies, unless its surface be covered with some sub-
stances or other. Exhausted lands, which remain uncovered, never improve
in fertility by rest.

6th. The residue of the decomposition of vegetable substances, or the
" ash of plants," is not manure. Nor can manure be made of any substance,
without the aid of the putrefactive process.

7th. That the analytical investigations of learned chemists, totally dis-
regarding the vital principle or life, have not promoted the interests of agri-
culture. On the contrary, diverting the attention of agriculturists from
careful observations of the operations of nature, and the inductive reason-
ings drawn therefrom, have been decidedly injurious to its best interests.

8th. That shade is the great fertilizing agent ; the putrefactive fer-
mentation cannot be produced without it, and consequently no manures can
be made, and no fertility imparted to the earth, in any manner, independent
of its influence.

9th. That the earth itself is capable of being converted into the best
manure ; to effect this, it is only necessary that it should be densely shaded.
That is, it should be located favorably for the generation of the putrefactive
fermentation.

10th. That the fertility imparted to the soil is more permanent, when
produced by shade, than from the application of any manure whatever.
Vol. L— 73 3 C

578 AGRICULTURAL INSTRUCTION.

11th. That every particle of earth, as it is naturally constituted, contains
a portion of the fertilizing principle. The surface earth, or " mould," is fer-
tilized earth itself caused by shade, and not the residue of vegetable decom-
position.

12th. The difference in the fertility of the soil, in our native forest lands,
arises solely from the circumstance of the surface soil being more or less
densely shaded. Pine, which have no leaves, and white and red oak, which
part with theirs so reluctantly, never leave the surface soil so fertile as those
trees which drop their leaves with the first frosts.

13th. Many plants do impart more fertility to the soil than they extract
from it during their growth, — not in " excrements," but by their shade.

14th. The natural provision for the renovation of worn-out lands appears
to be this : — That some plants, like some animals, require but little food ;
these thrive best on the poorest soils. Every practical farmer knows, that
if additional fertility be given to the soil, they disappear almost magically.

15th. However industrious and energetic a farmer may be, he cannot
continue to cultivate a farm exceeding one hundred acres, and preserve its
natural fertility by manures made on the farm. He attempts an impossi-
bility, and must fail.

16th. Through the agency of shade, every farmer may fertilize every
acre of land which he is able to cultivate. In this, consists the perfection
of agriculture.

I most sincerely believe that these propositions may be abundantly sus-
tained by facts, prominently before the observation of every agriculturist.

Yours, with respect, R. T. Baldwin.

MR. EARLE'S RESOLUTIONS,

In favor of appropriations by Congress, for agricultural instruction, to an
amount equal at least to what may be given for instruction in the use of the
cannon and the sword, passed unanimously by the Maryland State Agricul-
tural Society, have been communicated to the members of both Houses of
Congress, with earnest suggestions of his own, by the ardent and indefati-
gable President of the Society. The answers from the members indicate,
Ave understand, an honorable sensibility to the justice of this demand upon
the government, but it was hardly to be expected that any thing would be
done at this session. Fortunate is it, that the wedge has been entered at
last, and if it be not driven home, the landed interest will have no one to
blame but themselves. The next best thing they can do, to insure success,
is to prevail with the conductors of the public press to co-operate. That the
press itself is becoming mindful of the claims of agriculture on the public
attention, is evidenced by the fact that many of the leading journals are
opening one or more columns to be regularly dedicated to that subject. We
wish we could see the State Societies of other States coming up to the line
of right and of duty to their constituents.

The Prize Farms on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. — The very
interesting reports, in respect of these farms of Dr. Clough and Mr. Covey,
with some observations of our own, were sent to the printer for this number,
but the " devil" came back and said there was no room. It will be well for
all whom it may concern to bear in mind, that whatever is to appear in this
work must be in the hands of the printer the first week of the previous
month.

%

HONOR TO THE SPADE AND THE PLOUGH. 579

HONOR TO THE SPADE AND THE PLOUGH.

When the sagacious people of Boston find a man who has something in
him, they know how to turn him to the best account — but well they know
the true from the sham. They are not people to be led away by humbugs.
Gluickly they discern the difference between a working man and a bag of
wind. Such a working man they found in Col. M. P. Wilder, late Presi-
dent of the Horticultural Society ; and they would not let him off until
under his lead they placed that institution on a footing that does honor not
merely to Massachusetts, but to our whole country. When at last they
allowed him to resign, they unanimously passed to him a vote of thanks, at
the instance of that accomplished pomologist, B. V. French, and a piece of
plate of the value of $1.50, with a suitable inscription. W^e shall publish these
proceedings, for the sake of deserved honors done to others as well as to him.
But scarcely does he free himself from one harness before others are buckled
on. We perceive by " The Boston Journal," that he has since been elected
a Counsellor to Governor Briggs, and President of their Agricultural Club,
which meets in the State House at Boston, and yet more recently was
unanimously chosen to be the President of the Norfolk Agricultural Society,
which now completes the list — one in each county in the State. So much
for having the loom and the anvil near the plough.

In reference to Agricultural Societies, Mr. Wilder said they are of recent
origin. The first of the kind in this country was the Pennsylvania Agri-
cultural Society, established in 1785; the Massachusetts Society, still in
existence, having a name to live — established in 1793. The first Horticul-
tural Society in the world was established in London, in 1805, the Royal
Society at Paris, in 1826, Pennsylvania Society, in 1827, and the Massa-
chusetts Society in 1829, As one evidence of the growth of horticultural
taste, he said that at the first exhibition of the Society in Boston, Mr. Man-
ning, the American pomologist, showed but two dishes of fruit, while at the
exhibition last fail, the heirs of that gentleman showed 300 specimens.

Several interesting speeches followed, giving evidence of the most cordial
and hearty feeling, and the great unanimity which prevailed in the meeting.
But the most effective and exciting speech of the day, was that made by
Samuel Walker, Esq., of Roxbury, Chairman of the Finance Committee.
He made a partial report, announcing the following donations to the Society:
Charles F. Adams, $300 ; Marshall'P. Wilder, $100 ; B. V. French, $100;
Aaron D. Williams, $100 ; and $270 from subscription members at $5
each. These several announcements were received with enthusiasm, and
the spirit of the meeting being on the giving hand, gentlemen pledged their
towns as follows: Roxbury, $500; Dorchester, $400; Needham, $100;
auincy, $100; Dedham, $300; Dover, $50; Wrentham, $200; Milton,
$100 ; and the pledges continued to come in until the funds of the Society
amounted to nearly $3000!

An act of incorporation will be applied for immediately, and the Society
will enter at once upon its large field of usefulness, fostered by the bounty
of the State, and the liberality of its wealthy members.

After passing the customary vote of thanks to officers and benefiictors of
the Society, and one particularly to E. K. Whittaker, Esq., the prime
mover in this noble enterprise, which was responded to by that gentleman
in the most eloquent terms, the Convention adjourned sine die.

Thus we see, that much as we in the " sunny South" are in the habit

580 ON FATTENING CATTLE.

of associating with these Yankees the idea of dose-Jistedness, when you
prove to their minds that the thing proposed is nsejul, where will you find
men to open their hands quicker or wider ?

How n)uch mankind are given to talk without very well knowing what
they are talking about ! How many farmers can you find to give even S3
for the support of the Philadelphia Agricultural Society ? Tn some counties
in New Yurk, it is not easy to make up a few dozen subscribers at (we
believe) 50 cents each !

It may, we believe, be added, historically, that De Witt Clinton, Judge
Buel, and J. S. Skinner, were among the very first Americans on whom
was conferred the honorary membership of the great Horticultural Society
of London.

ON FATTENING CATTLE.

BY GEORGE D OBI TO. — PRIZE ESSAY.

We do not feel authorized to withhold the follovvin<i, because the writer recommenda
turnips and cake — for the system is otlierwise worthy of attention, and every reader can
substitute corn-meal for cake. But has anyone ascertained that oil-cake may not be used
with economy in this country 1 Everybody knows, we presume, that a large portion of
its value consists in the value it imparts to the manure. As to turnips, although our
climate, except in the momitains, may be too dry for them, mangel-wurtzel, which is also
highly spoken of, may, we know, be raised in immense quantity. We should be glad if
some gentlemen in the valley, or South branch of Virginia, would give us a paper on
fattening cattle in that region — its cost and results, and the manner of conducting that
branch "of husbandry after the most approved system.

[From the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England.]

Presuming that the object of the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society
of England, in offering prizes for essays on various subjects, is that the
farmers themselves maybe induced to commit their practice and experience
to paper, I trust that my humble attempt to describe Avhat I have found to
be the best method of fattening bullocks, if considered unworthy of a prize,
may at least be criticised with lenity, as it is the bond fide production of a
practical farmer.

The first point I wish to impress upon my readers is, to have a good sort
of bullock to begin upon ; not that I wish to recommend one particular
breed, to the depreciation of all others, for I am sure that different localities
require different descriptions of animals ; but to caution them that it is right
to select the characteristic marks of the breed they intend purchasing — to
warn them particularly never to buy a coarse, ill-made, bad-bred animal,
because they may fancy it cheap. A man has never got so bad a bargain,
as when he has, as the saying is, " got too much for money."

The first criterion for judging of the disposition of the beast to fatten
quickly, in my opinion, is that peculiar soft, supple feel of the skin which
is commonly called handling well ; this is generally accompanied by hair of
a soft, fine quality, in great plenty ; the eye should be full and clear, and
the head well-formed, Ihe shoulders not upright, but lying well back, the
chest full, the ribs deep and well arched out, the flanks well down, the hips
nearly level with the backbone, and in proportion to the rest of the carcass
as to width, the rumps wide, and not too low down, appearing as if when
fat the tail and rumps' ends would be level, (but this the butchers in my
neighborhood are in the habit of calling the fool's point,) the purse should

ON FATTENING CATTLE. 581

be of a full size, and soft to the touch, (this I consider a material point,) the
twist good, and the legs short and small in proportion to the carcass, as the
offal will be light in proportion to the leg-bone.

Next observe the temper of the animal : in selecting from a considerable
drove you will often find beasts possessing many of these good points, yet
in lower condition than some of the animals of a worse appearance ; consider
well whether this may not arise from the masterful disposition of the ill-
made one ; and whether, when put to fatten where every beast may eat his
share of food without disturbance, the good-bred one will not soon surpass
his more masterful neighbor. If you observe a beast that is constantly
watching an opportunity of goring any other that comes in his way, leave
him behind, even if he is much heavier than those you select ; he may be
a great trouble to you : and although the jobber may think you have selected
them badly, he will sell them according to what they are worth at the time,
and the present weight is the great point with hitn. For this reason always
select the animals before purchasing, rather than agree to give a certain
price per head to pick where j'ou like from the drove.

I think the quality of an animal is of more consequence than his form, for
common fattening purposes, but have both good if you can. But if you are
thinking of fattening an animal to show for a prize, be sure to have his form
as perfect as possible ; for all the flesh you may lay on him will not hide any
great defect in his form : also ascertain, if possible, how the animal is
descended ; ten to one but the progeny becomes similar to the progenitor.
But this is generally a most unprofitable afiair, and I strongly recommend
all young farmers to leave it in the hands of those gentry who can alTiird the
loss, many of whom there are in the country, and they deserve our best
thanks for their patriotism, for it certainlj^^ shows the capabilities of different
breeds, and thereby enables the observing farmer to profit by the experience
of others. Never buy any animals that are excessively poor; they will con-
sume a great deal of food before they are got into health enough to fatten.

I fear I have been rather prolix in these remarks, but have thought it neces-
sary ; for, depend upon it, unless your animals are well bought, fatting cattle
will never pay enough to leave the manure clear profit, which it ought to
do, although, I fear, with the majority of farmers, it is far otherwise.

I shall say but little with respect to summer-grazing, as the wording of
the Society's advertisement appears to apply more particularly to winter
fattening ; merely remarking that the fences should always be kept tho-
roughly good, a weak place being strengthened before it becomes a gap,
prevention in this case, like many others, being better than cure; that the
bullocks should be well supplied with water, and have plenty of shade;
never allow them to be frightened by dogs, &c. ; treat them kindly, and
they will soon cease to fear your presence ; do not let a day pass, if you can
help it, without seeing them. There is an old saying, which ought to be
impressed on every farmer's memory — it has been of great service to me in
the course of my life — it is, " The master's eye grazeth the ox." A friend
of mine has lately adopted a plan which, under the same circumstances, I
should strongly reconmiend ; it is that of giving a small quantity of oil-cake
to animals grazing, for the sake of improving an ordinary pasture, and its
effects are astonishing. The pastures I allude to are small, and one or two
bullocks more than they are calculated to carry are put into each ; the lot
are then allowed 4 lbs. of cake per day per head ; this, at a cost of about
2s. (50 cents) per head per week — which, I believe, the stock well paid for
— has entirely altered the face of pastures from what they were three years
ago, when the plan was first adopted by him ; and, I believe, without any
loss to himself.

3c 2

582 ON FATTENING CATTLE.

I now come to the point of winter feeding. First, as to the places in
M^hich they are kept, I unhesitatingly give my opinion in favor of stall-
feeding, for all the common purposes of grazing; but not for young beasts
that are to be summered again, or for prize oxen : the former should have
small, well-sheltered yards, with good sheds, (if the fences are so high that
they cannot see over, it is much better;) and the latter, loose boxes, with
plenty of room for them to walk about, because they have to be kept up for
such a long period, that if no exercise were taken the health might suffer.
It is the abuse of stall-feeding that has got it into disrepute with some people,
and the not treading down straw enough w'xih. others. This last I hold to be
an advantage, instead of a disadvantage ; for, depend upon it, it is not the
size of the dunghill, but the quality of the mamire that causes the farmer's
stack-yard to be well filled. If managed well, I contend that there is no
plan so good as stall-feeding. The fattening-house may be of any size or
shape, but it is necessary that there should be underground drains, with
gratings, to carry off the urine into the liquid-manure tank ; shutters behind
the bullocks to regulate the heat, and a wide passage at their heads to feed,
them and clean their mangers. The advantages I conceive to be the quan-
tity of litter required being smaller, therefore the muck being made better;
the temperature being more easily regulated, and every bullock being
allowed to eat his share in peace. The disadvantage of the animal not
being able to rub himself so well, I consider fully done away Avith by the
rough brush which you will observe I recommend using ; and although
theorists may fancy the health of the animal likely to suffer, I have never
found it so in practice.

Now, with respect to their food, so much does this vary, (from the plan
pursued by some people with an ox intended to be shown at Smithfield, in
a class restricted from corn, cake, pulse, &c., tvhicli has the cream from
several coics given him, by way of compensation, to that by the man who
endeavors to fatten his animals on turnips and barley-straw,) that it would
take up far too much of the Society's valuable journal even to enumerate
them ; I shall therefore simply give the plan I recommend, leaving my
readers to follow it if they like, and improve upon it whenever they can.

I think, in many instances, stall-feeding is not commenced early enough
in the autumn : as soon as the weather becomes damp, and the days shorten
much — say some time in October — the grass in my neighborhood loses its
feeding properties, and then the sooner your bullocks are put up the better;
for this purpose I recommend having some of the large, forward descriptions
of turnips provided, perhaps the " red tankard," although watery, and soon
becoming of little value, are at this very early season the best of any, from
their early maturity; these are sown in April, at the rate of an acre to every
eight bullocks, which will last them three or four weeks, according to the
crop, and leave a light fold to begin the sheep upon ; at the end of which
time the forward swedes are ready to begin. During this period I give
them little or no oil-cake, if they are only in moderate condition ; but they
have half a stone of pollard a day, mixed with an equal quantity of hay or
straw-chaff. Some persons may fancy this food is of too loosening a nature,
but I can assure them, from several years' experience, that although pollard
is loosening itself, yet it has the effect of preventing the watery white turnips
from purging too much. Although the bullocks do not gain much in weight
during this time, yet I am satisfied they go on faster afterwards ; the reason
of which, I suspect, is that their bodies are more prepared for the artificial
state they have to live in for the next few months. Early in November the
food must be changed to swedes, cake, &c. ; the quantities of each must
vary according to circumstances : the following I consider a good allowance

ON FATTENING CATTLE. 583

where swedes are not scarce ; if they are, more oil-cake must be given
instead of a part of them ; or, if very plentiful, they may be allowed even
more. The morning's bait, 1 bushel of swedes, well cleaned from dirt, and
cut small, given a few at a time, (I always use Gardener's sheep turnip-
cutter in preference to any other ;) then, the refuse pieces being well cleaned
out, a dry bait, consisting of 2 lbs. of oil-cake, 3 lbs. of pollard, and a little
hay-chaff. While they are feeding, the manure and wet litter must be Avell
cleared away, and any which may be on the bullocks taken off, the floor
swept clean, and plenty of fresh litl^er put in ; then have every bullock well
brushed with what is called a dandy-brush, (being a brush made with
whalebone, for taking the rough dirt off horses.) Let not any slovenly
farmer fancy this to be a whim of mine ; depend upon it, the bullocks are
kept in much better health and greater comfort for it. They must now be
left quiet ; they will soon lie down and rest, and chew the cud till after
dinner, when another bushel of swedes is given as before, in small quanti-
ties, followed by a similar dry bait of cake, pollard, and hay-chaff, but with
the addition of 3 lbs. of bean-meal ; this is left with them at night. Be
careful that the shutters are opened or closed, according to the weather, so
as to maintain an even, warm temperature, but not hot enough to make
them perspire, if it can be avoided. Be also careful that the mangers are
well cleaned out between every bait. I have mine cleaned at the com-
mencement of the season, and as often afterwards as I think necessary, with
scalding water and the scrubbing-brush.

After a month or so the cake may be increased ; and, if it is thought
more convenient, the swedes may be changed for mangold-wurtzel. Many
persons object to using mangold until the spring ; they certainly are more
valuable than swedes in the spring, and therefore should always be used
last. Never change from mangold-wurtzel to swedes after you have once
begun them, or the bullocks will not go on so fast ; but if, from having a
bad crop of swedes, or from any other cause, you Avant to begin mangold
early, you have only to lay them exposed to the air for a week or two to
wither, and they may be used as early in the season as is required.

It will be observed that cleanliness, warmth, and quiet are the great
points I insist upon ; of course coupled with good feeding : but very many
tons of oil-cake are annually wasted, because the comfort of the animals is
not more attended to. It will also be observed that I have introduced a
cheap article of food, which I think does the beasts more good, in proportion
to its cost, than any thing I give them : I allude to pollard, or millers' offal,
as some call it. This I can generally purchase at 4/. 15s. a ton. I have
used it extensively for some years, and like it much ; some of my neighbors
are now following my example.

Before I conclude, I wish to giv^e these recommendations respecting selling
the bullocks when fat. Do not determine upon parting with them exactly
at any given time ; but if a butcher wants to buy a part of them, a few
weeks before you think them ready, calculate how they are paying for what
they have eaten ; and, if you ke\ satisfied on that head, do not run the
hazard of getting a bad sale by refusing a good offer, or perchance the oppor-
tunity may not return. Sell them to butchers at home, if you can. Always
estimate the Aveight and value of your bullocks the day before any one is
coming to buy them ; and, after letting the butcher handle and examine
them well, let them out into a yard for him to see ; they will always show
better than when tied up.*

[* Our impression *is, agrifuittnral improvement will advance as the practice of soiling
aud stall-feeding increases. — Editors P. L. ^ .4.]

584 AGRICULTURAL DISCUSSIONS AT BOSTON.

AGRICULTURAL DISCUSSIONS AT BOSTON.

Just as the number was ready for the press, the Boston Journal brings
us the proceedings of later meetings at the State House. With these men,
it seems " stormy weather" whets, instead of cooling their ardor. Why do
we hear of no such meetings at Harrisburg? We wish we could make
room for all that is said on these occasions. How idle, as one of our cor-
respondents says, for farmers, who have^it least three hours at command in
winter nights, to pretend that they don't patronise agricultural journals
because "they have not time to read." None so deaf as those who woii't
hear.

We have only space to glance at one or two things mentioned. The
subject was inamires, to Avhich the whole discussion was confined. They
did not spend their precious time in talking about po7-tt( lacca, or Hajiz
tvine, or dahlia roots springing into life and beauty, after being 2000 years
in the hands of a mummy ! !

"The third of the series of agricuhural meetings was held, Tuesday evening, in the Re-
presentatives' Hall. Subject for discussion — manures. The discussion was opened by
the President, Hon. Marshall P. Wilder. In contirmation of the great benefit of charcoal
as a component part of compost manures, he stated to the meeting the result of applying
it to seven lots of land in Sandusky, Ohio. The first was a lot of land of twenty acres,
to which fifty bushels of charcoal were applied, and no other manure, and the result was
25 bushels of Vv-heat per acre — lot No. 2, 4 acres, no coal applied, result 5 bushels — Nos.
3, 4, and 5 containe<l 15, 25, and 15 acres, 50 bushels coal per acre applied, result 25
bushels per acre — No. 6, 8 acres, no coal applied, result 5 bushels — No. 7, 6 acres, no
coal applied, residt 3 bushels per acre. The soil and culture on all the lots were alike.
The coal cost $30 per 1000 bushels, and was ground in a bark mill before being applied.
It was stated at the last meeting that 80 bushels of wheat had been obtained by the ap-
plication of 50 bushels of charcoal to the acre. This was considered by a gentleman
very extraordinary, if not improbable. Mr. Wilder said he would submit the following
statement from Mr. Colman's Euro[)ean Agriculture and other authorities, in conlirmatioA
that in England the average yield of wheat was 2G bushels lo the acre, while in son's
portions it greatly exceeds that amount. In Lincolnshire from 50 to 60 bushels is often
obtained. In the isle of Jersey G6j^ bushels have been produced; in Hampton 711 bushels;
in Norfolk a M'ell-attested report was made of 90^ bushels; and at Fevershani 00 to 70
bushels; and in one instance it was ascertained, upon a wager, to be SO bushels."

The question arises with us, whether, where wood is dear and turf more
abundant as in Massachusetts, it might not be economical to carbonize turf
for manure or other uses, to which charcoal is ap)ilied. This is done in
Ireland after the fashion that wood is managed for the same purpose. The
sods must be regularly arranged and laid as close as possible. They are
the better for being large, fifteen inches long, by six broad and five deep.
The heaps, built hen)isphericfilly, should be smaller in size than heaps of
wood usually are. In general 5000 to GOOO sods may go in a heap, which
will thus contain 1.500 cubic feet. The mass must be allowed to heal more
than is necessary for wood, and the process requires to be very carefully
attended to, from the extreme combustibility of the coal. The quantity of
charcoal obtained by this mode of carbonization is from 25 to 30 per cent,
of the weight of the dry turf.

But the turf may be so compressed that its charcoal will obtain a greater
density than that from wood. Mr. Walker, the very worthy successor of
Col. Wilder (easier to be followed than overtaken) as President of the Hor-
ticultural Society, said, among other things worthy of note,

" I prefer clay to charcoal, but at all times I want sand in my conipost heap — either
sea sand or wash from the gutters. Have found my land much benelited in some cases

AGRICULTURAL DISCUSSIONS AT BOSTON. 585

by the application of 25 loads of sea-sand to the acre. When land is exhausted, or, in
other words, so gorged that it will not produce turnips or radishes, 1 have ascertained that
sea-sand, spread upon the surface, one inch thick, and then raked in, has invariably pro-
duced the most desirable effect, and that immediately."

We have long believed that American farmers are not aware, or, if aware,
they are certainly neglectful of the advantages of adding clay to sand, and
sand to clay land, where, as in many localities especially on our water-
courses, they lie contiguous to, and yet separated from each other.

On the coast and creek shores o( Ireland millions of tons of sea-sand are
used for manure. We are told, on indisputable authority, that much of that
which is raised in Cork harbor, after a water-carriage of ten or twelve miles,
is taken into the country on one-horse carts, by working farmers, to the dis-
tance of ten or twelve miles over hilly roads. In fact, every strand, nook, or
bay, to which farmers can get access by a horse or by a cart, is made to
supply its quota of sand for manure.

Mr. Teschemacher, who never speaks but to command attention, adverted,
in a few sententious and powerful remarks, to the importance o( agricultural
education, and after all, that is the great desideratum, along with protection
to American industry, such as will compel the loom and the anvil to come
to the side of the plough. Do that, and you will ensure prosperity to agri-
culture ; and prosperous agriculture will provide schools, as it has done and
is doing in Massachusetts. Agricultural schools are to come next, and we
would begin by converting all our military establishments, along shore, into
agricultural seminaries for rearing instructors in the principles of agricul-
tural field-practice and machinery, and animals, and grain, and grass-
growing. In the minds and hearts of our young people are the best locali-
ties for fortifications. Said Mr. Teschemacher,

" I have passed the summit of the hill of life, and, thanks to a kind Providence, am
quietly gliding do\\-n die other side, but if there is one thing I desire to see more than
anodier, while yet here, it is the definite experiment of agricultural schools and experi-
mental farms throughout this vast and flourishing agricultural country. What is the
reason why our youth pant after commerce or the learned professions? It is because
they require the exercise of the utmost energy of the mind, and this exercise is precisely
what youth demands, and the want of this exercise drives them into all kinds of foolish
excesses ; for this excitement of the mind is invincibly strong. Now, is it not possible
to divert these energies of the mind to the successful pursuit of agriculture 1 — yes, but
only by a previous education of the first order.

" Young men often consider a farmer as nothing more than a mere machine — a plough,
an ox, a cart, or a hoe, with nothing to do but what his father did before him — and as
long as these ideas last, so long will the best of our agricultural population flock to the
cities, and many a fine mind be lost."

« The Plough, Lomn, and Anvil for February has the merits and demerits of its fore-
runners. There are several valuable practical papers in it, and the others are not
valuable, because diey are not practical. They are raw theory, of the sort that Cobden
in England, and Walker in America, have just read the burial service over."

We unaffectedly prize the well-known good-will of our friend of the
Winchester Virginian, but he will excuse us for expressing the apprehen-
sion that when he talks about the " burial service'' read over the doctrine
of encouragement to American labor, his position in " the valley" may some-
what limit his view of what is going on among the outside barbarians in the
great world beyond. If the funeral service has been read, it has been done
with indecent haste on the part of Parsons Cobden and Walker, and without
waiting for the subject to be entirely defunct; as oijr friend of the Vir-
ijinian would perhajis admit, on a view of the very many letters we get from
his own, and from more southern States, exactly in the spirit of the follow-
ing.— It is by yielding implicitly and too long to such doctrine as that which

Vol.. 1—74

686 THE PLOUGH, THE LOOM, AND THE ANVIL.

is preached by Parsons Cobden and Walker, that Virginia herself, with all
her magnificent capabilities, is yet more dead than alive ; nor will she ever
prosper, as her natural resources entitle her to do, until she draws the manu-
facturer within her borders, and places him, where Mr. Jefferson recom-
mended he should be placed, by the side of the agriculturist.

Foster's, Tuscaloosa Co., Alabama, Feb. 1, 1819.

Messrs. J. S. Skinner and Son : — Gents : — " Being about to remove
to Mississippi, I wish you would forward the remaining numbers of the
' Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil' to my address, ' Parairie Point, Noxubee
county, Miss.' I am so much pleased with your excellent periodical, that
I intend to preserve them and have them bound as a book of reference, and
not destroy them, as some of our farmers are addicted to doing. Though
not a farmer, I take great delight in reading a work which has so much
at heart the welfare of the country, and especially that of the farmer.

"lam now convinced that the only way the plough can prosper is in
connection with the loom and anvil. And I am pleased to see such a manu-
facturing spirit among our southern people, which is daily increasing. I
think everybody who is able (and especially every farmer) ought to sub-
scribe to your periodical.

"I shall exert myself to increase its circulation. When I commenced I
thought I would only say a few words, but the interest I feel in your suc-
cess has caused me to say more. Your obedient servant. J. C. B."

Some friend has kindly sent us the proceedings of the Agricultural Con-
vention of the State of Delaware, held at Dover on Jan. 17, 1849.

They indicate a most promising public spirit throughout that State.

J. C.Clark of Newcastle County was appointed President of the Convention.

The subjects presented for consideration, by C. P. Holcomb, Esq., chair-
man of the business committee, had reference to the trade in lime and
guano — to the mode of paying taxes — to cattle moving at large in the public
highways of Newcastle County — to banks — and to equ^ilizing taxes. Mr.
Holcomb, from the same committee, reported a constitution of the Agricul-
tural Societj^ of Delaware, which was adopted.

The society was organized, and the following officers were nominated
and confirmed : —

President. — Peter F. Causey.

Vice-Presidents. — John D. Dilworth, Newcastle County ; Dr. H. Ridgely,
Kent County ; T. P. McColley, Sussex County,

Treasurer. — Dr. William Burton.

Corresponding Secretaries. — A. M. Higgins, Newcastle County ; W.
Duhammel, Kent County ; P. N. Rust, Sussex County.

Recording Secretary. — Manlove Hayes, Jr.

Managers. — Daniel Corbit, David W. Gemmill, and J. P. Bellville, of
Newcastle County ; Jacob M. Hill, John Frazer, and James G. Waples, of
Kent Count}' ; Jona. R. Torbert, Lemuel Draper, and Charles Wright, of
Sussex County.

On motion of Mr. Moore, said report was adopted.

We regret not to find among the proceedings any movement to demand
from the general government a diminution of appropriation for warlike pur-
poses and establishments ; and a proportional application of the public money
for agricultural education. But that will come sooner or later as the natu-
ral fruit of advanced civilization.

More than seventy farmers joined the society on the spot, and it was
decided to hold the firf?t State fair at Newcastle, on Wednesday and Thurs-
day after the first 3d Monday in October next.

THE BEE.

587

THE BEE.

" So work the honey-bees ;
Creatures that, by a rule of nature, teach
The art of order to a peopled kingdom."

Shakspeare's Hunry TV.

I HAVE some experiment-hives wliicli en-
able me very accurately to inspect the ope-
rations of my bees. From the construction
of the hives, the combs are necessarily built
between two panes of glass, so that on draw-
ing the sliders the two surfaces of a comb are
exposed to view. In this way I am able
to see almost every thing that is going for-
ward.

When the queen-bee has an inclination to
deposit her eggs, she goes forth, accompanied
by six or eight working bees as a guard,
whose stomachs are filled with honey. She
is very deliberate in her motions, and seems
to proceed with great caution. She first
looks into a cell, and if she finds it perfectly
empty, she draws up her long body, inserts
her tail into the cell, and deposits an egg.
In this way she slowly proceeds till slie has
dropped ten or tw^elve eggs, when perhaps
feeling exhausted, she is fed by one of the
attendant bees, who have surrounded her
the whole time. This is done by the bee
ejecting the honey from its stomach into the
mouth of the queen. When this has been
done, the bee goes away, and another takes
its place. The operation of laying her eggs
again goes on, and is succeeded by the same
mode of feeding — the attendant bees fre-
quently touching the antennae of the queen
with their own. When the operation of
laying the eggs is completed — and it gene-
rally occupies some time — the queen retires
to that part of the hive which is most filled
with bees. During her progress, the surface
of the comb is very little intruded upon, and
the space seems purposely to be left unoc-
cupied. Some few of the cells, however, in
a brood comb, are passed over by the queen,
and afterwards filled either with honey or
farina. These serve as deposits of food,
from %vhich the neighboring brood may be
fed more readily, as such cells are never
covered with wax.

With the hives referred to I have been
able to follow many of Ruber's experiments,
and can bear witness to his general accu-
racy, except in regard to the fecundation of
the queen-bee. I have bestowed much time
and pains in endeavoring to discover any of
the circumstances he mentions relating to
this fact, but without success. Neither have
I ever seen a cell visited by one of the drones
after the egg had been deposited, which a
modern writer has asserted they do. I have
for many years watched my hives with the
greatest care and assiduity, but have never

yet seen the queen-bee leave the hive, ex-
cept at the time of swarming. I have also
spoken to several experienced bee-masters
on the subject, and they are of the same
opinion with myself — that she never quits it.
Her person is so easily distinguished from
the other bees, by any one at all conversant
with diem, that if the queen absented her-
self from the hive, in the way Huber de-
scribes her as doing, it seems next to impos-
sible that she should not have been perceived,
either on her departure from, or on her re-
turn to, the hive. And yet we have no
English writer on bees (and we have many
acute and observant ones) who lias even
hinted at the probability of the queen's
leaving the hive in the manner Huber as-
serts that she does. It is now many years
since his work was published, and no pnrt
of it is more curious or more satisfactory, if
correct, than what he says on the impregna-
tion of the queen-bee. Curiosity has in con-
sequence been much excited, and many per-
sons, like myself, have been anxious to as-
certain the accuracy of his statements. It
does not appear, however, that any one iu
this country has succeeded in doing this,
though we have many \ery patient obser-
vers. Is it probable, therefore, that it should
have been reserved for Huber alone to as-
certain a fact which had escaped the notice
of naturalists, not only for ages before, but,
what is more singular still, for years since
the publication of it in his work 1 It should
be recollected also that Huber was blind, or
nearly so, and that he was obliged to rely
very much on the reports made to him by his
assistant, Burnens. It is however with con-
siderable diffidence that I would venture to
doubt the accuracy of any statement of his,
especially when the objection turns, not
upon a contradictory circumsfance, but upon
what myself and others have not been able to
discover.

Wax is a secretion formed under the
scales of the back of the insect, from which
I have repeatedly seen it exfoliate in small
flakes. A considerable degree of heat ap-
pears to be necessary to produce this secre-
tion, as I have always observed it most
abundant in hot weather. Other writers
have maintained that the wax is discharged
from the abdominal rings, or segments of
the bees. This may be also the case, but I
have never perceived it.

The vision of bees seems very imperfect.
I have frequently turned a hive, so as to
make the entrance about two or three inches
from its former position, and have then al-
ways found the bees at a loss to gain admit-

588

THE BEE.

tance. Indeed they seem more to feel their
way than to see it, after they have once
landed themselves on the board of their
hives. Their progress through the air is
always made in a direct line to the hive,
and the instinct which enables them to find
it, amongst forty or fifty others placed in a
row, and nearly similar to each other, is very
striking.

Wasps appear to have a better vision than
bees, though it is not easy to aj^sign a reason
for this being the case, since tlie construction
of the eyes of both insects seems to be simi-
lar. Derham, in liis Physioo-theology, has
observed in regard to the eye of the bee and
wasp, " that the cornea and optic nerves be-
ing always at one and the same distance,
are fitted only to see distant objects, and not
such as are very nigh; and that the eye will
be found on examination to form a curious,
lattice-work of several thousand hexagonal
lenses, each having a sei)arate optic nerve
ministering to it, and, therefore, to be con-
.sidered as a distinct eye." Wasps, however,
certainly seem to alight at the entrance of
their nests with more accuracy than bees.
I have frequently observed this to be the
case, even when the hole of a wasp's nest
has been in a field, and surrounded with
long grass. They alight at it with the
greatest precision, seldom or never going
even half an inch either on one side or the
other of it, and they do this even late in the
evening.

Bees which have been once exasperated,
do not soon forget the injury. This was the
case with one of my hives, the bees of which
never allowed me for two years to come
near them while they were working, with-
out attacking me, though a neighboring hive
would allow me to take almost any liberties
with it with impunity. Indeed I had fa-
miliarized myself so much with some of my
bees, that I am convinced they knew me,
and they always appeared to distinguish me
firom strangers. By constantly standing be-
fore the mouth of the hive, and allowing
vast numbers to fiy about and settle upon
me, and by frequently feeding them, they
became so well acquainted with me, that I
had much pleasure in witnessing their at-
tachment, and the confidence they placed in
me. This aflection was mutual, and I
always think with pleasure of the many
agreeable hours I have passed in comjniny
with my insect friends. Those only can
judge of this, who, like myself, have wit-
nessed their assiduity, their internal labors,
their affection for their queen, and all the
various modes they take in promoting the
prosperity of the community. I always lis-
ten to the pleasing hum of bees with delight,

and know of few sounds more soothing and
agreeable.

In some papers published a few years ago
in tlie " Plain Englishman," I endeavored to
point out the great cruelty of procuring ho-
ney by the sufibcation of bees, and the ad-
vantage which the bee-owner would derive
from contenting himself with a part only of
their stores. This may be done by placing
a small hive-glass, or even a flower-pot, on
the top of each hive in April or May. I'hese
should be of a size to hold about eight or ten
pounds weight of honey : and in a tolerably
good season they will generally be filled,
leaving a sufllcient stock of honey for the
bees to subsist upon till the following spring.
I am happy to find that this method is more
generally practised than it formerly was. By
adopting it, the lives of thousands of these
industrious insects would be saved : the pro-
fits of the bee-owner would be much more
considerable, and his stock of bees annually
increased.

The summer of the year IS] 8 was imusu-
ally dry and hot, and in July flowers of
almost every description had entirely disap-
peared. I observed that bees, in conse-
quence of this, seldom left their hives in
search of hone)^, though the weather, one
would have thought, would have tempted
them out. They seemed, indeed, to be per-
fectly aware that their labor would be use-
less. I recollect meeting with an account
of a hive of bees being transported from a
distant place, to a spot by the side of a
mountain in Italy, where they they could
procure honey all the year round. Finding
this to be the case, they soon gave up stock-
ing their hive, and only went out to collect
honey as they wanted it. The same obser-
vation has been made on bees taken out
from this country to tlie West Indies. The
first year they stored their hive as usual, but
ever afterwards they merely supplied them-
selves with food from day to day.

The lower orders of people in this and
some other places have curious superstitions
respecting this insect. A poor old widow
once complained to me that all her stocks
of bees had died, and on inquiring the cause,
she informed me that on the death of her
husband, a short time before, she had neg-
lected to lap at each of the hives to inform
the bees of the circumstance ; that in conse-
quence of this omission they had been gra-
dually getting weaker and weaker, and that
now she had not one left. This may be
supposed to have been a solitary instance of
superstition, but such is by no means the case,
and I believe it will be found that very
generally on the death of a cottager who ha.s
kept bees, some ceremonious observance

THE BEE.

589

them as adding in some degree to the inter-
est of a country life.

To a thinking mind, few phenomena are
more striking than the clustering of bees on
some bough, where they remain, in order,
as it were, to be ready for hiving : —

" arbors summa
Confluere, et lentis uvam demittere ramis." — Virgil.

'• They make a wheeling flight,
Then on a neighboring tree, descending, light :
Like a large cluster of black grapes they show,
And make a large dependence from the bough."

Drydex.

I observe that where a hive is fixed over a
swarm, the bees will generally go into it of
their own accord, uttering at the same time
their satisfied hum, and seeming to be aware
of the purpose for which it was placed near
them. How the queen-bee is made ac-
qviainted that so convenient a place for her to
retreat to is near at hand, I know not, but
so it is. Surrounded by thousands of her
subjects who press around her, she makes
her way through them all, and enters tlie
hive, followed by the whole swarm. Some
means of communication must have taken
place, as it is quite impossible that she could
herself have seen the snug retreat which had
been prejiared for her. Here the work of
preparing future cells isinstantly commenced,
and I have found that although a swarm has
not been able for two or three days to quit
the hive after they had taken possession of
it, a considerable number of cells had been
nearly completed. Even as soon as the
foundation of a cell has been finished, the
queen-bee will sometimes deposit an egg
upon it, the sides being afterwards built up.
As the cells increase in number, honey and
the farina of flowers are stored in them :

" The careful insect 'midst his work I view,
Now from the flowers exhausts the fragrant dew;
AVith golden treasures loads his little thighs,
And steers his distant journey through the skies :
Some against hostile drones the hive defend,
Others with sweets the waxen cells distend
JEach in the toil his destined office bears.
And in the little bulk a mighty soul appears."

Gat.

Nothing can be more melancholy than the
appearance of bees in wet weather. Some
of them I have observed to come to the
increased accumulation of my clustering bees I mouth of the hive, as if to take a view of
with infinite satisfaction. The old customs i the passing clouds, and some of those who
I have mentioned, and many similar ones ■ are tempted to quit the hive return to it with
which are practised by my poorer neighbors, ! the greatest difficulty. A sunshiny day in
may be laughed at; but I like them all as j May is their delight, and it is then that bees
long as they are innocent, and I consider [ seem most active and most joyous.

takes place. Mr. Loudon mentions that
when he was in Bedfordshire, he was in-
formed of an old man who sang a psalm in
front of some hives which were not doing
well, but which he said would thrive in con-
sequence of that ceremony. This may be a
local or individual superstition, but the an-
nouncement to the bees of the dealh of the
owner is certainly a more general one. A
correspondent of Mr. Loudon's mentions, that
in Norfolk, at places where bees are kept,
it is an indispensable ceremony in case of
the death of any of the family to put the
bees in mourning, or the consequence would
be that all of them would die. The person
who made the assertion mentioned a case
in point, where, from the neglect of the cus-
tom, every bee in the apiary had perished.
The method of putting tiiem in mourning is
by attaching a piece of black cloth to each
of the hives. Another correspondent also
says, that in the neighborhood of Coventry,
in the event of the death of any of the fami-
ly, it is considered necessary to inform the
bees of the circumstance, otherwise they will
dwindle and die. The manner of commu-
nicating the intelligence to the little commu-
nity is, with due form and ceremony to take
the key of the house, and knock with it three
times against the hive, informing the in-
mates, at the same time, that their master or
mistress, as the case may be, is dead. A
similar custom prevails in Kent, and in some
places it is considered expedient to commu-
nicate any great event that may take place
to these industrious insects. The use of a
key seems necessary in another ceremony
which takes place in regard to bees. When
a swarm has quitted one of my hives, I
always observe that a key is used to induce
it to settle, by striking it against a frying-
pan, and I should feel some regret if this
good old custom was omitted. , So far from
letting the ringer think that the tinkling noise
he makes is a useless one, I always encour-
age the practice of it, and it is one of the
many pleasurable sounds of the country.
Often have I quitted my room on hearing
it, to enjoy the sight of my additional wealth,
and to assist in securing it. The day is sure
to be warm and smiling, and I watch the

Magnitude of the Suti. — The sun is more
than 500 times greater than all the planets,
satellites, and comets of our system ; it is

equal to 1,300,000 globes as large as the 45,000 miles. — Dick.

earth ; and its surface contains an amplitude
53,770,000 times larger than the view from
Mount Etna, which comprises an extent of

3D

590

MANUAL OF MANNERS.

MANUAL OF
VISITING.

On this subject much need not be said,
the usages of the world as to visiting being
simple and well known.

Visits of mere form are no longer expect-
ed among equals in society ; there being
something of restraint in whatever belongs
to ceremony, which is at all times a cold
and constraining thing, and to be avoided,
especially among friends and intimates.

Visits ought to be well-timed, otherwise
they ^viU be unwelcome to the one party,
and irksome to the other.

Idle people do not reflect that " time and
the hour" are as much to be observed by the
visitor as by the farmer or the mariner.
Full of leisure themselves, they seem to
care little how they inconvenience others,
by the inopportune period of their calls, or
the length of their stay. They spend their
own time and that of other people to no
purpose ; and their conversation is not such
as to otfer any equivalent for the loss. To
such persons it will be necessary only to say
at once that you are busy. They do not
stand upon ceremony with you, why should
you be particular with them? At the same
time, such a reason for not seeing even one
whom you consider a friend, when he calls^
cannot be stated with any degree of pro-
priety unless you are really busy. Polite-
ness does not compel you to sacrifice your
time to idle chat, or common-place remark,
because a friend visits you ; nor does it
require you to conceal the truth from him.
If it is a person whom you may see at any
time, to show any reserve on this point
would be treating him as a stranger.

How much soever engaged you may be,
should a visitor call, it is always better,
either at once to inform him that you are
occupied, or, which will be esteemed more
polite, to quit your occupation for a moment,
and tell him so yourself, with an apology for
not asking him to remain, to instructing
your servant to say that you " are not at
home ;" a declaration which, besides being
imtrue, and therefore contrary to the real
spirit of politeness, has now become so com-
mon an excuse, that in most instances it is
not believed.

When a visitor is told that the person
whom he calls to see is particularly engaged,
to press upon his time, or insist upon seeing
him, unless upon the most urgent business,
is the extreme of rudeness.

It may hai)i)en that you do not wish to see
your visitor ; in which case, the best method
is to send with the servant a polite message,
that you are not in a condition to receive
visitors. Of course, where you desire to drop

MANNERS.

the acquaintance of any one, all that is neces-
sary is, not to return his call. Where a card
is left, a visit is expected in return, c rat least
the call to be acknowledged by leaving your
own card within a few days.

This one diing you must ever keep in view,
that, in visiting, as in every other depart-
ment of conduct, afTaliility never loses any
thing, but rather gains in the estimation of
all with whom you may come in contact.
In your intercourse with society, you will
find courtesy to be the surest passport to the
good opinion of others.

In visiting it is essential that you never
forget yotir own character and position in
society. Nothing is more necessary than
that you should be particularly guarded as
to the reputation of those on whom you call,
or allow to call upon you. To interchange
visits with one regarding whose exact posi-
tion or reputation you are not precisely cer-
tain, would be an indiscretion of which you
might soon have reason to repent. An in-
terchange of visits is equivalent to the ac-
knowledgment of a mruual pxquaintance,
and involves the recognition of a dcsiie that
that acquaintance should continue. There
are those who, on the faith of a simple in-
troduction, will intrude on you at home, and
be as familiar as though they had known
you for years. With such people it is easy to
deal. They play, as it were, fast and loose
in society ; and, with good luck generally,
they nmst expect sometimes to meet with
rubbers. If they are received with coldness
where they are led to expect a difierent
reception, it does not embarrass them in the
least ; they are prepared for either alterna-
tive, like the professional gamester, who
stakes his all on the chance of seeming a
prize to which he has no claim, or losing a
sum on which he sets no value, but as a
means of gambling. You must conduct
yourself at once towards such intruders with
indiflerence, though, for your own sake, with
politeness, if you are not sure of their po-
sition, or desirous of their acquaintance.
Should they invite you in return to their
houses, the most di.screet thing you can do,
until you know them better, is not to accept
of their invitation, however pressing it may
be. You are not, however, to consider that
all you meet with in society, who show a
desire to cultivate your acquaintance, are
persons of this sort; but the probability is,
that whosoever acts in this manner, does it
with an object ditl'erent from what is under-
stood in the legitimate usages of society. It
is always the best policy to treat s'rangers
with reserve, and never to be on loo intimate
a footing with any one.

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

591

The etiquette of visiting is a wide subject
for remark. The object of tliis book, as
already explained, and as may be gathered
from tlie observations in previous pages, is
higher than the description of mere rules
of etiquette. It is therefore unnecessary for
me to enter upon these as regards this branch
of the subject. Every one at all in the habit
of visiting, must be avi^are of many obser-
vances wliich it does not fall within the scope
of this work to notice.

But it may be given as a general rule ;
Not in your neighbor's house to exhibit ill-
breeding, by alfectationor undue familiarity;
nor by pride or assumption display rudeness
or self-sufficiency in your own.

One remark may be made, in conchision,
as to visiting on a Sunday. Tliis ought to
be a practice confined exclusively to relatives.
But bliould you have a desire to wait upon

any one, uninvited, you are bound to consult
his feelings and rule of conduct. There are
many persons who, from the most praise-
worthy motives, dislike being visited on that
day by strangers. Sliould any visitor, in
calling on a friend on such a day, be disap-
pointed in seeing him, he ought not to at-
tribute his disappointment to his friend's
being unsuitably engaged, or to any reluct-
ance on his part to bid him welcome. It
will be more in the spirit of true politeness,
as well as more in accordance with what one
would expect in his own case, to put the best
construciion on the matter, and to presume
that the latter, from conscientious motives, is
unwilling to encourage mere calls of conve-
nience or ceremony on that particular day.
In this, as in every thing else, keep in mind
always the golden rule, "To do unto others
as you would wish others to do unto you."

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

EMPLOYMENT.

From whom cometh evil 1 from whom
poverty and dejection of spirit ?

Idleness is the mother of mischief; idle-
ness is the parent of shame and disease.

The slothful spendeth the day in slumber :
she waketh at noon, she drinketh her cordial,
and inquireth the time of the morning.

She turneth again to sleep, and awaketh
not till the dinner of the evening.

She converteth the night into day, and
keepetli the light of the sun hid from her
eyes.

Her house is a scene of riot and confu-
sion ; she hath eye-servants.

Her appetite faileth, and the physician is
daily set down at her door.

Industry is up with tlie sun ; she awaketh
at the crowing of the cock, and walketh
abroad to taste the sweetness of the morning.

She is ruddy as the daughter of health ;
her ears are delighted with the music of
the shrill lark.

Her garment sweepeth the dew-drop
from the new st\ibble and the green grass,
and her path is by the murmuring of the
purling brook.

Her appetite is keen : her blood is pure
and temperate, and her pulse beateth even.

Her house is elegant; her handmaids
are the daughters of neatness, and plenty
smileth at her table.

She saunters not ; neither stretoheth her-
self out on the couch of indolence.

She crietli not, vidiat have I to do ? but
the work of her hands is the thought of a
moment.

She listencth not to the gossip's tale ; she

sippeth not her tea in scandal ; but employ-
ment is the matter of her discourse.

Her work is done at the evening ; but
the work of the slothful is put ofi" till to-
morrow.

«

VIRGINITY.

The coronet of glory decketh the head
of the young vesta] ; she sitteth in respect;
her steps are attended with reverence, and
the words of her mouth are held in high
estimation.

She approacheth the excellence of angels;
her state is that of the most perfect inno-
cence of mortality.

The heathen consecrated her to divinity ;
her trust was esteemed an inviolable secu-
rity, and her intercession gave life to those
who had forfeited it unto death.

The Christian calleth the mother of sal-
vation by her name ; she is honored through-
out the whole earth.

Art thou enamored with the beauty of
her condition ; wouldst thou honor thyself
in her situation, attend to the voice of in-
struction, and shun the rock on wliich the
vessel of diy sister hath been dashed to
pieces.

' Presume not on a vow of chastity, nor be
transported widi the zeal of voluntary vir-
ginity; there is no merit in constraint — there
is no virtue in forced obetlience.

Be cautious, lest thou sidly the whiteness
of innocence; the least speck is seen on the
new-fallen snow.

Let not curiosity mislead thee ; for curi-
osity is unseemly in a woman, but in a vir-
! gin dangerous as the breath of evil.

592

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

Let thy conversation be with the sisters
of elegance ; listen not to the levity of the
daughters of indiscretion.

Do they say there is no harm, we may
talk, for the words of our lips are air, and
not criminal : these are the snares of the
licentious ; the breath of their mouth is ma-
lignant, the sparkling of their eyes is conta-
gious.

They will infect thee to do ill, thou wilt
fall into the snare before thou art aware
thereof

As the ladder descendeth by degrees, so
many are the intermediate steps between
the modesty of the virgin and the boldness
of a prostitute.

Let not thine ear listen to the tale of the
wanton, nor be privy to the amour of thy
sister, even with her sworn spouse.

Delight not in the romantic tales of love :
the triumphant beauty and the captive
knight are deluding images to thy passions.

A fictitious tale may awaken a real curi-
osit)', and that may prove fatal to thy peace.

Learn not wisdom of thy companions,
nor endeavor to overreach the sagacity of
tliy mother.

Let thy toilette claim thy morning hours;
but dress not a second time in a day.

Thy elegance will be an ornament ; but
thy frequent change of apparel will savor
of profuseness and imcertainty of temper.

Let not thy servants fly thick with invita-
tions ; neither be thou much aflected if the
rout be put off till to-morrow.

Be not perpetually gadding abroad ; nei-
ther let the gadder abroad l)e often invited
to thine own home.

In thy father's house, learn the economy
of a wife from thy mother ; so shalt thou
carry it into life, and be the comfort of thy
future husband.

Is there who delighteth in assemblies ;
who prideth herself in the pleasures of the
mask ; who staketh her fortune on a dye,
she putteth her honor in the hands of a
sharper, and placeth the jewel of her repu-
tation on the next hazard.

The days of her virginity shall want the
honor thereof; and the man who giveth his
freedom for her embraces, shall repent of his
bargain.

Gray hairs are uncomely to the virgin, the
ancient maiden is a by-word with her sisters,
and is accounted ill-conditioned among wo-
men.

Doth she strive to hide her years, doth
she assume the gayety of her youth ; her
celibacy will not appear the effect of clioice,
but of necessity.

Reject not the ordinance of marriage, nor
put the day afar off, when it promises thee
happiness.

Yet, trust not a man on thine own know-
ledge ; confide not in his appearance before
the<?.

Deceit is familiar to his ways, and flat-
tery and hypocrisy the fruits of his tongue.

Is he obsequious, ceremonious, and full
of words; though the honey of the wild bee
is on his lips, yet the sting of the hornet lieth
hid in his bosom.

Be not taken with the appearance of gay-
ety: the painted butterfly is an emblem of
the coxcomb.

Be not deceived by the high opinion of
heroism, by the empty braggart; he is as the
sound of a drum, and the security he pro-
miseth thee but the defence of a coward.

Neither is the valor of a man, or the
strength of his arm, an indication of the in-
tegrity of his heart.

Hath he slain his friend in defence of thy
beauty, is his sword loose in its scabbard ;
join not thy hand with his, lest thou re])ent
the magnanimity of thy husband.

Take not a man absorbed in study, the
philosopher is not a man of this world ; he
will be absent even in thy company, he will
be as a cliild to be taught the common forms
of ceremony.

He will hold thee inferior to his profound
wisdom, he will regard thy remonstrances
as the conceptions of a weak woman.

Tho\i wilt have no companion in him ;
he will be wanting in the duties of his fa-
mily.

Listen not to the servile, who cringeth
low and is a beggar in his solicitations ; for
when he hath command, he will be impe-
rious ; thou wilt perceive ho knoweth not
himself

Avoid the libertine as the fiery serpent ;
he is the destroyer among the daughters of
women.

Thou wilt be wedded to him, yet have no
husband ; thy bed will be barren, and thy
nights comfortless and forsaken.

Doth he promise reformation, yet thou
hast no security.

Dost thou flatter thyself thy charms will
engage him for ever, thou wilt find thyself
deceived ere the waning of the moon be
over.

Give not thy youth to the embraces of
age, nor the treasure of thy beauty to enrich
the poverty of the decrepit.

The gravity of age ill suiteth the levity
of youth, and disparity of years is the source
of many inquietudes.

Sell not thyself for gold ; for contentment
is not the portion of riches.

Let the voice of a parent sanctify thy
choice, but let thy director thereto be thine
own hapi)incss.

^l)t IJloitgl), tl)c loom, outr t\)t ^mxl

Vol. I. APRIL, 1849. No. X.

COMPARATIVE EXPORT OF FOOD BY ENGLAND AND
THE UNITED STATES.

The following passage from a speech by an eminent merchant of Liver-
pool, now in Parliament, has gone the rounds of most of the newspapers of
the Union ; but we desire to place it on record for the use of our readers,
beheving that it contains information highly important to every farmer and
planter in the country :

" Paradoxical as it may appear, I think Great Britain the largest grain-exporting country
in the world, although it is impossible to calculate accurately what quantity of grain, and
other farming productions, is consumed in preparing fifty millions of exports by which she
so greatly benefits. This grain, and these farming products, are placed in the laboratory
of that wonderful machine, man, which gives him the physical power, aided by steam, of
converting them into broadcloths, calico, hardware, &c., and in those shapes your wheats
and farming find their M'ay to every country in the world."

England is the largest exporter of food in the world. The amount of it
that she thus annually exports can scarcely be less than from one hundred and
fifty to two hundred millions of dollars, and yet but about three-tenths of her
population is engaged in the work of cultivation. The total export of the
products of the earth — food, tobacco, cotton, &c., — by the people of the
United States, where at least seven-tenths are engaged in that work, but
little exceeds a hundred millions of dollars, except in seasons of famine and
revolution in Europe.

Both systems are unsound, because both tend to the separation of the loom
and the anvil from the plough and the harrow. England desires to compel
the rest of the world to bring to her their food and their wool, that the latter
may be woven and returned, and she therefore buys food at the high price
that is consequent upon her distance from its place of production. Food is
therefore scarce with the many, while the rents receivable by the few, owners
of land, are large. The former are crowded together in large manufacturing
and commercial cities, there to live in the cellars of houses situated in
undrained and ill-ventilated streets, and the consequences are exhibited in
the following passage, which we take from an article in "The London
Morning Herald," describing the early training of thousands and tens of
thousands of the occupants of its great metropolis.

" It is idle to talk of secular education — it is idle to talk of religious instruction, whilst
the great mass of the people have no homes. How are we to teach, how are we to
instruct; what can the schoolmaster achieve, what the preacher, when the intellects
which the one would elevate, and the hearts which the other would teach, are left to the
cruel training of the streets? Thousands and tens of thousands of our children have no
other education, no other Christianity, than the education and Christianity of the pave-
ments. The hard flag stones are their text books ; the foul gutter is their Pierian spring.
They lisp blasphemy and indecency ; they take God's name in vain before they know
the meaning of the words they utter. Savages, in the midst of civilization, they are more
irreclaimed than the savages of the wild and the desert."

Such are the effects of a system which teaches that labor applied to the
work of transportation, conversion, and exchange, is more productive than
that applied to production, and which places commerce in the first rank as

Vol, I.— 75 3d2 593

694 COMPARATIVE EXPORT OF FOOD.

a civilizer of mankind ; and yet if we look to our Treasury Reports, and ouv
Patent-office Reports, we see the same doctrine put forward for the accept-
ance of the farmers of the Union, who are to be taught, in defiance of all
experience, that the more numerous the wagons, and horses, and men, on
the road, engaged in the work of transportation to distant markets, the richer
they will grow.

Both systems are, as we have already said, unsound. England desires
to separate the ploughs and the looms of other nations from each other, and
she keeps herself poor by the effort, while impoverishing every country that
is in close connection with her, as may be seen in the depopulation and
abandonment now going on in Ireland, as it has already done in India: and
in the depopulation and abandonment of Virginia and South Carolina, and
as must be seen in every countrj'- of the world, in which the product of the
land is not consumed upon or near the land, thereby enabling the cultivator
to return to our great mother earth the refuse of her products. To her
influence alone it is due that the people of the Union are scattered over so
vast a surface, unable to combine with each other for the purpose of ren-
dering their joint labors more productive — unable to clear and drain rich
soils, and compelled to cultivate poor ones, yielding bushels of wheat where
they might have tons of hay, or turnips, or potatoes — compelled to expend
in the making of roads, and in the work of transportation, a large portion of
the produce of those poor soils — and remaining poor when they might
grow rich, if the loom and anvil could be permitted to take their places by
the side of the plough and the harrow. To her influence also is it due that
vast cities are growing up, built out of the spoils of the farmer, in which are
obvious many of the characteristics which distinguish the great cities of
Europe. Enormous wealth is there seen side by side with poverty and
vice, resembling in no small degree that described in the passage from " The
Herald," given above. With each succeeding year is more and more seen
an increase of this tendency to inequality of condition, and yet such is the
state of things that our late rulers have desired to see perpetuated and
extended. Educated in the English school of pohtical economy, Avith them
commerce was every thing. Every increase in the number of ships was
regarded as evidence of increasing wealth. The more wagons that were on
the road, the greater was supposed to be the quantity of food, and cloth,
and fuel, to be divided among the community, yet ships and wagons pro-
duce none of those good things. The ploughman adds to the stock of food.
The laborer in the cotton field increases the supply of wool. The miller
converts the grain into flour, and the spinner and weaver convert the wool
into cloth. The sailor and the wagoner produce nothing, and yet, according
to the doctrines so recently in fashion at the Treasury, the real wealth of the
nation — that is, its power to produce the food, the clothing, the shelter, and
the fuel, required for its population — is to be measured by the number of its
ships and wagons, its sailors and its wagoners : bj^ the quantity of capital
and labor applied to the work of transportation and exchange, adding nothing
to the quantity, and making no change in the form, of commodities to be
exchanged.

Throughout the whole of the recent Treasury Report may be seen a con-
stant straining after that which is impossible, the securing of a foreign mar-
ket for our surplus food, in the form of food. That it is impossible Avill be
obvious on the slightest consideration. The only great importer of food is
Great Britain, and she requires in ordinary seasons but a very trivial quan-
tity when compared with that for which we desire to find a market, and
small even as it is. the competition for its supply on our part would reduce
prices abroad so low that our farmers would be ruined.

COMPARATIVE EXPORT OF FOOD. 595

Russia produces annually, over and above her consumption,* more than
seventeen millions of quarters of spring and winter grain, for which she
needs a market. Here, then, are a hundred and forty millions of bushels,
in addition to all that is produced in the other countries of Europe that
have made no market on the land for the products of the land, and it is with
this immense mass that our farmers are to contend for a market for the
wheat produced in Iowa, Illinois, and Wisconsin, when by a different course
of operation they could have a market at their doors, made by the persons
who would eat their food, while converting their wool into cloth, and their
ore into iron.

The Commissioner of Patents is, however, after full examination of the
subject, confirmed in the belief " that the American grain-growers can
deliver grain or flour at as low a price in England as the grain growers of
any other country, not excepting Russia on the Black Sea, and that they
have it in their power to command the great grain markets of Great Britain,
and of nearly all the corn-importing countries of the world." He does not,
however, tell us what the people of Russia, and of other corn-exporting
countries, are to do with their enormous surplus, when we shall have placed
ourselves in the position he so much desires that we shall attain, nor does
he seem to see that, send what we may, all their surplus grain must find
vent somewhere, and that the inevitable effect of large competition for a
small market must be so great a reduction of prices as to ruin the farmers
both of Russia and America.

If we desire to become large exporters of food, we must provide ourselves
with the machinery required for converting it into cloth, and iron, and such
other commodities as are readily transported. We must place the loom and
the anvil by the side of the plough and the harrow, and pass the food through
that greatest of all machines, the human stomach, retaining for the land the
refuse of its products. Doing that, the land will be enriched, and its owner
will be enriched, and better soils will be brought into cultivation, and men
will cease to fly from each other, and the nation will become stronger by
concentration, instead of, as now, being weakened by a constant expansion
over poor soils, the cultivators of which are obliged to contribute a large
portion of their earnings to the support of men and horses engaged in the
work of transportation, and merchants and traders, large and small, engaged
in that of exchange. The nearer the consumer and the producer can be
brought to each other, the smaller will be the proportion of exchangers and
transporters to producers, the larger will be production, the richer will the
farmers and planters grow, the better will all be fed, and clothed, and
lodged, and the greater will be the progress of intellectual and moral, as well
as of physical, improvement.

Oyster-shell Lime. — Some want to know how shells compare in quantity
before and after being burned. On trial, 550 bushels when put in the kiln,
were reduced to 407 on being calcined. Then on being slaked, they yielded
569 bushels fine slaked lime, and 61 of course stuff, easily pulverized.
They took 16 cords of wood in pens, joining each, which is more economical
than burning in single small pens.

Hedges. — The most elaborate papers on the cultivation and management
of hedges, were addressed by Caleb Kirk, of Delaware, to J. S. Skinner,
and published in 1819, in " The American Farmer."

• Patent Office Report, 1847, p. 557.

596 ON PICKING STONE OFF YOUR LAND.

ON PICKING STONE OFF YOUR LAND.

MAY YOU NOT OVERDO IT?

[From the Mark Lane Express.]

Sir: — I occasionally observe in your excellent journal many useful articles
on agriculture, but I do not recollect of having ever seen any thing said by
your numerous correspondents, censuring the very improper mode of farming
practised by too many excellent farmers, in reference to the care with vi^hich
many of them gather the stones off their fields. I have myself had many
tough arguments with farmers about this matter, pointing out to them the
foolish expenditure of money by the too careful gathering of small stones ;
while, as I have myself many times seen during the period of preparing the
fields for corn and green crops, numbers of hands employed picking up the
smallest stones, while at the same time they were permitted to leave behind
them large quantities oi noxious loeeds.

Now, it is well known that by picking up the stones too carefully every
year the active soil is not only rendered shallower in consequence, but what
is worse, the ground is robbed of a great deal of heat that would otherwise
be imparted to it ; for practical and scientific men know well that stones
lying on the surface exposed to the direct rays of the sun, get heated during
the day, and as they retain a considerable portion of that heat during night,
impart much warmth to the soil ; and it must have been often noticed that
there is under all stones of any size lying on the surface more or less of
moisture; an observing eye will easily perceive the blades of corn crops, as
well as of grass growing round these stones, not only stronger and more
vigorous in appearance than in other parts of the field, but also of a beautiful
dark green color — a sure evidence of the healthy state of the plants, and con-
sequently of the nourishment which has been afforded to them.*

If landlords, as well as the occupiers of farms, would more attentively
consider their own interest, they should never allow any stones less in size
than common road metal, or rather what would go through a three inch
ring, to be removed from the surface of their fields, but rather roll theminto
the soil ivith a heavy roller: and if greater attention was observed by agri-
culturists in selecting every two or three years good perennial seeds, there
would be fewer weeds to gather every spring and summer.

Many intelligent farmers gather the weeds into heaps, and then burn
them on the fields ; but this is a bad plan, though it may save a little trouble
and expense in cartage. It is better where there are quantities of weeds
to cart them to the corner of the field, and there make them into compost by
mixing them with hot lime, and in two years the mould is excellent for top-
dressing any parts of the field, the active soil of which may be shallow, and
of indifferent quality.

I would venture to recommend every farmer to turn his attention more to
the cleaning of his fields, and less to the gathering of the stones, unless,
indeed, they are of considerable size, which certainly do hurt, and ought to
be removed. Nothing connected with neat farming is more untidy and un-
seemly than stones piled up in heaps in the furrows, and there allowed to
remain, sometimes for two or three years, not only an eye-sore, but offering
great obstruction to the sickle and scjahe, and rendering the site on which
they are laid not only unproductive, but worse than useless.

I have never seen it tried, nor have I ever heard of any person having
made the experiment, but I do certainly believe that when the proper

•Is not this a corroboration of Dr. Baldwin's theory of the effeets of shade?

ON PICKING STONE OFF YOUR LAND. 597

management of the soil becomes to be better understood, from the great
exertions that are at present in progress, it will be reckoned no uncommon
thing to see laborers employed, where there are fields of loamy soil, overlaying
the surface of such fields with large quantities of silex, or small granite
stones, if they can be procured, that they may amalgamate or mix with the
soil, for the very purpose of imparting heat and moisture, thereby doing
what many farmers, contrary to their own interest, now very often undo.
Indeed, were it possible to pound the granite rocks, (and there could be no
difficulty in inventing a piece of machinery for that purpose,) I have no
doubt whatever but the powdery or pounded substance would be found
suitable and profitable to mix with some soils. It is well known that gravel,
or tilly soil, is an excellent top-dressing for moss, and strong clay for soil of
a light sandy nature ; in like manner, I am of opinion that silex in large
quantities, laid as a top-dressing on the surface of a heavy loamy soil, and
worked into it, would be equally beneficial, though it would be found that
the straw of the corn crops on such soil would grow shorter than formerly ;
but nevertheless it would certainly be firmer in texture, and consequently-
better for food, and the grain would also be heavier and better in quality.
And here I would venture to ofTer an opinion, that a heavy loamy soil would
never be found suitable for cropping, were such soil manured by the sewer-
age water of towns thrown over it by irrigation, for assuredly nothing would
be produced but abundance of soft straw. But mix such soil ivitli a large
quantity of coarse gravel or small stones, and then the sewerage water
would be found to do admirably for corn crops, as well as for green crops
and grass.*

It should be the business of every person connected with agriculture to
use his utmost endeavor, consistent with a proper regard for economy, to
exert himself for the improvement of the soil ; for I do believe when this
becomes to be better known, it will astonish every one what may be done
with it, especially after it has been laid thoroughly dry by a proper mode of
drainage, for without that (the first and most important of all agricultural
improvements,) it would be a complete waste of money to try any experi-
ments whatever, however profitable and interesting in the outset they might
seem. I am, sir, yours, &c. F.

[We know a gentleman in Maryland, who has a « natural turn" (if there be any such
thing as a natural turn) for farming, who has had his land picked over, and the stone
carried off, eleven times; but doubtless there is still enough left on to meet the views of this
writer. There seems to be more reason than rhyme in what he says, and as for the
value of clay on sandy land, as an ameliorator, some of the most intelligent farmers in
England have lately averred, that its good effects endure for more than twelve years, to
an incoming tenant, who enters the next year after the clay has been applied.]

• We recommend this suggestion to the attention of our friends on Elk Ridge, Mary-
land. A suggestion of this kind was made to us lately by Dr. Hare ; that is, of the
availability of a kind of stone abounding in the soil of that region, for matuire, when pul-
verized. The attention of Charles Carroll, of CarroUton, has too been called to the sub-
ject by Dr. Hare, wlio, we believe, received the suggestion from Professor Baer. Here we
may mention that Bogardus's mill would answer to pulverize these quartz stones, if it be
quartz to which allusion has been made.

How enviable the position of such men as Mr. Carroll, with their ample domains, and
various soil, and abundant means and materials for all sorts of experiments and demon-
strations for the benefit of the most important of all human pursuits !

598 HOW MUCH PORK WILL A BUSHEL OF CORN MAKE?

HOW MUCH PORK WILL A BUSHEL OF CORN MAKE ?

This question has been answered by two correspondents of " The Ohio
Cultivator," with all the particulars on which they based their calculations.

The first one says that in 1845, when "there were a great many acorns,"
he made 20 pounds of pork for each bushel of corn. In 1846, he got also
IO2 pounds of pork in return for the bushel of corn. In 1847, 11 pounds.
In 1848, he got 121 pounds per bushel.

In summing the four years together, he got 12,750 pounds of pork in
return for 1,030 bushels of corn — equal to 12^ pounds to the bushel.

In 1845, pork sold for $4 per 100 lbs. ; in 1846, $2.75 ; in 1847, $3.25 ;
and in 1848, $3. Suppose the price of pork averages $3, it Avill make corn
bring 37^ cents per bushel. But it has averaged more — about $3.25 —
which makes the corn bring 401 cents per bushel. The first year it brought
80 cents ; the second year, 2Sg cents ; the third year, 38| cents ; the fourth
year, 37^ cents per bushel.

The other correspondent says, on his experience, which he details, that
he can get 8 pounds from a bushel with a good breed of hogs.

It may be presumed that every farmer who habituates himself to useful
inquiries, sometimes asks himself the question — At what relative price
between corn and meat is it profitable or otherwise for a man to raise, and
kill, and cure his own bacon ? It does not answer, however, to decide such
questions by arithmetical calculations too nicely drawn out — for it is hard to
know what allowance is to be made for the time and labor expended in
looking after your hogs on the one hand — the injury they do to your crops,
and the ill-feeling they beget by trespassing on your neighbors, and the
credit due on tlie other hand for the manure they ought to make ; but above
all, for the satisfaction to be enjoyed in the consideration that when the hog
makes his final appearance on the table, you know all about his parentage,
birth, and education — from his first nestling in the bed of leaves in the
woods, to his being stuck in the pen, and hung up in the smoke-house.
How, by any other system than raising your own pork, can the good housewife
point the cook to a nice jowl, or sweet piece of belly-bacon — streak of fat and
streak of lean — to be served up at this season with a dish of turnip-tops, or
cabbage-sprouts, and a fat pullet for dinner ? — and does not that alone, as far
as his domestic consumption goes, double its intrinsic value in the eye of
every man of taste, who deserves to enjoy a luxury to be had, alas, only in
the country, and not by any means in all parts of that.

H

P. S. — In certain neighborhoods, there is a large per centage allowance
usually made for the special benefit of thieves — in the number of pigs to be
turned out. That per centage varies from 5 to 33^ per cent. ; and as land
ought to diminish in value in like proportion, is it not clear that it much
more behooves landholders of every neighborhood to be giving their mind
and heart to the means oi putting down thieves instead o{ putting up dema-
gogues? These rogues abound most where all are cultivators, and where
there is the least diversity of employment. They are fewest where the
presence of various manufactures offer constant employment and support for
labor of every species, and people of every age and description. Hence it
is, reader, that you should help us to draw the loom and the anvil near to
the plough and the harrow.

MEMORIAL FROM PENNSYLVANIA FARMERS. 599

WHAT HAVE FARMERS TO DO WITH QUESTIONS
ABOUT POLITICAL ECONOMY ?

How slow is the progress of truth when great national questions get to be mixed up
and identified with party combinations and interests ! Had not the question of protection
of American industry, as essential to national independence, been taken up and forced
into the arena of patiy conflicts as an element of success in the strujrgles for political
power, we should, at this day, from our superior advantages, have been manufacturing
for ourselves, and have gained that supremacy as a manufacturing and commercial peo-
ple, which England sustains towards the world, by the power of her fleets and armies,
and her exorbitant system of taxation.

Twenty-six years ago, the farmers of Pennsylvania addressed to the Congress of the
United States, a memorial, such as they are urging at this time, and a single extract from
which is enough to satisfy any unprejudiced mind of the folly of dependence on other
countries for our essential manufactures. The idea as presented in this memorial is one
of great force, and illustrates itself. It is this — that while our population is increasing at
a rate unexampled elsewhere in the world, and therefore, and in like proportion, our
demands for manufactures must increase ; there is abroad no corresponding increase for
our agricultural produce, resuldng from an equal increase of population ; and thus, while
our demands for what we must have from them, under a free trade system, must be every
year increasing, at an enormous rate, and their demands for our produce is comparatively
stationary, we must become more and more the debtor nation, even if they would take our pro-
duce. Does it not then become us as a nation, if we wish to keep out of debt, and main-
tain our independence, to manufacture for ourselves here at home! Then we should live,
as every farmer wishes to do, as much as practicable, withiy himself; or, if he must buy,
he buys one thing from a neighbor who will take something in exchange ; and thus both
keep out of debt, and maintain their independence.

The extract to which we allude is as follows, dated Dec. 15, 1823. Who would be-
lieve that the blindness which is begotten in the fierce conflicts of party could so long
Dostpone the universal admission of truths so clear! Talk about farmers having nothing
to do with such questions ! Why they are the very people that have, or ought to have
most to do with them ; unless they think it better to have rivals than customers. If
they looked more into such questions, they would ride instead of being ridden.

"The protection of that important portion of industry employed in manu-
factures, at all times a sound and necessary policy, and supported by the
opinions of the wisest statesmen, and the example of the most prosperous
nations, has become at present an imperious duty — the foreign demand for
our staples having, as above stated, considerably decreased ; the quantity
about one-third; and the amount nearly two-thirds; since 1811, notwith-
standing the increase of our population in the intervening period. — Whereas
our demands for manufactured goods must increase with our increasing
pojndation. We in consequence buy more from, than toe sell to, foreign
nations ; and this, tvith nations, is as unerringly the road to ruin as it is
xvith respect to individuals.

" Were there any doubt on the important subject thus respectfully pre-
sented to your view, it would be removed by a comparison of any two tracts
of our country, in one of which manufactures are carried on extensively —
and in the other agricultural pursuits chiefly or wholly, particularly when
remote from the advantages of sea-port towns, as is the case \vi\\\ one-half
of our territories. In the one, agriculture and horticulture, certain of steady
and increasing markets, are carried on with hfe and spirit — lands are rising
in price — every thing flourishes — and, what is of incalculable importance
to the farmers, their ifemales and children find valuable employment in and
from the factories, for fragments of time which would otherwise be wholly
lost. Habits of industry are thus acquired and rewarded — and pubhc and
private prosperity promoted. Whereas, in parts of the country destitute
of manufacturing establishments, circulation is either arrested, or moves

600 THE OPOSSUM.

with a sluggish pace — money is rare and difficult to be procured — there are
no markets for horticultural articles — lands are of little comparative value —
in a word, every thing languishes. To exemplify this position, and to place
it beyond the power of contradiction, it is sufficient to refer to the neighbor-
hood of Providence and Wilmington, on the one hand, and numerous dis-
tricts in the interior of Pennsylvania, and in the fertile districts of Kentucky
and Tennessee on the other. The difference of soil, and some other natural
advantages, is greatly in favor of the latter. But the contrast in prosperity
is immensely in favor of the former — and the inference in support of the
system we advocate irresistible."

THE STUDY OF NATURAL HISTORY.— THE OPOSSUM.

It would, we trust, be superfluous for us at this time of day to repeat
suggestions so often made in other days and journals imder our control,
that natural history should be regarded by every one in the country as one
of the chief sources provided for their profitable study and most agreeable
recreation. With all the kingdoms of natural history, animal, vegetable,
and mineral, the farmer has more or less to do every day of his life ; but of
them all, that which treats of animal life, termed zoology, holds out the
richest and perhaps the most pleasing resource, though such men as Col.
W'ilder would probably say, that in all animated nature there is nothing so
interesting as a magnificent carnation or Japonica, or so toothsome as a
magnum bonum plum or a luscious Bartlett or fragrant Secle pear.

The great and essential difference which separates the two kingdoms,
animal and vegetable, consists, as all know, in their different modes of
assimilating their food, or of converting it into parts of their own structure.
While plants imbibe their nourishment through their externa] organs, as
their roots and leaves; animals possess an internal place of deposit, into
which the food must be placed, as in a crucible, to be there first prepared
and absorbed into the system. For pursuing both these branches of natural
history, the farmerand his sr^ns possess peculiar facilities, if they would open
their eyes and their hearts to their enjoyment. One of the greatest benefits
the father can confer is to provide his sons with a few of the best authors,
and otherwise, by all the means in his power, encourage them to investigate
the nature and physiological economy of every thing around them. The
love and the habit of doing so being once established, a source of pleasure
is opened to them, of which no adversity can deprive them while their
faculties remain. In this conviction, and feeling it to be no less a matter
of duty than it has ever been of inclination, to amuse and beguile as well as
to edify the rising generation, according to our poor abilities and means, we
shall give occasional sketches of natural history, over and above these which
fall now within the department of "■Heading for Mothers and Children."

One of the most curious subjects of speculation among zoologists has been
that of the gestation of the oposstnn. So much doubt still hung upon it, in
the view of the great naturalists of France, that when General Lafayette
(blessed be his memory!) came to this country, he asked as a favor of the
Senior Editor of this journal, that he would enable him to comply Avith their
request to send or take back with him to Paris a male and female opossum,
that every possible expedient might be adopted to settle the disputes of
eminent zoologists on the subject.

The question was opened for discussion in the old Turf Register and
Sporting Magazine, then published at Baltimore, and a portion of which
was appropriated systematically to the elucidation of such topics. We

THE OPOSSUM. 601

remember levying a contribution on Professor Dunglison, (then of Balti-
more, now of Philadelphia,) who, as might be expected of a really scientific
philosopher, took the side of the old-fashioned natural process of procrea-
tion and parturition. But, be that as it may, it is in our mind a " fixed
fact" that the young of the opossum has been repeatedly found, in a state
not yet apparently developed, adhering to the teat of the mother by a liga-
ture, which required to be broken, in order to detach it from its parent stem ;
and our impression has been that, however it may have found its way there,
it continues so to adhere until it attains a certain degree of maturity, when
it becomes detached, and then may have recourse, like the young of other
animals, to the mother's breast as the fountain of sustenance.

There are some papers on the subject, in these our old volumes of the
Turf Register, more exact and authentic than the wild speculations of
Buffon, who expressed the opinion, that "the dam always miscarries, and
the fffituses save their lives in sticking to the paps, without leaving them,
till they have acquired the growth and strength whereto they would 7iatu-
ralljj get in the womb."

From the late Judge Kell, of Baltimore, and from Col. Andrews, of Wash-
ington, as well as others, fve well recollect to have heard authentic facts in
support of the opinion we have given above. Had not these remarks been
spun out beyond what we intended, we should have copied some of these
articles from the work referred to. We may give them hereafter; in the
mean time we invite papers on this and kindred subjects from such of our
readers as agree with us that such subjects are or ought to be above all
others most congenial and convenient to those who abide in the country, as
— who ivould not if he could?

"Oh happy country life! pure hke its air;
Free from the rage of pride, the pangs of care."'

All American youth who desire to be familiar with the other branch of
natural science, especially agricultural botany, should lose no time in pro-
curing what has been written on it so clearly and so well by Doctor Dar-
lington, of West Chester, taking special care not to omit his paper on the
true grasses — a paper which, with his leave, we shall do up in the form
of catechism for the benefit of our readers; and, as for borrowing know-
ledge, we avow our readiness at all times, however little we may have to
give in return, to receive as much as anybody will lend us; and, if for any
thing we would break the eighth commandment, it would be to "steaP^
knotvledge; for the more a man gets, the more will he be inclined, with
Job, to inquire, "Whence, then, cometh wisdom? and where is the place
of understanding- ?"

Fable. — The sword of the warrior was taken down to brighten ; it had
not been long out of use. The rust was soon rubbed off, but there were
spots that would not go, they were of blood. It was on the table near his
secretary. The pen took advantage of the first breath of air to move a little
further off.

"Thou art right," said the sword, "I am a bad neighbor."

"I fear thee not," said the pen, "I am more powerful than thou art ; but
I love not thy society."

"I exterminate," said the sword.

"And I perpetuate," answered the pen; "where were thy victories if I
recorded them not? Even w^here thou thyself shalt be one day — ia
oblivion."

Vol. L— 76 3E

602 AGRICULTURAL ANNIVERSARY.

AN AGRICULTURAL ANNIVERSARY, AND A CHURNING

MATCH.

The Newcastle County, Delaware, Agricultural Club, held its Seventh
Anniversary at the residence of its hospitable founder, Dr. J. W. Thomson,
on the last day of January, 1849. The members were strong in force of
numbers as well as spirits — attracted and exhilarated equally, as it is but
fair to infer, by their love of the good cause — of their good host — and of his
good cheer.

The Senior Editor of " The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil," was there
in their midst, attracted by special invitation, and no less special inclination.
Finding in the Doctor's Agricultural Library a full set of the old " American
Farmer," with which he happened to be somewhat familiar from its founda-
tion, the said Editor called the attention of the company to the full account
there given, some thirty years ago, of the establishment of the old Newcastle
Agricultural Society, and pointed to the celebrated Prize Essay of Dr.
Black, written to demonstrate that Delavs^are lands were then intrinsically
worth $500 an acre. Other reminiscences were brought up to show that
the fire for improvement was then already kindled, which has been spread-
ing ever since, until, as then and there admitted, some Delaware farmers,
not then 100 miles off, are so far on the way to realize the theory of Dr.
Black, that they would sigh to part with their farms at $100 an acre.

But until dinner was announced, the chief attraction, except something
that bore a marvellous resemblance to old Virginia apple-toddy, (the Dr.
comes from the Old Dominion,) was Mr. Anthony's famous ^^ double acting
rotary churn,'''' which Mr. Emerson had brought down from Philadelphia,
that the members might have ocular demonstration of its miraculous per-
formance.

Like Maelzel with his chess-player, Mr. Emerson exposed the interior, to
show that there was no witch or witchcraft about it — and truly the whole
contrivance seemed to be as simple as a salt-box. Two gallons of fresh
milk were thereupon poured into it, and every man pulled out his stop-
watch to note its performance — six minutes being allowed. Odds in favor of
time. Away went the churn, turning as lightly as a little, old grindstone,
in the country, worn down to the size of a breakfast-plate, and behold, at the
end of five minutes the operator took off the cover and exposed the butyra-
ceous particles finely separated from the milk, and ready to be served up
and submitted to another sense at the dinner table.

