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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. 


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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. 


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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