THE 



SOUTHERN PLANTER. 

: 30i:bJDteiD 10 mmmltuve, horticulture, u\x% the ffiouseliol* mns. 



Agriculture is the nursing mother of the Arts.- 
Xenophon. 



Tillage and Pasturage are the two breasts of tli 
State. — Sully. 



FRANK: G. RUFFIN, Editor. 



P. P. BERNARD, Publisher. 



Vol. XIV. 



KICHMOND, DECEMBER, 1854. 



No. 12. 



ADDRESS OP WM. BALLARD PRESTON BEPORE 
THE VIRGINIA STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIE- 
TY AT ITS SECOND ANNUAL EXHIBITION. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen, — I appear 
before you in the discharge of a duty your 
kindness has assigned me. 

I will be. happy if I shall be able to contri- 
bute anything to promote the objects of your 
association— if I shall be able, in the smallest 
degree to aid in advancing the condition of 
agriculture, horticulture and the auxiliary me- 
chanic arts in Virginia. 

The necessity of improvement appears in a 
manner that appeal most strongly to the in- 
terest, the pride, and the patriotism of our 
people. # 

Everywhere around us the elements of wealth 
and power are disclosed to inspire confidence 
in our efforts and invoke every energy and in- 
fluence at our command to secure success. 

You have denominated your association the 
"Virginia State Agricultural Society." Its 
title discloses that its organization embraces 
every portion of our territory. Its object is 
to bless with wealth, prosperity and happiness 
all our people. 

The success that will attend your efforts de- 
pends on the freedom, candor and accuracy 
with whicji you examine the progress of agri- 
culture in Virginia, and the application you 
make of that knowledge to our present condi- 
tion and circumstances. 

" The soil, the climate, the value of land and 
the value of labor are the primary elements 
that enter into the consideration of the agri- 
culture of a country." 

It is important that we should fully under- 
stand these great and primary elements of 

wealth and power as they exist in Virginia 

that we should understand what are the ad- 
vantages—what the disadvantages that attend 
'—what the peculiarities, and what the ef- 



them- 

fect of such peculiarities in enhancing or im- 
pairing their present or prospective value* — 
Vol. XIV.— 12. 



what their defects— are they permanent in their 
characters or are they such as experience and 
attention would enable us to remedy? The 
proper decision of these important questions 
must, of necessity, be the result of time, pa- 
tience and labor. 

Enough is already known to inspire the live- 
liest zeal and to produce an abiding confidence 
that in these primary elements of agricultural 
wealth — these great foundations of national 
strength and power, a kind and bountiful Pro- 
vidence has blessed us to an extent unsurpassed. 
Situated in the heart of the Confederacy 
Virginia embraces, within her limits, an extent 
of territory greater than any of the original 
members of the Union. Fronting on the? At- 
lantic coast, her regions are spread out to a 
great extent along its shores, beautifully diver- 
sified with hills and valleys, mountains and 
plains, that reach to the Tennessee and Ohio 
on our Western border. Her climate is mild 
and genial, enabling our people to pursue their 
labor, in the open air, for longer periods than 
almost any on the continent— subject to no 
extreme vicissitude of cold or heat, watered 

with abundant showers during the whole year 

maturing the crops its soil produces with rapi- 
dity, certainty and perfection— adapted to the 
growth of corn, wheat, tobacco, vegetables— all 
the cereals common to temperate climates, with 
fruits and flowers in perfection and beauty 
with bays, rivers and fountains unsurpassed- 
and as the result of all, blessing our people 
with health, vigor^and longevity. 

Our soil, throughout the State, was origi- 
nally fertile, and of great variety of character 
and productiveness. In the East much of it 
worn and impaired by injudicious and rigorous 
cultivation, but susceptible of rapid and per- 
manent • improvement. In the West, We 
districts of fertile land, broken by mountains 
containing, in purity and abundance, iron, coal' 
lead, gypsum and salt, with mineral waters of 
value and variety. In neither section have 



!54 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



there been geological surveys or scientific ex- 
aminations of the soil sufficiently general and 
accurate in their character to afford informa- 
tion upon which we can rely. 

Whilst we regret the want of such know- 
ledge, and whilst we confidently hope it will 
be supplied under the influences of this and 
similar associations, still we have, within our 
reach, sources of information, and means of 
practical improvement sufficient to secure re- 
sults highly beneficial and gratifying. 

From the extent of our territory, the variety 
of our soil, climate and productions, the dif- 
ference of our pursuits and occupations, from 
peculiarities in the situations of various sec- 
tions of our State, it is incumbent upon us 
carefully to examine the condition of every 
portion thereof, and with the means and re- 
sources at our command to improve the agri- 
cultural condition of the whole. The impor- 
tant questions, with our Eastern friends, are, 
how shall we increase the fertility and produc- 
tiveness of our soil, render our labor more 
profitable, and thus arrest permanently the 
emigration of our people ? while, with the West, 
the important questions are, how shall we pro- 
cure the labor necessary to develop our re- 
sources, and how the facilities for transporting 
them to market ? 

Their solution rests almost exclusively with 
the agricultural classes in our State. They 
have the intelligence, wealth, numbers and in- 
fluence that enable them to decide and control 
all these questions according to their will and 
pleasure — to remedy the defects, to apply the 
corrective, to remove the difficulties, and secure 
the benefits all desire. 

The voluntary associations which our people 
are effecting, of all these classes, inspires the 
firmest confidence, and affords the strongest 
assurance, that all these interests will be wisely 
and patriotically advanced and promoted. 

To what are we to attribute the exhaustion 
of the soil, and the diminution of its produc- 
tiveness in Eastern Virginia? Is it the result 
of climate or soil? or is it the peculiarity of 
our labor, and its influence on our agriculture? 
In the United States two different and rival 
systems of labor exist; in the.North what they 
are pleased to term free labor, and in the South 
a mixed system of free and slave labor. The 
comparative merits of these systems have been 
the fruitful topic of excited and violent debate, 
and the source of dangerous legislation. I 
shall touch the subject, not for the purpose of 
exciting feelings of hostility, but as an indus- 
trial question bearing upon our agricultural 
prospects. 

The adaptation of the Southern States to 



the production of tobacco, rice and indigo, con- 
tributed most to the introduction of the Afri- 
can slave among us. The profits derived from 
his labor, the adaptation of his constitution to 
our climate, rendered the slave more profitable 
when employed in the cultivation of the sta- 
ples on the fertile land, and in the warm cli- 
mates of the South, than in agricultural pur- 
suits in Northern climates. The North found 
its profits in the traffic and transportation of 
the slave— the South in his labor. Nor was 
the superior value of the slave in the South 
manifest alone in the cultivation of the southern 
staples. Experience discloses that slave labor, 
whether directed to those" staples, or the pro- 
ducts necessary for food and subsistence, was 
more profitable in the South than in the North 
from the natural superiority of the former over 
the latter in climate and soil. 

The result is apparent in the concentration 
of the slave population in the Southern States, 
and in a general and almost exclusive devotion 
of their attention and labor to agricultural em- 
ployments; while the North has devoted much 
of its labor to other pursuits, more profitable, 
and better suited to its circumstances and con- 
ditions. 

Unto the system we have pursued, we have 
impaired our soil, and diminished its original 
productiveness. We have failed to improve 
and develop the superior advantages, and greater 
resources we possess. Still, under wise councils 
and with proper exertions we have it in our 
power to establish permanently the superiority 
of our section. 

Those uninformed or hostile to our interests 
as a people, attribute the defects in our system 
of agriculture, the exhaustion of our soil, and 
particularly the slowness of our increase in 
population, to the institution of slavery alone. 
Increase in the population of a State when 
properly examined, with due consideration of 
the circumstances and facts which affect the 
conclusion, may be relied on as affording a just 
and fair criterion by which to estimate its gen- 
eral prosperity. When considered alone and 
without such qualification, it is eminently cal- 
culated to mislead and bewilder. 

Is it true, then, when tried bylthis standard, 
that the prosperity of the North is greater than 
that of the South? and is the inference a just 
one, that the difference in their respective in- 
crease is the result of the causes to which they 
attributc it ? 

The six New England States have increased 
in the last decade in the ratio of 22 per cent.; 
the central slave States, with Virginia, 26 per 
cent.: the middle States, with New York and 
Pennsylvania, 29 per cent.; while the Southern 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



355 



planting States have increased 33 per cent. In 
the absence of other causes to account for these 
facts, they establish, that the institution of 
slavery, so far from diminishing the ratio of 
increase in the Southern States, has augmented 
it. 

The increase of population in the Southern 
States has been almost exclusively the result 
of natural causes, while the Northern States 
have had their numbers greatly increased by a 
tide of foreign immigration unparelleled in our 
history. 

I will not trouble you with details. A fact 
or two will suffice. 

By the census of 1850 it appears that Mas- 
sachusetts, with a population of 994,514, con- 
tained, of those born in foreign countries, 
163,590, while Virginia, with a population of 
2,421,661, contained of those born in foreign 
countries but 22,505. In Virginia the ratio of 
emigration of her native citizens has amounted 
to 26 per cent, of the whole; while that of 
Connecticut and Vermont have amounted to 
25 per cent, of their native citizens, " and 
would, if the number of slaves in the Southern 
States were admitted into the calculation, per- 
haps exceed any of them" — that is, would 8 ex- 
ceed 36 per cent. 

Our white population in Virginia have not 
emigrated to avoid the slave, nor have they 
emigrated in as large a ratio as in other por- 
tions of the Union in which slavery does not 
exist. The increase of our entire population 
in Virginia during the last decade, is at the 
ratio of 14.66 per cent. Of that of our white 
population at 20 per cent. Our slaves 5 per 
cent. 

The increase in our white population when 
compared with Vermont, is 20 to 7 ; with New 
Hampshire 20 to 11; Connecticut, 20 to 19; 
with Maine, 20 to 16 — an increase greater 
than any of the New England States, Massa- 
chusetts and Rhode Island excepted. Causes 
that are plain and obvious account for these 
exceptions. 