It was agreed, however, that of all the discussions of the day, not the
least practical and palatable Avas the discussion of a fine saddle of mutton,
which would have been deemed worthy of the skill and the pastures of a
Barney or a Reybold.

There are certain remarkable agricultural coincidences about this little
State of Delaware. 1. No part of the country is improving faster. 2. No
people bestow more patronage on the press. Major John Jones, of Wheat-
land, takes and IWpays for fourteen papers — four of them "• professing
agriculture." 3. There is no Slate where they better comprehend the
advantages of having the loom and the anvil near to the plough. 4. They
understand well the management of the dairy, the rearing of cattle, and
sheep, and poultry, and vegetables — and, 5. At the close of their theoretical
discussions, they have a practical way of laying their prepared subjects out
upon the table, and, with knife in hand, every man demonstrating for him-
self his views of the animal and vegetable world with a good-will and dex-
terity that are quite remarkable and exemplary, as we have often witnessed,
and — hope to witness again.

FIELD CULTURE OF PEAS. 603

FIELD CULTURE OF PEAS,

RECOMMENDED FOR TIDE-WATER VIRGINIA, MARYLAND, AND DELAWARE.

We have been for thirty years endeavoring to get the culture of field peas, recom-
mended by so many advantages, extended froin North Carolina, over at least the tide-
water portion of the States above named, being well persuaded that soil and climate
would admit of their being cultivated, at least that far north, if not through lower New
Jersey, to the Hudson — not only for purposes purely economical, and as food for man and
beast, but as an ameliorator and improver of worn-out lands — for while peas in North
Carolina answer the latter purpose in the same way, and even better than clover, they
constitute a very valuable resource as food for domestic animals of all kinds, and especially
hogs : — for it is within our own most agreeable experience that as good as any, if not the
best bacon to be found in our country, is the ham of the pea-fed hog, as we liave had
opportiuiity to know.

These hams were tested by Maryland juries, wlio are among the best judges in such
cases, and pronounced to be unsurpassable.

For very particular and conclusive evidence of the value of pea-culture for the cheap
and rapid improvement of land, we need only refer the readers of this journal to its
first number, pages 45 to 48. The facts are striking, and the proof conclusive. But we
are prepared to show by what follows, that nearly thirty years have elapsed since we
took the pains to write to that State for the most exact information, and for a supply of
the peas for gratuitous distribution ; yet has any one in Maryland or Delaware made a
fair trial, and if so, with what result ? If the warm weather has not been there of suffi-
cient duration, or if attempts from any other cause have failed, why not proclaim it?
False and even culpable must be the pride that would restrain a farmer from disclosing
a disastrous result to any experiment wliich he may have deemed promising ! As cul-
pable as the mariner, who should fail to advise navigators of hidden rocks on which he
had foundered, in seas deemed perfectly safe.

Last year we understood that Mr. Carter, near Upper Marlborough, Maryland, meant
to give the Georgia pea a full trial, but of the result we are not informed.* In a word,
is it not strange, that while the farmers in one State deem the culture of peas to be a
resource of inestimable value, particularly as it may be made not exhaustive, but contri-
butive to the fertility of their lands, farmers in States adjoining, with the same sort of
soil, should not even make a fair and full experiment with it ? Alas, how obstinate, if
not fanatical in their local prejudices and habits! Norfolk is the only place where we
ever saw the market supplied in a measure by one-ox market carts — an economical expe-
dient that even the Yankee might imitate with advantage !

To return to pea culture, we give the following, which we published in Maryland, a
quarter of a century ago, in answer to inquiries addressed to the well-informed and
public-spirited writer, to whom we were recently indebted for the best account that has
ever been given of the process and profits of the turpentine business ; and which we published
in the " Farmers' Libhart," of which we may now say fearlessly, that it contained the
greatest amount of agricultural scientific knowledge and practice that was ever ofiered
at any thing like the same cost to the agricultm-al .community of any country.

I have been myself in the habit of planting as many as five different kinds
of peas for the last seven or eight years, and am acquainted with nearly as
many more : of these varieties there are three that possess superior advan-
tages as stock crops. Others are esteemed more delicate for the table, and
are consequently more commonly grown for market. The former are what
we here call the cow, the tory, and the black pea ; each of which, I am in
the habit of planting amongst my corn, and also alone. When planted with
the corn, as is the usual method in this and the more eastern countries,
they are dropped in the middle of the step, particularly when the rows are
at right angles, and the corn is ploughed both ways. From the 25th of
May to the 15th of June, is, according to my observations, the best time of

* We have since been informed, by himself, that the result was very favorable; aad
that he intended to repeat it on a larger scale this year.

604 FIELD CULTURE OF PEAS.

planting them ; and in some one of the following ways, with a preference
in their successive order. With a single horse plough, such as we call
"Cutters," or "Jacks," having small mould-boards, a furrow is opened in a
cross direction to the way the field was last ploughed, as nearly in the centre
between the rows as possible. This plough is immediately followed by a
dropper, who is provided with the bowl of a common tobacco-pipe, which,
if too large, is made, by packing something in the bottom of it, to contain
from twelve to sixteen peas. And here I must observe that this or a similar
provision is greatly necessary, both to insure a fine regular crop, and to save
seed, which otherwise vvould be profusely or sparingly disposed of, according
to the whim or pleasure of the dropper. In passing from one hill to the
next, the hand has sufficient time to fill his measure from the vessel in which
he carries the seed, as well as to drop them, without altering a common
ploughman's gait. The peas are deposited in the newly opened furrow as
near the centre between the corn-hills on either hand as possible ; the
dropper is followed by a similar plough, covering the seed w^ith great regu-
larity, to the depth of from two to three inches, and leaving a surface for
them to come up on, at least even with the surrounding ground, which is
no inconsiderable advantage. The facility with which an indifferent hand
can thus keep up with a plough is evident, and of course the row is finished
" at once."

In planting them in this way, it is generally calculated to give the corn
two ploughings afterwards, in a transverse direction, to finish it ; which
working will be all-sufficient for the peas ; and in poor land they will yield
a more profitable crop than the corn ; it is not, however, uncommon to give
one of those ploughings, the first, in the same direction that the peas were
planted, say two furrows on either side of the pea row, and unless the field
is very grassy they will require no other work ; for the share they will have
in that inevitably given to the corn will be sufficient. Another way is com-
mon— to drop the seed with similar precaution, in the first or second furrow
from the corn row, at the ploughing that it receives nearest the time thought
best to plant, leaving the next furrow to cover them. My objections to this
method, are, that the peas are not in the middle of the row, and they are
consequently deprived of the benefits of the sun that they would there
receive ; and from their contiguity to one row of corn, this is materially
injured by their ascending the stalks. It is also common to plant them in
the last furrow in a row, at a seasonable ploughing, when the dropper has
them to cover with his foot, which is performed with considerable expedi-
tion, by persons a little accustomed to it. Planted in these various ways,
peas come to great perfection amongst our corn, not, however, without doing
it some injury ; but not always perceivable, and never in the same ratio
that they are profitable, both to our stock and the soil on which they grow ;
having myself experienced by a succession of these double crops, the pro-
ductiveness of the soil to increase fifty per cent, in a iew years ; their
foliage, vine, large tap-roots, and shade, each separately and collectively,
possessing meliorating quahties in a degree superior to any vegetable known
to me.

When the corn is gathered, and soon after the first frosts, the hogs we
intend to kill that winter are " turned in" on the peas, and with a feed of
corn once or twice a week, they will fatten more kindly than under any
other management common in this part of the country; and when slaugh-
tered, their fat is solid and white ; epicures say, that hogs thus fed make
the most delicious bacon.

The comparative values of the three kinds before mentioned, according to
my experience, are that the cow-pea, of a light clay color, is rather the most

FIELD CULTURE OF PEAS. 605

prolific, the pods being much the largest, though not quite so thick set on
the vine : they are also, I think, more inclined to vine horizontally, not
attaching themselves so much to the corn as the others ; consequently doing
it less injury : and they are a little preferred by laborers as a diet, who
give either kind a preference to any other vegetable production accompany-
ing their meat. But they lack the durability of the other two kinds, and
will never remain in the field without rotting, as the others will, until late
in the winter.

The tory pea is of a red clay color. The etymological application of the
name I have never been able to ascertain. They are also sometimes called
" red rippers." These and the black pea possess \ery nearly the same qua-
lities, with the exception that I think the black ones mature a little the
sooner. Either will remain in the ground all the winter, and come up
luxuriantly in the spring ; indeed I have had them to stand tolerably thick
the second year, when the land has remained that time in stubble.

I am in the habit of sowing rye, and sometimes wheat, following a corn
and pea crop, after the hogs have consumed the latter, and have the fol-
lowing summer, after the grain is ofl^, a fine growth of peas, suitable either
to enclose or graze ; a sufiiciency having escaped the search of the hogs to
seed the ground tolerably well; though not so regularly and thick as they
might have been sown. I never sowed them in the spring, as a fallow
crop, until the present year, Avhen I did, intending them as a preparation
for wheat and turnips, and of course have not, as yet, reahzed their benefit,
though thus far they exhibit every anticipated advantage, and it is in this
way that they may be estimated as an inexhaustible treasure, at least to
Carolina. Strange as it may appear to the votaries of red clover and gyp-
sum, yet it is my candid opinion, that by something like equal care and
management, they are qualified to confer more lasting benefits, at least to
the Southern States, than either, or a combination of those, has ever done
for Pennsylvania, or any other of our northern sisters. When sown broad-
cast, either to enclose or to cut for hay, of which they make more nutritious
and heavier crops than any thing else, one and a half to three bushels of
seed will be required to the acre ; thin soils requiring the greater quantity
of seed. From the 1st to the 10th of May is the best time to sow them,
when to be employed in these ways. They will thus by the 1.5th or 20th
of August, on land that would produce two barrels of corn to the acre, be
knee high ; just commencing to vine and bear, at which time they ought to
be cut, or ploughed under: being too thick to be very productive of seed.
An earlier sowing, which is recommended by some, I find, will not answer
with the kinds I am speaking of; for as they are naturally of a very quick
growth, requiring the very hottest sun to hasten them to perfection, if they
are planted earher than the time mentioned for sowing broad-cast, they will
lack in proper time that portion of heat which they require ; and will con-
sequently stunt, and soon begin to shed their leaves : and this they will
begin to do a little at the time mentioned as best to dispose of them with the
scythe or plough, without bearing much: cold nights being, I observe,
absolutely necessary to drive them to that natural function; and hence also
the propriety of late planting when the crop is to be suffered to ripen, for
the nights then become cool by the time their growth slackens.

I have also planted peas alone : a custom that is very common, where
particular attention is paid to them, for fatting pork. They are planted in
drills, five and a half feet apart, and require but one good ploughing and
hand-hoeing, to make the crop. After planting them in this way on the
29th and SOth of May, I have put my hogs on them the 22d of September,
when they were fine, and might be called half ripe. The hogs devoured

3e2

606 FIELD CULTURE OF PEAS.

the green in preference to the ripe pods, and after consuming both, the vines
were eaten by them with considerable avidity. Although I acknowledge
this to be a slovenly practice, yet the land is greatly assisted by it. Inde-
pendent of the benefit of the peas for hogs, when planted in corn-fields, they
are frequently gathered from them for many other purposes by picking them
into baskets, a tedious waj% I acknowledge, a bushel being considered
a tolerable task for one hand to gather and clean in a day ; or they are
pulled up by the roots, vine and all, and heaped into piles in the field, where
the peas are threshed out with sticks ; after which the vines may be housed
or stacked, as winter forage for cattle : and in this way a hand may get
from three to six bushels a day. But this method is not by any means void
of serious objections : it being upon that ruinous and ungrateful, though
common practice in husbandry, of taking all ivithout giving any : totally
depriving the land of the stubble, a poor pittance indeed, though one for
which usurious interest is promised.

It is, however, very common to convert them into winter and spring food
for horses or cattle, without picking the peas at all. This is a very expe-
ditious mode, and it will, I allow, do well on land that receives annual
assistance from the farm-yard, or is of that quality sometimes called " inex-
haustible.^^ But as one or the other of these two plans must be resorted to
for saving the peas, and as both are somewhat objectionable, I would recom-
mend the last, with this difTerence — let the vines be cut off quite near the
roots with a grass knife, sickle, or even a sharp hand-hoe, instead of pulling
them up; this method is equally as expeditious as the other, and leaves to
the ground the roots, which are a considerable benefit to it, and are useless
in feeding. In feeding peas, freed from the pods, to stall cattle, at the rate
of half a gallon twice a day, to each head, I have never known them to do
the cattle the least injury ; but with a plenty of long food accompanying
this quantity, they have always fattened kindly. I have never fed my
horses with them in this state, though I have frequently given them in the
pods, at the rate of a heaping peck to each head at a feed, and without ever
noticing any injurious effects to result from them.

Of the other varieties, which I cultivate altogether for culinary purposes,
or for market, I need only say, that they are of the white kind, with black
and gray eyes. They may be planted several days earlier than the time
mentioned for the others, and they will bear much sooner : it is quite com-
mon to have them on the table about the first of July. They are a delicious
and wholesome diet. As I have, probably in a more suitable place, neg-
lected it, I shall here mention, that when planting among corn, as described,
a bushel will plant from four to five acres. Having in the foregoing remarks
given as succinct an account of my experience in pea crops, as the subject
would allow, or a proper regard for the interests of many of your readers
would justify, I have only to add, that although it may be both tedious and
useless to a large majority, it may nevertheless arouse some few prudent
farmers who were not accustomed to witness the advantages of the field-pea
cultivation, and induce them to give this crop a fair trial : this anticipation
will fully recompense me for the time which I have bestowed on this com-
munication.

I can easily, and I will forward you, in the course of the winter, by way
of Newbern, the quantity of seed peas mentioned in your letter.

Yours, most respectfully, John Macleod,

Of Johmton, near Siiiithjidd, N. C.

September, 1822.

ANALYSIS OF SOILS. 607

ANALYSIS OF SOILS.

CAN IT BE MADE BY COMMON FARMERS — AND HOW ?

Enon, Clarke County, Ohio, February 7, 1849.
J. S. Skinner, Esq, — Bear Sir : — The " Farmers' Club of Madriver
Township," Clarke County, Ohio, have ordered rae to make of you the fol-
lowing; inquiries :

Have you a knowledge of any chemical apparatus that will, in the hands of
a common farmer, who is unacquainted with the science of chemistry,answer
any good purpose for analyzing soils ? If so, Avhere can it be obtained, and
at what price ?

An answer to the above is respectfully solicited.

Yours, with sentiments of high esteem, John R. Miller,

Corresponding Secretary F. C. M. T.

A copy of the above being addressed to that widely and well-known friend of Ameri-
can farmers, Dr. G. B. Smith, of Baltimore, brought promptly the following reply :

Baltimore, February IG, 1849.
J, S. Skinner, Esq. — Dear Sir: — There is no apparatus or means by
which a person entirely unacquainted with chemistry can detect the essential
elements of fertility in a soil, other than those in universal use, viz. : practical
tests by planting, cultivating, and observing the results. If a piece of land,
by means of the usual cultivation, affords a good crop, the farmer knows that
the elements of fertility are in that soil. If we had a simple machine that
could develope and separate all and each of the elements, and place them
before us in separate parcels, the person ignorant of chemistry would not
know them — could not distinguish one from the other — could not weigh or
measure them, that he might arrive at a knowledge of their relative propor-
tions ; and consequently it would not be of use to him. Indeed, it is yet
matter of speculation what the real elements of fertility are ! Nearly all the
soils of the earth contain very nearly the same simple elements, varying only
in slight differences of proportions or quantities. But if a single element, say
lime, be supposed to be one of the fertilizing principles, and it is desired to
ascertain if a soil contains it, the apparatus and means of doing so are very
simple, and every farmer may use them as successfully as the best chemist.
So in regard to the existence of vegetable matter. To ascertain if a soil con-
tains lime and vegetable matter, take a handful of it from various parts of a
field, mix it well together, and dry it thoroughly, that all the water may be
evaporated. Then pulverize it, and weigh out an ounce of it. Put this
upon a common fire-shovel, and heat it over the fire till the shovel and soil be
red hot ; then let it cool, and weigh it correctly. All that it .shall have lost
in weight was vegetable matter. Then wash the same parcel in hot water,
filter it through any fine linen or cotton cloth, dry the earth perfectly as
before, weigh it again, that its exact weight may be ascertained. Put it into
a glass or earthenware vessel, and pour upon it diluted muriatic acid, (say one
part acid to fifteen parts water, by measure,) stir the mixture. If it effervesces
or foams slightly, there is lime in the soil, or some other soluble carbonate.
Let it stand, stirring it occasionally, until all effervescence ceases, and the
earthy matter settles to the bottom, leaving the liquor clear. Then pour the
clear liquor carefully into another vessel, and pour some hot water into the
first with the earth, stir it well, let it settle, and then pour the clear liquor
into the other vessel with the first solution. Now take some potash in poAv-
der, and drop it in small parcels, say a tea-spoonful at a time, into the liquor,
stirring it till the potash is dissolved : keep adding the potash as long as

608 ANALYSIS OF SOILS.

there is any effervescence. Then let it stand to settle. When the white
powder has settled completely, pour off the clear liquor, and throw it away;
put the white soft mass on paper, that the water may drain off; then put the
white mass on the shovel, heat it nearly red hot, set it aside to cool, weigh
it, and that will give you the weight of lime in an ounce of the soil, if there
be any. But for all practical purposes, the mere effervescence of the dried
soil in the acid solution, is a sufficient indication of the presence of lime, and
the degree of effervescence, slight or energetic, indicates sufficiently exact
the quantity too little, or enough. If no white powder be obtained by adding
the potash, then there is no lime in the soil.

A very slight scum of foam on the surface of the liquor, soon after adding
the acid liquor to the dry earth, indicates that there is a moderate quantity
of lime in the soil ; a more active foaming indicates a greater quantity.

I admit that there may be other carbonates in the soil, and that there may
be effervescence without the existence of lime ; but generall}^ and almost
always, it is carbonate of lime that causes the effervescence. It is also true
that lime may be in the soil in ether combinations, and not in the form
of carbonate, and that in such cases there will be no effervescence ; but it is
in such cases always more or less inactive, and the soil requires the addition
of lime, just as much as if it did not exist in those other forms. All other
chemical analyses for ascertaining other elements of fertility in soils require
a practical and skilful chemist to perform them. And, as far as my observa-
tion extends, all the labors of the public chemists in this country have resulted
in no other good than simply ascertaining the fact whether a piece of land
required lime to render it fertile or not; and that every farmer can do for
himself, by following the above directions.

It must be borne in mind that the elements of fertility in soils are as yet
not definitely ascertained. Some say carbonic acid is the element, others
that ammonia contains it exclusively in the form of one of its elements, nitro-
gen, &c. Certainly, good horse-manure furnishes the most sterile soils with
nutrition for almost all plants, even where lime does not exist; but it is still
more fertilizing in a soil well limed. Now we know that horse-manure is
charged with a large portion of ammonia.

There is one element of fertility not sufficiently attended to or thought of.
The condition of a soil to retain moisture in the proper quantity, neither too
much nor too little. Water exists in soils in two forms : it is in chemical
combination in all the various parts of a soil ; even dry sand has some of it
in ils composition, called water of crystallization. This is always in definite
proportions, and can never be in excess or deficiency. The other form is
free water, making the soil feel moist, or w^et. In this form it is always
varying in quantity, and its variations depend greatly upon the condition and
composition of the soil, whether it be so mechanically Avorked as to enable it
to receive and retain the water ; whether this working be carried to a suffi-
cient depth ; whether the soil be so sandy or so shallow worked as to permit
the easy evaporation of the water, or so clayey as not to permit sufficient
evaporation. Now if free water from any cause be deficient in a soil, the
latter cannot be fertile ; if it be too abundant, the nutritious gases cannot be
formed ; hence both conditions render a soil sterile.

I fear, in attempting to answer your simple question as to the existence of
means for ascertaining the fertility of soils, I have branched out so much that
I have rendered the explanation more difficult of understanding than it
ought to be — that I have rendered "confusion worse confounded." I wish
you to bear in mind that I have written this for " plain farmers," not for
scientific chemists to read. And you may also tell the plain farmers that
the plain, unpretending description given them above for ascertaining the

ANALYSIS OF SOILS. 609

existence of lime and vegetable matter in a soil, contains, all the real infor-
mation that they could obtain even from the most learnedly abstruse disqui-
sition of scientific pomposity.

Yours, Gideon B. Smith.

"We are in debt also to Mr. Morfit, of this city, for kindly favoring us with the fol-
lowing :

Philadelphia, Feb. 26, 1849.

Mr. J. S. Skinner: — Dear Sir — I received your letter of the 19th,
enclosing one of inquiry, as to certain matters, from the Farmer's Club of
Mad River, Stark County, Ohio, and as requested, herewith reply.

It would be impossible for any one totally unacquainted with the prac-
tice and principles of chemistry to perform a successful analysis of soils, or
any other substance. If, as is often the case, a knowledge only of the pre-
sence or absence of lime is desired, this can readily be ascertained, the whole
apparatus needed consisting of two beaker-glasses, a sheet of filtering-paper,
a glass funnel, and three glass bottles containing respectively, hydrochloric
acid, aqua ammonise, and oxalic acid. The whole stock can be purchased
for about $2 to 2.50, from either Bullock & Crenshaw, Philadelphia, or E.
N. Kent, New York.

The process of testing is as follows : — Digest the dry soil in one of the
beaker-glasses, with hydrochloric acid for several hours, then add water, stir
well and filter. To the clear solution running through add aqua ammonias
in excess, and again filter from the precipitate thus formed. If now the
clear liquid which passes becomes cloudy when treated with oxalic acid,
the presence of lime is conclusively proven.

Yours, respectfully, Campbell Morfit,

Analylic and Consulting Chemist.

SCIENCE OF AGRICULTURE.

THE SOKT OF WORKS NEEDED BY COMMON FARMERS — WHERE TO BE
HAD, AND FOR AYHAT PRICE.

My Dear Skinner : — I have just finished Liebeg on Agriculture ; it is no
doubt a learned Avork, but too learned, and beyond the comprehension of 09
out of the 100 farmers; nay, we may safely say 9999 out of the 10,000.
What we want is the ABC spelling-book for farmers, at present, and
until we shall have agricultural colleges established in each State, a book
that ■will tell us how much lime per acre we shall apply to clay lands,
loamy lands, and sandy lands, and how often.

How many bushels of wood-ashes, leached or fresh, to some kind of lands,
and how often ?

How many square feet of compost to some lands, and the best kind of
compost ? Whether made from marsh mud and stable manure ?

Whether salt or lime should be added, and how much of both?

Whether night-soil, and if so, how many pounds of sulphate of iron
(common copperas) to 30 cubic feet of night-soil should be added to fix the
ammonia ; or how much plaster-of-Paris ? and whether the soil should be
burned and ground, or ground in its natural state ? Can wood-ashes be mixed
with night-soil, or does it, like lime, expel the ammonia? Now, these are
simple questions, that any chemist can answer you. Why will you not ask,
and give us plain farmers an answer ?

From Liebeg we learn that more than half the ashes from corn-stalks are

Vol. I.— 77

610 SCIENCE OF AGRICULTURE.

potash. Hence we learn the beneficial influence of wood-ashes to corn. It
is curious the effect wood-ashes have in producing white clover ; cut off the
top of a bog in the centre of a large bog meadow, and cover it with a good
dressing of wood-ashes, and up comes a crop of white clover, while no white
clover is within a quarter of a mile of said bog. Wood-ashes on all grass
lands acts equally well, as it does with corn, and the benefits are as great
as if nitrate of soda had been used, which benefits grass, but not cereals or
roots, as I have tested.

Ever yours, R. L. C.

We shall not differ with our friend in what he says about Liebig. His works pre-sup-
pose a Icnowledge of the subject upon which he writes, very muf:]i in advance of what is
possessed by 999 out of a thousand farmers. It is therefore that we would advise all to
commence much further back, if we may say so. Let them study the little work. Ele-
ments of Agriculture, which has been lately received under Mr. Vattemare's liberal sys-
tem of international literary exchanges, and which was translated, with slight additions to
adapt it to the common schools of America, by F. G. Skinner, Junior Editor of this journal.
It was published by Messrs. Carey and Hart, and may be had for 25 cents. Let him also
peruse the catechism remodelled in like manner, and now being republished in this journal.
And yet more ; let him study Petzhold's Agricultural Chemistry, which he will find in
ihe first volume of the Farmer's Library, preceding Von Thaer's Principles of Agriculture.

In his preface to that work, Petzhold says, " A perusal of this little work with ordinary
attention, will furnish the necessary amount of chemical information for the purposes of
the farmer. He will learn enough from it to satisfy him that science is not to be despised,
and if it open his mind to the reception of the important truths made known by the great
chemists of the present age, and enable him to derive from the writings of Liebig, espe-
cially, all that has been discovered of late relating to agriculture, the design of the writer
will have been accomplished."

Now let the reader bear in mind, that the Editor of the American Farmer, now Senior
Editor of the Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil, selected the Essex Agricultural Society of
Massachusetts, and referred to it for thorough and candid examination and report, all the
volumes of that work when it was completed. He was sure of getting from them, not
only a frank and impartial report, but one in which, from the character of its members,
the public might well repose full confidence. Well, they say, of Petzhold's lectures, which
make but a small part of this volume. " We consider it to be a master-piece of skill, in
presenting to the most uneducated mind, in a perfectly clear and simple manner, the
whole science of agricultural chemistry — the practical value of this u-oik to every farmer can
hardly be over-estimated. Von Thaer's work is equally valuable in its way, embracing the
entire subject of agriculture."

Now we have only to add our own opinion, heretofore perhaps expressed — that no rea-
sonable inducement would prevail with us to be without both these works, were we
practical farmers in the country. For Van Thaer alone, (the English copy,) we gave in
Boston, in May last, $12; and now we can furnish the two. — Petzhold and Von Thaer,
bound in one volume, — for one-third of that sum, or $4 ; and Stephens' great work — the
English copy, in three volumes of 1000 pages each, which has lately been sold at $35,
we have in two more volumes, with notes by J. S. Skinner, that we will sell for $6, — or
the three volumes — Petzhold, Von Thaer, and Stephens, for $9.

To Dyspeptics. — Twenty-nine years ago, we published in *' The Ameri-
can Fanner" a very interesting, and we doubt not a very able memoir from
Calvin Jones, M. D., otherwise known as C4eneral Calvin Jones, on the
diseases of indigestion, and the deleterious effects of the coffee of Mocha.
We wish we could make room for it in this journal. It was dedicated " to
the two men of America most distinguished for genius, learning, and public
spirit, De Witt Clinton and Samuel L. Mitchell, of New York, and to the
most intelligent and judicious physician of North Carolina, John Beckwith,
of Salisbury," the same who is the inventor of the pills called Beckwith's
Fills, which we recommended in the March No. of this journal.

THE BEST SORT OF GOLD MINES. 611

THE BEST SORT OF GOLD MINES, AFTER ALL.

Where to be found — Talbot County Report on Farms characterized — Local advan-
tages of the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia — Ought to change their staples
— Nutritive and restorative matter afforded by different crops, and their effects on
the prosperity of a country — Importance of farm accounts and registers — Importance
of more attention to farm-yard manure — Instances of shallow ploughing practised by
excellent farmers — W. Hambleton — Earl Stimson — Roger Brooke — General Emory —
Legislatures ought to vote ploughs as well as swords — Farmers exhorted to hold on
and agitate — Premiums awarded to Edward Covey and John A. Clough — Results
of their management.

The best sort of Gold Mines, after all, are to be found, when dug for
with skill and diligence, in such fields as those to which the following
reports refer ; and in others like them, which men of sagacity and perse-
verance only know how to go on improving from year to year, content to
look for gradual accumulations in what is too often overlooked — the con-
stantly augmenting productiveness of their land ; finding their greatest hap-
piness, not in the sudden and fitful acquirement of riches, but in the daily
consciousness that, by the exercise of manly virtues, they are laying up an
honest independence for their families, at the same time that they are setting
examples of priceless value to society. These are the gold diggings to
which it were better that our newspapers should call the attention of our
young men ; for, while any fool may have the luck to draw a prize in a
lottery, or to stumble on a lump of gold, we can but say of such men as Dr.
Clough and Mr. Covey, who thus bear off the premiums for the best
managed farms, " With thj'^ understanding thou hast gotten riches."

With as much satisfaction in view of the spirit, as for the matter of the
following report, do we copy it from " The American Farmer," for it indi-
cates on the part of the committee a degree of meditation and heartfelt zeal
for their subject, very different from the mawkish attempts at wit and fine
writing, which sometimes take the place of that earnestness and judicious
discrimination which befit such occasions. Such reports as these warrant
the assurance, that a watchfulness for all the means of agricultural improve-
ment, auspicious of the best fruits, has already taken good root in a commu-
nity where such a committee can be found among the resident farmers of
the neighborhood. It is in these various lights that we are accustomed to con-
template the proceedings of every association for the benefit of a pursuit
essentially plain and practical, and requiring constant intellectual as well as
bodily exercise. And here let us once more repeat, that if agriculture does
not thrive, and estates rise in value, where the general principles of good
management are thus exemplified and illustrated by farmers and committee-
men, it cannot be for umnt of knowledge. And laence it is that scarcely
anywhere do we find lands holding their own, and even appreciating, more
than on the Eastern Shore of Maryland — and perhaps Ave might add, espe-
cially in Talbot County, where, without insisting on any necessary con-
nection between them, it does so happen coincidently, that their agricultural
clubs and associations have been constantly kept up for many years, and
that, as we know, liberal support is there given to agricultural journals !

But here it may be proper, in justice to other localities not so much favored,
and where improvement has been stationary, if indeed the movement has not
been retrograde, to advert to the fact, that Talbot and the whole Eastern
Shore of Maryland and Virginia, enjoy advantages perhaps unequalled else-
where in our country, if not in the world, in their convenience to market by
cheap natural water conveyances, whereby the looms and the anvils — the
mills and the factories, of Bakimore, Philadelphia, Wilmington, and New
York, are virtually placed near to their ploughs and their harrows.

612 THE BEST SORT OF GOLD MINES.

Few persons who have' not reflected on it carefully could believe in the
value of such facihties for transportation of produce and manures, just as when
we ha\'e been long in the enjoyment of blessings, even that greatest of all,
good health, we are too apt to become insensible to their importance. But
this is a subject (we mean the effect of cost of transportation on the value of
land) to which we may not now turn, as it would lead us off too wide of
these safe and lasting gold mines near at home, and within the reach of
almost every industrious man.

Suppose, for instance. Dr. Clough's farm had been even twenty miles
from navigable water or other cheap conveyance, such as canal or railroad,
how could he have availed himself of the potato crop, thereby making tons
where otherwise he must have made only bushels of grain in their stead? It
maybe supposed that the land which in 1847 produced him 800 bushels of po-
tatoes, the half of which brought him $300 — say 4 acres being $75 the acre —
would in wheat not have yielded more than one-third that amount. It is dense
population, produced by encouragement of various home-labor, which enables
the farmer to incur the expense of draining his richest lands that otherwise lie
waste — it is that, in a word, which brings the food out of the ground, and
where facilities of quick and cheap communication with large markets exist,
they have the same effect ; but is it not the palpable interest of every farmer,
that the people — the citizens — the weavers, the blacksmiths, the shoemakers,
the tailors, the coal-heavers, and the ironmongers, who make up these mar-
kets— who constitute their customers — should be as numerous, as prosperous,
and as easy to come at, as the wise policy of a paternal government can
make them ? — a policy which looks first and foremost to the development
and cultivation of our oum resources. But to return to this report.

For ourselves, we confess our inability to see why the good people of the
whole Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia do not go more into the
cultivation of hay and root crops, and the making of butter, and the fattening
of cattle and sheep; a system which would tend to keep the refuse of the
products of the land on the land, for its improvement — a system under which
they would raise tons instead of bushels ; seeing that none of them can
retire, if they would, more than five miles from navigable water, and having
in their immediate vicinity, (speaking in reference to easiness of communi-
cation,) at least a million of customers for their potatoes, carrots, beets, tur-
nips, cabbages, apples, butter, lambs, mutton, and beef! It must be obvious
to all, that in whatever proportion the products of the land are consumed on
the land, provided the refuse or excrementitious matter be properly preserved
and disposed of, the more will the strength of the land be preserved and
augmented. Thus, an acre that will yield 25 bushels of wheat may bring
the farmer thirty dollars, leaving him the straw for manure; but how much
more valuable to him if that same acre will give him 400 bushels of pota-
toes, or 800 of turnips, or carrots, to be consumed on the farm, and converted
into butter or mutton, supposing the money yielded to be no more than
thirty dollars, with the addition of as much as pays for the extra labor? — for
has he not got all the elements of fertility which were taken from the land
to be restored to the land ? Does not their locality at once suggest that they
should turn their attention to bulky and perishable crops — to crops, in a
word, that won't bear to be transported from the great West, rather than
grain and other things which will ?

Of the difference of nutritiv^e value in the most common crops, the following
table is derived from high authority. In Europe, it is found, according to
experiments, that an acre which will produce one of these crops will produce
the others, in the proportions here stated. It might, and probably would be
different with us, on account of difference of climate, affecting some of these

THE BEST SORT OF GOLD MINES.

613

products — as, turnips, for one — since in our country generally, we have not
the moisture necessary to produce with certainty a root of which so large a
portion consists of water, (92-5, according to Boussingault.) But he probably
refers to the cominon field-turnip, and it is important that the inquiring
farmer should always bear in mind the great difference in the quantity of
nutritive matter contained, not only in different vegetables, but in different
families of the same vegetable. Some of these may here be noted, at the
cost of prolonging these hasty remarks, already too much extended : 1000
grains of Swedish tui'nips contains of nutritive matter, 64 grains ; yellow
bullock, 44 ; white globe, 42 ; mangold-wurtzel, 136 ; sugar-beet, 146? ;
field cabbage, 73 ; red carrot, 981 ; white carrot, 105 ; parsnip, 99 ; but for
stock, the Swedish turnip is to be recommended, on account not only of its
nutritive properties, but for its quality of keeping so well. Stephens, in his
"Book of the Farm," which no farmer should be without, says, he knew the
produce of a 25-acre field to be stored in dry weather in November, in order
that the land might be sown in wheat. " The store was opened in February,
and the cattle partook of the turnips and continued to like them until June,
when they were sold off, fat, the turnips being then only a little sprouted,
and somewhat withered, but exceedingly swc?t to the taste." We may as
well mention here, too, in passing, that the larger the Swedish turnip in
size, the more nutritive matter is found to be in a given weight of it.
It is time to return to the table of nutritive matters in the produce of an
acre of land, under the supposition that the acre which will yield one of
these will yield the other. As, for example :

Crop.
Wheat

Oats ....
Peas
Potatoes
Turnips
Carrots

Meadow hay .
Clover hay .

As in the general way crops ought to be of money-value in proportion to
their nutritive qualities, does not this table show that that policy of government
conduces most to the welfare of the farmer which draws the loom and the anvil
near to the plough and the harrow ; and placing the customers of the farmer
where they can be supplied economically with that of which the earth yields
largely, instead of that so-called free-trade polic)^ which drives to a distance
the loom and the anvil and the lapstone and the trowel, turning the weaver
and the smith, and the shoemaker and the bricklayer, into rivals, in order to
get their bread, instead of customers who would buy their bread from the
farmer ? and is not this the reason why poor, sandy, stony lands in New
England, covered half the j'-ear with snow, are worth more than the rich river
bottom lands in Virginia, and the blue grass lands in Kentucky ? But again
we are digressing.

The emphatic manner in which the committee has suggested a special
and liberal premium for the best form of keeping farm accounts and registers,
adapted to the peculiar course and condition of Maryland husbandry, is
worthy of particular commendation, and we may hope will not be forgotten.
How is it possible, without such accounts, and without exact farm registers,
to decide on the merits of particular farms or systems, or to proceed with
confidence in any course of rotation or management ? In these cases, for
example, striking as has been the improvement as indicated by the increase
of the crops, how much more satisfactory, if these gentlemen had been pre-

3F ^

Starch

Total of

and

Nutritious

Weight.

Sugar.

Gluten.

Oil.

Matter.

1500

825

185

45

1055

1700

850

230

95

1175

1600

800

380

45

1225

9

3427

604

45

407G

20

4500

540

«

5040

25 «

5G00

1120

200

6920

n "

13G0

240

120

1720

2 "

1800

420

180

2400

614 THE BEST SORT OF GOLD MINES.

pared to state, more in detail, and with more exactness, how much there was
of each crop per acre ! — the cost and the wear and tear of animals and im-
plements— the quantity of seed to the acre — the number of ploughings and
harrowings of their corn crop — the kind of corn and wheat, the cost of labor,
if hired, and, if not, the amount of capital invested in labor, &c., all of which
are essential to any thing like an exact ascertainment of results.

Threadbare as the subject may seem to have become, it is always grati-
fying to find emphasis laid on the importance to be attached by every farmer
to the increase of his store of barn-yard manure. Its accumulation is neces-
sarily attended with so much labor, and demands such constant attention,
that the best farmers are prone to shy it if they can, and to be casting about
for substitutes of one sort or other; but he may rely on it, after all, his own
stercorary should be his great dej)endence. It is to him what a good head
of water is to a country miller, and without it he can no longer continue to
manufacture good crops of wheat, any more than the miller can without
water manufacture his wheat into flour ; and therefore, even at the risk of
dwelling too much on a subject well understood, (which of all things we
most disHke,) we shall now place in juxtaposition with this interesting
report, some remarks of a modern writer of great ability, on the composi-
tion and value of barn-yard manure. To relieve the reader, it may as
well be read as a separate substantive article, well worthy of attention — not
so much for its novelty, as for the very perspicuous manner in which it
presents the important considerations involved.

In connection with the recommendation of the committee to bear more in
mind the importance of deep ploughing, and believing, as we do, and have
often insisted, that one very great defect of American husbandry, after all
our talk about manures, is want of thorough tillage; the fact is recalled
to our mind here, that Mr. William Hambleton — to whom high praise and
(we believe) a premium was awarded on a former occasion, for exemplary
management and great improvement of lands and crops, in the same neigh-
borhood with Mr. Covey— never could be persuaded to plough his land more
than four inches deep ; and as one reminiscence leads to another, we are led
at this point to turn back, only twenty-eight years ago ! to the famous case of
Earl Stimson, of the State of New York, of whose management and crops the
Senior Editor of this journal obtained an account in person from Mr. Stim-
son, whom he visited in company with distinguished farmers from various
States, then sojourning at Saratoga, and from Dr. Steele, then residing
there.

Earl Stimson's farm consisted of 250 acres of land — 100 of these in wood.
In 1812, its average crops were, per acre :

Of Indian Corn ........ 30 bushels.

Wheat 15 «

Barley 20 «

Oats 30 «

Hay ......... \'^ tons.

In 1821 — 9 years after — the same farm produced :

Bushels. Total.

3 acres Oats ....... GO per acre IbO

8 « Indian Corn 112 '' 896

10 « do. 90 « 900

4 " Spring Wheat . . . . . 34 " 136
6 « Barley 60 " 360

31 acres produced ........ 2472

bushels of grain, being an average of nearly SO bushels to the acre, and his
system was never to go, if he could help it, cither more or less than three

THE BEST SORT OF GOLD MINES. 615

inches. Being then, curious, as our reader may be, to know the nature of
his soil, the following was given as the result of careful analysis, made, it is
presumed, by Dr. Steele :

Water 9-5

Animal and Vegetable Matter ...... 12-5

Clay ; . . . . 17-5

Silicious Sand ......... 54

Carbonate of Lime ........ .3

Soluble Salts . . . ^ 1

Oxide of Iron ........ .1

9?5
Loss .......... 1-5

We shall reproduce the whole statement as soon as Ave can find room.

We shall doubtless have from the State Chemist, an exact analysis of the
soils of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. There must be some special and
explainable reasons why such men as Mr. Hambleton would plough only
four inches deep.

We remember, too, that our lamented friend — that estimable and well-
bred gentleman — Gen, Thomas Emory, in an agricultural address, stated it
as an undeniable fact, that the general opinion and experience of the Eastern
Shore of Maryland was against deep ploughing.* We merely mention these
facts as we go along. Montgomery County, in Maryland, is entitled to the
credit of first calling the attention of Maryland farmers, in a very emphatic
manner, to the virtue of deep tillage, and perhaps the germ of the substra-
tum plough is to be found in a letter from the venerable Roger Brooke, of
that county, to the Senior Editor of this journal, twenty-eight years ago, in
which he urged, in a very pointed manner, that to give encouragement for
its invention was an object well-worthy the attention of agricultural societies. t

* In an address to the Agricultural Society of Queen Anne's County, (has it gone the
way of all flesh ?) from which we shall make more extended extracts, is this remark : —
" Mr. Bordley, the only writer we have had, is not satisfactory on this subject. Judge
Peters has somewhere said that he had understood that the land on this Shore would not
bear deep ploughing. This is unquestionably the opinion (says General Emory) of all
practical men with whom I am acquainted." It was the practice of the late John Single-
ton, of Talbot County, whose memory is worthy of the deepest veneration, never to plough
his corn after planting. His reliance was altogether on the harrow.

jIn 1821, twenty-eight years ago! he wrote to the Senior Editor of "The Plough, the
Loom, and the Anvil,"' (thezi Editor and Proprietor of " The American Farmer," as fol-
lows : —

" Our agricultural implements generally, and ploughs particularly, have lately been
much improved, and deep ploughing has been adopted by almost all good farmers. We
however lack one implement from the operation of which it is believed we should derive
many important advantages. I mean a proper instrument to follow the plough in all its
rounds, and to open the bottom of the furrow, so that we may stir the earth and render it per-
vious to a greater depth than can be done by the plough alo^ie, and yet leave the vegetable mould
near the surface where nature has placed it, and where it ought to be for obvious reasons. The
utility of such an operation will be readily seen by all who know the great length of roots
which are thrown out by most vegetables, wherever they find sufficient depth of loose
earth. I have for years had thoughts of putting in practice something of the kind, but not
knowing exactly what would best perform the desired operation, added to a disposition
too apt to delay the perfortnance of what I know to be right — I liave neglected it. Although
it may appear at first view to be no difficult thing to construct something adapted to the
purpose, yet I think it of consequence enough to claim the attention of the Maryland
Agricultural Society, and worthy of a handsome premium, for the one that will, with a
given power, break the whole width of the furrow to the greatest depth. Should it not
be deemed worthy of consideration to the society, I hope some of our ingenious and public
spirited mechanics will exert their inventive powers, to confer a benefit on the cultivators
ofthe soil. I have thought of three coulters, or tlie same number of the tines ofBeatson's

616 THE BEST SORT OF GOLD MINES.

Now all we have to say further about these "best managed farms" is,
that if a member of the Legislature of Maryland, present at a proposition of
some slang-whanger looking for distinction and popularity by proposing a
tax on the farmer, or what is the same thing, a draft on the treasury, to buy
a sword for an officer in reward for his uniform promptitude and excellence
in bloody battle-fields, we should move that at the same time there should be
purchased by the State, at like cost, highly ornamented implem.ents of agri-
culture, with silver or gold mountings and inscriptions, to be presented by
the President of the State Agricultural Society to John A. Clough and to
Edward Covey, and from year to year to those in each State distinguished
by the award of their brother farmers, for " best management ;" and if we
could not make it appear that such a disposition of the taxes levied on the
planter and the farmer would better comport with the real, well understood
interests of a republican country, then would we relinquish for ever all con-
fidence in the ultimate predominance of common sense, and sound reason,
and just discrimination, and public virtue, over the love of vain-glory and
the arts of popularity-hunting and humbuggery.

But let us exhort our friends in the country — those who begin to appre-
ciate their rights and their power — to hold on. Better times are coming,
if there is any thing in signs. What we want, and what we will have, is
a policy that looks to the interests of our own country — to harmonizing all
our own interests, and the cultivation of our own resources. Then will we
force those who now levy on us fifteen millions a year to keep up military
establishments, to establish better systems of industrial education for the
people — systems under which the whole rising generation shall be taught
the principles that essentially belong to all industrial pursuits, including,
(most especially)yormi« 0-, which is the basis of the prosperity of all others. It
only requires that each man intending to live by the land, as you and your
sons do, shall learn thoroughly ivhat the land is, and what can be done with
it. Having so learned, the farmer will apply himself steadily and effectually
to the practical working of his occupation. Thus will he become certain of
success, and success will render him independent, independence will again
beget knowledge and respectability, and these will bring him power, for
therein is it that "knowledge is power," nor is any sort of power honorable,
reliable, or worth having, compared with that which is based on knowledge.

scarifier placed in a triangular position, but this I leave to better judges, not doubting that
if others attach the same importance to the operation that I do, something suitable to per-
form it will be hivented."

The invention of labor-saving implements ought to take precedence of all other objects
for agricultural premiums. One of the wisest and most benevolent farmers that ever
illustrated the agricultural annals of our country — the late James Wadsworth, of New
York — said on this subject, twenty-five years ago, " I am doubtful as to the expediency of
small premiums for cattle. I think the raising of these animals maybe left to self-interest.
Suppose you take a hint from Napoleon, and offer very liberal rewards for great improve-
ments in ag-nn«Z^M)-rt/ implements?" True, the Agricultural Society of that State appears
not to have concurred with him in his opinion — as we see that for 1849, while they have
offered 1.50 or 200 premiums for cattle, in sums ranging, many of them, fiom $10 up to
$50, for agricultural implements, the offers are $2 — some two and a "dip," yet under the
head "Farm Imjilements" thpy offer $10 as the highest for any single one, and that
only in the case of best wheat-thresher, the improvement of which would require ten
times as much exercise of mind, and inventive genius, and expensive experiments, as
buying or fattening a bull or a bullock. Let us take room here to repeat the suggestion
that instead of returning small surpluses into the Treasury from the Patent-office, they
should be expended in otlering premiums fof inventions of great and unquestionable im-
portance in agricultural and mechanical industry. Here, too, is a field open for the
employment of the thousands which the American Institute is accumulating, for — diey
know not what !

THE BEST SORT OF GOLD MINES. 617

It is the want of this — want of direct and thorough instruction in the prin-
ciples and the rights of their calling — that subjects farmers to be ruled so
exclusively by lawyers and doctors, and to be taxed for the establishment
of schools only to teach the art of — war and bloodshed !

REPORTS OF C0M:MITTEES AT THE TALBOT COUNTY CATTLE SHOW

AND FAIR,

Held at Easton, Maryland, November 15, IG, a7id 17, 1848.

KEPORT ON FARMS.

The Committee on Farms, instructed by the Societies through tlieir advertisement, pro-
ceeded to inspect those otiered for premium, and in accordance with the specifications set
forth, respectfully report : — First, of the farm of Mr. Edward Covey, near St. Michaels.
For an account of Mr. Covey's practice in manuring, and system of rotation, and for other
important information in connection with his management and success, they refer the
societies to the following statement, drawn up and forwarded by Mr. Samuel Hamble-
ton, Sr. :

« The first glance must have convinced the committee that mine is not a show farm ;
my small force forbids any attempt at embellishment. My main object has been to
restore its lost fertility; how far I have succeeded you will be able to judge from your
hasty review, and the following facts and observations elicited by cjuestions put to me by
one of your board. I purchased this farm in 1S36, then containing 196 acres, at $15 per
acre, and placed on it a tenant. The first crop was a little over 100 bushels of wheat,
and 90 barrels of corn, and the crops the second year were rather less. One-third of
these crops I received as rent. I settled on it in 1839. My first crop of wheat was 330
bushels, corn crop not recollected ; the farm then in three fields. In 1841 it was divided
into five fields, and I am now clearing up land for the sixth. In 1838 I added to my
farm by purchase, 54 acres, at $22, and in 1840, 18 acres, at $20 per acre, so that the farm
now contains 2G8 acres, at the average cost of $16-80 per acre ; amounting to $4512.
These two last parcels of land at the time of purchase, and as late as 1841, lay out unen-
closed,as a common. Every year I have burned and applied lime from oyster-shells, one
year as high as nine thousand bushels ; every field has been dressed over. Occasionally
I buy a few loads of manure in St. Michaels, and one year hauled out marsh ; but of late
my m.ain reliance has been on my own farm-yard, which enables me to manure my corn
cultivation every year. A few years ago I applied leached ashes, in all six thousand
bushels ; but not satisfied with their efl'ects, have discontinued their use. Since 1841, my
system, without much variation, has been two fields in wheat, one in corn, and two in
pasture; clover-seed yearly on corn and wheat. I have in vain endeavored to ascertain
the amount of my early crops. The committee will probably conclude that they were not
bad, when they hear that with the aid of one thousand dollars in hand, they enabled me,
after supporting my family, to complete my payments for this farm four years ago. The
amount of my crops for the last three years, with the amount they sold for, or are worth,
is as follows :

" 1846. Wheat, 1384 bushels — Corn, no account — sold for $1800.

« 1847. Wheat, 1150 bushels — Corn, 400 barrels — sold for $2150.

« 1848. Wheat, 1500 bushels — Corn, 300 barrels — on hand, worth $2250.

"The average of those years, of wheat, is 1344 bushels — average, same time, receipts
for grain, $2066. I sell beef and pork every year, but cannot say how much. My work-
ing force, principally hired, superintended by myself, is somewhat less than four efiicient
hands. I use horses altogether for labor. It will be seen that the original cost of this
farm was $4515. Its present value is matter of opinion. If for sale, it would probably
bring $50 per acre — $13,400. The committee, from these facts and estimates, will be
able to form a tolerably correct opinion of the progress of improvement, and the means by
which it has been made.

" I am, very respectfully, your obedient servant, Edward Cotey."

His method of draining is that practised generally in this county, by ditches combined
with water furrows, from which the earth is carted either to the compost-heap, or to fill
up some low spot in the field ; and in the opinion of the committee has been tolerably
well executed. His cultivation, as evidenced by the condition of the fields in which he
bad just seeded wheat, is highly creditable. As to grasses, the committee saw no evidence
tliat he had turned any attention to them, further than mentioned iahis statement j but
Vol. L— 78 3 f 2

618 THE BEST SORT OF GOLD MINES.

have from his known enterprise, good reason to hope that he will soon follow in the foot-
steps of his neighbor, Mr. Hambleton, of whom it was well said by last year's committee,
that " had he no other merit, his attention to stock, and the provision he has made for their
sustenance and protection, shonld alone entitle him to the highest consideration." Mr.
Covey's stock, so far as seen by the committee, were'Ordinarily good. Of his farm build-
ings, fencing, and gates, they saw nothing in any respect particularly worthy of note. His
utensils, it is presumable from the fact of his good cultivation and the amount of labor
performed, are sufficiently good.

The committee next inspected the farm of Dr. John A. Clough, of whom they obtained
the following statement :

"Gentlemex: — The farm on which I now reside, was purchased of the late Col. Wm.
Hughlett, in the year 1833, for the sum of $2800, and contained at that time 162| acres
of land ; since then, 1S3G, I have added to it by purchase, nearly ten acres, at a cost of
$30 per acre, making in all about 172 acres, the arable portion of which is about 120
acres ; the wood contains 42 acres, and there is in broken shore and marsh about 10 acres.
At the time of purchase, it was cultivated .on the three-field system, and was so continued
until 1838 and 1839, when I divided it into five fields, which are not equal in size, owing
to the inconvenient form of the farm. The fencing and ditching, at the time of purchase,
were in bad condition; and the rent did not pay the interest of the purchase-money.
The land in cultivation has been kept seeded widi clover, timothy, and orchard grass, as
fast as the manuring could progress; but that progress was slow, indeed, under the three-
field system, in comparison with the five-field, as an exhibit below of the crops will
verify. Under the five-field culture, one field was manured and put in corn, a fallow
prepared in the summer for wheat upon clover ; the corn crop was taken off the land in
the fall, and both seeded in wheat, which was continued annually for three years; but at
the end of that time, I thought it nearly as much expense to prepare a fallow as it was to
cultivate a corn crop, owing to the formation of a heavy sod of blue grass, consequently I
abandoned the fallow and put two fields in corn : one upon clover and grass sod, the
otlier upon wheat stubble, using a fair dressing of manure to each, which last system (if
it coidd be called one) destroyed the grasses about as fast as the one preceding had
increased them. Therefore in the latter part of July, 1S44, I concluded to try a stubble
fallow, by turning in the stubble and weeds which had collected. The land being well
and deeply ploughed, was rolled, and from 50 to 60 bushels slaked lime applied to the
acre, after which it was harrowed both length and cross-ways the ridges, which nearly
levelled them. The wheat was then seeded length-ways the rows, and ploughed in
shallow, keeping the ridge in the same place where it was when limed. I have con-
tinued this system of stubble fallow ever since. One half die time, or every other year,
seeding two fields on stubble, the other half one field in fallow and one on corn land.
Two fields have been gone over on the above plan, viz : — of getting a crop of corn and
three crops of wheat in succession from the same field, with a decided increase in pro-
duct, as well as quality of the grain; and also an improvement in the general appearance
of the soil, which I attribute to the action of lime and the vegetable matter ploughed in.
AH the arable land has been dressed over with Indian shell, mixed as they were with a
dark rich mould, at the rate of 120 cart loads, of 12 bushels each, per acre — making
upwards of 1400 bushels. The other manures used have been marsh, pine rushes, and
soil from the woods; the manure of the farm-yard, stable, and hog-pen, somedmes used
separately, at others in compost. The nimiber of working hands, when I first took pos-
session, were one man, two lads, and two small boys, except at harvest. The bauds
employed since, have been two men and two small boys. The number of horses or
mules kept for work or riding, has been five throughout the whole period, and one pair of
oxen. Under-draining to the extent of about one acre, has been tried with complete suc-
cess ; the materials used were pine trees sawed into 12-inch lengths, split in slabs about
two inclies thick; the ditches were then cut from two to three feet deep, two feet wide at
top, and the breadth of a spade at the bottom. The slabs were dien set in the bottom of
the ditch, inclining from one side to the other ; pine bushes were dien put in until it was
about a half or two-thirds full, and then the whole covered with earth, the sod put in first.
No more cattle or hogs are kept than are requisite for the farm, and due attention is given
to keep their pens well filled with marsh and the scrapings of the woods, to be worked
into manure. I purchased of Col. Hughlett die rent corn for 1833, and received 18 barrels
(90 bushels) of good corn, and 4 J of short, being one-Uiird of what was raised. The crop
of wheat not recollected, but altogether insufficient to pay the interest on the pmchase-
money. I have purchased and applied 6850 bushels of lime.

Bushels

Bushels

Corn.

Wheat.

24 LV

140

1843

286

91

1844

410^

180

1845

386^

168

1846

642

368

1847

628J

454

Bushels

Bushels

Corn.

■Wheat

674

6^4

941

434

910|

675

1081

550

1110

869

THE BEST SORT OF GOLD MINES. 619

« I here give an account of my crops for almost the entire time of possession, some
years unfortunately not recollected. The quantity of wheat stated is the crop raised ; of
corn, it is the quantity sold only. What was used should be added, which could not be
less tlian 300 bushels per annum :

1834

1835

1837 .

1838

1841 .

1842

« 1848 not yet ascertained, but supposed 1500 bushels corn, 900 bushels wheat.

" The crops of Mercer potatoes for several years have been worth about $100. In
1847, the crop was 800 bushels, one half of which were lost by rot ; the others sold for
over $300. That of the present year has in part been sold for $2 1 4.

« JoHsr A. Clough."

Between these two gentlemen, the committee have great difficulty in deciding. Both
appear to have applied themselves with equal energy to their similar vocations. The
one — Mr. Covey — on land worn-out and destitute of calcareous manures, almost entirely;
yet by dint of great labor and expense, has dressed oyer his land heavily with those
indispensable substances, and by their aid brought it to a point of fertility and profit rarely
known in agriculture. The other — Dr. Clough — whose land was equally much reduced,
yet favored by nature with resources in which the lormer was deficient, has applied
them with a skill and industry not to be surpassed. His large purchases of lime show
that he spares no proper expense, whilst his skill in cultivation is equal to that of Mr.
Covey, as evidenced by a proportionate increase of grain. His more diversified and suc-
cessful experiments, his attention to grasses, the productiveness of his soil, good condition
of his ditches, fences, and gates, care of farming utensils, the neat and convenient arrange-
ment of his commodious farm buildings, all combined, place him on an equality with the
best farmers of the times, and in the opinion of the committee entitle him to the first pre-
mium. To Mr. Covey, they award the second premium, not because he has no com-
petitor to whom it could be given, for the committee tliink in point of well-directed
industry and careful management, he is second to no man, and have to regret that he has
not been in possession of his farm a length of time sufficient to have enabled him to bestow
more attention to his fencing and ditching, and to the grasses, so essential to a thorough
system of farming.

The committee, nothing doubting that the Societies of Talbot in their action with regard
to all suggestions offered in good faith, will be guided by the same enlightened liberality
which has marked their past course, respectfully suggest for consideration, whether, inas-
much as experience clearly indicates the entire absence, in our community, of a simple and
comprehensive system of farm accounts, it might not be well, in conjunction with such
societies in other counties as may feel disposed to act M'ith them, to ofl(?r a premium for
the best that shall be submitted before their next annual exhibition. By the introduction
of such a system, embracing widiin its range those prominent points which, in th? progress
of intelligence, have been admitted to have a bearing, the operations of future committees
would soon be greatly facilitated, and solid information would be more rapidly and tho-
roughly diffused.

The committee cannot take leave of this subject without endeavoring to impress on the
farming community of this county the great and primary importance of deep ploughing,
so far as the nature of the soil will allow — as rich and fertile soils will admit of being
broken much deeper than those that are poor and thin. But even on these latter soils, we
must deepen the plough gradually if we wish to improve them in a permanent manner.
If we stir the land at all, it is but reasonable that we stir it well. We cannot sow without
ploughing. Does not good sense tell us all, that if it is necessary to loosen the soil imper-
fectly for the benefit of growing plants, it is more useful to do so in the best possible man-
ner? Why do we fallow, but to give the field the benefit of repeated ploiighings and
liarrowing, thus loosening perfectly every part of it, and permitting every particle of earth
to be acted on by the rains, the dews, and the indispensable influence of light and warmth ?
The effect of all this stirring is observable upon the seed put into the ground, for all must
have observed that the grain sown in a fallow field will genninate several days sooner
than on one where the soil has not been so well prepared, and the growing plant will
maintain its superiority for a long subsequent time. It is to be hoped, therefore, that our

620 THE BEST SORT lOF GOLD MINES.

farmers will turn their attention to this important subject, and give us the result of some
well-conducted experiment, which will establish the difference in product between a well
stirred or an imperfectly ploughed field. Of so much importance is this subject regarded
in other countries, that experiments are there in process of execution to ascertain how far
spade husbandry, as a farming operation, will compare with that where the plough is
used ; and as far as we are informed, although the exjjense is much greater, a correspond-
ing increase of crop has nevertheless been the result. Their more numerous population
gives them much greater facilities than we enjoy, and they have established the great
practical truth, that a deep and perfectly stirred soil is an essential element of a farmer's
success.

The subject of manure is another branch of agriculture of no less importance than the
one upon which the committee have already at some length commented ; and as equally
deserving of all the consideration that the farmer can bestow upon this part of his most
important vocation. All created things are so constituted that the perfect development of
one almost necessarily involves the destruction and decay of its predecessor. This is the
case with the long list of vegetable productions given us by Providence. The death of
the one affords the aliment for the growth of its successor, and its perfection is much aided
by the application of the decayed remains of the former ; and the series by carrying out
the rule, instead of becoming more and more degenerated, is only rendered more vigorous
and healthy. Manure is, according to the experiments of chemists and scientific agricul-
turists, the organic remains of what has constituted vegetable life. Its application in this
state to the germinating seeds and roots stimulates the tender plant to put forth all its
powers for growth and maturity. That this is a law of creation, is dictated alike by obser-
vation, reading, and reflection. Men cannot violate it without loss, nor act upon it without
remuneration. Such being the case, it becomes our duty to use all efforts to make so much
of this valuable substance as we can possibly consume ; not to be content with that made
by our cattle in barn-yards alone, but to use as much time as is consistent with our other
farming duties in collecting all else that will contribute to its increase. Providence has
not stinted us to the use only of one kind of manure, but in His wise dispensation has
enlarged the source from which it may be gathered, leaving it to the industry of man
alone to make it commensurate with his wants. Within a few years the substances used
for it have increased to a great extent. He must use an abundant supply of litter — draw
muck, leaves, turf, scrapings of ditches, sods ; indeed almost every locality has its own
peculiar advantages to increase this kind of collection, and it would be very easy generally
to double the quantity that under the ordinary course of farm management would be col-
lected. Calcareous manures is another branch of this subject, upon which the committee
will not touch, as they do not profess the scientific knowledge to treat it as it should be
done. We have all used lime and marl, more or less, and know from experience that
our lands can be brought to the highest point of fertility by their application, but the man-
ner of action we are unable to give. This cannot be done until education is more generally
diffused, and our farmers call tlie intelligence of the head to aid the labor of the hands.
But the abundant use of these substances is of so much importance to the entire connnu-
nity, that the committee think it not inai^propriate to state, that the recorded opinion of the
most scientific and learned writers upon those matters, deduced from careful, exact experi-
ments, is " That a soil full of calcareous matter never produces an unwholesome atmo-
sphere." We cannot conclude without a word or two in reference to the benefits already
conferred by the Societies in the improvement of our stock and farms ; they promise to
increase the value of our lands, and to augment the supply of the necessaries of life, and
their moral operation is to make the profession of farming so respectable by products and
profits that we will be taught by interest not to forsake it.

Wm. Hayward, Chairman. Jos. B. Harhington,
Sam'l. Emersox, John Newnam.

Thos. R. Holltuat,

A Prolific ViifE. — In 1819, a single pumpkin-seed, in Herkimer County, New York,
produced :

Pumpkins ......... 50

Length of vine 730 feet.

Weight of pumpkins ... .... 434^ lbs.

Weight of the vine ....... 136 "

Weight of pumpkins and vine, from one seed . . . 570^ "

How many fold for one is that ?

NATURE AND VALUE OF FARM-YARD MANURE. 621

ON THE NATURE AND VALUE OF FARM- YARD MANURE.

I HAVE already noticed that to certain plants the atmosphere is itself a
source of nitrofTen,but it is not so to all, not even to the most important ; the
givinof of nitrogen to the soil is, therefore, a most essential office of manures.
To effect this, a variety of means have latterly been afforded to the fanner,
as the nitrates of potash and of soda, the salts of ammonia, the decomposed
excrements of sea birds, guano, and numerous other even more complex
bodies, all of which serve the purpose, all of which promote the fertility of
the soil and favor the growth of plants, when judiciously applied, but none
of which possess any real utility over the manure available on the farm,
suitable to every crop, and most ready in its action. To this manure it is,
therefore, highly important for the economical farmer to direct attention, in
order that correct ideas may be formed as to the care which it deserves, and
the relation tvhich it bears to the crops, a>id feeding operations of the farm.

If we consider the final application of farm produce, it will appear that
comparative I j^ little of it is absolutely removed from off the ground, and that
by much the larger proportion is consumed within the limits of the farm, in
the provisioning and stalling of the various animals. The corn which is
sold, or the animals which are sent to market, remove from the farm certain
quantities of inorganic materials and of nitrogen, which must be replaced, in
order to sustain its fertilit}', and the cost of replacing which must be con-
sidered a necessary and fair deduction from their money price ; but the
straw of the corn crops, the tops of turnips and potatoes, contain a much
larger quantity of those materials which need not be removed from off the
farm, but, on the contrary, should be most carefully returned to the soil, to
serve for the support of future crops of plants. It is similarly with the pro-
duce consumed by the animals as food. Each day's food serves but to re-
place in its organization the materials which are daily thrown off from its
frame. The dejections and excretions of the animal must, therefore, repre-
sent the food which it consumes, and thus by returning to the soil all such
materials, the sustenance of the animal is really deprived of any power of
diminishing the fertility of the soil. I do not here consider the case of fat-
tening animals, but only such as are sustained in a uniform condition and
health ; but the fattening does not affect the principle in any important
degree.

Now these various materials, the straw of the corn crops, the tops of the
potato and turnip crops, the excretions and dejections of the animals sustained
upon the farm, all mixed and subjected to the reaction which soon sets in
amongst their chemical ingredients, constitute farm-yard manure. It is
made up of the remains and products of every kind of crop : it contains,
therefore, the elements of every kind of crop. Its state is continually changing,
as it is more or less rotted, and hence no two specimens of it Avould probably
agree exactly in constitution, but still, as illustrating in a general point of
view the nature of its elements, I shall add the results of analyses made by
Boussingault of that which, in a half rotted condition, he puts out on his
experimental farm.

The manure, in its usual form, contains in average 79-3 per cent, of
water, and 20-7 of perfectly dry material.

The dry material contained :

Richest.

Carbon 40-0

Hydrogen ...... 4-3

Nitrogen ..... 2-4

Oxygen 27-6

Salts and earth .... 25-7

100-0 100-0 1000

Poorest.

Average.

32-4

35-8

3-8

4-2

1-7

2-0

258

25-8

36-3

32-2

622 DESIGNS OF PROVIDENCE.

The ashes of this manure contain in 100 parts :

Carbonic acid ......... 2-0

Phosplioric acid . . . ...... 3-0

Sulphuric acid ......... 1-9

Chlorine . . .x 0-6

Silica, sand, and clay ........ 66-4

Lime 8-6

Magnesia ... . . ..... 3-6

Oxide of iron and alumina . . . . . , . 6-1

Potash and soda ....... . 7-8

On comparing- this with the analyses of the ashes of various grasses and
cultivated plants, it will be at once evident, that every constituent which they
require is present in the farm-yard manure. It is, therefore, of the most
vital importance to those whose livelihood depends upon the produce of
their farms to economize as completely as possible this valuable material.
A dung-heap formed on the ordinary ground of the farm-yard, allows of the
escape of the most valuable poiHions of the manure by drainage through the
porous soil. By exposure to the weather during wet seasons, the most
active of its elements may be washed away. These disadvantages maj'' be
removed at very trifling cost by the adoption of such modes of collecting and
preserving the manure as are employed in other countries. The dung-heap
should be formed upon an impervious floor of brick-clay or of cement, this
to dip towards the centre, so as to form a shallow tank, toward which the
floors of the various stables should have such inclination as would enable the
drainings to be conveyed by suitable channels to the central tank. By such
an arrangement nothing o-oes to waste; the liability to loss by rain is obvi-
ated, and even the smallest farmer will very soon find the cost and trouble
Mfell repaid by the improvement, as well in the quantity as in the quahty,
of his stock of manure.

I am not disposed to underrate the importance of the various artificial and
foreign manures, the efiects of which on the fertility of the soil have been
in many cases wonderful, often by their activity producing results to which
the farm-yard manure would be incompetent, and by their portability pre-
senting, in many localities, a real advantage. Nevertheless, in the existing
state of education in this country, it is, as I conceive, far more useful to
point out to the struggling farmer hoiv to take advantage of the materials
which now run to waste about his stables, than to send him to lay out
ready money, of which he generally has so little, for a fertilizer, of whose
special properties and nature he is probably quite ignorant, and which has
seldom any great advantage over well prepared farm-yard manure. — Kane.

THE DESIGNS OF PROVIDENCE,

IN THE DISTRIBUTION OF NATURAL RESOURCES FOR NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE.

In the formation of the world, as far as geological observation has enabled
us to estimate, the distribution of coal made by Providence for the use, as we
may suppose, of the countries respectively, is as follows :

In the United States . . . . . . . 133,132 square miles.

Great Britain 11.859 "

Spain 8,408 «

France - . . 1,719 «

Belgium 518 «

British Provinces in America ..... 18,000 «

Making an area of coal formations of .... 168,036 square miles.

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

623

There are other countries in which coal is found, but the areas are not
given. We have, however, the quantities mined, which, in 1845, were :

In Belgium 4,960,000 tons.

Prussia 3,245,307 «

France 4,141,617 «

Great Britain 31,500,000 "

Austria 659,340 «

But estimate of America, both anthracite and bituminous, about 4,000,000 »

Making the whole produce of coals 48,506,564 tons.

Now, was this coal provided by an all-wise and overruling Power to be
used, or to be left undisturbed in the bowels of the earth, there to sleep for
ever, along-side of beds of iron ore, which it is fitted to smelt and bring into
form — while we send away to foreign countries, because their people are so
heavily taxed and so nearly starved to death that they (to keep from starving
outright) can make iron a little cheaper than we can ? But every thing is
not cheapest that costs the least in amount to buy it — as perhaps the planter
and the farmer of the United States may find out, after they have been fleeced
for another half century, to the tune oi '■'■freetrader''

fEntered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by John S. Skinner & Son, in the CIerli'3 Oflice of the
District Court of tlie Eastern District of Pennsylvania.]

THE AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL-BOOK. '

FOURTH LESSON.
OF THE ORGANIC SUBSTANCE OF PLANTS.

1. The organic substance of plants chiefly consists of woody fibre, starch,
and gluten.

2. Woody fibre is the substance which forms the greater part of all kinds
of wood, straw, hay, and chaff', of the shells of nuts, and of cotton, flax,
hemp, &c.

3. Starch is a white powder, which forms nearly the whole substance of
the potato, and about half the weight of oatmeal, wheaten flour, and of the

Fig. 13. flour of other kinds of grain cultivated for food.

4. Gluten is a substance like bird-hme,
which exists, along with starch, in almost all
plants. It may be obtained from wheaten
flour, by making it into a dough, and washing
it with water, (fig. 13.)

The teacher will here mix flour with water into a
dough, and wash it with water upon a piece of
thin muslin tied over the mouth of a tumbler or
other large glass, (fig. 13,) and will show how the
milky water carries the starch through the muslin,
and leaves the gluten behind, anil how, after a
time, the starch settles at the bottom of the water,
in the form of a white powder.

624 AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

5. The woody fibre is the most abundant in the stems of plants, and the
starch in their seeds.

6. Starch also exists abundantly in the roots of the potato, and other simi-
lar roots.

7. Woody fibre, starch, gum, and sugar, all consist of carbon and water
only.

8. As the leaves drink in carbonic acid and water, ail these substances
may be derived from their food.

9. Leaves return the carbonic acid to the air, because they do not require
it to form woody fibre and starch.

10. The carbonic acid gas in the atmosphere would be exhausted by ve-
getation, if it were not continually renewed from other sources.

11. These sources are three in number.

First — From the breathing of animals, since all animals throw off'a small
quantity of carbonic acid from their lungs every time they breathe

This may be shown by breathing the air from the lungs for some time through clear
lime water, by means of a small glass tube, or a straw, when the lime water will
gradually become milky, as it does when pure carbonic acid is passed through it,
(fig. 11.)

Second — From the burning of wood, coal, candles, &c., since the carbon
■which wood contains, when it burns in the air, forms carbonic acid gas just
as pure carbon when burned in oxygen does.

Third — From the decay of vegetables and roots in the soil, since this de-
cay is only a slow kind of burning, by which the carbon of plants becomes
at last converted into carbonic acid.

12. Animals and plants appear to live for each other's support. Thus the
animal produces carbonic acid, upon \\\nc\\ plants live, and from this carbonic
acid and water together, plants produce starch, &c., upon which animals live.

13. Water consists of oxygen and hydrogen.

14. Every 9 lbs. of Avater contains 8 lbs. of oxygen, and 1 lb. of hy-
drogen.

15. It is very wonderful that water, composed as it is of two gases, (hydro-
gen, which burns readily, and oxygen, in which bodies burn with the
greatest brilliancy,) should put out all fire ; but there are many substances,
the composition of which is almost equally extraordinary.

16. For instance, it is extraordinary that white starch should consist of
black charcoal and water only, and that sugar and gum should consist of tiie
same elements as starch and woody fibre.

17. We may say, then, that all these substances consist of carbon, hydro-
gen, and oxygen.

The teacher may take this op])ortunity of explaining more particularly the word ele-
ments, contrasting the nature of the elementary bodies, hydrogen, oxygen, carbon, and
nitrogen, which camwt be separated or split up into more than one kind of tnatler, with
such compound bodies as carbonic acid, water, starch, and oxide of mercury, which
can be separated into more than one.

18. Gluten consists of all the four elements — carbon, hydrogen, oxygen,
and nitrogen — united to a little sulphur and phosphorus.

19. Plants obtain carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen from the air; but nitro-
gen, sulphur, and phosphorus they usually obtain almost solely from the
soil.

Note. Hence the importance of adding to the soil manures which contain these three
latter substances.

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

625

QUESTIONS.

1. Of what compound bodies does tlie
substance of plants usually consist?

2. What is woody fibre 1

3. What is starch ?

4. What is gluten ?

5. Which of the three substances is usually
most abundant in plants ?

6. Is starch found in the roots of plants?

7. What do woody fibre and starch, and
also giun and sugar consist of?

8. May these substances be formed from
the food which the leaves drink in?

9. Why do plants give oft" the oxygen of
the carbonic acid into the air?

10. Why do not plants rob the air of the
whole of its carbonic acid ?

11. Whence do the supplies of carbonic
acid come?

12. How is it that animals and plants ap-
pear to live for each other's support ?

13. Woody fibre, starch, gum, and sugar
consist of carbon and water only — of what
does water itself consist?

14. What are the relative proportions
of oxygen and hydrogen in 9 lbs. of wa-
ter?

15. What is there wonderful about wa-
ter?

16. What other substances are as remark-
able?

17. Of what elements do all these sub-
stances consist ?

IS. Of what does gluten consist?
19. Do plants derive from the air all the
elements of which gluten consists ?

FIFTH LESSON.

OF THE SOIL ON WHICH PLANTS GROW.

1. A soil consists of an organic or combustible, and of an inorganic or
incombustible part.

2. This is proved by heating a portion of soil to redness on a bit of sheet

Fig. 14. iron, or on the end of a knife, either in the

fire or over a lamp. The soil will first turn
black, showing the presence of carbona-
ceous matter, and will afterwards assume
a gray brown or reddish color, as this black
organic matter burns away.

The teacher will show this experiment, and
will explain the meaning of the new word car-
bonaceous.

3. The organic part of the soil is derived from the roots, stems, and leaves
of decayed plants, and from the dung and remains of animals and insects of
various kinds.

4. Of peaty soils this organic part sometimes forms three-fourths of the
whole weight, but of rich and fertile soils it does not usually form more than
a twentieth to a tenth of the whole weight.

5. A soil cannot bear good crops if it does not contain a considerable pro-
portion of organic matter. A rich soil generally contains at least one twen-
tieth of its weight (5 per cent.) of organic matter.

6. When land is frequently cropped without manure, its organic matter
diminishes in quantity ; on the contrary, the organic matter increases when
it is planted with trees, laid down to permanent pasture, or heavily manured.

7. The organic food which plants draw from the soil through their roots is
supplied by this organic matter.

8. The quantity of organic food drawn from the land varies with the kind
of plant, with the kind of soil, and with the season ; but it is always consi-
derable, and is necessary to the healthy growth of the plant.

9. It is then evident that if the soil is constantly cropped, and thus de-
prived of its organic matter, it must gradually become poorer.

Vol. L— 79 3 G

626 AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

10. The supply of organic matter must be kept up by ploughing in green
crops, by growing clover and other plants which leave long roots in the soil,
by restoring all the hay and straw to the land in the form of manure, or by
laying it down to pasture.

11. The inorganic part of the soil is derived from the crumbling down of
the solid rocks.

The teacher will satisfy his pupils — by drawing their attention to the decaying walls
of buildings, to the heaps of what is called rotten rock, (decomposed trap or whin-
stone) — of limestone-gravel, &c., which are found at the foot of the hills — that rocks
really do crumble down in the air.

12. These rocks consist of more or less hardened sandstones, limestones,
and clays.

The teacher may exhibit specimens of

Sandstone — red and white, or other freestones ;

Limestone — chalk and blue, or other limestones;

Clays — roofing slate, and the shale or shiver of the coal beds.

13. All soils consist principally of the same substances, viz., sand, clay,
and hme.

14. If a soil contain very much sand, it is called a sandy soil ; if much,
clay, a more or less stiffclay soil; if much hme, a calcareous soil.

The teacher will explain the new word calcareous.

15. A mixture of sand and clay with a Httle lime is called a loam ; if much
lime is present, it is called a calcareous loam ; and, if it is clay with much
lime, a calcareous clay.

16. Lifcht lands are such as contain a large proportion of sand or gravel;
heavy lands, such as contain much clay.

The teacher may illustrate this by referring to the different kinds of land which occur
in the neighborhood. t

17. Light lands are those most easily and cheaply cultivated.

18. Heavy clay lands that retain water derive more benefit from draining
than light lands.

10. Light lands are frequently dry on the immediate surface, but too wet
beneath — they also should be drained.

20. If a fall can be had, drains should never be less than 30 inches in
depth.

21. The deeper the dry soil is made, the deeper the roots can go in search
of food.

22. The roots of wheat, clover, and flax will go down three feet, and even
turnip roots in an open soil will go down two feet,

2;'. Another object in laying the drains deep, is to enable the subsoil-
plough to go down 20 or 22 inches without injuring them.

24. Besides carrying off the water, draining renders the soil pervious to
the air, and allows the rain-water to sink through it, and v.-ash out any thing
that may be hurtful to the roots of plants.

25. Crops that at first look well suddenly fail when their roots reach the
hurtful matter that often collects in the subsoil.

2(5. It often occurs that lands, either from their situation or quality, wiU
not pay in cultivation, in which case they are generally laid down in jierma-
nent pasture.

27. If such lands are unprofitable from being too heavy and stiff, they may
be made lighter by draining, subsoil ploughing, and by the addition of lime
or marl when it is required.

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

627

The teacher will here explain to his pupils the difference between common ploughing,
which merely turns over the surface soil; subsoil ploughing, which only stirs and
loosens the subsoil; and trench ploughing, or trenching, which brings tlie subsoil to
the surface.

QUESTIONS.

1. What does the soil consist of?

2. How is this proved?

3. Whence is the organic part of the soil
derived ?

4. Does the organic form a large propor-
tion of the soil ?

5. Can a soil bear good crops if it does
not contain a considerable proportion of or-
ganic matter?

6. Does the organic matter increase or di-
minish in the soil, according to the way in
which it is cultivated ?

7. What food does the organic part of the
soil supply?

8. Do plants draw much of their organic
food from the soil ?

y. How is it that land constantly cropped
without manure becomes grfulually poorer?

10. How is the supply of organic matter
kept up ?

11. Whence the inorganic part of the soil?

12. Of what do these rocks principally
consist?

13. Of what do all soils principally con-
sist ?

14. How do you call a soil containing one
of these substances in large quantity?

15. But if the soil contain two or more
of them in large proportions, how do you
name it?

16. What do you understand by light
and HEAvr lands?

17. Which are most easily cultivated?

18. Which kind of land is most benefited
by draining?

19. Do light lands sometimes require
draining ?

20. At what depth should drains be
made ?

21. Why should they be made so deep?

22. How deep do roots penetrate ?

23. What other object is obtained by lay-
ing the drains deep ?

24. For what other purpose besides car-
rying off water is land drained ?

25. Do hurtful substances often collect in
the subsoil ?

26. When are lands usually laid down to
permanent pasture ?

27. How are stiff lands made lighter'?

SIXTH LESSON.

OF THE INORGANIC FOOD OF PLANTS.

1. The inorganic or earthy part of the soil serves two purposes ; ^rst, it
serves as a medium in which the roots can fix themselves, so as to keep the
plant in an upright position ; and, second, it supplies the plant with inor-
ganic food.

2. In addition to sand, clay, and lime, the inorganic part of the soil con-
tains in small quantities eight or nine other substances.

3. These substances are potash, soda, magnesia, oxide of iron, manganese,
sulphuric acid, phosphoric acid, and chlorine.

4. These are exactly the same substances found in the ash, or inorganic
parts of plants, only they form a much larger proportion of the soil than they
do of plants.

5. The special difference between the inorganic part of the soil and that
of the plant, is, that the former^ contains alumina, and the latter does not.

Here the teacher may direct the attention of his pupils to the following table :
The soil contains both silica and alumina.
The plant silica, but no alumina.
The animal neither silica nor alumina.

6. Alumina is a white, earthy, tasteless powder, which exists in alum,
and gives their stiffness to pipe-clays and to stiff clay soils.

Here the teacher will show the preparation of alumina, by pouring a solution of com-
mon soda or of pearl-ash into a solution of alum. The mixture becomes milky, and

628

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

the alumina falls in the form of a white powder, which may be collected on a piece
of linen or cotton cloth, and washed with water.

7. Plants can obtain all their inorganic parts from the soil only, for potash,
soda, magnesia, &c. do not exist in the air.

8. This earthy matter, dissolved by rain-water, enters the plant by the
roots in a state of solution.

Here the teacher will explain the new words dissolve and solution — showing how salt
and sugar melt away or dissolve in water, forming clear solutions of salt or sugar, in
which these substances can be recognised only by the sense of taste — but from which
they may again be obtained unchanged by boiling off the water.

9. Fertile or productive soils contain every one of the inorganic substances
mentioned.

10. A fertile soil must contain them all, because plants require them all
for their healthy growth.

11. Plants do not require them all in equal proportion ; they require more
of some of the substances than of others.

The teacher may illustrate this question by directing the attention of his pupils to the
following table, which he should cause to be copied ivpon a large piece of calico, and
hung upon the wall of his school-room. He can thus readily point out, that, while
1000 lbs. of clover hay leave in all 75 lbs. of ash when burned, there are present in
this ash 28 lbs. of lime, but only 20 lbs. of potash, and less than 4 lbs. of magnestaj
and so on with the ash of the other kinds of hay mentioned in the table.

Quantity and Composition of the Ash left by 1000 lbs. of hay from

Clover.

Rye-grass.

Red.

White.

Lucerne.

Potash, . . .

9

20

31

13^

Soda, ....

4

51

6

6

Lime, ....

7

28

23^

48

Magnesia, . .

1

3

3

31

Oxide of iron,

trace

trace

k

1

3

SiHca, ....

28

4

15

31

Sulphuric acid, .

3f

U

3^

4

Phosphoric acid,

1

61

5

13

Chlorine, . . .

trace

3§

2

3

53 lbs.

741 lbs.

89i lbs.

941 lbs.

This table will suggest to the teacher many instructive questions — which his pupils will
readily understand and answer, when they have the table hanging before them.

12. All these substances, however minute in quantity, are necessary to
the growth of the plant — ^just as the iew ounces of nails are as necessary to
the carpenter in making a box as the many pounds of wood which the box
contains.

13. If then a soil is entirely destitute of any one of these substances, good
crops can not grow upon it.

14. If the soil should contain a large supptyof all the substances but one,
and only a small supply of that one, those plants would grow well upon it
which require only a small quantity of that one substance ; but those which
require a large quantity of it would be stunted and unhealthy.

15. Referring to the preceding table, we find that the ashes from 1000 lbs.
of rye-grass hay contain but 7 lbs. of lime, whereas the same quantity of

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

629

Lucerne hay contains 48 lbs. ; hence we may infer that a soil may produce
very good crops of rye-grass, and yet be so deficient in lime as to grow very
poor lucerne.