And hence the error of the assertion that 
the existence of slavery has stimulated the re- 
moval of our white population. 

At the period of the census of 1840, the 
ratio of our increase for the previous ten years 
had fallen to the low point of 2 per cent. Then 
it was that the note of fanaticism began to ele- 
vate its frantic tones. Then it was that the 
slowness of increase in our population disclosed 
the weakness of our institutions, and the argu- 
ment brought, as they supposed, to the unerring 
test of facts and figures. Then the Northern 
States became the standard by which prosperity 
and progress were alone to be tried. 
12 m 



By the census of 1840, the increase in our 
population was found to be 2 per cent. By 
the census of 1850, it is 14.66 per cent. With 
a larger slave population during the latter than 
the former period, the increase has been seventy- 
fold greater — the cause assigned for our slow 
increase still existing, and in greater force, but 
with results entirely different. 

The small increase of our numbers up to 
1840 was the result of causes which every 
where in America affect this question of in- 
crease in population. From the beginning of 
this century the ratio of increase in Virginia 
had been regularly declining, with a single ex- 
ception, till the year 1840, having never been 
above 17 per cent., while New York and Penn- 
sylvania, beginning respectively at 72 and 36 
per cent., had also diminished till they stood, 
in 1840, at 28 and 27 per cent. Then began 
that great improvement in the old Atlantic 
States which, with a single exception, has 
marked the progress of all. 

For the ten years previous to 1850, the ratio 
of increase in the population of Virginia, com- 
pared with the ratio of her increase in the ten 
years previous, had been greater than any of 
the New England States, or the middle States 
of New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, 
on a similar comparison. And when compared 
with our own progress, it had been absolutely 
greater than in any equal period within the 
century. 

The conclusion, gentlemen, from all these 
facts is, not that the vital energies of our State 
are overwhelmed and merged in a wicked and 
unprofitable institution ; not that we are " sick," 
and, therefore, invite aggression and outrao-e, 
but that there is life, and health, and youth, 
the recuperative power of a self-relying, self- 
sustaining energy among us. 

It then appears that the emigration from our 
State was not the result of our slave institu- 
tion. It was the result of other and very dif- 
ferent causes, upon which it is not my inten- 
tion to dwell in detail. 

I propose briefly to point out some of the 
reasons that induce me to believe and hope 
that those causes are not permanent in their 
character, that they are temporary and limited 
in their duration, that in the future they will 
operate with diminished force; while the coun- 
tervailing influences that have already checked 
the progress of emigration, will continue stea- 
dily and uniformly to increase in force and effi- 
cacy, so as, at a period, not remote, to arrest 
the progress of a current which has borne away 
so much of the vital elements of agricultural 
success and prosperity. 

What is it then that has produced this change? 



356 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



Why have our people ceased to remove from 
among us in such numbers as formerly. It 
would be unsatisfactory to attribute it to acci- 
dent. It must be the result of causes which, 
however imperfectly they may be understood, 
or however imperfectly I may be able to point 
them out, have their origin and foundation in 
those principles of human conduct that regu- 
late society. 

Communities, like individuals, regulate their 
actions, to a great extent, by their convictions 
of their interests. Under wise and just per- 
ceptions of interest, no higher or better stand- 
ard can be established. It is, therefore, fair 
to infer from the facts that I have exhibited, 
that the people of Virginia, so far as emigra- 
tion has already been arrested, have arrived at 
the conclusion that their interest is not promoted, 
or their condition improved by a removal to 
the South and West; that their happiness and 
prosperity and that of their posterity will be 
best secured by remaining where they are. 
These conclusions could only be rational on 
the part of our people upon the assumption 
that they are the result of careful examination 
of the advantages of remaining where they are, 
or removing from among us — tried by their 
experience of the past, and their estimate of 
the future. 

That they have decided rightly, who have 
thus decided, I cannot permit myself for a 
moment to doubt. Many of the inducements 
that hitherto stimulated emigration still exist; 
and would, doubtless, produce the same results 
as formerly were they not counteracted by 
other and more potent considerations. With 
the slave owner, so far as the condition of 
things in the West operates upon him, the in- 
ducements and temptations are the same. The 
reduction in the quantity of the cotton lands 
is comparatively trifling. There they lay in 
extent sufficient to employ the labor of millions. 
There they still lay in their original fertility, 
untouched, unenclosed, unsubdued by the hand 
of man — surpassing the Nile, whose annual 
inundation restores the exhaustion consequent 
upon labor; along their rivers lay the accumu- 
lated richness of all their inundations since 
they passed from the hands of the Creator; 
on their hills and plains, the fertility which 
ages and centuries of rank and luxuriant fo- 
liage has returned and restored to the earth 
for its repletion and fatness — there they lay at 
prices as cheap, and at many points cheaper, 
than at any former period; with increased fa- 
cilities for reaching them; with a saving in 
time, cost and hazard; with fewer* privations, 
inconveniences and embarrassments attending 
their settlement and occupation ; with greater 



advantages in every social and domestic rela- 
tion than were formerly in reach of the settler 
and emigrant. Still, gentlemen, our emigra- 
tion is decreasing and our population increasing 
more rapidly than at any period within the 
century. 

Is it because there has been a reduction in 
the price of the staple products of the South- 
west? The sugar and cotton in America in 
the rapidity of their growth and cultivation — 
the increased demand, the increased production, 
their annual rewards and their ultimate impor- 
tance, are the marvel and the wonder of the 
age in which we live. Never were they more 
prosperous than during the last years. 

Is it that there has been a reduction of the 
value of slaves in the Southern market ? All 
know that at no time has the demand been 
greater, or the price higher than within the 
same period. Or is it that these staples are 
endangered by the competition of foreign coun- 
tries and cheap labor ? The answer must be, 
they are more secure than at any previous 
period. 

Nevertheless, in the face of all these things, 
the emigration from Virginia to that region 
has been and is diminishing. 

Then, as to our non-slaveholding population. 
The prospect of reduction of the price of land 
in the North-west is the only danger that pre- 
sents itself. 

The statistics, before adverted to, establish 
the fact that the tendency to emigration of our 
white population is less than in the Eastern 
agricultural States. That the ratio of emigra- 
tion of our white class is, when compared with 
the black, very small; their respective increase 
being as 20 to 5. 

So far from our institution stimulating the 
removal of this class, the habits, opinions and 
sentiments which prevail in the South are im- 
bibed and cherished as generally and strongly 
by the non-slaveholding portion of our com- 
munity as by others. We rejoice to see and 
know that in the excitement and conflict of 
opinion which have arisen between the rival 
section of the Union, there has been an abso- 
lute failure in every effort to excite feelings of 
hostility or discontent between these classes. 
On the contrary, the occasion and question, 
have rallied and united in one general senti- 
ment, opinion and resolution, all classes and 
conditions of our people. 

The emigrant from Virginia to the North- 
west finds his opinions, habits and tastes all 
differing and conflicting as strongly with those 
who surround him as the slaveholder himself 
would. The climate, the habits of society, its 






THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



357 



wliole frame and structure are new, unfamiliar 
and distasteful to him. 

Those of us, gentlemen, who have witnessed 
the scene can never forget, how year after year 
we beheld the anxious struggling crowd, press- 
ing forward through sunshine and through 
storm, over mountains and valleys, in long 
continuous crowds of carriages and waggons, 
rich and poor, young and old, white and black, 
master and slave, hastening with impetuous 
ardor and zeal to this fancied El Dorado and 
Elysium of the West, till we seemed, as we 
beheld the stream, to be left desolate and alone, 
amid the depopulated and abandoned scenes of 
our youth. 

The drama has ended ! 'Tis but an occa- 
sional emigrant we meet. Now and then a 
solitary family may be seen on their pathway 
to the West. And wherefore ? It is, gentle- 
men, that experience and observation have 
taught our people that the high advantages, 
the great benefits, the prospects of immediate 
wealth and fortune that filled the imaginations 
and inspired the hopes of those who have gone 
from among us, have not been realized. They 
now begin to see and realize what was not ap- 
preciated or understood before — that in the 
progress of society, in the march of time, the 
Atlantic slope of our continent possessed ad- 
vantages, that in many essential respects sur- 
passed all other portions of our country for the 
residence and habitation of man— that its cli- 
mate, its soil, its bays, its rivers, its moun- 
tains, its proximity to the sea, placed it in 
stronger and closer connexion with the true 
elements of human productiveness, than any 
inland or central portion of the continent what- 
ever. They see the commerce of the country, 
the products of the soil, of the mine, of the 
forest, of the rivers, of human industry in 
-every form in which it produces values, are 
pouring themselves from the centre, and accu- 
mulating their treasures on the Atlantic cir- 
cumference everywhere — that manufacturers 
are establishing themselves on those streams 
which most directly and rapidly discharge them- 
selves into the waters of the ocean — that arti- 
ficial lines are superseding natural ones — that 
by the nearest and most direct route they may 
also carry their tribute to the sea — that agri- 
culture is springing into new life and vigor along 
its once sterile and depopulated shores — that 
natural fertility and cheapness of soil do not 
counterbalance the advantages possessed by 
this Atlantic region. 

The very emigration that weakened us for a 
season and concentrated large numbers in the 
West, with its rich soils and powerful energies 
in agricultural productions, is strengthening us 



by being thrown back on the Atlantic States 
for a market. In their emigration to the West, 
our people found a point of doubtful, and at 
most, of temporary superiority. The more rapid 
and greater the productiveness of that region, 
the sooner would the reaction occur, and the 
clearer and more obvious the superiority we 
possess, be disclosed. 

This natural superiority had long since been 
understood by the great intellects of that time 
with George Washington at their head. They 
perceived, that the natural outlet of the valley 
of the Mississippi was not in many respects an 
adequate, or the most advantageous channel 
through which these boundless productions were 
destined to reach a market. 

These advantages in our position are now 
fully disclosing themselves every where, and 
hence the impulse given to the Atlantic States 
since the census of 1840. 

They, gentlemen, are wise, who seeing these 
things, reach out their hands and grasp them, 
and hold them, and appropriate them to the 
great purposes for which they were designed — 
'to the purposes of wealth, and strength, and 
numbers, and security; and they are unwise 
who permit them to be appropriated by others, 
to impoverish, to embarrass, to control our 
people. 

The Western emigant in his pursuit of for- 
tune, finds, as if by magic, his face turned to 
the East. His exertions are now employed to 
make cheap and direct means of transportation 
for his products to the true point of profit, and 
a market, in the very land he had left behind. 
It is not the East struggling to bring back the 
West. It is the emigrant and the descendant 
of the emigrant struggling to reach the point 
from which they or their fathers had departed, 
for they too have discovered that these are the 
great points of agricultural and commercial 
wealth. Every means of communication with 
the interior and the West is but another chan- 
nel and conduit through which the refluent 
wave of production and wealth is roiled back 
upon its source, and this^is the current, the 
strongest force of emigration cannot stem. 

From the strength and velocity of the tide 
of emigration fifteen years ago, we would have 
inferred that the roads and canals which pass 
to the West from the Atlantic States, would 
have reduced all to absolute exhaustion, in 
their important elements of numbers, capital 
and strength. 

But how small the number of those found 
passing along them as emigrants in the South- 
ern States. Northwardly they are crowded- 
principally, however, with the foreign popula- 



358 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



tion we are inviting to our shores and planting 
in such munificence on our Western lands. 

The evil we deplore is not the slowness of 
our natural increase — it is the migration of 
our own people. That increase will be slower 
than in those States into which the foreign 
immigration is emptying itself. Our means of 
augmenting our numbers rest principally on 
natural causes, promoted by every circumstance 
favorable to increase and multiplication — on 
the success with which we restrain and repel 
the spirit of emigration, that has hitherto con- 
tributed so largely to impair our strength and 
retard our agricultural improvement. 

It may, I think, be safely affirmed that the 
very superiority itself in climate and produc- 
tion that rendered the slave labor of the South 
so highly remunerative, is the fruitful source 
of many of the evils under which we labor in 
Virginia. That the large annual profits pro- 
duced, and the too exclusive devotion of our 
labor to the staples of tobacco and cotton, con- 
stituted the principal causes of the exhaustion 
of our soil, and the emigration of our people. 
The experience of our section assures us, that' 
the labor of a man on fresh soil, under favora- 
ble circumstances, when devoted to the cultiva- 
tion of tobacco, cotton or sugar, will, at the 
usual market prices, produce a larger annual 
return in money than when directed under like 
circumstances, to the production of the cereals 
or any general objects of agricultural pursuit. 
The prospects, therefore, held out of immediate 
wealth, directed the exertions of our agricul- 
turists to those products, to the exclusion of 
others. The wheat, the corn, the grass, the 
herds were all neglected for the rich flood that 
was annually poured into their lap. No time 
could be spared to erect valuable houses or 
barns — no ditching to add to the permanent 
value of the land — no rotation of crops — no 
-lime or labor expended in manuring or im- 
proving the soil. Rich lands were in abun- 
dance everywhere around them, and they leave 
to future generations, the task of improving 
and restoring the soils they exhaust. The 
product of the acre this year in cultivation en- 
. ables them "bo buy as good an one for the next, 
;>&nd -leave rain amount of income sufficient for 
present want*. What need of care ? since the 
plant they cultivate, and the labor they com- 
mand, enable them to purchase all they de- 
sire. 

The farm is not worked on the principle that 
ought to regulate agricultural pursuits — or that 
which in the <end secures the highest agricul- 
tural rewards and profits; but on that usual 
in working a mine or furnace or a salt well — 
where the labor is regarded as of too much 



value — the present reward too captivating and 
alluring to permit any other object, however 
necessary and proper, to be attended to, or 
cared for. This is unquestionably the tendency 
of things, where a single product affords profits 
above and beyond the usual profits on labor in 
other pursuits, and in the general agricultural 
products of a country. 

Under these influences, the tobacco cultiva- 
tion has contributed most to produce the ex- 
haustion of soil which characterizes large por- 
tions of our State. The injury thus effected 
is not justly attributable to the plant itself, or 
the slave labor with which it has been culti- 
vated. It is attributable to the errors I have 
just adverted to — to the manner in which the 
cultivation has been conducted, to excessive, 
negligent and long continued cultivation of the 
same crops — to want of rest and proper rota- 
tion — all having their source in the large an- 
nual profits derived from the cultivation of to- 
bacco, on fresh soils, and the consequences it 
produces on the habits of our planters and 
agriculturists. 

But the errors of the past are not irreme- 
diable. The injury they produced are not so 
permanent, or extensive, that industry, econo- 
my, and a proper course of agriculture cannot 
remedy them — not so great as to deter or dis- 
courage us in the effect. 

Observation and experience have shown us 
the errors of the system formerly pursued — 
the error of relying on a single product for our 
profits — of pursuing that system that regards 
present profits as more advantageous than ulti- 
mate wealth — that experience that teaches us 
that annual profits from our land, however 
large, cannot compensate for its exhaustion and 
impoverishment—that true economy is promoted 
and ultimate wealth more certainly attained by 
devoting more time, labor and money in im- 
proving our soil, our houses, quarters, stock, 
and to the health, habits and wants of our 
slaves — that the reduction of our income thus 
produced, has more than its compensation in 
the augmentation of our permanent capital — 
that the safest and most profitable agricultural 
pursuits are those that yield their profits, so 
that the increase is not all received in the form 
of annual income in money; so liable to be 
misspent under the temptations that surround 
us — so often injudiciously re-invested or left 
uninvested, from inattention or negligence — 
that experience that assures us that amid the 
dazzling prospects of wealth and fortune which 
the staples of the South, the teeming products 
of the West, the seductive gold of the Pacific, 
holds up to our view — there is no better, or in 
the end, more profitable investment of capital, 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



359 



than in agricultural pursuits in the Common- 
wealth of Virginia. 

In the variety and diversity of our crops, 
security, and, in a series of years, profit and 
wealth will most probably be attained. This 
is obviously the true system with the Virginia 
agriculturist. With large demands upon him 
for subsistence and supplies, he is compelled to 
provide them from his own farm and with his 
own labor, or rely on purchasing them from 
others. 

Where a single crop, such as tobacco or 
wheat is relied on, this dependence is greater 
than can be borne from the casualties, losses 
and uncertainties in agricultural pursuits. It 
becomes, when thus conducted, an adventure 
or speculation, dependent upon a frost, or storm, 
or drought, instead of a well insured and regu- 
lar system protected from accident, casualty 
and loss, by all the means in our power. 

The soil and climate adapted to tobacco are 
those in which wheat, corn, oats and in some 
portions of the State grasses are produced in 
perfection and abundance. Where there is not 
an undue proportion of labor devoted to to- 
bacco, it is not difficult so to apportion the 
crops, as to enable us to furnish regular labor 
throughout the year, at the period proper for 
the cultivation of each. Where the quantity 
is so regulated as to permit the planter and 
farmer to pursue a system of improvement of 
his soils, with such variety of products as ex- 
perience has shown advisable and proper ; then 
the tobacco cultivation is of great importance 
to a large portion of the §tate. 

It is not considered a great exhauster of the 
soil; it has a superiority in value over any 
produced on the continent; it is less subject to 
depreciation from foreign competition than any 
of our productions, and constitutes, in connec- 
tion with the other crops with which it can be 
cultivated, an important and permanent ad- 
vantage to our agriculture in Virginia. 

Whatever contributes to retard emigration, 
to increase the profits on agricultural labor, to 
reduce the cost of transportation to market, to 
multiply the production of the soil, must be 
regarded as important to our agricultural pros- 
perity. 

A large and fertile portion of the State has 
hitherto been so situated that its importance 
has been but imperfectly understood, and but 
slightly appreciated. With agricultural, mi- 
neral and manufacturing resources that only 
require the hand of industry and labor to add 
incalculably to the wealth, power and prospe- 
rity of the State, its progress has been slow, 
its population sparse, its pursuits pastoral, and 
its wealth inconsiderable. 



The rail roads and canals in progress in our 
State, however inadequate they may be to the 
wants of our people, or however objectionable 
the system may be upon which they are con- 
structed, (and of these things I shall certainly 
not speak,) have already produced on the agri- 
culture of our State important and decisive 
results — results that contribute to the advance- 
ment and prosperity of every portion thereof. 
Take, for example, the only one that has passed 
the Alleghany, traversing a region larger than 
the State of Massachusetts — in its natural re- 
sources unsurpassed by any of equal extent on 
the continent. Hitherto it has been without 
the benefit of a market. Along the line of 
this improvement, lands for agricultural pur- 
poses have risen from $ 1 and $20 per acre, 
to $30 and $50, and in some instances to $80 
and $100. The unenclosed and uncultivated 
lands, which recently were worth from $2 to 
$4 per acre, are now selling for $5 and $10 
per acre. Eastern Virginians are purchasing 
these lands, and settling their families and 
slaves upon them, instead of emigrating as for- 
merly to the West, and transferring your num- 
bers and your wealth beyond your borders and 
your jurisdiction, 

All the mineral and agricultural products of 
the country are being transported along it. 
The income of the people has been increased. 
The prospect of wealth enlarged, and rendered 
certain. Their activity and energy stimulated 
and invigorated, and their labor employed in 
the cultivation of crops that hitherto had little 
value. 

From their remoteness from market, and 
want of labor, their pursuits, except so far as 
was necessary for subsistence, were pastoral. 
The best lands, and largest estates were sur- 
rendered to the ox, the horse and the mule. 
The smaller tracts were purchased by graziers 
whose capital enabled them to pursue the only 
occupation which gave pecuniary reward. Their 
former owners were thus induced to remove, 
and their places were supplied by flocks and 
herds — the profits derived from such pursuits 
poorly compensating the State for the loss sus* 
tained in its power and wealth of men and 
numbers. The entire lands of the country re- 
mained at low prices, and the profits on all less 
than usually attend agricultural pursuits where - 
markets present themselves. 