By referring to the above table, the teacher may exercise the understanding of his pupils,
by asking for other examples of a similar kind, which an intelligent boy will readily
give by considering the numbers on the table. Thus he may say lucerne requires
more phosphoric acid than rye-grass does; therefore, if there be little phosphoric acid
in the soil, lucerne will not grow so w^ell upon it as rye-grass would do, and so on.

Once for all, it is recommended that all the analytical tables given in this book be printed
upon calico, and suspended upon the walls of the school-room.

16. If a soil should be destitute of a considerable number of these inor-
ganic substances, it would refuse to grow good crops of any kind whatever.
It would be naturally barren.

17. There are many large tracts of country known to be naturally fertile,
and others naturally barren.

18. In the fertile soils all those inorganic substances exist which our cul-
tivated crops require ; in the barren soils, some of these substances are
wholly wanting.

This answer the teacher will illustrate by a reference to the following table.

Composition of Soils of different degrees of Fertility.

Fertile,
without
Manure.

Fertile,
with

Manure.

Barren,

Organic matter,

Sihca, (in the sand and clay,)

Alumina, (in the clay,)

Lime,

Magnesia,

Oxide of iron,

Oxide of manganese,

Potash,

^1 , '. y chiefly as common salt,

Chlorme, 3

Sulphuric acid,

Phosphoric acid,

Carbonic acid, (combined with the lime and magnesia,'

Loss,

97
648

57

59
8i

61
1
2

4

2

2
4i
40
14

\'^

50

833

51

18
8

30
3

trace

40

778

91

4

1

81
\

trace

4d

1000 1000 1000

The soil, of which the composition is given in the first column, had produced crops for
sixty years, without manure, and still contained a sensible quantity of all the substances
required by plants. That in the second column produced good crops when regularly
manured, — it ivas in want of three or four substances only, tvhich were given to it by the
manure. The third was hopelessly barren, — it ivas in want of many substances which
ordinary manuring could 710I supply in sufficient quantity.

19. A soil may contain all the substances required by plants, and yet be
rendered barren by too large a proportion of one of thern — such as oxide
of iron, which in great quantity is injurious to the soil.

20. To improve a soil of the latter description, it should be thoroughly
drained and subsoiled, that the rains might sink through and wash out the
injurious matter. It should also be limed if necessary.

3a2

630

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

QUESTIONS.

1. What are the purposes served by the
inorganic part of the soil 1

2. Does the inorganic part of the soil con-
tain other substances besides clay, lime, and
sand ?

3. Name these substances.

4. Are these the same substances tliat ex-
ist in the ash of plants 1

5. What is the difference between the in-
organic parts of tlie soil and tliose of plants?

6. Describe alumina.

7. Can plants obtain their inorganic parts
elsewhere than from the soil ?

8. How does this eartliy matter enter into
the plant?

9. Do all soils contain every one of the sub-
stances, potash, soda, &c., mentioned?

10. Why should a fertile soil contain them
all?

11. Do plants require all these substances
in equal proijortions ?

12. Are all these substances necessary to
the growth of tlie plant?

13. What is the consequence if a soil is
entirely destitute of any one of these sub-
stances?

14. Suppose a soil to contain a large
supply of all the substances but one, and
a small supply of tliat, what would hap-
pen?

15. Give an example.

16. What would you say of a soil desti-
tute of a considerable quantity of these sub-
stances ?

17. Do lands naturally barren exist?

18. How is the difference between these
soils explained ?

19. Can a soil be barren, and yet contain
all the substances required by plants ?

20. How do you improve a soil of tliis
kind?

SEVENTH LESSON.
EFFECT OF CROPPING UPON THE SOIL.

1. If the same kind of cropping be carried on for a long time, the land will
gradually become less and less productive.

2. If, for instance, a crop of wheat, or corn, or oats, is taken from a field
3'ear after year, it will at last become unable to grow any of these crops.

3. As the same crops draw always the same substances from the soil,
these substances must gradually diminish and finally disappear from the
soil so cropped.

4. Our grain crops especially exhaust the soil of phosphoric acid and of
magnesia.

The teacher will illustrate this by a reference to the following table, representing the
composition of the ash of several kinds of grain usually grown in this country — ex-
clusive of the straw.

Composition of the Ash of Wlieat, Oats, Barley, and Rye.

Wheat.

Oats.

Barley.

Rye.
37-21

Potash and soda,

37-62

19 12

20-70

Lime,

1-93

10-41

3-30

2-92

Magnesia, . . .

9-60

9-98

10-05

1013

Oxide of iron, . .

1-36

5-08

1-93

0-82

Oxide of manganese,

?

1-25

?

1

Phosphoric acid,

49-32

4G-26

40-63

47-29

Sulphuric acid, . .

0-17

...

0-26

1-46

Silica, ....

...

3-07

21-99

0-17
100-00

100-00

98-87

98-92

The teacher will draw attention especially to the large quantity of phosphoric acid in
the above table, and will explain that, as the grain takes out more of this than of any
other substance from the soil, numerous successive crops of grain must exhaust it of
tliis more than of any other substance.

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

631

5. The exhaustion of any particular ingredients in the soil is to be coun-
teracted by the return to the soil of those particular ingredients.

6. If, for instance, the phosphoric acid is carried off, it should be returned
in the shape of ground bones, or guano, or some other substance abounding
in that acid.

7. Any kind of cropping will in time exhaust the most fertile soil, if the
crops are carried off the land, and what they draw from the soil is not again
restored to it.

8. Every crop takes away from the soil a certain quantity of those sub-
stances which all plants require. If you are always taking out of a purse,
it will at last become empty.

9. The farmer takes his money out of the land in the forni" of crops ; and
if he is always taking out and putting nothing in, it must at last become
empty or exhausted.

10. If he put in the proper substances, in the proper quantities, and at
the proper time, he may keep up the fertility of his land — perhaps for ever.

11. To maintain his land in its present condition, the farmer must return
to it at least as much as he takes out.

12. To make his land better, he must put in more than he takes out.

13. His profit consists in this, that he takes off the land what he can sell
for much money, and he puts in what he can buy for comparatively little
money.

14. Thus, when I sell my corn, wheat, or hay, I get a much higher price
for them than I afterwards give when I buy them back again in the form of
horse or cow-dung.

15. As the farmer puts in what is cheap, and takes off what is dear, he
can afford to put on his land as much as he takes off, and yet have a profit.

The teacher may avail himself of this occasion to point out how beautifully and boun-
tifully the earth and the plant are made to work into the hands of the practical far-
mer, by converting into valuable produce tvhat he lays on in the form of a worthless refuse,
— and how they always do most for the skilful, the prudent, and the industrious.

16. These substances, returned to the soil by the farmer, are called ma-
nure; and when putting them in, the farmer is said to manure his soil.

QUESTIONS.

1. What is the consequence, of the con-
tinuation of the same kind of cropping "?

2. Give an example.

3. Why is this?

4. What substances does grain especially
draw from the soil?

5. How would you remedy such special
exhaustion'?

6. How would you return tlie phosphoric
acid, for example 1

7. But with any kind of cropping may
not even a fertile soil be exhausted?

8. How is this explained ?

9. How is an exhausted field like an ex-
hausted purse ?

10. How is the farmer to keep his land
in a fertile condition ?

11. How much of the various substances
must be put upon the land to keep it in its
present condition?

12. How much to make the land bet-
ter?

13. In this case, where is the profit to
come from?

14. How do you mean?

15. Then the farmer may yet make a
profit?

1 6. What do you call the substances which
the skilful farmer puts into his land ?

632 COMPAHATIVE CONSUMPTION OF COTTON AND WOOL.

COMPARATIVE CONSUMPTION OF COTTON AND WOOL,

UNDER THE FREE TRADE AND PROTECTIVE SYSTEMS.

The annual circular of the British Board of Trade gives the following
statement of the

Exports of Packages from Liverpool to the United States for 1848, and the three previous

years.

COTTONS. 1845. 1846. 1847. 1848.

New York
Philadelphia
Baltimore
Boston
New Orleans .

Total .

LINENS.

New York

Philadelphia

Baltimore

Boston

New Orleans .

Total .

■WOOLLENS.

New York

Philadelphia

Baltimore

Boston

New Orleans .

Total -

WORSTEDS.

New York

Philadelphia

Baltimore

Boston

New Orleans .

Total .

BLANKETS.

New York

Philadelphia

Baltimore

Boston

New Orleans .

Total .... 3,056 2,233 4,837 4,433

A glance at the above tables will show to all, says "The Dry Goods Re-
porter," why it is that we have written so confidently upon a rise on most
styles of British fabrics. It will be perceived that Great Britain exported to
us in 18-18 a less number of packages by 25 per cent, than in 1847. The
experience of all must also point to the fact, that the major part of this de-
crease tvas in articles designed for the trade of last fall and this spring,
as the mania for importing extended throughout the whole of 1847, and was
still running strong in the spring of 1848."

We desire most particularly to call the attention of the wool and cotton-
growers to this statement, as it contains information of serious importance to
them. The whole consumption of foreign cottons in 1848, over 1846, was
httle more than 8000 packages. Averaging them at 2000 yards each, we
obtain sixteen millions of yards, the product of about four millions of pounds
of cotton, or ten thousand bales, about enough to supply five factories of
respectable size, whereas, had the tariff of 1843 been adopted as the settled

11,217

10,289

17,759

15,315

2,464

4,253

6,073

4,357

293

192

1,075

677

3,354

3,601

5,805

3,305

816

924

2,267

4,070

18,174

19,258

32,979

27,724

1845.

1846.

1847.

1848.

13,445

13,064

14,943

14,001

2,519

2,810

5,302

3,371

4S7

384

494

542

3,453

3,3S0

5,449

3,182

1,025

1,151

1,873

2,047

20,929

20,819

30,001

23,143

1845.

1846.

1847.

1848.

9,114

7,017

16,369

14,068

1,946

1,873

4,547

3,192

652

308

302

347

2,975

2,794

4,809

2,459

96

82
12,070

277

516

14,793

26,301

20,582

1845.

. 1846.

1847.

1848.

4,449

4,945

15,888

13,091

539

1,095

3,968

2,831

47

3

320

292

2,259

2,640

4,769

2,497

32

67

290

290

7,326

8,750

25,235

19,010

1845.

1846.

1847.

1848.

2,383

1,701

3,546

3,288

437

340

778

560

88

77

145

143

98

48^
58

278

214

50

118

228

COMPARATIVE CONSUMPTION OF COTTON AND WOOL. 633

policy of the country, we should now have running, in addition to what are
now in existence, one hundred, if not even two hundred, such factories, con-
suming two hundred, if not four hundred, thousand bales in addition to what
is now consumed, while the superior productiveness of labor everywhere
would enable every man, and woman, and child, to consume two yards
where now they consume bat one.

The increased consumption of woollens and of blankets is but 7000 bales,
and averaging them at 500 pounds each, we obtain three millions and a half
of pounds, as the increased demand produced in the wool market of the
world by our change of system in 1846. Let us now see what was the
increase produced by the adoption of the tariff of 1842. In that year we
consumed about 35 million pounds. In 1846, four years after, the consump-
tion exceeded 50 million pounds, having increased about one-half in the short
period of four years, and it would have doubled in four years more, had the
system remained unchanged. As it is, we have shut up numerous factories
that would have consumed vast quantities of wool. We have ruined their
owners, and we have so far diminished the power to consume woollen cloth,
that the quantity mamtfadured and imported in 1848 was not as great as
that manufactured and imported in 1846. The power to consume both
cotton and woollen cloth has diminished, while our population has increased
at least eight per cent., and all because the measures of the government
have tended to separate the plough and the loom, and to increase the number
of persons employed in the work of transportation and exchange, at the cost
of the producer.

In all this, too, we wish our readers clearly to remark, we have claimed
no allowance for the fact that the great reduction of imports took place in
the latter half of the last year. Were we now to compare that portion of
1848 with the same portion of 1846, the result would be much more striking;
and yet even that would not give the full truth, for the effects of famine and
revolution in Europe, as shown in the prices of food, had not even then
passed away.

The truth or fallacy of the doctrines of the administration must be deter-
mined by an examination of their efl^ects on the power of consumption. If
under the free trade system men can consume more cloth and iron than
under the protective one, then are the lessons taught in the Treasury Report
right ; but if they can consume less, then are they wrong. We pray our
readers to compare for themselves the power of consumption in 1846 with
that which existed in 1842 — the period of almost perfect free trade' — and
that which now exists, under the free trade system, with that which did
exist in 1846-1847, under the protective one, and determine for themselves
on which side is to be found the truth.

Cure for Pleurisy. — Wash and beat 3 or 4 lbs. of nettle-root — ^boil it with
two gallons of hydrant, rain, or river water, until reduced to one gallon ;
strain it through a cloth and sweeten it with molasses. Take a pint every
ten minutes, as hot as it can be drunk. Let an old woman stand by to give
the decoction, and keep the patient well covered in bed ; and if the above
directions are strictly attended to, the pleurisy will be cured in ten hours or
less, without a doctor, and a saving of $20 or more, according to the sup-
posed length of your purse.

New York Average Crops in 1845. — Winter wheat, per acre, 14 bushels ;
oats, 26 ; barley, 16 ; rye, 9^ ; Indian corn, 25 ; buckwheat, 14 ; peas, 15 ;
beans, 10; potatoes, 90.
Vol. I.— 80

634 MANUFACTURING BY SLAVE LABOR.

MANUFACTURINa BY SLAVE LABOR.

« South Carolina already has several flourishing cotton manufactories in operation.
Among those recently completed is the Graniteville Mill, on the South Carolina Railroad,
about 1 1 miles from Augusta, one of the largest interior cotton markets in the United
States. This mill contains 9250 spindles, and 300 looms, and is said to be one of the
most perfect mills in the country. The factory buildings are of granite, the dwelling-
houses of wood, put up in good taste — the streets and grounds laid out and ornamented,
and nothing spared which will add to the beauty of the scene, and inspire pride in the
operatives. There is said to be scarcely a town in New England which will compare
with it for neatness and beauty ; and the old politicians who visit it, admit that it is
indeed one of the bright spots in South Carolina, and that, if it proves to be successful, it
will revolutionize public sentiment. Failure is considered out of the question ; they have
Rhode Island men to manage the concern, and the most efficient that can be procured.
Labor is obtained at about half the cost of labor in New England, and the operatives are
said to be little inferior to those in Rhode Island. The favorable location, with industry
and good management, must secure profitable results. The expense of the whole esta-
blishment is $33 per spindle, including 9000 acres of land, dams, canal, water-power for
20,000 spindles, hotel, academy, two churches, and 90 dwelUng-houses." — Southern Argus.

We take the above from one of our exchange papers, and it afflirds us a
high degree of pleasure to give it to our readers as an evidence of the grow-
ing tendency, throughout tire South, to adopt that policy which will tend to
bring the loom and the anvil to the side of the plough. In no part of the
Union is a change so necessary. Of all the States in the Union, there is no
one, if we may judge by the statements contained in the various addresses
£o the Agricultural Society, that contains more of the natural elements of
wealth and prosperity than South Carolina, and yet her population has been,
of late, actually diminishing, and rnen have abandoned their properties
because purchasers, even at low prices, could not be found. Let her pursue
with spirit the new course upon which she is now entering — let her exert
herself to induce men who have looms and anvils to come to the side of her
ploughs and harrows — let her people combine their eflbrts to obtain for them-
selves the machinery requisite for converting their food and their wool into
cloth, and the State will speedily occupy that position in the Union to which
her natural advantages so well entitle her. She will then cease to import
lime from Maine, or hay from New York, because increased population and
wealth will enable her to make roads for herself, and she will then find that
the community that is least compelled to depend upon foreign markets, is the
one that can sell to most advantage in those meirkets, and the one that is
under the least necessity to buy in them, is the one that can buy most
advantageously. She will then, and not till then,buj^ in the cheapest mar-
ket and sell in the dearest one, and to the advantage thus obtained she will
add that derived from cultivating rich lands, yielding manure, by aid of
which to improve the poor ones, instead of wasting labor on poor ones,
becoming poorer every day by reason of her inability to return to the land
the refuse of its products. She will then find that "population makes the
food come from the rich soils," as now she finds that depopulation is driving
men back to the cultivation of poor ones.

Food. — Nearly one half the weight of all vegetable productions which are
gathered as food for man and beast, in their dry state, consists of carbon :
the oxygen amounts to rather more than one-third, the hydrogen to little
more than five per cent., while the nitrogen rarely exceeds two and a half
per cent, of their weight.

THE RACE HORSE. 635

THE HALF-BKED RACER.

A second-rate description of racer has lately been very prevalent in En<T-
land, Newmarket excepted, known by the term " cock-tail," or half-bred
horse, as he is called ; but improperly so termed, because the stain in him
is generally very slight indeed, and too often difficult to be traced. Many
objections are raised by sportsmen, who are thorough racing men, and who
v/ish well to the Turf, against the cock-tail racer, and for very good reasons.
In the first place, if really half-bred, he resembles the royal stamp upon base
metal, for no half-bred horse is deserving the name of racer, nor will he
always stand the necessary preparation. Secondly, what are called half-
bred stakes, some of which are very good, have been the cause of a great
many frauds being committed, by bringing horses to run for them under
false pedigrees, which will ever be the case, from the great difficulty of
proving a horse to be thorough-bred, whose dam may have been purchased
by accident, or in some clandestine way, and still perhaps of pure racing
blood. Again, as there is no scale by which the degree of impure blood,
which qualifies a horse for these stakes, can be measured, the breeder of the
cock-tail, of course, avails himself of the parent stock in which the slightest
possible stain can be shown, which indeed has been attempted to be shown,
in some of the best race-horses of later times. In this case, an animal
is produced against which no half-bred horse, in the proper accepta-
tion of the term, has a chance, and he sweeps the country of all the
good stakes ; and some such horses (Habberley, for example) have proved
themselves superior to many of the thorough-bred racers of their year.*
But the breeding of horses for these stakes is any thing but beneficial
to the country, the great object of racing. It encourages a spurious
race of animals, often possessing the faults of the blood-horse without the
strength and activity of the hunter, and it was for the latter description of

• The general and generally well-founded opinion in England is, that no cock-tail or
under-bred horse can maintain a long contest against a thorough-bred, li' he is forced
to encounter long and repeated struggles, nature denies him the power of performance —
as they say in that case, "out comes the black mare." But there are instances in sporting
annals, that look like exceptions, and such as vi'ould seem to shovi^ that sometimes it
depends on whether the dam, supposing her to be cold-blooded, breeds closely after the
horse, or after herself? Walk-in-the-water, for example, one of the most successful and
famous race-horses at all distances, that ever figured in the Western country, made a good
race at Nashville, when he was eighteen years old; and his history was substantially as
follows : — His groom — Peter Faggan — was a free colored man, who fell in debt to a Mr,
Weaver, who placed the account in the hands of a collector. Weaver was riding a little
pacing chestnut mare, in company with Allen J.Davie, to whom Sir Archy then belonged:
Davie hearing Weaver ask the collector if he had made that money out of Peter Faggan,
and the collector answering no, and he doubted if he ever could, said jestingly to Weaver,
" You had better take it out in music.'''' It seems that Faggan could not only make the
most graceful bow, but drew the sweetest bow of any man in his bailiwick. Weaver
demurred to the music, whereupon Davie told him if he would go home with him that
niglit, he would let Faggan pay him with a chance of his mar to Sir Archy. It was
agreed to, and the celebrated old Walk-iu-the-water was the produce. When he became
so highly distinguished, this little chestnut pacing dam was hunted up, and bred again to
Sir Archy more than once, but with all, except the first produce, "out came the black
mare." She bred after herself, and the subsequent produce all proved to be dunghill.
Her dam too was a country pacing mare. We dare say our old friend Panton, if alive —
and such men should never die or lose their faculties, if we could help it — could tell
many interesting particulars of old Walk-in-the-water, the cock-tail.

It was only to show that a cock-tail may be game that lie was made to " burst his
cerements" for this occasion. — Editors P. L. Sf A.

636 THE HUNTER.

horse that this stake was first intended. Bona fide hunters' stakes would
be advantageous, if open to all horses bringing certificates of their having
been regularly hunted throughout a season, but not merely ridden by a boy
to see a fox found ; and giving no allowance to the horse called " half-bred."
Let the best hunter win, which would encourage the breeding of strong
thorough-bred horses, which make the best hunters of any — a fact no one
who has ridden many of them will deny.*

THE HUNTER.f

GENERAL DIRECTIONS TO BE FOLLOWED.

There is no description of horse which could be applied to so many pur-
poses, racing excepted, as the powerful English Hunter. Setting aside his
own peculiar services in the field, be is fit to carry a man on the road, on
the field of battle, and he answers for every kind of draught. Indeed, we
are inclined to believe no horse would equal him in ploughing; and as for
road-work on harness, either slow or fast, nothing could touch him, in a car-
riage properly suited to his powers.^

We will, however, set forth what we consider the best properties of the
full-bred and the half-bred hunter, as also the most probable means of breed-
ing each kind to advantage ; at the same time venturing an opinion, that,
when their individual capabilities are put into the scale of excellence, the
balance will incline to the former.

One great obstacle to the general success in breeding hunters is, not so
much the difficulty of access to good stallions, but of making breeders believe
that it would be their interest to send their mares to such as are good,
although at an extra expense. Most rural districts, in other respects favor-
able to horse-breeding, swarm with covering stallions, the greater part of
which have proved very bad racers ; but which, falling into the hands of
persons who are popular characters in their neighborhood, and covering at
a low price, get most of the farmers' brood-mares sent to them, their owners
never reflecting, as they gaze upon these misshapen animals, that Nature
will not go out of her course to oblige them, but that, in the animal creation,
" Hke begets like." Neither does the evil stop here. So much is this
made a matter of chance instead of one of judgment, should the produce of
a mare sent to one of these bad stallions be a filly foal, and she proves so
defective in shape and action as to be unsaleable at a remunerating price,
she remains the property of her breeder, and in time becomes herself a
brood-mare. What, then, can be expected from such produce ? Why,
unless chance steps in and supplies the defect of judgment, by the procrea-
tive powers of the male, in the case of a better sire being selected, so far
exceeding those of the female as to produce a foal free from the defects of
the dam, another shapeless, unprofitable animal is produced, § Neverthe-

* Wcatherby's General Stud-Book. To assist in the detection of spurious blood, and the
correction of inaccurate pedigrees, is the chief purpose of this excellent publication, now
increased to a third volume, and forming a part of every sportsman's library.

j- We give this chapter the sooner, because in breeding a good hunter a farmer gets a
horse good at all work.

^ When the " Woollens Bill" was under discussion in the House of Representatives, John
Randolph said he would '• at any time go fifty yards out of his way to kick a sheep !"
Fanatical as he was, or pretended to be, in his aversion to that most unoffending of ani-
mals, he was as much so in his admiration of the bred-horse, whose " slouching walic" he
used to say would " tell even in the plough in a hot summer's day."

§ Universal sulTrage and the love of popularity are two of the things good in the use

THE HUNTER. 637

less, in the course of time, perhaps this produce, if a female, however bad
she may prove, is also bred from, and thus a succession of shapeless horses
is produced, to the certain loss of the breeder, and much to the injury of the
community. Under the most favorable circumstances, and with the aid of
good judgment, we cannot consider horse-breeding to be a certain source of
gain ; yet there are many inducements to try it as one branch of rural
economics. The money goes out a little at a time, or by degrees, and there-
fore it is suitable to such occupiers of land as cannot embark in more exten-
sive speculations, and it returns in a Jump, oftentimes at a most welcome
moment, and, in many instances, of sufficient amount to render the average
of former less profitable years sufficient to cover expenses, if not to leave a
profit. There is likewise another inducement to breeding horses ; we mean
the pleasurable excitement inseparable from all human speculations, from
which more than an ordinary return may be looked for, which is the case
here ; added to the nearly universal interest attached to the breeding and
rearing of every species of domestic animals.

With respect to brood-mares designed for breeding hunters, we admit
that circumstances, not always Avithin control, have their weight. An occu-
pier of land is possessed of a mare or two which he thinks 7?io?/ breed
hunters, and having them, it may not be convenient to him to replace them
by those which might be more likely to breed good ones. But the choice
of a stallion is always within his control, and he should not spare trouble,
and moderately increased price, in his selection. It is well known to aU

and bad in the flbuse of them. The fear of their popularity keeps State Legislators from
enacting a few wholesome regulations to improve the breed of horses. There ought to
be, in each county, commissioners, known judges of the horse, who should assess the rates
of licences for keeping pxihlic stallions, and they should be regulated by a sliding scale,
making the tax lighter in proportion to the excellence of the horse, ordering all inferior
brutes to be altered or shot, as contraband of war. In Virginia, with a conservative and
improving discrimination, which has always cliaracterized her legislation, and carried her
forward to such an admirable development of all her resources, they lay the tax on the
owner, and not with any reference to the qualities of the horse — making the owner of the
most magnificent stallion, even a Timoleon or a Sir Charles, pay as much as he who
advertises for public use a beast better suited to be given to hounds than to mares.

While on this subject of legislation for the improvement of the horse, we cannot for-
bear— and would not if we could — quoting a beautiful letter (at which he is so inimitable)
from our old friend, Christopher Hughes, dien Charge d'JIffaiies at CoTpenhagen. "Shall
auld acquaintance be forgot?"

It had been made our jileasing duty to communicate to him, then on leave of absence,
and on a visit to Baltimore, the unanimous resolutions of the old Central Course Jockey
Club, inviting him to attend one of their regular biennial race meetings ; and all who
partook of them and yet survive, remember what delightful re-unions they were for not a
few of the clUe of the land. Hughes was sick, and could not attend, but said, " I am not
the less sensible of the amiable feeling which has dictated diis kind mark of distinction
and of recollection. I am gratified at such proofs from so many of my old friends and
beloved associates, that I still hold a place in their cordial and afiectionate memory.
Twenty years have made sad ravages among those who started with us .'" Since then
fifteen years have been piled on the twenty ! In the meanwhile, Time has not stayed his
ravages. Alas! where is the amiable and gentlemanly Proprretor? — where " The Napo-
leon of the Turf?" Cum midtis aliis ! But for another quotation ; for who knows how long
he may remain to write, or I to quote him ? " You do justice," said Hughes, " to my
opinions on the horse! They are more than opinions: with me it is instinct to love that
noble animal! I consider the horse as the creature in animated nature next in importance
and in dignity to man : and I know no animal more degraded than the man who under-
values or over-ivorks the horse ! Nor are there many subjects more worfliy of a humane
and enlightened legislation, for improvement and protection, than is this gallant and
generous and useful animal, which most men admire, all use, and, alas ! too many abuse."

3H

638 THE HUNTER.

hunting men, that the stock of certain horses have been remarkable for
making good hunters, (we could name many of present and past times,) and
that there are such horses always to be found, on seeking for them. A few
pounds extra, laid out by the breeder in putting his mares to such horses,
are sure to be amply repaid ; for the produce would be generally sought
after and purchased, even previously to their being tried. Englishmen
know of no such restrictions, nor do we wish they ever should ; but the
interference of the governments of several European states as to stallions for
the use of their respective countries, reads us a useful lesson on this head ;
for it is well known, on the other hand, that a great number of stallions to
which English hunting mares have been put, have been equally remarkable
for begetting soft, infirm stock, quite unequal to endure, for any length of
time, the severe work of a hunter. It should also be borne in mind, that
even a first-rate racer may not be a propagator of first-rate hunters. The
former is called upon to exert his powers on very different ground, and
under very different weight to the latter, and the action which may suit one .
may not suit the other. This accounts for the stock of certain thorough-
bred horses, which were very indifferent racers, proving very excellent
hunters. We have already given it as our opinion, that a cross of Arabian
blood is a great desideratum in that of an Enghsh hunter, and we need not
urge this point further ; but if breeders would reflect, that the expenses of
rearing a bad colt equal those of rearing a good one, they would attend more
than they do to the following nearly unerring directions.

First, Observe peculiarity of shape in horse and mare. As length of
frame is indispensable in a hunter, if the mare be short, seek for a stallion
likely to give her length. Again, if the mare be high on her legs, put her
to a short-legged stallion, and vice versa ; for it is possible that even a
hunter's legs may be too short, a racer's certainly may be. In fact, to form
a complete hunter, it is necessary he should be more perfect in his shape
than a racer, which will admit of imperfections that would quite disqualify
the other.

Secondly, Look to constitution. As no description of horse endures the
long-continued exertion that a hunter does, this is a point to be attended to.
But it may be overdone. Horses of a very hard nature, very closely ribbed
up, consequently great feeders, with large carcasses, seldom make the sort of
brilliant hunter now the fashion in England. Besides, one of this descrip-
tion requires so much work to keep him in place and in wind, that his legs
must suffer, and often give way when his constitution is just in his prime.
Horses with moderately sized carcasses last longest ; and, provided they are
good feeders, will come out quite as often as they ought to do, and are
invariably good winded and brilliant, if well-bred and of good form, with a
few other requisites. We never saw a very closely-ribbed, large carcassed
horse brilliant as a hunter, and we know such form is not approved of in
the race-horse.

Thirdly, and lastly, let the breeder of any kind of horse be careful in
avoiding either sire or dam that has proved constitutionally infirm. As has
been already shown on very high authority, perfect or defective conforma-
tion is not less likely to be the result of a proper or improper selection of
horse and mare, than disease to be inherited from parents that have been
constitutionally diseased, or health from such as have been healthy. We
could name stallions whose stock have been blind; others afflicted with
splents, curbs, and spavins, and a mare which produced three roarers by
three difiererent sires. But it may be said, that splents, curbs, and spavins
are the result of maiconformation of the parts. Granted ; but avoid all such

THE HUNTER. 639

malformation which is quite apparent to the eye, in a breeding stud. It
may perhaps be carrying this objection too far, were we to say, we would
not breed from a mare or horse which had become groggy or lame in the
feet from diseased navicular joints. Had the feet been more vigorously con-
stituted, perhaps such lameness nn'ght not have occurred ; yet it is but too
probable that here the predisposing cause may be traced to over-severe
treatment, and not to constitutional defect.*

TRAINING OP COLTS.

Next in importance to the judicious selection of sire and dam, is the rear-
ing of the colt which it is intended should make a hunter. It was the
rem.ark of a gentleman, who kept fox-hounds more than half a century, that
" great part of the goodness of a horse goes in at his month," and nothing
is more true. In the work called *' Nimrod on the Condition of Hunters,"
(p. 223, first edition,) is the following passage : — " It is my confirmed
opinion, that unless a colt be what is called ' deformed,' it is in the power of
good keep, exercise, and physic, to make him what is termed 'a fine horse,'
and one which will sell for a large price, either for harness or the saddle.
No one who has not witnessed it, is aware of the improvement in shoulders,
thighs, gaskins, &c., from good old oats, accompanied by regular work and
proper riding." Breeders of hunters may be assured that such is the case ;
and that it is of little use to breed colts with the expectation of their making
first-rate horses, unless they keep them very well in their colthood. They
should also be treated as horses at a very early age. They should be ridden
gently, and by a light man, or boy, with good hands, at three years old,
across rough ground, and over small fences; and at four they should be
shown hounds ; but they should only follow them at a distance, and after
the fences are broken down ; for, if put to take large leaps at that tender
age, they are apt to get alarmed, and never make first-rate fencers after-
wards. Above all things, avoid getting them into boggy ditches, or riding
them at brooks; but they should be practised at leaping small ditches, if
with water in them the better, in the middle of a field, the rider putting

* We are clearly of opinion, that, in general, too little is thought, and great mistakes
made, about the proper condition of the stallion, by which we mean the state of his system
when employed for the purpose of procreation. At this season, in order to catch the vul-
gar eye, they are too much pampered — kept too fat — and take too little exercise. A
remarkable instance once occurretl in England, illustrative of what we mean. George IV.
when Prince of Wales was fond of the chase, and rode a hunter, an entire horse, of
unequalled excellence. In admiration of his great powers, he caused a few of his mares
to be bred to him soon after the hunting season was over, and before he had lost bis
hunting condition, and the produce, on coming to maturity, proved every way worthy of
their sire. But when he had ascended the tiirone, and relinquished the chase, the same
horse being pampered and kept, and in great demand as a stallion, failed altogether. Being
loaded with flesh, without exercise, and over-tasked in the breeding stud, his stock shot
up into lank, weak, leggy, awkward, good-for-nothing nags, to the ruin of the horse's cha-
racter as a stallion.

It must have been in reference to this effect of condition at the time of procreation, that
Diogenes said to a stripling, somewhat crack-brained and half-witted, " Surely, young man,
thy father begot thee when he was drunk ;"' and Shakspeare intimates tlie same thing
where he makes a hero taunt his enemies with the remark, " For ye were got in fear."
For these suggestions we are indebted to a correspondent (G. B.) of " The Farmers'
Library." We know not whether he does us the honor to read this journal. We have
called for him — so you may call spirits from the vasty deep, but-- will they come when you
call 1— Editors P. L. §■ ji.

640 THE HUNTER.

them at them in rather a brisk gallop. This gives them confidence, and,
the natural result, courage. With respect to the use of the bar, and teaching
colts to leap standing over it, the practice is now condemned, and the system
of letting them become timber jumpers, by taking it, as it comes, in crossing
a country, is preferred, the present rate of hounds not admitting of the time
occupied in a standing leap.

Some sportsmen adopt, and we beheve with good effect, v/hat is termed
the "circular bar." Every description of fence that a hunter is likely to
meet with is placed within a prescribed circle of ground, and in this is the
colt exercised or " lounged," as the term is, the man who holds him standing
upon a stage in the centre. As another man follows him with a whip, he
is forced to take his fences at a certain pace ; and, in a very short time, a
good-tempered colt will take them with apparent pleasure.

At five years old it is customary to consider a horse as a hunter ; but we
are inclined to demur here. It is true, that if a colt has been very well
kept, on the hard meat system, he is enabled to go through a good day's
work with hounds at five years old, being quite equal to a six-year-old which
has been kept on soft food, and not sufficiently forced by corn ; yet it is
always attended with danger of injury to his joints and sinews, if not to his
general constitution ; and we cannot pronounce a horse to be a hunter until
he has passed his fifth year. As muscular action, however, produces mus-
cular growth, he should not be kept in idleness during his fifth year, but
should be ridden to cover, or with harriers, before Christmas ; and when the
ground gets dry and light in the spring, a good burst with fox-hounds may
not do him harm. We do not, however, consider any five-year-old horse
fitting or safe to carry a gentleman over a country, as he cannot be suffi-
ciently experienced to take a straight line.

We have known some masters of fox-hounds who have preferred pur-
chasing yearhng colts, or weanlings, at Michaelmas, to breeding them for
their own use. The classical reader cannot fail calling to his recollection
here the practical lesson which Virgil, in his third CTeorgic, imparts on this
head ; neither can the purchaser of such animals do better than follow it to
the very letter. Should he fix upon the one which, as he describes him : —

" Primus et ire viam, et fluvios tentare menaces
Audet, et ignoto sese coramittere ponti,"

he would be pretty certain of having in due time a first-rate hunter, that
would turn his tail to nothing.* Nor should the breeder overlook the poet's
advice to keep his young stock well, if he Avishes to have them in the high
form (and can any thing be finer ?) in which the one of his own choice is
presented to us in this most splendid passage.

•The vv'riter of this article recollects "a case in point," as the lawyers say, with
reference to this system of purchasing promising colts. A farmer had, among others, a
yearling colt, which he did not dream of making a hunter of, by reason of his being out
of a cart-mare, until, on the hounds running over his farm, he perceived him follow them,
which he continued to do till the fox was killed at the end of a long chase. His owner
was, in consequence, induced to ride him with hounds when he became a horse, and a
capital hunter he made, in the late Sir Richard Pulerton's hunt, the property of a yeoman
of the name of Humphrey Hughes, of Altrey, one of the best riders in the said hunt. The
writer himself oflered seventy pounds for this horse, when he was half worn out, but his
offer was refused.

ROOT CROPS. 641

ROOT CROPS.— RUTA BAGA, OR SWEDISH TURNIP.

We have never been able to persuade ourselves that root crops might not be profitably
made an object of much more attention than they are in the Middle States ; and especially
the Swedish turnip. We are aware that manufacturing communities generally are needed
to bring from rich lands tons of root crops, instead of hundreds of pounds of grain crops
from poor ones. Still we are fully persuaded that turnips might and ought to be culti-
vated extensively, to be fed to dairy cows, and to be transported to market in the form of
sheep and cattle — while they would greatly increase the quantity of manure to keep up
the fertility of the soil. It is for that object, and as the best preparation for wheat and
barley, that they are so much cultivated in England. It is no exaggeration to say that the
suppression of the turnip crop in England now, would impoverish the nation, and jeopard
the government.

The Swedish turnip catne into use in the United States about the time of the establish-
ment of the first agricultural journal, — " The Ainerican Farmer," — of which to-morrow
will be the twenty-ninth anniversary, making thirty years! It was introduced into field-
culture on Long Island, New York, by the celebrated William Cobbett, who described
the plant, and wrote a complete and detailed treatise on the cultivation, curing, and har-
vesting the root. He sent to the Senior Editor of this journal, then Editor of" The Ameri-
can Farmer,'" an account of a crop of thirty tons, or 1600 bushels to the acre, made in
England. We could give many cases of crops of 1000 bushels, and more, in this country ;
but our purpose now is to refute the allegation that our climate is too dry and our labor too
dear for this crop, by the following communication from Judge Buel, who, it will be seen,
said that after six consecutive years' experience, he was more and more impressed with
the profit and the value of the crop. We might find or make many re-hashes of old
things for our readers, but doubt if we could better fill the same place than by giving tliis
in Judge Buel's own language: —

From an unpublished volume of Agricultural Memoirs. — On the Cultivation of Ruta Baga

as a second crop ; with an estimate of its comparative value for feeding stock : By J. Bitel,

of Alba?}!/.

Having for several years grown the common white turnip with uniform
success, on ground where the same season I had cut wheat, barley, rye,
&c., I was induced, in 1822, to hazard the experiment, then to me a novel
one, of raising the Swedish turnip after clover. My success in that and the
two subsequent years has fully confirmed me, not only in the practicability,
but in the economy of the practice. The result of my first experiment will
be found in the Memoirs of the Board, vol. ii. p. 250.

The second experiment was upon a lay, partly of lucerne, too thin to be
worth preserving, and partly of clover. The first was cut twice for green
food, and the latter once for hay. The ground, having been manured, was
ploughed and harrowed, and the seed drilled in, at the distance of three feet
between the rows, the 28lh of June. The crop was cleaned, thinned, and
hoed in the usual way, and the product was between five and six hundred
bushels, or about sixteen tons on the acre.

Encouraged by this success, I this year put in two and a half acres.
Being short of pasture, I fed off' the clover in June, instead of cutting it for
hay; manured, ploughed, and harrowed the ground. A man was employed
half a day in putting in the seed with a drill-harrow. The crop was between
12 and 1400 bushels. Some of the roots weighed between 15 and 16 lbs.
each. The tops, nearly equal in bulk to an ordinary crop of grass, were fed
to my cows in November and December, with great benefit to their milk as
well as flesh. The roots were pitted in the field.

Messrs. I. and J. Townsend, who cultivate a farm adjoining me, have
raised ruta baga the three last seasons, the last of which was upon a clover
lay, where the grass had been mown for hay. They have used their crops
in fattening bullocks, with good success.

The following is a fair estimate of the expense of cultivating my crop the
current year: —

Vol. I.— 81 3 h 2

642 ROOT CROPS.

2^ days ploughing, man and team $2.50

1 day hanovving ....... ... 1.00

^ day man drilling in seed 0.25

2J lbs. seed, at 75 cents 1.87

Man, boy, and liorse, 1^ days, going through twice with the cultivator 1.50

10 days' work in thinning and weeding once - - . . - 5.00

12 days do. in pulling, topping, and pitting 2 J acres - - - . 6.00

$18.12
50 loads manure, and spreading ..----- 16.50

Total expense ..... .... $34.02

Or $13.34 the acre. This is allowing the whole expense of the manure,
though not more than a third or a half should be charged to the crop. As-
suming as a fact that the product was 1400 bushels, the expense falls short
of two and a half cents the bushel. I make no charge for the ground,
because it had given its crop of clover ; and the tops more than compensated
for the after-feed. Besides, it is greatly enriched, and made clean, and in
fine order for a barley crop, by the manure and turnips.

That I may not be charged with underrating the labor, I will state my
mode of culture somewhat in detail. The ground, being a sand or sand
loam, requires but one ploughing for any crop, and is soon pulverized by
the harrow. This work was therefore done in less time than is stated in
the estimate. The drill-barrow is propelled by a man in the same way that
a wheelbarrow is ; and it requires the same time to drill in and cover the
seed, that it would to furrow the ground for corn. The seed being sown in
drills, an implement called the cultivator, which cuts 22 inches, destroys
the weeds and mellows the soil between the rows. The thinning and
weeding are performed by turnip-hoes, the blades of which are about an
inch and a half wide, and eight inches long ; their extremities being rounded,
turned up and united, form a shank for the handle. With one of these, a
man walks between the rows, and draws it through the strip left untouched
by the cultivator, leaving the plants standing only at intervals of nine to
twelve inches. After a little practice, a laborer will thin half an acre a day.
I have estimated one-fourth of an acre as a day's work. In harvesting, pits
are made at convenient distances, five or six feet square, and eight or ten
inches, only, deep. The roots are drawn up with a potato-hook, and thrown
to the edges of the pit, where a boy seizes them by the tails, and, with a
large knife, strikes off' the top at a blow, and throws them into the pit.
They are raised in a pile two or three feet atove the surface, and brought
to a point, slightly covered with straw and two or three inches of earth.

It remains to be shown, that the crop thus produced is really worth what
it has cost : to wit, two and a half cents the bushel, or thirty-four dollars
sixty-two cents in the gross. I can perhaps best demonstrate this, liy stating
the uses to which it is to be applied, and the manner of consuming it. As
my farm is small, it is of importance that every acre should be appropriated
to the most profitable use. I keep seven good cows, and a yoke of oxen.
To render them profitable, it is necessary they should be well kept. With
small enclosures, a good selection of grasses, and frequent shiftings, a cow
may do tolerably well with an acre of pasture ; but in a single enclosure of
ordinary pasturage, two, and sometimes three acres to each cow are found
necessary to render the dairy productive. Assuming what I conceive to be
a fair medium, I should then require eighteen acres of pasture to keep my
nine cattle till the first of August ; and about six tons of hay (allowing each
animal to consume 24 lbs. per diem, or a ton in three months) to keep them
through the mot)ths of March and April. Now, these eighteen acres of
pasture converted into mowing ground, estimating the product at two tons

ROOT CROPS. 643

per acre, (and I would not commute at less than three tons,) Avould give 36
tons of hay. The fair average price of this is $10 the ton. Deduct 84 the
ton for curing and marketing, and it leaves a clear profit of $6 the ton, or
$21 G on the whole eighteen acres, which I propose to convert from pasture
to meadow. Now if I can keep my stock, and keep it well, without the aid
of these eighteen acres, my gain will be the difference between the profit on
86 tons of hay, or $216, and the actual expense of the food on which it sub-
sists. This brings me to the first point suggested — the uses to which the
turnips are to be applied.

I propose to feed them at the rate of one bushel per day to each animal,
commencing the first of iVIarch. As 60 lbs. of roots will be far better for a
cow or an ox, at that season, than 12 lbs. of hay, the quantity of hay fed to
them may be diminished one-half after that time. This will make a saving
of three tons of hay in March and April. This saving, which will be equal
to $80, I will take no account of, as the feeding may be continued 20 days
in May, fill lucerne is Jit to cut. The 1400 bushels ruta baga will, at this
rate, feed nine head of cattle till the first of August. But as they may not
keep later than the 10th or 15th July — and I think they will keep till that
time — resort will be had to clover, if the lucerne fails, or to the early mown
fields.

While the ground remains frozen, with a pick-axe or grubbing-hoe, an
opening may be easily made into a pit. The whole of the roots are taken
out of it, put in the barn, and covered with straw. They are fed without
being cut, in the yards — they being kept well littered — or in the stables.
When the ground has thawed, they are placed in mangers or troughs, in
the stables, sheds, or yards. And in April and May, the roots are all taken
from the pits, and spread on the floors of the barns. The lucerne will be a
valuable auxiliary after the 15th or 20th of May. This grass will bear
cutting three times, at intervals of 80 to 85 days ; and as I have an acre of
it in excellent order, I think it will afford me a continued supply, until my
meadows and grain fields are ready to be pastured.

According to the data which I have assumed, the account will stand thus:

Profit on 18 acres in meadow $216,00

From which we are to dechict :
Expense of 1400 bushels ruta baga ... $34.62
Vahie of an acre of lucerne, say • - . - 20,00 54,62^

Difference or gain -...-... $161, 37i-

I have made no account for feeding the roots and lucerne, as I think the
manure, the value of which is not generally appreciated, will afford an
ample remuneration.

The preceding result, I am aware, will, by many, be deemed altogether
visionary. I confess it is calculated to surprise those who have never had
the opportunity of appreciating the value of this root ; yet on re-examining
the estimate, I do not find that I have erred in its favor. I have cultivated
the ruta baga six years, and my opinion of its value has continued to increase.
It is not only valuable for neat cattle, but, when boiled or steamed, for horses
and swine ; and there is nothing superior to it for sheep. It is also in the
spring a fine vegetable for the table. It has been a sure crop with me ;
bears much frost without injury; does not become pithy, and may be kept
as late in the summer as the potato. Yet it is generally getting out of
credit, from the circumstance of kw persons having been successful in their
attempts to cultivate it. If sown on a light soil, well manured, cleaned and
thinned Avhen the plants are small, and the ground kept well stirred, it can-
not fail to remunerate the cultivator.

O O o n b

g I > I S

P. i l-^:d
S P. O .^ 73

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645

646 JOHN SINGLETON.

JOHN SINGLETON, OF TALBOT COUNTY, MARYLAND.

FIRST USE OF MAKL AS A MANURE IN THE UNITED STATES.

Some youthful and vague impressions of tlie services rendered to the cause of agricul-
ture by the farmer whose name stands at the head of these remarks, served to inspire a
feeling of grateful respect for his memory, u^hich has been confirmed and augmented by
the little we have from time to time learned of his habits and character. The following
extract from a letter of his, in answer to one from the venerable Judge Tilghman, dis-
closes, probably, the origin of the use of marl in the State of Maryland, if not in the
United States. It will be seen that it refers back to a period of almost half a century.
We shall take an early opportunity to give the whole letter, and to ask how much has
been discovered, beyond what is there suggested, as to the use of marl in particular, and
to farm management in general 1 Let us, then, while we press forward in the noble
struggle to see who shall excel in the discovery and dissemination of truth, and who in
examples of morality and industry — let us, we say, never forget what we owe to those who have
gone before us. Is it not due, as well to the good of society as to the memory of such bene-
factors as even at this distance it is seen Mr. Singleton was, that our agricultural annals
should preserve fuller and more enduring memorials ? We do not particularly know
who may be his surviving relations, but if we are not mistaken there is a nephew who
possesses all the qualifications of scholarship and materials, with affectionate reverence, to
do justice to the virtues of the man and the value of his example. But we took pen only
to register, from the letter to which we have referred, the following extracts, which we
look upon as historical of the first tise of marl in Maryland.

This, I believe, will answer all your questions, except as to the titne when
I began to use the marl, and how soon I experienced the beneficial effect of
it ? — being your fourth question.

In August, 1805, in digging down a bank on the side of a cove, for the
purpose of making a causeway, I observed a shelly appearance which it
struck me might improve clay soil ; I took some of it immediately to the
house, and putting it into a glass with vinegar, found it effervesced very-
much ; this determined me to try it as a manure ; accordingly, in Septem-
ber, I carted out about eighty loads, and put it on a piece of ground, fallow,
preparing for wheat, trying it in different proportions, at the rate of from
twentjr-seven to about a hundred loads per acre, and the ground was sown
in v/heat ; I could not, myself, be satisfied that there was any difference
through the winter and spring, although General Lloyd, who was viewing
it with me in the spring, thought he could perceive some difference in favor
of the marl ; but at harvest time, the wheat, though not more luxuriant in
growth, or better head, was considerably thicker on the ground ; and, after
the wheat was taken off, the ground where the marl had been put was set
with white clover, no clover being on the ground, on either side of it. The
next year, 1806, 1 discovered it in the drain into the head of the cove, which
I immediately ditched, and from the ditch put out seven hundred loads, on
the fallow ground : the effect as to the wheat and clover was the same,
(this was put for experiment, at the rate of from forty to a hundred and
twenty cart-loads per acre,) though the marl was not of the same kind as
the other, but more mixed with sand and surface-soil, being taken from the
low ground, by ditching, and all mixed together. I also tried it on corn
ground, spread out as above-mentioned, and found the effect immediate, as
to the corn, and in the same manner as above described, as to the wheat
sown on the corn ground; this induced me to persevere in the use of it,
which I have done ever since, adopting the mode I mentioned before, putting
it at first from forty to seventy loads per acre, till I have now come down as
low as eighteen or twenty loads per acre, going the third time over the
ground with it.

I believe I have now answered all your inquiries, as well as I can, except

CONDENSED PORTABLE DIET. 647

as to the average comparison of the past and present crops, Avhich I cannot
well do, for the reasons above given, and also that my fields are entirely
changed, neither containing the same grounds, nor the same quantity of
ground in each ; but I believe I shall not be much out of the way, if I say
that I think the soil now capable of producing between two and three times
as much per acre as it would before I began to use the marl; and though
the marl has not solely produced the improvement, yet the improvement
would have been far short of what it is, if it had not been for the marl, which
has contributed, in a very large degree, towards it; and no small matter in
favor of the marl is, that, by the blessing of God on my endeavors, 1 have,
in twelve years, been enabled to improve three hundred acres of ground to
the pitch that these are, and am now in a fair way of increasing in the same
ratio that a snow-ball increases as it is turned over.

CONDENSED PORTABLE DIET FOR THE GOLD DIGGERS.

Some fifteen years now past, the Senior Editor of this journal liad the high satisfaction
of sojourning some days, in " charming summer weather," at Old Brandon., on tlie James
River — the venerable and delightful residence, then, of the late George E. Harrisox,
distinguished, even among Virginia gentlemen, for his refined manners, and for Jiospitality
at once sumptuous, easy, and elegant.

Among various sources of recreation provided for his guests, there was laid upon the
hall table the somewhat celebrated " Byrd Manuscript," as it was called. The author —
Col. Byrd — had been appointed by the British government, long before the Revolution,
Commissioner to run the Boundary Line between the Old Dominion and the Old North
State, and this manuscript was the record of his daily proceedings under that appoint-
ment; but how little could any one expect to find in a mere diary of such a service, such
amass of shrewd observation, witty reflections, and curious anecdote, as is interwoven in
this old manuscript about men, statesmen, soldiers, Indians, &c. We copied, by per-
mission, numerous passages for the amusement of our readers at that time, of " The Turf
Register and Sporting Magazine,'' then not only the first of its kind, but among the most
popular and best sustained periodicals that our country has pr^^luced.

Among these scraps we find a prescription by Col. Byrd, for the preparation of a
portable food for those who are about to embark, as those are who are setting out for
California, on long and precarious journeys through unsettled countries. We republish it
now, in the persuasion that it ought to find its way into the knapsack of all who design
thus to wend their way 2000 miles across, through wild, uninhabited prairies, to the great
DiGRiNS in California.

We here give it for their benefit, and will think ourselves well paid if those who have
recourse to it will only bring us back of gold an ounce for a pound of all the provisions
they will need if they follow the annexed prescription of old Col. Byrd. Only ima-
gine that such provision should have been then deemed necessary in running the line
between Virginia and North Carolina!

[Extract from tlie Byrd Manuscript in the Brandon Library.]
PORTABLE PROVISIONS FOR TRAVELLERS AND SPORTSMEN.
The portable provisions I would furnish our foresters withal, are glue
broth and rockahominy, one containing the essence of bread, the other of
meat.

The best way of making the glue broth is after the following method :
Take a leg of beef, veal, venison, or any other young meat, because old
meat will not so easily jelly; pare off all the fat, in which there is no nutri-
ment, and of the lean make a very strong broth after the usual manner, by
boiling the meat to rags, till all the goodness be out. After skimining off
what fat remains, pour the broth into a large stew-pan, Avell tinned, and let
it simmer over a gentle even fire till it come to a thick jelly. Then take it
off, and set it over a boiling water, which is an evener heat, and not so apt

648 REMARKABLE PRODUCE.

to burn the broth to the vessel. Over that let it be evaporated, stirring it
very often, till it be reduced, when cold, into a substance like glue. Then
cut it into small pieces, laying them singly in the cold, that they may dry
the sooner. When the pieces are perfectly dry, put them into a canister,
and they will be good, if kept dry, a whole East India voyage.

The glue is so strong that two or three drachms dissolved in boiling water,
with a little salt, will make a half pint of good broth ; and if you should be
faint with fasting or fatigue, let a small piece of this glue melt in your mouth,
and you will find yourself surprisingly refreshed.

One pound of this cookery should keep a man in good heart above a
month ; and it is not only nourishing, but likewise very wholesome. Par-
ticularly it is good against fluxes, which woodsmen are very hable to, by
lying too much near the moist ground, and. guzzling too much cold water.
But as it will be only used now and then in times of scarcity, when game
is wanting, two pounds of it will be enough for a journey of six months.

But this broth will be still more heartening if you thicken every mess
with half a spoonful of rockahominy, which is nothing but Indian corn
parched without burning, and reduced to powder. The fire drives out all
the watery parts of the corn, leaving the strength of it behind, and this being
very dry, becomes much lighter for carriage, and less liable to be spoiled by
the moist air.

Thus half a dozen pounds of this sprightly bread Avill sustain a man for
as many months, provided he husband it well, and always spare it when he
meets with venison, which, as I said before, may be very safely eaten with-
out any bread at all.

By what I have said, a man must not lumber himself with more than
eight or ten pounds of provisions, though he continue half a year in the
woods. These and his gun will support him very well during that time,
without the danger of keeping one single fast. And though some of his
days may be what the French call "jours maigre," yet there will happen
no more of those than will be necessary for his health, and to carry ofT the
excesses of the days of plenty, when our travellers will be apt to indulge
their lawless appetites too much.

Remarkable Produce at Augusta, Georgia. — In the autumn of 1819, a
squash-vine in the garden of Mr. Searle, up to July 31, had yielded 775
squashes.

Gathered 9th August 325

" 16th " 250

" 23d « 375

" 30th « 350

'• 1 5th September 140

Total 1440

They averaged 48 pounds for every hundred squashes. In the same
jrarden, one watermelon seed produced that year 380 pounds of melons.
The melons weighed separately from 12 to 342 pounds.

To prevent Horses rubbing the Hair off their Tails. — Grease the rectum
or fundament with hog's lard or bacon ; repeat it until the hair grows out
again. The habit is caused, it is thought, by an itching of the fundament,
occasioned perhaps by the discharge of a species of worm. At any rate, we
have been well assured that this is a certain cure.

PRODUCTS OF CLARKE COUNTY, VA. 649

HUSBANDRY AND PRODUCTS OF CLARKE COUNTY,

VIRGINIA.

To the Editors of the Plough, Loom, and Anvil.

Gentlemen : — In answer to the queries made in your letter, dated the last
day of '48, as also those appended to my communication in the February
number, I take great pleasure in replying, to the best of my abilities.

The kind of corn planted by me was large white gourd seed. As some
time has intervened, I do not pretend to be very accurate in my estimate of
the cost of preparing for and planting the crop ; but, to the best of my recol-
lection, it was as follows : —

To five days' ploughing with two three-horse teams, . . . . $25 00

To harrowing one clay with two three-horse teams, . . . 5 00

To laying oft' with four one-horse ploughs, . . . . . 5 00

To planting and thinning crop, ....... 5 00

To husking and housing 200 barrels, . . . . . . . 45 00

To shelling my half 5U0 bushels, 5 00

To hauling to Winchester, (10 miles, at 5 cents per bushel,) . . 25 00

The cost of the whole crop, shelling, and carriage of half, . , $115 00

By 500 bushels of corn, sold at S3 cents per bushel, . . . 415 00

Balance, after deducting all expenses from my half, . , . §)300 00

Allow $30 for shelling and carriage of the other half, supposing it to be
sold at the same price, (at which it might have been,) it would add $385 to
the profits, making from 12^ acres, $685.

Land is worth from $35 to $60. iMrs. P. has recently refused $50 per
acre for the farm on which this crop was grown.

With regard to the value of our slaves being lessened by our proximity to
Pennsylvania — in a pecuniary point I think not.

Ours is not properly a grazing country ; but it is becoming somewhat the
practice to combine it with tillage to a small extent, which is found profitable.

The bullocks are bought in the fall at an average of about $15, and sold
the ensuing fall at an advance of $10 or $12 per head, without being corn-
fed.

We are careful of, and make due use of our manure ; but farming on so
large a scale as we do, of course our main dependence is on clover and
plaster.

I shall not attempt to draw a comparison between this county and Albe-
marle, but merely make an extract from an essay delivered before the Agri-
cultural Society of that county, by T. J. Randolph, and published in the
Farmer's Register, Jan. 31, 1843: "The country through which the road
passes for eight miles, from Ashby's Gap to Warrenton in the county of
Fauquier, is clothed most beautifully with grass, and in April, 1842, I was
told of the sale of a farm at $50 cash per acre, and that this had not been
deemed an extraordinary price for those lands. The proprietors consider
them as better grass lands than those of Clarke and Jefferson, indisputably
the finest lands in the state. Yet these lands in Fauquier are, in their re-
lative position to the Blue Ridge, aspect of hills, valley, and stream, as well
as in apparent quality of original soil, more nearly like the Brown's Cove
of our county than any two spots of country I have ever seen. And how
different has the hand of man made them ! One covered with luxuriant
crops, fields of beautiful pasturage, innumerable herds of fat cattle, in fine
every thing- denoting wealth and abundance. The other, like large portions
Vol. I.— 82 3 I

G50 STRAWBERRIES.

of our country, exhibiting tlie remorseless vvorryings of a short-sighted cu-
pidity, where man has warred against nature and suffered in the conflict."

Wishing these answers may be satisfactory, I am your subscriber and
obedient servant. Nathaniel Burwell, Jun.

Mill Wood, Clarke County, Va., Feb. 9, 1849.

P. S. There are several misprints in the last communication, (No. S, page 508,)
bushels being put for barrels in divers places, which gives it rather an odd reading.

N. B.

Thus the cost seems to have been about $9 an acre, or 11 cents per bushel, in the corn-
house on the land, without charging interest; $3 per acre on the land.

The reader may be gratified to see a comparison of the estimates of the cost of corn in
different States, according to the report of the Commissioner of Patents. These estimates
may in some measure aid the corn-planter in the endeavor, which all of them should
make, to find out whether they are or are not coming out at the " little end of the horn."

Mr. Harvey Hunton, of New Hampshire, says he gets 40 bushels to the acre at a cost
of 50 cents a bushel, including $8 per acre for manure. Land valued at $25.

Mr. Ambler, of Litchfield, Conn., makes 50 bushels per acre, at a cost of 36 A cents
per bushel. Land valued at $50.

Mr. Doubleday, of Binghanipton, New York, values his corn land at $25; averages 40
bushels; cost of production 29 cents; nothing charged for manure except 37 cents per
acre for plaster in the hill.

Mr. Shearer, of Plymouth, Michigan, makes 50 bushels per acre, at a cost of ^8.35 ;
value 30 cents per bushel.

S. M. Bartlett, of Michigan, makes 50 bushels per acre, at a cost of 1 1 1^ cents per bushel,
without manure.

R. W. Griswold, of Ohio, without manure, makes 50 bushels average, at a cost of 20
cents per bushel.

Li Fayette Township, in Western Pennsylvania, the yield per acre for uheat is 15
bushels; cost $6, or 40 cents per bushel. Corn, 40 bushels to the acre: average expense,
16^ cents j)er bushel; interest rated at 33J cents per acre for value of land.

Drill Husbandry . — At one of the celebrated sheep-shearings that used to
be given by Mr. Coke, of Norfolk, afterwards Earl of Leicester, at which
hundreds congregated and remained for days together, he mentioned a fact
that is not generally alluded to, as being founded on the observation and
practice of his manager, Mr. Blaikie, a man of great sagacity. It was that
a field with a southern aspect, if rich, should be drilled north and south; but
if DRY, and in want of shade, it should be drilled east and west. It is easy
to see that, in the latter case, the crop would shade the land from the influence
of the sun, and counteract the effect of drought. — Model American Courier.

Strawberries. — At the request of the public I forward the proportions of
the substances employed by me in the cultivation of the strawberry : — The
loam for potting and top-dressing, containing one-third decayed vegetable
matter, (humus,) is mi.xed with eight per cent, of the superphosphate of lime,
in bulk. For watering, to the ammonia is added one-half its weight of sul-
phuric acid, and the whole is diluted in 2000 parts rain-water, irrigating
twice a week during sununer and autumn, and whenever the soil requires
moisture in spring, preserving a humid atmosphere. The kind of straw-
berry is Keen's Seedhng. — /. Elliott, Norton Conyers, Ripon.

MICE.

651

MICE.

ExTHAOHDiNART instances of the rapid
increase of mice, and of the injury they
sometimes do, occurred a few years ago in
the new plantations made by order of the
Crown in Dean Forest, Gloucestershire, and
in the New Forest, Hampsliire. Soon after
tlie formation of these plantations, a sudden
increase of mice took place in tiiem, which
threatened destruction to the whole of the
young plants. Vast numbers of the young
trees were killed, — the mice having eaten
through the roots of five-years-old oaks and
chestnuts, generally just below the surface
of the ground. Hollies also, which were five
and six feet high, were barked round the
bottom ; and in some instances the mice had
got up tlie tree, and were seen feeding on
the bark of the upper branches. In the re-
ports made to government on the subject, it
appeared that the roots had been eaten
through wherever they obstructed the runs
of the mice: but that the bark of the trees
constituted their food was ascertained by
confining a number of the mice in cages, and
supplying them with the fresh roots and bark
of trees ; when it was found that they fed
gr'jedily on the latter, and left the roots un-
touched. Various plans were devised for
•heir destruction : traps were set, poison laid,
and cats turned out, but nothing appeared to
lessen their number. It was at last suggested,
that if holes were dug, into which the mice
might be enticed, their destruction might be
effected. Holes therefore were made, about
twenty yards asunder, in some of the Dean
Forest plantations, being about twelve in
each acre of ground. These holes were from
eighteen to twenty inches in depth, and two
feet one way, by one and a half the other ;
and they were much wider at the bottom
than the top, being excavated or hollowed
under, so that the animal, when once in,
could not easily get out again. In these
holes, at least 30,000 mice were caught in
the course of three or four months, that num-
ber having been counted out, and paid for
by the proper officers of the forest. It was,
however, calculated, that a much greater
number were taken out of the holes by stoats,
weasels, kites, hawks, and owls, and also by
crows, magpies, jays, &c., after they had been
caught. The cats also which had been turned
out resorted to tliese holes to feed upon the
mice ; and in one instance a dog was seen
greedily eating them. In another, an owl
had so gorged himself, that he was secured
by one of the keepers. As the mice increased
in number, so did the birds of prey, of which
ai last there were an incredible number. In
addition to the quantity above mentioned, a
great atany mice were destroyed in traps, by

poison, and by animals and birds : and it
was found that in the winter, when their
ibod fell short, they ate each other, so that in
Dean Forest alone, the number which were
destroyed in various ways could not be cal-
culated at less than one hundred thousand,
and in the New Forest the mortality was
equally great. These calculations are made
from the official weekly returns of the
deputy-surveyors of the forests, and other
sources.

There were two descriptions of tliese
mice. One of them called by Buflbn Mulot,
was our long-tailed field-mouse, Mus sylva-
ticus. The other was a short-tailed mouse,
Cervicola agrcsiis, and seems to have been
the same animal as the Campagtwl of Bufibn.
There were about fifty of these latter taken
to one of the former. The long-tailed mice
had all white breasts, and the tail was about
the same length as the body. These were
chiefly caught on the wet greens in the forest,
and the short-tailed both on wet as well as
dry ground.

The short-tailed mouse has a much thicker
head than the long-tailed one, and its ears
are very short, and almost hid in the hair.
Its body is about three inches long, and the
tail one inch. The upper part of the body
is of a reddish brown, and the belly a deep
ash colour. Their runs and nests are under
the surface of the ground. They produce
seven and eight, and in some instances nine
young at a time.

Amongst the birds of prey which made
their appearance in Dean Forest during the
time the mice were in the greatest numbers,
was a small \\'hite owl. None of these birds
had previously been observed in the forest;
but in the space of a few months, many
were seen, and were considered to be the
most destructive of any of the winged ene-
mies of the mice.

In tlie pits made for catching the mice,
they exhausted themselves in eflbrts to climb
up the sides, so that by far the greater num-
ber of them were taken out dead. Many
were drowned where the water partly filled
the holes; but so little did they dread water,
that ash was seen fresh barked, the bottom
of which was surrounded with water in such
a way, that one of the officers of the forest
asserted, that the mouse must have been
actually swimming at the time of barking it.
In the same report he also mentions his be-
lief that the weasels, at the time they are
preying on mice, swallow them whole, and
that what they cannot digest, as the fur, &c.,
they void from their mouths in balls after-
wards. In one of the retreats of a weasel
ten mice were found ; and another weasel

652

INCUBATION OF BIRDS.

was seen to run into its hole with a mouse
in its month. It is probable, however, that
they were brought there as food for the
young. The weasel, I believe, generally
sucks the blood of its prey, at least that of
the larger animals.

It should be mentioned-in conclusion that,
in a plantation in Dean Forest, consisting of
three hundred acres, not more than four or
five plants were found which were not de-
stroyed or injured by the mice.

INCUBATION OF BIRDS.

It is an interesting fact in natural history,
that if you remove one or more eggs from
the nests of some birds, before they have
completed their natural complement, tliey
will continue laying a great number after-
wards. If the peewit {Tringa Vanelhis) is
deprived of only one egg after she has com-
pleted her number, she immediately forsakes
the rest : if, however, she has but one other
to lay, and all but one of her eggs are re-
moved, she will continue to lay for ten or
twelve days, and sometimes longer. The
same has been observed of the blackbird,
lark, and the long-tailed titmouse : the latter
has gone on to lay as many as thirty eggs
before she began to sit, a friend of mine
having removed that number. In the case
especially of the lark, if only one or two eggs
are allowed to remain in the nest, the bird
will go on to lay for a long time ; but if there
are three, she will sit. The usual number
of eggs in a lark's nest is five.

This is one of those mysteries in nature
which it is not easy to account for. We find
that a bird, as soon as it has deposited four
eggs in its nest, as in the case of the lapwing,
immediately ceases to produce any more ;
but if disturbed in its arrangements, will go
on to lay perhaps five times that number,
and yet cease the moment it has collected its
usual number for hatching in the same spot.
This property does not seem to belong to our
domestic fowls. A hen, when she wants to
sit, will as readily do so upon one egg as
more, and so will a turkey. This latter bird
is of a very torpid nature, and will continue
to sit for many months together, on a very
scanty supply of food.

It appears difficult to assign a reason why
birds of the same size and species should
produce eggs of a different shape and color.
The hedge-sparrow's egg is blue; while that
of the robin, who lives on the same sort of
food, and is like it in various particulars,
produces an egg of a darkish brown and
white color, ornamented with yellowi.sh
brown spots. The cormorant has pale
green e^gs, while the egg of the gannet is
■white: both these birds feed on fish. The
eggs of the rook, magpie, and lapwing, are
nearly similar in size and appearance.
Those of the pigeon, owl, and kingfisher,
are white j and those of the blackbird, of a

bluish green. In like manner, the eggs of
the land tortoise are of a dusky, brownish
white ; and those of the crocodile, of a bluish
white. Even hens in the same poultry-yard,
and fed on the same food, produce eggs of a
different color, some being much darker than
others. I have also observed that some
ducks of the same breed have white eggs,
and others bluish ones. Hens sometimes
produce eggs with a double yolk in them,
and others have been found with a double
shell. It is a curious and interesting fact,
mentioned by Blumenbaeh, that the part of
the yolk of an egg in which the future chick is
placed, is so much lighter than the opposite
side, that in whatever position the egg is
placed, this part is always uppermost, and
opposed to the belly of the incubating bird.

Another wonderful fact respecting eggs
is, that some birds have the property of either
retaining their egg after it has arrived at ma-
turity, or of suppressing altogether the further
progress of those eggs which had arrived at
a certain size in the ovarium. I have on
several occasions purchased pullets for my
farm-yard which had just begim to lay. Per-
haps on their way to their new home they
would drop one egg in the basket in which
they were confined : but I have invariably
found that, on arriving at a strange place,
they have altogether ceased to lay any more
eggs till they had become habituated to their
companions, and had made themselves ac-
quainted with the localities of their new situa-
tion. We know, on opening a pallet who
has just begun to lay, that there is a regular
succession of eggs of diflerent sizes in the
ovarium. Some are nearly complete, others
are as large as a marble, and others of the
size of a pea. The circumstance of birds
being endowed with the extraordinary jiro-
perty of preventing the eggs from arriving
at maturity, when their usual habits or place
of abode have been changed, is one of those
facts in natural history on which little light
has yet been thrown. If the leg of a pullet
is broken after she has laid two or three eggs,
and she is thus prevented from seeking
enough of that substance which is necessary
to be taken into the stomach with her food,
for the purpose of encrusting the egg, she
will perhaps drop one without a shell, and
then cease altogether from layiiig any niore

MANUAL OF MANNERS.

653

till the bones of her leg are knit, and she is
able to go about as usual. She then begins
to lay again, but the number is regulated by
those she had previously laid. Suppose, for
instance, that she had laid four eggs before
her leg was broken, and that the quantity in
her ovarium when she first began was sixteen,
she would, when she resumed her laying,
only produce the remaining twelve. From
this it is clear that a certain quantity of some
material — lime and chalk probably — is ne-
cessary to enable a hen to produce a perfect
egg, and that the want of it retards the pro-

cess going on in the ovarium, without pro-
ducing any immediate injury to those eggs
which were in a gradual process towards
maturity. In the instance already mentioned,
of hens ceasing to lay on being brought to
a strange place, it was probably occasioned
by their restlessness, and not knowing at first
where to go in search of what was necessary
to enable them to bring their eggs to per-
fection. It is much to be wished that this
curious subject should engage the attention
of naturalists more than it appears to have
done.

MANUAL OP MANNERS.

CONDUCT AT TABLE.

St. Peteh enjoins the practice of " hospi-
tality one to another without grudging."
When people invite company, they ought
not to be niggardly, as if they were afraid
of the expense ; nor yet should they be un-
suitably extravagant, as if they wished to
make a display. Above all, they should not
show themselves over-anxious on the occa-
sion ; if they desire their guests to be satis-
fied, they should let them perceive that they
are satisfied themselves.

To young married people this advice may
be given: — When you have a house of your
own, and see company, do not be giving
your orders in an imperious tone, as if you
were resolved to show your friends that you
are master in your own house, which no one
doubts. Neither get angry, or betray dis-
pleasure at any thing, before company. No-
thing spoils the comfort of the party so
much as misbehavior of this kind. An easy
and unconstrained manner will free the
guests from all restraint. Overlook any
little fault that may be committed by the
servants ; but if it should be necessary to
notice it at such a time, do it gently and
with forbearance. This will put the com-
pany at their ease, instead of rendering
them uncomfortable ; which a contrary de-
meanor never fails to do.

Too great a display of plate, or too daz-
zling a show of crystal, unless upon some
particular occasion, is in bad taste. Simpli-
city is the soul of good-breeding, as it is the
essence of natural beauty ; and to put your
visitor on a footing with yourself is the best
compliment you can pay him. When you
see company therefore, let the table be set
out tastefully, but not ostentatiously ; — in a
manner suitable to your station, but not, as
it were, to exhibit your pride and wealth,
more than your hospitality and social feel-
ing. Remember that your guests are, for
the time your adornments, and not your
vessels of silver and gold ; and let the ho-

nor be given to the former, for whom the
feast is .spread, without any vaunting show
of the latter. Do not invite your friends that
you may display your riches; but rather
render your riches subservient to the honor-
able reception and well-treatment of your
friends.

Scarcely any thing can be more objec-
tionable than the system of pressing, which
some unthinking persons are guilty of at
table. It is no sign of hospitality, though
doubtless meant for such,or of good-breeding,
to force people to eat or drink more than
they have a mind to do, or than they feel
will do them good.

To be the first to praise your own viands,
is a certain mark of vanity, if not of vulga-
rity. If you wish to show your good-breed-
ing, content yourself with a simple approval,
should occasion require you to do so. If you
are complimented on the excellence of your
dishes, or the choiceness of your wines, re-
ceive such praise with a modest acknow-
ledgment, and with no affected airs.

At table tlie conversation ought to be ge-
neral, not only before the servants, but after
they have retired. There are certain unbe-
fitting topics, there more particularly than
anywhere else, not to be spoken of to "ears
polite," — such as those subjects which are
apt to affect the stomach, or raise repulsive
ideas in the mind.

To rise from table before the cloth is re-
moved, on any account whatever, except
when overtaken by sudden illness, evinces
a want of good-breeding, or an intentional
neglect of the company, which is highly re-
prehensible. In the host it is unpardonable,
and in the guest unmannerly in the extreme.
For the master of the house to be the first to
quit the table, is an insult to his guests. To
rise from your chair at all, even to assist
yourself in carving, is a mark of low breed-
ing. To reach across the table is equally
contrary to good manners.

The hour of dinner varies in different
3i2

654

MANUAL OF MANNERS.

families, and with diflerent ranks. Among
friends the precise time is generally linown ;
therefore a call at that hour is imderstood as
an intrusion, and, unless wlien people are on
the most intimate footing, or are really in
quest of their dinner, is unusual in genteel
society.

The conduct in the drawing-room, both
before and after dinner, belongs rather to
etiquette; but there is one practice to which,
in general, literary and studious men are ad-
dicted, upon which a remark may not be
thrown away : — that is, seizing upon a book
and reading, when the person so otlending
ought to be engaged in conversation with
the lady or gentleman seated Ijeside him. It
is a sure mark of the want of knowledge of
the world to be guilty of such a practice: it
exhibits also an undeniable preference of the
book to the company, for which the person
who shows himself so devoid of good-breed-
ing is either unsuited, or he is desirous of
arrogating to himself a privilege allowed to
none — namely, the privilege of being rude.
On this ill-bred custom of reading in com-
pany something farther will be said in the
chapter on Amusements.

It is not necessary that any thing should
be said here regarding the mere etiquette to
be observed at table — that being more readi-
ly acquired from observation in society than
from the precepts of a book like this ; but,
while upon this head, it may be remarked
that there is one thing which those who give
parties should keep in view, and that is as
to the number of guests invited to an enter-
tainment,— a point which ought to be as
much attended to as their quality, or breed-
ing. A crowded table should always be
avoided. According to Marcus Varro, who
wrote a treatise on the subject, the number
present should not be less than that of the
Graces, nor more than that of the Muses.
This principle of hospitality v.^as well under-
stood by George the Fointh, who usually
limited the number of those invited to his
table to eight persons. Such a number ena-
bles the host to see and converse with every
one [jrescnt, and to attend to the individual
comfort alike of all his guests. A larger
company would distract his attention, and is,
besides, subject to confusion and noise.

This book is intended for Englisli readers,
and the author of it would wish to be un-
derstood as desirous of improving F.nglish
manners. The flippancy and frivolity of
the French ho considers beneath his stand-
ard ; and their gaycty and graceful ease of
manner, even when these really spring from
the heart, are .so diHerent from English po-
liteness and suavity, that he need not enter
upon a comparison between them, the contrast
being sufficiently strong of itself; and it does

not come within the scope of this work to
introduce any dissertation on foreign man-
ners or peculiarities. The writer only inter-
rupts, as it were, the course of his regular
subject, to say, that something like the fol-
lowing scene, as related by Madame de
Genlis, must have been witnessed at an
English party, although its features perhaps
were not so strongly marked, nor — had he
himself described such a scene — would he
have depicted it in such strong terms. In
England, as in France, political discussion
has been the bane of society. It is intro-
duced everywhere, even where least expect-
ed. Surely when people meet to pass the
evening in enjoyment and social ease, all
topics of either an exciting or displeasing
nature ought to be carefully eschewed, and
general harmony and good-fellowship pre-
vail. What a slight upon the gentler sex it
is for the gentlemen to enter upon the dis-
cussion of questions in which the ladies take
no interest, to the exclusion of all other sub-
jects, or sources of general entertainment and
information !

" Towards the end of June, 1 S21," says the
Countess de Genlis, in her lively memoirs,
■' I dined with thirteen persons, amongst
whom were four peers, four marshals of
France, and three generals: amongst the
peers there were two dukes. I was seated
betwixt two peers at dinner ; I had no
trouble in taking my share in the conversa-
tion, for they spoke of nothing but politics,
and addressed their conversation to their
friends at the other end of the table. We
returned to the drawing-room after dinner,
and at, the moment I was sitting down, I
saw with surprise that all the dukes and
peers had escaped froin me; each of them
took hold of an arm-chair, dragged it after
him, approached his neigTibor, and thus
formed a circle in the centre of the room. I
was thus left quite alone, with a semicircle
of backs turned towards me ; to be sure, I
saw the faces of the other half of the party.
I thought at first tliey had seated themselves
so, to play at those little games that require
such an arrangement, and found it very
natural and proper ; but it was no such thing
— it was solely for the purpose of di.scussing
the most difficult questions of state ijolicy.
Every one became a noisy orator, bawled
out his opinions, interrupted his neighbor,
quarrelled and talked till he got hoarse.
They must all have been in a precious state
of perspiration. It was a correct picture of
the Chamber of Deputies ; in fact, it was a
groat deal worse, for there was no presi-
dent!"

As the way a person conducts hiiuself at
table, when invited out to a dinner party, is
often taken as a criterion of one's general

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

655

breeding, you should endeavour to attain to
an ease and gracefulness of manner on such
an occasion, which you will find to be much
in your favor. Every thing like flippancy
or self-sufficiency, pertness or assumption,

is to be avoided. These are positive proofs
of ill-breeding, and are even more disagree-
able and annoying than awkwardness or
stiffness, on the part of either guest or
host.

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

MARRIAGE.

Hast thou taken to thyself an husband
after the institution of heaven, hast thou con-
sented to be bone of his bone, and flesh of
his flesh ?

Love him as the partner of thy happiness,
as the sharer of the pleasures and pains of
mortality.

Without love the husband is a tyrant, and
the woman is a slave.

The matrimonial vow, without affection,
is a commercial contract, it is the shadow
of marriage, and not the substance thereof.

Doth he respect thee ; do thou nourish and
improve his aflections.

Art thou perverse and froward, so shalt
thou extinguish the flame of love, and raze
the traces of kindness from his bosom.

Art thou enamored with his accomplish-
ments, yet let not thy affections outrun his
desires, lest thy fondness too openly disgust
him.

Neglect not the little arts of endearment,
but let the charm which captivated the
lover, secure the attachment of the husband.

Forget not the elegance of thy virginity,
but appear every morning as at the morning
of the bridal day.

Let not jealousy come near thy bosom: it
is the monster that feedeth upon its own en-
trails.

It is called the child of love : but as the
viper whose birth is the death of its parents,
so is the conception of jealousy the destruc-
tion of the mother that bears it.

Be thou cautious to destroy suspicion in
the breast of thine husband, lest it prove as
fatal to thy peace as if the fruit of thine own
conception.

Suspicion goeth about whispering lies, she
will fill thy brain with waking dreams, thy
sleep shall forsake thee, and thou wilt have
no rest night nor day.

Her companions are wrath and anger,
and malice and revenge, for jealousy is the
rage of a man, and the madness of a woman.

Hath thy husband deceived thee, doth he
proclaim it aloud, doth he publish it in the
streets, and boast his shame as an act of glory ;
pour not vinegar on nitre, neither apply cor-
rosives where the balsam of tenderness is
wanting.

Neither the thunder, nor the storm of hail,
closeth the openings of the dry earth, but
the soft dew and the gentle showers of
heaven.

Return his injustice with mildness of re-
proof, that his guilt may not have to reproach
thee with bitterness ; so shall thy meekness
sting him deeper than the sharpest venom
of the clamorous tongue.

The roaring of the stuck swine exciteth
not our pity ; but the patience of the bleed-
ing lamb awakeneth to compassion.

Art thou suspected, yet hast thou been
solicitous to approve thyself virtuous ; pa-
tience will heal the wounds of his unkind-
ness.

Tempt not the weakness of his suspicion
by unwonted levity ; thou shalt but inflame
him the more, for his mind is distempered.

Wouldst thou urge a madman when he
stareth, wouldst thou give him a sword that
he may v/ound himself?

Make not thine husband a stranger to thy
friends, lest the fashion of the times make
you strangers to each other.

Be thou obedient, for the law of superi-
ority is given to man from above, and sub-
jection is the portion of the daughters of
Eve.

The imperious woman raiseth a storm for
her own shipwreck, and she that aflects do-
minion should be made the slave of her hus-
band.

As rebellion lifteth up its head against its
sovereign, and thereby adds weight to the
yoke it attempted to shake off, so the sub-
jection of a wife when she usurpeth to go-
vern, should be converted into se-rvitude.

Expose not the infirmities of thine hus-
band, neither contemplate on his imperfec-
tions ; cast thou a lustre on his virtues, for
the beauty of his conduct is an honor to
thine own head.

Be not luxurious nor extravagant, lest thou
convert the riches of thy husband into toys
that avail not, and trinkets that are of no
profit.

Affect not beyond thy sphere, nor think
the honor of thy family is in the appear-
ance of great things.

Preserve thy vow inviolate, for the stray'
iiigs of thy husband absolve thee not.

656

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

EDUCATION.

Art thou a mother, let thy child be the
darling of thy affections, let the fruit of thy
womb be the tirst partaker of thy tenderness.

Are thy pleasures dearer than thine off-
spring, dost thou become cruel like the ostrich
of the wilderness, art thou hardened against
thy young ones as though they were not
thine ; they shall live to look coldly on thee,
they shall not regard thee as a mother in the
days of thy widowhood.

Dost thou refuse them nourishment from
the fountain of their life, the sea monsters
draw out the breast and give suck to their
young, but the milk of human kindness is
denied to her children.

Dote not on the idol of thy womb, for the
extreme fondness of a mother is as danger-
ous as the violence of her hate.

Thy darling shall be taken from thee in
the excess of thy love ; or if it live, it shall
grieve thine eye and consume thine heart,
it shall bring a curse upon thee, and not a
blessing.

In the morning of infancy, when the dawn
of reason appears, learn thy child obedience.

On this foundation thou mayest build high
towers; this clay thou mayest mould into
what form thou pleasest.

An obedient mind is ductile and tender,
but a stubborn breast taketh no impression.

As the young osier groweth as it is bent,
as the shoot of the vine curleth as we list;
so is a young child in the hands of its mother.

Correct betimes; lest thy indulgence be
cruel, and evil become habitual.