A single year has produced a marked change 
in the condition and pursuits of its people; 

The grazing lands are beginning to be sur- 
rendered to the plough for the cultivation of 
wheat, tobacco, corn, vegetables; and the at- 
tention and labor of the country directed to 
agriculture. This change of pursuit ? arresting 



360 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



as it has and will the grazing cm the level lands 
best suited to the plough, will transfer the graz- 
ing to the second rate lands of the country. 
They, although too steep for constant tillage, 
are rich and adapted to the grasses. The to- 
bacco crop when resorted to for a year or two, 
will remove the forest, and in the operation 
afford a profit; leaving the lands in the finest 
condition for the grasses. The herds and flocks 
take the mountains and hills. The valleys and 
plains are devoted to the labor of man in the 
diversified crops of tobacco, wheat, corn and 
vegetables. 

But, again, there are those mountains that 
thus far have only impeded man's progress, or 
arrested his career. He has approached them 
with the hand of industry and labor, and 
crowned them with verdure. Upon their brow 
and around their sides " bleat flocks innumer- 
able." In his power and dominion he has only 
appropriated the things on the earth. His au- 
thority is to subdue it. He obeys the com- 
mand. He drives into the mountain, and there 
is revealed to him the object and reward of the 
injunction that is upon him. There he finds 
in the gypsum, as you found in the marl-beds 
of the East, an element and an agent for the 
restoration of his soils, exhausted and impaired 
by the years of cultivation to which he has 
subjected them. No scrapings of cities, no 
Northern manufacture, made up and shipped 
round with the bill of costs, freight, insurance, 
commission, exchange — u all accurately," " pro- 
fessionally prepared," "on reasonable terms," 
" and the shortest notice," for the " Southern 
trade." No, gentlemen, but prepared in pu- 
rity and abundance from the beginning of time 
for the noblest and most enduring of all arts — 
the art of agriculture. Philosophers and che- 
mists may be unable to understand, or account 
for the manner of its action. The purposes 
for which it was designed are apparent in the 
living verdure in which it clothes every spire 
of grass, or of corn, or of wheat, or tobacco, 
en which it is deposited. 

We anticipate important advantages from 
the formation of agricultural societies in Vir- 
ginia, We congratulate each other on the suc- 
cess that has marked their progress, and we 
confidently rely on their influence and power. 
They are important and valuable agents for 
the attainment of our objects. Their influence 
will be in proportion to their extent and gen- 
eral diffusion. 

I trust they may enlist in their service every 
energy of our State. 

On what do we rely for the fulfilment of our 
hopes and expectations? Can we reasonably 
expect to find in our associations those, who, 



from distance and want of cheap and rapid 
modes of transit, cannot reach your assemblies ? 
Will they come to increase their knowledge, to 
stimulate each other, to exhibit their specimens 
of tobacco, and wheat and corn — their imple- 
ments of husbandry, their mechanical skill and 
invention, their live stock — at the cost of time, 
trouble and money, whose interest will not be 
promoted by what they see, and hear and learn. 
It is in vain to hope for it. To improve your 
agriculture, means to increase your wealth. 
Your Society would be limited in its numbers, 
its influence, in the benefits it confers, unless 
the means are afforded of rapid and easy transit 
of your members, and their contributions to 
the capital of the State. 

These roads and canals that are penetrating 
the State in every direction, are powerful, and 
commanding agents in the improvement of our 
agriculture in Virginia. They are the agents 
that have rendered our organization so success- 
ful. They have " opened the ponderous " gates 
of the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany, to close 
no more. They are weaving us together in a 
strong and durable fabric of interest, of power 
and material wealth; nay more, they are 
strengthening the chords of confidence, of re- 
spect, of affection — those bands stronger than 
iron, those moral elements that bind the world 
together. 

Look for a moment at the proofs that are 
before us. — See that noble Ox with his glossy 
coat, reflecting the sunbeam like a mirror. 
See his small limbs, his fully developed body, 
his deep chest, his full ribs, his delicate neck, 
his clear bright eye, chewing his cud in tran- 
quility and repose, amid the din and bustle 
that surround him — in all the perfection of his 
nature, ready for the uses for which he was de- 
signed, alas ! unconscious of the sad fate that 
awaits him to-morrow. He has been, with a 
day or two of alarm and watchfuluess, trans- 
ported perhaps from the Shenandoah, or from 
the luxuriant pastures on the banks of the tri- 
butaries of the Ohio. He has been borne 
across the mountains through the extent of the 
State, and now reposes on the "James" al- 
most in sight of the Ocean; without fatigue, 
without injury, without loss. 

But for these improvements, he would not 
have been here.' He would be struggling amid 
storms, and rains, and snows, for some thirty 
or fifty days to reach a market at Baltimore 
or Philadelphia — exhausted, impaired, reduced 
in value, in quality, in beauty — the profits of 
his rearing greatly diminished to his owner, 
and his value greatly impaired to the pur- 
chaser. 

But further, when we look upon this im- 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



3G1 



mense assembly — when we reflect on the in- 
fluence that "association and combined effort" 
have exerted on mankind — on the good they 
have effected when rightly — on the evil when 
wrongly directed, — when we remember that 
our association had its origin but recently, that 
to-day it numbers in its ranks thousands of our 
people — that it commands and unites the sci- 
ence, the learning, the practical knowledge, the 
industry, wealth, zeal of the low lands and high 
lands, the town and country, of all parties and 
all creeds, of all sections and all classes in har- 
monious and concerted council and action, to 
improve and consolidate the wealth, happiness, 
and grandeur of Virginia, — who is there that 
does not acknowledge, that the agencies that 
produce all this good — that have effected all 
these important changes in our circumstances 
and condition, are the great agricultural im- 
provers of the age. 

These are some of the reasons on which I 
rely when I affirm that the influences that have 
hitherto retarded the increase of our popula- 
tion, and impaired our agriculture, were tem- 
porary in their character and are passing away 
— that in the future our advance in wealth, 
prosperity and power, will be regular, steady, 
and progressive. 

The improvement of a farm, or any general 
improvement in the agriculture of a country is 
the result of long, patient, persevering atten- 
tion and labor. It cannot be accomplished 
in one year or in two, or to any great extent 
in a single generation. Hence one of the 
most fatal of the consequences resulting from 
emigration and the unsettled state of opinion 
that attends it. During the period of their 
prevalence in Virginia, the real estate was of 
little value. Many desired to sell — no one 
desired to purchase, and all were considering 
the probable advantages that would attend 
a change of residence. No improvement of 
the soil, for it was uncertain whether the owner 
would remain to reap the rewards. No drain- 
ing, for that involved present expenditure 
with promise of future benefit. No rotation of 
crops, for none had fixed purposes or plans for 
the future. No improvements in dwellings, 
quarters, or stables, for they might all be 
shortly abandoned — nothing permanent — no- 
thing durable — nothing that did not promise 
immediate returns, was undertaken. — The es- 
tate itself became a mere marketable commo- 
dity, to he sold, or traded, or parted with, as 
an ordinary article of personal property. 

Consider for a moment the condition of ag- 
riculture under these circumstances. What 
think you of putting your farm under a four 
or five years rotation, when you might aban- 



don it that fall ? building good houses to make 
another man comfortable? erecting quarters 
for other people's slaves ? analyzing your soils, 
and ascertaining upon the most approved phi- 
losophical principles, their constituent elements 
and properties, to enable you to disclose their 
merit to some speculator or trader in lands 
that by accident might be thrown in your way 
as a purchaser, — buying good ploughs, har- 
rows and implements of husbandry, that when 
you "traded" your land you might "throw 
them into the bargain ?" 

Gentlemen, agricultural improvement only 
begins when real estate is regarded as a per- 
manent, fixed and unchangeable investment. 
He only is prepared to aid in its advancement, 
who regards his J arm as his permanent home, 
the spot he has selected for the labor of his 
life, where the ardor of his youth, the en- 
ergy of his manhood, and the wisdom of his 
maturer years, are to find their attractions, 
their rewards, and their honors, — elevated and 
strengthened by the resolution to transmit it to 
posterity, as the true record of what he was in 
his' day and in his generation. "The good 
men do, is oft interred with their bones." 
In agriculture, the good we do lives after us. 
The fields we enrich — the lands we drain — the 
spacious barns we erect — the comfortable 
dwellings we build — the oaks we plant, or 
preserve around it — the green grass we make 
grow — the gardens we enclose and adorn — all 
live after us, and in benefits and blessings per- 
petuate our name. 

He who does this, has inscribed his name on 
" mother earth," and the revolving seasons — 
the chill winter, the bright spring, the warm 
summer, the fruitful autumn — all come in their 
order to revive and renew the memory of that 
man who has left this record behind him — 
" Agriculture has her triumphs no less than 
war, and these are of them." 

"Nothing characterizes more strongly our 
American industry or contributes in a greater 
degree to give it superiority over that of the 
old world, than the inventive genius that dis- 
plays itself in the construction and use of those 
labor-saving machines and implements with 
which it has supplied itself." 

In no pursuit are there benefits more appa- 
rent than in the art of agriculture, in the ad- 
ditions they have made to power, the economy 
they produce in time, and the effectiveness they 
produce in human labor. " No where can 
capital be so beneficially employed, as in aid- 
ing and strengthening the productive power of 
nature." 

What has produced more immediate and ob- 
vious benefits to agriculture, than the improved 



362 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



plough, the threshing machine, the wheat 
reaper ? In Virginia we have not availed our- 
selves of improved agricultural implements to 
the extent of the benefits they confer. 'Tis 
not for us to permit these great practical 
agents of productiveness to remain unenjoyed 
and unappropriated, and in ■ the competition 
which surrounds us, have them all actively and 
injuriously employed against us. They are 
the achievements of skill and science, and we 
appreciate the benefits they confer — they are 
the stimulants and aids of production, and we 
must avail ourselves of them — they are prac- 
tical blessings, to be laid hold of and secured — 
not to be talked of, approved and neglected. 