Trust not a servant with the education of
thy son, nor a maid servant with the tuition
of thy daughter.

Study the temper and capacity of thine off-
spring, and model thy reproof and severity
in proportion thereto.

Let not the austerity of a parent deny
complacency to its own child ; lest it de-
scend to familiarity with servitude, and
listen to mischiefs of flattery and insinuation.

Make thy daughter thy companion, so shall
she become thy friend, the yoke of duty will
be light, and the obligations of the child be-
come the voluntary offices of goodwill to-
wards thee.

Is thy daughter beautiful, lead her not into

the public haunts for admiration ; for the
way of a virgin, just rising to the estate of
woman, is a path where the nicest foot will
slip, if the hand beareth not on the staff of
education.

Let not the bowels of the mother petrify
against her child, let her not cast off her
daughter to misery.

Sell her not; neither make a sacrifice of
her youth to the power of gold.

As those who offer immolations to Moloch,
so are the idolaters of Mammon.

Let not thy conduct be a reproach to thy
precepts; lest thy daughter disregard thee,
and say, thou teachest others, but teachest not
thyself.

AUTHORITY.

Art thou supreme in thine own house,
or art thou second, in delegated authority;
trust not the concerns of thy family to a ser-
vant.

Tempt not thy domestics, by putting con-
fidence iu them ; give them not room to be
merely eye servants.

Dost thou raise one above the rest; let him
be such whose merit is conspicuous ; so shalt
thou excite commendable emulation in his
fellows.

Let not the number of thy servants exceed
the business of the day; for the hand that
wanteth employment is ready to lay hold on
mischief.

An unprofitable servant is a scandal to his
master, he bewrayeth the hand that provideth
him bread.

The vice of thy servant will be a reproach
to thine house, for he goeth by the name of
his mistress.

If he serve thee faithfully, cast not off thy
servant in distress ; neither let him ask thee
for his wages.

The detention of the price of the hireling
is injustice, and exciteth him to be his own
pay-master.

Let not the deserving feel the weight of his
servitude ; neither bid the best of thine house-
hold sit down at thy table.

The reward of a good servant should be
much favor, but familiarity will bring thy
kindness into contempt.

The Milky Way.— The Milky Way, were
it supposed to contain the same number of
stars throughout its whole extent as have
been observed in certain portions of it, would
comprise no less than 20,191,000 stars; and
eis each of these stars is doubtless a sun, if
we suppose only fifty planets or worlds con-
nected with each, we shall have no less than
1,009,550,000, or more tlian a thousand mil-

lions of worlds contained within the space
occupied by this lucid zone. Here an idea
is presented which completely overpowers
the human faculties, and at which the bold-
est imagination must shrink back at any at-
tempts to form an approximate conception.
The brightest and most expansive human
intellect must utterly fail in grasping all that
is comprehended in this mighty idea. — Dick,

Stl)c ipiougl), tl)c Coom, anh tl)e

Vol. I. MAY, 1849. No. XI.

COMPARATIVE IMPORT OF FOOD BY GREAT BRITAIN
AND THE UNITED STATES.

In our last number we gave a comparative view of the export of food by
Great Britain and the United States, in which it was shown that the former,
having only three-tenths of her population engaged in the work of cultiva-
tion, exported of food alone at least fifty per cent, more than the whole ex-
port of food, cotton, tobacco, and all other agricultural products, by the people
of this country, at least seven-tenths of whom are engaged in agriculture.
It was also shown that she was enabled so to do by aid of that wonderful
condensing machine, the human stomach, by aid of which the food and
wool are converted into cloth, and the food and ore into iron, thereby re-
ducing the whole into the compact form required to fit it for cheap transpor-
tation to distant markets ; and that if the people of this country desired to find
a profitable demand for their surplus of food, — always large, and tending
rapidly to increase, — they must imitate the example of England, and bring
the consumer to take his place by the side of the producer, thereby saving
the labor now employed in the work of transportation and exchange, and
the manure now wasted on the road and in distant markets.

Small as is the proportion of her population engaged in the labor of agri-
culture, England supplies herself almost entirely with food, and the day is
now not far distant when she will probably cease to look abroad even for a
single bushel of grain. Enthusiasts in the cause of that system which is called
free trade, and which compels men to waste labor in raising pounds of cot-
ton, or tobacco, when, had they a market near at hand, they might have as
many bushels of potatoes and turnips ; and bushels of wheat where they
might have twice as many hundred weights of beef and mutton ; of that
system which compels men to fiy from their fellow men and seek the West,
there to raise food, when they would prefer to stay at home and consume
it: — enthusiasts such as these, we say, point to the vast import by that coun-
try in 1847, and confidently predict that her power of consumption must
go on to increase with our power of supply, and that all we need to enable
us to dispose of our surplus, is t-he total abolition of protection to our farmers
in their effort to induce the loom and the anvil to come and take their na-
tural places by the side of their ploughs and their harrows. How far all
this is true may best be judged by a comparison of the quantity of food im-
ported into Great Britain in 1847, when so large a proportion of the labor
power of the country was turned to the making of roads by men who Avere
thus converted from producers of food into consumers of food, and when the
potato rot produced a vast demand of food for Ireland, from which had
previously been furnished immense supplies to the English market, with
that imported in the year just now closed, as shown in the following table : —

Animals .
Beef .

1847.
. No. 198,000
cwts. 109,000

1848.

174,000

98,000

GEAIN,

Wheat .
Do. meal .

. qrs. 2,418,000
cwts. 6,296,000

2,068,000
1,157,000

Vol. I.— 83

667

658 COMPARATIVE IMPORT OF FOOD

Indian corn . , . qrs. 3,500,000 . 1,397,000

Do. meal . . . cwts. 1,437,000 . 210,000

Other kinds of corn . . qrs. 2,962,000 . 2,315,000

Do. meal . . . cwts. 2,285,000 . 255,000

Rice .... cwts. 1,357,000 . 944,000

Converting the whole of this mass of vegetable food into quarters, allow-
ing four hundred weights of flour and rice to be the equivalent of five hundred
weights of grain, we obtain an import of above eleven millions of quarters for
1847, and one of only 6,300,000 for 1848; and even this is very far beyond
the average that can be needed, as the almost total exhaustion of the grana-
ries in 1847 had produced a vacuum that required to be filled, and farmers
who had obtained high prices in the previous year, not being compelled to
force their stocks upon the market, were enabled to fill it.

Great, however, as is the reduction in regard to the general import, how
infinitely greater is it when we restrict our examination to that portion in
which the farmers of this country are particularly interested. Poland and
Russia, Sicily and Egypt, supply grain, for they are deficient in the nieans
of converting it into flour, having kept themselves poor by making no market
in the land for the products of the land. This country alone, we believe,
supplies flour, and it is to that part of this table such of our farmers as de-
sire to speculate upon their future prospects should chiefly look. Doing so,
they obtain the following results: — In 1847, the import of wheat flour ex-
ceeded six millions of hundred weights. In 1848, it had fallen to little more
than one ! In the former year, that of all other kinds of meal was 3,700,000
cwts. In the latter, it had fallen to 465,000 ! Summing up the whole, we
obtain above ten millions for the first, and little more than a million and a
half for the last ; and even this is far beyond any probable future average.

Admitting, however, for a moment, that the whole quantity should con-
tinue to be equivalent to four millions of quarters, or thirty-two millions of
bushels of grain of all descriptions, how small is it compared with the food
imported by this country, and how infinitely small when we consider the
exceeding difference in the proportion which the population of Great Britain
engaged in the labor of agriculture bears to that of the United States. We
consume annually about 1 10 nnllions of dollars of foreign products, nearly the
whole of which large sum represents food. For the production of some portion
of this our climate is unfitted, and cofl'ee and tea, and some other articles, may
be produced elsewhere at less cost of labor than here. Striking these out,
and making every other allowance, we shall find at least sixty millions of
dollars of food that wc could produce at less cost of labor than any other peo-
ple in the world, were our system one that tended to promote concentration
for the cultivation of the rich soils of the earth, instead of driving our people
to seek the West, there to commence the work of cultivation on poor ones,
and to waste in the work of transportation to market a large portion of their
small returns.

The iron we import represents the food of the men who mined the ore
and the coal, of those who built the furnace and made the machinery, and
that of those who worked the furnaces and transported their products to market.
The cloth we import represents the food of the Hindoo rice-grower, that of the
Australian shepherd, and that of the numerous persons engaged in the work
of transporting the wool, the cotton, and the rice, and converting them into
clnth. We arc thus perpetually engaged in the work of importing food,
while we are everj'where seeking markets for the vast quantity that is ren-
dered surplus by our pursuance of a course of policy that prevents our far-
mers from obtaining a market on the land for the products of the land. We
are the largest importers of food in the tvorld, and yet our farmers are taught

BY GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES.

that if they would find a market for their surplus in the form of food, it must
be by importing foreign food, duty free, in the forms of cloth and iron.

"We exported last year," says the Secretary of the Treasury, '< $130,203,709, in
value of domestic products and fabrics, exclusive of specie, and under low duties
this must go on augmenting. But how can foreign countries pay for these exports
if we will take no imports, or very few, in return ? Clearly, our exports must in
time cease, or fall to a very small sum, the foreign markets must be destroyed, and
the price of our staple exports of cotton, of rice, of tobacco, of breadstuflfs and pro-
visions, must decline, for we cannot take the return in specie from abroad without
exhausting those markets in a single year, nor can we consume ut home this aug-
menting surplus."

It is here assumed that free trade tends to increase the price of our staple
exports. If it does so, it must increase our powers of consuming the articles
we are accustomed to receive in exchange for them. If it is so, then
protection to the farmer, in his effort to induce the owners of looms and an-
vils to come and take their places by his side, must tend to diminish the prices
of those staples, and must diminish the power of consuming cloth and iron,
and all other of the commodities that he is accustomed to receive in exchange
for his food, and of course to diminish the market for his surplus. How far
these views are correct may, we think, be ascertained by an examination
of some of the tables appended to the Secretary's report. In the follow-
ing one, which we have compiled therefrom, are given — first, the popula-
tion in each year, and, second, the total amount of imports, exclusive of
specie, consumed in the Union. To these we have added the amount of
consumption of foreign merchandise, per head, in each year.

Population.

Total consumption.

Per head

1830

12,856,165

$49,575,000

$3 87

1831

13,277,415

82,808.000

4 23

1832

13,698,665

75,327,000

5 50

1833

14,119,915

83,470,000

5 92

1834

14,541,165

86,973,000

6 00

1835

14,962,415

122,007,000

8 20

1836

15,383,665

158,811,000

10 40

1837

15,804,915

113,310,000

7 00

1838

16,226,165

86,552,000

5 40

1839

16,647,415

145,870,000

8 70

1840

17,068,666

86,250,000

5 00

1841

17,560,082

114,776,000

6 50

1842

18,051,499

87,996,000

4 90

1843

. 18,542,915 n^r'T-' ^tn
' ' 1. 30 to June 30,

1 37,293,000

*2 67

1844

19,034,332

96,390,000

5 00

1845

19,525,749

105,599,000

5 40

1846

20,017,165

110,048,000

5 50

1847

20,508,582

116,258,000

5 70

It will be observed that the fiscal year now ends with June 30, and that
this last one includes the last half of 1846 and the first half of 1847, when
the power of consuming foreign products remained in the position in which
it had been placed by the action of the tarifTof 1842, imder which the far-
mer enjoyed full protection, and Avas enabled to draw to his side the con-
sumers of potatoes, and turnips, and hay, and milk, and veal, and all other
of the commodities of which the earth yields largely, and was therefore not
forced to depend exclusively upon those articles that would bear transporta-
tion to distant markets.

* The consumption in 9 months was at the rate of $2 per head, equal to $2 67 for the
year.

060 COMPARATIVE IMPORT OF FOOD

The whole amount of foreign merchandise consumed in the Union from
1821 to 1829, a period of nine years, was $510,000,000 ; and as the average
population was about 11,200,000, it follows that the consumption per head
was almost exactly five dollars. In 1830 it had fallen, from causes which
we are unable now to ascertain, below the average ; but in the three fol-
lowing years, ending Sept. 30, 1833, a period of perfect protection, it at-
tained a greater height than it had reached in any two successive years of
the previous period, — thus proving that protection to the farmer and planter
had not diminished their power of consumption, nor had it produced a neces-
sity for draining other nations of their specie.

In the year ending September 30, 1835, at which period the Compromise
Act had scarcely become operative, the power of consuming foreign mer-
chandise rose to $8 20 per head, a greater height, we believe, than it had
ever before attained, — affording new proof that the farmer and planter were
not compelled to drain the world of specie.

In the following year, vast quantities of capital were forced into the coun-
try, in the shape of cloth and iron, to be applied to the making of roads,
and the consumption reached $10 40 per head, but the consequence in the
next succeeding one was a drain of our own specie, and the stoppage of
all the banks in the Union.

With each successive year, we now find an increasing approach to per-
fect freedom of trade, with a gradually diminishing power to consume fo-
reign merchandise, which we see to have fallen in 1838 to $5 40 ; in 1840
to $5 00; in 1842 to $4 90, and in the period ending June 30, 1843, to
only $2 G7 per head, a lower point than in any previous period of peace
from the organization of the government, the power of consumption having
been almost destroyed in the effort to reach perfect freedom of trade.

As the Tariff of 1842 comes gradually into action, we find a change in the
contrary direction, and the power of consumption rising gradually, until, in
the year ending .Tune 30, 1847, it attains $5 70, being nearly the point
which it had reached previous to the passage of the Compromise Act.

We now desire the attention of our agricultural friends to the wonderful
difference resulting from an increase in the consumption of foreign food in
the form of cloth and iron manufactured in distant lands, and that which
follows an increase in the consumption of food grown at home, and eaten at
home by the men who convert food and wool into cloth, and food and ore
into iron, enabling the producer to return to the land the refuse of its pro-
ducts, and to pass successivelj' from the cultivation of wheat, and oats, and
rye, of which the earth yields by bushels, to that of potatoes, and turnips,
and carrots, of which it yields by tons, but which are therefore worthless
when a market is not made on the land for the products of the land.

The total excess of consumption in the eight years following 1834, over
the average of the four previous years, was only the small amount of 250
millions of dollars, although the population had grown in that period from
fourteen to eighteen millions. Small, however, as it was, it caused such a
drain upon the resources of the country as to involve it in almost utter ruin.
Factories and furnaces were closed, farms were abandoned. States were ren-
dered bankrupt, and the Union itself was reduced to the humiliating neces-
sity of soliciting aid in foreign lands, to meet the demands upon the 7'reasury
in a time of profound peace! Such was the result of using foreign food in
the form of cloth and iron.

Let our readers now compare with this the result of the following years
of protection. The manufacture of iron grew, between 1843 and 1847, from
350,000 to 700,000 tons, worth, on an average, in its various forms of stoves,
and railroad iron, and axes, and machinery, little short of a hundred dollars

BY GREAT BRITAIN AND THE UNITED STATES. 661

per ton. The consumption of cotton rose from 300,000 to 600,000* bales,
worth, in the form of cloth, at least a hundred and fifty dollars per bale. The
manufacture of woollen cloth doubled in the same period. The increase in
the home production of the single year 1847 over that of 1843, in these
three species of manufacture, was at least a hundred millions, being almost
half as much as the increased import of eight years under the gradual re-
duction of the Compromise Act; and what was the result of this consump-
tion of home-grown food ? Did it leave the nation in a state of prostration ?
Was it necessary to send abroad to negotiate loans even for carrying on an
expensive war ? It was not. The system diffused universal prosperity. Mills,
and furnaces, and rolling mills, were built. Farms increased in value. States
were enabled to resume payment, and the Union negotiated large loans
without difficulty ; and all this was the result of the universal demand for
labor produced by the tariff of 1842, by aid of which the farmer and planter
were gradually attracting to their sides the looms and the anvils and the
men who employed them : and with every step in this progress our power
to consume foreign merchandise increased, having risen gradually from
$3 67 per head in the free-trade year 1842-3, to $5 70 per head in the year
of protection, 1846-7. To this great fact we beg the special attention of our
free-trade readers, and ask them now to say if it does not afibrd some
evidence that the nation which is enabled to return to the land thejefuse of
the products of the land, as was then the case, is not hkely to be a better
customer to its neighbors than such a nation as existed here in 1842, when
mills and furnaces were closed, and when tens if not hundreds of thousands
were forced to seek the West for want of employment in the East.

We have been, and we are, the greatest importers of food in the world,
and therefore it is that our farmers and planters are perpetually seeking
abroad that market which the policy of the nation denies to them at home.
We drive to the West, there to become producers of food, the men who
would desire \o remain at home to be consumers of food, and thus produce
that surplus, constantly augmenting, which the honorable Secretary insists
that "we cannot consume at home." Had the tariff of 1828 remained un-
disturbed, that surplus would long since have ceased to exist, and our plant-
ers, dividing their attention between food and wool, would have exp(?rienced
no necessity for holding meetings to devise measures for reducing their great
surplus. The consumption of this country, alone, would long since have
reached a million of bales, and they would be receiving more for the balance
that they could spare for foreign markets than they now receive for the
whole. They now raise cotton, because they can sell nothing else, and
they send it abroad because they have destroyed the men who would have
manufactured it at home, while eating the corn for which they have now no
market ; and this they call freedom of trade. Had the tariff of 1828 re-
mained unaltered they would now be surrounded by producers of cloth
and iron, who would already have attained that point predicted by the Secre-
tary, when the manufacturers themselves, as is now the case in England,
would be clamorous for perfect freedom of trade.

Let every farmer and every planter endeavor to engrave upon his mind
the idea that "population makes the food come from the rich soils," and that
if they would cultivate such soils, they must unite with their neighbors in
obtaining the pursuit of such a course of policy as will enable them to stay
at home to be his customers, instead of flying to distant lands, there to be-
come his rivals.

See page 469 of our February Number.

3 K

662 GRAPES AND FOWLS.

CULTIVATION OF FOREIGN GRAPES IN THE UNITED
STATES NOT TO BE ATTEMPTED SUCCESSFULLY.

CHANGE OF PLUMAGE IN FOWLS.

Patersm, Feb. 3, 1849.

My Dear Sir — You ask me for my experience in the culture of European
grapes, by open culture — that is, without glass or artificial heat. I agree
\Mth Mr. Longvvorth, of Cincinnati, and Mr. Samuel E, Perkins, of Boston,
that it is in vain to hope, in this country, or at all events in my district, to
raise fine fruit from European grapes by open culture. I have tried it ef-
fectually for seven years — the first and second year of bearing I had some
fine grapes — Black Hamburgs, Black Clusters, and Chasselases: but the third
year of little value ; the fourth, of no value ; and last year so bad that I have
dug up 700 vines, and will give them to any person who wants them. The
truth is, I would not accept of the vines of any foreign grapes as a gift, to
raise in open culture. Under glass, as you know, with or without fire, we
raise fine grapes. For the table, or for wine, I would manure my vines dif-
ferently : for the table I would give my borders a food of flesh, of bones,
of charcoal, of cow-dung, of good turf from an old pasture, of oyster shells,
and some salt, some lime, and some plaster of Paris, and, if there was no
iron in the soil, some common copperas, and then to all these add some wood
ashes. Wherever a border has been long made, give it a top dressing of bone
dust, plaster of Paris, and wood ashes. I have found that a weak decoction
of potash dissolved in water, once or twice in the season, did great good; it
is upon this principle I use whale-oil soap for all my fruit-trees and grape-
vines, and more than any man in the country.

We had a discussion about color in birds and animals. Some time since,
my friend, N. Biddle, gave me a pair of white Guineas — the cock died be-
fore I had any increase. I got a common slate-colored cock — part of the
chickens were white, part gray — I killed the gray — the next season all were
white — this year all white but one. Again, I had a very fine and prohfic
breed of white turkeys — I kept none other — all the progeny for three years
were white ; but this last year two of the chicks were black, and one, a cock
of most magnificent proportions, is the handsomest black one can see.

My man Nicholas has caponized for me eighty cocks — I lost but seven ;
and as they bled to death we eat them. They are of double the weight of
those not altered, and far more tender. I had one turkey caponized ; this I
will keep until you come on and eat it with me. Next year I will alter
several turkeys. Why should they not improve as pigs and sheep do?
Who ever tried a duck or goose ? R. L. C.

In the physiology of birds there is nothing more curious, and, if susceptible, worthy of
investigation, tlian the laws which influence the color of their plumage. It may be that
medical men, whose business it is to study these things, understand all about it. We con-
fess our ignorance. It is asserted, for instance, that "it is by no means a rare occurrence
among game-fowls, blacks, blues, and reds, to change their plumage and become spangles
and whites." Why is it said particularly among game fowls? There is a coincidence
which gives significance to this remark ; leading us to inquire whether this change of
plumage has been ohserve<l in regard to fowls that have never felt the touch of cold steel ?
In the Old Turf Register and Sporting Magazine, the first periodical of its kind established
in the United States, we recorded the case that occurred in 1807, of a milk-white cock,
raised by Mr. Pliilips, of South Hampton, Va., who won a fight at Bellefield ; and the next
spring he was a red spangle, and lost at Halifax. Allen J. Davie, well known and re-
spected among agriculturists and sportsmen in all the south, bred a game cock in Madison
vounty, which, in 1821, was a blue-gray; iu 1822 he was stiil a blue-gray. In 1823, he

LUCERNE. 663

was milk-white, or smock, as the English term it; and in 1824 he became sky-blue. This
old bruiser won a match for each change, conquering under whatever flag he fought.

The color of plumage and of hair, &c., is attributed to the influence of some peculiar co-
loring matter in the system. What produces in these cases the alteration of that coloring
matter? Who in the country has not wondered, as he rides along the road, or as he looks
at his own herd of cattle, at the exact similitude which is often observable in the marks
of the cow and her calf! Truly, '• There are more things in heaven, Horatio, than are
dreamed of in our philosophy."' And this is one of the things regulated by laws beyond
our ken. — Editors P. L. ^- A.

LUCERNE.

To those who are acquainted with the great value of this plant, especially
for house-feeding, or soiling, as it is called, it has been a matter of just sur-
prise that so few farmers have entered upon its cultivation. Their neglect
to do so can only be imputed to ignorance of its advantages, or to that aver-
sion which farmers are too apt to entertain towards any thing which requires
more pains than usual in the preparation of the land ; for, in that, after all,
consists the sole difficulty in establishing a crop of lucerne — for, once well
established in the ground, it will yield four or five heavy crops of the most
succulent and palatable green food for stock of all kinds, every year, for at
least six or eight years. Moreover, it may be cut two weeks earlier than
clover, and would meet with remunerating prices at all our livery stables,
long before clover can be had.

The soil most suitable for Lucerne is that of a deep, dry nature — the
richer of course the better ; but so it be dry, it may be loamy or gravelly, or
even sandy land, if rich. No grass equals it, when once established, for
standing drought ; for it sends down its large root to a great depth, and
therefore needs, or is benefited, by deeper tihh than usual ; but the great
desideratum is to have the soil clean of all extraneous vegetable matter, so
that the lucerne may get early and complete possession of it. The farmer
will do well, then, to select a spot which has been last in a cleaning crop —
such as carrots, cabbages, tobacco, &c. Before the seed is put in, the soil
must be rendered perfectly fine by ploughing, as often as need be, and
breaking it well down by harrowing. If manure be used, it should be well
rotted manure, perfectly free from seed of all kind; for the object to be kept
constantly in view, is to render the land perfectly free from weeds, and at the
same time mellow and friable.

The seed is of rather lighter color and larger than that of clover — and the
fresher the better. If sown broadcast, 18 or 20 pounds of seed will be
required to the acre ; less, of course, if drilled. In drills 18 inches or 2 feet,
six to nine pounds. If 12 inches apart, then ten to iweive pounds; but nine
inches apart drills will be best, and will take say sixteen poimds.

As to the time of sowing, the sooner the better in spring, to give the plant
every chance against its enemies. The seed should be lightly covered, say
not more than two inches, and therefore best done with a light brush har-
row. It is estimated that one acre will support from four to six horses, or
cattle, through the summer months ; but care should be taken not to give it
in too large quantities, especially if damp, as cattle are liable to be hoven or
blown with it, as with clover. We have known a lot of it to aflbrd four good
crops a year, for eight or ten years, and give the notice now, that no time
may be lost in the preparation of the land. — 3Iodel Am. Courier.

To preserve apples for domestic use a long time, place first, a layer of
chaff on the bottom of the barrel, sprinkled with quickhme.and then a layer
of apples, and so on till full.

664 FRIENDLINESS OF THE FRIENDLY.

FRIENDLINESS OF THE FRIENDLY.

Annexed are extracts from two letters recently received. We give them from
a desire to show the kindliness and the liberality of feeling that exist among
many of our subscribers, differing so much as it does from that so frequently
found by other editors, and sometimes by ourselves. It is the true spirit. Men
should be willing to read doctrines opposed to those which they have been
accustomed to hold as true, for unless they do so, how can they be certain
that they have the truth ? The first teachers of Christianity — of the great
law which teaches "peace on earth, and good-will to all men," — preached
to men who were as firmly convinced of the truth of other doctrines as are
now the opponents of that of protection ; and if those who heard them had
treated them as men now treat editors, what would have been the progress
of true religion ? Let an editor broach an idea in opposition to one held by
any of his subscribers, and the effect is felt in an order to " stop my paper ;"
whereas if his reader desired to be assured of the truth of his own views,
his true course would be to read the arguments opposed to them, and satisfy
himself of their weakness. The main difficulty experienced by editors who
desire to act independentlj-, and to teach what they believe to be true, is
that so many of their readers have adopted the ideas of others, upon Avhich
they have not themselves reflected, and then when contrary ones are pre-
sented, being unable to prove their falsehood, while unwilh'ng to admit their
truth, they become dissatisfied with themselves, and stop the journal to pre-
vent a recurrence of the unpleasant sensation. Far different from such
men are the writers of these two letters. Being men of sense, they are not
afraid to have presented to them ideas in opposition to their own. They
know that if our arguments are weak, they can do them no harm, and that
if they are strong — such as cannot be answered — they may do them good.
After careful examination of the facts presented to view throughout the
world, we have arrived at the conclusion that the plough has never thriven
when distant from the anvil and the loom, whereas it has always thriven
when near to them. Here is a very simple, but very important proposition
— one in which every farmer and planter of the country is directly inte-
rested in seeing fairly and fully examined ; and every such man should feel
himself indebted to those who would take the trouble so to do, thereby
enabling him to form an opinion for himself, after a full view of both sides
of the question. Throughout the whole South neivspapers abound in which
are taught the doctrine that farmers prosper most who depend most on
foreign markets ; and if we administer poison, the antidotes to it are so
numerous that we can do little harm.

Knoxville, Febniary 5, 1849,

Mt Deab Sir : — I received your very kind and friendly letter in due time. Enclosed
is one dollar for a copy of your work published on "Sheep Husbandry,'' you spoke of
When I receive a copy I can judge Mhether it will be successful at the South. At least
I can prejudge it if it is interesting as some of yoiu- agricultural addresses.

Though a young man, I am truly a friend and well-wisher of yours, and therefore take
the liberty to suggest whether you would not succeed better in enlarging your subscrip-
tion, and interest, and usefulness, and influence, by avoiding prejudices of men by trench-
ing rather too close ujjon the Tariff question, which is political, and which the blind
prejudices of many, particularly of the South, where there is more need of enlightenmen*
upon agriculture and political economy, take alarm at your writings and turn against you,
as your last pajicr shows Mr. Ritchie has done. Will you be good enough to send n.o
the January number, as I have not read it, as it miscarried, or I have lost it, and I wish
to read it and keep it and all numbers, very carefully.

Very respectfully, S. R.

FRIENDLINESS OF THE FRIENDLY. 665

The next extract is from a highly enh'ghtened and independent former,
residing not far from Fredericksburg, Virginia. It is in the spirit which it
seems to us ought to animate every lover of truth, and every friend of tolera-
tion. He overpaid for "The American Farmer" enough to cover a year's
subscription to " The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil." The following
remarks were merely incidental.

I take it for granted you are fully aware that I utterly repudiate the political doctrine
of "The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil," but having lived long enough to have my con-
fidence in men and their opinions shaken, (I include myself with others,) I am not only
willing but anxious to hear both sides of every important public question.

Yours, very respectfully, W. P. T.

Finally, in the way of general explanation, as well as of respcctftil reply
to our Knoxville friend, we are free to confess, that incorrigible as has ever
been our partiality for all that relates to agriculture, and pressing as was the
necessity for turning our hands to something for bread, we should yet not
have again undertaken to establish a new journal solely to illustrate /)rac/ica/
agricidtiire! For that purpose, there were already in existence many
periodicals as ably conducted as they were badly supported. This was not
the case when we established the first one of the kind, thirty years ago.
Then there was necessitj'- to elicit and pronnulgate for the public use, the
knowledge and experience locked up in the minds of individuals ; and we
are not sure that were it now our object exclusively to communicate the
processes and results of the best systems of field-practice, in all the various
branches of agricultural industry, we could do better than go over and
winnow the fair and sound grain from the immense mass of valuable matter
in the old volumes of that work. What subject has been lately discussed
and presented w'lxh. more ability than there ? What root crop or grain crop,
for which we are continuing to give premiums, is exceeded by those regis-
tered in " The American Farmer," twenty-five years ago ? But casting
about now for what has ever been the object of our huinble ambition — to see
how we could make our own employments and the pursuit of our own sub-
sistence, agreeable, instructive, and useful to the public, it did occur to
us, and every day's reflection confirms us in the belief, that what is now
needed most, to place practical agriculture on a prosperous and stable found-
ation, is to lead the farmer and the planter to study the political economy,
as well as the scientific principles that belong to his profession. Instead of
being the most indifferent, they of all classes should be most vigilant and
alive to the proceedings of government, as they are calculated to benefit or
to injure the great landed interest of the country I — and in scanning the
spirit of the laws, the great test, as it seems to us, is to see whether they
tend to draw together or to separate the producer and the consumer. Wk
believe that the'policy which draws them together, diminishing the cost of
transportation and exchange, between the producer and the consumer — the
producer of cloth and of iron to be consumed by the farmer, and the producer
of wool and of food to be consumed by the manufacturer of cloth and iron, is
that which will most contribute to individual wealth and national independ-
ence— so believing, though entirely depending for support on the success
of this journal, would it not be faithless in us not to preach what we believ^e
to be the true doctrine, even though gentlemen choose, as they have a per-
fect right to do, to reject the whole work, Avith all its other forty or fifty
pages of practical matter, on account, not of its party, but of its political
economy ? After all, we may be wrong. AVe make no pretensions to
infaihbiiity ; but — show us that we are so ! " Strike, but hear !"

Vol. L— 84 8k2

G66 EFFECTS OF THE TARIFF OF 1846.

EFFECTS OF THE TARIFF OF 1846

UPON THE MAKERS OF GLASS AND IRON.

We take the following from one of our exchanges :

"The following is a list of the window-glass workers who have determined to discon
tinue their operations one and a half months before the usual time, in consequence of the
surplus of glass in the market, from excessive importations and the stagnation of domestic
industry : —

Peter Shreve & Co., of the Waterford Works, New Jersey.

John G. Rosenbaum, " Malaga " "

Richards & Brother, " Jackson " "

Hay, Bowdie & Co., " Winslow " "

Miilford,Hay& Co., « Millville " «

James M. Brookfield, " N. Columbia " «

Vangilder, " Marshallville « «

John H. Coffin, " Hammonton " "

Jesse Richards, " Batso " "

Benjamin Wilkins, " Medford " «

Daniel E. Estell, « Estellville " «

Baker & Brother, " Baltimore " Maryland.

A. R. & S. H. Fox, \ " !f '",' ■^''''.*;, I New York.

^ " JJurhamviUe ^

"This will diminish the manufacture of window-glass about 100,000 boxes, and throw
out of employment nearly one thousand persons.

" The conviction is fast obtaining ground among the glass-makers, that the American
markets, under the present taritf, must be given up to the foreign manufacturer, unless the
cost of making the article can be materially reduced.

" On the first of March, Messrs. Cooper & Co., of Trenton, will stop the manufacture of
railroad iron, and six hundred worthy men, with families dependent upon their daily labor,
will be thrown out of employment. The manufacture of railroad iron will be wholly
abandoned in thiscoimtry, and the large numbers who have been comfortably sustained,
and at good wages, will be beggared. Foreign iron — 4000 tons of heavy T rail — have
been contracted for by the Lancaster and Harrisburg Railroad, at $45 per ton, delivered at
New York, the making and delivery of which would cost the American manufacturer
$52 50 per ton.'

Every farmer should recollect that whenever cotton-mills are closed, fur-
naces abandoned, rolling-mills and glass-houses discontinued, the persons
who have been accustomed to consume food while producing cloth, and
iron, and glass, are compelled to seek to produce food for themselves. They
go West, and there they raise wheat, and corn, and pork, that are to seek a
market in Europe, and in seeking it they overwhelm the farmers of the East.
The tobacco planter of Maryland is crushed by his rival in Ohio and Ken-
tucky. The cotton planter of South Carolina is crushed by his rivals in
Alabama and Mississippi ; and the farmers of Pennsylvania, New York, and
New Jersey, are crushed by their rivals in Illinois and Wisconsin. The
necessary consequence of this is, that men are compelled to fly from the
vicinitj^ of rich lands, uncultivated, in the old States, to commence the work
of cultivation upon others, which are of inferior quality, in the new ones, and
every man thus driven abroad tends to compel others to follow his exan)ple.
Had South Carolina and Georgia turned their attention to manufactures,
thousands who have been driven abroad to raise cotton in Alabama and Mis-
sissippi, would be now engaged in raising food at home, the price of cotton
would never have fallen so low, and those States would now be advancing
in wealth and population more rapidly, perhaps, than any others in the
Union : for they now need nothing but population to give them wealth. So
with Virginia and Maryland. Their people fly West to raise tobacco, and

COMMON DEFICIENCY OF AGRICtTLTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 667

the constant increase in the supply from the West, breaks down those who
have thus far remained at the East. Let every man in those States examine
the facts for himself, and he will find that we have here presented the true
view of the case. If he be a land-owner, let him satisfy himself that it is
" population that makes the food come from the rich soils," and let hira
unite with his neighbors in the endeavor to bring about that system of legis-
lation which will enable men to remain at home, combining their efforts for
the cultivation of the rich soils and thus improving their physical and moral
condition, instead of flying from home to barbarize and impoverish them-
selves among the wilds of Texas, Arkansas, Oregon, or California. The
plough never has flourished but in connection with the loom and the anvil,
and it never can do so, for the waste of labor and manure, when they are
separated, is greater than the value of all the cloth and iron that can be con-
sumed. Let every man, then, put his shoulder to the wheel in aid of the
measures required for bringing about that connection, and let every one
recollect that protection is emphatically a planter'' s and farmer'' s measure.

ON THE COMMON DEFICIENCY OF AGRICULTURAL
IMPLEMENTS,

To a close observer of the state and practice of American agriculture, nothing is more
apparent than the want of thorough tillage, or preparation of the ground, for the reception
and production of crops. There is not one person, or one crop in a hundred, wiih or for
which that preparation is thorough. The ground is left fall of weeds, or the roots of
weeds and clods, which prevent the access of air and of moisture, and of the roots in
search of what air and moisture only can supply for the growth of the plant. This
slovenliness and imperfection in tillage, proceeds from various causes — too often from
ignorance, thoughtlessness, and downright want of care on the part of the cultivator, but
more frequently for want of the necessary implements. It would be quite safe to assert that
there is not in the United States one farm in one hundred that is not lamentably deficient
in the number and suitableness of its implements of culture — and this is more especially
the case in the South, where population is sparse, and where the loom and the anvil, the
manufacturer and the machinist, are not to be found in the neighborhood of the plough.
Long convinced of the truth of what is here said, we are prompted the more readily to
select the following from a late number of " The English Farmer's Magazine."

OBSERVATIONS ON THE IMPLEMENTS OF AGRICULTURAL TILLAGE;

And a description of an Improved Implement, by which the operation of tillage may be
efficiently performed, at a great saving of labor, time, and expense.

BY JOHN EWART, LAND-SUEVEYOR, ETC., NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.

An indispensable preliminary in estimating the efficiency of any instru-
ment is a careful examination of what is sought to be effectuated by its
operation ; as it is only by comparing the effect produced with the object in
design that we can with certainty pronounce upon the extent of its useful-
ness.

The operation of preparing the ground for the growth of cultivated plants
is what is intended to be understood in the subsequent observations by the
term " tillage," by which three objects are sought to be attained : first,
reversing the surface of the soil; secondly, dividing its mass so as to pre-
sent the greatest number of particles to the contact of air and moisture, or
rendering the earth operated upon capable of ready absorption of these ele-
ments ; and thirdly, to remove whatever spontaneous vegetation may be
present, that the soil may not be exhausted of nutritive principles required
to promote the growth of plants designed to be cultivated

The purposes above-mentioned are, perhaps, as perfectly accomplished
by the operation of the spade as can be desired ; but an insunnouniable

668 COMMON DEFICIENCY OF AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS.

obstacle to the use of that implement in tillage on an agricuhural scale arises
from the difFiculiy of the requisite number of laborers to prepare a sufficient
space of ground for the reception of any crop in due season. And sup-
posing a sufficiency of workmen to be procurable that might be required at
one season, the difficulty, or rather impossibility, of findivig them with pro-
fitable employment during the remainder of the year, will confine the use of
the spade to the tillage of horticulture, or of very limited extents of ground,
in the production of agricultural crops.

In reviewing the different implements in use in agricultural tillage as to
the extent to which each is adapted to accomplish the purpose intended, and
commencing the notices with the plough, it will he found, on very slight
examination, that the capability of that implement is confined to the first of
the objects of tillage previously named — the turning or reversing the surface
of the soil. In doing which, when it lays the furrow-slice in a proper posi-
tion without waste of power by undue resistance in passing through the soil,
it is all that can be looked for in an implement of the kind. In the per-
formance of its office in the best manner of which the implement is capable,
the tillage operation of the plough, limited as it is, is very imperfect in
effect ; as it not only compresses, but by its sliding action it also smoothes
the surface by filling up the interstices between the particles wherever any
part of the implement comes in contact with the soil ; thus rendering all
descriptions less capable of absorbing, a«d that of a clayey nature almost
impervious to air and moisture, especially when the latter mentioned kind is
in any degree approaching to a state of wetness. So that in the ordinary
mode of agricultural tillage, by the compression and glazing, as it were, of
the subsoil by the action of the sole of the plough, the pasture of plants is
limited in depth to the depth to which the plough acts, and it requires the
mass of the furrow to be pulverized by the action of other implements before
the stirred earth (especially clayey soils) is capable of saturation with air
and moisture — a condition of the soil, independent of all others, indispensable
to vigorous vegetation.

The implements of agricultural tillage designed for cleaning and pul-
verizing the land are the harrow in various modification of form, and the
roller, with either a plane, spiked, or notched surface. Most, or perhaps all
of the implements just referred to, are efficient in the purposes they are
designed to accomplish. The simple harrow, with its straight teeth, is only
capable of — as in fact it is all that it is intended to accomplish — stirring the
earth in a horizontal direction. Many of the modifications of the harrow,
such as Finlayson's patent self-cleansing harrow, Ducie's drag, Biddell's
scarifier, &c., are adapted for a more extensive operation ; for they not only
stir the earth in a similar manner to the common harrow, but also at the
same time bring weeds and clods from the depth to which they act to the
surface, so that the former may be gathered by the harrow or rake, and the
latter crushed by the action of the roller. Of implements of the roller kind
having plane surfaces there is nothing in regard to them requiring notice,
except that those formed of hollow cast-iron cylinders in two separate parts
in their length are the best ; and of those having spiked or notched sur-
faces, Crosskill's patent clod-crusher is the most effective in its operation of
any that has hitherto been invented. Yet on clayey land, when in a state
of any degree of toughness, the action of this implement kneads and moulds
the particles of the clods into lumps about the size of hens' eggs, still more
compact than the masses it has broken, so as to require, in frequent cases,
after its use, the action of a smooth-surface roller to produce a tilth of soil
sufficiently comminuted for the reception of turnip or other small seed.
The defect pointed out in this very excellent implement may perhaps be

COMMON DEFICIENCY OF AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS. 669

easily rectified by some trifling alteration in the arrangement of the points, as
the evil seems to arise in a great measure from the points being too closely
set.

The economy in the use of improved cleaning and pulverizing implements
is very great, as by it repeated ploughings — the most expensive and tedious
of all tillage operations in agriculture — may be dispensed with, or, at any
rate, become less required. In illustration of what has just been advanced,
it may be instanced that in the working of a fallow with the common straight-
toothed harrow and the plane-surface roller, it is necessary, from the opera-
tion of the common harrow being limited to the mere gathering and raking
together of the weeds brought to the surface in ploughing, to plough so often
as any foulness remains in the soil. Pulverization of coarse clayey land
being chiefly eflli'cted by the crushing action of the roller, the process of
cleaning is quite as efficaciously performed by the use of the improved im-
plements previously mentioned as by the plough, and at a saving of time,
labor, and cost, in proportion as the breadth of land covered bj^ the breadth
of such implement exceeds the breadth of the furrow turned by the plough.
Were an implement to be used combining a simultaneous action of culti-
vator and roller, without much increase of power being required, labor and
lime would be thereby still further economized in the operation of agricul-
tural tillage.

The advantages spoken of
would probably result from the
use of a roller formed of sepa-
rate wheels, having rims about
four inches wide, revolving inde-
pendently on a round common
axle, the peripheries of such
wheels being furnished with
curved coulters, of a length suit-
able to the depth of surface-soil
in which the implement is in-
tended to work — say from six to
seven inches. Twelve wheels
of the above-mentioned breadth
would form a roller four feet
long, of which a diameter of
twenty-four to thirty inches
would be commodious in point
of size. The accompanying diagram represents a vertical section of the
implement above described.

The ojieration of the implement described above will be as follows : —
Whilst the rims of the wheels act as a powerful plane surface roller in
crushing the clods, the curved coulters stir the earth to admit air, and, at the
same time, bring to the surface all weeds and clods there may be throughout
the depth of tilled soil, the former to be gathered by a horse-rake, and the
latter to be reduced by a subsequent operation of the implement.*

*The principle of the revolving cultivator was sup'gesteJ to the writer by Mr. Joseph
Laycock, of Lintz Hall, in the county of Dinham, who has already ailoptetl it in combi-
nation with a horse-lioe, with the most unqualified success in stirring and pniverizins;
the soil, and at the same time throwing the weeds severed by the hoe to the surface. The
revolving principle was also applied upwards of a year since by Mr. Anthony Hall, of
Prudhoe, Northumberland, to a subsoiling implement possessing advantages over any other
that has hitherto been invented, and which, with some trifling modifications, will be every
tiling that can be desired for tlie purpose.

670 COMMON DEFICIENCY OF AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS.

Of all descriptions, soil of a clayey nature is that in which the use of the
revolving cultivator will be attended with the greatest and most important
advantage, as may be understood from the observations to follow in suggest-
ing a mode of tillage by means of that implement, which mode of cultivation
will render the occupation of clay land farms, especially, much more advan-
tageous, by the saving of both time and labor, than the practice usually pur-
sued.

In describing the mode of tillage referred to, the land is supposed to be
previously thorough drained, when the following will be the process to be
pursued : — The division of the land, which, according to the course of crop-
ping adopted, falls in course to be fallowed, must be thoroughly and cleanly
ploughed in autumn, with furrow-slices so disposed as to expose the greatest
possible surface to atmospheric influence. Having ploughed as directed
above, the land must remain untouched throughout winter until spring;
during which season, and when perfectly dry, it must be repeatedly worked
by the revolving implement, so often as any foulness or coarseness may
remain. After each working, the land must be gone over with a light har-
row, or, what is better, a horse-rake, for the purpose of gathering the weeds.
The land by the means just mentioned will be perfectly cleaned and pul-
verized without being touched by the plough during spring.

In the mode of tillage herein recommended, " Greg's System of Managing
Heavy and Wet Lands withovit Summer Fallow," promulgated during the
existence of the Board of Agriculture upwards of thirty-five years since, will
not fail to be recognised. Such being the case, it will be unnecessary herein
to dilate on the advantages to be derived from the practice of such a system
of tillage ; and to those who may be desirous to enter into a particular com-
parison of it, and the usual mode of tillage, it will be sufficient to refer them
to Mr. Greg's pamphlet on the subject, or to the Library of Useful Know-
ledge— "British Husbandry," vol. ii. page 66 — in which last-mentioned
work, an abstract of, and commentary on Mr. Greg's system will be found.
The only additional observation which it appears necessary to make on the
subject of the present paper is, that whatever may have been the advantages
of the system referred to by means of implements already in use, such
advantages will be greatly increased by the use of the revolving cultivator
herein treated of; and that the rapidly increasing application of scientific
knowledge to the practice of agriculture will banish summer fallowing from
every system of husbandry on all descriptions of arable land, and substitute
a green vegetable crop as equally conducive to the cleaning of the soil, and
which in itself, whilst yielding a profitable return in the production of beef,
will also be the means, by raising an abundant supply of farm-yard manure,
of the progressive melioration of the soil, and of increasing its power of pro-
duction of grain.

Wines. — We have not altered our opinion about British grape wine. No doubt you
may make a strong, palatable wine simply with grapes, sugar, and more or less water ;
but it would not be a wine that we should esteem. You will find the following a good
receipt for making still grape wine: To 3 pecks of grapes, picked and heaped, put 3
stones of moist sugar, and 9 gallons of water. Bruise your grapes carefully before you
mix them with the sugar and water. Put the whole into a large open vessel, and stir
them daily for ten days or a fortnight. When the fermentation ceases, pass the whole
through a fine sieve and put it into your cask ; be sure that it is quite filled ; then bung
it down and keep it twelve months before you bottle it. — English Paper.

THE STTRPLUS PRODUCT OF COTTON. 671

THE TRUE AND PROFITABLE MODE OF DIMINISHING
THE SURPLUS PRODUCT OF COTTON.— No. 2.

'^ Nashville, February 13, 1849

"V. K. Stetensox, Esa- — Dear Sir: In answer to your note of tliis date, asking me to
furnish to you (for the use of a friend who desires it) such information as I may possess
with regard to the cotton manufactories of this State, I have to remark, that the knowledge
which I possess extends only to those establishments situated within the ' middle divi-
sion' of the State ; and even that is too superficial to be entitled to much consideration.

"There are probably now in operation, within the bounds of ' Middle Tennessee,' some
twenty ditferent mills for the maiuifacturing of yarns and cloth. From the best data I
have at command, I estimate the immber of spindles in operation at not less than 18 or
20,000. There are but few of these mills which as yet are making cloths, though several
more, I understand, are preparing to do so. The article manufacmred consists chiefly of
cotton yarns, varying in sizes from number 3 or 4 to number 13 or 14. Some two or
three of them also manufacture a heavy article of wool and cotton goods, used for negro
clothing.

" In addition to the mills alluded to, there is now being erected, and very near its com-
pletion, anotlier one at Lebanon, 30 miles distant from Nashville, and which, in point of
construction and machinery, is believed to he fully equal to any one in America of its size —
the buildings all being of the best material, and on the most approved plans — fire-proof
throughout. The engines for propelling it, as well as its operative macliinery, embrace
all the latest American and European improvements. The buildings (which are in
greater part four stories high) cover an area of very nearly or quite three-fourths of an
acre. When finished, it is designed to contain 6000 cotton and 2000 woollen spindles, and
240 looms, capable of producing from seven to eight thousand yards of cloth daily; and
as the goods which it is intended to produce will be of the heaviest description, the quantity
of cotton which it will require for a year's operation will be about 2500 to 3000 bales,
with a proportionate amount of wool. So you will perceive that within a short time there
will be in operation in this division of the State, certainly not less than 25,000 spindles;
and as these spindles will all be engaged in producing the very heaviest description of
yarns, the entire amount of cotton required for them will not be short of 8000 bales.

" In the eastern, and also in the western division of the State, there are many other small
mills, of which I know too little to enable me to give to you, for your friend, any informa
tion of a character sufficiently reliable to make it valuable to him. I hesitate not, however,
to assert that, together, the two other divisions possess not less than 10,000 spindles, and
consequently increase the quantity of cotton manufactured annually to not less than 12,000
bales in all — more likely exceeding than falling under this number.

" As to the names of the different mills, their owners, and the post-offices nearest to them,
I regret that I am unable to give them to your friend with that degree of accuracy which
1 would otherwise be pleased to do. The enclosed memorandum will give you all the
information I possess at present on this branch of the subject — remarking that I do not submit
it to you as being any thing more than a mere approximation to the number of spindles
operated in each mill — with, however, the further remark, that I am satisfied that I have
not over-estimated them in the aggregate. In great haste, your ob't serv't,

S. D. MOHGATT.

" P. S. You will observe that in the list of mills I have included two which are barely
beyond the boundary of Tennessee — in North Alabama. I have included them because
a large proportion of their manufactures are consumed in this State ; and one of them
at least is more intimately connected with Tennes.see than with Alabama."

We copy the above letter because we de.sire that the people of other States
should see what is now being done in Tennessee, and satisfy themselves
why it is that they cannot do the same. South Carolina has food and cotton
in abundance, and Virginia has food and wool in abundance, yet both are
becoming depopulated because of the absence of that employment for the
surplus labor of their men, their women, and their children, their wagons
and horses, that would be afforded by mills and furnaces ; and both are being
impoverished by reason of the waste of labor in the work of transporting
the raw material to foreign markets, losing on the road and in those markets
the manures that should restore the exhausted lands, enabling them to

672 MODE OF DIMINISHING

increase their products, and thus obtain the means required for the clearing
and drainaire of their richest lands, that yet remain untouched.

We have taken this letter from the Nashville Union, whose editor urges
the extension of manufactures, in an article filled with bitter denunciations
of " the infamous, plundering, protective policy," which renders it necessary
that the planters of Tennessee should surround themselves with consumers
of food and cotton, a measure that would not be required of them, could
they only enjoy the blessings of the free trade policy of " the southern
democracy," enabling them to " have the world for a market for their agri-
cultural products." Were that the case, he thinks it would be " to the
advantage of the south and west to turn their whole attention to the cultiva-
tion of their most prolific soil, and to procure such manufactured articles as
they might need in exchange for the products of their farms. But Whig
politicians," he continues, " step in and prohibit this exchange. They will
not let the Tennessee farmer exchange his corn, cotton, and tobacco with the
English manufacturer, unless he will consent to pay a tax of fifty per cent,
for the privilege — this fifty per cent, tax being imposed for the benefit and
'protection' of certain lordly loom-owners of New England."

We are glad to have, on any terms, assistants in the great work of bring-
ing together the plough, the loom, and the anvil, and it especially gratifies
us to obtain them from among the men who have heretofore held that
the time had not yet arrived for manufactures, nor could it arrive while
we possessed so much unoccupied land. W^hat have been the views of
this particular journal on this subject, we do not know, but we doubt not it
has followed in the wake of the English political economists who have desired
to teach us that we were unfitted for manufactures, and must remain so
until our population became more dense, while insisting upon precisely that
course of action which compels men to scatter themselves throughout the
west, there to become producers of food, instead of remaining at the east,
there to be consumers of food. The system they advise is in full accordance
with the policy pointed out in a letter given in our February No., page 505,
showing the importance of promoting the dispersion of the population of the
colonies, lest they should become rivals of the English manufacturers.

The editor is apparently of opinion that if the " plundering protective
policy" were abandoned, the demand for cotton would grow so rapidly
that the people of the south would grow rich. In reply to this we would
ask him whether, if it had been abandoned in 184(5, hundreds of thousands
who are now consumers of food in the Northern and Eastern States, would
not at this moment be in the west producing food — whether the price
of food would not now be so low that the planter would buy it in preference
to raising it — and whether the efTcct of such a course of operation would not
have been to compel the planter to give his attention more exclusively to
cotton, filling the world to repletion, and forcing down the price to such a
point as would have totally ruined the whole planting interest of the south ?

We also ask him to look at the effect upon their interests of the adoption
of this " plundering, protective policy," in the tariff of 1842. The number
of consumers of food was greatly increased, because iron and cloth were
made at home, and the consumption of cotton rose from 800,000 to 000,000
bales in tlie short period of five years — and it did so rise because the whole
people prospered by reason of the demand for labor that had been produced
in the east and north, diminishing the necessity for fiying to the west and
south, and thereby diminishing the competition with the farmer and the
planter, to the infinite advantage of all.

He will, however, say that if we liad had perfect free trade, we should have
obtained our clothing cheaper, and the consumption of cotton would havo

THE SURPLUS PRODUCT OF COTTON. 673

been thereby greatly increased. In regard to this, we now ask him to turn
to page 470 of the February No. of this journal, and see what was the
increased demand for English cottons, made of India and American wool,
produced by the substitution of the tariff of '46 for that of '42. Doing so,
he will discover that it was, in the first six months of 1848, less than twelve
million of yards, being equal to 15,000 bales per annum, and very little more
than the amount required to supply the few factories now existing in Ten-
nessee, which consume American wool alone.

The editor of " The Union" will probably, however, regard as incomplete
this evidence of the effects of an apparent approach to free trade in the
increased demand for cotton, and will continue to maintain that perfect free
trade would be attended with different results. We propose, therefore, to
give him a sample of the results of freedom of trade so perfect as not to be
interfered with in the slightest degree by custom-houses, and in a very small
degree indeed by the distance of the producer from the great market which
our friend in Tennessee desires to see fully opened for the corn, tobacco, and
cotton of his neighbors.

The manufacturers of Ireland, before the imion in 1801, were to a certain
extent protected against English competition, and much of the cloth and iron
consumed in that country was made by men who consumed on the land the
products of the land. At the date of the union, her exports to Great Bri-
tain amounted to £3,270,350. With the union all protection ceased, and
with each succeeding year it became more and more necessary to seek
a market abroad for the productions of the earth that could no longer be con-
sumed at home, and the export to Great Britain rose gradually, until in 1825
it reached £7,048,930. But did the power of the people to consume clotli
rise with the perpetually increased necessity for exporting the produce and
exhausting the land ? Let us inquire.

The whole import of cotton into Ireland from all parts of the world, in the
twenty years from 1802 to 1821, both inclusive, amounted to 538,542 hundred
weights, or about 150,000 bales, being an average of 7,500 bales per annum,
and the whole import of cotton yarn, to 19,995,350 pounds, or about a million
of pounds per annum, the product of about 4000 bales, making a total of
11,500 bales.* The amount of cloth imported is not given.

In 1825, the year of great expansion everywhere, with an export to
Great Britain of agricultural products amounting to almost thirty-five mil-
lions of dollars, we find the import of cotton-wool to have been 4,005,930
pounds, and the import of cotton cloth to have been 4,990,885 yards, making
in the whole about six millions of pounds, or about 18,000 bales of cotton,
in all its forms, required for the supply of almost eight millions of people ;
being about three-quarters of a pound per head.

In subsequent years, no information can be obtained, owing to changes
in the mode of keeping the custom-house accounts ; but in a general report
on the state of the trade of Ireland, made by a committee whose object vi^ould
not have been promoted by under-estimates, it is stated that the import of
cotton cloth into that kingdom was, in 1835, 14,172,000 yards, being equal
to about four millions of pounds of cotton, or half a pound per head. What
quantity of cotton-wool, or yarn, was imported at that time, cannot be
ascertained, but it is elsewhere shown that some of the largest establishments
for manufactures, of a period somewhat earlier, had disappeared, and that
the calico printers were in a state of bankruptcy .t

We beg our friend of "The Union" to remark that with all her greatly
increased exports, the power of Ireland to be a customer to the cotton

• Ireland before and since the Union, by R. Montgomery Martin, pages 50 to GO. -j-Ibid.
Vol. I.— 85 3 L

674 THE SURPLUS PRODUCT OF COTTON. *

planters did not grow, and that the whole quantity of cotton cloth imported
into the kingdom in the year 1885, for the supply of eight millicns of people,
required for its production a smaller number of bales of cotton than will be
consumed bv the few mills now started in Tennessee.

If he desire to tracB further the effects of perfect free trade, he may do it
in following out the history of Ireland to the present hour. He may see a vast
population idle for more than half the time for want of the regular demand for
labor that results from diversity of employment. He may see them, when
employed, cultivating fields that have been exhausted because of sending
from the land all the products of the land, and flying to seek refuge, or to
starve, in the cellars of Liverpool or Manchester, leaving behind millions of
acres of the richest lands in the world, requiring drainage alone to enable
them to support quadruple the present population. He may see them pass-
ing gradually from bad to worse, the potato becoming almost the sole food
of the people, until at length the potato rot is followed by famine and pesti-
lence, death, and revolution, and if he then desire to trace these events
upwards to their great cause, he will find it in the colonial system which he
would now fasten on this country.

Ireland is almost exclusively agricultural, and j^et she has recently afforded
us a large market for food. South Carolina is exclusively agricultural, and
yet she imports hay and wheat from the north. Both abound in rich soils
untouched, in lime and marl, and iron ore, and in all other of the natural
elements of prosperity, and yet both go backward, while all the world advances.
We beg our friend of " The Union" tOAveighall these facts, and satisfy himself
if there is not a hole in his politico-economical theory.

Should he, after full examination of the facts thus far given, have any
doubts on the subject, we would ask him to look with us to Canada. That
country has perfect free-trade with England, and, as a necessary consequence,
she has no manufactures. The consumer and the producer are widely sepa-
rated. The land is exhausted because nothing of what is yielded by it goes
back upon it, and its owner is exhausted by the payment for wagons and
horses, ships and seamen, commission merchants, and all others of the
numerous genus that live by the profits of transportation and exchange. She
imports her cloth and iron, and all others of the numerous articles of manufac-
ture, and the total value consumed by almost two millions of people is only
three millions of pounds, or about fifteen millions of dollars. Allowing even
one-fifth of this to consist of cotton goods, and taking the average cost of those
goods, fine and coarse, at five pence per yard, the quantity would be thirty
millions of yards, requiring about seven and a half millions of pounds of
cotton, or about 20,000 bales, and giving less than four pounds to each person,
and that is, we believe, very far above the truth. The present consumption
of this country exceeds 600,000 bales, being three times as much per head,
under the " plundering protective system," as in the adjacent provinces
under the beautiful one of perfect free trade. Can our friend of the Union
account for this ? If so, we would be glad to have his explanation.

In conclusion, we would beg him to favour us with a reply to the follow-
ing questions :

I. Is there not annually wasted in Tennessee, for want of a regular
demand for it, more of the labor of men, and women, and children, and
wagons, and horses, than would, if properly employed, produce all the cloth
and iron consumed in the State?

II. Is there not more labor wasted in the work of transportation and
exchange than would pay for it ?

III. Is there not more labor wasted in cultivating poor land than would
if applied to the rich land now uncleared and undrained, pay for it?

HORTICULTURAL. 675

IV. Is there not more manure wasted on the road and in distant markets
than would pay for it ?

V. Had the tariff of 1828 been adopted as the settled policy of the country,
would not the State be now studded with factories and furnaces, filled with
men, and women, and children, employed in consuming food while converting'
cotton into cloth and ore into iron ?

VI. Were this now the case, would not the State be twice as rich as she has
become under our past variable and uncertain system ?

VII. Were the government now to adopt the principle oi perfect free trade,
would it not close every factory in the State ?

VIII. Would not that increase the waste of labor and manure, and would
not that diminish the value of property throughout the State ?

IX. Would not the re-enactment of the tariff of 1842 increase the number
of factories and the demand for labor, and would it not enable the planter
to save much of the cost of transportation and exchange, to the advantage
of all, laborer and landowner, farmer and planter ?

X. Would it not increase the home consumption of food and cotton, to
the great advantage of all ?

HORTICULTURAL.

Although able works dedicated expressly and exclusively to the dissemination of Hor-
ticultural knowledge and literature have since come into existence, we have abated none
of that anxiety to see the estimation and knowledge of horticulture take deeper root and
spread more widely, which we felt when thirty years ago the subject was placed pro-
minently in the title and prospectus of the old American Farmer.

There is, indeed, between Agriculture and Horticulture a kindred so near, that it is not
easy to discern the line of separation — of the two pursuits, we would sooner take our
chance with a skilful and experienced gardener, to make a good farmer, than the reverse.
Our present purpose, however, is only to make sure of preserving the following as a
memorable event in the history of the most distinguished Horticultural Society in the Union,
with which our memory must fail when it has ceased to preserve agreeable associations:

MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY.

The first stated meeting of the year, of this society, was held at Horti-
cultural Hall, on Saturday last. Col. Wilder took the chair, and introduced
his successor, Samuel Walker, Esq., with the following happy and very
appropriate remarks :

Gentlemen of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society:

The duty of introducing my successor, your President elect, devolves on
me under very happy auspices. Your suffrages have fallen on a man who
is worthy of the office, and well qualified for it — on one who has served the
society in various capacities, with fidelity and ability ; and whom you now
reward with the highest honor in your gift.

Gentlemen, I rejoice with you in this event, and in the prosperous con-
dition of our association — in the friendship and unanimity that prevails
among us, and especially in an opportunity, before taking final leave of the
chair, to thank you once more, most sincerely, for the distinction which you
have bestowed on me — a distinction for which, at my first election, I had
not presumed to hope, but which, having been so often conferred, and by
those whose approbation I highly appreciate, I shall ever regard as above
any earthly preferment.

During my administration, it has been my desire and endeavor to dis-
charge the duties of my office with impartiality, and with a view to the best

676 HORTICULTURAL.

interests of the society. How well I have succeeded, I leave for others to
judge ; but whatever success may have attended these efforts, for you, my
official associates, with whom I have had such long and pleasant intercourse,
and from whom I have received uniform and cordial support, 1 shall ever
entertain an affection next to that for family and home.

Gentlemen, may a kind Providence bless you, in your persons, in your
families, and in all your laudable efforts to extend the usefulness, and to
increase the resources of this institution ; and may he who is now to occupy
this chair, prove more worthy of the confidence and respect you have so
liberally bestowed on me.

Mr. Walker replied in the following very appropriate address :

Gentlemen of the Society : — The very kind manner in which my friend.
Col. Wilder, has introduced me, and his determination, if it were possible,
to lay me under further obligations by his courtesy, and his avowed appro-
bation of my past services, happily, afford me an opportunity to state how
much I value his friendship — the pleasure it has given me to serve the
society under his administration, and to tender to you, gentlemen, my thanks
for the honor you have conferred upon me.

I cannot plead that I am ignorant of the duties or the responsibilities of
the office to which you have elected me, but, in the same spirit of frankness
permit me to say, that I have many misgivings as to my ability to discharge
them in such a manner as may be acceptable to you, gentlemen, or that I
should be able, in any way, to aid or promote the progress and prosperity of
the society.

When I turn to the records of the society, to read the doings, and remem-
ber the talents of those who have heretofore occupied this chair, and more
particularly the eminent practical services of my immediate predecessor, I
have good reason for fear as regards my own services. But, with you, gen-
tlemen, I have been accustomed to labor ; it is therefore almost unnecessary
for me to say, that for the future I shall hope and expect to receive the same
indulgence you have so often and so kindly extended tome, during a period
of nearly twenty years. With these expectations I enter upon the duties
assigned to me, with a determination on my part, to co-operate with you in
as liberal an administration of the society as may be consistent with strict
economy and its future interest.

I shall take an early op})ortunity to submit for your consideration and
action, an outline of such measures as shall appear to me calculated to pro-
mote the further consolidation and usefulness of the society.

United as we now are as members, still encouraged by the co-operation
of friends, and enjoying the liberal benefactions of our honored donors, I
trust our future will be full of usefulness, and that our efforts may advance
the object for which we are associated.

Gentlemen — when the time shall arrive that these new relations, which
are formed to-day, shall be dissolved, may it find us the same united and
j)rosperous society — strong in mutual friendship and esteem.

The meeting was then organized by the appointment of Rev. Daniel
Leach as Secretary pro tern.

Hon. B. V. French, Vice President, presented the following resolutions,
which were unanimously adopted :

Whereas, Marshall P. Wilder, Esq., has, during a period of eight years,
discharged the duties of President of this society, to the satisfaction of its
members ; and

Whereas, Mr. Wilder's administration has been marked with energy and
zeal in disseminating horticultural science ; and

HORTICULTURAL. 677

Whereas, We believe the interest of the society has been greatly advanced
by his services, ajjjd its influences extended by his practical skill, and the
many specimens exhibited by him from his garden and conservatory, of
almost all the varieties of fruits and flowers ; and

Whereas, We also fully believe that the public, as well as the members
of this society, are indebted to him for his practical and successful labors ;
therefore,

Voted, That the thanks of this society be tendered to Marshall P. Wilder,
Esq., for his services during the period he was president thereof; and also.

Voted, That a committee of three be appointed by the chair, to purchase
a piece of plate, not exceeding in value one hundred and fifty dollars,
and cause a suitable inscription to be placed thereon, and to present the same,
with the above vote of thanks, to Mr. Wilder, in behalf of the society, as a
tribute of the regard and esteem of its members.

Messrs. B. V. French, C. Newhall, and J. S. Cabot, were appointed this
committee.

Mr. C. M. Hovey presented the following vote, which was unanimously
adopted :

Voted, That the society's gold medal be presented to Gen. H. A. S.
Dearborn, the first president of this society, for the essential services he
rendered to the science of horticulture and the interest of the society, during
the period he presided over its affairs ; and that a committee of three be
appointed by the chair to carry out the above vote.

The chair appointed Messrs. C. M. Hover, C. Newhall, and E. M.
Richards, as the committee.

The following resolutions were presented by Dr. E. Wright, which were
unanimously adopted :

Resolved, That this society hold in high estimation the eminent attain-
ments of James E. Teschemacher, Esq., in the various departments of lite-
rature and science.

Resolved, That the thanks of this society be tendered to Mr. Teschemacher
for his valuable services as corresponding secretary for many years, and as
chairman of the committee of publication.

Resolved, That as a token of approbation and respect, and in considera-
tion of these services, that a piece of silver plate, of the value of fifty dollars,
be presented to Mr. Teschemacher ; or such other article of like value, as
he may please to designate.

Resolved, That a committee of three be appointed by the chair to carry
these resolutions into effect.

Messrs. Wight, Stickney, and Dutton, were appointed this committee.

A committee of arrangements for the annual exhibition was elected, con-
sisting of the following gentlemen : — Joseph Breck, chairman, F. W. Ma-
condry, D. Haggerston, A. D. Williams, Jr., J. S. Cabot, Otis Johnson, P.
B. Hovey, Jr., E. Wight, J. F. Allen, Josiah Lovett, Capt. Austin, A. D.
Weld, H. W. Dutton.

After transacting other business, the meeting adjourned for two weeks.

Large Poultry. — At a show held in England under the direction of the
late Earl Spencer, the following were the dressed weights of some of the
poultry exhibited : the best turkey weighed 20 lbs. 4 oz. ; capon, 7 lbs.
14| oz. ; goose, 18 lbs. 2| oz. ; couple of ducks, 15 lbs. 10 oz.

3l3

678 MANUFACTURE OF COTTON GOODS AT THE SOUTH.

MANUFACTURE OF COTTON GOODS AT THE SOUTH.

[From the Augusta (Geo.) Chronicle, March 9.]

« We chronicled a few days since, that the Augusta Manufacturing Company had
increased its capital from $100,000 to $200,000, by the unanimous vote of the stockholders.
Having many applications for their stock, and being allowed by their charter to increase
their capital to $500,000, the board have recently decided to open new books, and receive
subscriptions to the amount of $160,000, with a view to build a new mill by the side of
the one now in operation.

" A fair share of the stock in this new establishment is now open to the public, for the
benefit of such as desire to invest money in a sure and profitable business. No subscrip-
tion will be called in, or payment asked, till the whole sum is subscribed.

"The new factory will reap the advantage of all that the company has learned by expe-
rience in building a pioneer mill ; so that every dollar will be turned to the best possilsle
account. One general superintendent, and one salesman, office, &c., will answer for both
factories. This, of itself, will be quite a saving in the contingent expenses.

" The present mill is turning out 32,000 yards of cloth a week, which will soon be
increased to 50,000. The demand for these goods greatly exceeds the supply. Each
loom gives a product of forty yards a day. There is a full supply of worthy females, and
of males, who seek employment at this important mechanical pursuit. Their wages are
good and satisfactory. ^11 classes are beginning to appreciate the ivisdom of bringing the loom
and the spindle to the cotton, the bread, and the meat ; all see the folly of being at the useless
and the enormous exjiense of carrying Georgia cotton, breadstutl's and provisions, to Old
or New England, to be wrought into common goods, for Georgia consumption.

•' Georgians can do their own carding, spinning, and weaving. They will soon make
their own shoes and boots, saddles and harness, and tan more leather than they wear out.
Nor shall we stop at the point which will barely meet the home demand for manufac-
tured articles. Already a gentleman of wealth from another State, who made his money
in a cotton mill, is taking preliminary steps to erect one in this city, with a view to spin
yarn for export. As there is no lack of water power, no want of laborers and raw mate-
rial, we may reasonably expect that capitalists will not overlook so promising an oppor-
tunity for making money. The processes for picking, carding, spinning and weaving our
great staple, are among the most simple in the whole range of the mechanical arts. Fall-
ing water propels all the macliinery ; children tend it. Whatever capital, skill, and
industry can do in the way of manufactures, the cidzens of Augusta are bound to
accomplish."

From every portion of the south and west we have indications of a orow-
ing determination to make a market on the land for the products of the
]and, and we rejoice in the belief that the day is not now far distant when
the agriculturists of the land, throughout its whole length and breadth, will
unite with us in the assertion that protection is a farmers' and planters'
measure. It may, however, be asked, " Why should they desire protec-
tion, if they can even now obtain the results given above ?" By way of
answer, we would ask, " To what do they owe the existence of these mills ?"
Did they build such under the free trade system of '41, when our Avhole
consumption Avas under 300,000 bales ? They did not, nor could they now
build them, but that the tariffof that year gave to the farmers and planters
that protection which was essential to the promotion of concentration, with-
out which mills and furnaces cannot be built. In the few years that have
since elapsed, the consumption has doubled, and the more mills we build,
the faster grows the power of consumption.

It will be said, however, that this is being done under the tariff of '4G,
which is less protective than that of '42. Granted — but it is far more pro-
tective than that which existed in '41 and '42, at the close of the compro-
mise system. The country enjoyed four years of protection, during which it
grew in wealth and strength, and at the close of those years, although a
reduction was made, it did not go back to the system which had produced
the disastrous effects that were witnessed in '42. The feeling of the

STONE FENCES. 679

necessity for protection had grown, and even the uhra free trade secretary
did not venture to go below 80 per cent.

The people of the south can manufacture coarse cloths more cheaply than
those of the north, and therefore those of the north must turn their attention
to finer ones, and the more rapid the progress of the south in the production of
the one, the more rapid will be the increase in their power to consume the
other. There is, therefore, an abundant field for the people of the north,
who will thus profit by all improvements at the south ; but to enable them so
to do, adequate protection is essential. It is not to the interest of the south
that those who are now making coarse cloths in Lowell should be com-
pelled to fly to the west, because such a course of action would tend to
increase the suppl}"-, and diminish the prices, of all agricultural products,
and to diminish the power to consume cotton and wool. Every man retained
in the factories of Lowell, or in the furnaces of Pennsylvania, is a customer
of the farmer and planter, and every man driven from them to seek the
west must of necessity become a rival. Wherever men are enabled to com-
bine their exertions, their labor becomes more productive, and they become
larger consumers. Wherever they are forced to fly from each other, their
labor becomes less productive, and they become smaller consumers. The
power of this country to consume food and cotton was never smaller than in
1841 and '42, the period of the nearest approach to perfect free trade, and
never greater than in 1846, the period of the most perfect protection.

ON STONE FENCES.

Peter Minor, of Virginia, was a man of rare modesty, and of very rare merit, both iu
his disposition and his example — in his pursuit of useful knowledge, and in his perspicuous
manner of imparting, unreservedly, what he knew for the benefit of others.

On the 1st of October, 1819, a paper was read from him to the Albemarle Agricultural
Society, on the subject of Stone Fences. He maintained that the cost of keeping up timber
fences, would, in thirty-three years, amount to more than the worth of the land, supposing
it to be worth $'20 an acre. The view he presented was this : —

An inquiry naturally presents itself on this subject : — What is the rela-
tive value of a farm fenced with stone, compared with one fenced with dead
timber ? Take the following data.

From the best accounts I have been able to obtain from others, and from
my own experience, it may be fairly stated that one full month of the whole
annual labor of every farm is consumed in the various operations of cutting,
mauling, hauling, and putting up fences. This is one-twelfth of the year,
or one complete year in twelve, that is devoted exclusively to making and
repairing dead fences ; and as the expense is annual, it is clear that the con-
dition of such fences is no better at the end of any year than at the begin-
ning. Again — I think it may be fairly stated, that when the materials are
in place, the expense of erecting a stone fence does not exceed that of
erecting one of rails, including the various operations above-mentioned.
The value of the timber (which is not taken into the account above)
and the advantages of having the land cleared of stone, will balance
the expense of moving the stone three or four hundred yards. So
that on a farm abounding with stone, and where the transportation does
not exceed this distance, I think a fence of stone will in the first instance
be as cheap as a rail one. Suppose, then, two farms of 500 acres of
arable land each, in all other respects equal, except that one is fenced
with stone, and the other with dead timber. Each of them employs twelve
laborers at $100 a piece per annum. One is at no expense, while he who
fences with timber consumes one month in every year, in making and
repairing his fences. This is an expense of $100, being the labor of one

680 PAPER-MILLS OF THE SOUTH.

hand during a complete year. At annual compound interest, this would
amount in less than 83 years, to $10,000, which is the entire price of the
land, supposing the farm to be worth $20 per acre. Thus in 38 years, the
one farm would be able to buy the other, from the expense saved by the
different mode of fencing. It is true there are not many farms capable of
being entirely fenced with stone, but there are scarcely any that do not
admit of it in some degree, and the advantages would be derived in a similar
ratio to any part which could be thus enclosed. P. Minor.

PAPER-MILLS OF THE SOUTH.

[From the Mobile Herald, March 7.]

"Thk Tuscaloosa paper-mill has finally got into operation. We mentioned the receipt,
the other day. of a sample of wrap|)ing paj)er, the first product of the mill, and a very
excellent specimen it was. The last Tuscaloosa Observer contains an extended notice
of this new enterprise. The editor and citizens generally, male and female, were present
at the first start of the machinery, and witnessed with deep interest the process of con-
verting the unsightly mass of pulp into even and consistent sheets of wrapping-paper.
In a short time tiie manufacture of printing-paper for books, newspapers,&c., will be com-
menced. We predict full and complete success for the company, and we doubt not all
the publishers in the southern and middle portions of the state will procure their supplies
from the Tuscaloosa mill. We promise them our patronage — at least till our mill gets
into operation ; that is if they will furnish us with a passable article. There will, how-
ever, be no dilficulty in making paper every way equal to that sent to us from the North.
The water of the Warrior is as bright and pure as northern streams, and the raw mate-
rial, in a much better condition than that used at a distance, can be procured in abundance
on the spot.

" It has been clearly demonstrated that we can undersell the northern manufacturers of
c-oarse cotton goods. There is one case in point. The Virginia, Georgia, and Alabama
Obuaburgs have entirely driven out of this and the New Orleans market the similar fabrics
iieretofore supplied by Lowell. So it will be in the manufacture of paper. We can
erect mills at less expense, procure the raw material more cheaply and in better order,
and although labor may be higher, these and other advantages will enable our Tusca-
loosa friends and others who may engage in the business, to furnish all kinds of paper on
as favorable terms as the northern and eastern mills. Indeed, we feel confident that
in a few years Alabama printing paper will be exclusively used in many of the West
Indian, Mexican, and South American printing-offices.

" It will not be out of place to mention here that a gentleman of this city is arranging to
erect a paper-mill in our immediate vicinity. Success, we are sure, will follow. Some
may doubt the practicability of such an enterprise, especially as a similar one failed in
New Orleans. In the neighborhood of Mobile is a number of never-failing, bold running
streams, as clear as crystal. In New Orleans the Mississippi water was found to con-
tain rather too much earthy matter, and hence the failure."

Alabama has rags in abundance, but they are almost valueless because of
the want of a home demand. She wastes far more of them annually than
v/ould suffice to produce all the paper she consumes. She wastes more food
than would feed all the people employed in converting all the rags into
paper, and more labor than would pay for all the cloth, and paper, and
iron. If this is so, and all who doubt may satisfy themselves that so it is,
the paper thus produced will be all pure gain, and will add to the power of con-
suming commodities of a superior order. Every increase in the circulation
of newspapers, consequent upon the diminished price, will produce a demand
for more school-books, and Bibles, and Testaments, and every increase in
the consumption of school-books will produce a demand for more books of
higher character. With every step in the progress of concentration, men
will be enabled to read more and better books, and to have more and better
schools, and thus will intellectual, and moral, keep pace with physical
improvement. Let every man, then, unite with his neighbor man in the
determination that the loom and the anvil shall come and take their places
by the side of the plough and the harrow.

WOOL AND SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 681

WOOL AND SHEEP HUSBANDRY.

Iff early numbers of tiiis journal, we evinced the sensibility that is felt in regard to the
great importance oi' sheep husbandry in the United States, both as a pivvision staple, and as
an element of one of the most important manufactures. We hold it to be the grossest
neglect of a great resource of national wealth, that we should be importers either of ivool
or of cloth — a blind surrender of a great interest to an absurd abstraction popularly called
"free trade."' No! let the American who wears the cloth be proud to say that its woof
and its warp are the produce oi American flocks. Let the man who weaves the cloth get
American wages and eat American flour and mutton. Let the loom in which it is woven be
brought as close to the wool as possible, instead of sending the wool to Leeds and Man-
chester, in England, to be woven by men, women, and children, wlio are forced to labor
sixteen hours a day to keep soul and body together .' It is not against such people and such
niisgovernment that free-born Americans should he forced to contend by the policy of their
own government, in obedience to old '98 notions about " free trade!''

Our object will be to keep the public advised in relation to our capacity to rely on our-
selves for all the materials and all the art that are essential to a self-supply of every woollen
fabric of every descrijjtion.

If, as a nation, we put our foot down and say, we will manufacture for ourselves, the
consequence will be, as in all other similar cases, capital, assured of a steady market, will go
into that channel ; and after a little the farmer will get his cloths cheaper than he now gets
them from abroad ; but not if we open our custom-houses to every bankrupt concern in
Europe, who, whenever a revulsion occurs in England, M'ill flood our markets with his
goods, at his own valuation. The following letter is from one of the best informed men in
the Union on the whole subject : —

SHEEP HUSBANDRY IN VIRGINIA.

To the Editor of the Agricidtural Department of '■'■ McMakhi's Model American Cotirier :"

Weehaw, near Summit Point, Jefferson County, Va., March 6, 1840.

Sir : — Enclosed is a copy of the last shearing of the flock of Richard K.
Meade, deceased, late of the county of Clarke, (then Frederick,) Va. It
has been my intention, for some time past, to forward to you this paper. I
can testify to its correctness ; as, with the assistance of a friend, and in the
presence of a numerous assemblage of gentlemen, I weighed most of the
fleeces. I particularly remember weighing the fleeces I65 and 16 lbs ;
S2k lbs. of wool of quality, I suppose, equal to | or g merino. These
fleeces were clipped from two bucks about sixteen months old.

If you feel disposed to lay these facts before the agricultural world, they
are at your service. Before I close my letter, allow me to ask if you can
inform me where the shepherd's dog or mastiff' can be procured ; as the
curs are committing sad havoc upon the floclis of our neighborhood.

If these dogs (puppies of the stock, I mean) can be procured, you will
very much oblige me by letting me hear from you.

I am, Sir, very respectfully, your obedient servant,

J. F. Nelson.

No'e by the Editor. — The facts are indeed highly interesting on various accounts, and on
two particularly. They demonstrate, in the first place, what valuable results may be
accomplished by giving the force of a clear and determined mind to the attainment of
improvements in any particular branch of agriculture, as Mr. Meade did his to that of
wool and sheep husbandly — and then these facts demonstrate what, however, really needed
no demonstration, that the climate and soil of Virginia is ivell adapted to the highest de-
velopment of that animal for all its useful purjioses. The fact is, that if the Old Dominion
would review the past, see to what condiiion her abstractions have reduced her, and take
a new departure, sheep husbandry in all its agricultural and manufacturing relations and
capabilities ought to be among her most productive sources of weaUh. She ought not to
Vol. I.— 86

682 WOOL AND SHEEP HUSBANDRY.

send a pound of wool beyond her own borders, nor a dollar out of the Slate for the pur-
chase of clothing of any sort, or of iron in any ibrm.

As to shejjherds' dogs, we do not know where they are to be had. We have been
long expecting some from France. But it may here be mentioned as a fact, lately derived
from Mr. Gray, who learned it by personal observation, in Mexico, that there they make
the best sheep dogs in the world, by taking a pup of any good large breed when whelped,
and ])utting it tobe suckled and brought up by a ewe. Mutual attachment grows np between
him and the flock, while he obtains the mastery, which he exercises for their protection
and safety. The trial may be easily made. We have no doubt of the fact.

We here condense the statement of the weights of Mr. Meade's fleeces : —

Seven year-old rams, averaged 13^9^ lbs.; 2 two year old, 9 lbs.; '2 two year old
wethers, 9| lbs. ; 8 one year old wethers, 9| lbs. ; 10 yearling wethers, 9^ lbs. ; 14 ewes
averaged Gi| lbs.; 21 ewes, 6^ lbs. Suminary. — Average of 29 rams, wethers, and
yearling ewes, was 10^^^ lbs.; ditto of 35 ewes was 6]^ lbs.

Have these weights been equalled by any other flock in the United States 1

THE WOOL MARKET.

Cortland Village, March 5, 1849.

My Dear Sir: — The wool market of the United States has labored under
a depression for the past year, for reasons obvious to every observer. The
financial crash in France, and the tightness of the money market in some
other European countries, compelled their manufacturers to throw their
woollens into the market at all events, and they sold at ruinous sacrifices —
often, it is said, for less than the first cost of the wool. Immense quantities
of foreign cloths were thus disposed of in this country. Here, as in Europe,
their price was below what any manufacturer could afford to sell them at.
They threw down the prices of American cloths, and the manufacturer
could not pay former prices for wool, with this injurious competition.

How long are these causes to operate ? I believed from the beginning
that they could not exceed two years, and from present appearances,
wool will nearly or quite regain the prices of 1847, during the coming spring.
It is not impossible — it may even rise considerably above those prices. The
demand for it now is far more active than last spring, and the prices better.