We want in Virginia improvement in the 
mechanical arts. We want implements of hus- 
bandry in all the variety, extent and perfec- 
tion, in which modern science and art has pre- 
pared and fashioned them. 

Why go abroad for them? Why go to 
New York or Massachusetts for those things 
we can manufacture and prepare at home? 
Why go to Pennsylvania for the steam car, the 
plough, the axe, or any implement of husban- 
dry ? The iron, the coal, all the minerals ne- 
cessary for their fabrication, are found in 
abundance and excellence among us. 

Shall they continue to come to us, bur- 
dened with charges that diminish the profits 
on our labor, that augment the wealth of those 
whose power already controls your markets, 
directs your commerce and regulates your ex- 
changes ?_ Are we to be told, as heretofore, that 
our skill is insufficient, our labor unadapted to 
such pursuits ? Shall we acknowledge this in- 
feriority, this weakness in our system, without 
a trial ? Are we willing to perpetuate our de- 
pendence and pay our annual tribute, without 
an effort for relief? 

Regard this mechanical and manufacturing 
system, as conducted by the united labor of 
both classes of our people — the white man oc- 
cupying the superior posts of intelligence, re- 
ward, and control — the slave the less important 
and inferior ones. In the work shops and fac- 
tories of Europe and America, the intelligence 
and skill necessary to direct and regulate the 
entire operation, are procured from different 
classes of their people, and paid for at higher 
rates of remuneration than those paid to the 
manual and routine laborers. In agriculture, 
where labor is susceptible of but limited divi- 
sion, we have found the slave valuable, effi- 
cient, skilful. In mechanical and manufactu- 
ring arts, labor is susceptible of almost infi- 
nite division, and this it is, that renders it so 
effective in production, in every pursuit to 
which it can be applied. 



Its operation and effect is to simplify, to 
make easy of comprehension by requiring one 
thing only to be understood, and one thing to 
be performed by the operator. — It makes him 
able to perform that well, from constant habit, 
and practice directed to that alone. He does 
it better, and cheaper, and faster, because it 
ceases to require thought, and becomes a mere 
habit, performed mechanically, and without 
reflection. 

Onr resources, our capital, our labor, are 
abundant and adequate to supply our wants. 
Diversify your occupation as you diversify 
your crops for security and profit. Bring the 
agriculturist, the mechanic, the manufacturer, 
side by side, and increase the profits on the 
labor of all. Shall we be told that the habits 
and opinions of our people are opposed to it? 
that the experience of the past finds it better 
and cheaper to purchase them from the North ? 

Gentlemen, the painful experience of the 
present is beginning to tell a tale not yet fully 
revealed. It begins to tell of obligations vio- 
lated, of anarchy and confusion. — It is teach- 
ing the lesson of self-dependence and self-re- 
liance. It is teaching the " South to look to 
the South." 

Let us then resort to our own mines, our 
rivers, our workshops and factories, -and our 
own people. Let us stand on the banks of the 
"James,"' of the "Appomattox," the "She- 
nandoah," the " Roanoke," the " Ohio," and 
make them, at our command and bidding, do 
the labor of ten thousand hands. 

When you do these things, then indeed will 
you have improved your agricultural condition. 
Then will you have secured permanent pros- 
perity and repose — then, and not until then, 
will you have established a commerce on your 
own shores and in your own harbors — then 
will you have at your command, the treasures 
of the land and the treasures of the sea. 



BREAD. 



The Rhode Island Society for the Promotion of 
Industry, gave the first premium on domestic bread 
to Mrs. Hiram Hill, of Providence. The following 
is Mrs. Hill's recipe for making the bread exhibited 
by her : 

"For two loaves, of the ordinary size, take two 
potatoes, pare them, slice very thin, and boil quick 
until quite soft, then mash to a fine pulp, and add, 
little by little, two quarts of boiling water, stirring 
until a starch is formed ; let this cool, and add one- 
third of a cup of yeast. This forms the ' sponge,' 
which should remain in a moderately warm place 
tor ten or twelve hours, or 'over night,' until it 
becomes very light and frothy, even if a little sour 
it is of no consequence. When the ' sponge' is 
ready, add flour, and work it in until you have 
formed a stiff dough. The longer and more firmly 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



36; 



^is is kneaded, the better the bread. Let the 
kneaded mass remain say from a half to three- 
quarters of an hour to rise, then divide into pans, 
where it should remain say fifteen minutes, care 
being taken that it does not rise too much and 
crack, then put the loaves into a quick oven and 
bake, say three-quarters of an hour. If the oven 
is not hot enough the bread will rise and crack; if 
too hot, the surface will harden too rapidly and 
confine the loaf." 



For the Southern Planter. 

SMUT IN WHEAT. 

Mr. Editor, — Having seen in the Southern Planter 
at various times articles on the disease of wheat, 
known as smut, I presume it will not be thought 
out of place to offer what I may think I know in 
relation thereto. Early, probably in 1809, in fact, 
when I first noticed smut in wheat — I presume it 
had been observed and remarked on at an earlier 
day, as about that time I heard my father and his 
nearest neighhors, who were intelligent and active 
farmers, engaged personally, superintending their 
estates, that smut was propagated by contact; that 
it was so contagious that pure wheat put into bags 
in which smut-smitten wheat had been confined, 
would, if sown, produce smut-infected wheat the 
succeeding year; that every grain in a smut-in- 
fected head would be smut, or in other words, that 
a head could not be found containing sound and 
smutted grains ; that a sound head and smut head 
could not be found produced from the same root. 
The idea was so strange, indeed I then thought 
monstrous, that I disbelieved it at once and en- 
tirely. But my brother and I determined to test 
the truth of the neighborhood belief, and for that 
purpose prepared ourselves with a small quantity 
of pure wheat, which we soaked in pure spring 
water until near sprouting. We then procured a 
quantity of smut grains, which we pulverized, then 
rolled the soaked wheat in the dust — sowed in a 
rye-field remote from other wheat ; harvested from 
that sowing, pure wheat, without a head of smut. 
Having obtained that result I was induced (my 
brother having died) to make other researches, and 
after much labor, I found heads partly affected by 
smut. I also subsequently found sound heads and 
smut heads from the same root. I thus was con- 
vinced that smut was not infectious or contagious ; 
that it was not a disease of the head nor of the 
root, but that it was produced by some other cause. 
I commenced my researches anew at the commence- 
ment of harvest, first by breaking innumerable 
grains of smut in most of which (not all) I found 
a small white worm, the head of which was black 
or very dark. The same year, and near seeding 
time I commenced my research, to ascertain what 
became of the white worm of harvest. I found 
instead, in most of the smut grains broken a small 
grey bug; from others they had eaten out. I was 
satisfied that the worm had become the bug. Then 
my object was to ascertain what became of the 
grey bug. At the time of the rilling of the heads 
of wheat in the succeeding spring, in examining 
after the grey bug, I found it actually engaged in 
puncturing the grains of wheat, crawling from grain 
to grain, ascending and puncturing as it ascended. 
I found also that a very gentle tap on the stalk of 
wheat would cause the insect to loosen its hold 
and fall to the ground. I took a head of wheat on 



which I found one of those bugs operating near the 
top, and upon examination thereof found that the 
lower grains of wheat which were punctured first 
were discolored, going fast into smut; that others 
were yet but slightly tinged; and those from which 
I observed the bug to fall were not yet, as to ap- 
pearance of color, infected. I then presumed I 
had ascertained the cause of the smut, and every 
year's observation since, for I have annually ob- 
served, has confirmed my opinion, and every gen- 
tleman who wHl examine for himself will, I think, 
be also convinced that smut is produced by this 
small bug. I am not enough informed on the sub- 
ject of insects to assign it to a class or genus. After 
being thoroughly convinced what produced smut, 
the inquiry by what operation it could be prevented, 
presented itself to my mind. I first caused ten 
bushels of wheat, grown in a crop of which nearly 
one-half was smut, to be washed in pure spring- 
water just drawn, which was done under my direc- 
tion, by pouring the wheat from the bushel very 
slowly into the water. Most of the grains infected 
floated, and were removed from the tubs by the 
skimmer; then caused the wheat thus prepared by 
washing to be sown through the centre of a field 
of forty acres, which was seeded by direction of 
my father with the smut crop, from which I had 
the ten bushels mentioned as washed, taken. The 
result of the succeeding crop was, so far as the ten 
bushels were used, with but slight infection on the 
borders adjoining the wheat not washed — pure 
wheat — while the balance of the field was, as pre- 
viously, infected fully to the amount of one-half. 
Any operation by which the grains of smut are re- 
moved or pulverized, will prevent smut — so, also, 
the use of any agent which will destroy the life of 
the worm or insect, when in the worm or insect 
state, will prevent smut. 

Kespectfully, 

Braxton Davenport. 



For the Southern Planter. 

EXPERIMENTS IN USING LIME AND SALT, 
AND THE RELATIVE VALUE OF PERUVIAN 
GUANO AND KETTLEWELL'S SALTS. 

[Selected from the papers of the Nottoway Club.] 

Mr. President, — The following experiments were 
made by the request of the Club : The first to test 
the expediency of using lime and salt on our lands. 
The land selected for this experiment I thought 
needed lime as much as any on my plantation, or 
in my neighborhood, as it was not originally very 
good, is quite sandy, and is disposed to produce 
sheep-sorrel. It was worn out many years ago, 
permitted to grow up in pine, again cleared and 
again exhausted. I have improved it, and it is 
now a pretty good tobacco lot. On eight acres of 
this lot I applied oyster-shell lime at the rate of 
25 bushels to the acre, at a cost of about 14^ cents 
per bushel, and one bushel of salt per acre, at the 
price of 26 cents per bushel. Say for lime per 
acre $3 62, and for salt 26 cents — making $3 88 
per acre. The lot was fallowed for wheat in Au- 
gust, 1852. In September I sowed one bushel of 
salt to the acre, and dressed it with 25 bushels of 
lime to the acre. Both were dragged in. The 
wheat was sowed about the 10th of October, and 
dragged in. The salt and lime, of course, remained 
near the surface. As to the result, I have to report 



364 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



that I could perceive no difference in the color or 
growth of the wheat during the winter and spring, 
nor any difference in the product when it matured, 
although there were strips of land left unlimed 
through the lot. Possibly its good effects may be 
seen hereafter. 