There are many reasons why wool should soon rise higher than it has
been for several years. When the surplus cloths of Europe, in the hands of
the manufacturers last spring, shall have become exhausted — shall cease to
glut our market — this rise will, I think, take place. The French and Ger-
man manufacturers have suffered too severely by the monetary and other
disasters of the past season, to get any surplus of cloths on hand for the
American market. I have no statistics on the point, but such must be the
fact. Indeed, there is ground for a reasonable doubt whether they will
meet their own home demand ! Does any one say, " Then the raw material
of this surplus, hitherto worked up in Europe, will come here, and have the
same effect with the manufactured woollens, on the ivool grower?^' With
freight and duty added to the original cost,^7ie foreign wools cannot now be
sold here short of a good round price. Besides, the storm which has broken
on the European manufacturer has fallen with equal violence on the wool
grower. Hostile armies are ravaging the fields, and doubtless breaking up,
scattering, and subsisting on the flocks of the most important wool-growing
region of Europe — Hungary. If a general war should break out in Europe,
(which God avert !) we shall, beyond all doubt, have to supply Europe with
a considerable portion of her woollens! In addition to the probable diminu-
tion of the staple in Austria, (and more particularly Hungary,) the accounts
from Australia, (which furnished England most of her fine wool,) are not, so
far as I learn, very favorable for the incoming crop of wool. It is said that

WHO PAYS ENGLISH TAXES? 683

the past season has been an unfavorable one for sheep in that singularly-
precarious dimate for them.

Thus you see that all looks bright for the American wool grower. The
people of this and some other of the Northern States, encouraged by the
remarkable price borne of late by dairy products, and discouraged, as usuaU
by a few months' depression in wool, have still further sacrificed their flocks,
and it is diflicult to say where our manufacturers are to obtain their fine
wools in a short period. That the home supply has never equalled the
demand, you are perfectly aware, notwithstanding the common impression
to the contrary.

Such are my views on the subjects embraced in your inquiries.

I am, dear sir, very truly yours, in great haste, Henry S. Randall.
J. S. Skinner, Esq.

WHO PAYS ENGLISH TAXES?

Is any portion assessed on the Wabash corn-grower, who, after expending
seventy-five cents on every bushel he sends to Liverpool, is there subjected
to every species of imposition from foreign factors without the power of
redress ? What toll does he pay in the commercial mill in which he allows
his corn to be ground ? He may think himself well off if he gets back one
peck out of the four.

Does the Michigan wheat-groAver ever think of the amount he pays in
" dock and town dues" to the Liverpool corporation dinners ?

And what does the Kentucky grazier lose by not having a home market ?
Here is a bond fide account of sales of 366 tierces of beef shipped to Liver-
pool by one of our Louisville houses, who are familiar with the business, and
who have every facility of doing it on the cheapest terms : —

Cash for 306 tierces beei; due by average, March 16, 1848, net . £1769 12 2

CHARGES.

Warehousing entry ........ £0 6 0

Freight from New York, (and not inchiding freiglit and charges

to New York) 153 14 4

Insurance and policy . . . . . . . 23 7 3

Landing, wharfage, housing, and delivering . . . . 15 5 0

Washing, capping, and re-pickling . . . . . 50 5 0

Washing, and opening to show . . ' . . . . 2 18 0

Rent, £11 8 3; fire insurance £4 6 3 . . . . 15 14 6

Bill stamps, 18s. Orf.; Incidentals, 5s. - ... . 136

Interest on freight 3 18 10

Brokerage, 1 per cent . . . . . . . . 1715 5

Commission, 4 per cent 7915835 5 36

Net proceeds £1414 8 8

At this point the beef is " in bond,'''' and before it can be released from
bondage it must pay part of the pension of " The Iron Duke."

If the beef spoils on the voyage, does the intended consumer pay any
part of the loss ? And if the consignee finds it convenient to fail, will the
Fayette consignor oppose the discharge of his debtor under the English
bankrupt laws ?

Does not the Western buyer of Sheffield cutlery pay a part of the Hal-
lamshire poor rates ? And do not we all who eat on Staffordshire plates
pay a proportion of the cost of English bayonets in Ireland I

'684 WHO PAYS ENGLISH TAXES?

We have no intention. of preaching' a crusade against foreign commerce,
and have no desire to be isolated from the rest of the world. We do not
call on the government to offer such a bounty on the growth of June apples
in Kentucky as would make their cultivation in green-houses a profitable
business, but we do desire to see the consumer of our corn and beef drawn
nearer the producer, instead of paying or losing the expenses of transporta-
tion, which fall on us when the supplj'- of our produce is greater than the
demand. We would invite the hands to come here and work up our own
iron and temper our own clay.

Corn. — Some days since we gave the results of a shipment of beef from
this country to England. We now annex a copy of an account of sales of
1800 bags of Indian corn shipped to and sold at Liverpool on account of the
New Orleans agents of one of our Louisville houses : —

By sales of 457 135-480 qrs £649 14 8

1800 empty bags, at 2^rf 16 17 6— 66G 12 2

To freight frotii New Orleans 367 3 2

Primage 18 7 2

Dock, town, and trade dues . . . . . . 6 13 8

Cartage, porterage, and rent . . . ... 48 5 2

Fire Insurance . . . . . . . . 1116

Postages and interest on charges . . . . . . 5 19

Brokerage 347

Bank commission ........ 1 13 4

Commission and guarantee, 3^ pc. ..... 23 6 7 — 475 611

Net proceeds, cash, Nov. 26, 1847 £191 5 3

E.E. Liverpool. R & B .

Proceeds equal to $929 86

Including 9J per cent, exchange.
Now add cost of 1800 sacks at . . , . . , . 0 14

Transportation to New Orleans . ...... 30

Shelling, sacking, and drayages ....... 7

Conmiissions and charges at New Orleans ..... 3

Weighing ........... 2

1800x56 = 1008 00

Net proceeds here on the wrong side, or a net loss of . . . . $78 14

What say you, gentlemen corn-gro\^'ers of the West ? Will you risk the
Liverpool market ? Is it policy to exchange your products for the wares of
Manchester, Birmingham, and Sheffield ?

Free trade means that you are free to send your corn and wheat where
there are " dock, town, and trade dues," and oh " English bottoms ;" and
this year you can have the advantages of the " sliding scale." These Liver-
pool factors, with their commissions, and charges, and interest on charges,
must grow fat on your corn. Do you think they would subscribe liberally
when you would put up a new school-house, or build a bridge, or pay your
preacher ? — Louisville Journal.

Ah ! but without these enormous taxes on everything in England — taxes on knowledge
and on the liglit of heaven itself — on newspapers and on window-glass, (what is it that
is not taxed?) how could the people be made to pay to the Archbishop of Canterbury,
John Bird Stunner, $85,000 a year; to the Bislwp of London, $55,000 : to him of Win-
Chester, $50,000; to the Archbishop of York, $50,000, and so on? — Editors P. L. ^J.

STRICTURES ON DR. BALDWIN'S NEW THEORY. 685

STRICTURES ON DR. BALDWIN'S NEW THEORY.

(postponed from last number.)

Messrs. Editors: — With due deference to the superior capacity and
attainments of your valued correspondent, Dr. Baldwin, we propose to make
a few remarks in regard to. his " New Inductions in Agriculture," that
appeared in the last number of " The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil."

They are made with no desire to criticise — no wish to engage in a con-
troversy ; neither from any presumed qualification on our part, of compe-
tency to enter into a rigid analysis of the opinions he advances ; but are
offered simply as some reflections that were suggested by a perusal of his
interesting, and, in our humble opinion, very valuable article, notwith-
standing we differ materially from him in many points, and if it were par-
donable to introduce political phraseology in an agricultural dissertation, we
would say that we consider him decidedly ' ultra'' in his views.

The first deduction seems to be rather indefinite, but the evident design
of it is to convey the impression that vegetables are not dependent upon the
atmosphere for their nourishment, for he sa^-s, " No plant can exist in an
impoverished soil without manure at the root."

In a subsequent assertion he states that " no manure can be made of ani/
substance without the aid of the putrefactive process." If this be true, all
manures owe their origin exclusively to oi'ganic matter, for it would be
absurd to speak of inorganic matter as undergoing putrefaction, the terms
disintegration and decomposition being applied to changes in their form and
composition.*

Therefore manure could not have existed previous to the creation of
organic matter, and as plants, according to his assertion, are doomed to
instantaneous death when deprived of it, we would ask what sustained
vegetable vitality when it first made its appearance on earth ?

From the induction of Dr. Baldwin we must infer that it would have
perished, and this sphere would have roiled on in its circuitous orbit ad in-
finitum ; but its beautiful robe of verdure would never have embraced it —
the science and art of culture would have been unknown, and in fact animal
creation could not have existed, for it is dependent for its support upon
vegetation, that being the great and important agent that is intrusted with
the exalted function of transforming the raw material into nutritive com-
pounds.

But this is not the only dilemma we find ourselves in, for if we admit that
plants do not draw largely upon the carbonic acid gas of the atmosphere for
their carbon, how can we explain the origin of the immense deposits of
coal that are found diffused over both continents, and also those extensive
accumulations of peat, that are often many miles in length, and feet in
thickness ? If we were wafted upon the wings of imagination through an
infinite number of years long past, and could gaze upon one of those valleys
that is now the receptacle of mountain masses of peat, and behold it when
its primitive verdure luxuriantly waved throughout its entire extent, and
then watch it each succeeding year, and see the annual product fall down,
decay, and add to the amount of organic matter — thus continually accumu-
lating, until a mighty volume of carbon is congregated together ; think you

* The French chemists do not a^lmit that inorganic matters are manures — they term
them ameliorators. — Editws P. L. ^ A.

3M

686 STRICTURES ON DR. BALDWIN'S NEW THEORY.

that we would then assert that plants do not draw nutriment largely from
the atmosphere ?

These, and many other circumstances, confirm us in the opinion of nume-
rous individuals, that plants receive a large amount of their support from
other sources than the soil. In fact, if they did not consume the carbon of
the carbonic acid formed by combustion, the natural decay of organic matter,
and the respiration of animals, the atmosphere would eventually become
surcharged with it, when the earth would be uninhabitable.

That plants do absorb carbonic acid is not only a plausible conjecture, but
an established fact, and reveals the beautiful connection and mutual de-
pendence of the animal and vegetable kingdoms upon each other.

The doctor is of the opinion that the analytical investigations of learned
chemists are not only valueless, but that they have proved decidedly inju-
rious to the best interests of agriculture.

Now we would ask if he denies the accuracy of those analyses, and if so,
we would class him among those skeptical ones who still doubt the rotundity
of the earth, and would at once omit any further remarks. But that they
are rigidly correct cannot be denied, for they have been repeatedly verified.
Presuming that he admits they «re reliable, we will next refer to the 3d
clause, in which he asserts that "it is 7iot true that different vegetable matters
during their growth, extract different fertilizing salts from the earth." And
in proof he says, " for lands exhausted by continued cultivation in one kind
of grain will not produce a more remunerative crop of any other kind"
In this he does not say directly that plants absorb the inorganic constituents
in different proportions, but it amounts to the same thing, and the proof he
offers, if correct, equally sustains both. If we admit that they all absorb the
same elements, yet in very unlike quantities, it would be in direct opposition
to the last sentence quoted, therefore his meaning is clear.

Now, according to the analyses referred to, plants do possess these ele-
ments in very different proportions. For example, let us compare the inor-
ganic constituents of the oat with that of the potato, and we find a wide
difference, the latter containing by far a larger quantity of potash and soda,
while the silica is much more abundant in the first.

A multipHcity of such comparisons might be made, all tending to establish
the same important fact, that plants do absorb the inorganic elements in
very different proportions.

Here then is a collision, and the sweeping assertion of Dr. Baldwin must
either be erroneous, or the results obtained by Liebig, Berzelius, Sprengel,
Mulder, Prout, and a host of other scientific investigators, must be incorrect
and unreliable. But his assertion not only conflicts with the settled prin-
ciples of science, but also with the views, as we had supposed, of all tho-
rough agriculturists, and, if true, will do away with the necessity of a rotation
of crops, which we had thought was acknowledged by both theoretical and
practical men to constitute the basis of an enlightened system of agriculture.
Now if it can be maintained that no advantage is derived from an alternation
of crops, (and it certainly can, if it can be demonstrated that different plants
absorb the same inorganic elements in precisely the same proportion,) it will
not only detract from the utility of scientific research, but will also destroy
all confidence in the " careful observation of the operations of nature, and the
inductive reasonings drawn therefrom ;" for all the experiments that we have
ever heard, tend emphatically to establish the principle that a judicious
rotation is indispensable to good husbandry.

Again, he places very great stress upon the efficacy of shade, regarding
it as the great fertilizing agent, for that alone " is capable of developing the
fertilizing principle that exists in every particle of earth as naturally con-

STRICTURES ON DR. BALDWIN'S NEW THEORY. 687

stituted." And in proof of this position, he says, " the difference in the fer-
tility of the soil in our native forest lands arises solely from the circumstance
of the surface-soil being more or less densely shaded." Here he appears to
regard the organic matter, which is known to exist in very variable propor-
tions in all virgin soils, as of no value whatever to vegetation, for the dif-
ference in their fertility is not dependent upon its presence or absence, but
solely upon the intensity of shade ; and if decomposed organic matter does
not exert the slightest influence on plants in this case, we are unable to see
why it can in any other, and his deduction, in our humble opinion, is
equivalent to a promulgation to farmers of the doctrine that the refuse
matter of their barn-yards could as profitably be scattered in the highways
as on their fields, (unless it have the effect to shade it to some extent,) which
is certainly a novel idea. This appears also to be at variance with the last
clause of assertion No. 6, that we have already quoted, for there he states
that ALL manure is the result of putrefaction, which term we have already
remarked is applied exclusively to the decomposition of organic matter.

Now, if " shade is the great fertilizing agent, and in this consists the per-
fection of agriculture," it is all-important that it be clearly demonstrated. If
it be so, we would ask why it is that a field that has produced a luxuriant
crop of any kind of grain is not greatly enriched by it, for it must have
been very much shaded 1 But instead of being improved, science, and so
will the practical experience of every farmer, answer, that the reverse is the
case.

We regret that Dr. Baldwin did not give his reasons for the opinions he
advances, and frankly acknowledge that these remarks are made more for
the purpose of eliciting information from him than imparting it to others.
Feeling deeply interested in the welfare of agriculture, which is the leading
pursuit of our country, we are desirous of having every thing that will pro-
mote it fully sustained ; and if agricultural writers would give with their
abstract principles, the reasons of their adoption, a great favor would be con-
ferred, and the necessity of all articles like the present avoided.

In conclusion, we would remark that we diflfer essentially from all those
who underrate the labors of scientific men, and instead of considering that
they have been and are detrimental to the interests of terraculture, we think
they have done more to elevate the noble calling, and bring it into its proper
and exalted estimation, than any other class, and have made many valuable
suggestions. Still we would not recommend that the dictations of science,
which is but yet in its infancy, where they are at variance with repeated
and multiphed experiments, should be adopted ; but such instances are not
numerous, and for the most part, there is an admirable coincidence between
them — one confirming the other.

But in what manner has science elevated and advanced agriculture ? It
has suggested many improvements of great pecuniary value, such as the
application of sulphuric acid to bones, the giving of alkalies to hoven cattle,
and ultimately, the analysis of soils will be an object of paramount import-
ance, and will precede every attempt at renovation ; but besides this, it has
diffused a flood of light upon the subject, that enables culturists to experi-
ment with clearness, and the promise of success.

Some men estimate its value exclusively by the dollars and cents that
they receive directly from its hands ; but in our opinion the greatest public
benefits are not to be counted in coin, though they will eventually and indi-
rectly greatly increase national wealth.

Yours, respectfully, P.

Germantown, Pa.

688 DIRECTIONS FOR CUTTING AND WHITENING STRAW.

DIRECTIONS FOR CUTTING AND WHITENING STRAW,

FOR HATS, BONNETS, ETC.

Cut rye near the ground, when the grain is in the milk ; tie it in small
bundles, cut off the heads, dip it in boiling water, (if you cannot dip it, pour
boiling Avater over it, though dipping is best,) dry it in the sun thoroughly,
taking it in at night, so that no dew falls upon it. Cut out that part under
the husk, and tie it in small bundles, to make fine braid for nice bonnets ;
for coarse hats, the whole length between the joints may be taken and
braided without further preparation.

To Bleach or Whiten Straw. — Take a barrel with one head out, take the
bundles of straw you have cut, and wet them thoroughly with hot soap-
suds, tie them in the barrel as near the head that remains in, as you can.
Dig a hole in the ground, a iew inches deep, a little larger than the barrel ;
put some ashes in the middle of the hole. Heat some iron vessel, put some
coals upon the ashes, and put the hot iron vessel upon the coals, and put in
two ounces of sulphur (or brimstone) for every pound of straw. Set the
open end of the barrel over it, and heap up some dirt around it to make it
tight ; let it remain all night. If it is not as white as you want it, repeat
the operation, taking care to wet the straw every time you smoke it, or the
smoke will do no good.

Old hats or bonnets may be whitened in the same way, if thoroughly
washed with a brush or sponge and soap-suds.

Straw must always be wet when it is braided, to prevent its breaking.
Ingenious persons may learn to braid by taking a piece of an old hat or
bonnet — which can be readily procured at the bonnet-maker's or milliner's
— and picking it open, soaking it in water, to prevent its breaking.

REMARKABLE PRODUCTIONS OF A SMALL STATE.

The Delaware Republican's Correspondent says the old " Blue Hen"
exhibited lately in Washington, from among her small brood of chickens —
the Secretary of State, in the person of the Hon. J. M. Clayton, of " Bucna
Vista,'''' — the largest wheat-grower in all Delaware, Major John Jones, of
Wheatland, and — the largest and finest mutton ever seen in the Wash-
ington market, being one of Major Reybold's Oxfordshire breed, weighing
148 pounds, or 37 pounds to the quarter. In John Barney's time, 25
pounds to the quarter for Bakewell was regarded as extraordinary. The
old Southdown mutton used to weigh 12 pounds. The fact is that every
thing is on the advance, and so it was designed by an all-wise Providence.
That mankind should be happy, we must be kept on the qxii vive. Were
things at once put at the maximum of improvement, the next thing would be
to grow rusty and die of ennui. What is wanting now is, to establish
courses of education, and application of the sciences expressly adapted to
agricidtural improvement — and then we shall witness as much improve-
ment in the machinery, the practice, and the art of cultivation, as we have
witnessed in the medical art, which has so much prolonged the average of
human life — or in the art of printing, painting, manufactures, &c. Let the
farmers and planters of the Union insist on the appropriation of a large
portion of the taxes they pay, to the ))urposes of education, with express
reference to a better understanding of all sciences that bear upan the use of
the plough and the harrow — and this determination will be accelerated by
bringing into their immediate vicinity, the loom and the anvil — because
THAT will be followed by increase of wealth, of leisure, and of self-command,
and the power of combination for common benefit.

COST OF BUILDING AND REPAIRING FENCES. 689

[Written for ''The American Courier," by the Editor of "The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil."]

THE COST OF BUILDING AND REPAIRING THE FENCES

IN THE UNITED STATES,
Is enormous, almost beyond the power of calculation, and forces the inquiry,
whether Legislatures ought not to be called upon to compel every man to
keep his stock to himself. Then no man, who did not choose to do it, would
be forced to enclose his land against the ravages of his neighbor's stock.

Mr. Biddle, a few years since, in an address before the Philadelphia
Agricultural Society, slated that the cost of the fences in Pennsylvania
amounted to $100,000,000, and their annual expense he estimated at
$10,000,000. A distinguished writer on National Wealth, says : " Strange
as it may seem, the greatest investment in this country, the most costly pro-
duction of human industry, is the common fences which enclose and divide
the fields. No man dreams that when compared to the outlay of these
unpretending monuments of human art, our cities and our towns, with all
their wealth, are left far behind. In many places the fences have cost more
than the fences and farms are worth. It is this enormous burden which
keeps down the agricultural interest of this country, causing an untold
expenditure, besides the loss of the land the fences occupy."

Estimating a chestnut post-and-rail fence to kst 18 years, and including
inside fencing and repairs, the annual tax to the farmer holding 150 acres,
will be $130 to $140, and judging from present appearances, the tax is
perpetual, and there seems but little hope of escape from it.

Did the intelligent farmer reflect a moment, and estimate the annual tax
which his fences impose upon him, he would not rest till the system was
abolished, or else the live hedge took the place of the present expensive
fence of timber.

The system of compelling every landholder to enclose his property is
peculiar to the United States, with only the exception of England, where
the fence nuisance appears again under the form of the hedge ; and although
these hawthorn hedges, when they are well tended — and not more than
half of them are so — are beautiful objects, and answer all the purposes of
protection against the inroads of cattle, still the public voice is beginning to
cry out against them, because of the enormous amount of land required to
support them. Each hedge is five or six feet wide at its base, and taking into
account the amount of land they exhaust on either side, the whole space can-
not be less than twelve or fourteen feet wide. When it is recollected that the
divisions and subdivisions of land in England are very numerous, the amount
of arable land abstracted from the purposes of agriculture is very great. It
has been estimated at several million bushels of grain.

Distemper in Dogs. — As few escape, every one ought to have a remedy
on which he can depend, instead of waiting until the poor dog's life is in
imminent jeopardy, and then running about asking here and there — " Can
you tell me what's good for distemper ?" Here it is: —

For a half-grown dog, and more or less in proportion to age,

Opium ........ 3 grains.

Tartar Emetic (a capital medicine) . . . . 5 "

To be given every third night, until a cure is effected. Keep him in a
warm place, and always fed with warm liquid diet, such as broth, gruel, &c.

If there be much discharge at the nostrils, have them washed or syringed
twice a day, with a lotion of alum or sugar-of-lead, putting about half an
ounce of either to a pint of water.

Vol. I.— 87 3 M 2

690 AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

[Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1849, by John S. Skinner & Son, in the Clerk's Office of the
District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.]

THE AGRICULTURAL SCHOOL-BOOK.

EIGHTH LESSON.
OF MANURING THE SOIL.

1. Any thing that furnishes food to plants may be called a manure.
2 Of manures there are three principal kinds — vegetable, animal, and
mineral.

3. Vegetable manures are those parts of plants which are usually buried
in the soil to make it more productive.

4. The most important vegetable manures are grass, clover, straw, hay. &c.

5. The soil is manured with green grass when grass-land is ploughed up.

6. In ploughing up grass-land, the sods should be buried so deep as not
to be disturbed by the after-cultivation of the crop, yet not too deep for the
roots to reach them early in the growing season.

7. Clover, buckwheat, oats, and rye, are also ploughed in to enrich the
soil.

8. Green crops are usually ploughed into light and sandy soils, and into
such as contain very little vegetable matter.

9. Sea-weed or sea-ore is a valuable manure, and wherever it can be ob-
tained in large quantity it is found to enrich the soil very much.

10. Sea-ore is either spread over the land and allowed to rot and sink in,
or it is made into a compost, or it is put into the furrow in a fresh state ;
care is taken, if potatoes are the crop, to prevent the sets from touching
the sea-weed, by putting a little earth between them.

iVbte. — When tlie potato sets are allowed to touch the sea-weed they are often observed
to rot.

IL When used in a fresh state, sea- weed will give large crops of pota-
toes, but the}' are not of the best quality.

12. The best way to use sea- weed is in the form of a compost of earth or
marl, and the mixture should be turned over once or twice before using it.

13. Hay is usually fed away to the horses or stock, and afterwards put
upon the land in the shape of their dung.

14. Straw is either fed away or used as litter, and then hauled out in a
more or less fiermented state,

15. For light land, the manure made from straw should be pretty well
fermented : for stiff land not so much so.

16. The most important animal manures are the blood, flesh, bones, hair,
wool, and the dung and urine of animals, and the refuse of fish.

17. In this country as yet very little use has (notwithstanding its great
value) been made of blood as a manure. In other countries it is dried, and
is then applied as a top-dressing, or is drilled in with the seed. It is one
of the most powerful manures.

18. The flesh of dead horses, cows, and dogs, buried in saw-dust or soil,
with a little marl, makes a most enriching compost.

19. Bones are crushed in mills, and then sifted into the various sizes of
inch bones, half-inch bone,s, and dust.

20. Bones act most quickly in the form of dust, but they do not act for so
long a time.

21. Bones are most profitably employed on light, or on well-drained
lands, instead of the whole or of a part of the farm-yard manure. They are
often mixed with wood ashes.

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY. 691

22. Bones have been found very beneficial to grass-lands that are pas-
tured for dairy purposes or for stock generally ; even where these lands are
wet, bones have produced remarkable benefits.

23. Bones consist of glue or gelatine, which may be partly extracted by
boiling them in water — and of bone-earth, which remains behind when the
bones are burned.

24. Bone-earth consists chiefly of phosphoric acid and lime.

100 lbs. of bone-earth, as it is obtained by burning bones, contain about 45 lbs. of phos-
phoric acid.

QUESTIONS.

1. What is manure?

2. How many principal kinds of manure
are there ?

3. Wliat do you mean by vegetable ma-
nures ?

4. Name the most important vegetable
manures.

5. How, or when is the soil manured
with green grass ?

6. At what depth should the sod be
turned under ?

7. What other crops are ploughed in as
green manure ?

8. What description of lands are most
benefited by green manures 1

9. What of sea-ore ?

10. How is sea-ore applied ?

11. What is said of sea-ore when used in
a fresh state ?

12. Which is the best way to use sea-ore?

1 3. What of hay ?

14. What use is made of straw ?

15. What is said of the degree of fer-
mentation in straw manure?

16. What are the most important animal
manures ?

17. How is blood managed ?

1 8. How is the flesh of animals made
into manure ?

19. How are bones prepared?

20. How do bones act most quickly?

21. How are bones most profitably em-
ployed ?

22. On what lands have bones been
found beneficial?

23. What do bones consist of?

24. What is the composition of bone-
earth ?

NINTH LESSON.
OF MANURING THE SOIL. (Ocmiinued.)

1. As all plants contain, and therefore require for their healthy growth a
certain quantity of lime and phosphoric acid, bone-earth must make a good
manure.

2. Dairy pastures — milk and cheese contain bone-earth. If these be
carried away and sold off the farm for a number of years, the land is robbed
by degrees of its bone-earth more than of any other substance. Only those
grasses can then grow which require little bone-earth.

Every ten gallons of milk contain about half a pound of bone-earth. A cow, therefore,
which gives twenty quarts a day, takes about two pounds of bone-earth from the
soil every week. To return these two pounds to the soil, three pounds of dry bones,
or four pounds of common bone-dust are required.

3. As the bones supply the bone-earth of which the land has been robbed,
new grasses spring up which contain much bone-earth, and these, when
eaten by the cow, produce milk in greater abundance, and richer in cheese.

4. Bones are sometimes dissolved in sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol) pre-
vious to being applied.

•5. To dissolve bones, about equal weights of bone-dust and sulphuric
acid are taken. The acid is diluted with three times its bulk of water, and
poured upon the bones, and the mixture is stirred occasionally for two or
three days.

The teacher may show how this is done, and explain that the liquid or paste may
either be further diluted with thirty times its bulk of water, and applied with a
water-cart, or may be dried up with powdered charcoal, peat, saw-dust, or soil, and

692 AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

drilled in, or used in the hill as bones usually are. The relative proportions of bones
and acid may also be varied — two or three of bones being sometimes used to one of
acid.

6. One of the chief advantages of dissolving bones is, that the substances
of which the bones consist are very minutely divided. They can thus
enter more readiJy into the roots of plants, and a smaller quantity produces
an equal effect upon the crop.

7. Hair is generally too expensive to be used as a manure. But in
China, where the people's heads are all shaved, the shavings are collected
for manure. There are many small tanneries far in the interior of our own
States where large quantities of hair is wasted.

8. Wool is used as a manure in the form of woollen rags. Mixed with
earth, woollen rags make an excellent compost. They are much used for
manuring the hop grounds in England.

The teacher may here describe the hop-plant, and explain the purpose for which it is
employed by the brewers.

9. Of animal dung the most commonly used are night-soil, horse-dung,
cow-dung, sheep's-dung, hog's-dung, and bird's-dung.

10. The most valuable of these are night-soil and birds'-dung ; next to
these is horse-dung; after that, pig's-dung ; and, lastly, cow's-dung.

11. Night-soil is most valuable, because men generally live upon a mix-
ture of animal and vegetable food, which renders the dung richer.

12. The solid part of horse-dung is richer than cow-dung, because the
horse voids little urine compared with the cow.

13. Hog-manure is said to give a disagreeable taste and smell to the
crops raised from it.

14. The best way to use hog's-dung is to make it into a compost or mix
it with the dung of other animals.

15. Cow-dung is cooler and less liable to ferment than most other kinds
of dung, because the large quantity of urine voided by the cow carries off a
greater proportion of that Avhich would otherwise cause it to ferment.

16. The mixed dung of animals differs from the food on which they live,
principally in containing a less proportion of carbon, and a greater proportion
of nitrogen.

17. The dung contains less carbon than the food, because animals throw
ofFa large quantity of the carbon of their food during breathing.

18. The carbon of the food comes off" from the lungs in the form of car-
bonic acid gas. (See figs. 9, 10, 11, and page 551.)

19. A full-grown man gives off' from his lungs about half a pound of car-
bon in a day, a cow or a horse eight or ten times as much.

20. Nearly all the nitrogen of the food remains in the dung and urine,
mixed with a smaller quantity of carbon than was in the food.

21. This greater proportion of nitrogen is one of the principal causes of
the greater activity of the dung of animals.

22. During the fermentation of the manure, nitrogen for the most part
assumes the form of ammonia.

1. Why does bone-earth make a good
manure "?

2. What is said of bone-earth in reference
to dairy pastures ?

3. How does the application of bones af-
fect these pastures ?

QUESTIONS.

5. How are bones dissolved for this pur-
pose"?

6. What is one of the chief advantages
gained by this?

7. What is said of hair as a manure f

8. What of wool?

4. What preparation do bones sometimes | 9. What kinds of animal dung are most
undergo before being applied to the land ? i used ?

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

693

10. What is the relative vahie of the dif-
ferent kinds of dung ?

11. Why is night-soil the most valuable?

12. Why is horse-dung richer than cow-
dun'g?

13. What is said of the effects of hog-
manure ?

14. How is it recommended to use hog-
dung?

15. Why is cow-dung less liable to fer-
ment than other kinds ?

16. In what does the dung of aninjals
diifer from their food ?

17. Why does the dung contain less car-
bon than the food ?

18. In what form does the carbon of the
food come from the lungs?

1 9. What quantity of carbon is given off
daily by men and horses?

20. Whatof the nitrogen contained in the
food?

21. What is one of the principal causes
of the greater activity of animal manures?

22. What form does tlie nitrogen assume
during fermentation ?

TENTH LESSON.
OF MANURING THE SOIL. (Omtinued.)

1. Ammonia is a kind of air that has an exceedingly stron or smell, and
possesses alkaline properties — the common hartshorn of the shops is merely
water impregnated with this gas.

Here the teacher may exhibit a bottle of hartshorn or of smelling salts, (carbonate of
ammonia,) and naake his pupils acquainted with the smell of ammonia. He may
likewise show that hartshorn restores the blue color to vegetable blues that have been
reddened by an acid, and is therefore alkaline.

The teacher may also at this stage take the opportunity of examining his pupils on the
properties of all the sLv kinds of air described in the Catechism — namely, hydrogen,
oxygen, nitrogen, chlorine, carbonic acid, and ammonia. He may ask in what pro-
perties they agree, and in what they differ from each other, and so on.

2. Ammonia is produced in fermenting compost or manure-heaps, and in
fermenting urine, and it is the cause of the smell perceived in hot stables.

3. To detect the presence of ammonia, take a feather, dip it in vinegar,
and hold it over the manure-pile or compost-heap — if ammonia is present in
the air, white fumes will become visible.

The teacher will show this experiment by dipping a glass rod or feather into vinegar,
or into muriatic acid, and holding it over the mouth of his hartshorn bottle, when
white fumes will become visible, showing diat ammonia is escaping in the form of
gas.

4. Ammonia consists of the two gases, nitrogen and hydrogen.

14 lbs. of nitrogen and 3 lbs. of hydrogen make 17 lbs. of ammonia.

5. The ammonia of the manure is dissolved in the soil by water, and is
then sucked in by the roots.

6. The gluten and other substances containing nitrogen, are formed in
the plant by the aid of ammonia.

7. As nitrogen, in some shape or other, is absolutely necessary to the
growth of plants, it follows that ammonia is a very important ingredient in
manures.

8. The liquid parts especially of cow's manure produce the most am-
monia.

9. As most of the ammonia is produced by the liquid parts of the manure,
it is of the greatest importance that this should be carefully saved, and not
allowed, as is too often the case, to run to waste.

10. A large tank or cistern should be made in every farm-yard, to collect
the liquid manure.

X^ote. — The tank should be separated into two divisions by a partition wall, built in the
middle of it. Each division should be capable of containing one or two months'
supply of the liquid. When the one is full the stream should be turned into the
other, and when this also is full, that which is in the first division will be fer-
mented, or ripe enough for laying upon the land.

694 AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

11. The liquid manure should be occasionally pumped upon the manure-
heaps to promote fermentation ; or it should be poured upon the compost.

12. A good way to apply liquid manure during spring and summer, is to
dilute it with once or twice its bulk of water, and after it has fermented for
some time, it can be put upon grass land, young clover, or other young
crops, with a water-cart.

13. There is this difference between the fermented urine of cows, horses,
and sheep, and the drainings of manure-heaps — the first contains potash,
soda, and ammonia, while the last almost always contain phosphates.

14. The ammoniacal Hquor of the gas-works, diluted with four or five
times its bulk of water, should be collected and employed in the same way
as the liquid manure of the farm-yard.

15. The manure from birds is especially rich : and the dung of sea-fowl
has lately been introduced into this country under the name of guano.

16. Guano is employed as a top-dressing — is ploughed in the land before
seeding, and is composted with woods earth.

17. Care should in all cases be taken to prevent the seed or potato-sets
from coming in immediate contact with guano.

18. Guano should never be mixed with quick-lime, because the lime sets
free the ammonia contained in the guano, and causes it to escape into the
air.

Here the teacher may mix a little slacked lime with a spoonful of gnano in a wine
glass, and let his pupils smell the ammonia which will come off. Or he may hold
over it a feather dipped in vinetiar, and show the white fimies. If he have no
gi;ano he must use a little sal-ammoniac or a little sulpliate of anmiO)iia instead; and
may explain that (juick-Vnne will, in the same way, drive oti' ammonia contained in
liquid manure and in horse or farm-yard dung, if it be mixed with any of these.

19. In manuring potatoes, turnips, beets, &c., it is better husbandry to
mix the guano with one-half common manure.

20. Guano used alone does not supply a sufficient quantity of organic
matter to maintain the soil in its most productive state.

QUESTIONS.

1. What is ammonia?

2. How is ammonia produced ?

3. How is the presence of ammonia de-
tected ?

4. Of what does ammonia consist?

5. How is ammonia taken up by the
roots ?

6. How is the gluten and other substances
containing nitrogen formed in the plants ?

7. Is ammonia an important ingredient in
manures, and why ?

8. What parts of the manure produce the
most ammonia?

9. What is said of the importance of
liquid manure?

111. How is the liquid manure to be
saved ?

11. How is liquid manure managed?

12. How is liquid manure applied ?

13. What is the ditference between the
fermented urine of animals and the drain-
ings of manure?

14. What is said of ammoniacal liquor?

15. Is the manure from birds rich?

IG. What is guano, and how is it applied?

17. What caution is to be used with
guano?

18. Should quick-lime be used with gu-
ano— if not, why?

19. What about the application of guano
to potatoes, tiu'nips, beets, ^c. ?

20. What is the objection to the use of
guano by itself?

ELEVENTH LESSON.
OF MANURING THE SOIL. (Concluded.)

1. Two cwts. of guano per acre for top-dressing wheat and grass, and
three cwts. mixed with manure for corn, potatoes, turnips, &c., is about the
proper quantity of guano to apply.

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY. 695

2. Fish in some districts are largely used as manure.

3. The best way to use fish is in the form of compost with earth, and
with marl if to be had.

4. The most important mineral manures are nitrate of soda, sulphate of
soda, common salt, wood-ashes, kelp, and lime.

5. Nitrate of soda is a white salt-like (saline) substance, which is found iu
the earth in some parts of Peru, and is often applied with great advantage
as a top-dressing to grass-land and young wheat.

Note. — To show the difference between nitrate of soda and common salt, with which
it is often aduherated, sprinkle a little of each on a red hot cinder. The common
salt will crackle and leap in the fire, (^decrepitate,) while the nitrate of soda will
cause a bright flame or burning, (^deflagration.) Saltpetre (nitrate of potash) will do
the same as nitrate of soda.

6. Nitrate of soda consists of nitric acid and soda.

54 lbs. of nitric acid and 31 lbs. of soda form 85 lbs. of nitrate of soda.

The teacher may take this opportunity of verbally explaining the terms by which
chemists denote combinations of the nitric, sulphuric, phosphoric, and carbonic acids
with potash, soda, lime, and magnesia — thus, when carbonic acid combines with any
of these substances it forms a carljono/e, phosphoric acid a phospliafe, sulphuric acid
a sulpha/c, nitric acid a nitra/e. Hence, thnt phosphate of lime denotes a combination
of phosphoric acid with lime, sulphate of soda a combination of sulphuric acid with
soda, and so on.

7. Nitric acid is a very sour corrosive liquid, called also aquafortis. It
consists of two gases, nitrogen and oxygen.

14 lbs. of nitrogen and 40 lbs. of oxygen form 54 lbs. of nitric acid. It may be shown,
1°. That it stains the fingers yellow. 2°. That when poured upon a bit of copper,
(a cent,) it becomes hot and of a deep blue color, and gives oft' red fumes.

The teacher may here also interrogate his pupils as to the ditference between the
three powerful and common acids — the nitric, muriatic, and sulphuric, mentioned in
this work. The sulphuric being oily, becoming hot when mixed with water, char-
ring wood or straw, and giving oft" hydrogen wlien poured upon zinc or iron — the
common muriatic acid giving oif fumes into the air. forming a white cloud when a
feather dipped in hartshorn is held over it, and giving off chlorine when it is poured
upon oxide of manganese — ihe nitric having the properties above stated.

8. The benefit of nitrate of soda depends upon its supplying nitrogen and
soda to the growing crops.

9. From 1 cwt. to 1^ cwt. of nitrate of soda is applied to the acre.

10. Sulphate of soda is the substance commonly called Glauber salts, and
consists of sulphuric acid (oil of vitriol) and soda. It sometimes produces
good efl^ects Avhen applied as a top-dressing to grass-land, to turnips, and to
young potatoes.

40 lbs. of sulphuric acid with 31 lbs. of soda form 71 lbs. of dry sulphate of soda.

11. Common salt may either be appHed as a top-dressing, or it may be
mixed with the farm-yard or other manure, or with the water used in
slaking quick-lime.

12. Salt is most likely to be beneficial in places that are remote from the
sea, or are sheltered by high hills from the winds that pass over the sea.

13. Lands near the sea do not require salt, for the winds bring with them
a portion of the sea-spray, and sprinkle it over the soil to a distance of many
miles from the sea-shore.

14. Gypsum is a white substance composed of sulphuric acid and lime ;
it forms an excellent top-dressing for red clover, and also for peas and beans.

40 lbs. of sulphuric acid and 28^ lbs. of lime form 68^ lbs. of burned gypsum, which

contains no water.
40 lbs. of acid, 28^ lbs. of lime, and 18 lbs. of water, form 86| lbs. of native or un-

696 AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

burned g3^psum. Native or unburned gyp?uni loses about 21 per cent, of water

when heated to dull redness, becoming burned gypsum.
The teacher may heat a little unburned gypsum on the end of a knife, (fig. 14,) or in a

tube over a candle, and show,_^)s/, that it becomes opaque and milk-white ; second,

loses water and becomes lighter ; and, third, that after heating, it readily crumbles

to a fine white powder.
This fine white powder is the plaster of Paris, which is used for making casts, and for

the cornices of rooms.

15. These substances ought to be applied in calnm weather, in order that
they may be equally spread — and soon after or before rain, that they may
be dissolved.

16. A mixture of nitrate and sulphate of soda usually produces a much
more beneficial effect upon potatoes than either of them alone, and the same
is often the case with a mixture of common salt and gypsum when applied
to beans.

17. Kelp is the ash that is left when sea-weed is burned in large quanti-
ties.

18. Kelp may be used to top-dress grass-lands and young wheat — mixed
with ordinary manure, it may be used with great advantage on turnips,
potatoes, &c.

19. Kelp so far has been but little used as a manure, though there is no
good reason why it should not be in many districts.

20. Wood-ashes make a valuable manure — of great benefit to all crops,
but especially to the family of the grasses.

QUESTIONS.

1. What is the quantity of guano usually
applied to the acre?

2. Are fish used as a manure to any ex-
tent?

3. Which is the best way to use fish as a
manure ?

4. Name the most important mineral ma-
nures ?

5. Describe nitrate of soda ?

6. AVliat does nitrate of soda consist of?

7. What is nitric acid ?

8. On what do the beneficial effects of
nitrate of soda depend ?

9. How much nitrate of soda is usually
applied to the acre ?

10. Describe sul^jhate of soda?

11. How is common salt used?

12. Where is salt most likely to be bene-
ficial?

13. Why do not lands near the sea re-
quire salt ?

14. What is gypsum?

15. How and when should these sub-
stances be applied ?

IG. Are mixtures of these substances
sometimes more beneficial than any of them
applied singly?

17. What is kelp?

IS. How may kelp be used?

10. What other remark is made about
kelp?

20 Are wood-ashes valuable as manure 1

TWELFTH LESSON.
OF LIMESTONE, AND OF THE BURNING AND USE OF LIME.

1. Limestone consists of lime (quick-Vime) in combination with carbonic
acid.

28 lbs. of lime and 22 lbs. of carbonic acid make 50 lbs. of limestone.
The teacher may here revert to the properties of carbonic acid, and examine his pupils
upon what they had previously learned upon this subject.

2. Limestone is called by chemists carbonate of lime.

3. There are many varieties of limestone : some soft, such as chalk —
some hard, such as our common limestones — some of a yellow color, like the
magnesian limestones, which contain magnesia — some pure white, like the
statuary marble — some black, like black marble, and so on.

Here it woidd be advantageous if the teacher could exhibit some of these or of other
varieties of limestone.

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY. 697

4. Marl is the same thing as limestone, namely, carbonate of lime, only-
it is often in the state of a fine powder, and often also mixed with earthy
matter.

5. Shell-sand or broken sea-shells is also the same thing almost exactly
as common limestone.

6. Marl and shell-sands may be applied with advantage, either as a top-
dressing to grass-lands, and especially to sour, coarse, and mossy grass — or
they may be ploughed or harrowed in upon arable fields — and especially
they may be applied with advantage and in large quantity to peaty soils.

7. Lime and marl are largely employed in making composts.

8. To ascertain the presence of lime in a soil or in a substance supposed
to be marl — put a little of either in a glass, pour upon it either vinegar or
weak spirit of salt (muriatic acid.) If any bubbling up (effervescence)
appears, j^ou may conclude that lime is present.

9. This bubbling up is occasioned by the escape of carbonic acid from
the carbonate of lime contained in the soil or marl.

Here the teacher may perform this exiierimeiU by pouring a little weak acid upon marl
or powdered chalk in a wine-glass, and showing the bubbling up. He may further
convince his pupils that the gas given off is really carbonic acid, by introducing a
lighted taper into the glass, when it will be extinguished. (See fig. '2.)

10. When limestone is burned in the kiln, the carbonic acid is driven off
by the heat, and the lime alone remains.

The teacher may here pour diluted muriatic acid upon a few bits of limestone in a
tumbler, and show that car"l3onic acid is given off, and therefore is contained in the
limestone. He may then pour mm-iatic acid upon a piece of well-burned lime, and
show that no gas is given otf, and therefore that no carbonic acid is contained in the
quick-lime. It has been driven off by the heat.

11. After limestone has been submitted to the action of heat, it is called
quick-lime, caustic-lime, hot-lime, &c.

12. A ton of limestone yields about 11| cwts. of quick-lime.

Fig. 15. 1'^. When water is poured upon quick-

lime the lime drinks it in, becomes very hot,
-"^^ l^l^^i^ swells up, and gradually falls to powder.

yJl^i?., ^ \ iE^^^^a "^^'^ teacher may exhibit this effect of water upon

^ '^" ' " lime, and may satisfy his pupils that the heat

produced is great, by showing that it will
sometimes set fire to gunpowder placed upon a
dry portion of the lime, or will heat a cold
baked pie when put in the middle of it.
It requires a piece of very good and well-burned lime to fire powder in this way; but
tlie experiment will be more sure to succeed if sulphuric acid, diluted with one or
two waters, be used, instead of pure water. The mass will become so hot as
readily to fire gunpowder. In this case, however, it will be gypsum, (plaster of
Paris,) and not merely slaked lime that will be produced.

14. Pouring water upon lime so as to make it fall is called slaking the
lime, and the lime is called slaked or slacked lime.

15. One ton of quick-lime becomes 25 cwts. of slaked-lime.

This may be shown by slaking a weighed piece of lime, and weighing it again after it
has fallen to a fine powder.

16. Quick-lime, when exposed to the air, absorbs water from it, and gra-
dually falls to powder.

17. Besides water, quick-lime gradually absorbs carbonic acid from the
air, and at length returns to the state of carbonate.

The teacher may here satisfy his pupils that lime does thus absorb carbonic aci<l from
the air, by pouring a little lime-water into a saucer, and showing them that an
insoluble film of white carbo)iate of lime gradually forms upon its surface. This
Vol. I.— 88 8 N

698

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

experiment may be exhibited for the purpose of showing two things : firsl^ that car-
bonic acid exists in the air, and, second, that quick-lime absorljs it.

18. Limestone thus returned to the state of a carbonate is in the state of
a far finer powder than it could be got by any other means, and can thus be
more thoroughly mixed with the soil,

19. When quick-lime has returned to the state of a carbonate, it is usually
called mild lime.

20. Caustic-lime acts upon land very much in the same way as mild
b'me, but more quickly.

21. The mild and the caustic both act by supplying the lime which all
plants require as part of their food — by combining with acids in the soil, so
as to remove the sourness of the land — and by converting the vegetable
matter into the food of plants.

22. Lime should always be kept near the surface, as it has a tendency to
sink.

28. To peaty soils, to heavy clay soils, to arable lands which are very
sour, and to such as contain a great deal of vegetable matter, quick in pre-
ference to mild lime should be applied.

24. Mild lime, on hill pasture, is said to produce a better and more lasting
effect when it has become wet — or dubby, as it is called — by exposure to
the air and rain, than when put on in a dry and newly slaked state.

25. The same quantity of lime will produce a greater effect upon drained
or naturally dry land, than upon wet land.

26. The quantity of lime to be applied depends so much upon various
circumstances, that it is difficult to lay down rules for it. If the land is
poor in vegetable matter, it should not receive as much lime as if it were
rich in that substance — the quantity varies from 25 to 100 bushels — the
smaller the quantity the sooner it will require renewal. In England, from
8 to 10 bushels a-year per acre is applied ; it is not put on every year, but
at every rotation, or every second rotation ; sometimes only once in nineteen
years.

27. Lime sooner or later requires renewal : first, because the crops eat
up and carry ofTa portion of the lime ; second, because a portion of it sinks
into the subsoil ; and, thirdly, because the rains are always washing a por-
tion of it out of the land.

QUESTIONS.

1. What does limestone consist of?

2. How is limestone called by chemists?

3. Are there many varieties of limestone ?

4. What is marl?

5. What is shell-sand?

C. How are marl and shell-sand used ?

7. Is lime used in composts?

8. How is the presence of lime ascer-
tained ?

9. What occasions the bubbling up?

10. What occurs when limestone is
burned ?

11. What is limestone called after it lias
been submitted to the action of heat?

12. How much lime does a ton of lime-
stone yield ?

1.3. When water is poured upon quick-
lime what occurs ?

14. What is the act of pouring water upon
quick-lime called ?

15. How much slaked lime will one ton
of quick-lime make ?

16. What occurs when quick-lime is ex-
posed to the air?

17. What else does quick-lime absorb
from the air ?

18. What is the advantage of limestone
returned to the state of a carbonate?

19. How is lime then called?

20. How does caustic lime act?

21. How do all kinds of lime act?

22. How deep should lime be put ?

2.3. To what kind of lands would you ap-
ply lime ?

24. What of mild lime?

25. Will lime produce the greatest effect
upon drained or upon wet land ?

20. What is said of the quantity of lime to
be niqilicd ?

27. Why does lime require renewal?

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY. 699

THIRTEENTH LESSON.
OF THE COMPOSITION OF THE CROPS WHICH THE FARMER REAPS.

1. The diflerent kinds of grain consist chiefly of three substances, starch,
gluten, and oil or fat.

2. 100 lbs. of wheaten flour contain about 50 lbs. of starch, 18 lbs. of
gluten, and 6 lbs. of oil.

3. The principal constituent of potatoes and turnips is water.

4. 100 lbs. of potatoes contain 75 lbs. of water.

5. 100 lbs. of turnips contain 88 lbs. of water.

6. 100 lbs. of potatoes contain from 15 to 20 lbs. of starch.

7. The proportions of gluten and starch are not always the same. Some
varieties of wheat contain more gluten than others, some varieties of oats
more oil than others, and some varieties of potatoes more starch than others.

8. The wheat of warm climates is said to contain most gluten, and the
potatoes and barley grown upon light or well-drained land, more starch.

9. When potatoes or grain are burned th(;y leave a small quantity of ash.

10. The ash of potatoes and grain consists of the phosphates of potash,
soda, lime, and magnesia, of common salt and other saline substances.

The teacher may here more fully explain the composition of the ash, by referring to
Table on page 630, which exhibits the composition of the ash of ditierent kinds of
grain, and explaining that the ash both of grain and of the ordinary root crops con-
tains a certain quantity of all the substances there mentioned, but that phcsplioric
acid, in combination with potash, soda, magnesia, and lime, are its mosc important
ingredients.

USES OF THE CROPS IN FEEDING.

11. Vegetables are chiefly intended for the food of animals.

12. To maintain an animal in a healthy state, its food must furnish starch,
gluten, oil or fat, and saline or inorganic matter.

13. Starch consists of carbon and water.

14. Animals require starch in their food to supply the carbon which they
throw off'from their lungs during respiration.

The teacher may here explain that gum and sugar, which also consist of carbon and
water only, (page 6'24,) serve the same purpose when eaten as the starch of our
food does, and what is for sake of siiriplicity here said of starch only, is true also of
the sugar and gum contained in the vegetable substances we eat.

15. A man throws off' from his lungs from six to eight ounces of carbon
in a day.

16. A man will require to eat nearly a pound of starch in a day, to sup-
ply the quantity of carbon given oflf by his lungs in that time.

10 oz. of starch contain about 4^ of carbon, (page 024).

17. Carbon is given off'from the lungs of animals in the form of carbonic
acid gas.

18. The carbonic acid gas given off'from the lungs of animals is diff'used
through the air and is afterwards absorbed again by plants, in order that
new quantities of starch may be produced from it.

The teacher may here appropriately draw the especial attention of his pupils to the
beautiful cycle of natural operations above described. Even children may be made
to see the beauty and bounty of the processes by which the same carbon is again
and again transtbrmed by the plant into starch, and by the animal into carbonic
acid — as well as the purpose for which these changes are made to take place —
namely, to keep up the warmth of the animal body.

19. An animal requires gluten for the purpose of repairing the daily
waste of the muscles or lean part of its body.

700 AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

20. Not only the muscles, but nearly all parts of the body suffer a certain
waste every day.

21. The parts thus wasted, are carried through the body, and form part
of the dung and urine of the animal.

22. Gluten repairs the waste of the muscles, because it is almost ex-
actly the same thing as muscle.

23. The animal requires oil or fat in its food to supply the natural waste
of fatty matter which takes place.

24. When the food given an animal contains m.ore oil than is necessary
to supply the natural waste, the animal may become fat.

25. Food that contains much oil is the best for fattening — of two samples
that which contains the most oil will generally fatten most quickly.

26. To supply the daily waste of the bones, and the salts in the blood, it
is necessary that the food should contain phosphate of lime, and other inor-
ganic substances.

27. The gluten and the saline matter not only supply the daily waste,
but they add daily to the weight of the animal's body as it grows.

28. A growing animal of the same size will require more of these kinds
of food than a full-grown animal.

29. If the same quantit}'^ of food is given to a growing and to a full-grown
animal, the latter will produce the richest manure.

30. A growing animal extracts and retains more substance from the same
quantity of food than a full-grown one, because he has not only to supply
the natural waste, but to add daily to his size, while the full-grown animal
has only to supply the daily waste.

31. The manure from fattening stock is richer than that of growing stock
or cows in milk, because they retain chiefly the oil and starch of their food,
and reject nearly all the remainder.

33. To convert a given amount of food into the greatest quantity of beef
or mutton, the cattle or sheep should be kept in a warm or sheltered place,
where they might have wholesome air and but little light, and they should
be disturbed as little as possible.

33. Merely to flitten a full-grown beast, keep it warm, disturb it little, and
give it corn-meal, with plenty of turnips or beets and hay.

The degree of warmth and confinement under which animals will thrive, depends
much upon the breed. The hardy and wild cattle from the Blue Ridge and Alle-
ghany would pine away in the warm and confined sheds in which the short-horned
thrives best. The Bakewell does better in confinement than the Southdown and
common stock.

34. If the object is to convert a large quantity of hay or straw into ma-
nure, the animals should not be kept so warm, and should take more exer-
cise.

35. To get the largest quantity of milk, feed with rich juicy grass, turnips
tops and all, green rye, warm mashes, or other food containing much water
— and a free supply of drink.

30. To get milk of the best possible quality, give as much as can be
eaten of dry food — nats, corn-meal, beans, bran, and clover-hay.

37. To get milk particularly rich in bidtcr, give the same food that is
given to a fattening animal — flax-seed, oats, corn-meal, and some roots.

38. To obtain milk that will produce the most cheese, feed on beans, peas,
clover or clover-hay, all of which make the milk richer in curd.

39. As a general rule in fattening animals, for cattle let the food be fresh
and sweet, for hogs slightly sour.

40. It has been found that much more pork is obtained from green vege-

AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY AND GEOLOGY.

701

tables, or from corn-meal or boiled potatoes, when mixed with water and left
to sour, than when given fresh and sweet.

41. Cleanliness, warmth with good ventilation, feeding at regular inter-
vals, and at least three times a day, contribute much to success in fattening
animals of all kinds.

While on this part of the subject the teacher may draw the attention of his pupils to
the beautiful chemical connection which exists between tlie vegetable and animal
kingdoms, and especially to the marked adaptation of the living vegetable to the wants
of the living animal, which is exhibited in the fart, that the animal finds ready formed in
the ripened plant, all the most important substances of which its own body is com-
posed. The gluten of its food is nearly identical with the fibre of its muscles — the
oil is similar in character to the fat of its body — while the bone-earth of the plant
supplies materials for the bones of the animal, and the starch and sugar atlbrd the
carbon which is necessary for the purposes of respiration. Finally, he may also
point out, that, when the vegetable food has discharged its office in the animal body,
it returns to the earth in the form of dung — only to enter into the roots of new plants,
and thus to produce new supplies of sustenance for other races of animals. The entire
economy of vegetable and animal life, and all the changes experienced by dead
matter, are parts of one system — express, as it were, but one idea, the oflspring of

ONE MIJfD.

He may thus engraft a course of instruction in Natural Theology upon the purely prac-
tical principles of this little book, and make it instrumental not only in the intel-
lectual, but also in the moral training of his pupils.

QUESTIONS.

1. Of what substances do the different
kinds of grain usually consist?

2. What proportion of each of these usually
exists in wheat ?

3. What do potatoes and turnips princi-
pally consist of?

4. What is the proportion of water in po-
tatoes ?

5. What is the proportion of water in
turnips '?

6. What is the proportion of starch in
potatoes ?

7. Are the proportions of grain and starch
always the same in grain and roots ?

8. Has climate any thing to do with the
proportions of these ingredients?

9. Do potatoes or grain leave any ash
when burned ?

10. What does this ash consist of?

11. What purposes are vegetables in-
tended to serve?

12. What substances must an animal de-
rive from its food to maintain it in a healthy
state ?

13. What does starch consist of?

14. For what purpose does an animal
require starch in its food ?

15. How much carbon does a man throw
off from his lungs in a day ?

16. How much starch must a man eat
daily to supply the carbon given oti' by his
lungs ?

17. In what form is carbon given off from
the lungs of animals ?

18. What becomes of the carbonic acid
thus given off?

3n2

19. For what purpose does an animal re-
quire gluten in its food ?

20. Are the m.uscles of animals really sub-
ject to waste ?

21. What becomes of the parts thus wasted
away ?

22. How can gluten repair the waste of
muscle or lean ?

23. Why does an animal require oil or fat
in its food?

24. Does it serve any other purpose ?

25. Is food that contains much oil, then,
the best for fattening ?

26. Why must the food of animals contain
phosphate of lime and other inorganic mat-
ters ?

27. Do not the gluten and the saline mat-
ter serve a further purpose when the animal
is growing ?

28. Will a growing animal on this account
require a larger supply of these kinds of
food ?

29. With the same food, which will pro-
duce the richest manure, a growing or a full-
grown animal ?

30. Why is this so ?

31. Why is the manure from fattening
cattle richer than that of growing stock or
cows in milk ?

32. How would you convert a given
amount of food into the greatest amount of
beef or mutton ?

33. JNIerely to fatten a full-grown beast,
what should be done?

34. If the oLyect is to convert straw or
hay into manure, how is the stock managed 1

702

AMOUNT OF WOOL FOR THE COMING CLIP.

35. How do you get the greatest quantity
of milk from cows 1

36. How do you improve the quality of
milkl

37. How do you feed to get milk rich in
butter ?

38. How will you get milk rich in cheese?

39. As a general rule in fattening cattle
and liogs, would you give the food sweeter
soin- ?

40. Why would you give the food sour to
hogs?

41. What other rule would you observe
in fattening stock ?

AMOUNT OF WOOL FOR THE COMING CLIP.

" The Wool-grower, and Magazine of Agriculture and Horticidture,^''
is the title of a new periodical, of which the first number, dated March 1,
has appeared at Buffalo, New York. The attractiveness and importance of
the subjects — the locahty of the journal, and the practical experience,
ability, and patriotic aim of the editor — T. C. Peters — ought to assure its
success. It will be published monthly — sixteen pages, ^\. fifty cents a year.

We find in this first number the following items. The Editor, who
enjoys peculiar advantages to form a correct judgment, would seem to agree
with Mr. Randall in this number of our journal, as he concludes his obser-
vations on the prospects of the wool-market by saying : " Our own opinion is
that the prices will range considerably higher than last season."

"The whole number of sheep in the United States, as shown by the censuses in 1840,
was 19,311,374; and the quantity of wool shorn was 35.802,114 lbs. Of the sheep,
about one-fourdi were under the age of one year; leaving, therefore, about 14,500.000 as
the number shorn. This would give 2^ lbs. as the average weight of fleece, which is
below tlie average in this State, as shown by the census of 1845. The average here was
3 lbs.

"The increase of sheep in this State from 1840 to 1845: —

1845 fi,443,855

1840 5,118,777

Increase in 5 years, 1,325,078, or a fraction over 25 per cent

" The increase of wool during the same time, was : —

1845 13,864,828 lbs.

2840 9,845,295 lbs.

Increase in 5 years, 4,019,533 lbs.

" This shows that the increase of wool was equal to die general average per head in this
State of 3 lbs.

" Allowing for die same ratio of increase, as is shown in this State, and the whole
number of .sheep in die Union, in 1845, would be almost twenty-four millions. Of these,
eighteen millions would be over one year old, so that the clip of diat year was at 2| lbs.
per head — about fifty millions of lbs.

"The whole number of sheep in the Union, in 1850, will not vary much from thirty
millions, which, upon the above data, will give about seventy millions lbs. of wool for
the clip of that year, and the clip of diis year must he equal to about .sixty-six millions —
or only a trifle over 3 lbs. for each inhabitant of the Union.

" Of this quantity, not over one-fifth will be worked up at home; leaving upwards of
fifiy-diree millions for the manufacturer, and with old stock which will be left over,
making about sixty millions of pounds for the coming year. R. L."

TTie mange in hogs is cured with sulphur in food, and washing with
suds, or feeding with poke-root ; or it boiled and the liquor fed with meal
or grain.

The mange in dogs is cured by washing them daily in tan ooze, and
giving sulphur occasionally.

PRODUCE OF A SHEEP FARM.

703

CALCULATION OF THE PRODUCE OF A SHEEP FARM

FOR TEN YEARS, COMMENCING WITH A STOCK OF FIVE HUNDRED EWES.

Annual

Total

Quantity

Value

Annual

Annual

Increase.

Number.

Wool.

Wool.

Loss.

Expense.
$ 150

1

1,000

1,500

lbs. 1,500

$ 150

2

1 ,000

2,500

4.500

450

200

3

2,000

4,500

7.500

750

2.50

4

3,000

7,500

13,500

1,350

500

5

5,000

12,500

22,500

2,250

800

6

8,000

20,500

37,500

3,7.50

1,200

7

13,000

33,500

61,500

6,150

1,800

8

2 1 .000

54,500

100,500

10,050

2,000

9

34,000

88,500

163,.500

16,350

3,000

10

45,000

133,500

265,500

26,550

4,000

133,000

13.3,500

678,000

67,800

13,900

Deduct possible per centage . . $10,700

57,100
13,900

Profit $43,200

Capital Required for such a Farm.

500 ew^es $300

25 rams 250

4 yoke oxen 80

4 cows 40

1 bull 20

Horses 60

Hogs 50

Implements ......... 50

Seed, and expense tilling first crop ...... 50

Total $890

The quantity of wool is estimated at the lowest rate, not allowing- for the
increased weight of fleece, consequent on the improvement of the Mexican
hreed by crossing with the Leicester ram. The value of the wool is esti-
mated at the present price of Mexican wool, 10 cents : a very slight im-
provement in quality and care would raise the price to 1.5 or 20 cents per
pound. The loss is estimated much too high ; perhaps .5 per cent, would
be too much. F. B. O. Shay.

San Antonio de Bexar, Dec. 29, 1848.

< » « » >

PROSPECTS FOR THE EXPORT OF GRAIN TO ENGLAND.

•• Letters have been received at Oswego from England, stating that contracts to some
extent }iad been made to deliver first qualities Dantzic wheat Ji.t Liverpool on the earliest
opening this spring of the Baltic navigation, at forty .«liillings sterling per imperial quar-
ter, which brings the price (if it was shipped from New York) equal to eiglity-fiv-e (merits
per bushel at New York. Dantzic wheat, of the best quality, says the Oswego Times,
may be compared to our very best Genesee wheat."

We commend the above paragraph to the consideration of our farming
and planting readers. Eminent men, like the late Governor Wright,*
insist that it is impossible we should make a market at home for all our sur-
plus food, and that we must prepare for competition in the great grain

• See December No. page 337.

704 COAL MINES OF THE SOUTH.

markets of the world with the serfs of Russia, and the miserable fellahs of
Egypt. The Hon. Commissioner of Patents assured his readers that he was
fully satisfied we could compete with them, and the late Secretary, pointing
with pride to the large export consequent upon the railroad mania and
potato-rot of 1846, assured the nation that it must go on to increase, provided
only that we persisted in purchasing largely of foreign food in the forms of
cloth and iron, and yet we are now informed that contracts are being made
for wheat at prices equivalent to eighty-five cents per bushel in New York !

It is time for planters and farmers to look for something approaching to
certainty, and to make an effort to put an end to the system that thus con-
verts farming and planting into mere gambling. As things now are, the
man who sows or plants can form no estimate of what he will reap. At one
instant corn is high, and he plants largely. By the time his crop is housed,
the demand is at an end. At one moment there is a great demand for cot-
ton, and the planter increases his force, anxious to get a large crop to mar-
ket. By the time it is at market, mills are everywhere stopped, or working
half-time, the demand for cotton has ceased, and his crop brings him in
debt. Let him compare with this the steady growth of the home-market
for all his products in the form of cloth and iron, during the five years that
followed the passage of the tariff of 1842, and satisfy himself if efficient pro-
tection, adopted as a national, and therefore permanent measure, will not
speedily give him certainty.

The nearer the market the greater is the value of labor and land ; and
the greater their value the greater is the power of consumption of food, and
cloths and iron. The more distant the market the less is the value of labor
and land, and the smaller their value the less is the power of consumption.
Let every farmer and planter, then, exert himself to bring to his side pros-
perous consumers, with their looms and tlieir anvils, and he will soon cease
to be compelled to compete in the markets of England with the producers
of Dantzic wheat or Hindoo cotton. Having made a market on the land for
the products of the land, the price abroad will be fixed by the price at home,
and certainty will then be attained.

•

<■♦•»■»■

COAL MINES OF THE SOUTH.

« The Mobile Herald speaks in high and hopeful termsof the coal now mined near Tus-
caloosa, in Alabama. It says the coast trade there can be pushed to any extent, and
urges the formation of associations of moneyed men for mining and transporting it at
cheap rates down the river, for the supply of national mail and merchant steamers, plying
on the Gulf The British mail steamer of the 1st of February, it states, took 50 tons, and
on her return from Vera Cruz 110 tons more, for experiment. The first parcel gave entire
satisfaction, and, compared with the best Welsh coal, was found equal in almost every
respect, and superior in some properties."'

To mine coal and transport *it cheaply to market are operations requiring
combination of action, that can be obtained only by aid of concentration, and
concentration can be obtained only by the pursuance of that course of
policy which tends to bring the loom and the anvil to the side of the plough.
Alabama abounds in coal, that is worthless for want of a market. She
has corn in abundance to feed the men viho would mine the coal, and she
has cotton for which she needs a better market than that which she obtains
by sending it to IVIanchester,' there to be combined with the poor cotton of
India, and returned to her plantations, to be worn by men, and women, and
children, who waste more labour every year than would, if properly
employed, pay for all the iron and cloth they consume. Let her learn to
combine the coal, and the food, and the wool, and the ore, into cloth and
iron, and she will speedily obtain cheap transportation for all her products,
doubling the value of both land and labor.

DAIRY FARM. 705

DAIRY FARM.

[From " Transactions of the New York State Agricultural Society."]

Statement of Alonzo L. Fish, of Herkimer cotmty, in relation to the general management of
his dairy farm, which received the first premium of the New York State Agricultural Society.

A REPORT of the management of A. L. Fish's dairy farm, in 1844, and
result of three years operation.

My farm contains one hundred acres of cleared land, which lies in Litch-
field, Herkimer county, on the upland, eight miles south of the Mohawk,
where it is subject to deep snows, bleak winds, large drifts, and cold long
winters, which not unfrequently protract foddering season for cows to seven
months and a half.

The soil is a yellow loam, mixed with clay and gravel ; and so much
inclined to pack as to ma^ce rather hard tilling. When a piece of ground
IS to be seeded to grass, it is ploughed in fall, so that frost may pulverize it.
Manure is drawn on when convenient, in winter or spring, on snow, that
the soil may not be packed by travel of team, and left in heaps to prevent
its drying and evaporating till ploughing commences. It is then spread,
and thoroughly mixed with the soil, by ploughing and dragging, as early in
the spring as the season will admit, so that the grass may get a deep root
while the soil is light, and grain and weeds get so large as to shade and
keep it back. Spring wheat or rye are sown to seed with it, as they can be
sown early, and shade less than other grain. Eight quarts of timothy and
two of clover, are mixed and sown per acre. Strict care is taken that the
young grass is not grazed the first season, as it would pack the soil and pull
up many of the young roots.

It is a principle of Nature, fixed in the vegetable kingdom, that the root
of a plant will not grow and flourish without the aid of atmospheric air, and
leaves or top above ground to discharge their regular functions.

Hence my cows are not allowed to graze on my meadows, spring nor fall,
to strip the roots of their natural clothing and pack the soil, to exclude the
necessary circulation of air. Canada thistles, dock, and all foul weeds are
cut below the surface, so that there is no top to aid the root to get out of its
crippled condition ; the operation is repeated a few times, if necessary, and
they are dead.

Cows are kept from grazing pastures in spring for the same reason, and
the first growth of the top is preserved to strengthen and invigorate the
roots to get a firm, deep hold in the soil, while Nature is making her main
effort. One bushel of plaster is sown per acre, as soon as the main bulk of
snow is gone in April.

When the ground is settled and grass grown so that cows can get their
fill without too much toil, they are allowed to graze an hour only the first
day ; the second day a little longer, and so on till they get accustomed to
the change of feed before they are allowed to have full range of pasture.
Shift of pasture is frequently made to keep feed fresh and a good bite.
About one acre per cow affords plenty of feed till the first of August. If
enough land was turned to pasture to feed the cows through the season, it
would get a start of them about this time and be hard and dry the balance
.of the season. To avoid turning upon my meadows in fall, I take one acre
to every ten cows, plough and prepare it the fore part of .Tune for sowing.
I commence sowing corn broadcast, about half an acre at a time, so that it
maj'- grow 80 or 90 days before it is cut and fed. I have found by experi-
ment that it then contains the most saccharine juice, and will produce the
most milk. If the ground is strong, I sow two bushels per acre ; more if
Vol. I.— 89

706 D4IRY FARM.

the ground is not manured. The common yield is from 15 to 20 tons (of
green feed) per acre. About the first of Auijust, when heat and fiies are
too oppressive for cows to feed quietly in daytime, I commence feeding
them with what corn they will eat in the morning, daily, which is cut up
with a grass scythe and drawn on a sled or wagon to the milking barn, and
fed to them in the stalls, which is one hour's work for a man at each feeding.
When thus plentifully fed, my cows have their knitl'mg work on hand for
the day, which they can do up by lying quietly under artificial shades
erected in such places as need manuring most, and most airy, by setting
posts, putting poles and brush on top, the sides being left open. These
shades may be made and removed annually, to enrich other portions of soil,
if desired, at the small expense of one dollar for every ten cows. My shade
trees are all cut down, so that if I have occasion to till the soil, there is no
forest trees to drink up the nourishment that circulates in the air to a wide
extent around them, before it reaches the weaker (;lass of vegetables below,
nor roots to prevent a thorough cultivation of the soil to get the benefit of its
partial richness. At evening my cows are fed whey only, because they
can feed more quietly with less rambling, and will give more milk by
feeding most when dew is on the grass.

Saving and Application of Manure. — No one item enters more largel}'-
into the account of the economical farmer than saving manure ; the means
of which are simple, cheap, and in the reach of every one who has strength
to till the soil.

The cheap method I have adopted to save manure, is by sinking hogs-
heads with one head, at the discharge of slop-drains and troughs that catch
the urine froin my stables. A hollow bass log, twelve feet long, is split,
making two halves, which are settled into the earth, the two lowest ends
meeting in the centre, under which point is placed a large tub as a reser-
voir. The earth is made descending to these troughs on each side, and
bedded with clay, pounded down, to make it water-tight, to convey the
liquid manure that drains from the heap into the reservoir. Four boards
are nailed together and set into the reservoir, forming a stationary box to
receive a cheap board pump, to raise the liquor whenever the heap needs
moistening. Straw, coarse weeds, swamp-muck, ashes, lime, night soil,
utfal, carrion, and all surplus substances convertible into manure, are piled
upon this platform (24 feet long) a sufficient quantity to absorb the urine
caught from stables, chamber slops, strong suds, salt brine, and all kinds of
slops of any virtue as manure ; these are drawn with a vehicle fitted for it
and discharged into one end of the bass trough, which conducts them to the
reservoir to remain till needed ; the compost-heap is kept covered to prevent
l)eing leached by excessive rains ; this heap soon becomes a stinking mass,
and when used is mixed with the soil to prevent its evaporation.

Culling and curing Fodder. — All kinds of grass are cut for fodder, if
possible, near the time when the blossom closes, as it soon after becomes too
much like grain straw for milch cows. All kinds of fodder intended for
cows are cut before the seed matures, and cured without being wet with
dew or rain after wilting, and dried so that its color will not change in the
mow; four quarts of salt per ton is used in packing hay when necessary.

feeding and Management of Cores. — He who would be a successful
feeder, and make large products with moderate means, must look well to
the physical economy of the animal in feeding.

The capacity of cows for giving milk is varied much by habit. In fall,
alter the season of feeding is over, I feed four quarts of wheat bran or
shorts, made into slop with whey, or a peck of n ots per day to each cow
till milking season closes, (about the first of December.) When confined in

DAIRY FARM. 707

stables and fed hay and milked, they are fed each one pailful of thin slop
at morning before foddering, and at evening, to make their food more succu-
lent, and they will not drink so much cold water when let out in the middle
of the day. In cold weather, cows kept well attended in warm stables.
No foddering is done on the ground. The supply of milk is kept up, while
the cows get in good flesh, their blood and bags are left in healthy condition,
when dried off. This flesh they hold till milk season in spring, without
other feed than good hny. They will not get fleshy bags, but come into
milk at once. About the first of April they are carded daily, till turned to
grass. Wheat bran in milk, or whey slops or roots, are daily fed, as they
are found best adapted to the nature of different cows, and most likeiy to
estabhsh a uniform flow of milk till grass comes.

Every possible means are used to keep perfect quiet among the cows, in
order that their habits may become regular ; when in heat, they are confliied
and fed until the excitement is over.

No dog is allowed to be kept on the premises, and no cow driven faster
than a walk ; they are let into a milking-barn at a whistle, as a sign that they
may come in and take the whey — when they readily take their jjlaces, four
feet apart, when one whole side, (twelve in number,) arc confined with a
single motion of a spring lever; and when milked, are released at once in a
like manner, by means of a shaft, so that one or more may be confined or
released separately, without interfering with the general arrangement.
When standing on the milking floor, the fore feet are several inches highest,
which brings the bag forward from the hind legs, so that it is easier of
access, and makes her give her milk down more freel3% None are allowed
to milk, unless able to milk quickly and thoroughly, which is done at five
o'clock in the morning and evening. When a cow's bag is hard and feverish,
it is washed with salt brine, or salt and water made cold with ice. This is
a sure remedy. The best preventive is thorough milking. Whey is fed
morning and evening, through flush of feed, after souring twenty-four hours.
Wheat bran is mixed to prevent cows from scouring. Strict regularity is
observed in feeding at all times. Bran and roots are fed daily till grass
gets heart enough not to scour the cows. Nothing is fed but whey from
the first of June to the first or middle of July ; the feed then increased as
grass diminishes. If cows are allowed to shrink in milk in July and
August, and their feed then increased after being with calf, they will not
come back, but run to flesh. I feed with a view to keep up a uniform flow
of milk from the first to the last of grazing.

Manufacture of Cheese. — Calves' rennets only are used, after being
dried one year. There are less animal properties in them than in new ren-
nets, and will not make cheese swell in warm weather, and on shrinking,
leave them like honey-comb, full of holes, with a rank flavor.

Calves, whose rennets are designed for cheese-making, are not allowed to
suck sick cows, or those giving bad milk, but are fed with plenty of good milk,
from five to ten days old ; t'.velve or fifteen hours after sucking, when the
gastric juices are most abundnnt and pure, the rennet is taken out and
stretched on a bow ; as much fine salt is added as will adhere without
draining, and hung in good air to dry. Milking is done in tin pails, strained
through a large tin strainer into a tin vat, where it is not skimmed nor
moved till the cheese is made. The pails are set into a common sap-bucket,
which being light and smaller at bottom than top, a litle press on the pail
will fasten the bucket to it so that it carries with the pail without any
inconvenience. A light tap on the bucket will drop it, and leave the pail
clean and not bruised. A tin vat, large enough to hold the whole milk, is
set within a larger wood vat, with one inch space between the sides and

708 DAIRY FARM.

bottoms of the two, to admit water, which is cooled by ice and heated by
steam, which water cooJs the milk to take out the animal heat, warms it to
receive rennet, remains and heats whey and scalds curd. It is discharged
by a cock to pass off into a tub, and scalds bran or meal for slop feed, when
it is required. Scalded feed is required daily when cows are milked on
hay feed. A large reservoir is built of stone and cement, to contain fifty
hogsheads of rain-water from buildings, to discharge by a cock into the
above described space into a steam generator or into a tub, or any other
place in the lower rooms, where it is desired. A pump affords water to
this apparatus in case of drought. Thus the same water is made to perform
three distinct offices, by no more labor than to turn three cocks with thumb
and finger.

After water in the reservoir is not wanted for cheese-making, a pipe con-
ducts it into the top of the ice-house to freeze in solid mass in winter, for cooling
milk the next season. No skimmer, pail, or dipper, is required about this
apparatus, only to milk in, as the cream which rises over night is not sepa-
rated, nor no dipping of milk, whey, or water. The heating is done daily,
by a handful of chips, or four quarts of charcoal, and all shift of apparatus
can be made with one hand while the other is employed in the milk or
curd. A young man is hired at $11 per month, for eight months, to take
the whole charge of nursing, feeding, making and taking care of milk and
cheese through summer, and does no other business. He is required to
keep a register, daily, of the variation (if any) of heat, salt, quality and
effect of rennet, number of cows milked, quantity of milk from which cheese
is made, condition of curd when put to press, when cheese is put on shelf
that it is weighed and numbered upon the bandage, so that when cured the
result of certain variations may be known. An inch pipe passes from the
steam generator and discharges steam into water under the tin vat ; in ten
minutes the whole mass is warmed to 90° to receive rennet. The steam is
then turned off (which would otherwise be lost) into a tub which stands high
enough to discharge into the cheese vat and scald it after the cheese is made.
Hot water is drawn at any time from the same to cleanse pails, cloth hoops,
&c. Calves' rennets only are used, after being one year dry, they being
less apt to make cheese swell in warm weather, and of better flavor. A
piece of rennet, to briag curd in forty minutes, is pounded fine in an iron
mortar, and soaked a short time in warm water mixed with a little annatto,
drained, strained, and put into the milk. When come, the curd is cut in
large pieces with a wood knife, thickest in the middle, to give it a slight
pressure before there is much surface exposed to be rinsed by whey; after
standing ten minutes, the pieces are cut smaller with the same knife, then
broken up by putting the hands to the bottom of the tub, bringing them
through to the top, with fingers spread, with a slow motion, to give it all a
sUght pressure without tearing fine while tender ; heat is kept as high as
88° while working ; steam let on ; the motion and pressure with hands in-
creased with increase of heat and toughness of curd ; heat is kept up to
continue the action of the rennet, as it is most active when warm ; heat
raised to 98° ; the steam is then turned off'; it is kept at that heat thirty
minutes. The scalding is now done ; the water and whey are discharged,
one pound of fine salt to fifty of curd is added, while warm, to shrink the
curd and prevent holes in the cheese. After getting cool it is put to press ;
the pressure is from five to seven tons ; in six hours is turned into clean
cloth, and again in twelve hours more is taken out of the press and put
upon the shelf, weighed, bandaged, greased with oil of whey butter, turned
daily. No greater heat is ever used in the operation than the natural heat
of milk, (98°.)

HOW DO FLOCKS OF SHEEP RUN OUT? 709

My cheese are pressed half as thick as they are wide, because by con-
tracting the base, the pressure is increased in pressing, which makes them
more soHd, less surface exposed to the flies, less also on the shelf to get ran-
cid. They are turned on the shelf more easily, take up less room, and
when packed are safer to ship.

Two hundred bushels of shorts, at nine cents per bushel, and twenty
bushels of oat meal, at twenty cents per bushel, amounting to $22,00, has
been fed since the first of iMay, with whey. No swine are kept on the
premises ; all coarse feed, such as roots, slops, apples, &c., (usually fed to
swine, ) are fed to cows, because I have proved by three years' experiment,
that such feed will make more pounds of cheese when fed to cows, than
pork when fed to swine ; and as much flesh upon the cows as is made in
pork, in addition to the cheese ; and require less hay and pasture. A suit-
able portion of land is tilled annually to use up the manure of stock and
compost, to keep meadows well seeded, and raise grain and vegetables for
family use.

The average quantity of cheese (market weight) made from each cow, in
1842, was 714 lbs. Do. in 1843, with one quarter heifers, 650 lbs. Made
in April, 1844, from scattering cows, 650 lbs.

Made this season, since the first of May, from
25 cows, three of which were three year old

heifers 14,163 lbs., an

average of 4 lbs. per day for 41 months. Add . . 650 lbs.

14,813 lbs., an
average of 592 lbs. made this season, and with the usual quantity made
the balance of the season, will make an average of 700 lbs. per cow. An-
nual average per cow, for three years, 680 lbs. sold ; average price for
three years, $6, delivered at canal. Average net per cow, $41.40.

In 1842 and '43 the farm and dairy was leased to a tenant, reserving
three-fifths of the products myself, the tenant two-fifths. In 1844 I hired
one man to make cheese and take care of cows, at $11 per month, for 8
months, and one for the same to work on farm. Extra help is hired in
haying and harvest.

[From the Cultivator.]

HOW DO FLOCKS OF SHEEP RUN OUT ?

Editors Cultivator : — The opinion is quite prevalent among farmers,
that flocks of sheep that are several years confined to one locality, deteriorate,
or, as frequently expressed, " run out."

That flock? do sometimes deteriorate, when confined to one locality, I do
not doubt ; but when such an event actually occurs, I apprehend it would
be quite as judicious, and would quite as effectuallj'^ restore the health and
vigor of the flock, to dispose of the proprietor and retain the sheep, as vice
versa. That this running out is owing to bad management, and not to any
other local cause, I have no doubt, and it may be mainly included under
two heads: first, in breeding; secondly, in feeding.

The system of close, or "in-and-in" breeding, beyond a given point, and
that point not vei-y remote from the starting point, I believe to be very inju-
rious to constitutional vigor. But, as the question has been discussed in
your columns, I will not now enter into the argument.

Constitutional vigor in sheep, as well as in other animals, I regard as
being of paramount importance; without it, light fleeces, deformity and dis-
ease, are constant attendants.

30

710 HOW DO FLOCKS OF SHEEP RUN OUT?

The form of a sheep should be as much the object of care and solicitude
as the form of a horse ; while the former with many is scarcely noticed,
with the latter it is almost the only criterion of value. Who would under-
take to say that a long-legged, thin-shouldered, narrow-chested, slab-sided,
loose-joinied horse is possessed either of constitutional vigor or hardihood?
Indeed, such an animal would be considered by every one as comparatively,
if not utterly valueless ; while thousands retain sheep equally faulty, from
which to propagate, and at the same time, the well-shaped, the vigorous and
hardy, which from these circumstances have a tendency to fatten, are sacri-
ficed to the drover and the butcher's knife. Great care should therefore be
taken, not only in selecting bucks, but in breeding eives. We should look
at the whole sheep — should have an image of perfection in our minds, and
make every selection with a view to attain that object. It is not texture of
fleece, or weight of fleece, or symmetry of form, separately considered, but
the combination of the greatest number of desirable points and qualities.

The question arises in this connection, how shall we dispose of the refuse
of the flock ? I answer, a separation should be made soon after shearing ;
the choice lambs and brecdinff ewes, intended for preservation, should be put
into good pastures ; no buyer or butcher should be allowed to look "over"
into their enclosures. The refuse, or those devoted to destruction, should
be placed, if possible, in better pasture, and should be fed for a month or
two in the fall with corn or meal, or with turnips, until fit for slaughtering.

As sheep increase in numbers, on a given number of acres, other things
being equal, the amojunt of food per head of course diminishes. What
would fully feed fifty, might barely subsist seventy. Now let us look at the
comparative profits. Good keep and poor keep will make at least one pound
difl^erence in the weight of fleece. Say 70 head at2| lbs. per head, TOxSd
= 175 lbs. — 50 head at 83 lbs. 50x3^ = 175 — making weight of fleeces
equal. Loss by winter-killing, on account of poverty, from the 70 poor
sheep, say 10 head ; 50 in good condition, no loss. The account now stands
50 to 00. The increase from 50 good sheep would doubtless be greater than
from 60 poor ones ; besides the wool account would now foot up 25 lbs. in
favor of the good-conditioned sheep. So that loell fed, as weW as well
BRKD, should be the wool-growers' motto.

Sheep are large feeders, and require, especially in winter, much care.
Large flocks should, particularly at that season, be divided into smaller ones,
not to exceed fifty or sixty in each ; the weak and the strong, and the small
and the large, being kept in separate parcels.

They can then receive care and feed severally, according to their respective
conditions. A sheep in good condition has a belter appetite, and will con-
sume coarser food than one which is poor ; but if suffered to run together
promiscuously, they will crowd away the weaker ones, and appropriate to
their own use the choicest of the food. Wool grows much faster in winter
than in summer ; therefore, as wool is formed or made of feed, and not of air,
as some seem to suppose, it is necessary that keep and care be increased
accordingly. Otherwise there will be an inevitable "falling away," — the
fat and muscle previously acquired will waste away to supply the growth
of wool.

During the next twenty years, the western part of Virginia, the State of
Ohio, the hilly portions of Kentucky and Tennessee, with perhaps Indiana
and Michigan, are destined to be the great wool regions. The East cannot
compete with us in this article, but will find more profits in the products of
the dairy, beef, mutton, and the coarser grains.

Solon, b. Chas. R. Smith.

PROFITS OF HENS HOW TO CATCH A SHEEP. 711

[J'rom the Farmer and Jlcchanic]

PROFITS OF HENS.

" ' Dr. I. Barstow, of Chicago, kept an account of the expense and income
of fifty hens, for one year. The cost of keeping- on corn was about twenty-
five cents for each hen. The hens averaged ninety-one eggs each. One
of the editors of the Prairie Farmer states that he has kept forty hens the
past year; that the cost was about the same as given by Dr. Barstow, but
the fowls averaged only sixty-five eggs each. The fowls in both cases were
confined to a yard, but one lot of thenn were allowed to have their liberty for
a part of each day. They were fed with fresh meat occasionally.' — Jilbmiy
Cultivator.

"Remarks. — The estimate of expense here given for fowls kept confined
appears far less than it should be to maintain them in good growing condi-
tion. We have now more than one hundred on hand, and purchase food at
prices ranging from one and a quarter to one and a half cents per pound.
Meat, which is regularly given them, costs from two to three cents ; potatoes
less. The average range of prices is here given. The cost of keeping has
never been less than one cent, or more than two cents, a head per week.
Two cents each, if fed with all grain, will not be far from the amount, and
it cannot well exceed this sum. One cent per head is not sufficient, and dry
swill, such as pealings of potatoes, turnips, cabbage leaves, boiled potatoes,
&c., together with meat, will be required to constitute good keeping. Our
grain bill now is one cent for each fowl, corn being at present seventy-five
cents per bushel : to which boiled potatoes, &c., are added to make up the
deficiency. A final statement will be given Avhen the stock of vegetables
on hand are consumed. The hens are laying well considering the season
of the year, and some particularly bad management, which we may allude
to hereafter. We now (January 19) count two hundred and sixty-two eggs,
commencing with one on the twenty-ninth day of November, the thirtieth of
which month, together with the second and fourth days of December, are
the only blank days ; and, considering the uncertainty and difficulty of our
new experiment, there remains the flattering hope that ' 'tis pretty well
done.' B*."

[From the Model American Courier.]

HOW TO CATCH A SHEEP.

In catching sheep, never seize them by the wool on the back, as it hurts
them exceedingly, and has in some cases been known to kill them, particu-
larly in hot weather, if they are large and fat. Indeed the best Avay is to
avoid the wool altogether, and to accustom yourself to take them by the hind
leg, or what is still better, by the neck, placing one hand under the jaws,
and the other at the back of the ears, when, by lifting up the head, a child
may hold almost any sheep. But much depends on how a flock is treated.
Few people are sufficiently gentle with sheep. In Maryland, and south of
it, sheep are rarely approached near enough to touch or catch them, except
as farmers are themselves treated, in all countries, and alike by tyrants and
demagogues, when they are to be sheared or slaughtered.

Wh^n, for the first named purpose, sheep are to be caught in the region
referred to, they are huddled up in the corner of a large pen, as often as
there are sheep in the flock; each time frightened and worried, until the
shearer runs in and grabs by the wool the first one he can catch. The
residue of the flock is then left until that one is divested of his wool, and
small bits of his skin here and there, and then turned loose, as the farmer
is after the election, until the next shearing time. When brought up to

712 WHEAT WOOL KENTUCKY.

be slaughtered, the only difference is that the sheep is attracted by a grain
of sah, or a handful of corn, Avhile the farmer is charmed with the sound
of the drum and fife, and liberty and glory !

By kind and gentle usage, and occasional salting, a man may have his
sheep so tame that he may play with them, as every man that has a
heart will sometimes do with his dog. At anj^ rate, the feeling and thoughtful
farmer will never suffer his sheep, or any thing else under his guardianship,
to be unnecessarily terrified, or otherwise ill treated.
" I would not enter on my list of friends,

Though graced with polish'd manners and fine sense,

Yet wanting sensibility, the man

Who needlessly sets foot ajjon a worm."

Wheat Crop in South Carolina. — It is a gratifying fact that the planters
in the middle country of South Carolina have this winter sown fully twice
as much wheat as has ever formerly been put in, in one season, heretofore.
We learn that in Fairfield, a district which has never grown a large amount
of this grain, extensive fields have been seeded — one planter having sown
three hundred acres. Others, diverting their labor from the cotton culture
to grading railroads, have sown their surplus lands in small grains. Greater
pains have been bestowed on the preparation of the soil than usual, and the
crop, from this cause, as well as from the mildness of the weather, is very
promising everywhere. The verdant fields promise an abundance to the
industrious, which should make our citizens happy and contented, even in
'■'■Old South Carolina.''''

Better all unite in a policy that makes it the interest of capitalists, with their machinery,
to go there into the heart of their fine cotton and wool growing region, to work up their
raw materials, and to demand the wheat when it is made.

To Wool Groivers. — Why don't you give more attention to your sheep,
and take that pride that every farmer should do, in preparing your clip for
the market ? You should have it clean, free from burs, and properly tied
up, instead of sending it to market in the dirty, slovenly, careless manner in
Avhich a great portion of the western wool goes into the hands of the first
purchaser. Do this, and you will obtain ten or fifteen per cent, more for it.
Don't say you have not time. That is not the fact ; you have time. The
real cause is probably you have too much land.

You are too much like the southern planters, who think they are doing
well just in proportion to the size of their cotton fields. They, like you,
never foot up bills at the end of the season, and learn that a little more time
spent in doing a few things well, would be more profitable than running over
many things and leaving all but half done. — Iowa Farmer.

Kentucky. — The Frankfort Commonwealth publishes several extracts
from the report of the second auditor of Kentucky, from which we glean the
following facts :

No. of acres land - - - 19,425,663 valued at - - $127,631,871
No. of town lots - - 29,215 " - 19,140,378

No. of slaves, - - - 192,479 " - - 60,820,378

No. of horses, - - - 353,349 " - 11,297,006

No. of mules, - - - 41,081 " - - 1,533,740

No. of cattle, - - - 495,538 « - 2,030,621

No. of stores - - - 3,320 " - - 7,916,570

The number of qualified voters is 139,613, and total number of white males
over 21 years of age 142,970. The total number of tavern licenses 452.

PREMIUM CROPS. 713

PREMIUM CROPS.

REQUISITIONS OF THE NEW YORK STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY.
[Written for " The Mcxlel American Courier," by the Editor of " The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil."]

The list of premiums offered in New York has just been published.
The minimum of crops fixed upon, under which no premium is to be
awarded, is — of winter wheat, not less than 40 bushels per acre ; spring
wheat, 30 ; Indian corn, 80 ; barley, 40 ; rye, 35 ; oats, 70 ; buckwheat, 25 ;
peas, 25 ; potatoes for the table, 200 ; potatoes, field crop, 300 ; ruta-bagas,
(60 pounds to the bushel,) 800 ? suqar-beets, (60 pounds to the bushel,) 400;
carrots, (60 pounds to the bushel,) 400 ; mangold-wurtzel, (same weight,) 400.
We don't see that any premium is offered for hay.

These quantities being fixed as the minimum produce, when we look at
the average crop of the whole State as her official returns show, Avhat a
wide margin we find to be filled up by higher skill and heavy manuring, as
thus : in 1845, according to returns from each county by State authority,
the averages were as follows : winter wheat averages 14 bushels per acre ;
oats, 26 • barley, 16 ; rye, Os ; Indian corn, 25 ; buckwheat, 14 ; peas, 1.5 ;
beans, 10; potatoes, 90. Thus would it seem that the crops in most cases
do not come to a third, in some cases not a fourth of the smallest quantity,
which the Society have decided should be distinguished by a premium.
This might leave some doubt about agricultural progress in the Empire
State, were it not that the State Society, by its President, last year, reported
" that the State of New York is improving its agricultural condition every
year testifies.^'' If it be improving every year, and has yet reached only to
the averages we have stated — 14 of wheat, 25 of corn, Oj of rye, 90 of
potatoes, &c. — how low must it have been twenty-five years ago ? Yet, in
1821, Earl Stimson, of that State, made throughout his farm — of oats,
60 bushels per acre ; Indian corn, on 8 acres, 1 12 bushels ; on 10 acres, 90 ;
spring wheat, 34 ; barley, 60. And we have accounts, before the Revolu-
tion, of 11,000 bushels of potatoes from 16 acres — being 687 bushels to the
acre, on new red land on the Hudson river; third year, 8496 bushels of
potatoes — being 531 bushels to the acre ; fourth year, in wheat gave 37
bushels to the acre ; fifth year, in barley gave 730 bushels, or 45 bushels
to the acre ; sixth year, 630 bushels of peas, or 39 to the acre. All this
Avas without manure, and that by a miserable system of the most exhausting
rotations, as — potatoes, wheat — potatoes, wheat, barley, peas : all in six
years ! Is it to be wondered at, that the crops throughout the State have
been brought down to the miserable averages we have stated ? Still we are
told, on the highest authority, that the condition of New York agriculture is
improving, as " every year testifies !" — and who knows how low it might
have gone, if it had not been for the premiums distributed from year to year ?

After all, these facts bring to mind the doubt once expressed by one of
the wisest, wealthiest, and best men the Empire State ever boasted — James
Wadsworth. Said he — " I am doubtful as to the expediency of small pre-
miums for cattle. I think the raising of these animals may be left to self-
interest. Suppose you take a hint from Napoleon, and offer very liberal
rewards for great improvements in agricultural implements ;" and might
not crops be left to the dictates of self-interest, as well as cattle ? The
Agricultural Society of New York appears to entertain a very different
opinion, for while they have offered some 150 or 200 premiums for cattle
and sheep — and nearly IOC of the amount of $10 and upwards, many as
high as $20 and $25 — under the head of " Farm Implements,'' $10 is the
highest for any single one, and that only in one case — a threshing machine.
For the others they offered a " dip," and sometimes $2 or $3, or $5, besides
the " dip ;" but, done by such high authority, it must be '• 0. K."
Vol. L— 90 3o2

714 FIRST COTTON FACTORY IN MONTGOMERY.

FIRST COTTON FACTORY IN MONTGOMERY.

" The Flag & Advertiser" felicitates itself at the prospect of Montgomery
becoming a manufacturing city. It sa3'^s : —

"We are glad that Montgoipery has at least made the first start. We
have already a factory in various kinds of wood and iron. We understand
that a movement is now being made to establish a cotton fac^or3^ It is pro-
posed to organize a company Avith a capital of $100,000, to establish a cctlon
factory that will work 2,000 spindles. We understand that one or two
gentlemen are ready to put up S10,000or $20,000 to commence with. If
the balance can be made up, the enterprise will be put in operation. It
will be of incalculable benefit to this city and the surrounding country, and
cannot fail to be profitable to those who imdertake it. There never was a
more favorable time to commence such an operation. The raw material is
low, and to be had at the first cost at the door of the factory. Every thing
is now at its lowest point, and every change must be for the better. It can-
not fail to benefit the city also. Instead of that amount of capital lying idle,
or being employed elsewhere, its benefits will be circulated right here. It
will employ 200 operatives, and thus afford means of subsistence for 800
persons at least. This will serve so far to increase the population of our
city, and enlarge the market for our farmers giving and returning reciprocal
benefits to town and country. We trust that the gentlemen who have taken
this matter in hand will go ahead. With ordinary judgment and prudence,
they cannot fail to succeed. It will be a good thing for them — it will be a
good thing for Montgomery — it will be a good thing for the State."

RESULT OF SABBATII-BREAKING.

A FATHER, says Dr. Edwards, whose son was addicted to riding out for
pleasure on the Sabbath, was told that if he did not stop it, his son would be
ruined. He did not stop it, but sometimes set the example of riding out for
pleasure himself. His son became a man, was placed in a responsible situa-
tion, and intrusted with a large amount of property. Soon he was a de-
faulter, and absconded. In a different part of the country he obtained another
responsible situation, and was acain intrusted with a large amount of pro-
perty. Of that he defrauded the owner, and fled again. Fle was appre-
hended, tried, convicted, and sent to the State prison. After years spent in
solitude and labor, he wrote a letter to his father, and. after recounting his
course of crime, he added — " Thai was the effect of breaking the Sabbath
when I was a boy. .'"

Exoijus, XX. S. — Reiiieuibci- ilic Sabbatli day, to keep it lioly.

Onions. — The onions which were sown at an early season, with an
evpectation of their growing to a sufficient size the first year for table use,
sliotild now be perfectly cleared from weeds, and the plants thinned to about
three inches from each other; some of them should be pulled out at an
early period, and kept clear of weeds, from the first sowing, till they arrive
at perfection.

Onion seed may be now sown broadcast, on rather a poor soil, to raise
small bulbs for the next year's crop, and if the ground should be very dry,
you may water them occasionally.

INSTINCT OF ANIMALS.

715

INSTINCT OF ANIMALS.

The captain of a tradinpr vessel, who now
resides at Brigliton, picked up lately a dog
at sea, more than twenty miles from land.
This circumstance may throw some light on
tlie fact of dogs, M'hich have been sent to
France or Ireland from England, finding

their way back. The present Earl of L

sent some drafted hounds from his kennel
in Cumberland to Ireland, where they were
safely received, and a receipt given for them
to the person who brouglit them over. Three
weeks afterwards two of these hounds made
their appearance at Lord L."s kennel, though
in a very exhausted state. A gentleman
also informed me that a pointer dog which
had been left at Calais made its way over
to England. But the most amusing fact of
this kind that I kno\v of is one that was re-
lated to me by a gentleman on whose vera-
city I can place most implicit reliance ; and
though it may appear to some of my read-
ers to border upon the marvellous, I think it
too entertaining to withhold it. He informed
me that a friend of his, an officer in the
Forty-fourth Regiment, who had occasion,
when in Paris, to pass one of the bridges
across the Seine, had his boots, which had
been previously well polished, dirtied by a
poodle dog rubbing against them. He in
consequence went to a man who was
stationed on the bridge and had them
cleaned. The same circumstance having oc-
curred more than once, his curiosity was ex-
cited, and he watched the dog. He saw him
roll himself in the mud of the river, and
then watch for a person with well-polished
boots, against which he contrived to rub
himself. Finding that the shoe-black was
the owner of the dog, he taxed him with
the artifice ; and after a little hesitation he
confessed that he had taught the dog the
trick in order to procure ctistomers for him-
self The officer, being much struck with
the dog's sagacity, purchased him at a high
price, and brought him to England. He
kept him tied up in London some time, and
then released him. The dog remained with
him a day or two, and then made his escape.
A fortnight afterwards he was found with
his former master, pursuing his old trade on
the bridge.

Nor is a dog the only animal wliich has
shown an extraordinary faculty in finding
his way home. The Ibllowing anecdote is
mentioned in a note in Messrs. Kirby and
Spence's Entomology, who state that they
had it from Lieutenant Alderson of the
Royal F^ngineers, who was personally ac-
quainted with the facts.

In March, 1816, an ass was shipped at
Gibraltar on board the Ister frigate, Captain
Forrest, which was bound for Malta. The
vessel having struck on the sands off the
Point de Gat, at some distance from the
shore, the ass was thrown overboard, to give
it a chance of swinnning to land — a poor
one, for the sea was running so high that a
boat which left the ship was lost. A few
days afterwards, however, when the gates
of Gibraltar were opened in the morning,
the ass presented himself for admission, ami
proceeded to the stable which he had for-
merly occupied, to the no small Surprise of its
former owner, who imagined that from some
accident, the animal had iiever been shipped
on board the Ister. On the return of this ves-
sel, to repair, however, the mystery was ex-
plained; and it turned out that Valiante (so
the ass was called) had not only swum
safely to shore, but, without guide, compass,
or travelling luaj), had found his v/ay from
Point de Gat to Gibraltar, a distance of more
than two hundred miles, which he had never
traversed before, through a mountainous and
intricate country, intersected by streams, and
in so short a period that he could not have
made one false turn. His not having been
stoi)ped on the road was attributed to the
circumstance of his having been formerly
used to whip criminals upon, which was
indicated to the peasants, who have a super-
stitious horror of such asses, by the holes in
his ears, to which the persons flogged were
tied.

I have also been assured that a favorite
cat belonging to a nobleman, and who ha<l
been conveyed to his country-seat more than
a hundred miles from London, found her
way back to his house in town. Nothing
can be more extraordinary than the way in
which bees find their way back to their
hive. Place it amongst hundreds of others,
exactly similar in outward appearance, or
at the top of a house in London, or concealed
in the thickest wood, and the bee will re-
gain it without the slightest apparent diffi-
culty. Huber says they fly to it with an ex-
treme rapidity, and as straight as a ball from
a musket. Nothing can show more forcibly
the wonderful instinct which has been given
to these insects. If they experienced any
difficulty in finding their liomes, how nuich
time would be lost, and how inadequate
would all their labors and industry be, to
furnish a sufficient store of honey to exi.st
upon during the winter! I have always
observed that when a fresh hive has been
brought to my garden from a distant place,

716

MANUAL OF MANNERS.

the bees employ themselves on first leaving
it, not in collecting honey, but in making
tliemselves acquainted with all the neighbor-
ing objects, and these objects may possibly
serve to guide them to their respective homes.
Some naturalists are of opinion that this re-
cognition of home by animals is the result of
memory. Perhaps in some instances it is so,
but memory could not have guiiled poor Va-
liante over two hundred miles of country,
which he had never passed before ; and the
same unexplained instinct which brought
him back to his stable at Gibraltar, may
guide the bee to his hive.

This instinctive sagacity appears in some
animals to whom we should have been less
disposed to attribute it. Some pigs which
had been brought in a sack fifteen miles
through an American wood, by the next
morning found their way back, from their
new to their old home. I have also been
assured that Welsh sheep have been known
to find their way back, from the neighbor-
hood of London, to their native mountains.
It is no uncommon thing for dogs who have

been taken a great distance in carriages, to
make their way home again, and that in a
very short space of time. A gentleman took
a pointer dog in his carriage, to some shoot-
ing ground in Scotland, more than a hun-
dred miles from his house. Upon receiving
some correction from his master, he left him,
and made his way back to his kermel.

A friend of mine had a poodle dog pos-
sessed of more than ordinary sagacity, but
very little under command. To keep him
in better order, his master purchased a small
whip, with which he corrected him once
or twice during a walk. On his return the
whip was put on a table in the hall, and the
next morning it was m issing. It was soon after-
wards found concealed in an out-building,
and again made use of in correcting the dog.
It was again lost, and again found hidden
in another place. On watching the dog,
who was suspected of being the culprit, he
was seen to take the whip from the hall
table, and make oft" with it to another hiding-
place.

MANUAL OF MANNERS.

AMUSEMENTS AND RECREATIONS.

This is an imi)ortant subject to consider,
as the amusements adopted by diflerent peo-
ple either exhibit the peculiarity of their
taste, or exercise a striking inliuence on their
liabits. "Show me the company a man
keeps, and I will tell you his character,'' is
an old proverb ; it would be equally just to
say, tell me the nature of any one's amuse-
ments, and I will declare to you the bent of
his mind.

The amusements of women ought to be of
a refined and suitable description. As they
are restricted from many of the recreations
of the stronger sex, they ought to choose
their own maiuly with a view to the im-
provement of their tastes, and the right
formation of their demeanor. A cultivated
understanding will find within itself many
sources of entertainment which one less
favored cannot so easily comprehend, or so
readily adopt. Hence the necessity in gen-
teel society of accomplishments. Music
always brings its own enjoyments; and
drawing and reading offer boundless sources
of innocent, as well as useful and agreeable
recreation. In a subsequent chapter on the
occupation of time, v\'ill be found some ob-
servations, that appear to be jiertinent at
present, on the important subject of choice
of Vjooks.

In fine weather, out-of-door exercises are
particularly conducive to healtli, and to the

cheerfulness of the temper. They are, there-
fore, preferable to in-door amusements.
Young ladies should always bear in mind
Dr. Gregory's advice to his daughters on this
point. He recommended to them exercises
in the open air, such as walking, and riding
on horseback, as tending to give vigor to
the constitution and bloom to the complex-
ion, which riding too much in a luxurious
carriage will dejirive them of^ or prevent
them from acquiring. Our youthful queen's
example in this respect ought to be more
generally followed than it is, by ail who
have the opportimity of doing so.

The rule which ought to be laid down
regarding amusements is, simply, judicious-
ness in selection, and not too great a devotion
to one particular kind. Every one will be
best able to judge for himself as to those
recreations which are most a))propriate to
his inclination and circumstances. Amuse-
ments should be rendered subservient to in-
struction, especially with the young; and
more attention than is usually paid to this
branch of conduct should be devoted to it,
by all having the charge or the training of
youth.

Although, however, the subject of amuse-
ments in general may be considered too wide
a field to be entered upon here, consistently
with the design of this work, the writer may
be permitted to make a few passing remarks
on some of those anuisements which are

MANUAL OF MANNERS.

7ir

usually set apart, in private society, for even-
ing entertainment; such as music and con-
versational parties ; and fancy and children's
balls, play and gaming.

Perhaps the most agreeable recreation,
eitlrer at home or abroad, is music ; than
which, if not carried to excess, as it some-
times is, there can be, for the time, no more,
satisfying enjoyment. A cultivation of
music is an essential accomplishment of
young ladies; and an evening party is en-
livened by an occasional performance on
the piano, or the harp, by a skilful and un-
obtrusive player. Any attempt at vain dis-
play, however, is in bad taste, and cannot
fail to be remarked. To affect inability, or
pretend indisposition, when requested to
sing or play, with the object of being pressed,
is no mark of merit or modesty. A person
conscious of his powers is proud of the op-
portunity to exhibit them, and does not
assume airs on being solicited to do so. A
readiness to comply is not, therefore to be
considered a sign of vanity, or of presump-
tion. A favor is always enhanced by being
obligingly conferred. Ou the other hand,
too great a forwardness to play is often a
proof of pretension and self-sufficiency — no-
thing more.

In an evening party, whether music is
going forward or conversation — whatever
indeed may be the occupation of the rest —
it is no unusual thing to see one of the com-
pany engaged with a book. This, notwith-
standing the latitude allowed in modern
society, is highly indecorous and impertinent
towards all present. There are many per-
sons who atlect the literary character, with
out having any real pretensions to it, and
think a practice of this kind calculated to
gain that notice to them which they are,
perhaps, conscious would not be granted to
their conversational powers. It may arise
from forgetfulness in some, from ill-breeding
in others; but a truly polite man would not
be guilty of such an impropriety. It is true
that it is sometimes tolerated in persons of
known studious habits ; but this is only
among intimate friends. Madame D'Arblay
relates an interesting anecdote of Dr. John-
son, whose peculiarities of conduct and man-
ner were very remarkable and are well
known. At a party at the house of her fa-
ther. Dr. Burney, Johnson, who, it is re-
corded, had no ear for music, was announced,
during the performance of a duet by two of I
her sisters on the piano. " After the first j
few minutes he drew his chair close to the
piano-forte, and then bent down his nose
quite over the keys, to examine them, and
the four hands at work upon them. But his
attenfton was not to be drawn off two
minutes longer froni the books, to which lie

now strided his way. He pored over them,
shelf by shelf, almost brushing them with his
eyelashes, from near examination. At last,
fixing upon something that happened to hit
his fancy, he took it down, and, standing
aloof from the company, which he seemed
clean and clear to forget, he began, without
further ceremony and very composedly, to
read to himself, and as intently as if he had
been alone and in his own study." Johnson,
however, was a privileged person, and it
would be unpardonable in any one less emi-
nent to imitate his rudeness.

Fancy balls and masquerades are danger-
ous incitements to the youthful imagination,
and too seductive and ensnaring in their
nature to be encouraged by people of judg-
ment and proper notions of virtue. Parents
and guardians of youth ought to do all in
their power to dissuade those under their
care from attending them.

Indeed, to balls of every description, un-
less where very strictly managed, objections
may reasonably be brought ; as they have,
uniloubtedly, a tendency to foster vanity and
create a love for display in the youthful
mind. The writer admits the propriety —
nay, even the necessity^-of frequently bring-
ing young people together, that, from the
behaviour of each other, they may acquire
that ease and freedom from embarrassment
which are so charming in young persons.
But, surely, many opportunities for this can
be found, without having recourse to scenes
where they are exposed to so much danger
and excitement as at promiscuous balls and
assemblies continued till a late hour. Mere
juvenile balls, however, which are over by
a seasonable hour in the evening, and at
which the parents attend to watch the pro-
gress of their children in dancing, contain
nothing which is open to any particular ob-
jection. To take children to the theatre, or
to keep them from their homes later than
they have been accustomed to, is foolish and
prejudicial. The practice too, now so much
in vogue, of young ladies going out to parties
and staying late, is by no means a com-
mendable one : it is injurious both to their
comjdexion and their health.

A conversational party is one of the most
rational, as well as delighttul modes of pass-
ing an evening, and, when scandal or per-
sonal satire is not introduced, is far preferable
to cards. By means of agreeable remarks,
if the topics are judiciously chosen, much
elegant nistruction may be conveyed to the
younger by the elder portion of the company.
New ideas may be elicited, and tl;e tastes
of all present essentially improved. Informa-
tion is such a d'isirable thing, that every
mode for extending and imparting it ought
to be sedulously adopted ; and at an evening

718

OLD TIME.

party, a conversation in wliiuh every one
can participate, may be rendered a very
useliil and interesting means of entertain-
ment.

One of the most innocent of pastimes is the
chess-board, which, from its scientilic de-
tails, is well calcidated to engage the under-
standing, and atibrd satisl'action to the mind.

Games of chance, where money is risked,
should in all cases be avoided. Even though
the stake is small there is a danger of its
becoming the absorbent object lor playing,
and as soon as the contest begins to engross
the attention exclusively, or assumes in the
slightest degree the appearance of ganiljling,
it ought to be abandoned that instant. There
is no vice so odious as gaming, especially
when a lady indulges in it.

At the card-table how much precious time
is wasted ! — time that must be accounted
for. Gambling creates selfish and avaricious
feelings, and is a most ensnaring practice.
In many cases it leads to suicide, ar.d in all
to the utter ruin of both the temporal and
eternal interests of those w ho engage in it ;
.•-Ijeedily corrnjning the best principles, and
overthrowing the most virtuous resolutions.
Neither disgrace nor misfortune will cme it.
Many who are just in everything else, make
no scruple to cheat at play. Even men
otherwise of amiable temper and sound dis-
cretion will get into a jjassion at their op-
ponents, when fortune goes against them at
the cards.

The j)oet says —

■* Who gets by play, proves loser in the end !"

No vice, no pleasure is so pernicious in its
effects, so prejudicial to the principles, so
ruinous to the fortune, so destructive to the
interests both of the sonl and the body, as
gaming is. Honor, virtue, wealth, ]ieace of
mind, character — all are oflered up on its

insatiable shrine. It is confined to no par-
ticular station in life. The servant in the
hall must iniitaie his sui)erior in the parlor
— tlie tradesman in the tavern ape the lord
in his palace. Days and nights are spent at
play by people whose education fits them
lor higher objects, and whose station de-
mands better employments.

Gaming, iiuleed, lor which there is infi-
nitely less excuse than for many other vices,
degrades all to the same level, and reduces
the conversation to one common and de-
basing point. How strong must be the
infatuation for play, when men of rank and
character, as at races, and other places of
fai?hionable resort, consent to consort with
persons of no rank and character at all! Is
it avarice that impels them to it, or a desire
to be relieved of care — or rather to be de-
prived of reason ? If relieving them of their
money and wasting their time be relieving
them of their care, then their object is fully
accomplished. At the cards, all distinction
of rank or place is lost, and the high-born
and the honorable are on a level v^ith the
mean and the degraded.

The many fortunes lost and families
ruined by gaming ought to be a warning to
the young. It soon demoralizes the mind,
and overturns all the barriers of virtue and
honor in the breast.

It is lamentable to think that, in spite of
religion, morality, and common sense, this
vice, so unsuitable to a rational and respon-
sible being, should receive so much counte-
nance among all grades of society, but parti-
cularly in genteel circles ; from which it
ought to be rigorously excluded. If dis-
countenanced in the higher, it M-ould soon
lose its charm in the middle ranks; and
none but the very lowest class in society
would preserve and indulge in it.

" OLD TIME.

Bi CoLijj Rae Broww.

JVfKN call me feeble, old and gray —
My strength and vigor pass'd away.
But strong and stalwart .^till am 1,
Nor frail my stej), nor dim mine eye.

What are a thousand years to me? —
But as a drop to yonder sea !
I've not yet reached my manhood's prime.
And laugh to Lear inetj say, " Old Time/'

Let centuries pass, and ages roll —
The year that my last knell shall toll
So far away in the future lies
Tliat ne'er a tear hath wet mine eyes.

No ! I am joyous, gay, and free !
Leading a life of mirth and glee.
But, Man ! note well each passing chime —
Short is thy stay in the realms of Time!

Tail's Magazine.

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

719

THE WHOLE DUTY OF WOMAN.

WIDOWHOOD.

Is thy love stronger tliaii death, do thy
affections survive the decease of thine hus-
band 1 Doth thy flame burn unextin-
guished, even as the funeral lamp of the
sepulchre.

The obligations thou liest under are sacred
to the remains of him thou lovcst.

Be not pompous in the burial of the body,
but embalm his memory and perfume it with
fragrance of his virtues.

Let his frailties sleep with him in the
grave, let his oflences be remembered no
more.

The care of a husband's honor is honor
io a wife, and the tenderness to preserve it
i.-^ most comely to the wjdow.

Art thou guardian to thy cliildren, wrong
jiot the fatherless.

The orphan and the widow are joined in
calamity; therefore let them not rise up
against each other.

Art thou young, and seekest a second
espousal, experience hath not made thee
wise.

Thou art as a galley-slave, who, in the
madness of joy for his liberty, runneth him-
self again into bondage.

Art thou ancient, yet seekest the embraces
of a young spouse, he will be the bane of
thy latter days ; he will bring jealousy to
thine heart, and misery to thy gray hairs.

He will think himself a living body tied
to a dead carcass, and hold thee loathed in
his sight.

Dost thou think to fix the giddy appetite

of youth ■? Thou mayest buy beauty, but it
will not become thee ; thou mayest paint,
but it will not make thee fair.

When thou art dressed for the bridal morn,
men shall say, is this decking for the living,
thou deceivest thyself; if for the dead, make
haste to follow him.

RELIGION.

Bright as the morning star, dressed in
the radiance of the sun-beams, cometh the
seraph of immortality.

She approacheth in white robes, her eye
is fixed on the heavens, lier knee is hum-
bled in the dust, she giveth laws to the
daughters of \^'omen.

She teacheth the way of virtue, her pre-
cepts are simplicity and truth.

Her profession is pure and undefiled, her
temple is not filled with priests.

The duties she enjoineth are plain and
easy; she dealeth not in the systems of spe-
culative and vain philosophy.

She perplexeth not the mind with the hy-
potheses of scepticism, neither the cavillers
nor the soi)liists are the teachers of her pre-
cepts.

Attend to her counsel, and abide by her
instructions; so shall peace be the compa-
nion of tliy rellections, and happiness die
partner of thy contemplations.

In the practice of piety is satisfaction on
earth, and its reward is on high, in the regions
of bliss and immortality.

THE DUKE OF ATHOL AND THE MARKED SALMON.

It is some years since we first brought
before the country a series of experimeiUs
that Lord Glenlyon (now Duke of Adiol)
was carrying forward on a large scale, to
throw some light on the instincts and habits
of the salmon, and thus add another leaf to
the natural history of that celebrated fish.
We are glad to say that the problem has
now been proved to a demonstration that
foul or spent salmon, after depositing their
spawn in the gravelly beds of our rivers
during the close months, seek their way
back again to the sea, their rich pasture and
feeding ground. After remaining there a
certain time, they enter our rivers again, each
to his own proper river, as cows grazing on
a field to their own stalls at night, or as a
bird to its nest ; but how changed — the
sickly, loathsome looking kelt or red fish,
now the rich, plump, and beautiful salmon.
Friday morning last proved the truth of

this to a certainty; for, on the gathering
boat landing their fish at Orchardneuk. a
lew miles below Perth, a fine salmon, weigh-
ing sixteen pounds six ounces, in jirime con-
dition, was brought into the house, with a
metal ticket, engraved "Duke of Athol,
Dunkeld, No. 128," and fastened with
copper wire round the tail. That this
marked salmon had gone down to the sea
there can be no doubt of, as it brought up
with it a sure and certain proof of its being
an inhabitant of the deep by the small in-
sect known by the name of sea lice being
found on it, never seen but on salmon new
from the sea, and which falls olf the fish
when a few days in fresh water. It was on
Balhopburn, one of Lord Wemyss's fishing
stations on the Tay, a little above the quay
of Inchyra, the marked fish was taken, on
Friday morning, the 4th inst. — Northern
Warder.

720 WELCOME. — OUR BABE.

WELCOME.

A SOKQ FOR ANT DAY ; BUT ESPECIALLY FOR CHRISTMAS AND THE NEW TEAR.

By the Author of " Proverbial Philosophy.'"
The following seasonable song is extracted from a beautiful little volume, entitled " A
Happy Christmas,"' published for a charitable object, and edited by a Clergyman of the
diocese of Norwich : —

Yes ! welcome, right welcome — and give us your hand,

I like not to stay in the cold ;
If new friends are true friends, I can't understand

Why hearts should hold back till they're old ;
For life is so short, and there's so much to do,

And so many pleasures and cares ;
And somewhere I've read that, though angels are few.

They're frequently met unawares!

The eye of sincerity shines like a star

Through the clouds of suspicion and doubt;
I love its fair lustre, and lure it from far.

And wouldn't for worlds put it out :
Away with such wisdom, as risking the chance

Of killing your love with old fears!
The face that is honest is known at a glance,

And needn't be studied for years.

And when petty prudence would put me to school

About caution and care, and all that,
I trust that, like some folks, I yield to the rule

Of wearing a head in my hat;
But iTiore that remains is better than brains,

And I know not that some folk are blest.
Like me, with a share in a custom more rare,

Of wearing a heart in the breast.

Then come with ail welcome! I fear not to fling

Reserve to the winds and the wave ;
And never can cling to the cold-blooded thing

Society makes of its slave :
Thou dignified dullard, so cloudy and cold.

Get out of the sunshine for me !
But hearty good friend ! whether new one or old,

A welcome for ever to thee !

Martin F. TpprEB.

OUK BABE.

"We have at home a little babe. Her eyes

Are blue and beautiful, and flash out gleams
Of diamond light, like that which brightly beams

On stilly summer nights from starlit skies.
Her cheeks are tinted with the blushing dyes

Which Heaven — so wisely bountiful — bestows
In virgin freshness on the modest rose.

When, worn and sad, I seek the spot where lies
My lovely all — that infant's budding charms,

As she disports within her mother's arms,
Dispel my sadness, and her winning wiles

And crowing shouts provoke unwitting smiles,
Till every care is I'rom my soul beguiled : —
Blest is the man who loves a little child !

Thomas Macrellar,

^\]t |)loitgl), tl)t loom, mtir tl)c ^nuil*

Vol. I. JUNE, 1849. No. XII.

HEAR BOTH SIDES.

A LETTER recently received from one of our correspondents, closes with
the following sentence : — " I am quite a behever in your reiterated opinion
respecting factories, but I cannot as yet understand why a high protective
tariff is necessary to make them thrive." Desirous to satisfy the mind of
our friendly correspondent on this subject, we had appropriated the leading
article of this month to a full examination of it, but, after making some pro-
gress therein, found that it would occupy more space than could be given in
a single number, and as this is the last one of the year, concluded to post-
pone it to the next volume. Another cause, too, influenced us to this decision.
On looking over our file we met with a promise, made some months since,
to examine more fully an attack upon this work and its doctrines, that
appeared in " The Union," the official organ of the late administration, and
was endorsed by its editor as " a masterly view of the question." With this
endorsement, made so near to the Treasury, we have a right to view it as
the proper complement to the report of the late Secretary, and as containing
the views upon which that elaborate document was based. Desirous that
the farmers and planters of the Union should have before them for considera-
tion the grounds upon which they are invited to aid in maintaining a system
that compels them to seek abroad a market they would gladly have at home,
and to fly to the West, there to clear and cultivate poor soils, when if they
could remain at home they might have rich ones ; and desirous, too, that
our readers may see that in any thing we may say in regard to this extra-
ordinary paper, we do not exaggerate ; we now give it in extenso, preserving
even the italics, that our readers may see which arc the passages deemed by
its author to be most entitled to consideration. Without this, we should
greatly fear that they might suppose we had been disposed to caricature
the arguments of our opponents, as the latter most certainly have desired to
do by ours.

" THE PLOUGH, THE LOOM, AND THE ANVIL."
I take it for granted that it is well known that, under the title above quoted, John S.
Skinner, Esq., late editor of " The Farmers' Library," has commenced the publication of
a monthly periodical, professedly devoted to the agricultural interest, and appealing to that
interest for patronage and support, but reaUy acting as the champion of the manufacturing
and mining interests, which, although far more wealthy in proportion to the number of
persons engaged in them than the agricultural interest, are constantly clamoring for juro-
teclimi — in other words, for the privilege of taxing, through the instrumentality of the
legislation of Congress, the great mas3 of the American people for the benefit of the few
lordly proprietors of looms, spindles, and iron mines. Judging from the character of tho
original articles which appear in his new journal, it is evident that Mr. Skinner's whole
aim is to resuscitate the exploded protective system; and hence, in order to disarm of all
fears and suspicions the planters and farmers, who are to be the victims, he insidiously
approaches them under the plausible and insinuating pretext of a proposition to unite tha
interests of " the plough, the loom, and the anvil," as if they had ever, under ordinary
circumstances, in a civilized country, been separated. The object sought, and the indirect
mode of attaining it, are consistent with the creed and the policy of the school of politics
Vol. L— 91 3 P ' 721

722 HEAR BOTH SIDES.

in which !Mr. Skinner has been reared, and of which he has tlirough a long life been a
devoted disciple; although, in candor, I must admit that, in my opinion, he honestly
believes in the theories which he advocates.

But, it is due to the agricultural interest that the disguise be stripped from this patron-
ising friend, and particularly so, inasmuch as his theories are adopted and endorsed by
«'The National Intelligencer,'' the leading Federal print in the country — by which term I
mean Conservative, in the English sense of the word : which is, in point of fact, the Tory
party in England. The Conservatives in England have always stood bravely by old
abuses, monopolies, privileges, titles, and dignities, but not with more stolid pertinacity
than their counterpart, the self-styled Conservative or Whig party of this country, who are
but the imitators and echoes of the Conservative Tories of England. I am, however, wan-
dering from my subject. My purpose was to examine the theory of Mr. Skinner in the
shape in which it is shadowed forth under the mystical and plausible title of " The
Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil," and advocated in the pages of the new periodical pub-
lished by him.

The theory, as I understand the venerable and respectable gentleman, is, that the labor
of a nation should be so shaped by its legislation that each of its different divisions should
produce just enough of its articles or products as will suffice to supply the wants of the
whole nation, and no more. In other words, the plough, representing the agriculturists,
should have by its side a sufficient number of those engaged in ojierating the loom and
the anvil to consume all its surplus products, in order that it shall not be compelled to go
abroad to search out markets and customers for those products. And, on the other hand,
the loom must have enough agriculturists, &c., by its side to consume all the cloth it
weaves, in order that it may not be compelled to go to foreign countries to seek markets
and consumers. And so of the anvil.

Now this must be the true interpretation of Mr. Skinner's scheme, represented by the
three cabalistic words which he has adopted as the title of his new periodical, or they
mean nothing. It will not do for him to say that he is looking out only for the agricul-
turist ; for that would be an acknowledgment that his scheme was a deception and a
device for mischief and injury to other interests. Therefore, when he gets his plan into
practical operation, he must preserve tlje balance. After taking from agriculture, and
putting to the loom and anvil, a sufficient number of persons to consume the surplus agri-
cultural productions of the country, he causes those two instruments to over-jiroduce —
that is, make too much cloth and iron for the consumption of the nation, and thus compel
them to go to foreign countries for markets and consumers — he must again equalize, by
transferring them back to agriculture — involving, of course, the movement of immense
amounts of capital, and the loss of vast sums in machinery and apparatus. If he does
not make these transfers of men and capital from one interest to another, as the pro-
duction of one exceeds the consumption of the whole, he throws his scheme out of its
equilibrium, and his theory must explode.

Now, die bare statement of this theory shows its utter absurdity, setting aside the
violation of every sound principle of political economy which it involves, and the contra-
diction of the testimony afforded by the experience of all civilized nations. There is not
a nation in the world in which some great interest does not predominate, and produce
more of its peculiar commodities dian can be consumed by its own people ; and hence
it tnusl seek a market abroad for this surplus, or it must suffer it to i)erisli upon its hands ;
and tlius the labor spent in producing it becomes an utter loss. And it is upon this great
and interesting fact that commerce among nations is founded. Commerce is but the ex-
change of the surplus products of the labor of one nation for the surplus products of the
labor of otlier nations. Thus, in theory, the scheme of Mr. Skinner, if it were possible to
carry it out in practice, would annihilate all commerce, and, as a necessai-y consequence, all
civilization; for nations will not mix with each other for courtesy merely. They must be
impelled together by traffic. Such is the order of Providence ; and the reason and the
effort of feeble man cannot repeal it, nor successfully evade it.

So much for the philosophy of Mr. Skinner's theory. I will now test its utter absurdity
and impossibility by facts, which neither he nor any one else can gainsay.

The greatest and most important interest in this country is the agricultural. It pos-
sesses a capital of at least $1,000,000,000, and probably produces at Iea?t $1,000,000,000
in value of products. Certain it is that it produces a largo surplus of wheat, corn, cotton,
tobacco, rice, and provisions, for exportation to Ibrcign countries. It produces more wheat
and corn than can be consumed at home, or for which a market can be found abroad.
Of the grains, it produces from 30,000,000 to 40,000,000 of bushels more of wheat than
can becoasuinpd at home j and of corn, from 100,000,000 to 200,0005000. Now, Mr,

HEAR BOTH SIDES. 723

Skinner observes this fact. He thinks it very hard that the agriculturists should be com-
pelled to employ merchants and sailors to send this surplus, or so much of it as may be
wanted, abroad to find consumers. Nay, he finds that, ordinarily, not quite enough con-
sumers can be found abroad to absorb this surplus. He looks about for a remedy, and he
finds the manufacturing interest, which he represents under the figure of the loom, and
the mining interest, vi'hich he impersonates in the form of the anvil, both employing much
capital and many persons. And it occurs to his mind that the true remedy for the
farmers and planters, whom he finds so oppressed with the bounties of Providence, is, to
have Congress shut out from our markets, by legislation, the cloth and iron of other
nations with which our farmers and planters have hitherto traded, thus rendering it im-
possible for them to purchase any of our grain ; and thus, also, by rendering the business
of agriculture so poor, and the manufacturing and mining business so good, as to compel a
transfer of men and capital from the former to the two latter, until the products of the
former are so diminished in amount that they will just equal the consumption of the
whole nation. I will not stop here to consider its efl'ect upon the manufacturing and
mining interests of tliis transfer of men and capital, but will proceed at once to the
statistics of those two interests.

By the last census, it appears that in 1840 the capital employed in the manufacture of
cotton was, in round numbers, $51,000,000; value of cotton goods, $46,000,000 ; the num-
ber of operatives employed, 72,119. The capital invested in the woollen manufacture in
1840 was $16,000,000; value of products, $21,000,000 ; persons employed, 21,342. In
iron-mining, the capital invested in 1840 was $21,000,000 ; number of tons of all kinds
produced, 484,136 ; persons employed, 30,497.

Leonard, in his "Mechanics' Principia,'' estimates the amount of capital now invested
in the cotton manufacture at $66,964,275; tlie number of spindles employed, 2,678,571 ;
the quantity of cotton consumed, 400,000 bales, or 180,000,000 pounds; the number of
yards produced, 720,000,000, or 36 yards to each individual of the population. And in
" The Dry Goods Reporter," the organ of the manufacturing interest, published in New
York, dated Dec. 9, 1848, and now before me, I find the following estimate, by the editor,
of the capital, &c., now employed in the cotton interest, viz. : capital invested, $80,357,130;
mimber of spindles, 3,012,500; number of operatives employed, 101,250 ; bales of cotton
consumed, 480,000 ; yards of cloth produced, 756,000,000, or 37| to each individual.
This estimate may be too large, and for the purpose of my argum.ent I will adopt the
estimate of Leonard.

The amount of capital now invested in the woollen manufacture is $30,000,000, as es-
timated by Samuel Lawrence, Esq., of Lowell, one of the most intelligent manufacturers
in the Union. The value of manufactured goods, persons employed, &c., probably bear
very near the same ratio to the capital as in 1840.

The iron interest, particularly in Pennsylvania, has made still greater strides. In 1840,
the capital employed in iron mining in the whole Union was $20,190,758 ; quantity pro-
duced in tons, 484,136; persons employed, 30,497. In Pennsylvania, the amount of
capital invested was $7,781,471; quantity of all kinds of iron produced, 185,039 tons;
persons employed, 11,522. In 1847, according to Mr. Childs, the able Editor of "The
Philadelphia Commercial List," as quoted in " The Merchants' Magazine," vol. 16, pages
525-527, the capital invested in Pennsylvania was $20,190,758; number of persons em-
ployed, not stated ; number of tons produced was 368,056, the value of which was
$23,923,640. Thus, in 1847, did the iron interest in Pennsylvania nearly equal in
amount of capital, &c., that interest in the whole Union in 1840. The capital invested in
the whole Union in the manufacture of iron in 1848 is probably about $40,000,000.

Omitting much of detail, which will too greatly encumber my article, I come now to
the present value of the manufactures and products of these three interests.

Assuming, according to Leonard's estimate, the capital invested in the cotton manu-
facture to be $67,000,000, the value produced, bearing the same proportion to the capital
as in 1840, would be not far from $57,500,000. The value of cotton goods imported in
1847, after deducting the amount exported, was $11,210,348 ; thus showing that the pro-
duction of cotton goods in this country falls about one-fifth short of the consumption ; and
therefore the manufacture of cotton must be increased in that proportion to equal the
consumption.

As before stated, the capital now invested in the woollen manufacture is $30,000,000.
Estimating the production in the same ratio to the capital as in 1840, it will amount to
$40,000,000. The value of woollen goods imported in 1847, was $10,665,875; thus
showing that, in order to equal the consimiption, the capital and production of this branch
of manufactures will only have to be increased one-fifth.

724 HEAR BOTH SIDES.

The quantity of iron now produced annually in the United States is, probaWy, about
800,000 tons; worth $40,000,000. The quantity imported in 1847 was 85,344 tons, at a
cost of $3,581,514. In 1845, the last year of the taritfof 1842, the quantity was 102,721
tons, valued at $3,189,936. It appears, then, that in order to supply the consumption of
the country, it will be necessary to increase the production of iron not quite one-eighth of
the present quantity produced.

Increasing the number of operatives, or laborers, in all these three interests, in the
same ratio of the capital invested, as in 1840, let us see how much more of the products
of the plough these interests will demand. As it is not necessary to be precise in order to
illustrate tlie absurdity of Mr. Skinner's scheme, I will assume the present number of
operatives in the cotton manufacture at 100,000, or 28,000 more than were employed in
1840 ; in the woollen interest 50,000, or 18,700 more than was employed in 1840; in the
iron interest 50,500, or 20,000 more than was employed in 1840 — making, in the aggre-
gate, 66,700 more operatives and laborers than were employed in these three interests in
1840. Yet, as the production at present in all those interests — two of them at least —
falls short of the consumption about one-fifth, it will be necessary to add 40,000 more
operatives and laborers to the number, and then we shall have a sufficient force, with the
corresponding increase of machinery, to manufactiu'e just cloth and iron enough for the
consumption of the whole country.

In England, it is estimated that there are three and a half persons dependent on each
person engaged in manufactures. But, to be liberal, I will suppose that these 40,000
persons to be added to the manufacturiiig and mining interests, bring with them four
dependent persons, or 160,000 ; making in all 200,000 persons abstracted from the agri-
cultural interest, who, instead of being producers, become the consumers of the products
of that interest. Will they be sufficient to consume the surplus grain of the agriculturists,
saying nothing of the cotton, &c. ?

Let us see. In England and France, from five to seven bushels of wheat are allowed
for the consumption of each person per annum. But, to make my calculption most
favorable to Mr. Skinner's theory, I will allow 10 bushels of wheat and 10 of corn, which
is twice as much as can be eaten by one person ; making, in the whole, 2,000,000 bushels
of wheat and the same amount of corn which they will consume of the products of the
farmer. Thus, after equalling the supply of manufactures and iron to the demand, the
farmers have still some 30,000,000 bushels of wheat and 100,000,000 of corn for which
to provide a market. Now, what shall be done ?

In order to supply this market, will Mr. Skinner go on transferring men and capital
from the farming to the manufacturing and mining interests 1 If he should do so, he
would compel his manufacturers and iron-masters to exceed the demands of the plough
interest, and compel them to go aVjroad in search of a market for their fabrics and iron
bars.

The whole immense cotton manufacture of England employs only about 377,000
operatives, with 1,900,000 dependents, including themselves; and the value of cotton
goods annually exported by England to other countries is about $112,000,000. The
woollen and iron interests do not employ half of that number of persons. And yet, if the
whole rotton, woollen, and iron interests of England ivere transpoiicd to this country, they could not
consume the surplus grain and profuisions produced by the American farmers.

But, according to his theory, Mr. Skinner is bound to balance the production and con-
sumption of all these interests, and all other interests. He is bound to so increase the
manufacturing and iron interests as will enable them to consume all the surplus products
of the farmer, and, at the same time, save them from the necessity of going abroad for a
market for their surplus fabrics and commodities. This I have shown to be an utter im-
possibility— a mere chimera of the brain — a most palpable absurdity.

But, according to his theory, nobody is to be compelled to go abroad in order to exchange
the surplus products of his labor with the foreigner for the products of the labor of the
latter. Now, what will he do with the cotton planter, to say nothing of the rice and
tobacco planters'? The cotton planter produces 1,000,000,000 pounds of cotton each
year, of which the American manufacturer consumes but 180,000,000 pounds, compelling
liim to seek a market in foreign countries for the other 720,000,000 pounds. Ought not
Mr. Skinner's plan to remedy this? Let us see how much he nmst increase the capital,
and the number of operatives of the loom, in order to do it. Without going into details,
my calculations require a capital of $372,600,000 ; value produced, at least $350,000,000;
about 14,500,000 spindles ; 526,000 operatives, with about 2.600,000 dependents, in-
cluding themselves, who would consume only 26,000,000 bushels of wheat, still leaving
a surplus in the hands of tlie farmer, supposing the surplus to be great as now. It would

HEAR BOTH SIDES. 725

produce 4,000,000,000 yards, and clothe 100,000,000 of people, allowing 40 yards to each
person. What, then, would become of the poor manufacturers? Why, they would have
to seek a market for their surplus productions in every land and clime, and among people
of every race, color, and name.

In these calculations, I have supposed the agricultural interest to remain stationary.
That, however, would not be the fact. It would continue to increase ; and with the im-
mense facilities in this country, it will for many generations yet to come far outstrip all
possible increase of the manufacturing interests. The process of checking the productions
of the plough, which Mr. Skinner would have Congress adopt, is idle and preposterous.
The transfer of every million of capital from agriculture to manufactures, would take
with it but about eight thousand persons able to be producers. And, as but about
$20,000,000 capital are wanted to equal the supply of manufactured fabrics to the de-
mand, it would be but a drop from the bucket. It would hardly exert a sensible eflect
upon the interests of agriculture. Mr. Skinner forgets that the great business of manu-
facture is done by machinery. It is ^the steam-engine, the power-loom, and the spinning-
jenny, that perform nearly all the work in the business of manufacture. A few men and
women comparatively are required to look on and watch them. And in this fact will
that worthy and respectable gentleman find an insuperable obstacle to his plausible but
shallow scheme.

But I will not pursue the subject further, although I have an impregnable array of facts
to bear upon it. The trudi is, Mr. Skinner's scheme, when analyzed and stripped of its
typical meaning and reduced to mere matter of fact, is the most absurd and grotesque
that was ever proposed by any man in a sane state of mind. It involves not only a
violation of all sound maxims of political economy, but it boldly contravenes the laws and
the intentions of Providence, who has decreed that one nation shall produce a su^Tolus of
products peculiar to its climate, soil, and habits, to sell to other nations ; — in short, that
nation shall trade with nation and be civilized. Labor, which was ordained by God, is the
parent of commerce; and commerce, next to the Christian religion, is the great agent of
civilization.

Since Mr. Skinner has made his publication the mere vehicle of arguments in favor of
a protective tariff", and so far political, he cannot expect that it will be countenanced and
sustained by the great body of agriculturists who differ from him in opinion. He will
more appropriately look, as he doubtless does, to the manufacturers and iron-masters for
support. CoMMOK Sense.

The writer of this article has evidently been disposed to make himself
merry at our expense. He thinks the doctrine that the loom and the anvil
should take their places by the side of the plough and the harrow, carries
" absurdity" on its face, and he proves its " impossibility" by facts that
neither we " nor any one else can gainsay." There is, however, an old
proverb that says " those who win may laugh," and to which we would beg
to call his attention. We will examine his " facts," and having done so,
will be disposed to permit himself to determine which is the winning side.

The great object we would attain, in his view, is that of rendering the
business of agriculture so poor, and the manufacturing and mining business
so GOOD, as to compel a transfer of men and capital from the former to the
latter, and such must, he thinks, be the uniform and constant result of pro-
tection to the farmer and planter in their efforts to seduce the consumers of
food and converters of cotton and wool to come and take their places by
their side. If this be so, it must produce impoverishment of the nation,
while it enriches only " a few lordly proprietors." If it be so, it must
produce a diminished power to consume cloth and iron, for it is obvious that
no increase in the consumption of these few " lordly proprietors" can
make amends for a diminution in that of the people at large. How far this
was the result of the tariff of 1842, we may now gather from his own facts,
which we shall not pretend to " gainsay."

The value of cotton goods produced in 1840, as given by him, is stated
at $46,000,000. That of 1847 at $57,500,000. This, however, is but one
way of stating facts, and the very one that shuts out of view the advantage
derived from the domestic production of these goods, viz. : the reduction

3p2

726 HEAR BOTH SIDES.

of cost, and increased facility of purchase b)' the consumer. The quantity
of cotton consumed in 1840, was under 300,000 bales. In 1847, it rose to
607,000 bales, being more than double the quantity, while the population had
grown only 25 per cent. Of this increase, nearly the whole had taken place
subsequently to the passage of the tariff of 1842, which found half the cotton
mills in the country in a state of ruin, because of the diminished power to
consume cloth, consequent upon the free trade system of 1840-1841. Three-
fourths of the people of the Union are agriculturists. Now, if the tariff of
1842 had tended to render them " so poor," how is it that they were enabled
to consume so much cloth ? If the free trade system of 1840 and 1841 had
rendered them " so rich," how was it that they could consume so very little
of either domestic or foreign cloth as they did in 1842?

The value of woollen manufactures produced in 1840 is given at
$21,000,000. That of 1847 at $40,000,000. Here is an admission that
the power of consumption had doubled, and it is short of the truth. It is
well known that the whole increase in production took place subsequent to
1842, during which period the population had not increased twenty per
cent. Now, if the protective system rendered the people " so poor," how is
it that they were enabled to consume so much, and why was it that they
consumed so little under the free trade system in 1842?

The iron produced in 1840 is stated at 484,000 tons. In 1842 it had
fallen far below 400,000 tons, for half the furnaces of the Union were
closed. In 1847 it had risen, as is here stated, to 800,000 tons. The
power of consumption had more than doubled in five years, under a system
that, according to this semi-official statement of the views of the late occu-
pant of the Treasury, tended to render the great mass of the people " so
poor" that they would be compelled to seek employment in manufacturing
or mining, to obtain even the necessaries of life. We pray our friend
" Common Sense" to enlighten us on this point, for it is one of great interest.
We should be glad would he inform us why it was that the power of con-
sumption under the free trade system fell so low that nearly all the mills and
furnaces of the Union were closed, and that the farmers cut the throats of
half their sheep ; and why it was that under the ruinous protective system,
described by the Secretary as " a war upon labor and capital," the power
of consumption grew so rapidly that the people were enabled to purchase
tAvice as much cloth and iron, per head, in 1847, as they could do in 1842?
Here are his own " facts," that we do not pretend to " gainsay." All that
we desire is that he shall account for them in accordance with his theory.

To bring the home production of cottons, woollens, and iron, up to the
present consumption, would, in accordance with the " facts" here given,
require that we increased the first two by one-fifth, and the last by one-
eighth, requiring 40,000 laborers, and allowing each to have four depend-
ents, we should thus obtain 200,000 persons, whose demand for " the pro-
ducts of the farmer" would be 2,000,000 bushels of wheat, and as much of
corn, and this, the writer thinks, is putting every thing in "the most favorable
light" for our theory. That done, the farmers will "have still some
30,000,000 of bushels of wheat, and 100,000,000 of bushels of corn for
■vvhich to provide a market." " What now shall be done ?" says " Common
Sense." We will tell him. Forget his theory, and try to obtain a little
practical knowledge.

A similar calculator, writing in the summer of 1812, would have said, the
number of operatives employed in the cotton manufacture is 72,000 ; in that
of woollens, 30,000 ; and in that of iron, 30,000, making a total of 132,000.
We import now one-fourth of our cloth and iron. If we make it all at home,
it will require 33,000 additional operatives, and allowing each of them to

HEAR BOTH SIDES. 727

have four dependents, the result will be that there will be made a market
for " the products of the farmer" to the extent of 165,000 mouths, requiring
3,300,000 bushels, and that in the endeavor to obtain this miserable substi-
tute he will sacrifice his connection with " the great grain markets of the
world."

Let us now see what are the " facts." The consumption of cotton and
woollen cloth, and iron, in 1847, was twice as much per head as in 1842,
and the amount cannot have been short of 250,000,000 if not 300,000,000
of dollars. Taking the former amount, we have an additional consumption
of 125,000,000. Let us now see what it was that was consumed. The
farmer fed the men who mined the coal and ore, those who converted the
ore into iron, and those again who converted the iron into bars, and axes, and
spades, and hoes, and ploughs. He fed the men who built the mills and
furnaces, and the houses for the workmen, and those who made the ma-
chinery. He fed the men and women, and children, who converted the
cotton and the wool into cloth. He furnished the cotton and the wool to
make the cloth. He furnished the stone and the timber with which the
mills were built. The land and its owner furnished every thing towards
the production of these $125,000,000, and thus was made a market on the
land for the products of the land, enabling the farmer to return to the great
machine the refuse of its products, and to increase its production, with con-
stantly increasing power to consume the necessaries, conveniences, and
luxuries of life, while accumulating with increased rapidity the machinery
necessary for a future further increase of production. Here are the " facts"
presented to our view on a retrospect of the past. Can " Common Sense"
"gainsay" them ? If not, can he make them square with his theory ?

Following out the theory that each person engaged in mining or manu-
factures, or dependent upon persons so engaged, is a customer to the farmer
to the extent of only 20 bushels, we are told, and that in a manner the most
emphatic, that " if the whole cotton, and woollen, and iron interests of
England were transported to this country, they could not consume the sur-
plus grain and provisions produced by the American farmers." This is
certainly a strange assertion, coming as it does from a man that insists upon
our looking to England for a market for our great and constantly increas-
ing surplus ! We will not imitate him in calling it " a chimera of the brain
— a most palpable absurdity," because we believe that such words are used
only in the absence of the reasoning power, but will leave its author to
decide upon its claims for consideration after it shall have been examined.

The export of Great Britain may be taken at about 50,000,000 of pounds
sterHng, consisting almost entirely of cotton, woollens, and iron. The home
consumption is far greater than the export, but to avoid the possibility of
having our assertions challenged, we will put the whole product of cottons,
woollens, and iron, at 100,000,000 of pounds sterling, or $480,000,000.
Deducting the cotton and the wool that are imported, we may put it at
$400,000,000, but we should be safe in placing it far higher, and all this
consists of the products of the earth, and mainly of food, yet the transfer of
all these vast interests, as we are told, would not be sufficient to find con-
sumers for our vast surplus ! If this be true, how is it that we do now
dispose of it ? Our export to all the world is not one-twentieth of what is
consumed in England by these three great interests, and yet a small extra
demand, like that of 1847, empties our granaries !

The farmers of England pay a rent of $100,000,000, and they and those
whom they employ must expend far more in the purchase of sugar, tea, and
other important articles of food, of clothing, furniture, and machinery of
production, and for all this they must sell the products of the earth — food

'28 HEAR BOTH SIDES.

and the materials of clothing — to be consumed by those who are not engaged
in the work of cuUivation. In addition, England imports thirty or forty
millions of dollars' worth of food from Ireland — and much from Scotland,
Canada, the United States, Poland, Russia, and even India. All this is to
be consumed by those who are not engaged in the work of cultivation, the
men who convert the products of the earth, and those who are engaged in
the business of exchanging them. The converters are at least four times
as numerous as the exchangers, and must consume in that proportion this
vast amount of the products of the earth. These converters are the men
who make cotton and woollen cloth, and iron — those who constitute the
three great interests whose powers of consumption "Common Sense" would
have us so much despise.

Admitting it, however, to be a " fact" not to be " gainsaid," that if our
farmers could have the supplying the whole of these millions of men, and
women, and children, employed in producing the cloth and iron of England,
we should still have a surplus, is it not absurd to be perpetuallj' straining
for a chance of feeding a very minute portion of them, and that in competi-
tion with the serfs of Russia and the wretched people of Sicily, who must
sell at any price, having made no market on the land for its products, and
who now obtain in the market of Liverpool but one dollar per bushel of
60 pounds, a large portion of which is swallowed up in the cost of trans-
portation from the farm to the port of shipment, from that port to Liverpool,
and in commissions to the hosts of men in the various towns and cities, who
live upon the spoils of the unfortunate producer? If our surplus is really
so great, is it not obvious that we have too many producers and too few
consumers ? Would not " common sense" teach us that the system which
enables men to remain at home to be customers to the farmer, instead of
flying to the West, there to become his rivals, is the one which would most
advance the agricultural interest? Really, it is time that men who under-
take to teach the world in regard to these great questions, should commence
with some little — even if it be a very little — practical knowledge.

It is insisted, however, that "nation must trade with nation," to become
"civilized." We might reply by pointing to Ireland. Her poor potato-
growers trade off their whole product, except the wretched thing called the
lumper — which is preferred because not easily digested — but we do not see
that they become more civilized. They do not even keep the pig, but the
more they trade the poorer and more miserable they become. Where is
the civilization of India ? — of Portugal ? — of the West Indies 1 Has com-
merce— that which is facetiously called free trade — given them civilization?
Does Canada advance in civilization ? New Brunswick has perfect freedom
of trade, yet every vessel that comes thence is crowded with passengers
who flee from it as if from pestilence, to seek protection, even that which is
afforded by the tariff of 1846.* Nova Scotia has perfect freedom of trade,

* Canadian Emigration to the States. — The Western journals inform lis tliat numbers of
Canadians vvlio have been warmly in favor of the annexation of Canada to the Union,
are taking passage on board of steamboats, with all their property and families, for Wis-
consin and other States. The St. John (N. B.) News speaks to the same effect, of emi-
gration from New Brunswick, and it is apprehended liy the Provincial papers, that unless
something be done, the provinces will become comparatively deserted in less dian twelve
months. — JSorlh Amcriran.

Distress. — Accounts of distress and destitution reach us from all parts of the country.
We have heard the names of several parties mentioned, who, to save their children from
starvation, were compelled to kill dicir domestic animals, and many families have been
subsisting lor some time on the fish they catch in the rivers. The principal cause of this
distress has been the repeated failures in the wheat and potato crops ; and as there has

HEAR BOTH SIDES. 729

yet men starve to death surrounded by fertile land, and coal and ore, — that
should make them rich. Caa "Common Sense" explain all these things in
accordance with his theory ?

Of all the countries of Continental Europe, there is none so prosperous as
Belgium. Around her, everywhere, are wars and bloodshed, revolution,
poverty, wretchedness, and death. She alone is so quiet that, month after
month, her name is unmentioned in the newspapers. Her population
increases rapidly, and yet she sends us none of it. Why is it so ? Is it not
because she has protected the farmer in his efforts to draw the consumer to
his side, and enabled him to convert sandy wastes into cultivated farms of the
highest fertility ? Is it not that she has thereby enabled man to trade freely
with his neighbor man? It is so, and in thus doing she favors the advance
of civilization far more than do those who insist that " nation shall trade with
nation," advocating a policy that compels men to fly from their fellow men,
abandoning the vicinity of rich lands, uncleared and undrained, to seek the
West, there to commence the work of cultivation on poor ones, as is the case
to so great an extent with the people of Virginia and South Carolina.

It is not, however, true, that protection diminishes the power to maintain
commerce. The trade of unprotected Ireland, and Canada, and New Bruns-
wick, and the West Indies, and India, is diminishing, because the system
has tended to the exhaustion of the land and the people. That of the Union
did so in 1840, 1841, and 1842, for the same reason. With protection,
foreign commerce grew, and with it it will continue to grow, because men
who are enabled to combine their exertions produce largely, and the power
of consumption grows with that of production.

We have, however, given to this " masterly view of the question" more
consideration than it merited, and will now close. It came before the world
preceded by a flourish of oflicial trumpets, and therefore alone it is that we
have given it any. In conclusion^ we would suggest to its author that if he
would stud}^ what it is that " common sense" prompts men most to desire,
he will find that it is the power of associating with their fellow men. If,
then, he will study his own system, he will find that it tends to compel men
to separate from each other, and thus to do precisely that which "common
sense" would teach them to avoid. To the editor of " The Union" we would
suggest that as we have given place to his attack upon us, he should imitate
our example, and enable his readers, too, to " hear both sides."

Drum-head Cabbage. — Mr. Fuller, M. P. informed the Council that he
had for the last two years grown the drum-head cabbage from seed obtained
by him from Messrs. Thomas Gibbs & Co., the Seedsmen to the Society.
His bailiff had last year a very fine crop of forty tons per acre of this plant,
which he thinks a very valuable one, and economical in its cultivation. He
gives these cabbages to the cows, calves, and ewes, as well as to the lambs
of last year, and finds all do well on them. The land on Avhich they were
sown was very poor land, covered with heath and furze, but which, by well
draining and subsoiling, had produced very excellent turnips, carrots, and
the drum-head cabbages now referred to ; while on a part of it last year was
grown the finest crop of peas in that part of Sussex, subsequently damaq-ed,
however, before carrying, by the wetness of the autumn. — English Paper.

been but little employment during the winter, the inhabitants in the rin-al districts have
been thrown for support on the produce of their farms, which they had considered but of
little consequence whether they were tilled or not. — Mlrarnichi (^Canada') Gleaner.

These poor people have no manufactures, and therefore they are unable to consume on
the land the products of the land, which becomes at last exhausted, and that is fol-
lowed by the exhaustion and death of its owner.
Vol. I— 92

730 THE COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS.

THE COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS.

Washington, Jpril 12, 1849

Messrs. J. S. Skinner & Son — Gentlemen : — In your prefatory remarks
to a table headed "Agricultural Statistics," published in "The Plough, the
Loom, and the Anvil" for April, instant, I find the following : —

" True it is, that some of our readers who may happen to be so favored
by their Representatives in Congress as to receive the Report of the Com-
missioner of Patents, may get many tables like this, which serve to make
up those Reports ; but if they chance should, they will probably receive
along with them, as heretofore, an exhortation to submit themselves
to the low wages and the low living that may enable them to compete in the
grain markets of the world with the produce of the slave and the pauper
labor of Europe."

The character given, in the paragraph above quoted, to the Reports of
the Patent Office since I have been Commissioner, is an utter misrepresenta-
tion. Not a report of mine contains a single " exhortation," expressed or
implied, to the farmers of this country to submit themselves to "the low
wages and the low living," to enable them to compete with " the slave and
the pauper labor," of Europe. And how you could have fallen into so gross
an error with regard to the Reports of the Patent Office I cannot imagine,
unless you have a disposition to judge of the character of those Reports
without first availing yourselves of a knowledge of their contents.

I should not indulge in this strain of remark, if I had not before observed
a disposition on your part to misrepresent in your journal the true character
of the Patent Office Reports.

Whatever may be my individual views with regard to the subject of free
trade, or protection, I have, in my Official Reports, carefully and scrupu-
lously avoided any expression or argument in favor of one or the other. I
have given facts only in relation to the great industrial interests of the
country, from which all can draw conclusions ; and from which conclusions
have been drawn in favor of both theories, by their respective advocates.

This assertion, I am confident, the most rigid and scrutinizing examination
of my reports of which you are capable, will not enable you to gainsay. I
therefore call upon you, as an act of justice, to publish this letter in " The
Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil," in order that its readers may see that
your statements with regard to the character of the Patent Office Reports,
are wholly groundless and erroneous.

I am, respectfully, your obedient servant, Edmund Burke.

To the Hon. Edmund Burke, Commissioner of Patents, Washington.

Sir: — Your communication of April 12, was received on the return of the
Senior Editor to this place, to arrange the matter for the June number of
" The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil." The whole of the 3/ay number,
as you will perceive by the enclosed last page of it, was then already in
type, compelling us to postpone the publication of your letter until June ;
and leaving nothing to be done to meet your wishes for the present, except
to put forth on the cover of the May number, the statement, of which we
herewith send a copy. In the haste of sending them to the printer, the
introduction to the tables was not properly worded, as we shall admit, but
we utterly disclaim the " disposition" you have allowed yourself to impute
to us, to misrepresent your Reports, in which we have found, from time to
time, many statistical facts of much importance to every political inquirer.
Yet we are far from agreeing with you " in the conclusion that the American
grain growers can deliver grain or flour at as low a price in England as the

THE COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS. 731

grain growers of any other country, not excepting Russia on the Black Sea ;
and that they have it in their power to command the great grain market of
Great Britain, and of nearly all the corn-importing countries of the world."
This you believe the grain growers of the United States can do, and there-
fore it may be implied you Avould exhort or advise them to attempt it ; while
we beheve they cannot, without, in our judgment, (as we should have
stated,) submitting themselves to the low wages and low living of the serfs
with whom you think they may successfully contend — nor do we think they
could even then. Our opinion is, that it were better not thus to lead the
American grain grower to depend on the great grain market of Great
Britain, but to prompt him rather to the cultivation of the more rehable
home-market, by bringing to the side of the American agriculturist the con-
sumers of that immense amount of agricultural produce now imported into
the United States from England, and through her from Russia on the Black
Sea, in the form of British manufactures. Your opinions, to the contrary,
are as honestly entertained as ours, and may be more correct ; but, for our-
selves, we would ask with General Jackson, in his letter to Dr. Coleman :
" Where has the American farmer a market for his surplus product ?
Except for cotton, he has neither a foreign nor a home market. Does
not this clearly prove, where there is neither a market at home nor abroad,
that there is too much labor employed in agriculture, and that the channels
for labor should be multiplied ? Common sense points out at once the
remedy — Draw from agriculture this superabundant labor, employ it in
mechanism and manufactures, thereby creating a home market for your
breadstuffs, and distributing labor to the most profitable account, and benefits
to the country will result. Take from agriculture in the United States, six
hundred thousand men, women, and children, and you will at once give a
home market for more breadstufTs than all Europe now furnishes. In short,
sir, we have been too long subject to the policy of the British merchants.
It is time that we should become a little more Americanized ; and instead
of feeding the paupers and laborers of England, feed our own, or else, in a
short time, by continuing our present policy, we shall all be rendered
paupers ourselves."

After all, sir, it is a question for the American people to decide ; and in
our humble sphere we are endeavoring to persuade them to regard it not as
a party, but as a broad national question ; and this free discussion and the
force of truth seem to have already in a great degree accomplished, as is
seen in the fact that even the tariff of 1846 is asserted by its friends to be a
designedly protective one, leaving it now to be decided as a question of
amount and not of principle — and on this surely men may judge for them-
selves, without the aid of mere partisans.

Not doubting that we are all equally aiming at what we suppose to be
best for our country, and assuring you of our readiness to correct any mis-
apprehension or misrepresentation of your views, we remain,

Respectfully yours, J. S. Skinner & Son.

Portable Faihvay. — Dr. Spurgin favored the Council with the inspection
of a model for a rotary railway, on the principle of the simple roller, for use
in farms, docks, warehouses, and other places where heavy weights were to
be conveyed short distances without the aid of horse-power ; as manure from
vards, corn from stack-yards, timber from woods, turnips or mangold-wurtzel
from flat heavy land. He considered that this mode of conveying would
prove fully efficient in its action ; combining great simplicity with ready
adaptability for the purposes required, at a cost not exceeding £10. — Eng-
lish Paper.

732 HIDE TRADE OF THE WEST.

HIDE TRADE OF THE WEST.

" A LOT of one thousand green hides was received at St. Louis on the 4th instant, from
AUon, to be shipped direct for the Eastern cities. The RepubUcan says : — ' A large busi-
ness is now being done in the articles of dry flint and green salted hides, and St. Louis
bids fair to become the greatest market for this article of any city in the Union. Already
she exports more than any city in the West.' "

The people of the West raise oxen on lands that are surrounded by tim-
ber, and where bark should be cheap. Instead of tanning the hides themselves,
they send it East, to places where bark is dear, and receive pay in shoes,
and saddles, and harness, produced by aid of bark that has travelled hun-
dreds of miles to seek the tan-yard. Could they once adopt, definitively, the
poHcy that tends to bring the loom and the anvil to their sides, the tannery
and the shoe factory would speedily follow, and they would have cheap
shoes and saddles, as well as cheap cloth and iron. If evidence of this be
desired, it may be found in the following paragraph which we take from
one of our exchange papers : —

" A new enterprise, similar to the Variety Works at Columbus, Ga., is about to be
established in our city. Our fellow-citizen, Mr. John Glendenning, in conjunction with
Mr. Lockhart, of Lincoln county, has taken steps to put up a buikling near the site of the
Old Planters' Hotel, where every variety of wood-ware, such as barrels, casks, kegs, pails,
tubs, and buckets, is to be manufactured on a large scale. The steam-engine to be used
is already here, and the building — a large three story brick building — contracted for. In
a few months this manufactory will be under way, and probably in full operation.

" In connection with the wooden ware factory will be machinery for cutting and
polishing marble — a branch of business in which Mr. Glendenning is already profitably
engaged. We hope in time to see Georgia marble freely used in this Georgia factory, for
various objects of use and ornament." — Augusta Sentinel.

Of all the States of the South, Georgia is the one that progresses most
rapidly, because of all she has most endeavored to bring the spindle and the
loom — the spinner and the weaver — to the side of the cotton and the food.
W"ith each step in this progress there arises an increased demand for shoes
and saddles, for wooden ware, and for all other of the various commodities
requiring hides and bark, and timber and food, for their production. The
tanner and the shoemaker come, and they make a market for the products
of the spinner and the weaver. They, in turn, help to make a market for the
products of the bucket-maker, and all combine to give to the planter a market
for his cotton and his food, enabling him to increase his consumption of
shoes and saddles, buckets, cloth, and iron. Concentration makes the food
come from the rich soils, and prevents the necessity /or flying to the West,
there to produce food or cotton from the poor ones, on which the work of
cultivation must of necessity always begin, for want of capital to clear the
rich ones.

Extraordinary Cotton Picking. — The N. O. Delta say.s, by a letter
received from a friend at Tuscaloosa, Ala., we learn that on a plantation in
Long Prairie, near the former place, the extraordinary airiount of 3277 lbs.
was picked in one day, (15th of October last.) by five field hands. However
extraordinary the feat may appear, it is nevertheless true, as it comes to us
so well authenticated that we have no reason to doubt its correctness. The
followinir are the names of the slaves, with the amount of cotton picked by
each :— T. R. McClintock's boy Sam, 712 lbs. ; boy Bill, C07 lbs. ; John
Cockrel's boy Frank, (501 lbs. ; F. Herndon's girl Violet, GG5 lbs. ; and
W. H. Barmester's boy Peter, 572 lbs. ; making in all 3277 lbs.

JOHN SINGLETON. 733

JOHN SINGLETON.

The April No. of " The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil" contains an
extract from a letter from the venerable man Avhose name is prefixed, with
some very significant preliminary remarks of the Editor, which no one
better knows how to employ, when he wishes to elicit information. The
life of a man exclusively devoted to agricultural pursuits, presents but little
to interest the general reader ; but, nevertheless, one who has done so much
for the advancement of that great interest, which occupies the time and
labor of the great majority of the people of this country, merits respectful
consideration, and to have his name rescued from the shade of oblivion.

This gentleman was born in Whitehaven, England, on the 28th of De-
cember, 1750, and received his elementary education at St. Bees. In April,
1766, he went to London, to his uncle, Thomas Dickinson, with whom he
remained till May, 1767, when he took his departure for New York, and
arrived in July of the same year. He then entered the counting-house of
Henry White, with whom he remained till the last of June, 1770, when,
upon the invitation of his maternal uncle, James Dickinson, he came to
Maryland, and arrived in Talbot County on the 1st of July, 1770. It appears
that in 1772 he made a voyage to Madeira, for the benefit of his health, and
on his return entered into partnership with Andrew Main, and settled at
Dover. This partnership was of a mixed character — mercantile and agri-
cultural— but of short duration : for in 1773 he returned to his uncle, and
lived with him. The following year he was married, (1774,) and managed
his uncle's affairs, who was an old and childless man. In 1776 he settled
at East Otwell, one of the farms of the aforesaid uncle, where he remained
exclusively devoted to agricultural pursuits till the day of his death, which
occurred on the 15th of March, 1819. It is a fortunate circumstance for the
Eastern Shore of Maryland, that the destination of this gentleman was
changed from that of a merchant to a farmer. The burning of Mr. Single-
ton's residence, some years ago, posterior, however, to his death, occasioned
the loss of many records. Upon the death of Mr. Dickinson, the nephew
became his sole heir, and, perhaps, the fine herd of cattle which the latter
had, may be justly attributed to an importation of some half dozen cows,
which was made very shortly before the death of the uncle.

Perhaps no man was ever more enthusiastically devoted to agricultural
pursuits than the subject of this memoir. No matter what he undertook,
his energy and perseverance were indomitable. He was for a large portion
of his life a keen sportsman, the best shot at ducks in the country, but was
never fond of the sports of the field. Mr. Singleton's landed estate was
neither large nor particularly valuable — certainly inferior to other lands in
his vicinity. It consisted of two farms, not adjoining, containing some nine
hundred acres. It is conceded that he was the first great improver of land
in Maryland : how fortunate, therefore, that his destination was changed !

The writer of this imperfect sketch well knows that he was the first man
who ever covered a field with manure in this section of country : not a
patch — not a lot — but one hundred acres of land. This was done for years,
before others waked up, and saw the necessity and advantage of the opera-
tion. The country had been impoverished by the cultivation of tobacco;
the little manure made had been exclusively apphed to that crop. But
little light was shed on agriculture for years after his labors commenced, and
not much at the close ; but of that little he availed himself. When his first
experiments were made with marl, and for some years thereafter, he was
literally laughed at by many — supposing that nothing could improve land
that had not the odor of the farm-yard or stable. The value of calcareous

3Q

734

JOHN SINGLETON.

manures was neither known nor appreciated, and like the introduction of
gypsum into Pennsylvania — it was by little and little. It may be safely
affirmed, that but for the discovery and application of marl, this section of
country would have been depopulated — many thought of moving out to the
rich lands of the West — of abandoning a country abounding in calcareous
manures, and possessing natural canals, where the waters themselves fur-
nished large means for subsistence, and many of the luxuries of life. The
means of renovation were present on a large portion of the lands, and this
great pioneer of agriculture had demonstrated successfully the mode of
application, and the unfailing result. There is now not one cultivator in
these parts, even the most ignorant, who does not know the value of calca-
reous manures — and that it is literally a sine qua non.

The baysider of Talbot, who has no marl, catches the oysters off the bars,
and converts the shells into Ume, by burning them in kilns ; and they who
live removed from salt water, and possess not this resource, purchase stone-
lime, which is delivered from vessels up the creeks and tributaries of the
Bay — and then in many cases hauled for miles to the place of deposit.

Mr. Singleton was an experimental farmer. Science had done but httle
to enlighten his path ; and his untiring industry led him to embark in many
trials, unthought-of and untouched by others, for the advancement of agri-
culture. He was asked by a neighbor, above thirty years ago, if he did not
intend to get some Lawler wheat for seed, because it was regarded as proof
against the " fly." He rephed in the negative — " You young men may try
it : I want faith." He then proceeded to state that many years before,
when the ravages of the fly were at their maximum height, he had procured
twelve different varieties of wheat, and among the number, one had a solid
stem : they were all seeded in adjacent rows, and under like circumstances,
and xvere all affected! He gave it as his opinion, that no variety of wheat
was exempt from the ravages of the " Hessian ;" and it may be well ques-
tioned whether any of the present day ever made more experiments as to
the different kinds, time of seeding, mode of preparation, and every thing
calculated to avert this dread evil, which so often blasts the hopes of the
husbandman.

Man is made, by the situation in which he is placed ; and he who makes
a discovery, and successfully carries it into practice, not only benefiting
himself, but the community in which he resides, richly deserves to have
his name handed down to posterity as a benefactor. If ever any individual,
in the calm pursuits of private life, deserved a monument to be erected to
his memory, John Singleton was the man. Much has been said latterly, of
the importance of keeping farm accounts, and a statement of every operation
performed on the farm. It is well known to the undersigned, that this gen-
tleman kept a regular diary all his life, in which was recorded every thing
that pertained to the farm — the number of loads hauled of every description
— the times of seeding, quantity per acre, amount of product — the various
experiments made, with all the details — and even the winds were noted, and
all the changes of weather. Few men possess the patience, and energy,
and industry, necessary to carry out such a system. Many of these diaries
were saved from the conflagration, and give ample proof of the merits of the
man. Perhaps the early initiation into the counting-house, and the few
years spent therein, may have paved the way for such practice.