The second experiment was made to test the re- 
lative value of Peruvian guano and Kettlewell's 
salts, and the profit or loss from the use of them. 
In the fall of 1852 I selected three adjoining acres 
of land which had been in corn. On the first I 
applied 200 lbs. of Peruvian guano, at a cost of 
84 53, freight included. On the second I applied 
200 lbs. of Kettlewelfs salts, which is a combina- 
tion of bone-dust and Peruvian guano, at a cost of 
$3 97, freight included. On the third I applied 
nothing. The last acre was rather the best, and 
the third, or guanoed acre, the most indifferent of 
the three, although there was no great difference 
in them. I sowed on each of these acres one bushel 
of wheat on the 29th of November. On the first 
the guano and wheat were turned under together 
with a single plough. On the second the wheat 
was turned under; the salts were then sowed and 
dragged in. As to results. The first, or guanoed 
acre, is to be credited for 8 bushels and 20 lbs. of 
wheat, at SI, making $8 33, and for straw and 
chaff, say $1 50, which added to the above, makes 
$9 83, and to be charged for rent of land, guano 
and interest on guano, seed wheat, getting in seed 
wheat, cutting, shocking, threshing, freight and 
selling— amounting to $9 78— leaving a profit of 
only 5 cents on the acre. The acre dressed with 
salts is to be credited for 6 bushels and 50 lbs. of 
wheat, at $1, making $6 83, and for straw and chaff, 
say $1 40, which added to the above, makes $8 23, 
and to be charged for rent of land, cost of salts and 
interest, seed wheat, cutting, shocking, threshing, 
freight and selling— amounting to $8 18— leaving 
a profit of only 5 cents on the acre. The third, or 
unimproved acre, is to be credited for 6 bushels 
and 5 lbs. of wheat, at $1, making $6 05, and for 
straw and chaff, say $1 25, which added to the' 
above, makes $7 33, and to be charged for rent of 
land, seed wheat, cutting, threshing, freight and 
selling, amounting to $S 71— leaving a profit on 
the unimproved acre of S3 62£, from which amount 
deduct 5 cents, the profit on the first and second 
acres, and there will remain $3 57|— showing a 
loss of that amount per acre by the use of guano 
or Kettlewelfs salts. Supposing the land to pro- 
duce without guano 6 bushels of wheat and to net, 
after paying all expenses $3 50 per acre, there will 
be no net profit by the use of guano at $45 35 the 
short ton and wheat at SI per bushel, unless it in- 
creases the product 6 bushels per acre, i. e. brings 
the product up to 12 bushels per acre. All over 12 
bushels per acre may be considered net profit. The 
less liability of loss from rust, the improved qua- 
lity of the wheat, and the improved condition of 
the land by the use of guano, are not estimated in 
the above. 

Respectfully submitted, 

William Irby. 

September 8, 1853. 



Lord Spencer, celebrated for his fine blooded 
cattle, said that he had observed that the worse 
bred the female is, the more likelv is the offspring 
to resemble a well bred sire; and that he should 
pracl irally prefer a cow of no breed, to an indifferenl 
pure bred cow, for a good thoroughbred bull. 



For the Southern Planter. 

ABRAM RENICK AND HIS SHORT-HORNS.— 
THE SPRINGFIELD (OHIO) CATTLE SHOW. 
WEIGHTS OF THE SHORT-HORNS. 

Mr. Editor, — I promised in my last, to write an ar- 
ticleabout "Abram Renick and his Short-Horns. 1 ' 
As it is fashionable at present to have "clean hands," 
I will remark, before describing this herd of cattle, 
that I have at different times purchased several 
animals of Abram Renick, and his brother James, 
who lives near him ; and may be considered an in- 
terested or prejudiced party ; but I think the very 
fact of my going to the Renicks, when I wish to 
buy a really fine animal, is the very best evidence 
I could give, that I consider their cattle superior. 
Nor is it necessary for me, or any person else, to 
write up his stock. The demand for them is 
greater than the production, and when I was at his 
house in September, he had nothing to sell. The 
last bull calf had been engaged to some Ohio men, 
before it came, and his heifer calves he would not 
sell, as he wishes to increase the number of his 
breeding stock. I can say the same thing for 
myself— that I have at this time nothing for sale, 
and will have nothing but bull calves, for some- 
time. Thoroughbred bull calves sold readily in 
this county during the present year, at one hun- 
dred dollars each, and the demand was such that 
I was requested by some friends to buy some for 
them in Kentucky, which I did, and bought five 
bulls and three heifers of the Renicks. I do 
not intend this as a sort of puff advertisement of 
"Abram Renick and his Short-Horns;" his cattle 
do not require it, and he is the last man to re- 
quest it, for a more honorable and high minded 
man does not breathe. I shall write merely what 
I feel is due both to the man and his herd ; for I 
doubt very much whether there is another such a 
herd, taken as a whole, in the Union. Besides, I 
saw on his farm at my last visit, and at previous 
ones, some animals, bred by himself, which were 
superior to any imported animal that I have ever 
seen. In addition, he has, in my opinion, bred 
more highly superior bulls, than any man in Ken- 
tucky ; and I have never, in rambling about over 
Kentucky, met with one of his bulls that was not a 
good getter. Such a breeder is invaluable to a 
State, and is, I think, a benefactor. So far, then, 
from advocating his cattle from interest, I advo- 
cate them from admiration of Abram Renick, as a 
man, and as a judge and breeder of Short-Horns. 
It was seeing his cattle at the Bourbon show in 
1849, that induced me to seek his acquaintance ; 
and when I went to his farm, after the show, I 
found that the few shown by him was nothing 
more than a fair sample of the whole. So much, 
by way of preface, and I will now tell you where 
he lives, and the kind of cattle he rears. 

Abram Renick, then, lives in Clark county, not 
far from the Bourbon line, and about three miles 
from Clintonville, (Bourbon county,) which is his 
post office. The farm on which he lives, is the one 
on which his father, who moved from the South 
Branch of the Potomac, in Virginia, settled, on 
going to Kentucky, about the year 1800, and 
which was a eanebrake at the time he purchased 
it. Abram Renick, being the youngest of the 
sons, inherited the home place, containing about 
350 acres, and in quality, I suppose, equal to any 
hind in Kentucky. His father was a breeder of 
fine stock, and brought his sons up to the same bu- 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



3G5 



siness. He was the brother of Mr Felix Renick, the 
agent who selected the Ohio company's stock in 
England in 1834, and was also a member of the 
Company. Abram Renick, at the sale of the Com- 
pany in 1836, purchased Matchem (Number 2383 
in the Herd Book) and the yearling heifer Illus- 
trious—the first at $1,200, and the last at $775. 
He afterwards purchased Paragon of 'the West, 
(Number 4649 in the Herd Book,) at a cost of 
$1500. As I have never seen the pedigree of a 
bull in the Planter, I will thank you to insert that 
of Paragon of the West, as it is recorded in the 
fourth volume of the Herd Book, page 347 : 

(46-19.) — Paragon of the West. Roan, calved 
May 15, 1835, bred by the Ohio Company, United 
States of America — got by Duke of York (1941) ; d. 
Rose of Sharon, bred by Thomas Bates, by Bel- 
vedere, (1706) ; g. d. Red Rose the fifth, by Second 
Hubback, (1423) ; gr. g. d. Red Rose the second, 
by His Grace, (311); gr. gr. g. d. Red Rose the 
first, by Yarborough, (705); gr. gr. gr. g. d., bred 
by R. Colling, and own sister to R. Colling's Red 
Rose by Favourite, (252) ; gr. gr. gr. gr. g. d. by 
Punch, (531); gr. gr. gr. gr. gr. g. d. by Foljambe, 
(263); gr. gr. gr. gr. gr. gr. g. d. by Hubback, (319.) 
The Collings had several families of Short-Horns, 
which were very much superior to the balance of 
their herds ; and they were the Lady Maynard, the 
Dairy, and Duchess tribes, belonging to Charles 
Colling, and the Princess, the Wildair, and Red 
Rose, belonging to Robert Colling. Paragon of 
the West combines the best blood of nearly all of 
them, as any one will see who Avill take the trouble 
to run out his pedigree. And they will find that 
the pedigrees of the Short-Horns are as carefully 
recorded, and as much to be relied upon, as are 
those of the high bred race horses in the Stud 
Book. 

The cow, Rose of Sharon, was selected by Mr. 
Felex Renick as the best in Bates' herd, and he 
paid more for her than any cow he imported. She 
died before the Company's sale, leaving a yearling 
heifer, Lady of the Lake, by Reformer, (2505) and 
a sucking bull calf, Paragon of the West, (4649.) 
Abram Renick also purchased Thames, a daughter 
of Lady of the Lake, got by Sakspeare, (No. 
12,062) and two daughters of Thames, (Rose and 
Dorothy,) got by Prince Charles, the second. At 
a subsequent sale of the Company, he purchased 
the imported heifer Harriet, got by the Princess 
bull, Young Waterloo, (2817,) bred by Bates. The 
next best cow, selected by Felix Renick, in his 
opinion, was Josephine, bred by Mr. Whittaker. 
and got by Norfolk, (2377.) James Renick pur- 
chased two heifers out of Josephine ; Nonpariel, got 
by Comet Halley (1855,) (sold at the Company's 
sale for $2,500,) and Lady Harrison, got by im- 
ported bull Rover, (5015,) bred by Mr. Paley. His 
herd combines the blood of Stevenson, Bates, 
Whittaker, Crofton and Paley, all breeders of first 
class Short-Horns. 

Mr. A. B. Allen, editor of the " American Agri- 
culturist," and a first rate judge, thus describes 
this stock: "Mr. Felix Renick resides on a fine 
bottom farm, with some hill lands, about four miles 
below Chillicothe ; his stock of full bloods is not 
large, but mostly very fine. Josephine, an im- 
ported cow, has taken the first premium at the cat- 
tle fair for the last three years. Out of her, he has 
three excellent calves, one of which, Nonpariel, 
two years old, has already taken Jwo premiums. 
His bull Rover, was bred by Wm. F. Paley, Esq., 
and imported in 1836. He is large, with a well 



set, arched neck, full over the shoulders, long in 
the barrel, and the very best handler for a male, I 
ever touched." See letter from the West, No. 7, 
July number of the Albany Cultivator, 1841. 

It will be seen that he commenced right, by 
purchasing first rate animals, and in his breed- 
ing he has confined himself to bulls descended 
from these families. He bred from Illustrious, the 
bulls Franklin, (3834), by Matchem, (2283) Young 
Comet Halley by Comet Halley, (1855), and Ash- 
land, (11,122), by Paragon of the West, (4649.) 
From Lady Harrison, he bred a bull, which was 
purchased by Capt. Ben. Warfield, called " Renick," 
and Buena Vista, by Cossack, (3503.) This last 
was two years old in 1849, when I first saw him. 
I thought him then the finest animal I had ever 
seen, and I have seen nothing since to compare 
with him. I looked upon him then, and do now, 
as the very " beau ideal of his species." He has 
bred his cattle pretty*- close,, that is, putting near 
relations together, such as half brother and sister. 
Most breeders are opposed to breeding when there 
is any relationship ; I am not. And in the hands 
of such a breeder as Abram Renick, if they will 
examine his herd, they will find that it gives great 
uniformity and evenness to the various animals, 
and that uniformity one of excellence. Most of his 
cows were got by Ashland and Buena Vista, and 
are descended from Thames and Harriet. This last 
brought him sixteen calves. The bull Belvedere, 
which he is now using, was got by " Renick," out 
of an Ashland cow, and she descended from Har- 
riet. I would rather own him than any bull in 
Kentucky, and this on account of his superior 
handling. If there is any animal superior to him 
in the touch, I would ride a long ways to " feel 
him." He keeps him in a blue grass lot, of about 
two acres; and in 'the adjoing field his cows are 
pastured. There were some twenty head, large and 
beautiful, and the most even lot I ever saw. They 
are all good, but the gem of the herd. is Duchess, 
got by Buena Vista, and out of Rose, and gr. gr. 
grandaughter of the Rose of Sharon. She had a 
most beautiful heifer calf by her side, got by the 
imported bull, John O'Gaunt, (11,621.) He also 
showed me some yearling heifers, got by Renick, 
for which he has been offered tempting prices. 
They were fine, as arc all the get of Renick. I 
have never seen a bad animal got by him, and he 
is the sire of a great many, for he is now eight 
years old. Renick was out of Lady Harrison, by 
her own brother, "Tippecanoe." But instead of 
giving you a description of his bulls and heifers, I 
will give you the ages and weights of steers, bred 
and fed by him at different times. 

About the year 1842, when Short-Horns got so 
low, Mr. Renick altered a thoroughbred calf, got 
by Franklin, (3834) and out of Harriet. He was 
precisely four years and seven months old, when 
killed, and weighed net, the four quarters, after 
being driven ninety miles to Cincinnati, 1,968. 
This, I have no doubt, was the best steer ever 
killed in the United States, and none of those 
whose weights are recorded in Youatt's Treatise 
on Cattle, come up to him at the same age. Mr. 
Renick told me that this was not a large looking 
steer, and that his weight was produced by his be- 
ing covered all over with fat. Every point was ripe. 
Another, four years and six months, not thorough- 
bred, killed at same time, weighed net, 1,776. In 
1851, he sold four steers, two of which were five, 
and two, four years old, and a barren heifer, four 
years old. The following are the live and dead 



166 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



weights : the tare of the four quarters' only, No. 1 , 
live weight, 2,772, net 1,828. No. 2, live weight, 
2,526, net 1,670. No. 3, live weight, 2,280, net 
1,404. No. 4, live weight, 2,100, net 1,320. Hei- 
fer's live weight, 1,778, net 1,102. Three of these 
were got by Ashland, and two by Cossack; the 
steers were the refuse of his calves, for he never 
keeps any for bulls, unless they are right in every 
respect. I will now give you the live weight of 
ten head, which he sold in the fall of 1852. Two 
of them were five years old, four of them four, and 
four of them three years old. They weighed 
2,672, 2,530, 2,250, 2,244, 2,096, 2,054, 1,994, 
1,988, 1,964, 1,870. The cow, Thames, mentioned 
above, which had ceased breeding, live weight, 
1,754. I cannot give you the net weight of these 
last, as they were taken to New York. He re- 
ceived $100 each for the ten head. Last spring 
he sold another lot of ten, to go to New York, 
which were not weighed; he sold them at $100 
each, and they were estimated to weigh in New 
York, 1,400 net. One-half were four, and the 
other half three years old, last spring. If you will 
make the calculation, you will find that those 
whose net weights are given, lost but little more 
than one-third of their live weight; and this 
without counting hide and tallow, and that the 
steer, which weighed 1,968, gained nearly li lbs. 
net weight for every day he was old. Cattle must 
be of a high order of excellence to do this. Their 
offal, such as heads, necks, tails, legs, haunches, 
&c, must be small, and the prime parts, such as 
briskets, crops, chine, rumps, thighs, ribs, &c, 
must be fine. The great art of breeding is to re- 
duce the offal and low priced pieces of beef, and 
increase the prime parts. I saw these steers, ex- 
cept the two first, often; and they were uniform 
and alike in appearance. They showed, both in 
their forms and order, that they had been bred 
and fed by a man who was master of his business. 
The whole herd excel, particularly in their bris- 
kets and loins, two of the most important points in 
all animals intended for grazing. They are all 
fine handlers, with long mossy coats and mellow 
hides. 

The above is my candid opinion of this noble 
herd, the best by far, taken altogether, that I ever 
saw. I have seen larger looking cattle, but I have 
never seen any that were heavier to weigh, or that 
would return more, or as much profit, at less cost 
and in less time , and this I consider the great ob- 
ject to be sought by all breeders. I never could 
conceive that extraordinary size was to be desired 
in any domestic animal, unless it was obtained 
without extraordinary labor and expense of food. 

Bulls bred by the Renicks are scattered all over 
Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana, and several have been 
brought to this county. The young bull, which I 
spoke of, as having taken the premium as a year- 
ling at Lexington, was bred by Abram Renick, and 
is owned by Geo. M. Bedford of Bourbon, lie is 
called " Bucyrus." He was shown at the Bourbon 
show, shortly afterwards, and again won, beating 
a bull called Syrius, which was just imported by 
the Scott County Company, and which sold a few 
days afterwards for $3,500. He was then taken to 
the great National Show at Springfield, Ohio, and in 
competition with the best cattle from New York, 
( tfaioand Indiana, received the second premium. I 
left at your office, when in Richmond, a list of the 
premiums at Springfield. You will sec that Ken- 
I nky came out victorious, winning the first premium 
on aged bulls, the first on two year olds, and the 



second on yearling bulls. She won the first on 
aged cows, the second on two year old heifers, and 
the first on yearling heifers. The cow which took 
the premium in Ohio, was at both the Lexington 
and Bourbon shows, and beaten at both shows. 
She is a large, fine, stylish cow, and her being 
beaten in Kentucky, should make nothing against 
her, for she certainly had a "hard road to travel." 
But I have said enough on this subject. You must 
try and go out next fall to the Lexington show, and 
judge foryousself. If you cannot go out to Ken- 
tucky, come up here, and we will show you some 
good samples of Mr. Renick's herd. I am in hopes, 
however, that you will go to Kentucky. I think I 
can promise you a hearty welcome. And if you 
will go up to Abram Renick's, you will see what 
skill andjudgment will effect in breeding cattle. 

I was at James Renick's several times, and saw 
there also some first rate animals. There is very 
little difference in the herds of the two brothers. 
They have used the same bulls, and their cattle in 
quality are equal. Lady Harrison is at James Re- 
nick's, the dam, no doubt, of more really fine ani- 
mals, than any cow in Kentucky. Mr. Renick 
has been unfortunate in her produce, as she has 
had all bull calves, with one exception, and this 
heifer died without having any calves. It is al- 
ways a great pleasure to me to visit the Renicks, 
and ramble with them over their beautiful farms, 
looking at and examining their fine herds, which 
they have raised to a point of excellence, equalled 
by few, and, in my opinion, surpassed by none in 
this country. 

As I will not have an opportunity of writing 
another article for your paper soon, I will give you 
the weights of some Short-Horns. You will pro- 
bably recollect that I told you in the September 
number, that I would give you in another article, 
the weights of Short-Horns at different periods 
down to the present time, in order to show you 
" that they are not a breed of yesterday, liable and 
likely to degenerate to-morrow." 

"In 1799, Charles Colling sold a three year old 
heifer, which weighed net 1,400 lbs. [See Berry's 
first history, 1801.] The Durham ox, bred by 
Charles Colling and shown as a curiosty, was 
thought to weigh at five years old, 2.352 lbs.; his 
live weight being 3,024 lbs.; and this extraordinary 
weight did not arise from superior size, but from 
the excessive ripeness of his points. At ten years 
old, live weight, 3,780 lbs. ; carcass supposed to 
weigh 3,080 lbs." 

" In the year 1808, Mr. Bailey, the agricultural 
historian of Durham, informs us he saw at Mr. Ma- 
son's, (of Chilton,) a cow, not less remarkable in 
point of fat than the Durham ox. At that time the 
depth of fat from the rumps to the hips, in a per- 
pendicular position, was not less than twelve 
inches, and the shoulder score at least nine inches 
thick." 