Chief Justice Tilghman, of Pennsylvania, cultivated his patrimonial lands
in Maryland, till the day of his death. They were situated in Queen Anne's
County, near the head of Chester River. Such were his ofiicial duties,
that the venerable judge could only pay an annual visit. Having directed
the clearing up of an extensive piece of meadow, a fine supply of marl was

JOHN SINGLETON. 735

discovered — hence his letter to Mr. Singleton, with whom he was acquainted,
as to the mode of application, well knowing his abilit}'- to supply the
desired information.

The reply to the various interrogatories was written under the most dis-
advantageous circumstances. It so happened that the undersigned went to
his house a day or two after the aforesaid letter was despatched. He was
so feeble from age and disease, and his hand so tremulous, that he could not
write a line : he dictated the answer to the judge's interrogatories, and a
young daughter committed it to paper. Most persons, under such circum-
stances, would have declined the task ; and surely he had an ample excuse :
but such was the character of the man, his disposition to be useful, and the
remnant of that energy and perseverance which so eminently distinguished
him, prompted the effort, doubtless among the last, of a life as pure as that
of any man who ever lived.

It would be vain to attempt an account of his agricultural proceedings :
the writer of this has seen, at an early age, his immense compost-heaps, for
years before any such things were observed on any other farm ; also his
applications of marl: all men now know their value, and profit by his
example. As to his mode of cultivation, it may be remarked, that after
making fallows in every form, and after all the modes that ever have been
suggested or practised, he came to the conclusion, some years before his
death, and practised accordingly, that all the land intended for cultivation in
any form, should be manured and ploughed in the spring — that what was
designed for wheat, should be previously planted and cultivated in corn —
alleging that no one crop of wheat, however prepared, was equal to a crop
of corn and wheat on the same field — that the cultivation of corn was a good
preparation for wheat — that summer fallows were injurious to land, filling
it with filth, because most noxious weeds have then gone to seed, and are
thereby multiplied in a ten-fold degree. His practice was to take the corn,
stalk and all, off the field, and then seed the wheat, and plough it in. He
was the first man who ever attempted and carried out this system ; but it
frequently caused the wheat seeding to be too late, and hence a diminution
of the crop. But it gave him a great resource for manure, and whatever
else might suffer, this was always uppermost with him. He also abandoned
the reap-hook at a very early period, substituting the cradle for cutting
wheat of such size as was only attempted by hooks. This perhaps led him
to another expedient — the horse-rake, of Avhich he was the inventor, for
gathering the scattered wheat in the stubble ; and he alone used it for
years. It has since become the custom of all farmers in this section of the
country, to employ this saving implement.

It may be remarked that this system was adapted to what may be called
emphatically a grain-growing country, and where grazing does not consti-
tute a part — except simply for the use of the farm. His mode of preparation
was to flush the land for corn, and he was especially particular about the
ploughing : the drag-harrow was then passed over, the land marked out
lightly four feet each way, and three or four stalks left standing in the hill.
The field was worked with harrows repeatedly, and just before harvest
cross-ploughed ; after harvest, one or two harrowings, according to circum-
stances. It may be added that he sowed clover on his wheat-fields, and
used plaster, which had moderate action on his land. He also grew hemp
for a time, and tried many things never attempted by others.

It would be useless to pursue a further account of his forming. Nothing
has been stated which was not well known to or seen by the writer. It has
now been thirty years since the death of this gentleman, and agriculture,
like most other things, has made great advances in that interval ; but much

736 JOHN SINGLETON.

yet remains to be done. We live in an age of progressive improvement,
and perhaps, too, at the most eventful period of the world. Few men have
descended to the grave more respected or more honored than the subject of
this memoir, by all his friends and neighbors. He had not an enemy.
His Avas a life of probity, and honor, and true piety. The cheerfulness of
his temper, and his fondness for company, caused his habitation to be
always full. If he had a fault, it Avas too much generosity.

The appeal made by the Editor of " The Plough, the Loom, and the
Anvil," to rescue the name of such a man from oblivion, has prompted
" A Nephew," to whom such significant allusion was made, to make the
attempt: conscious, nevertheless, of his inability to discharge such a duty
satisfactorily ; but at the same time firmly believing that such has been his
position, he has a better knowledge of the life, character, and farming ope-
rations of the deceased distinguished farmer, than any other man living.
Another consideration also induces the attempt : that farmers generally will
be glad to know something of one who has done so much for the advance-
ment of agriculture, at an early period, as John Singleton. Finally, it is
proper to state, that the relation which subsisted between the subject of this
article and the writer was that of marriage only — not blood.

A Nephew.

It might look like affectation, were we to attempt to say with how much pleasure the
preceding memoir is registered in "The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil;" yet who
among the many that have honored our poor effusions by their perusal, for the last thirty
years, might not be summoned to testiiy how earnestly we have endeavored to rouse,
among the cultivators of the soil, that sense of self-respect and true discrimination, that
would lead them to venerate and emulate such men asJoHX Singleton — men of unpre-
tending virtue, and distinguished usefulness in private life, — far above those who may
have gained higher eminence and greater eclat, in the tortuous paths of the politician, the
more attractive pursuits of sordid avarice, or the more popular career of the military ad-
venturer ? Who does not know, that while such men may, like a choice old tree of the
orchard, perish, and leave not a stump to mark where it stood, its seeds have yet been
widely scattered, and its precious fruit be thus yet for ages enjoyed by a careless and for-
getful posterity ! Thus it is, that while all of us now know the value of calcareous, and
the indispensable necessity for other manures, the importance of fine tilth, the economy
of the scythe and the horse-rake, the expediency of removing the entire crop of corn pre-
paratory to sowing grain, the advantages of farm registers, the superiority of drill hus-
bandry, the utility of deep ploughing, the excellence of the centre-draught-plough, the
perfection of improved animals, imported at great cost, &c. : yet who stops to dwell upon
and do homage to the names of Tull, Ruffin, Singleton, Moore, Pennock, McCormic,
Davis, Prouty, Powell, Clay, Sanders, Reybold, Van Rensellaer, Stephenson, Corning,
Prentice, Vail, and a host of others, who, as pioneers, have gone ahead in the doubtful
paths of experiment, establishing for our guidance by so much labor of mind and body,
and so many costly trials, the labor-saving implements we are using — the noble animals
we are breeding — and the precepts and processes we are following with so much confi-
dence and profit? Thanks, then, say we, in the name of all farmers true to their profes-
sion, to the " Nephew'^ who has in this instance so promptly and so well answered to our
call in their name, for a memoir of one of the noblest works of God — an honest man ; — a
memoir the more commendable and suitable for its very simplicity and exemption from
all exaggeration and hyperbole of fact and of language, and so in admirable keeping with
the unostentatious and useful life and character of its subject. — Editors P. L. ^ A.

The Belgian Government, to encourage the cultivation of the silk-worm,
had, by a decree, offered to all who applied to the Minister of the Interior
slips of mulberry trees and silk-worm eggs, and as a further encouragement,
has offered a premium of one florin per kil. for cocoons of silk produced in
the country, and, by an arrangement with the government, M. Mevuis, at
Ucles, had undertaken to purchase, at the current price of the French mar-
kets, all the cocoons produced in Belgium.

THE CORN TRADE OF EUROPE. 737

THE CORN TRADE OF EUROPE.

From the Editors of "The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil,'" to the Editor of "The
Easton Gazette," Maryland.

Sin : — I send you for insertion in5'0iir paper — as yours is so exclusively a grain-growing
region — an article, of vvliich the printer has just sent us a proof, intended for a forthcom-
ing number of "The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil," on " The Corn Trade of Europe.''''
It will at once show how agriculture., which some would teach the farmer has nothing
to do with legislation, is most intimately connected with it, and liable to be affected
by the policy of our public men, and tlierefore a subject proper to be studied in that
relation — not as a narrow question of petty party warfare, but as one that concerns the
whole nation; until the question shall be permanently settled, how far we are to cultivate
and depend upon a home-market, under our own control, or upon foreign markets over
which we have no control, and in which we must meet as competitors the millions of
serfs belonging to the nobles of Russia — laborers liable to be sold like sheep, with the
land, and who live on what is called pumpernicle, a sort of hard, dry, black rye bread,
that might harden the flesh and improve the wind of fox-hounds in the hunting season,
but is not fit for free Christian men.

We are accused of perverting our journal — " The Plougli, the Loom, and the Anvil,'" —
to parly purposes. Nothing can be more untrue. I have established various periodicals,
which have enjoyed eminent success and prosperity; but never yet have allowed one
liiie to appear in them with any view to party ends.

The question at present, as to protection of American industry, is no longer a question
of principle — that has been settled. The authors of the tariff of 184G, repealing that of
1842, avowed it to be an efficient measure of protection. The real question, then, is not
one of principle, but merely of the proper amount of protection. Let any respectable
farmer on the Eastern Shore of Maryland pull off for a moment his party spectacles, and
read the accompanying article dispassionately, and say for himself whether it is safe to
depend on the grain-market of England ? — or is it not belter, instead of importing mil-
lions of bushels of grain from Europe in the form of British manufactures, that we should
force or entice the manufacturers to come with their skill and capital — dieir looms and
their anvils — to eat our corn and wheat, and mutton and pork, and beef and potatoes, in
our own country, alongside of our own ploughs 1 Does any one deny that General Jack-
son was " an up to the hub"' democrat? Yet what said he on this very subject? Let gen-
tlemen read what he said, and judge for themselves, instead of pinning their faith igno-
miniously on the sleeves of party hacks, of any faction, who use the people as so many
stepping-stones to power and olfice. General Jackson, in his letter to Dr. Coleman, of
North Carolina, on this very subject of drawing the loom and the anvil close to the
plough in our own country, said: '-In short. Sir, we have been too long subject to the policy
of the British merchants — it is time that we sliould become a little more Americanized, and
instead of feeding the paupers and laborers of England, feed our own." Now it is for
endeavoring, not merely to assert but to illustrate by all sorts of facts and arguinents, the
very doctrine contained and more fully explained in General Jackson"s letter, that we are
charitably denounced as being sold to the American manufacturers, or it may be " to the
Dutch." Well, suppose we were so sold, body and soul, how does that answer our argu-
ments— our demonstrations? To impute sinister or corrupt motives, is not the way to re-
fute an argument. While we despise the imputation of unworthy motives, we pity tlie
man who, without the sense or the power to discover or expose our error, has not the
manly independence to renounce his own. Our aim is, not to establish any foregone
conclusion, but to arrive at the truth ; and therefore we rather court than shun all gen-
tlemanlike controversy with those who think us wrong ; but how can any one controvert
our principles successfully, without proving that General Jackson was wrong in his great
fun<lamental policy ? Tlie fact is, that, in the present state of the country, this is the
great question — whether we shall place the consumer by the side of the agriculturist, by
making it the interest of both that he should go there, or whether we will keep hiin at a
distance, wasting in the superfluous and unprofitable work of transportation and exchange,
the time and labor that should be given to productive industry, and the improvement of
our lands and ourselves, ^ely on it, the people, thinking for themselves, are fast coming
to agree with General Jackson and General Taylor, that we should give "encouragement
and protection" to American industry.

Vol. I.— 93 3 q 2

738 THE CORN TRADE OF EUROPE.

[From the London Mercantile Gazette, March 23.]

Commercial affairs remain in much the same position as last week — in
no branch of trade has any marked improvement occurred ; indeed, each
day's experience tends to prove the baneful effects of free trade on the inter-
nal industry of the country. The value of all agricultural produce con-
tinues steadily to recede, and despondency and alarm on the part of the
farmers increase. Moderately good qualities of English red wheat are not
worth more than 40s. per quarter, a price which, with so small a yield as
that of the last crop, is greatly below the cost of production. There is, how-
ever, no alternative but to sell ; for, depressed as quotations now are, there
is nothing to encourage farmers to hold. The spring shipments from tbe
Baltic have still to come forward, and the continued decline in our markets
has not hitherto stopped consignments from France, Holland, and Belgium.
Our own impression is, that, whilst importations are permitted free of duty,
40s. per quarter for fine red Avheat will always draw abundant supplies,
except in cases of general scarcity, over a large portion of Europe. The
best qualities of red Baltic, French, &c., are at present worth some 4s. to 5s.
per quarter more than the figure named ; hence we do not calculate on any
immediate falling off in the arrivals from abroad. The weather has con-
tinued favorable for spring sowing, and all descriptions of out-door work are
in a state of great forwardness. The reports from the rural districts, in
regard to the appearance of the wheat plant, are likewise of a satisfactory
nature, and, as far as the prospects for the next harvest are concerned,
every thing promises well. At some of the agricultural markets, rather
increased supphes have been brought forward this week, and so soon as the
sowing of Lent corn shall have been brought to a close, we may calculate
on larger deliveries from the growers than we have had of late. The
arrivals of wheat coastwise into London have meanwhile been very small,
and but httle has been brought forward at Mark-lane by land-carriage sam-
ples from the neighboring counties. The show on Monday on the Essex
and Suffolk stands, was trifling in the extreme, and from the more remote
parts of the kingdom hardly any appeared ; factors were consequently
unwilling to accept less money, and though the demand was extremely
slow, previous prices were about maintained. On Wednesday the stands
Avere completely bare, and the attendance of buyers being at the same time
very thin, the operations Avere altogether unimportant, and quotations re-
mained nominally unaltered. This morning affairs continued in much the
same position, and prices underwent no change. The arrivals of wheat
from abroad have been on a very liberal scale, 31,440 quarters having come
to hand during the week. Importers have shown a good deal of anxiety to
realize, without incurring landing expenses ; and whilst the value of English
wheat has remained nearly stationary, that of foreign has undergone a fur-
ther reduction of Is. per quarter. Most of the business done on Monday
was at that abatement, and since then the turn has, on the whole, been in
favor of the purchaser. To-day, comnion Odessa was obtainable at 88s. to
39s., and good at 40s. to 42s. per quarter. The town millers put down the
nominal top price of flour 2s. per sack, on Monday, which had more or less
influence on the value of other sorts. The decline submitted to has, how-
ever, failed to impart more activity to the demand, and the sale has been
slow throughout the week. Barley of home growth has come sparingly to
hand, but having had good arrivals of foreign, the quantity brought forward
has proved fully sufficient to satisfy the inquiry. The maltsters have for
some time past conducted their operations with extreme caution, and the
business has been principally in distilling and grinding sorts. Low qualities
of foreign have been sold at 20s. to 22s., and the finer descriptions at 23s

OATS, ETC. 739

to 25s. per quarter. Malt has hung heavily on hand, and its previous value
has barely been supported. The arrivals of oats coastwise have been small,
and from Ireland we are without supplies. A good many small cargoes of
foreign having, however, come to hand, the dealers have been enabled to
buy on quite as easy terms as before. The best heavy quahties, whether
of home or foreign growth, have commanded former terms ; but light and
out-of-conditioned sorts have in some cases been forced off at a reduction of
6d. per quarter. This was more generally the case to-day than in the
early part of the week. Beans and peas have not varied in value, but the
demand for these articles and Indian corn has been languid in the extreme."

We give the above article in full, because we deem it highly important that the farmers
should understand accurately the condition of " the great grain markets of the world," for
which they are to contend with the serfs of Russia and the fellahs of Egypt. We need a
market for our surplus food, and with a view to obtain it, abroad, we close mills and fur-
naces at home, filled with men who are consuming food, and thus force them to seek the
West, there to become producers of food !

By the above it will be seen that the price of wheat fluctuated between 3Ss. and 42s.
per quarter of 560 pounds, equal to 9|- bushels of 60 pounds each. This would give, in
the market of London, tcilh freight and charges of all kinds paid, about one dollar per
bushel.* We ask the farmers now to look around and see to what extent tlie home con-
sumption has been increased by the action of the taritf of 1 842, and then to determine for
themselves what would be the value of their labor and their land if all the persons who
have, since the passage of that act, been employed in building and working mills and
furnaces, had been compelled to turn their attention to agriculture, depending upon " the
great grain markets of the world" for an outlet for their products? The resuscitating of the
country from the state of distress that existed in 1841 and '42 was due to that act, and the
sooner the whole people shall become convinced that such was the case, and determine
to make protection a national and not a party measure, the more rapid will be the growth
of the nation in numbers, audits advancement in civilization.

Oats. — The Chairman asked Mr. Houghton a question about the pro-
duction of oats.

Mr. Houghton showed that an oat crop could take up a great quantity of
acid from the soil. Without a knowledge of this point, very great blunders
had been committed. He had himself made marvellous mistakes in not
marking the composition of the soil, and the requirements of particular
ground. He had farmed more bad land than any agriculturist in England,
but he showed that it had lately been made very productive by analytical
experiments. Mr. Houghton continued his dissertation by commenting on
deep ploughing. He maintained that it was a mistake to plough land deep
for a wheat crop, showing that the root must have firm ground, in order
that the stem may be well supported. — English Paper,

To Purify Rancid Butter. — Melt it with a slow fire, in a well-glazed
earthen vessel, to which put soft water, working them well together ; and
when it is cold, take away the curd and the whey at the bottom: do it a
second and a third time in rose water, always ' working them very well
together. The butter, thus clarified, will be of the sweetest delicious
taste.

It was a whimsical threat of a raw-boned lusty fellow to a very httle man
with whom he had a dispute — " That if he did not hold his jaw, he would
put him between two pieces of bread and butter, and eat him up like an
anchovy."

* For freight and charges, go back to page 084.

740 LIME, AND OTHER MANURES.

LIME, AND OTHER MANURES,

AND THEIR APPLICATION.

We have more than once intimated the reasons which prevail with us not to publish
at length the numerous agricultural addresses which every year brings forth in various
parts of the country, from all of which, if we had room, something might be found of an
instructive and practical character. But as most of them have a local bearing, and as
this journal has a general — not local — circulation, or, if any thing, is like its founder —
more honored at a distance than at home ; it would not be tolerated that we should
imdertake to publish all, and it would be invidious to discriminate. Hereafter, however,
we shall give extracts from most of them, of such parts as appear to be most novel and
of most general application — beginning now, under that rule of discrimination, with the
prize essays elicited in Maryland, by the offer of liberal premiums by the worthy proprietor
of " The American Farmer.''''

Taking them in the order of merit, as assigned to them by the committee appointed for
that purpose, we begin with that of Edward Stableu, of Montgomery County, Mary-
land, "on l\iQ. renovation of woi-n-out /anc/s,'' and surely no one can travel from Boston to
JNIobile, without perceiving that whatever is pertinent to that question, embraces a wide
extent of country.

The essayist very wisely commences by recommending thorough draining, and says
emphatically, " the writer has not known a case where this operation was performed
with ordinary skill and judgment, that did not fully repay the expense; and in some
cases the product was increased from five to ten fold."

But the difficulty here, as in many other cases, consists in want of capital to ditch and
drain thoroughly; and rather than do it imperfectly, it had better not be undertaken.
When our country gets thickly settled, under the effect of laws that tend to bring the loom
and the anvil close to the plough, and thus provide consumers near to the producer, then
will our rich swamps be cleared, our marshes drained, and the waste lands (more than
half of Montgomery County) be improved, because then there will be demand, near at
hand, for the sort ofprodvcts that will pay the cost of draining. Turn as we may, look where
■we may, and blink or try to blink the subject as we may, there is, after all, no certain
means or guaranty for general improvement of any sort, until the laws tend to bring into
proximity the producer and the consumer in all the branches of productive industry, for
which the materials exist in the country.

This subject of thorough draining is most thoroughly discussed in " Stephens's Book of
the Farm," illustrated by more than fifty engravings, all of which was republished in the
" Farmers' Library," and some of these days we will republish from the stereotyjje
plates, in " The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil," all that is there given.

Mr. Stabler next passes to the subject of deep ploughing, the philosophy and value of
which is well explained; but as it would not be easy to throw any new light on this
subject, and as it is probable that he who has not reflected upon and studied its import-
ance, does not reflect upon or study any thing, and would not listen even to Thomas
Moore himself, though he should rise from the dead, to teach him, we pass on to the fol-
lowing extract, of which it may be said that the importance of all that is new cannot be
over-rated — and all that is not new is so important that it cannot be too often repeated.

We will now proceed to the third important step in the process of " reno-
vating worn-out lands." The proper kind, and application of, manures :
viz. stable manure, and vegetable matter produced by the farm ; lime, marl,
bones, ashes, guano, plaster, and turning in green crops.

It may be considered almost an axiom in farming operations, that no one
should go in debt for any kind of manures, unless in favored situations
where the price is very low, and the transportation cheap, (except perhaps
for lime,) without first having fully availed himself of all his own resources ;
and his manure-heap, too, should be his first care. No farmer need ever
be at a loss hx profitable employment for himself and hands, in adding to
his stock of this all-important requisite to successful operations ; and in pre-
venting the loss and waste of what is already accumulated. When not
necessarily otherwise engaged, the time is well employed in many situations
by hauling the rich earth, and decomposed vegetable matter, which has

LIME, AND OTHER MANURES. 741

accumulated in the marshes, leaves, weeds, &c.,* atid incorporating- them
with the contents of his barn-yard ; independent of their own fertilizing
properties, they are valuable as absorbents, to receive and retain the more
volatile ingredients that otherwise might be lost in the process of fermenta-
tion and decomposition ; a few bushels of plaster may be used with much
advantage for the same object.

It was the maxim of a wise man, who began the world with nothing, and
became independent — and that too, without the charge of dishonesty or ex-
tortion ever having been alleged against him — that " a penny saved is two-
pence gained." It is emphatically true, with regard to the saving and
judicious application of manure.

As an evidence of what care and attention in regard to making and
saving manure will accomplish, it is within the knowledge of the writer
that two loads of manure (with two yoke of oxen) have been hauled out this
season, for every acre of arable land on the farm ; and with a small exception,
produced on the farm itself, without extraneous aid.

As germane to our present purpose and object, I will here remark, that
many farmers whose lands most require " renovating," keep too many
horses ; in nineteen cases out of twenty, and for nearly all farm purposes,
one or two good yoke of oxen are decidedly preferable. They cost no more
at first, and will perform twice the labor ; save in expense of harness, and
still more in keeping ; and after working five to six years under good
management, are usually worth more than the first cost, for the shambles.

Marl. — I can say but little from experience, in the use of calcareous
manures ; but am fully satisfied both by information derived from others,
and from personal observation, that wherever it abounds, it might be made
A MINE OF WEALTH to the proprietor, and the adjacent districts which admit
of water transportation.

The only apparent reason why they are not more so, is, either ignoranee
of its great fertihzing properties, or a lack of the necessary enterprise and
industry to become rich, when every facility for the purpose, is, as it were,
laid at their very doors. The quantity of marl required to the acre, to pro-
duce much beneficial result, does not admit of extended land transportation :
but there are thousands, if not tens of thousands of acres, bordering on, and
near tide-water, both in this and neighboring States, now thrown out as
waste lands, because they will no longer yield even a stinted growth of
vegetation ; most, if not all of which, might readily be reclaimed by the
judicious use of marl ; and at one-fourth the cost per acre, that lands in the
interior — originally no better, if so good — are made to yield 10 to 12 barrels
of corn, or 30 to 40 bushels of wheat to the acre. I have been informed by
some of the large landed proprietors — not owning nor residing within less
than eight to ten miles of the marl beds — that a boat load of a thousand to
twelve hundred bushels of marl, rich in carbonate of lime, could be delivered
at many of their landings, at an expense not exceeding $8 to $10. Yet not
one bushel was ever used !

But as was justly remarked by one of these very intelligent and hospitable
gentlemen, " it's no use to preach to a deaf congregation," and a further
remark or tw^o will only be added ; not aUogether without the hope that

* This seems to us to need some qualification, and presents to every farmer a question
which deserves careful study. That i;-, how far he can make sure of remimeration for
the cost of labor thus appropriated, and can he command the labor until the day of
remuneration comes — which here again depends on the markets? Mr. Phinney, of Mas-
sachusetts, could afford to move a ton of stone from every six feet square of his orchard,
because there were hundreds of thousands of hungry mouths, not employed in agriculture,
within reach to demand his fruit — like young robins waiting for worms. — Edilms P. L. ^ A.

742 LIME, AND OTHER MANURES.

something will eventually " stir them up," and induce a trial at least, of
this valuable manure. It matters less how, when, or what quantity of marl
or lime is applied : only make the application, and that pretty liberally.
Its apphcation, like lime, is best made one, two, or three years, and on the
surface, before breaking up the land, and thus give it the benefit of the win-
ter's frosts and snows to dissolve and incorporate it with the soil.

Lime. — This, next to the proper draining (when necessary, for even
lime will not enable us to dispense with it) and deep tillage, I consider the
most certain and permanent agent in " renovating worn-out lands," of any
other substance with which I am acquainted : whether mineral, animal, or
vegetable ; and when it can be obtained at a reasonable cost, even with some
miles hauling in addition, it is generally to be preferred, if only one kind of
" bought manure" is to be used. It may, however, be used freely in con-
junction with all other manures, and with decided advantage, if done with
judgment.

After many years' experience in the use of lime, I would advise in all
cases where it can be accomplished, to spread it on the surface from one to three
or four years before the land is broken up. The effect of a single winter's
frosts and rains, will more effectually dissolve and bring it into action, and
benefit the succeeding crop, as also the land itself, than is attained in a
longer period, by ploughing it in as soon as applied. In this way also, a
much larger quantity may be safely applied to the same land at a single
dressing. As there is no loss to lime from atmospheric influence, it should
be kept near the surface; and ihe. proper quantity to use to the best advan-
tage, can only be determined by the price, and the state the land may be ijj
at the time. With a good sod of grass roots to receive it, 100 or even 150
bushels to the acre, will do no harm; but on stiff clays, with little soil or
mould on the surface, 50 bushels would be a very liberal application as a
first dressing, if put on immediately after ploughing. It would be better to
apply a less quantity at first, and renew it as soon as an increased growth
of vegetation could be obtained.

When lime is applied in very large quantities, and immediately incor-
porated with a poor soil, having little or no vegetable matter in it, the effect
is to combine with the silicious particles — abounding more or less in all clay
soils — and form hard, compact masses, that are not separated by years of
after tillage. This mode, therefore, to say the least, is like "burying the
talent ;" for so much capital lies dormant, and neither benefits the farmer or
his land. Twenty-five or thirty bushels as a first application, particularly
if aided by even a light dressing of vegetable manure, will make a much
quicker return for the outlay.

As to the modus operandi of lime, much has been written ; and various,
if not conflicting theories put forth ; nor do all agree as to the most judicious
mode of application.

I consider it altogether unnecessary here, to attempt any explanation of
the chemical changes produced in the soil by its use, or to give my own
opinion on the subject, though formed after careful observation and from
years' experience. To the inexperienced, however, it is of much more im-
portance to be informed how to use it to the best advantage. And, as pre-
viously remarked, it is of still less consequence how or ivhen applied, so

THAT IT IS DONE.

Lime will act very beneficially, as I know from experience, on stiff tena-
cious clays, and so near a state of sterility, as scarcely to reproduce the seed
sown on them. But if used under such circumstances, and without the aid
of any kind of manure, considerable time must elapse before much amelio-
ration of the soil need be expected.

LIME, AND OTHER MANURES. 743

Theory without practice does not often carry much weight with it ; and
on the mind of the farmer, generally speaking, it acts with less force per-
haps than with most other classes in the community ; for unless an array of
facts, or good evidence, is adduced to inspire confidence, he is slow to
change ; the more so, when he knows that even a partial failure in a single
crop, from experimenting, will be sensibly felt in his slender income, and
perhaps for a year to come. This feeling, to a certain extent at least, is all
right and proper; for experiments, to test any new theory, are best under-
taken on a limited scale : time may be lost thereby, but money may be
saved in the end.

I will now briefly give some account of the practical operation of my
theory. My first application of lime to any extent, was 200 bushels, mostly
air slaked, hauled six miles, and applied to four acres ; just broken up for
a corn crop, and harrowed in. This portion of the field particularly, was so
thoroughly exhausted by previous bad management, that the yield in corn
was only some five or six bushels to the acre ; nor was the crop sensibly
increased by the lime. As the main object in cultivation was to set the
field in grass, the corn was followed by a crop of small grain, and a liberal
supply of clover and timothy seed, and plaster : the latter producing no
visible effect whatever, and nearly all the grass seed perished, leaving the
surface as bare as before. But before the field again came in course for
cultivation, the good effect of the liine was so evident by the growth of white
clover — a new variety in that vicinity — that I was encouraged to lime the
whole field, containing about twelve acres, and also including this four
acres ; put on as before, just after breaking up for corn. The crop on this
portion was increased fully five to six fold, over that adjoining, and but
recently limed ; thus liberally paying all expenses, and has continued ever
since to produce profitable crops. Plaster now acts on it with marked
effect. The first application was made some eighteen to nineteen years
since ; and to test the durability of lime, these four acres have been kept
for experiment, and without the addition of other manure ; except a portion,
intended for still further experiment. About two acres were sown in broad-
cast corn, with 200 lbs. Peruvian guano — then followed wheat on the four
acres, and with 200 lbs. guano to the acre, leaving two lands without guano.

The corn was materially benefited by the guano ; but the wheat was not
benefited by the previous application of it, though it u^as nearly or quite
doubled, over the two lands left without any guano : the wheat was har-
vested two years since; and no one could now point out by the growth of
the clover, uniformly good on the whole, and equally limed, which portion
had and which had no guano — the conclusion is, that the " renovating"
effects of lime, are thus far, ten times as durable as guano ; how much
longer remains to be seen.

Some nine or ten years since, I determined to reclaim an adjoining field,
at whatever cost. I was told long previous, by one of my neighbors who
sold his farm, and removed to the West, in order to settle on better land,
that the attempt would be futile ; or, if it ever was made productive, it
would cost a great deal more than the land wa-s worth. The prospect was
forbidding ; for the larger portion was as much reduced as could be, by
shallow tillage, no manure, no grass seed sown, and constant washing, even
to gullies, and producing little else than running briars. It was broken up
in the fall and winter, to a much greater depth than it was ever ploughed
before ; sixty bushels of quick-lime to the acre, were applied in the spring,
the ground well harrowed and planted in corn ; such portions as required it,
having been well under-drained — some two to three acres — and which were
about the amount that produced any thing of a crop, or that more than paid

744 LIME, AND OTHER MANURES.

the expense of ploughing. A crop of oats and grass seed followed ; as it
was not considered worth the trouble and expense to put in a crop of wheat,
on ^ of the field. After six or seA^en years, the same field again coming in
course, exactly the same plan was pursued, as to ploughing and lime ; but
rather increasing the depth than otherwise.

The crop of corn, though injured by the bud-worm, was good — enabhng
me to do what I had rarely or never done before, sell from | to ^ of the
crop. Oats followed, on about | of the field, with some five or six bushels
of bones to the acre, and wheat on the balance, with guano : both heavy
crops, and lodging over the greater part of the field. Then followed a wheat
crop on the whole; manured as much as possible from the barn-yard, and
on the balance, a light dressing of guano of some 80 to 100 pounds to the
acre.

The average yield of the field was over thirty-three bushels to the acre.
These results are attained with certainty ; for every field and lot are
accurately surveyed, and the contents noted on the plat of the farm ; and
the product of this field was kept separate, threshed, and measured by
itself. The greater portion suffered from the drought early last year ; and
the harvesting was badly done, owing to the fallen and tangled state of the
grain from a storm, about the time of ripening ; but I have no doubt several
contiguous acres might have been selected on the lowest ground (the portion
under-drained) on which the yield was over forty bushels to the acre.*
This season, the same field yielded the heaviest crop of grass I ever har-
vested ; and even on what Avas originally the poorest part, there is now a
luxuriant crop of second growth clover, and intended for seed, that is lodging
over the whole extent. We Avill estimate the profit and loss by figures :

To CO bushels of lime, cost at the kiln, 16 c $9.60

7 years" interest, (though it paid in pasture in less time,) . . . 4.03

60 bushels of lime, cost at the kiln, 12|c 7.50

3 years' interest . . ....... 1.35

6 bushels ground bones, at 50 c. . . . . . . . 3.00

100 pounds guano (African) ....... . 2.00

$27.48

COKTHA.

By 33 bushels of vi^heat, average price sold at $1.31 . . $43.23
Estimate increase of corn crop, at least 6 barrels, at $2, (and en-
tirely owing to the lime,) ...... 12.00

Estimate increase of oat crop, 20 bushels, at 40 c. . . . 8.00

Estimate increase of hay, 1 ton . . .... 10.00

Estimate value of clover seed, (for there would have been none

without the lime,) ]} bush, at $4 6.00 79.23

$51.75
Making, in round numbers, $50 per acre in favor of " renovating ;" nor is
the estimate a forced one. The actual increase of the crops is greater than
the amounts assumed ; and if a fair average was made of the wheat, in the
joint crop of oats and wheat, the aggregate resuh would be increased some $5
to S6 per acre.

There should, perhaps, in the view of some, be a charge for draining, and
for hauling and spreading the hme ; also for the manure, for the crop of
wheat ; and for the expense of harvesting the increased crops.

The two former are amply paid for in the increased pasture ; and the
manure was no more than the actual yield of the land itself, after the use of

* It was gleaned witli the horse-rake, and by the hogs ; yet sufficient seed was left on
the land, to jnoduce this year, a volunteer crop of wheat with tlie grass, estimated by
many who saw it, as well \\-orth harvesting.

LIME, AND OTHER MANURES. 745

lime, &c., which are charged in the account, and at more than the cost : and
it is beHeved the increased product in straw and fodder fully repays the
expense of harvesting: to say nothing of the present state of the land, as
compared to what it was originally. It is now radically and permanently
improved.

When lime has been freely used, plaster will generally, if not always, act
promptly and efficiently; and thus, at very small expense, materially aid in
perpetuating the improvement. Previous to its application in this case,
plaster was liberally used, but Avith no visible effect whatever : now, its
action is as marked on the same land, as I have ever seen anywhere.

Wherever hme can be obtained at a reasonable price — say from twelve
to twenty cents per bushel in a caustic state, (or at half price, if air slaked,)
Avith even five to ten miles hauling, it maybe used to advantage on most, if
not all stiff clay soils.

In some sections, these prices are paid, and it is hauled fifteen to twenty
miles; and by a class of men unsurpassed for industry and thrift.* The
writer has known no instance where its use was persevered in, under what-
ever disadvantage it might be, in which success, to a greater or less extent,
did not crown the effort ; and many who borrowed money to procure it, in
the first instance, have, mainly by its use, become independent ; and money
lenders themselves.

Bones — composed principally of phosphate of lime, and gelatinous animal
matter, when crushed or ground, form one of the richest manures. It acts
well either alone, or with other manures; and is particularly valuable to aid
the growth of clover ; for this reason, I class it decidedly before guano, at
an equal expenditure of money, for " renovating worn-out lands." Although
not so prompt in acting, it is far more durable, and more likely to produce a
good crop of clover, to turn under. Clover being almost the only "green
crop" that I have e.ver found much advantage from turning in.

I prefer its use, following the lime, and on the oat crop ; at the rate of
from six to ten bushels — or as much more as the renovator may please, for
an increased quantity will do no injury. On the wheat, succeeding the
oats, my practice is, to apply a hght dressing of guano — say SO to 100 lbs.
to the acre, to mature and perfect the grain ; and only en such portions of
the field as the manure from the barn-yard will net extend to. By the time
the clover requires the aid of the bone, it will have become sufficiently dis-
integrated and incorporated with the soil, to give the clover a vigorous start ;
and its effect on the grass crops is generally more durable than the vege-
table manures.

The supply of ground bones is a limited one; but when to be had at a
reasonable price (usually selling at forty to fifty cents the bushel) it may be
used to advantage on all crops and on all soils ; but with decidedly less ad-
vantage, after passing through the alembic of the glue manufacturer ; (as I
have proved — at least to my satisfaction ;) thus depriving it of much of its
fertilizing property. It is usually harrowed in with the seed, as it loses
less by exposure to the atmosphere than most kinds of putrescent manures.

Guano. — This is one of the most active of all manures; and if the price
would justify the application in sufficient quantities, it might aid very mate-
rially in " renovating worn-out lands." But considering the evanescent
nature of its most active principle, ammonia, and the present high market
price, viz.: the Peruvian at $G0 to $70 — and the more inferior kinds at $45
to $55 — for the ton of 2000 pounds, it is much doubted Avhether the ulti-
mate advantage, calculated on by many, will be realized. If the Peruvian

* In England they sometimes fetch it fifteen miles on horseback. — Editors P. L. i§r ^.
Vol. I.— 91 3 R

746 LIME, AND OTHER MANURES.

could be obtained at about half this price — and it is believed such would be
the case with a fair competition in the Peruvian market — the case might be
different.

The writer has made liberal use of guano ; and generally to profit, as to the
immediate return ; but in no case has much benefit been derived beyond the
first crop ; and rarely was any material effect perceived after the second year.

This opinion, so different from that entertained by some others, is not
lightly formed, nor without several years' careful observation ; and also
testing the matter by numerous experiments, and on a scale sufficiently
extended to prove the truth or fallacy of the doctrine held by some, that it
is only a stimulant. Reference to one experiment may suffice, as they all
tend to the same result, and nearly to the same degree.

In a field of some ten acres, one acre was selected near the middle, and
extending through the field, so as to embrace any difference of soil, should
there be any. On this acre 200 pounds of Peruvian guano, at a cost of
about $5.00, were sown with the wheat. Adjoining the guano on one side,
was manure from the barn-yard, at the rate of 25 cart-loads to the acre; and
on the opposite side (separated by an open drain the whole distance) ground
bones were applied on the balance of the field, at a cost of S6.00 to the
acre : the field equally limed two years preceding. There was no material
difference in the time or manner of seeding; except that the manure was
lightly cross-ploughed in, and the guano and bones harrowed in with the
wheat.

The yield on the guanoed acre was thirty-five bushels; the adjoining
acre with bone, as near as could be estimated by dozens, and compared with
the guano, was about twenty-seven bushels ; and the manured about twenty-
four bushels. The season was unusually dry ; and the manured portion
suffered more from this cause than either of the others ; the land being con-
siderably more elevated, and a south exposure.

The field has since been mowed three times ; the first crop of grass was
evidently in favor of the boned part; the second and third were fully two to
one over the "guano, and also yielding much heavier crops of clover seed.
On a part of the land, eighteen bushels to the acre of the finest of the bone
were used; on this the wheat was as heavy as on the guanoed, and the
grass generally lodges before harvest, as it also does on much of the adjoining
land with twelve bushels of bone.

The action and durability of guano probably vary on different soils ; and
although it may generally be used to advantage in aid of a single crop, I
have as yet no satisfactory evidence that its fertilizing properties are very
durable : unless applied in such quantities as may in the end " cost more
than it comes to."

Guano should not be used with caustic lime or ashes ; nor very soon
succeeding their application. It may Avith decided advantage be mixed
with plaster, to fix and retain the ammonia ; and for nearly, if not all crops,
it is best to sow it broadcast, and plough in immediately.

Leached Jlshes. — There are few, or none, who are ignorant of the value
of this article as manure. But as the supply is rarely if ever equal to the
demand, much need not be said on the subject. At eight to ten cents per
bushel, if the cost of transportation is not too heavy, they may always be
)irofitably used ; in durability they are next to lime, and the action imme-
diate. Few comparatively, except within the vicinity of cities or villages,
or those with water or railroad facilities, can procure, or afford to use them.

Poudrctte. — Much profit has not resulted in the use of this (the mer-
chantable) article, so far as I have observed its effects on my own, or the
crops of others. Such as I have purchased, has as yet produced but slightly

TRUE POLICY OF THE SOUTH AND SOUTH-WEST. 747

beneficial results on the crops to which it was applied. Its fertilizing pro-
perty was diffused through such a mass of inert matter, that I concluded
with half, if not one-third of the expense, more benefit might be derived
from the purchase of some other kind of manure.

In the neighborhood of cities, where a supply can be obtained without so
much adulteration, its use may be made very profitable.

Turning in Green Crops. — This plan of " renovating worn-out lands,"
has long been advocated by many. I have also given it a fair trial, and
with the exception of clover as the green crop, little advantage has resulted
from its adoption : very poor land, without some extraneous aid, will not
produce a green crop worth the turning in. It is questionable whether the
same amount of time and labor (supposing the occupant without the means
to purchase manure of any kind) could not be better employed on such land,
in adding to his stock of manure, by composts ; prepared from decaying
vegetable matter, alluvial soil, &c., abounding more or less on all farms. If
the land possess fertility to produce sufficient clover for pasture, the use of
plaster either without or certainly with the aid of lime, will, with good
management, make it yield a luxuriant crop. But it should be borne in
mind, that to improve in this way, little mowing, and less pasturing, must
be permitted. The land is not only benefited by what is turned in, but is
also materially aided in the process of renovation, by what is left out, and
on the surface ; to shield and protect the soil from a parching sun, prevent
throwing out the clover roots by the winter frosts, and washing away of the
soil, by heavy dashing rains.

THE TRUE POLICY OF THE SOUTH AND SOUTH-WEST.

We commend to the attention of our planting friends the annexed article,
which we take from " The Louisville Journal," and in which they will find
advice by aid of which they will be sure to bring to the side of their ploughs
first the spindle, to be followed speedily and certainly by the loom and the
anvil. Greatly does it rejoice us to see in our exchange papers growing
evidence of the popularity of the doctrine which teaches that '' population
makes the food come from the rich soils," and that if we would cultivate
such soils, we must adopt, as a national, and not a party or sectional measure,
the policy which will enable us to consume upon, or near the land, the pro-
ducts of the land, returning to the great source of all production the refuse
of her products, and giving to her improvement the labor that has been
heretofore wasted in the work of transportation and exchange, and the
manure that has been wasted upon the road and in distant markets. Great
is truth, and it will prevail. The time is not now far distant when, through-
out the whole length and breadth of the Union it will be admitted that joro-
teclion is a farmer's and planter's measure.

The Manufacture of Cotton Yarn in the South and West for Export. — Gejjtlemex : — " In
my opinion you can spin yarn (cotton) and export it hy Xhe ship-load far better and cheaper
than f2ngland can."

The foregoing is an extract of a letter from Mr. David S. Brown, of Philadelphia, who,
as most of your mercantile readers know, has been for years a most extensive dealer in
cotton goods, and is now largely engaged in their manufacture. No better authority on
the subject can be quoted, and the foregoing opinion is entitled to the gravest consideration
of our growers of cotton and food, and to the closest examination of our men of energy
and capital who are turning their attention to manufacturing employments. The sug-
gestion strikes my mind with great force, and will induce me to gather and publish the
facts bearing on the subject. As it may lead to the development of a new and important
source of wealth to us, it is right that Mr. Brown should Ua,v6 due credit for his sagacity.

748 TRUE POLICY OF THE SOUTH AND SOUTH-WEST.

The yarn trade of Great Britain with foreign countries was opened about 1814; from
that year to 1S23 inclusive, the value of her exported yarn compared with that of other
exported cotton goods increased slowly from say one-seventh to one-fifth ; the ratio of
increase since has been greater. In Burn's "Manchester Commercial Glance," are tables
of the export of cotton yarns from 1831 to 1846 inclusive. I copy here the figures of
every fifth year, which will show the average increase of the trade.

Cotton yarn exported from Great Britain in pounds :

1831 58,846,308

1836 85,195,702

1841 115,065,478

1846 157,130,025

Of the exports of 1846, 25,421,742 lbs. were to the British colonial possessions, including
all of India, leaving a demand of 131,708,283 lbs. in countries from which we should not
be excluded by diilerential duties.

Calling the bale 400 lbs. and adding 10 per cent, waste in the change of the material
into the yarn, we have markets as free to us as to Great Britain for 362,197 bales of our
great staple, and in a shape that requires but little skill, comparatively, in the transforma-
tion.

In the infancy of our cotton trade, the cotton was imperfectly cleansed on the plantation,
and exported in bags. The use of the cotton-gin and the cotton-press, by lessening the
weight and bulk, has lessened the cost and increased the consumption of the staple. The
next most obvious process is to lighten and compress the cotton still further by changing
it into yarn. This done, we could take the next step with safety and reach the maximum
of compression. Our bulky cotton and our bulky and perishable food would then be ex-
ported in their most convenient and imperishable forms — manufactured cotton goods.

Perhaps we have the actual ability to take this step now, and only lack the confidence.
It is, however, very easy to take that which precedes the last.

To spin yarn of the ordinary grades we require not over two-thirds of the machinery
and povver, one-half of the capital, and one-third of the skill which are necessary to con-
vert the yarn into cloth. The waste in die first conversion is about 10 per cent., and in
the latter from 1 to 2 per cent.

The markets supplied with cotton-yarn by Great Britain are, on tlie average, as near to
us as to her.

In supplying these markets, common to us both, we have (sui^posing that tlie conversion
is effected on our central coal fields) these advantages :

1. A saving in power of at least one-half.

2. A saving in transportation of three or four thousand miles, to say nothing of the
expensive land carriage in England.

3. An exemption from English taxation in all its multiplied and oppressive forms.

4. A more unrestricted commerce with the world. We are less liable to war, and our
international policy is so liberal that our ships and products are received by all nations on
the most favored terms.

That Great Britain has more capital and more skill than we have, is readily admitted ;
but it will be noticed that, when we have the material so near us, far less capital is
required, and that, even if we have not the skill to weave, we have, or could readily
have, the skill to spin. Our labor is more expensive than that of Great Britain, but the
cneapness of our food is nearly or quite an equivalent.

I have not the leisure now nor the full information to go into this subject in detail, and
the chief object now in view is to draw the attention of our cotton yarn manufacturers to
the facts. They are now supplying our home market. Is there any reason why they
oannot profitably enlarge their operations and throw their surplus into the markets nearest
to us. The Louisville merchant finds no difiiculty in exporting flour directly to and im-
porting collee directly from Rio Janeiro. He can send cotton yarn with equal facility.

I have not the means here of ascertaining what numbers of yarn are exported from
Britain. In the Report of the Secretary of the Treasury, 1835-6, it is stated that they are
chiefly of the coarser kinds. It is presumed that the coarse numbers are imported by
Russia, South America, India, and China, and the high numbers by Germany, Belgium, &c.

We should, of course, be excluded from England by duties, and perhaps as long as the
cotton is shipped by sea to the Eastern manufacturing States we could not find a market
there. But, if the internal facilities of transportation are enlarged and cheapened so that
the produce of the Northern cotton district can be sent East in this direction, we may be

PRODUCTS OF THE SEVERAL STATES. 749

able to incorporate some of our food, labor, and coal into it and send it on to be perfected
by those who have more capital and skill.

It may be a matter worthy of investigation whether a portion of the slave labor of Ken-
tucky and Tennessee could not be profitably emj)loyed in the business indicated, at
liealthy positions which are convenient of access and abounding in coal. When we are
connected with Tennessee and Northern Alabama and Mississippi by a railroad passing
through the western coal-field of our State, it may prove more economical and profitable
to pass the cotton through all the simple and early processes of its manufacture on this
route to the East and to Europe than to send it by the Southern route in its raw and bulky
form.

In the hope that these crude sugrgestions here made will elicit all the facts bearing on the
subject, and with the intention of pursuing the inquiry further,

I am yours, S.

AGRICULTURAL CAPABILITIES AND PRODUCTS OF
THE SEVERAL STATES.

It would appear, by a letter from Mr. Keener, intended to follow imme-
diately after these remarks, that the State Board of Jigricultiire of Ohio
has, by circulars in the form of interrogatories, instituted systematic inquiries
into the course of husbandry, and the products of the several counties of the
"Buck-eye" State. Such inquiries are likely to be conducted with much
more care and minute reference to the agricultural practice and habits, as
well as resources of any particular State, than the general census under the
authority of the national government ; but they ought not, as thej^ cannot
effectually supersede the necessity of yet more comprehensive and authentic
returns which shoiild be taken by State authority, half-way intermediate, in
point of time, between the United States' censuses.

In a short time, as soon as the high degree of intelligence, and the enlarged
public spirit which evidently animates the Maryland State Agricultural
Society, can get fairly to work, we shall doubtless witness similar fruits of
its usefulness by the prosecution of well-directed investigations into all the
resources and practices of Old Maryland, than which no State in this Union
can boast of superior advantages on the score of soil, climate, natural facili-
ties and resources ; together with a knowledge and disposition to improve
them.

The time was, when tobacco wae $10 a hundred, and wheat $2 a bushel,
that too many of her worthy sons became extravagant and reckless, layino-
out thousands in costly residences, rich furniture, and fine equipages ; and
yet worse, too many of them betaking themselves to gaming and frolicking ;
but let us hope that such folly has passed away with the delusive prosperity
that gave it birth. Let us hope that adversity and reflection have done their
office, and that the ridiculous love of ostentatious display, and the ruinous
and disgusting excitement of the gaming-table, have given way to the calm
and inexhaustible pleasures of reading, and the eager pursuit of knowledge,
with a view to a more honorable and intellectual prosecution of their own
pursuits on their own farms. We would not have them to be a whit the
less hospitable, but that the}'- should learn the difference between uncalcu-
lating extravagance and that well-regulated hospitality which has reference
at once to the means of the host and the comfort of his guests, with whom,
if men of sense, the enjoyment is ahvays the greater when the style of
entertainment is free from ail signs of vanity and extravagance.

What the farmers of Maryland now want is capital, to enter upon a
career of improvement, which, generally speaking, they would be at no loss
how to conduct ; and surely if there be any condition or employment enjoy-

750 PRODUCTS OF THE SEVERAL STATES.

able in itself, and salutary as an example to the country, it is that of the man
who is engaged, with heart intent, on the ditching, draining, cleaning up,
repairing, restoring, and embellishment of an old, exhausted, and dilapidated
estate !

What ought to be more flattering to that true pride which is not only jus-
tifiable but commendable and auspicious in every cultivator of the soil, than
to have the traveller as he passes, either rein up his horse to admire, or
point from the window of the car as it flies along on its iron track, exclaim-
ing : " Ah ! look at that ! — that looks something like a farm ! There are
signs of thought, and of honorable ambition. There you behold industry
guided by knowledge. There it is that visible improvement and increased
productiveness vindicate the cause of agriculture, and assert its claim to be
ranked among intellectual professions." Such are the reflections that every
thinking man makes — such the observations that every man hears, as he
passes the laurel-crowned oasis, half way in the great desert which some
years since spread over the country between Baltimore and Washington,
but which is now giving way slowly but surely to the force of mind applied
to the art of cultivation.

But we are wandering from our purpose, which was to introduce the fol-
lowing, on

THE WHEAT CROP AND ITS CULTURE.

BY S. KEENER.

Melville Grove, Champaign County, Ohio, November 29, 1848.

There are in this country, very few, if any, farmers who manure their lands regularly;
and perhaps it would be difficult to find a single individual, who snakes it a business to attend to
his barn-yard with a view to the accumulation and preservation of manure. Li consequence of
this general neglect, our wheat crop is grown under great disadvantages, and the average
yield much less than it ought to be. It is very common among our farmers to take several
crops of wheat in succession off the same land. I know of several instances, where
four crops have followed in succession, and one, where the sixth crop was taken off this
summer. This practice of stubbling, I am happy to say, is growing out of favor, it being
found greatly to promote the growth of chess, cockle, and other noxious weeds, conse-
quently greatly lessening the crop. The practice of seeding among the standing corn, is
becoming more and more common, and as far as my observation extends, with as much ad-
vantage as oti a clover sod broken up immediately before seeding — the grain is usually ploughed
in with double shovels. Another labor-saving mode of seeding is to cut the corn, and
shock it in the usual way, except that the shock rows are placed further apart — then sow
and harrow in ; this mode has not been in use long enough to enable me to speak favor-
ably of it.

Having thus hastily given you a glance at our careless habits, I will proceed to give
you an account of the average yield per acre, which, perhaps, I can give with a tolerable
approach to accuracy, as I not only keep an account with my wheat crops every year, but
I also keep a tolerably fair running account with the crops of luy neighbors, which I come
at by personal observation, information derived from the owners of threshing-machines,
and from my neighbors themselves.

From these sources, I am enabled to state the average yield of this county, for the past
four or five years, at 13 bushels per acre. The average of this year — 1S47-'4S — will be
a shade higlier; I put it at 14 bushels per acre.

To corroborate my statement of average, I give you a transcript from my ledger, of my
wheat crops for the past four years, as follows :

Average for 4 years

Years.

Acres.

Yield.
Bushols.

Average per acre.
Bu.shels.

1843-44

126

1757

14

1844-45

86

1333

16

1845-46

too

1625

16,1

1846-47

110

1185

lOi

1847-48 Not

yet asc

ertained.

4) 56a

PRODUCTS OF THE SEVERAL STATES. 7-51

Thus you see that the average of four years gives me 14 bushels and 6 quarts per
acre.

I might here remark, that one-half of my seeding, for the past four years, has been on
clover sod, the other half on wheat stubble and corn ground, ploughed in with double
shovels, among the standing corn.

Of the crops of 1844-45, and 1845-46, one-half at least was on stirred fallow, part of
which being slightly manured, yielded from 22 to 25 bushels per acre. My experience
and observation go to show a gain of two to tliree bushels per acre in favor of stirred
fallow, over sod ground ploughed immediately before seeding : and further, where the
ground has been liberally manured, with stable or barn-yard manure, well rotted, the
grain on the stirred fallow, thus treated, will be from seven to nine bushels jier acre more
than the stirred fallow, without the manure.

In this connection I will mention one fact worthy of notice, viz. : that our best wheat
lands are those that have been longest under cultivation, and nearly run down. These
lands, when restored by liberal treatment, with clover manure, and a few years' rest,
uniformly yield from five to eight bushels more to the acre than lands similarly treated,
that have been recently brought under the plough. On the latter, the growth of straw is
very rank, the heads imperfectly filled, and the grain shrivelled ; on the former, the straw
is comparatively sliort, heads full, the berry plump, well filled, and heavy.

In regard to the cost of raising wheat, it varies but little one year with another. In
very dry seasons, we cannot plough as much in a given time as when the ground is in
good order ; and the wear and tear of ploughs and horse-flesh is greater. Some seasons
we have to handle one-third more straw, for the same quantity of grain, which of course
adds something to the expense of the crop. It is frequently varied a little, either way, ])y
the cost of seed wheat, but ftom a careful account kept with my wheat crop, for several
years, I make the cost per acre §5-60, as follows:

Per acre.

Ploughing 90

Seed wheat and sowing (IJ bushel to the acre) .... $1-05

Laying out and harrowing, or ploughing in ..... 27

Cutting and putting in shock, and board of hands .... 1-00

Hauling in or housing and stacking ....... 60

Tlireshing, ricking straws, and cleaning up, board, &c. . . . 1-28

Hauling to market, not over 5 miles ....... 50

Cost per acre $5-60

The cost per bushel can be readily ascertained, by dividing the cost per acre, by the
yield per acre, thus, suppose the yield per acre to be eight bushels:

Cost per bushel.

Cents.

70

56

. . . . 46f

40

35

31

28
. 25^
23|

21^

20

m

. . . . 17i
16|

. . . . 15f
. 14|
14

112^

So that the thrifty husbandman, who raises 50 bushels per acre, does it at a cost
varying but little from 11^ cents per bushel; the additional cost would be in handling
more straw, threshing out, and hauling to market more grain; and I might add, what
would be necessary to such a result, preparing and hauling out manure : for I have never
known an instance in this county, where more than 18 bushels to the acre have been

Yield per

acre.

Cost per acre.

•ivlde S bushels

into $5-60

« 10

"

5-60 ,

'• 12

«

5-60

'• 14

(t

5 60 .

" 16

«

5-60

« 18

"

5-60 ,

« 20

"

5-60

n 22

"

5-60 .

" 24

11

5-60

" 26

<(

5-60 .

« 28

u

5-60

« 30

u

5-60 .

" 32

((

5-60

" 34

t(

5-60 ,

« 36

u

5-60

« 38

11

5-60 .

" 40

(1

5-60

« 50

«

5-60 ,

752 PRODUCTS OF THE SEVERAL STATES.

raised without it. Manure, therefore, ought to be charged to the crop, when used, unless
the straw be considered of equivalent vahte. The straw I put against the interest on the
cost of land, though perhaps it would cover both items if properly cared for.

I have made several approximate estimates of the aggregate amount of wheat raised
in this country. I do not pretend that any of them are precisely accurate ; I however
believe them to be as near the amount as can well be ascertained, without a more precise
knowledge of the number of acres under wheat culture.

The Auditors' Reports show the number of acres in this county to be 260,000; as-
suming every fourteenth acre to be in wheat, will give 19,000 acres, which at an average yield
of 14 bushels per acre, will give us 256,000 bushels.

In Urbana township — the township in which I live — there are 600 voters ; of these,
70 are farmers, which gives to agriculture about every eighth voter; the county seat being
in this township, makes the proportion of farmers to the voters less than in most of the
other townships in the county. Taking, then, Urbana township as a basis, and averaging
her 70 farmers at 350 bushels each, it gives 24,500 bushels; deduct her 600 voters from
the county vote, say 3,700, and we have left 3,100 voters, which amount, divided by 5,
will give 620 farmers, for the remaining eleven townships ; average them at 350 bushels
each, and we have 217,000 bushels, to which add the yield of Urbana township, 24,500,
and we have the aggregate of 241,500 bushels.

By assuming every fifth voter in the county to be a wheat grower, we have 740 farmers ;
average them at 350 bushels, and the amount is 259,000 bushels.

In the republication of such articles, our sense of duty would always
prompt us to turn them to useful account, if we had time, by accompanying
them with such reflections as arise on a view of them, and as may seem
adapted to give them practical application to other parts of the country.

Here, for instance, is seen, for the comfort of farmers in the old States,
which so many are abandoning to go to the new ones, several notable par-
ticulars :

1. That worn-out lands when restored, yield larger crops and of better
fjuahty than richer new lands. " Our best wheat lands," says Mr. Keener,
" are those that have been longest under cultivation and nearly run down."
According to the system he describes, as being that commonly pursued, it
will not be long before the lands of Ohio will have been generally thus pre-
J^ared, by exhaustion, for producing better crops ! " It is very common
among our farmers to take several crops of wheat off the same land." So
much for Ohio management. " Always taking out of the meal tub," says
Poor Richard, " and never putting in, will soon come to the bottom."

But there are other points of view in which this communication of Mr.
Keener will not fail to attract the reader's notice.

It cannot fail to suggest to him the question how vain is the hope of the
Ohio grain grower, who is led to depend on the foreign at the sacrifice of
the home market !

The same number of " The Cultivator" informs us that in Mr. Keener's
market — Cincinnati — " wheat is dull at 70 cents per bushel."

" Cincinnati, j3pril 14. — Flour has been depressed but is now improving. Sales yester-
day at $3-40 per bbl. Wheat is dull at 70 cents per bushel. Corn and Oats 25 @ 28
cts. ; Barley and Rye, 55 @ 60 cts. ; Potatoes 58 @ 62 cts. per bushel. Mess Pork,
$9 per bbl. Lard No. 1, 6^ cts. per lb. Cheese, for shipment, 6J @ GJ cts. ; Butter, for
packers, 12J- cts.; retails at 16 @, 20 cts., and for best fresh rolls 25 cts. (very scarce.)
Eggs are plenty ; 5J @ 6 cts. per doz. ; retail at 7 cts."'

Looking, then, to the English market, where wheat was about $1 per
bushel, (see our article on the corn trade of Europe, in this number.) and
after all expenses of sending from Cincinnati to London are deducted, how
much would be left, to be received over — the left shoulder?

Mr. Keener sets down the average product of the county at 14 bushels
per acre, (tlie same as of New York,) and the average aggregate of the
larms at 350 bushels. Then take his estimate of 40 cents a bushel for cost

PRODUCTS OF THE SEVERAL STATES. 753

of producing and sending to market, and there will remain 30 cents a
bushel, which will leave as an average for the farmers of that county, from
their great staple crop, an income of $105 ! ! while that of a good field
hand is $144.

It will be seen that, according to his estimate, where the yield is not over
10 bushels, (the labor being hired, as we presume, at about the cost of hired
labor in Delaware, and in Hartford and Cecil County, in Maryland,) he
averages the cost at 56 cents per bushel, which leaves the farmer just —
nothing for his pains I But we must leave the reader to pursue his own
reflections and calculations, venturing only to add that he who reads without
making them, reads superficially and to very httle account. Here is a
statement of some other items of Ohio Farming :

A TALL CROP OF CORN'.

" Corn Chop. — I hereby certify that I planted one acre of ground in yellow corn, last
spring, on my ikmi, eight miles from Cincinnati, on the Lebanon turnpike ; description
of the ground and culture, as follows :

" The down barley and stubble coated the ground abundantly. Ploughed all under
last fall ; planted the corn in April ; the furrows three and a half feet apart, north and
south ; the stalks in the furrows from eight to ten inches apart. Gathered the corn the
first of November; placed it in a loft twelve feet from the ground. It remained there
until the 14tli inst., then measured in a barrel, and one barrel shelled, in the presence of
a number of M-ituesses ; there being ninety-one barrels; the shelled corn of one barrel
weighing ninety-eight pounds — making one hundred and fifty-nine bushels and fourteen
pounds, that grew on, and was taken oft', said acre, and at an expense of twelve dollars
the acre.

"Nov. 15, 1S4S. John Clark."

We get the above from a late number of " The Ohio Cuhivator," in which
the price of corn at Cincinnati is put down at 25 cents. Suppose, then, the
average yield of the State to be 40 bushels to the acre, which is quite as
much, probably, as the truth will allow, and we have $10 to the acre.

Mr. Clark puts down the expense at $12 the acre. Now, after making
every allowance for the greater expense of harvesting the heavier crop, and
then tell us, good reader, since the value of tlie article at the place of pro-
duction is equalled by the expense of production, first —

What is the temptation to him of the Old States to sell off and move to
Ohio? And, secondly —

What dependence can the coRN-grower of Ohio place upon the foreign
market — suppose him to make 50 bushels to the acre ?

" REMARKABLE COW AND LARGE CROPS.

" The following extracts are from the Report of die HamiltQn County Agricultural So-
ciety, for the past year :

" PREMIUM FOR BEST COW FOR BUTTER.

« To the Hamilton County Jlgrkidtural Society : — A statement of butter made from one
cow in 28 consecutive days, and is oliered to the Society for its premium on the cow that
would make the most butter in ten consecutive days — the property of E. R. Glenn —
commencing May 29, a. d. 1848 :

" 1st week of trial, 12 lbs. 8 oz.
2d « "15 lbs. 10 oz.

3d " « IG lbs. 2 oz. 1

4th « « IG lbs. 10 oz. 5 "" "^-4 io^-

" N. B. — The 3d and 4th weeks are otTered to the Society for its premium, being 32
pounds and 12 ounces of butter in 14 consecutive days, making 2 pounds and 5 ounces
per day — or in 10 consecutive days, 23 pounds.
" State of Ohio, Hamilton County, ss.

" Personally appeared before me, the undersigned, Mrs. Jane Glenn, who made solemn
oath that the above statement of butter, made by herself from one cow, is true, as she
verily believes, from personal knowledge. Jane Glenn.

" Sworn to and subscribed before me, this day of September, 1848.

" John Clark, Justice of the Peace.
Vol. I.— 95

754 COTTON-SEED EXTRACTER.

^^ Manner of Feeding. — Pastured on clover and timothy pasture, slopped with about one
gallon of ground corn and barley meal night and morning, and from five to ten ears of
corn per day when she would eat them. Edmund R. Glenn.''

A COW of Mr. Glenn's (probably the one above mentioned) gave in 10
consecutive days, 80 gallons and 1 quart of milk, and Mr. Glenn said, "said
cow is now giving 6 gallons per day, and it is over 4 months since calving,
averaging 7 gallons a day, will make in 4 months 840 gallons, and we have
made 2 pounds of butter per day from said cow." But look at the feed — pas-
ture, clover, and timothy — slopped with a gallon of corn-meal and barley-
meal per day.

Undoubtedly a very " remarkable cow ;" but what a subject for a lady to
SWEAR about !

" Premium Chop of Hat in Ohio. — A premium to Edmund R. Glenn, for one acre of
timothy hay, yielding 3 tons and 250 pounds, as shown by affidavits and the weigh-
master's certificates.

" Statement. — Limestone clay soil — subsoil yellow clay — has been mown for six years
previous ; was top-dressed with manure last fall, about ten two-horse wagon-loads to the
acre.

"Expense of mowing $1-25

Curing and putting in barn ..... 1-25

Marketing and weighing ..... 7-50

Ten loads manure ....... 2-00

Rent of land 4-00

$16-00

Cr.
By 3J tons hay sold for $42-50

$26-50"

Is it not, therefore, obviously the interest of the Ohio farmer to follow the
advice of General Jackson, and encourage domestic manufactures, that labor
may be diversified, and the rival be turned into a customer, bringing his
loom and his anvil, his trowel and his saw and hammer, near to the plough
— instead of importing into our country millions of bushels of grain and
provisions, in the form of foreign — chiefly English — manufactures, the cost
of which is chiefly made up of the provisions consumed by the operatives ?

Cotton-Seed Extracter. — This new invention of Mr. Stephen R. Park-
hurst, is said to be the most perfect machine of the kind, and will prove of
the greatest advantage to all branches of the cotton manufacture. The
machine is of the simplest construction, and it seems a wonder that the idea
had not been long since suggested. It is composed mainly of two cylinders,
closely set together, a feeder and the ordinary fan. The cotton containing
the seeds is thrown on the feeder, from which it is taken by the cyhnders,
which extracts the seeds whole, the cotton being passed by the fan into a
receiver. The quantity of cotton cleaned by this machine will far exceed
that of the ordinary saw-gin now in use, and a third less power is required
to keep it in operation. By this method the texture and length of the fibre
is completely preserved, the value of the cotton will be greatly enhanced,
and the intrinsic worth is increased from a cent to a cent and a half per
pound. It is calculated that a thousand pounds of cotton can be extracted
in the same space of time that is required to extract twenty-four pounds by
the common saw-gin. The machine may be worked for ten years without
requiring repair. It will, when generally known, supersede every thing of
the kind. — Neio York Farmer and Mechanic.

BREAKING OXEN. 755

ON BREAKING OXEN.

BY ELISHA WHITTLESEY, ESQ.

Washington, Jpril 30, 1849.

John S. Skinner, Esq. — Dear Sir : — I have read the conclusion of your
article on " The advantage to be derived from a more extended use of Oxen,"
in the December number of " The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil." In
regard to learning steers to work, permit me to relate the mode adopted by
my father, (who was one of the best agriculturists in the north-western part
of Connecticut, and in which I served somewhat of an apprenticeship.) As
far as was practicable, he not only endeavored to match his steers, in color,
size, and strength ; but in temper, some cattle, like men, are more irritable,
nervous, or obstinate, than others, and will never work well together, even
if they are about the same strength. An agriculturist should raise his own
stock, and, knowing the disposition of his cows, as every man and boy will,
who is among them and milks them, he is able to match his steers to be
alike in temper, as well as in the other qualities mentioned.

The best age to break animals to the yoke is when they are calves. Small
yokes with bows, staples, and rings, well finished, should be prepared, and
the calves yoked, and drove about every day for several weeks, commencing
when they are three or four months old. After they are used to the yoke,
and are taught to "haw" and " gee," a small chain may be attached to very
light burdens for them to move, such as a small stick of wood, or a hand-
sled. The practice may be advantageously prosecuted at one and two years
old ; but they do not forget their knowledge when calves, and are easily
subdued at three years old.

When steers, two or three years old, are first taken in hand, it requires
three or four resolute men to connect them by the yoke, which should be
small and light, but as well finished as if it was of a size sufficient for old
oxen, and to be used on them. Care should be taken not to frighten the
steers. The barn-yard fence should not permit any bullock to break it
down, or leap over it. The steers to be yoked should be driven into it ;
they should be secured in a corner, by the men closing upon them, and the
man selected to catch the steers should advance by the side of the one which
is to work on the off'-side, and, seizing the left horn with his right hand, he
should hastily place his left hand under the steer's jaw, and move it for-
ward until two or three fingers enter the right, and the thumb the left
nostril, the other men at the same time pressing so close as to prevent
escape. A struggle generally follows, which would overpower and frighten
a man not skilled in the business of breaking steers. When the animal
stands still, the yoke without bows is to be carried by a man on hi^Jjeft arm,
and by his side, who having a bow in his right hand, he passes it under the
neck, and enters the bow into the yoke, and pins it. If there is not a suffi-
cient number to prevent the steer from escaping Avhile the other is being-
caught, a chain should secure the yoke to a post, drawn close up. The
steer to work on the near side is to be caught in the same manner, and
yoked with his fellow. A strong, steady yoke of oxen is to be connected
behind the steers with a chain, and another yoke of oxen under good com-
mand is to be connected forward, and the chain being "loosed from the post,
the three yoke are driven around the yard, or elsewhere, and after a little
exercise of this kind, a wagon or cart may be attached to the yoke of the
old oxen, and the team put upon the road.

The steers should be treated with great kindness, even if they are obsti-

756 BREAKING OXEN.

nate and sullen. Tying tails together should not be tolerated, nor is there

any use in confining their bodies together by passing a rope round them, as

recommended in the article referrecf to.

If one of them falls down, and will not get up by moderate efforts, place

over him a sufficient number of men to keep him down, and having removed
the yoke from his neck, and being prepared with a small strong rope, tie it
lightly round his hind leg nearest the ground, then bring back the fore-leg
on the same side, and tie that on the other, and the other two are to be
secured in the same way, and the steer left to his own meditations. After
a while he will attempt to rise, and will put forth his whole strength to
extricate his legs, which will not avail him if the tying is thorough, and
skilfully done. The rope is to be removed after all efforts cease, and the
animal thus subdued will never fall down in the yoke afterwards, to gratify
a sullen temper.

If calves are regixlarly curried in the winter, and handled, they are easily
managed afterwards. The general position of the teamster is on the left,
or near side, opposite the yoke of the hind oxen. Occasionally he may
advance opposite to the middle of the second yoke of oxen, if the team con-
sists of three yoke. If he cannot manage three yoke ih a team, he should
lay down his whip, and permit one more skilful than himself to take it.

^ I entirely depart from Mr. Oilman, (page 357,) in his direction to use "a
goad to drive with." A teamster, to drive three yoke of oxen, should have
a whipstock of blue beach, hickory, or hazle, from eight to ten feet long,
from half to three-fourths of an inch in diameter at the butt end, with so
true a taper to the small end as to spring evenly, near two-thirds of the
length. For two or one yoke of oxen the stock may be less, and shorter.
The lash should be made six feet long, with four strands, braided hard, of
woodchuck skin, tanned in soap, about the size of a shank of a common-
sized small gimblet, one strand to be passed round the others in every two
or three inches, so as to secure the strands from separating as the whip is
worn by use. The lash should be tied firm to the stock, from four to five
feet from the small end of the stock, by a string cut from the skin of which
the whip-lash is made, which should be passed through a loop at the end
of the whip, and when so secured, the lash wound round the stock about
two feet, and again secured by a string, and so to the end, leaving about
twenty inches of the lash pendent. The whipstock may be sharpened at
the end, to move suddenly the near hind ox. Gee, if necessary. Being pre-
pared, the teamster bears the whip on his right arm, and sustained by his
right hand, with an angle back of about forty-five degrees. The teamster
should have every ox under his eye constantly, whether his team is attached
to a Avagon, cart, plough, log, or other draught. A well-disciphned team
requires very little use of the whip. An earnest word, with a correspond-
ing lool^prom the teamster, will cause every ox to spring forward. Not
more than three inches of the end of the lash should touch an ox, and the
stock should never be permitted to reach him, when a blow is aimed with
the lash.

The article to which reference has been made is a very valuable one, and
may be read with advantage by every practical farmer in the country.

Butter. — Dr. Merryman, of Springfield, 111., has invented a process by
which butter may be packed and kept for any necessary length of time, in
any chmate, in a state perfectly sweet, without salt, or any other chemical
agent. Butter prepared in this vvay has been kept for two years, appa-
rently as fresh and sweet as when taken from the churn. Means have
bee.n taken to secure a patent for the machine. — Springfield Daily Journal.

WIRE FENCES. 757

WIRE FENCES.

There are many districts in which wood has already become too valuable
to be used for farm enclosures ; others again, as in the larger prairies, in
which it is not even to be had — and it is now very evident, that in the older
States at least, the old system of fencing will have to be abandoned entirely,
and that at no distant day. As estates become divided and subdivided, the
ccst of enclosure becomes enormous — in France, from this cause, the system
has been abandoned altogether — not so in England, for there the laws of
entail prevent this division. Eventually, our laws of inheritance being the
same, we will be compelled, hke the French, to do away with fencing
entirely. In the mean time, it becomes us to cast about for some substitute
for the expensive and weed-sheltering wooden worm-fence. The stone fit
for fencing does not exist in abundance ; we must look to the hedge and to
the wire fence, and wooden or cast-iron posts. The frequent and rapid sub-
division of estates with us will probably preclude the hedge from cominp*
into very general use. Then, again, it is questionable, whether since the
application of galvanism to iron wire, and the rapidity with which the wire
fence is put up and removed, it would be compatible with good economy to
plant hedges at all. Hedges, too, are liable among others to two serious
objections — they draw the land, and breaches once made in them are of diffi-
cult repair. Though we incline to favor the locust or cedar post and iron
wire — we will give directions for establishing each, with estimates of cost —
and leave to our readers to decide for themselves.

Hedges. — After repeated trials, from colonial times to the present day,
it seems to have been fairly decided, that the Osage Orange* [Madura au-
rautiaca) is the best hedge plant that we possess. Without referring to other
plants, foreign and native, that have been cultivated for the purpose, we
will give the following short description, taken from David Landreth's capi-
tal work on modern gardening : " The Osage Orange is admirably adapted
for hedges : it is of rapid growth, perfectly hardy as far north as Penn-
sylvania, is not subject to disease, is armed with sharp spines, which pierce
or puncture, and, abounding in acrid juice, is not browsed by cattle."

Directions for making a hedge. — Prepare the ground you wish the hedge
to stand upon precisely as you would a flower border, in regard to manure,
tilth, &c. Let this border be four feet wide at top, make it twelve inches
high by throwing up the dirt from slight trenches cut on each side — along
the centre of this border plant your seed in two parallel rows — twelve inches
apart and six inches in the drill — young plants may be used, but the seed
are best (the seed is sometimes soaked in hot water until about to sprout,)
Plant after all danger of frost is past — have a small nursery of a rod or
two square to draw plants from to replace any that may fail in ttip rows —
the plants must be carefully weeded and cultivated for the first tnJif years —
and until they reach the height at which it is intended the hedge shall stand,
they must be guarded from stock.

Trimming and after-management. (Abercrombie.) — "If designed to train
the hedge regularly by clipping it with garden-shears, it should be annually

* The Madura is probably not adapted to our climate north of the Delaware. It has
been fairly tried at the magnificent country residence of Mr. Gushing, near Boston, and as
we understood from him, was ''found wanting" in hardiness to resist the long and severe
cold of that latinide. It is not likely to have failed for want of a fair chance, at the hands
of one whose munificence leads him to spare no expense where any thing is to be done
useful in agriculture, or improving to the horticultural taste and embellishment of tlio
country.

8S

758 WIRE FENCES.

performed in summer, observing, however, to top it but sparingly while it is
young, until arrived at its intended height : only just trim off the tops of the
straggling shoots to preserve a little regularity, and to promote lateral wood
to thicken it as it advances, and cut it in also moderately on the sides ; but
when arrived at nearly its proper height of four, five, or six feet, or more,
then trim close on the sides and top, annually, to preserve it thick, and
within its proper bounds ; in cutting the sides, always cut it nearly to the
old wood of the former year's cut, otherwise your hedge will get too broad ;
and keep always the top narrower than the bottom."

Wire Fencing. — On this subject, the annexed letters from "The Genessee
Farmer" cover nearly the whole ground. We will add that now that iron
is getting so abundant, the subject of wire fencing is one well worth a little
study, for we are firmly persuaded that as the cheapest, neatest, and most
durable, it will certainly within a few years, in most districts, supersede all
others.

EXPERIMENT IN WIRE FENCE MAKING.

BT I). KINGMAJT.

Messrs. Editors : — Believing that my brother farmers feel an interest in whatever
experiments others may try, whether useful or otherwise in themselves considered — espe-
cially if facts are stated, so that they can practice, throw away, or improve upon them, as
their judgments may direct — I have been induced to send you my experience in making
wire fence.

During the last fall I constructed 104 rods of wire fence in the following manner: I
placed red cedar posts one rod apart, the posts being sawed about 3J inches square at the
bottom, and 3^ by 2 inches at the top, and set firmly in the ground to the depth of 2J
feet. I then bored holes through the posts with a ^ inch bit — the upper one 4J feet from
the ground, and then 9, 8J, 7^, and 6 inches below, using five wires. Five inches below
the lower wire I placed a board 14 inches wide, (with a short post in the centre towhich
I nailed the board,) which comes near enough to the ground. I then drew the wires
through the posts and strained them by means of a lever, one end of "which I stuck into
the ground. I then looped the end of the wire around the lever near the ground, and
while one is drawing upon the top of the lever, I plug the hole tight with pins of red
cedar, previously prepared. I usually strained the wires 15 or 20 rods at a time, then
spliced the wires by looping and twisting the ends, and proceeded in like manner again.
After the wires are in and the boards on, I take pieces of wire of the right length and
make one end fast to the upper wire, and then wind it round the wires below till I come
to the board, through wliich I bore a hole and fasten the lower end of the wire ; three of
these wires between each two posts, thus fastening it all together.

The upper and lower wires are No. 10, and the others No. 11. I bought my wire of
Messrs. Pratt and Co., of Bufl'alo, at $7-50 per lamdred. The five wires weighed 355
pounds. The wire that I used to weave in up and down was No. 16, and cost 10 cents
per pound: it took 25 pounds. My posts I bought in the log (pretty large ones) at f 12
per cord ; one cord made 105 posts, the number used. It took 2000 feet of hemlock
lx)ards, which I reckon at $7 a thousand. The sawing of the posts was $2-25. The cost
f<x)ts up as follows :

355 pounds of wire, at 7J cents $25-02

25 pounds of wire, at 10 cents ...... 2-50

One cord red cedar posts ....... 12-00

2000 feet boards, at $7 14-00

Sawing posts 2-25

Making the cost of materials $55-77

Which being divided by 104, the number of rods of fence made, gives 53J cents as the
cost per rod — aside from nails, of which I kept no account.

Some of your numerous readers may be anxious to know whether such fence will
answer the purpose in all cases. I can only say that mine is a road fence, and that when
it was built, there was a good crop of pumpkins lying in the field along side, where they
grew, and that notwithstanding many cattle and hogs made the attem])t at them, they did
not succeed ; and my short experience goes far to convince me that no cattle, hogs, or
fowls will get over or through it.
Ridgeway, N. F., January, 1849.

WIRE FENCES. 759

'^ WIRE FENCE— MODE OF MAKING, EXPENSE, &c.

BY MTROir ADAMS.

Messrs. Editors: — Having lately completed twenty-four rods of wire fence, and
knowing that many farmers intend building such fence if it is found to answer a good
purpose, I am induced to give a detailed account of it, that others may profit by my
experience.

In the first place I would premise that this fence extends from my house (which is
situated on a considerable elevation) to the higliway, and is therefore more expensive
than ordinary fences upon the farm. At each end of the fence I set a large cedar post
three feet in the ground, and brace it firmly in the direction of the fence. The brace is
about eight feet long, and extends from the top of the post to a large stone placed firmly
in the ground. Two other cedar posts are placed at unequal distances between the out-
side posts, on account of the irregular descent of the ground. All the other posts are cif
band iron, IJ inches wide, |- inch thick, and placed one rod apart. Intermediate posts
are placed between these, extending only to the fifth wire, and made of half-inch band
iron. All of these posts are punched with holes for the wires to pass through. The long
posts pass through large flat stones, and are clinched on the under side. These stones
are firmly bedded in the ground. The posts should be fastened in these stones by pour-
ing around them melted lead or brimstone.

The wires used are Nos. 10 and 12, and I am confident these are the best sizes where
a strong fence is required. In building, I commence by running the upper wire through
first, which is four feet from the ground. The second wire is ten inches below the upper,
both of M^hich are of No. 10 wire. The third wire is eight inches below the second, and
of No. 12 wire. The fourth wire is six inches below the third, and of No. 10 wire, and
so alternating the two sizes of wire to the bottom. The distances of the remaining lower
wires apart are 5, 5, 4, 4, 4, inches. The wires, after passing through the loM'er post, are
fastened firmly, which I did by passing tliem through a strap of iron, and coiling the
ends.

I don't know that I can describe the manner of straining the wires intelligibly, but I
will try. At the upper end of the fence, after the wires have passed through the post,
they also pass through a plank of the same width and height. Each wire is then passed
through a roller 1^ inches in diameter and G inches long, having one end tenoned for a
crank. A board of the length and width of the plank is placed upon these rollers.
After each wire is strahied by turning the rollers, a pin is passed through the board and
roller into the plank, which fastens them firmly. The wires will contract some in cold
weather, and should not be drawn too tight, at first.

As to the expense, I cannot be as definite as I could wish, as some of the wire pur-
chased was too small. I have used about 110 lbs. of wire, costing $9 50 ; 20 iron po<ts
at 6 cts. each, $1-25 ; 20 short posts, at 3 cts. each, 60 cts. ; 4 cedar posts, $1, making $i ;
painting, $1 : making an amount of $16-35.

Since the fence w^as completed I have had it broken through once by an ox racing
w'ith a horseman. I have found that the wires break only where the ends are looped
together. I have since joined them by flattening the ends, laying them together and
■winding them for four inches with a. small wire. This is the manner of joining theni at
the Niagara Suspension Bridge. The wires of this bridge are boiled in linseed oil, which
forms an impervious coating, and probably toughens the wire.

As to the strength of the fence, I think it sufficient to withstand any ordinary pressure.
Wires of the same size at the Suspension Bridge are each strained to a tension of 1500
lbs. The great objection to this fence, in the minds of many people, is its being invisible.
This is why I like it, as it does not mar the beauty of the landscape.

In conclusion, I would say that I like this fence, because the winds make no impression
upon it — no snow-banks form beside it — it occupies no space — costs less than the painting
of a good board fence, and, although invisible, looks beautifully when the ground is
covered with snow; and as to its durability, if wire bridges will endure, surely wire
fences will last an age.

East Bloomjield, N. Y., Dec. 1S4S.

WIRE FENCE.— HOW TO :\IAKE, CHEAPNESS, &c.

BT T. C. PETERS.

The experiment of Mr. Adams with wire fence, as detailed in the last number, is
worthy of notice. The fence was more costly than it need to have been, and upon the
whole would not be tlie Uiing for a long line.

760 WIRE FENCES.

I cannot do better than to ask you to copy an article on the subject, in the January
number of "The American Agriculturist," — premising, however, that I do not think it
best to heat the wire, as I notice by an article in a late number of " The Prairie Farmer'
that when the wire has been lieated, it is apt to get bent, and "gets out of shape. Perhaps
Mr. Adamss suggestion as to the alternate use of a larger and smaller strand is worthy
of adoption. It would enhance the price but slightly. A further improvement might be
made by training the Prairie Rose, or any other climbing rose, among the wires.

" I am glad to see the attention of farmers turned to tliis subject, as I believe at no
distant day wire fence must become the leading kind generally over the Union. It is
true that there is a difficulty in fencing against hogs, but even that can be overcome
without much trouble, as is hereafter suggested.

" I have never as yet had any made, but intend to make a sample next spring. I have
given the subject, however, a good deal of thought, and made inquiries and figures there-
upon. From some small experiments I have made, diere can be no doubt but my figures
are mainly correct. I shall use No. 11 wire, cedar posts, as they are the most durable,
and shall set them six rods apart, making the fence five strands high. The post being
set, I should begin by boring an inch hole through each, at eighteen inches from the
ground ; then another hole eight inches from that, the next ten inches, then twelve inches,
then fourteen inches ; making the fence five feet two inches high. After the wires have
been drawn through and strained tight, drive plugs into the holes at each side to hold
them in their places. Between each post, and one rod apart, drive down a stake, saw
into it opposite each wire, perhaps an inch, lay in the wire, and drive in a shingle nail to
keep it in its place. It would be less trouble to drive a small spike into the post and
wind the wire round it by one turn, rather than to bore the holes ; though the expense
would even be more.

"The wire ought to be prepared in the same manner that it is for bridges, boiled in
linseed oil for a quarter of an hour, and then dried, and the same process repeated three
times. This anneals and at the same time coats the wire, and saves painting it. If,
however, there be but a small quantity to put up, it would be better to heat the wire, ahd
afterwards paint it. Coal tar would also be an excellent substance for that purpose.
Now for the expense :

A strand of No. 11 wire, 80 rods long, weighs 25 lbs.

80 rods of fence wouUl w-eigh 125 lbs., at 7 cents .... $10-75

14 red cedar posts, 25 cents each ...... 3-50

85 stakes, 1 cent each 0-85

Preparing wire and painting ... .... 1-00

Setting posts and stakes . . . . . . . . 0-50

Putting up fence, including spikes, or boring posts . . . l-OO

Contingencies .......... 1-00

Outside cost for 80 rods of wire fence ...... $17-60

This would be 22 cents per rod; but the actual cost to the farmer would not be 20 cents.

" On most farms, where there is plenty of timber for posts, it would not cost but about
16 cents per rod. But allowing for all contingencies, and that it costs 25 cents per rod, it
is then by far the cheapest fence that can be built.

" In order to fence against hogs, I would drive down short posts and put on bor.rds about
two feet, and put the wires above, but nearer together. I think that no hog that ought to
go at large would ever get through. For all other kinds of stock, it would be impene-
trable. A neighbor of mine, who is compelled to fence against a whole village of street
cows, put but two strands across a stream, where his fence was washed away, and it has
proved a perfect protection. I have seen the cows walk up to it, but have never yet
known one to attempt to get through, although the temptation between a fresh pasture and
dry streets was very great, I have no doubt. T. C. P.

" Darien, N. Y., November, 1848."

WinE Fence. — A correspondent of "The Louisville Journal," writing from Ghent,
Carroll Co , Ky , says :

'• There has just been completed on the farm of Mr. William Hawkins, of diis vicinity,
some hundred and fifty or two hundred panels of this fence, which, for durability, neat-
ness, and cheapness, far surpasses any thing that I have seen in the fence way.

"This fence answers the purpose of the strongest post and rail fence that can possilily
ha built, with not more than half the expense of the former. Mr. H.'s fence is constructed
in the following manner : His posts (black locust) are first placed in the ground, say

SEPARATION OF THE PLOUGH AND THE LOOM. 761

eight feet apart, the first one being much larger and set deeper in the ground than the
succeeding ones, because of the great resistance it has to make in stretching the wire.
After the posts are properly arranged, grooves are sawed into the side of each post for the
wires to lie in. The wires are placed one above the other from six to seven inches
apart. The fulcrum and lever is then placed at the extremity of the wires to draw and
tighten them. When they are sufficiently tight, they are secured firmly into the post by
small staples made of wire. This fence sufficiently resists tlie encroachments of all kinds
of stock, and costs only twenty-five cents to the panel.

'• P. S. — The fence is capped with i:ilaak, which gives it additional strength and firm-
ness."

THE NECESSARY CONSEQUENCES OF THE SEPxVRA-
TION OF THE PLOUGH AND THE LOOM.

^^Evidion and Depopulation in Ireland. — -The process of eviction of tenants appears to be
proceeding with great energy in some portions of Ireland. The Limerick and Clare Exa-
miner reports that in one union in Kilrush, 13,000 persons have suffered eviction; 5,000
have been unhoused in the county of Limerick, and law processes are out for the demoli-
tion of 1000 houses more. Fifty houses have recently been emptied of occupiers, on the
lands of Kildyino, and the demolition proceeds at a rate so sweeping, and so rapid, that
on some properties 40 farm houses, of every description, have been dashed down in
a day."

Like causes produce like effects. Tlie man of Ireland is a slave to the
landlord, who expels hire, and destroys the house in which he has dwelt,
that he may not return. The man of America is a slave to circumstances.
He would prefer to remain at home, a consumer of food, combining his exer-
tions with those of the producer of food, for the improvement of their com-
mon condition. Unable to do this, he is forced to fly to the West, and his
neighbor who remains behind is compelled to waste on the road, and in dis-
tant markets, all the manure yielded by his land, and then he in his turn
flies still further West, there to repeat the operation of exhaustion. There-
fore it is that the papers of the South are filled with notices like the fol-
lowing :

"Emigration to the West. — The Greenesboro (^Ala.) Beacon, of the 24th March last, spealdng
of the emigration westwardly, says:' 'An unusually large number of movers have passed
through this village within the past two or three weeks. On one day of last week,
upwards of thirty wagons and other vehicles, belonging to emigrant*, mostly from Georgia
and South Carolina, passed through on their way, most of them bound to Texas and
Arkansas.' "

The South abounds in rich lands, that need but a denser population to
bring them into activity, with constantly increasing return to labor, and
yet men are everywhere flying from their neighbor men, each seeking to
roll his own log, though fully aware that two men, combining their exer-
tions, can lift a log that a thousand, each acting separately, could neither
roll nor lift.

"■ Lumber and Freights in Maine. — Several vessels have arrived at our wharves for car-
goes, and, although our wharves are overburdened with lumber, the owners are afraid to
ship it, knowing that, as tlfe markets abroad now are, they must sustain a loss on all they
might send off. Consequently, vessels must lie idle till the prospects brighten.'" — Calais
(Me.) Advertiser, April 4.

Thus is it everywhere. The men, and the women, and the children,
who should be at work in the factories of the East, consuming food, and
requiring houses to be constructed out of the lumber of Maine, have been
driven to .seek the West, there to produce food, and to live in houses con-
structed with the logs of Iowa and Wisconsin, and the man of Maine suflvrs
because the timber of the West is thus unnaturally forced into use. Ho

Vol. I.— 96 3 8 2

762 PLANK ROADS.

looks abroad in search of the. market of which he has been deprived at home,
and finds none. Let him unite with his neighbors in the determination to
make a market on the land for the products of the land, and his prospects
will speedily brighten.

Could the farmers and planters of the Union he persuaded to look around
them at the fine trees by which they are everywhere surrounded, and esti-
mate what would be their value, were looms and anvils brought into their
neighborhood, to be wrought by men who would need houses, and mills,
constructed of that timber, and who would aid in the construction of churches,
and school-houses, and bridges, and rail-roads, and all other of the various
improvements for which timber is required — could they be persuaded to
estimate the value of the rich lands upon Avhich grow those trees, and com-
pare it with that of the inferior ones they now cultivate — and could they be
persuaded to calculate the amount of taxes they pay on those lands, now so
worthless, but which would then become so valuable — could they only be
induced to do these things, we say, they would rise up as one man, and
demand, (as a great national, and not a party measure,) the adoption of that
course of policy which would most speedily bring the loom and the anvil to
take their natural places by the side of the plough and the harrow.

PLANK ROADS.

As the system of plank roads is daily growing in public favor, and as we have vast
districts of country, particularly in the South and West, in which any other system of im-
proved roads is as yet totally out of the question — we give the following extract on this
subject from a report made by George Geddes, Esq., Civil Engineer, Fairmount, Onon-
daga County, N. Y. On large plantations, where water or steam power is used, and
where timber is abundant, these roads would probably pay well, even where laid down
fur private plantation purposes. They would etfectiially do away with the "hub-deep"'
condition of the roads on the rich alluvial lands in winter, and etfect a saving of at least
ninety per cent, in the labour of transportation from the gin or sugar house to the landing:

Plank roads have very recently been introduced into this country. Ac-
cording to the patent office report of January, 1843, they had their origin in
Russia, and were introduced into Canada by Lord Sydenham, he being
induced to try the experiment in consequence of the great cost, in the first
instance, of McAdamizing a road, and the expense of keeping it in repair.

The first road made of plank was near Toronto. The three miles nearest
the city having been McAdamized, the plank road commenced at that dis-
tance from the city, and was extended some miles into the country. The
plank road lasted eight years, requiring during that time merely nominal
repairs. The McAdam road, in the same time, required an annual expendi-
ture of $400 a mile in repairs ; amounting, in the eight years, to $3,200 a
mile, a sum much more than sufficient to replank a road. When the plank
I'oad required a new covering, one-half of the stone road was dug up, and
flung on top of the other half, and a track of plank eight feet wide was laid
down in the place occupied by the stone. It happened that I visited To-
ronto at the time the plank road was rebuilding, airo the eight feet track
was being put into the stone road. The plank first used were sixteen feet
long and three inches thick. They had worn out in the middle for a space
of about seven feet wide — the ends of the plank being entire. The middle
of the road had settled by the weight of the teams and loads that had passed
over it. The sills were sound enough to justify their use for another cover-
ing. I saw the eight feet track in use, and then expressed the opinion that,
as the narrow road was so much more evenly pressed down by the loads
than was the wide road, it would be firmer, and that if more than one eight

PLANK ROADS. 763

feet track was demanded by the travel, it would be vastly better to lay two
eight feet tracks, than one sixteen feet, not only because they would settle
more evenl}^ but that the facilities for passing would be greatly increased.
A road sixteen feet wide, experience proved, would be used in the middle.
A wide load, going slowly along it, rendered it very difficult for a vehicle
that was moving faster, upon overtaking the wide load to pass it. In mak-
ing my report to the commissioners for the distribution of the stock of the
Salina and Central Square Plank Road, at whose request I had visited To-
ronto, for the purpose of obtaining information upon this subject, I proposed
two eight feet tracks for their road, and made my estimate of the cost accord-
ingly. A year later I again visited Toronto, and to my surprise long planks
were entirely abandoned. The road, as it was extended into the country,
being made of a single eight feet track, having a smooth earth road to turn
out upon, alongside the plank.

The result of these examinations was, that we determined upon making
a single track upon one side of the centre of the road, and wherever we had
ordinary earth to grade twelve feet wide upon the other side of the centre.
Over some light sand we laid two tracks, and in one instance, for a short
distance, we laid a sixteen feet road, owing to peculiar circumistances ; so
that we have a single plank track on one side of the road, and an earth road
to turn out upon ; and we have two tracks, four feet apart, of plank ; and
we have a wide plank road. The two separate tracks of plank are the most
perfect road, and furnish the greatest facilities for teams to pass. The eight
feet track is next in convenience, for it being on the side of the centre of the
road that gives it to the loaded team that is going into town, (and the loading
is chiefly going to toAvn,) the unloaded team generally does all the turning
out, while the loaded team travels on one side of the centre, and not in the
middle of the road ; while on the sixteen feet plank, the traveller inclines to
keep the centre, and the slow movements of the loaded team, in turning out,
very generally drives a light team off^ the ends of the plank upon sidling
ground. When a team upon the single track is overtaken, it is much easier
to pass it than it is when it is moving along the middle of the wide track ;
for the slow-going team is on one side of the centre, in the case of the
narrow road, and there is a twelv^e feet earth road on the other side of
the centre, for the fast-going team to pass by upon. The only way to
make the wide track as convenient for passing as the narrow, is to grade
an earth road, outside of the ends of the plank, and that would add to
the cost, and make the road-bed so wide that it would be difficult to
drain it well.

It has been proposed to fasten a scantling upon the middle of a six-
teen feet track, leaving occasional vacancies for teams to cross from one
side to the other, as a means of causing the travel to pass upon the ends
of the track. This remedy for the evils of a wide single track, is ex-
pensive and objectionable from the inconvenience in crossing freely at any
point.

Every view of the question results in this : that roads that are not
greatly travelled require but a single eight feet track, save over very soft
ground ; and that roads that require more than one such track, should
have two narrow tracks, in preference to one wide track. It is safe to say,
that whenever two tracks are demanded, for the accommodation of travel,
(unless the necessity grows out of the fact that the earth is very unsuited to
road making,) that that demand will surelj^ justify the investment of the
money the second track will cost ; for it must be a very great amount of
travel that will not be accommodated by a single eight feet track, with a
carefully cared for earth road to turn ou.t upon alongside of it.,

764 PLANK ROADS.

Experiments have been made to test the proper mode of laying the plank :
" On the Chambly road the planks are twelve feet long, but laid diagonally,
so as to make the road but eight feet wide. The weight of half the vehicle
and load coming suddenly upon one end of the plank, and the other end
not being kept down at the same time, the traffic constantly tends to disrupt
the road, and the planks are loose, and spring from end to end." * * *
" At Quebec, part of the road has been planked, the plank being laid
lengthwise. It was considered that the planks would stand better the fric-
tion, and, when necessary, could be more easily taken up, and the road
repaired. One strong objection to this mode of laying the plank is found
to be, that the horses cannot keep their feet when much weighted, and are
much exposed to falling, in consequence. Under all these circumstances,
most have approved the manner in which the planks are laid on the Toronto
xo^Ar— Patent Office Report, 1843, p. 129.

In constructing plank roads, it is necessary to have the earth upon which
the plank are to be laid broken up and made fine, that they may touch the
earth at every point. This is important, for if any space be left for air
under the plank, or alongside the sills, dry rot follows. The sills should
not be large : four inches square is sufficient. They should be perfectly
bedded into the earth, and there should be broken earth under them, care
being taken that they should not rest firmly upon rocks or other hard sub-
stances, that will not allow them to settle.

All earth formations of this nature will settle some, and the sills must be
permitted to go down as the rest of the structure settles, or a space for air
would be left between the plank and the earth, and the sills would thus
support the plank ; whereas the plank should rest upon the earth at every
point. Nothing is gained by wide or deep sills, and the whole support cf
the road is the earth that is covered by the plank, and the amount is in no
wise increased by wide sills. The chief use of sills is to grade by, and to
keep the road in form until the earth has become settled.

There is, in the vicinity of Toronto, a short plank road that has no sills
at all under it, and the grade is very nearly as exact as in those roads where
sills are used.

The plank having been laid, the next thing is to grade a road some ten
or twelve feet wide on one side, and two or three on the other, by taking
earth from the ditches on each side, and bringing it by a ditch scraper just
up to and even with the upper side of the plank, skd that if a wheel runs ofl^
the track, it passes upon a smooth surface of earth. The ends of the plank
should not be laid even, but a part should project from two to four inches by
the general line, to prevent a rut being cut just along the ends of a plank.
If the ends of the plank are even, and a small rut is m.ade, the wheel of a
loaded wagon will scrape along the ends for some distance before it will rise
up to the top of the plank, unless the wagon moves in a direction nearly
across the road ; but if the wheel cannot move two feet forward without
coming square against the edge of a projecting plank, the difficulty of
getting on the road is avoided. It is not necessary to pin or spike the
plank to the sills.

Perfect drainage must be secured, and to that end, the ditches must be
deep and wide, and good sluices wherever the water crosses the road. This
is the important point — drain perfectly.

The thickness of the plank must be decided by the amount of travel.
If it is sufficient to insure the locuring out, and not the rotting cut, of the
limber, four inches is the thickness ; if that thickness is not justified by the
travel, then three inches should be used, but not less. The kind of timber
is, too, a point that must be controlled by circumstances. Pine is used at

PLANTING TREES DOGS. 705

Toronto ; hemlock on the Salina road ; in some of the Western States it is
likely that oak might be procured at a reasonable price. ^,The number of
feet (board measure) of lumber required for two sills four inches square, for
one mile, is 14,080 ; plank, three inches thick, for a single track eight feet
wide, will measure 126,720 feet. The grading and laying a track will vary
in cost, according to circumstances. When an old roadway is used, and hills
are not to be cut down, or valleys filled up, it will not vary much from fifty
cents a rod for one track.

In those sections of the country where lumber is cheap, plank roads must
go into very general use ; and, in some localities, it is the only road that can
be made to Adure the changes of the climate with any reasonable outlay
of money. Less power is required to draw loading over them, and they are
superior in every respect to McAdam roads — while they last.

PLANTING TREES.

The most remarkable, if not the most culpable, neglect — thatwhid;i indi-
cates an unamiable and uncultivated, as well as improvident nature, is the
omission, on the part of gentlemen in the country, io plant trees about their
homesteads, for shade and ornament, if not for fruit and profit. Let any one
Avho would be convinced how easy it would be to provide, in a few years,
even in the most exposed and barren situations, all the beauty and luxury
of a natural forest, only walk as far as the Lunatic Asylum, between Spruce
and Pine streets, Philadelphia, and see how thriving is every one of the
handsome trees so thoughtfully planted out there last autumn, at the instance
of Mr. Cresson, in anticipation of the failure, some years hence, of the old
sycamores. The work is only to be once well done, and the trees well pro-
tected, and then they may be left to endure for ever, as monuments of the
good taste of the planter, transmitting his memory with gratitude to pos-
terity.

We remember now, at the moment of scribbling this hasty but earnest
exhortation to all our young friends to plant trees — maples, horse chestnuts,
locusts, linden trees, (any thing but Lombardy poplars,) — that there is in the
garden, near the house at Duoraghen Manor, Maryland, the classic resi-
dence of the late venerable Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, a weeping willow,
stately and graceful, like she who planted it when a child, that will always
be associated with the name of Mrs. Caton. How much more are such
memorials to be coveted than monuments stained with blood and cemented
with the tears of the widow and the orphan ?

The Number of Dogs in the United States. — If it be within the power
of those who are to give directions about the next census, we hope they will
take measures to ascertain the number of dogs, male and female, in every
county in our Union ; and, if it could be done, it would be useful also to
have a return of the number of sheep killed by dogs. At two cents per
day, it is probable that the cost of dogs is equal to the value of our exports
of grain and jjrovisions to England this year ; and it is not improbable that
our sheep husbandry would add as much more to the wealth of the country,
if it were not for the fear of having the sheep destroyed by dogs.

We are no enemies of dogs, of genuine blood, kept and used for their
legitimate and appropriate purposes — all such will ever find in us staunch
friends and defenders. But we have a greataversion to idle, useless whelps
■' — nati consitmere fruges — born only to consume the fruits of the land —
whether they go on four legs or two !

'66 PROFITS OF SHEEP HUSBANDRY.

PROFITS OF SHEEP HUSBANDRY.

We earnestly invite the attention of Maryland and Virginia farmers to the following.
It will be seen that these sheep were kept on hay, being "foddered" twice a day during the
winter, at least four or five months, and sheaf-oats once a day. Now we suppose this to
have been done at a cost of at least seventy-five cents per sheep more than would be
needed to keep sheep in equally good condition in Maryland, and South of that State. But
in these States dogs steal in and kill, and thieves '• break in and steal," and farmers are
so much taken uj) with party politics, and party politicians care of course so little for a
class who care so little for themselves, that no tax is laid on dogs, nor any penalty on the
owners of such as destroy the farmers' sheep, nor any other measure taken to prevent so
great an evil, or to indemnify those whose property is destroyed; and tl^s millions are
lost, not only by killing them, but hy preventing the extension of sheep husbandry, for which
nature has provided iti these States such abundant and peculiar resources.

MERINO SHEEP vs. NATIVES.

Messrs. Editors: — In "The Cultivator," of March 10th, is a communi-
cation from J. H. Rowley, on the matter of sheep. In that paper, Mr. R.
attempted to prove the superiority of the native stock over the fine classes
of she^ introduced from other countries, as a source of profit. Allow me
to meet his statement, by showing what has been the result, as to a flock
of merinos.

On Prospect Hill farm, Jamestown, R. I., Mr. D. W. Clarke has been
the tenant for twenty-two years. At the time he took the farm, there was
on it a flock of pure merino sheep. By some changes, the purity of the
blood has been some little deteriorated, so that probably now it is about
seven-eighths. Last year, in October, there were 146 ewes and 4 bucks.
The ewes at that time were worth from $1-50 to ^1*75 each. They were
kept on hay during the winter, being foddered twice a day, and once a day
were fed with oats in the sheaf. They were housed only in wet weather.
At the lambing season, (about the middle of April,) there was added a por-
tion of roots to the feed. Of these 146 ewes, 30 had twins, one had three
lambs, and the other 115, one each. Of these, two perished. In May, the
31 ewes, with their 63 lambs, were sold for $4-50 each. The remaining
113 lambs were sold for $2 each. From the 119 sheep which were left,
there were sheared 5402 lbs. of wool, a full average of 4^ lbs., which was
sold at 30 cents per pound. The flock in the autumn was worth full as
much as in the preceding autumn, that is to say, 115 ewes, at $2 each,
making S230, and four bucks, at $8 each, making $32 — aggregate, $262.

The ewes have begun again to lamb, and of eleven, five have borne
twins. From these facts, it is not a sequence, that native sheep are most
profitable.

HECAPITULATIOS.

146 Ewes, average worth in October, 1847, $1-62^, . . . |236-00

4 Bucks, ^7-00 ■ • 2800

264-00

Sold 31 Ewes and Lambs @ $4-50 ^g] 39-50

113 Lambs . @ 200 226-00

540^ lbs. of Wool, @ 30 cts 162-15

027-65
Present worth of flock, $26200, making a clear price for fodder and care, of $525-65.

A. H. DUMONT.

Newport, R. I., ^pril 13, 1849. — Boston Cultivator.

The Hon. J. E. Pearcb has been selected to deliver the next annual
address to the Maryland State Agricultural Society.

\

ON STORING POTATOES. 767

ON STORING POTATOES.

LETTER OP INQUIRY FROM A VERY YOUNO PLmXER.

PL%1

The following is, or was, a mere private letter of inquiry, from the son of
a valued friend, an eminent physician in Maryland. The writer hat it at
his option to pursue any one of what are called the learned professions, Sut
very wisely, as we think, preferred the more quiet and independent life nf
a cultivated cultivator of the soil, though thereby, under the hopeful opera-
tion of our public sentiment and public institutions, he commits an act of
self-excision from what are called public honors — even those to be conferred
by the cultivators of the soil themselves ! At present, any education,
any treatment is good enough for those who are iofolloiv the plough ! —
while the public predilection and the spirit of the laws tend to the elevation
of professional men to all political distinctions ; and to reserve for the military
exclusively, education at the public expense, to be followed by life-commissions,
certain promotion, and pensions and preferments almost hereditary.

Thus will it ever be, until farmers and planters have the sense to appreciate
their rights, and the spirit to maintain their just supremacy in thff' control
of the legislation of the country, and especially in the appropriation of
public money for educational and all other public purposes.

Though this letter, of little importance in itself, was not written to meet
any eye but our own, the reader will see with what motive and for what
object we have taken the liberty to use it on this occasion. In view of these,
we hope the writer will excuse us.

Doikn, May 7, 1849.
Mt Dear Sih : — I take this opportunity to thank you for the useful little book on the
« Elements of Agriculture," which yon were so good as to send me. I hope to derive
great benefit from its perusal, as I feel that farming is my vocation.

I would be greatly obliged to you for a plan to erect a potato-house. I have several in
view, but would be very glad to know your views on the subject before commencing my
operations. I hope, my dear sir, you will not consider this a liberty, but will favor me
with an answer.

Yours, respectfully, Doxalsox Steuabt.

Office of " The Plough, the Loom, and the Anvil,'''
81 Dock Street, Philadelphia.

Let me trust, my young friend, that instead of considering it a liberty,
you will never hesitate to call on me when you maysuppose that I can impart
any information which can secure, for your agricuUural labors and inquiries,
results more profitable or satisfactory than they might otherwise prove. You
shall not be disappointed, except for the want, on my own part, of two things
for which I have discovered, when, alas, it is now too late, that I have been suf-
fering all my life ; to wit — want of time, and ofknoivledge I

It rejoices me to find you engaged in the study, as well as the practice, of
cultivating the soil — the most important of all the arts and manufactures ;
because, whatever it may be in particular cases for individuals, agriculture
is always the most profitable industry for the State. It employs more
people, and in a more healthy and moral way, than all other pursuits, and,
except what is used for seed, all its products are profit.

As to the best contrivance (or preserving potatoes, you can best judge by
considering the desideratum or end to be obtained — a proper medium tem-
perature between too much cold and too much heat. The former would
rot and ruin them, while the latter would stimulate their growth unseason-
ably. Keeping these conditions in view, a cellar under your barn or
other out-building, into which the potatoes might be shot from the tail of the

768 ON STORING POTATOES.

cart, would ^c bf';o, and most labor-saving. As they are of heavy and in-
conveniern cai iiage, if intended to be fed to your stock, the store should
be as Ci aveiiient as can be for that purpose. In their descent to the cellar,
you light have a riddle so constructed and fixed at an inclined plane, as to
ser ajite the smallest from the larger ones. Potatoes may, however, as you
\i>rf\v, be kept in conical heaps or in ricks, in the field, well covered with
^fv straw and a sufficient thickness of earth to exclude the frost, and on
opening one of these kilns, for present use, the contents may be placed in
barrels in the cellar. Mr. Colt, of Patterson, preserves his in a perfect
state in barrels, filling the interstices with charcoal-dust from the factories.
But your father has doubtless preserved his " Farmers' Library," in which
case I recommend you to turn to Volume 2, where you will find the whole
subject of potato husbandry presented fully and in every conceivable
aspect.

The general principle, that every plant should have room to grow without
depriving its neighbor of sun and air, is especially applicable to the potato,
whose tubers can only be brought to perfection by a full quantity of those
natural agencies ; and numerous experiments have proved that the soil for
potatoes should not contain rich and exciting manures, but any thing which
acts mechanically by keeping it light and open, cannot be too highly re-
commended.

I regret mat I have not leisure to go more fully into the subject ; but as
Mr. Crawford is still in the management of the Doden estate, you may
safely defer to his judgment in a matter so practical. By-the-by, I learned
with regret, from my friend General Steuart, that while mutual good-will
and confidence betvveen your father and Mr. C. would have prolonged their
present business relations ; the interest of the latter, in reference to his own
property, may lead to a separation.

Much careful reflection, and a desire at once to do justice, and peradven-
ture some good, lead me to re-avow the impression, that such men as Tilgh-
man Crawford, by their industry, firmness, humanity, and practical skill
in the management of agricultural capital, are eminently entitled to private
and public esteem, far more than many successful pohtical slang-whangers
and demagogues, or the inventors of torpedoes and congreve rockets. Mr.
C. can tell you that your potatoes should be lifted in dry weather, and with-
out avoidable exposure to the sun, and put away where they may be kept at
once dry and cool.

Mr. W. H. D, C. Wright is going, this year, more largely into the cultivation
of potatoes, at his beautiful estate — Blakeford — in Queen Anne's County, en-
couraged by his success last year, in clearing, if I remember, more than $100 to
the acre, on a considerable space of ground ; but his barn-cellar being on the
water's edge, he enjoys, over you, in location, great facilities for transporta-
tion to market. I believe all his crops have been fully doubled since that
estate came into his hands, as they have been much more than doubled at
Doden. I mention it to show, encouragingly, to young farmers, like your-
self, what may be done by a free and sagacious use of labor and capital in
agriculture, no less than in other pursuits.

Is it not, however, one among a thousand proofs of our careless and improvi-
dent husbandry, that the average yield of potatoes in our country falls so much
under that of England, even more than our yield of wheat and other corns,
as they call them ? There, my impression is, that the average pro-
duce is not under 300 bushels to the acre, while in New York, for example,
which is sometimes cracked upas a model State in agriculture, the average,
in 1845, was not more than 80 bushels ! — or is it that the land in England
is for the most part — or the best portions of it — really and essentially more

ON STORING POTATOES. 769

fertile than ours ? The question is the more worthy of consideration with me,
for having heard Mr. Webster observe that to him the English soil seeiiied to
have a rich, greasy, mulattoish cast, different from ours. I would not qi."te
him as authority, for any thing that the public may generally know of him
as a farmer, were it not that my own observations have led me to believe
that he has a natural turn, and a penchant for agricultural life, as he is known
to have for some rural pastimes. If he had been reared to farming, with the. ,
means of an Earl Spencer or Lord Yarmouth,* he would have been quite as
eminent in agriculture as he is as an expounder of pohtical constitutions — for
he would have brought to its illustration the magnificent liberality of a Coke,
and the philosophy of a Bacon, Do not suppose there is any disposition to
compliment him on account of his high station, or the large space he rills in
the public eye, for you have seen that my first tribute was paid, and with
equal pleasure, to the overseer at Doden — pa/mam qui meruit fer at.

After all, the true inquiry and comparison for you, as a practical planter,
to institute is, — how much clear profit, deducting cost of labor, &c., the
same field will yield in wheat, corn, tobacco, potatoes, and other crops :
keeping an eye to what is too often overlooked, viz. : what each crop will
return to the land, in its offal, and in what state it leaves the land for subse-
quent crops in ?Ln improving rotation? But, my young friend, is there am/
limit to the field of intellectual research for the young farmer who enters on
the profession, as I trust you have done, with firm intent to make it a source
of useful and entertaining investigation, as well as of profit ?

Well, I apprehend that by this time you begin to think my allegation of
want of time is " all gammon !" The tnjth, however, is, that it so delights
me to see well-bred, well-educated young gentlemen, who have " the world
before them, where to choose," voluntarily betaking themselves to agricul-
ture, to be followed, not as a mere drudgery, but as a profession that affords
scope for mental exercise and excellence; that I am liable to be carried awav
by that enthusiasm which all my life, and in the midst of various public
occupations, has led me to do what I could to encourage and honor such a
disposition.

Heretofore, and in more prosperous circumstances, it has been done none
the less zealously than now, that for bread, and as the only means or hope
of procuring it, I am laboring to the same end in "The Plough, the Loom,
and the Anvil."

If you can find any friend to unite with you in patronismg my journal,
commencing either with the first or with the second volume, next month,
(July,) I trust there is no harm in saying, frankly, that you will much
oblige one who for more than thirty years has been incessantly striving to
elevate and benefit the various industries of the country, and especially
that which you have chosen to follow as your " vocation !"

Respectfully, and with best wishes, your friend, J. S. Skinner.

* Ghimsbt. — The visit of Prince Albert to this town, to lay the foundation stone of the
new docks, which will one day make Great Grimsby one of the first ports of England, is
of memorable event in the history of Lincolnshire. The Prince left town on Tuesday for
Brocklesby, the seat of the Earl of Yarborough. Nothing could surpass the affectionate
and loyal reception which the prince met with at every stage of his journey, and when, in
the afternoon, he reached Brockelsby, he found, drawn up in front of the hall, the whole
of Lord Yarborough's tenantry, to the member of 500 or 600, all mmmtcd, and presenting, as may
be imagined, a very striking and interesting appearance. Many of them wore tight cords and top-
boots, and, firmly seated on their hunters, revealed at a glance the favorite pastime of the North
Lincolnshire farmers. Whether young men or old, the prince saw in their open and
manly countenances, tlie true yeoman spirit blended with the contentment which a suc-
cession of kind and liberal landlords never fails to inspire in their tenantry. A more in-
teresting sight, without the slightest tincture of theatrical effect, could hardly be witnessed.
Vol. L— 97 3 T

770 THE WOOL TRADE.

1847.

1846.

1845.

88 @ 42^

31 @,33

39 @41

35 @ 36

30@31

85 @ 38

33 @34

28@29

33 @ 35

80 @ 32

26 @, 28

32@33

29 («)30

25 @ 26

28 @ 31

28@29

23 @25

28 (a\ 31

22@23

18 @ 19

22 @ 25

31 @ 33

28 @29

32 @ 35

[From the Wool Grower for May.]

THE WOOL TRADE.

We next give a statement of the price of wool in Philadelphia, on the
1st of July, and for the three preceding years. Sales were not, however,
made at those prices, except at a very small extent, as the market was de-
cidedly dull.

The following comparative statement of the prices of wool on the first
of July, during the last four years, may not be uninteresting at this time : —

1848.

Prime or Saxony, 36 @ 40

Full blood, 31 @ 33

3-4 " 28@30

1-2 " 26@28

1-4 *' and common, 25 @ 26

Ko. 1, pulled, 25 @ 27

<' 2, " 21 @ 23

Merino, " 28 @ 30

And we close by giving the prices current in New York and Boston,
March 30, 1849.

Saxony fleece 40 @, 47^

Merino, 37^ @ 40

3-4 to full blood, 33 @, 87J

Common, 30 (a) 33

pulled, No. 1, 25 («), 27

super, 28 @ 30

Lambs, — @ —

" country pulled, 35 @ —

" super, — @, 33

" No. 2, — @, 17

The markets, however, are bare of wool. Some manufacturers have
fair stocks, but generally not enough to more than last them into the next
clip.

Wool did not materially advance until last February, when it went rapidly
up to its present price. But we do not believe these prices can be sus-
tained, especially upon the coarser qualities, because the money market con-
tinues stringent ; nor is there much prospect that it will be so abundant
as many have anticipated.

Many, last year, were anxious for us to give some price that we thought
might be realized for wool, at the Buffalo Depot. We did so, and subse-
quent events proved our estimate true ; but sales were not made rapidly,
and we have been blamed because we could not get those prices. All we
can do, is to give facts, and our opinions based upon those facts.

We expect to realize within the following range, and can see nothing in
the way to prevent us.

No. 1, 34cto 38c Super, 45c to 56c

" 2, 82 "85 Extra, ...40 " 45

" 3 28 "32 Prime, 35 " 39

" 4, 27 "29 Long combing, 27." 30

" 5, 23 "25 Short " 25 " 32

Mr. VaiVs Sale of Short-horns. — Those who wish to lay a sure founda-
tion for a herd of pure short-horns, ought to bear in mind that Mr. Vail's
sale comes off' at Troy, on the 13th day of June. His herd is more or less
of the celebrated Bates's stock, often referred to in advertisements of short-
horns in England, as the "crack" stock of the United Kingdom. The cow
"Peach," of the short-horn blood, exhibited at Smithfield, in 1843, weighed,
when slaughtered, 1770 pounds.

DUCKS. — MARYLAND AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 771

DUCKS.

"Young ducklings had better not be cooped, but should be confined to a dry, warm
yard, for some days at least, lest the mothers should drag them out too early on the wet
sward, before the dews have been absorbed by the sun's rays. Wet, damp, and 'old, are
always fatal to young poultry chicks of all sorts, producing either scouring or the c^mp,
when, becoming very weakly, if they do not die at once, diey are liable to be trouJ^,n
under foot by the mother, particularly if cooped. In warm, dry weather, they may take
to the -water at any time without detriment. In the artificial state, ducklings require, like
turkey chicks, to be assisted by a k\v crams of barley meal, or pollard, two or three times
a day. In Ireland, they mix boiled nettles with their food, upon which both thrive ad-
mirably. Soaked bread, or too much wet food, is injurious. ' Remains of boiled potato'
should be dry and free from salted gravy, and the like, from the table. Duck eggs set
under a hen is more convenient, and the young ones are not so liable to be trodden down,
but it is painful to witness the anxiety and trepidation of the poor foster-mother when the
little ones take to the water."

There is one mistake in the above : " In warm, dry weather, they may
take to the water at any time without detriment." It seems almost a para-
dox in Duckology, but young ducks should be kept from the water until
the down which covers them when hatched has been superseded by a coat
oi feathers. Then they may go swimming ad libition. Keep them from
the water when young, follow the directions above, and give them animal
food, fresh, chopped up, and you may raise as many ducks as you please.
« » « • »

The Maryland Agricultural Society held its quarterly meeting in its
own, central, spacious, and convenient Hall, in Baltimore, on the 2d ult.
The President of the Society, Mr. Calvert, supported and encouraged by
the President of the Montgomery County Society, A. B. Davis, and the
President of the New Castle County Agricultural Society, in the fulness
of their zeal, were all in attendance, with many other gentlemen whose pre-
sence indicated that the right spirit is abroad, and the best influences at
work.

We have not room to note the proceedings, e.xcept to say, that a com-
mittee was appointed to make arrangements for the next exhibition, in Octo-
ber ; and resolutions were adopted to memorialize Congress for an appro-
priation of public lands, for the establishment of institutions in each State
for agricultural education ; also, for getting, through the Vice-Presidents,
resident in each county, a return, in the form of an estimate, of the number
of dogs in each county; as an incipient step towards the enactment of some
legislation, to prevent or diminish the destruction of sheep by dogs. One
gentleman present said it was believed that two thousand had been thus
destroyed in his county within the past year.

Deserved Testimonial. — The Massachussets Horticultural Society at its
last meeting presented to the Hon. M. P. Wilder, the late Presidient of the
Society, a massive silver Pitcher, superbly chased and wrought, and bear-
ing the following inscription : —

HON. MARSHALL P. WILDER,
President of the Massachusetts Horticultural Society, from A. D. 1841 to 1849.
Tliis Piece of Plate is presented by the Society, as a testimonial of respect and appre-
ciation of his valuable services during the above period. — January, 1849.

Mr. Wilder has eminently deserved this gift, for his services in behalf
of the Society have been numerous and enduringly valuable.

The " Tables of Exports," at pages 644-5, which must have cost much
labor and inquiry to make them up, should have been credited to that
valuable, excellent journal, " The Philadelphia Commercial List."

772 THE FARMING INTEREST.

THE F/iRMING INTEREST.

"It IP siipposed," says 'The Mftine Farmer,' "that three fourths of the population of the
country are employed in agricult.ire; the other quarter being divided among all other
employments and professions. Besides, the mechanic, the manufacturer, the merchant,
and tlie professional man, are all mainly dependent upon the farmers for patronage and
support. When the farmers, as a class, are prosperous, all the others participate in their
prosperity. From this it follows, that whatever benefits the agricultural class, directly
benefits three-fourths of the people, and indirectly benefits the other fourth.

" Surely, then, the farmers have a right to demand of government the means to sustain
their agricultural societies, and to collect and disseminate important information relative
to their calling. Let the light of science and education be brought to the aid of agricul-
ture. Let our resources be developed, and the skill and industry of the husbandman be
directed into their proper channel, and results would soon be obtained, in which not only
the farmer could rejoice, but the whole community with him.

"These are the right sentiments, and every paper having the true interests of this noble
branch of industry at heart, should make them known, should strive to enforce them, by
calling upon our government, that, in fostering and promoting other great interests, this,
the greatest of them all, should not be overlooked, but come in for its full share.'' — Ger-
manioivn Telegraph.

In the enumeration here given of the various classes into which the com-
munity is divided, the writer has overlooked one, that is, of all others, the
most opposed to the prosperity of the agricultural interest — that of politi-
cians. To support them, and their children, and their friends, it is neces-
sary that we should have fleets, and armies, and military academies, and
naval academies, and foreign ministers, and charges d'affaires, and secre-
taries, and bearers of despatches, and legions of other officials ; and to find
employment for them, or to give excuse for the payment of them out of the
treasury, we must have occasional wars with Indians, or Mexicans, and thus
we make occasion for large expenditure, needing large revenue. Thus,
when the farmer or planter desires protection against the perpetual revul-
sions of England, he is met by the objection that it Avonld diminish the reve-
nue. It is deemed better to consume foreign food, in the form of cloth, and
iron, than home-grown food, in similar forms, because it will increase the
revenue. If the farmer, then, complains that he has lost his market, by
the closing of the furnaces, he is answered, that the revenue has increased,
and the temporary prosperity of the treasury is deemed an abundant com-
pensation for the permanent exhaustion of the land and its owner.

The farmers " have a right to demand of the government the means of
maintaining their agricultural societies," and the sooner they insist upon the
exercise of that right, the better it will be for them. They " have a right"
to insist that the consumer shall be brought to take his place by the side of
the producer, that they may be enabled to live in closer connection with
each other, cultivating rich soils instead of poor ones, economizing the labor
of transportation, returning to the land the refuse of its products, and restor-
ing the poor lands, already exhausted, and thus increasing their means of
obtaining better food,\and improved implements, and newspapers, and maga-
zines, and books, that now they cannot buy, because our system, perpetually
vacillating, has tended to exhaust the land, to compel men to fly from each
other, and thus to deprive them of the stimulus to exertion which is found
always to exist where there is a market for apples, and pears, and peaches,
and plums, and cabbages, and potatoes, and turnips, and carrots, and mut-
ton, and veal, and beef — but which never exists where men are compelled
to cultivate wheat, or cotton, because they can find a market for nothing
else. The pohcy is wise which tends to draw men together — combination
increases power, and promotes civilization. The policy which tends to
leave men to depend on distant markets, is a foolish one, as it scatters them,
and prevents combination and improvement.

THE HERON AND THE BITTERN. THE BAT.

773

THE HERON AND THE BITTERN.

There is a fine heronry at Sir Henry
Fletcher's park, Walton-on-Thames. The
nests are built on tlie top of some of tlie
finest fir-trees in the kingdom, and appear
somewhat larger than those of the rook.
These birds must go an amazing distance
to provide food for their young, as I have
been assured that the bones of sea-fish have
been found under the nests. They appear
to be slow and heavy fliers.

A young bird from this heronry, having
fallen out of the nest, was taken away in the
evening by a gentleman, who carried it to
his house at some miles' distance, and turned
it into a walled garden that night The
next morning, one of the old birds was seen
to feed it, and continued to do so till the
young one made its escape. This bird must
have gone over a very considerable space
of ground in search of its young.

A large assembly of herons takes place at
certain times of the year in Richmond PaTk,
where I have counted from fifty to sixty at
a time. Sometimes they may be seen on the
tops of trees, and at others on the ground at
a distance from the ponds, appearing per-
fectly motionless. This assemblage is very
curious. The nearest heronries to Richmond
Park are the one near Walton-on-Tharaes,
and that in Windsor Great Park, both of
which would scarcely furnish the number
above mentioned. There seems to be no
reason why these birds should congregate
and remain for so long a time in the listless
manner in which I have seen them; nor
why the birds from two heronries should
meet at the same time in a place so far
distant from their usual haunts. It is sel-
dom that one sees more than two or three
herons together in the same place, and

then only when they are watchin^:: for their
prey.

A bittern {^Ardea stellaris) was lately 'hot
by one of the keepers in Richmond Park.
Though nearly dead when he was going 'o
pick it up, it showed great ferocity.

From the scarcity of this bird in England,
few people are acquainted with the dismal
noise it sometimes makes. Mr. Rennie de-
scribes it in a very picturesque manner.

" Those," he says, " who have walked in
a summer's evening by the sedgy sides of
unfrequented rivers, must remember a va-
riety of notes from diflerent water-fowl; the
loud scream of the wild goose, the croaking
of the mallard, the whining of the lapwing,
and the tremulous neigliingof the jack-snipe.
But of all these sotmds there is none so dis-
mally hollow as the booming of the bittern.
It is like the interrupted bellowing of the
bull, but hollower and louder, and is heard
at a mile distance, as if issuing from some
formidable being that resided at the bottom
of the waters. This is the bittern, whose
windpipe is fitted to produce the sound for
which it is remarkable. These bellowing
explosions are chiefly heard from the begin-
ning of spring to the end of autumn ; and
are the usual calls during the pairing season."

I have been informed by keepers that, if
they wound a bittern, it requires great cau-
tion in taking it up, as it will frequently dart
its pointed beak at their faces, and it always
makes a vigorous resistance. Mr. Bingley
says that this bird will wound the leg of the
sportsman even through his boot; and that
it sometmies turns on its back, and fights
with both its bills and its claws. When
surprised by a dog, it is said always to
throw itself into this posture.

THE BAT.

" Now air is hush'd, save where the weak-eyed bat,
With short, shrill shriek, flits by on leathern
■wing." — Collins.

It is probable that we had formerly a
larger breed of bats in this country than we
find at present. One of the workmen em-
ployed in the repairs of Cardinal Wolsey's
Hall, in Hampton Court Palace, brought me
the skeleton of a bat, which he found at the
end of one of the rafters of the ceiling. The
animal, when alive, must have been as large
as a pigeon. The hooks were very strong.
The natural history of the bat is very curious,
and we have some particulars respecting it
in M. St.-Hilaire's work, to which I have
already referred in speaking of the mole.

The claws of the hind feet of the bat are all
of an equal length, and thus better adapted
for enabling the animal to suspend itself,
which it does with the head downwards,
that being its natural posture of repose. By
adopting this attitude, the bat, on being dis-
turbed, can readily disengage itself, and
dropping into the air, can take flight imme-
diately. The wings of bats serve them as a
sort of mantle or cloak when at rest, and in
which they sometimes also cover up their
young, though they will at other times fly
about with two of them hanging to the
breast in the act of sucking. The wings,
by their delicate structure and extent, serve
as feelers to the animal in guiding its flight
3t2

774

MANUAL OP MANNERS.

in the dark. The celebrated naturalist Spal-
lanzani asrertained this to be the case, by
the fil!ii.ving experiment: — He hung up
sonip cloths across a long room, with holes
in them here and there, large enough for a
bat to fly through. On turning loose some
of these animals, which he had previously
deprived of their sight, and, as much as pos-
sible, of their hearing, he found that they flew
without the least difficulty through the holes
in the cloths. It is inferred, that as they did
not any where touch the cloth, they must
have been warned of their approach to it by
feeling the repiilse of the air set in motion
by their wings, and have distinguished the
hole by no^uch reaction taking place. This
is analogous to the case of a blind boy, who
on coming towards a person, standing per-
fectly still in a room, when he had ap-
proached within a short distance, suddenly
stopped, stamped with his foot, and then
turned off" to one side. This Ixiy must have
perceived a difference in the action of the
air. But I once observed a still more extra-
ordinary instance of this susceptibility in dis-
covering danger, in the case of a blind horse.
I was in the habit of driving this horse in
a gig, and by way of experiment I often
brought him suddenly up to a closed gate,
through which he had probably never before
passed, but he always stopped short, and I
never could force him against it. This horse
was perfectly blind, and must have avoided
the gate in consequence of perceiving that
there was some immediate intervening ob-

ject which obstructed that current of air
which he had previously been conscious of.
We know that a blind horse will sometimes
step into a hole or a ditch, but he rarely
runs himself against a post or a tree. It
may be thought that, in these two last in
stances, the ears assisted in guiding, probably
by their being able to perceive a difference
in the sound of their step.

But to return to the bat. She will some-
times settle on the ground ; and when she
does this, she shuts up her wings, and is
then able to walk, and even to run, at a good
pace, though awkwardly. She probably
only alights in search of food when she is
unable to procure it on the wing. When on
the ground, she runs to find some eminence
from which she may raise herself into the
air. Bats hybernate by getting into con-
cealed places for security, and they then
wrap themselves up in their wings.

They are gregarious animals. Vast num-
bers of them were lately found under the roof
of,an old building in Richmond Park. I had
two sorts of them brought to me, nearly simi-
lar in shape, but one very considerably larger
than the other. This latter is probably the
Vespcrtilio aUivolans mentioned by Gilbert
White. It measured nearly fifteen inches
from the tip of one wiiig to the tip of the
other. Its ears were very short, and its fur
of a chestnut color. The place where it was
found had a most otfensive and noisome
smell. These larger bats were quite as
numerous as the smaller species.

MANUAL OF MANNERS.

CONVERSATION.

This is a subject which requires the ut-
most tact and discretion. Conversation de-
pends generally on subjects started by
chance; but the tone of the conversation of
modern society is too often of an insipid na-
ture. It consists, in a great measure, of vain
compliments, the current rumors of the day,
idle jests, superficial wit, scandal without
end or purpose. How few are able to sus-
tain a serious conversation, or prolong a
useful one!

Chit-chat, which is generally harmless,
is always amusing; but every thing savoring
of scandal ought at all times to be strenu-
ously avoided.

In conversation you should speak only
of matters of which you know somediing.
Never venture upon any subject of which
you are ignorant, unless it be for informa-
tion. If you wish to secure attention, ad-
dress yourself to the capacity of those to
whom you speak, by not appearing to be

more learned than they are ; by which means
you may draw out their knowledge, which
otherwise they will keep to themselves. It
is common enough to hear persons who have
acquired a smattering of science constantly
using technical terms, but which they fre-
quently misapply. The truly learned make
no such pretensions. They find their own
language sufficient for the expression of their
sentiments, and they eschew every thing that
savors of affectation or pedantry. It is pain-
ful to hear a person laboring to show his
learning, while all the time he may be only
exhibiting his ignorance. In conversation
all that is required is to speak to the pur-
pose. The best-informed are generally the
least pretending. They speak little even of
those matters of which they know most, and
they never take it upon them to express
themselves decidedly on any matter of which
they are not sufficiently informed.

When you speak of religion, or about reli-
gious matters, let it be with reverence ; and

MANUAL OF MANNERS.

775

never give any countenance to profanity or
levity, when uttered by any one in your
hearing. Remember that evil communica-
tions corrupt good manners. To be witty at
the expense of religion is the sign of a de-
praved mind and a corrupt heart.

Never dispute about sacred things. It is
often the case that those who appear most
addicted to arguing about theology, are not
only ignorant of the first principles of reli-
gion, but have generally very little religious
principle.

Avoid, if possible, touching upon subjects
which you have reason to^now will be dis-
pleasing. It is somewhere truly said, —
" There are particular things that touch
a man's pride too nearly to be spoken of
lightly." Have regard, therefore, to the feel-
ings of those with whom you converse.
Politeness will teach you the tact of direct-
ing the conversation to such topics as you
know to be agreeable, or in which you be-
lieve those in whose company you may be
are most versant.

Good humour, when it is kept within
bounds, is the charm of conversation, which
is always the better for a little seasoning of
wit. But, as has been remarked, wit without
wisdom is a dangerous weapon. To take
upon you to furnish mirth for the whole
company is not only undignified, but you
will find it an arduous task. The professed
wit, though his company may be courted,
can never himself 'be esteemed. A harmless
jest will enliven the conversation, although
it may be lively enough without jesting.
A good thing, whatever the proverb may
say, is always the worse for being repeated ;
and whether it is heard or not when first
uttered, it should never be twice spoken.
The beauty of these things is their point ;
and to give that effect, they must come trip-
pingly off the tongue.

It is not contrary to good breeding to laugh
in company, and even to laugh heartily,
when there is any thing amusing going on :
this is nothing more than being sociable.
To remain prim and precise on such an oc-
casion is sheer affectation. Keep a strict
guard, however, over the propensity to
ridicule ; for this is a species of wit that is
not always understood, and may be unplea-
santly resented. To crush a jest in its first
conception is preferable to giving utterance
to what may hurt the feelings of another.
" A witty saying often leaves a mortal
wound."

It requires a great deal of temper to bear
with satire. Rochefoucault says, " Raillery
is more insupportable than reproach." An
innocent joke, however, is harmless. Never
allow a supercilious smile to be seen on your
countenance, nor permit yourself to sneer at

any one. » No debt is so surely or so libe-
rally repaid as contempt."

To jest on the sorrows or the misfortunes
of another, or to ridicule bodily defects, is
heartless and unfeeling.
' Avoid punning. That trifling kind of wit,
although not deserving of the severe reproof
of Dr. Johnson, that he who would be guilty
of perpetrating a pun would pick a pocket,
is nevertheless unwordiy of a man of edu-
cation or breeding. The unlettered do not
comprehend, and the really learned do not
countenance it.

In conversation, you will find it the best
way not to be ambitious of saying smart
things. Every one, however, is now more
brilliant than his neighbor, and one is almost
forced to be witty in self-defence.

There is nothing more annoying thari
interruption, except perhaps contradiction.
The person who is speaking to you, whoever
he may be, or on whatever topic, except a
personally insulting one, — for that admits of
no license, — is entitled to a patient hearing;
and, when a question is asked, courtesy
requires that a reply of some kind or other
should be immediately given.

Contradiction is the greatest rudeness any
one can be guilty of, and many persons will
not brook it, for it creates a sort of revulsion
in the feelings which it is sometimes diffi-
cult to control. Those who possess a high
idea of their own merit, as well as persons
of an argumentative disposition, are apt to
be guilty of this gross breach of good man-
ners. From the vehemence with which
some persons maintain their opinions, it
should seem as if the welfare of the world
depended on the matter in dispute. The
folly of argument is apparent in this, that
nothing is gained even although the point
in contention should be conceded. It is
better, however, to make some concession
for the sake of peace, than provoke or pro-
long any altercation or dispute, about a
matter too, which, after all, may be of the
most unimportant nature. Argument, where
entered upon, should be conducted in a mild
and gentlemanly manner ; in which case it
tends to enliven the conversation, which
might otherwise become dull, by uniformity
of opinion.

Public topics form fit subjects for conver-
sation. Matters purely confidential ought
never to be introduced. Keep faithfully the
secrets that are intrusted to you ; but, for
your own peace, never be anxious to obtain
the confidence of another.

He who loves to indulge in idle babble
shows himself unreasonable, and to a certain
extent dishonest, for he occupies the time
which might have been employed in listen-
ing to some person of sound information and

776

MANUAL OF MANNERS.

good sense. It was well observed by Goethe,
that of "all thieves, fools are the worst;
they rob us of boili time and temper." It is
difiicult to say which is most objectionable,
— a silly timidity which prevents a man
from opening his mouth, or a flippant
presumption that prompts him to engross
all the conversation to himself. We may
endure the silence of the one, when we
cannot tolerate the empty noise of tlie
other.

It is impossible to prevent people from
talking of themselves and their own affairs.
At all times avoid this mark of a vain and
little mind, which obtains no sympadiy; for,
as Shakspeare says, " What is Hecuba to me,
or I to Hecuba'?" If you are prone to speak
too much of yourself, you will be apt to be-
come tiresome ; if too much of others, cen-
sorious. A knowledge of llie world is of
immense advantage in this respect. There
fire people so conceited, that they have
always tact enough to direct the conversa-
tion to matters concerning themselves; while
many there are who take a pleasure in com-
plaining of their lot, and of the dulness of
the times.

It is allowable in some cases to conceal
our sentiments; but we ought never to do so
for the purpose of deceiving others. Make
it a rule never to give utterance to false-
hood : in all circumstances, and whatever
be the consequence, adhere to truth. To be
detected in any subterfuge, is to subject
yourself to continual suspicion; for no credit
can ever be given to one who has once been
convicted of an untruth. Tliough neither
truth nor sincerity oblige us to speak what
we think in all cases, we should in no case
say what we do not think.

Truth is the best ornament of conver-
sation. If you have to describe any thing,
narrate the matter as it happened, plainly
and concisely, without being too diffuse
on the one hand, or too minute on the
other.

Speak not too loud, nor yet too low. The
former may bring on you the accusation of
rudeness ; the latter, subject you to the
charge of whispering — which is at all times
an invidious thing.

Never use oaths in conversation. Swear-
ing is the mark of a vulgar as well as of an
immoral man, and says veiy little for his
head or his heart. The well-bred make use
oi" neither offensive names nor contemptuous
expressions. Some people say rude things
without any intention to offend : on the other'
hand, there are many, especially among
those who do not possess much merit, who
are too ready to take offence at what is said
by others.

Rousseau justly remarks, tliat " the tone

of good conversation is neither dull nor
frivolous. It is fluent and natural ; sensible,
without being pedantic; cheerful, without
being boisterous ; elegant, without being
affected ; polite, without being insipid ; and
jocose, without being equivocal. It deals
not in dissertations or epigrams ; conforms
to the demands of good taste, without being
bound by rule ; unites wit and reason, satire
and compliment, widiout departing from
the rules of a pure morality, and allov/s all
to speak on subjects which they understand.
Each one expresses his opinion, and sup-
ports it, in as^ew words as possible;
and no one attacks that of another with
warmth, or upholds his own with obsti-
nacy. All impart information, and all are
entertained."

Considering the value of good conversa-
tion in improving the mind, and giving a
tone to the manners, it is strange how few
parents think it ■worth their while to instruct
their children in the art. " A considerable
part of their time in schools," it has been
well observed, "is spent in acquiring facility
in written composition ; and yet, have we
not occasion to relate a hundred times, where
we have only occasion to write once^"

In conclusion, the young and inexperienced
are seriously advised not to presume to give
an opinion upon every subject indiscrimi-
nately, as some do who ought to know better.
Rashness of decision is no proof of judgment;
and a professed critic, like a professed wit,
gains few friends, though both may have
their admirers. Silence is often all that is
requisite to preserve esteem ; and a well-
timed modesty will prevent those weak-
nesses of character from being observed
which all are apt to betray in thoughtless or
idle conversation.

On the subject of behavior in company,
Legh Richmond gives the following excel-
lent advice to his daughters: —

" Be cheerful, but not gigglers. Be serious,
but not dull. Be communicative, but not
forward. Be kind, but not servile. Beware
of silly, thoughtless speeches; although you
may forget them, others will not. Remem
ber Gods eye is in every place, and his ear
in every company. Beware of levity and
familiarity with young men ; a modest re-
serve, without affectation, is the only safe
path. Court and encourage serious conver-
sation with those who are truly serious and
conversible ; and do not go into valuable
company without endeavoring to improve
by the intercourse permitted to you. Nothing
is more unbecoming, when one part of a
company is engaged in profitable and inte-
resting conversation, than that another part
should be trifling, giggling, and talking com-
parative nonsense to each other."'

INDEX TO YOLUME I.

Accounts, on keeping farm, 450.

Address, General Tilghman's, remarks on,
373.

Addresses to the Planters of Hancock
county, Georgia, with extracts from,
&-C., with notes by the Editors of the
P. L. &, A. 509.

Addresses, Agricultural, numerous and valu-
able, 420.

Agricultural Club of New Castle county,
Delaware, proceedings of, 225.

Agricultural Discussions, at Boston, 584.

Agricultural Education, in Md., Earle's
resolutions, 578.

Agricultural knowledge, examples of ho-
nourable zeal in the pursuit of, by young
Americans, 110.

Agricultural Society, the county that cannot
raise one, 363.

Agriculture and Manufactures, how con-
nected, 255.

Agriculture, discourse on wants of, before
the Middlesex (Conn. J A^jricultural So-
ciety, by J. S. Skinner, 273.

Agriculture, Political Economy of, dis-
course on, by J. S. S. 1.

Agriculture, what intellect may do for it,
258.

Agriculture of the several States, 749.
produce of, 722.
capital in, 722.

Agriculturist, the Vermont State, 375.

Agriculturists, how affected by depression
ot manufacturers, 480.

Animals, love of, for their young, 265.
friendship of, 524.

Appearance, outward, 526.

Arts, Mechanic, Maryland Institute for pro-
motion of, 214.

Asparagus, 144.

Atmosphere, 396.

Baldwin, new mductions in agriculture, 577.

Baltimore exhibition, agricultural, to take
place there, 326.

Baltimore, State Agricultural fair held there,
notice of, 385.

Beef, potted, 272.

Bees, Queen Bee at home, 236.

Birds' nests, 394.

Biscuits, 208.

Blacking, to make, 208.
first rate, 272.

Bone, dust, 441.

Bones, for grape vines, disapproved as ma-
nure for, 63.

Book knowledge of Farmers, derided by
whom, 97.

Book, story about an old one, 119.
Vol. I.— 98

Boston, agricultural c'jycussions at, 584.

horticultural exhibition at, 63.
Bottles, to clean, 208.
Boy, poor farm boy, how he rose, 127.
Breeding stud, expenses of, 485.
Brentz's unbranning machine, 186.
Brooke, Roger, of Montgomery county,

Maryland, 285.
Bulbs, spring, cutting flowers from, 63.
Bunns, Mrs. G's famous bunns, 208.
Burwell, N. Jr., of Virginia, on the corn
producing capacity of Clarke county,
Virginia, 508.
Burke, Edmund, commissioner of patents,
letter from, 730.
answer to, 730.
Butcher, the experienced, 169, 219.
Butter, composition of, 61.
making, 479.
preservation of, 144.
to purify rancid, 739.
to remove the turnip flavor from, 208.

Cake, a quickly made and cheap, 208.
Calves, treatment of, 388.
Canada, effects of free trade there, 546.
Capron, Col., letter from, 501.
Carey, Mr. H. C, address of, 422.

his work, Past, Present,
and Future, 80.
Carrots, corn and, 454.
Carts, on the construction and use of, and

other vehicles, 302.
Carts, harvesting, saving of animal labor,

62.
Catechism of agricultural chemistry, 547.
Cattle, fattening, prize essay, 580.
Cattle trade of New York, remarks on rules

that prevail there, 38.
Cement, French, 72.
Cheese, Cheshire, 124.
the trade, 511.
Children, lessons for, 199.
Chickens, to cure gapes in, 72.
Cinnamon, 263.
Clarke county, Virginia, its corn-producing

capacity, by Mr. Burwell, jr., 508.
Climates best suited to the cotton plant, 480.
Clothes, to preserve, 272.
Clover, of the comparative value of clover

and peas, 46.
Coad, Mr. Coad's law in Maryland, 382.
Coal, the anthracite coal trade of Pennsyl-
vania, 73.
Coal trade of Pennsylvania, view of, 566.
Cockroaches, to destroy, 208
Coffee, 135.
"Common Sense," attack on the Plough,

the Loom, and the AnvU, 721.

777

778

INDEX.

" Common Sense," in the Union, denounces
the doctrine of the Plough, the Loom,
and the x\nvil, as "absurd, nonsensical,
ridiculous, preposterous," &c. 5C2.

" Common sense," answer to, 725.

Connubial statistics of Lowell, 495.

Consumption, power of, under the free trade
and the protective systems, compared
and illustrated, 337.

Convention, agricultural, at Baltimore, brief
account of, 248.

Convention, agricultural, Maryland, 322.

Cooking, science of, 395.

Corn and carrots, 454.

nutritive matter in, 63.
trade of Europe, remarks on by the
editors, 478, 737.

Cotton, analysis of, remarks on climate and
soil best adapted to it, 244.

Cotton, East India, imported to the United
States, 569.

Cotton, how its production is related to the
production of food, 76.

Cotton, over-production of, ought to read
under-consumption of, 568.

Cotton plant, climate best suited to: differ-
ent kinds of cotton: Yankee enter-
prise, 480.

Cotton, the true and profitable mode of di-
minishing the surplus production of,
465.

Cotton, different kinds of, 480.
seed extracted, 754.
manufactures, statistics of, 723.
picking, extraordinary case of, 732.
growth of, in India, 544.

Cow, Jersey, (misnamed Alderney,) two
illustrative engravings, 65.

Cows, dairy, Alderney recommended, 510.

Cows, short horned, at the great fair in
England, 262.

Cranberries, culture of, 414.

Crawford, Tilghman, 767.

Cresson, Mr., promotes tree planting, 765.

Crops, rotation of, last report of committee
of Montgomery county, Maryland, 283.

Currants, a list of good kinds, 479.

Dairies, Public, 453.

Dairy, Alderney cows recommended for,

510.
Decanters, to clean, 208.
Delaware State Agricultural Convention and

organization of State Society, 586.
Depopulation in the South, causes of, 538.
Dinners, agricultural, why not popular in

United States, 155.
Dog, the shepherd's, varieties and qualities

of, (with an engraving of Arrogante, a

Spanish sheep dog,) 53.
Dogs, sheep-killing in Ohio, 542.
Domestics, manufacture of, in Geo. 495.
Dr. Emerson, novel proposition by, to the

Philadelphia Society for promoting agri-
culture, 100.
Dr. Baldwin, Winchester, Va., on manures,

247.
Draining, new labor-saving implements for,

377.
Draining land, on the importance of, 518.
Drill, use of, 96.
Ducks, on rearing, 771.
D. W. Porter, a chip of the old block, 253.

Earle, resolutions in Maryland about agri-
cultural education, 578.

Early impressions, effects of, 400.

East, why the East cannot compete with
the West, 438.

Eastern Shore of Maryland lands, their ca-
pabilities and prices, wheat and hogs,
539.

Eastern States, their agricultural economy
and condition, 83.

Economist, new paper to be published at
Cannelton, 576.

Economy, domestic, examples of, in New
England, 93.

Education, agricultural, 321.

Edwards, Governor of Missouri, his mes-
sage, 529.

Egg, preserving, 144.

Elements of Agriculture ; a translation from
the French, by F. G. Skinner, 506.

Elephants, their use and value for the plough
in East Indies, 50.

Emus, 332.

England, total acreage of England and
Virginia, and their divisions, 362.

England, effects of colonial policy of, 499.

England, foreign provisions imported into,
500.

England, old, old Virginia, and old Massa-
chusetts, 343.

Essay, prize, by J. J. Thomas, 511.

Essays, Maryland prize, remarks on, 369.

Europe, corn trade of, remarks on, 478.

Europe, States of, area and population,
319.

Experiments on depths of sowing, 61.

Experiments with potatoes and gooseber-
ries, 259.

Facts, noticeable in late English papers,
232.

Factory, of cotton in South, 63.

Fair, annual State, at New York, 123.

Farm, a large one for New England ; its
uses and products, 412.

Farm, (Springfield,) residence of George
Patterson, Esq. 413.

Farm management, a prize essay, by J. J.
Thomas, 511.

Farms, on the economy of small farms com-
pared with large ones, 450.

Farmer, how benefited by the iron trade
of the United States, 145.

Farmer, on the death of a young and enter-
prising, 384.

Farmer, how concerned in the stoppage of
flannel mills, 159.

Farmers, combinations against, the sugges-
tion of, often unfounded, 44.

Farmers, book knowledge of, derided by
whom, 97.

Farmers, their protection still too great,
this discovery explained, 215.

Farmers, how affected by free trade with
England, 209.

Farmers and planters, obligation to watch
the measures of government, 78.

Farming in Maryland, what is needed for
its improvement, 175.

Far West, why go away from kindred and
friends to the, 288.

Fattening cattle, food wasted in the process
of. 98.

INDEX.

779

Fencing, Maryland law on the subject of,
443.

Flannel mills, stopping, why; how it con-
cerns the farmer, 159.

Flowers, flax steep water manure for, 385.
love of, 69.
cutting off from spring bulbs, 63.

Food, what countries afford the cheapest,
why, 75.

Food, waste of, in fattening cattle, 93.
for hogs, 541.

Fowls, weight of, 378.

Free trade with England, and itg effects on
the farmers and planters of the world,
209.

Free trade, power of consumption under
the free trade and protective systems,
compared and illustrated, 337.

Free trade, its effects in Canada, 546.

Fritters, quickly made, 272.

Fruits, their cultivation, profits thereof, 380.

Gapes, to cure in turkeys and chickens, 72.

Garden, our little garden, 70.

Gardeners, practical hints for small garden-
ers, 499.

Gardening, window, 139.

Gas, for the farmer, 419.

Geddes, George, on plank roads, 762.

Georgia, address to planters of Hancock
county, extracts from, with notes by
the editors of the P. L. & A. 509.

Georgia, emigration from, causes, 761.
manufacture of domestics, 495.
manufactures, 376.

Glass, to clean, 208.

Gooseberries and currants, a list of good
kinds, 479.

Gooseberries, experiments with, 259.

Grain, English market, how to secure it, 158.

Grain, measurement of, at Philadelphia,
568.

Grape vines, bones not approved as manure
for, 63.

Ham, pea-fed, of North Carolina, equal to

Westphalia, 62.
Hands, press for, in harvest time, accounted

for, 167.
Harrow, improved, engraving of, 562.

the Norwegian, 252.
Hemp, by James Anderson, 231.
Hens, to make lay constantly, 144.
Hide trade of the West, with remarks on,

732.
Hogs, food for, 541.

weight of, 542.
Honey, premium honey at Baltimore, the

Stabler coat of arms, 476.
Honor to the spade and the plough, doings

in Massachusetts, 579.
Horse, action, wind, temper, speed: ex-
penses of a breeding stud ; value of

stakes and prizes, 485.
Horse, the race horse ; rearing of young

stock. 425.
Horse, the term blood. Eastern horses,

breeding the race horse, 237.
Horse, valuable properties, why proscribed

by the Israelites, excellence of the

British breed, 195.
Horse, what constitutes a thorough bred,

choice of stallions and mares, 311.

Horsemanship in Chili, 131.

Horseology, saddles, spur, pony, racing
jockey. 113.

Horses, of Penna., how to be improved, 51.

Horticultural Exhibition at Boston, 63.

Society of Massachusetts, 455.

Husbandry, Vermont and Maryland com-
pared, 445.

IcE-HousES, structure of, on low grounds,

in China, 137.
Immigration, what States benefitted by it,

and why, 379.
Implements, new labor-saving for draining

and subsoiling, 377.
India, growth of cotton there, 544.
Indian corn, large crops of, in Ohio, 753.
Industry, domestic, Southern sentiment on

the policy of encouraging, 47.
Industry, how it thrives, and how towns

grow where the loom and the anvil take

their place by the side of the plough.

Statistics of Lawrence, Mass. 345.
Industry, American, manifesto in favor of,

signed by seventy-nine cotton planters

of Adams county, Mississippi, 287.
Insects, 331.

Rose, 399.
language of, 68.
Instinct and reason, 141.
Insurance, insure your lives, 456.
Intrepidity of a lady, 398.
Ireland, depopulation of, causes, 761.
Iron business in Virginia, its connection

with agriculture, 538.
Iron for railroads in the United States, con-
tracts for in England, 554.
Iron mining, statistics of, 723.
Iron trade of the United States, how it

benefits the farmer and planter, 145.
Iron trade, declining condition of, causes and

consequences, 250.

James Anderson on hemp, 231.
Jelly, apple, to riiake, 272.
Journals, agricultural, increasing, are they
properly encouraged ? 374.

Keener, S., letter on Ohio agriculture, 750.
Kent county, Md., farmers' club, on time of

sowing wheat, 246.
Knowledge, 336.

Labor, animal, saving of harvesting carts,

62.
Lady, an acute one, 399.
Land, English, statistics of its produce, 126.
Landed interest suffers most from calamities

of war, 229.
Lawrence, Mass., statistics of, 345.
Lawrence, Samuel, letters from, 327.
Leaves, their value, 472.
Lime and other manures, by E. Stabler, 740.
Linen, to perfume, 208.
Liverpool, the Irish poor in, 499.
Live-stock, transit of, 61.
Lowell, connubial statistics of, 495.
Lumber and freights in Maine, 761.

Machines, threshing, public, 453.
Madder in the United States, 447.
Manufacture of domestics in Georgia, 495.
Manufacturers in the South and West, 747.

780

INDEX.

Manufactures, woollen, their connection
with the agriculture of the United
States, 27.

Manufactures and agriculture, how con-
nected, 255.

Manufactures, depression of, how it affects
the agriculturalist, 480.

Manufactures, Georgia, 376.

Manures, Col. Wilder's remarks on, 53-4.

flax steep water, a manure for

flowers, 385.
manual of, 525.
Mr. Teschemacher's remarks on,

536.
swamp muck used as, 473.
salt, 61.

the true source of their fertihzing
power. Dr. Baldwin, 247.

Marble to clean, 272.

Mares, choice of, 311.

Markets, foreign, what the farmer may ex-
pect from a dependence on, 45.

Markets, foreign, effects of dependence on
illustrated, 367.

Marl, blue and while, composition of, 575.

Maryland State agricultural chemist, notice
of his operations, 575.

Maryland, State Agricultural Society, 749,
771.

Maryland, agricultural habits and products,
749.

Maryland institute for promotion of me-
chanic arts, 214.

Maryland agricultural convention, 322.

Maryland, tarming, what is needed for its
improvement, 175.

Maryland prize essays in, by whom written,
259.

Massachusetts, 343.

Horticultural Society of, 455.
Saving Institution, 522.

Measurement of grain at Philadelphia, 568.

Meslin or mesling, what it is, 119.

Milk, preservation of, 144.

to remove the turnip flavor from, 208.

Mississippi, Adams county, manifesto of
seventy-nine cotton planters in favor
of protection to American industry, 287.

Mississippi, the Valley of, its advantages
and resources, 496.

Mississippi, the Valley of, its resources for
manufacturing, 307.

Missouri, message of Gov. Edwards, 529.

Montgomery, Ind., gardens, report on, 270.

Moral training, 268.

Mothers, lessons for, 199.

Mothers and children, readings for, 587.

Mother's and children's department, migra-
tion of birds, plants and seeds, manual
of manners, snow-storm sonnet, cook-
ery, whole duty of woman, 457, 464.

Muck, on the use of swamp muck as ma-
nure, 473.

Mules, remarks on, average age of, 43.

Nature, study of, 66.

Nepotism, extraordinary, 332.

Newcastle County, Del., proceedings of
agricultural club there, 225.

New England, examples of domestic eco-
nomy in, 93.

New England, seven wonders of, in the
eyes of a southern traveller, 81.

New inductions in agriculture, by Dr. Bald-
win, 577.

New York annual State fair, 123.

New Yor.v canal trade, 505.

New York, remarks on rules that prevail
there in the cattle trade, 38.

New York State Agricultural Society, re-
marks on, premiums offered by, 160.

Nimrod, on saddles, spurs, &,c. 113.

Nitrate of soda, 63.

North Carolina, destruction of pine forests,
the remedy suggested, 123.

Nurses, faults in, 396.

Nutritive matter in corn, oats, &c. 63,

Oats, nutritive matter in, 63.

Oats take much acid from the soil, 739.

Ohio, agriculture of, 749.

growth of agricultural wealth there,

543.
sheep-killing dogs there, 542.
State board of agricultural premiums

offiired by, 543.
vine culture there, 386.
Onions, prize essay on cultivation of, 570.
Oxen, advantages to be derived from a more
extended use of, in the husbandry of
the United States, 290.
Oxen, advantages to be derived from a more
extended use of, practical observations
on breaking, rearing, and using, 353.
Oxen, on breaking, 755.

Paint, to clean, 72.

Parasitical plants, 523.

Past, the Present, and the Future — man and
his helpmate, 555.

Past, Present, and Future referred to, 80.

Pasture, its influence on sheep, 520.

Pea, cow-pea, or Georgia pea, its value as a
fertilizer, 48.

Peas, of the comparative value of peas and
clover, 46.

Pennsylvania, coal trade of, 73.

view of, 566.

Phinney, E., management of his farm, 80.

Philadelphia Agricultural Society, next ex-
hibition, 262.

Philadelphia Agricultural Society's exhibi-
tion, 330.

Pickle walnuts, 72.

Pigeons, 332.

Pigs, increase of, 320.
notes on, 540.

Pine forests of North Carolina, their de-
cay, remedy suggested, 123.

Plank roads, remarks on, 762.

Planter, how benefited by iron trade of the
United States, 145.

Planters, how affected by free trade with
England, 209.

Plaster-of-Paris, suggestions on the action
of, by Professor Morton of Yale Col-
lege, 451.

Play-ground, an hour at the Old Play-
ground, 70.

Plough, effects of its separation from the
anvil made clear, 342.

Plough, Prouty and Mears', 133.

Ploughs, steam ploughs, present and pros-
pective use of 41.

Ploughing, hill-side, improvers of agricul-
tural machinery, 117.

INDEX.

781

Ploughing,' principles of, report of com-
mittee of the Onondago, New York,
341.

Poetry, " Grave of the broken-hearted,"
The beautiful, 400.

Poetry, " Cling to those who cling to you,"
" Home and friends," " Whole duty of
woman," 335.

Population, of the improvements in agricul-
ture, and the useful arts that grow out
of concentration of, 300.

Population, concentration of, beneficent
effects of the policy that promotes it,
177.

Potatoes, experiments with, 259.
fried, 272.
washer, 519.

Poultry, 379.

advice in keeping, 674.

hatching the eggs of, 61.

houses, to prevent vermin from m-

festing, 72.
to raise for market on a large
scale, 168.

"Practical Man," his claim to be consi-
dered, the first promoter of improve-
ments in agriculture and horticulture,
102.

Premiums offered by New York State Agri-
cultural Society, remarks on, 160.

Protection, power of consumption under the
free trade and protective systems com-
pared and illustrated, 337.

Protective policy, 416.

Providence, order of, 66.

Provisions, foreign, imported into England,
500.

Prices, table of, 456.

Prince George county, Md., October fair
there, what they did, and what they did
not, 364.

Prize essays, 130.

Pudding, apple, baked, 208.

Pudding, plain lemon, 208.

Raileoad iron for the United States, con-
tracts for in England, 354.

Railway, portable, 731.

Rats, only certain mode of poisoning, 144.

Reybold, visit to, annual sale of sheep, 164.

Readings for mothers and children, 523 to
528.

Remarks, introductory to readings for mo-
thers and children, 64.

Report of a committee in Onondago county,
New York, on principles of ploughing,
341.

Reputation, 336.

Richmond, Va., its advantages for manu-
facturing purposes, 162.

Roberts' resolutions, 434.

Roses, 528.

Saddles, 113.

Salt as manure, 61.

Sauce, celery, for roasted or boiled fowls,
208.

Savings Institution of Massachusetts, 522.

School Book, catechism of agricultural che-
mistry, with engravings, 547.

Seed, sowing, 143.

Serpents, 393.

Sheep, annual sale of Reybold's, 164.

husbandry in Maryland and Vir-
ginia, 448.
in England and America, Mr. Jonas
Webb's Babraham tup show, 315.
influence of pasture on, 520.
merino, against natives, profits of

keeping, 766.
New Oxford, imported into Dela-
ware, 24.
Oxfordshire, Reybold's, 134.
period of gestation, analysis of ma-
nure, 88.
the, in its various forms, 437.
Sheep-killing dogs in Ohio, 542.
Shoes, to make water-proof, 144.
Shorthorns, visit to Mr. Vail's, 254.
Singleton, John, memoir of, 733.
Silks, black, to clean, 272.
Slave question, discussed in a letter from
Henrv Carey, Esq., to Nathan Apple-
ton. 401.
Snow Hill, Maryland, its resources, ad-
vantages of steam-boat communication,
128.
Societies, agricultural, on the influence,

action, and duties of, 90.
Soda, nitrate of, 63.

Soils, and their constituent elements, 382.
Souchy- water, to make, 272.
South, progress of opinion there, on agri-
culture, banks and manufactures, mes-
sage of Gov. Edwards, Missouri, 529.
South Carolina, extract from message of the

governor of, 433.
Soutlr Carolina, emigration from, causes,

761.
South, depopulation there, causes of, 538.
South, notice of the P. L. & A. from the,

585.
South and West, true policy of, 747.
Southern sentiment on the policy of en-
couraging domestic industry, 47.
Sowing, experiments on depths of, 61.

seed, 144.
Speed the Plough, who says, 436.
Spurs, 113.

Stabler coat of arms, 476.
Stabler, E., on lime and other manures

740.
Stallions, choice of, 311.
Statistics of English land and produce, 126.
of Lawrence, Massachusetts, 345.
Steam, application to agriculture, 563.

power, why not, doing much for
agriculture, 251.
Stock, annual sales of, proposed, 134.
improved, 125.

improved, annual sales of proposed,
134.
Storing potatoes, 767.

Strawberries, ninety tons of strawberries
and milk transported in a single day, on
the Erie Railroad into the city of New
York, 78.
Strawberries, quantities transported by rail-
road to New York, 78.
Strawberries, 62.

Steuart, Donalson, letter of inquiry on stor-
ing potatoes, 767.
Subsoiling, new labor-saving implements
for, 377.

3U

Yl.

782

f

INDEX.

Sugar, growth and manufacture of, claims
of that interest on the consideration of
government, 33.

Swans, 332.

Tables, useful English tables, 491.

Tables, to polish, 272.

Taciturnity, its evils, 399.

Tariff of 1842 and 1846, effects of, on the
coal trade, 75.

Tea-plant, culture in U. S. as recommended,
predicted, 161.

Teschemacher's remarks on manures, 536.

Tetter-worm, cure for, 72.

The pike, habits described, 174.

Thomas, J. J., his prize essay, 511.

Thornage Agricultural Steam Co. 563.

Toad, 333.

Tobacco, trade with England, for the con-
sideration of the planter, 424.

Tobacco, inspection of, in Va., memorial on
the subject, 235.

Tongues, to cure beeves', 72.

Trees, on planting, 765.

Turnip, to remove flavor of, from butter
and milk, 208.

Turkies, to cure gapes, 72.

Universe, multitude of beings in the, 528.

Vail, visit to his shorthorns, 254,

Vanity, 335.

Varieties, 71.

Vegetation, 396.

Vermin, to prevent, from infesting poultry

houses, 72.
Vermont State Agriculturist, 375.
Vine culture in Ohio, 386.
Vinegar, to make good, 144.
Virginia, 343.

depopulation of, 79.

iron business there, its connection

with agriculture, 538.
memorial relating to tobacco in-
spectors there, 235.
total acreage of England and Vir-
ginia, their divisions, 362.
Virginian, the, notice of the P. L. & A. 585.

Wages, rate of, in Great Britain, 440.
Walnuts, how to pickle, 72.

War, its calamities fall chiefly on the landed

interest, 229.
War, picture of, by a master hand, 230.
Water, of springs and rivers, 125.
Water-proof, to make shoes, 144.
Webb, Jonas, tup show, 315,
Webster, Daniel, 767.

West, progress of opinion there, on agri-
culture, bank, and manufactures, mes-
sage of Governor Edwards, of Mis-
souri, 529.
West, why the East cannot compete with

the, 438.
Westphalia, ham of, equalled by the North

Carolina pea-fed ham, 62.
Wheat, applying dung to, 435.

culture and management of, 106.
culture of, in Ohio, 759.
growing in the South, premiums of-
fered for, and their efl'ects, 376.
how to be managed : various kinds,

thick and thin sowing, 187.
superiority of Southern, for flour

that will keep, 352.
surplus of, produced, 722.
time of sowing, Kent Co., Md.,
Farmer's Club, 246.
Whittlesey, Elisha, on breaking oxen, 745.
Wilder, remarks on manures, 534.
Wild fowl, 523.
Window gardening, 139.
Wire fences, on, 751.
Woman, whole duty of, 527, 397, 271.
Wonders, seven wonders ot New England
in the eyes of the southern traveller, 81.
Wool and woollens exported from Great
Britain to foreign countries, including
the United States, 362.
Wool and woollens, advice to wool growers.

213.
Wool growing, a great and much neglected

resource lor American farmers, 366.
Wool, prices of, prospects for wool growers,

letter from S. Lawrence, Lowell, 327.
Wool trade, last report of it abroad, 260.
Woollen manufactures, their connection with

the agriculture of the U. States, 27.
Woollen, manufactures of, statistics of,
723.

Yankee enterprise, 330, 480.

END OF VOLUME I.

A