" Mr. Robert Colling's heifer, which was also ex- 
hibited as a curiosity, was estimated at four years 
old to weigh 1,820 lbs. net." 

" The same gentleman sold a two year old steer 
in Darlington market, which weighed net 924 lbs." 

"At Mr. Nesham's, Mr. Bailey saw a steer twen- 
ty-live months old, completely covered with fat 
over the whole carcass, and supposed to be the 
fattest steer of his age ever seen. Neither o\' the 
last mentioned were of large size, and would not 
have wcighedi above 560 lb,-., hail they been no 
fatter (ban those usually slaughtered." 

" Mr. Wetherel sold, in Darlington, 1810, two 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



367 



steers under three years old, which weighed 1,330 
lbs. each." 
K "A twin heifer, belonging to Mr. Arrowsmith, 

gained thirty stones, (420 lbs.) in thirty weeks." 

Mr. Mason, (of Chilton,) in an experiment to as- 
certain the weight of beef, gained by the food 
given, (turnips,) found three steers, under three 
years old, to have gained twenty stones (280 lbs.) 
each, in twenty weeks. The steers averaged 980 
lbs. each." 

" In 1816, Mr. Nesham's steer, three and a half 
years old, obtained the premium offered by the 
Durham Agricultural Society ; his weight was,- the 
four quarters, 1,347 lbs. the four quarters; tallow, 
152 lbs.; hide, 112 lbs." 

"Major Rudd's steer, slaughtered when three 
years and thirteen days old, weighed, the four 
quarters, 1,344 lbs." 

The late Mr. Robertson, of Berwick-upon- 
Tweed, furnished the following particulars of 
Short-Horns, bred by him, and fed, with few ex- 
ceptions, on vegetable food : 

1791. — "An ox, four years, ten months old, four 
quarters, 2,030 lbs.; tallow, 343 lbs. A steer, 
under four years old, four quarters, 1,484 lbs; 
tallow, 273 lbs." 

1814. — "A steer, three years, nine months old, 
four quarters, 1,414 lbs; tallow, 210 lbs." 

1815. — " A steer, three years, eleven months old, 
four quarters, 1,572 lbs. ; tallow, 364 lbs. A hei- 
fer, three years, eight months old, four quarters, 
1,246 lbs." 

1817. — " A steer, three years, two months old, 
four quarters, 1,340 lbs.; tallow, 245 lbs." 

1822. — " An ox, four years and a half old, four 
quarters, 1,890 lbs. ; tallow, 294 lbs. Own brother 
to the foregoing, three years and a half old, four 
quarters, 1,862 lbs ; tallow, 294 lbs. A steer three 
years, eight months old, four quarters, 1,568 lbs.; 
tallow not weighed." 

" A steer, bred by Col. Cook, two years and 
twenty-two days old, fed on potatoes and straw, 
was slaughtered; his four quarters weighed 1,008 
pounds." 

1823. — Mr. John Rennie fed a steer from eigh- 
• teen to twenty months old, the four quarters of 
which weighed 946 lbs." 

" The same gentleman fed a steer, aged two years 
and four months, whose four quarters weighed 
1,231 lbs.; also, a steer aged three years and six 
months, whose four quarters weighed 1,369 lbs.; 
tallow, 241 lbs." 

" Should the foregoing statement be considered 
extended, it will at least be admitted that its am- 
ple detail establishes the credit of the Short-Horns 
as an invaluable breed to the grazier." For the 
above weights, see Youatt's Trestise on Cattle. 

That the Short-Horns of the present day get as 
fat as any of the above are described to be, I re- 
fer you to Garrard's and Stevenson's letters, ex- 
tracts from which you will find in the September 
number of the Planter, to the weights of Mr. Re- 
nick's steers, given above, and to the following 
weights of steers, which I saw in Kentucky : Mr. 
Charles J. Innes showed three steers at the Bour- 
bon and Lexington shows, fall of 1850, which 
weighed 2,790, 2,740, and 2,710 lbs. each. They 
would have averaged net, about 1,800 lbs. These 
were five years old. He had in all thirty-nine 
head, and the average live weight of the thirty- 
nine, was 2,315 lbs., and the whole would have 
averaged net about 1,500 lbs. Half of them five, 
and half four years old. 



The same year Mr. James G. Kinnaird's steer, 
five years old, weighed, live weight, 2,580 lbs.; net 
weight, 1,735 lbs. — losing less than one-third. 
Mr. Kinnaird, fall of 1849, sold the steer which took 
the premium at the Bourbon show, to go to Cin- 
cinnati. He was not weighed alive; he weighed 
net, in Cincinnati, 1,900 lbs. He was four years 
and six months old. At the Lexington show, 1850, 
Mr. E. G. Bedford's steer, three years old, weighed 
2,464 lbs. He would have weighed net about 
1,643 lbs. Mr. T. Hughes' steer, two years old, 
live weight, 2,074 lbs. He would have weighed 
net about 1,383 lbs. 

I might enlarge upon this subject, and fill a 
whole number of your paper, with weights of the 
Short-Horns. But I think I have written enough 
to prove tnat they are an ancient and superior 
race of animals. In Kentucky, if they wish to im- 
prove the qnick feeding of their stock, they inva- 
riably resort to the Short-Horn bull. He always 
stamps his form and color upon the produce, 
which is proof of their long, high breeding. 

Your paper will, I suppose, be taken up for 
sometime with the awards of premiums at the 
State Show, and with the essays ; and you will not 
need an article from me for sometime. I will try, 
if you wish it, to write you an article on breeding 
stock, sometime during the winter. 
Truly Yours, 

Alex. S. Mathews. 

Wythe County, November 10th, 1854. 



For the Southern Planter. 

COL. JOSIAH WM. WARE AGAIN. 

Mr. Editor, — I fully designed mine, in your Sep- 
tember number, to be the last, and will now only 
correct some errors in your comments. I will not 
raise the question as to how far an editor can, with 
propriety, publish a letter marked " private," as in 
this case it was of no importance, the purport of it 
being in my communication. *I claim the right to 
object to any improper course in any paper to which 
I am a subscriber, as do other subscribers — I will 
not use the word "patrons," as it seems offensive 
when used — it was as editors use that word to de- 
note their subscribers. If wrong, I was led into 
the error by editors ; nor could the word " patrons" 
mean myself only, but all your subscribers who 
owned the Cotswolds or Short-Horns. You could 
hardly have understood it otherwise. I see no ob- 
jection yet to a private letter on the business of your 
paper. Very few communications, I expect, are 
sent to an editor without a private note, and I ap- 
prehend if you continue long editor of a public 
journal you will have to get out of your thin skinned 
notions, that you are to wrap yourself in the mantle 
of royalty and "not be approached in a private 
note." I know of nothing that elevates you so far 
above other editors. If your paper is a private one 
you have a right to throw impediments in the way 
of a free discussion, even then not by ascribing 
motives of interest. Now, sir, my whole motive 
in expressing myself frankly to you was the inte- 
rest I felt in the Southern Planter, its success as 
an agricultural journal, there were so few in the 
State, through which farmers could have an inter- 
change of sentiment, and on this account only I 
offered my advice. It was rejected, with motives 
of selfishness insultingly ascribed. Now that ad- 
vice was not to praise or advocate Cotswolds or 



368 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



Short-Horns or any other breed, but that if you 
wished to commend any particular breed, to show 
to the farming interest its peculiar qualities and 
profits, and let the others alone. Was it wrong to 
give such advice'? Was it wrong advice'? Who 
will say so 1 In the whole discussion you misun- 
derstood (it is harsh to say perverted) my feelings, 
wishes and intentions. I never designed to influ- 
ence your course, or directly or indirectly, or in any 
other way "threatened to compel your silence or 
commendation;" and no man, even by contortion, 
can make either my communication or my private 
note justly bear such construction. It exists only 
in your disposition towards me. It was only my 
advice, solely for the good of the paper, and I truly 
stated in your September number that your com- 
mendation was not sought. I did appreciate your 
judgment as you seem to do yourself. Your edu- 
cation and associations led me to expect at least a 
courteous course, and I confess that in that respect 
I was " disappointed in my man." 

Now as to the " puff to mislead the public." As 
this charge is made, I earnestly ask the public at- 
tention to this fact. My calculations were made 
on the sales of yearling part bred muttons alone to 
the butcher at rates that they sell at every year — 
the butchers coming from one to three hundred 
miles to purchase, and at such rates as they are 
willing to make standing bargains at, and this for 
consumption only — not even including the wool, 
which always gives as much or more money to the 
fleece than any other sheep, carefully leaving out 
of the calculation all sales of animals that had 
passed to two years old, and all sales for breeding 
purposes. Now could a calculation be made more 
to the disadvantage of the Cotswold'? And can any 
other breed of sheep produce such a state of things 1 
Can there beany "puff or misleading of the public 
mind" in tins'? Now look at your mode of calcu- 
lation, April number, page 115, column 1, of a gen- 
tleman " starting two years ago with a flock of 530 
sheep," " up to August last had sold the wool and 
increase of the flock for $3600 — (italics mine.) 
This of both wool arid for breeding purposes, both of 
which left out by me as likely to mislead, and thus 
be unfair in calculation, because such sales vary 
and are too dependent on too many circumstances 
to be relied on each year. Did that gentleman sell 
all his (that he sold for breeding purposes) as high 
each as the butcher gave me for my yearling part 
breds for slaughtering? Suppose I had taken into 
my calculation my sales for wool and breeding 
purposes and the sale of ten of my sheep in one 
year, and my yearling part bred muttons together, 
would have (even without the wool) given me more 
money than you instance in the two years from the 
whole 530 sheep in sales of both wool and produce. 
Even the 30 ewes you instance as sold {without 
counting 1000I or lambs) brought almost as much in 
one year as the 530 sheep you instance, with their 
increase and wool, brought in cither year of the 
two. But was that a fair way to show to the farmer 
the general and certain profits from sheep 1 I think 
not. Sales for consumption alone is the only fair 
way, unless the whole calculation is of profit on 
wool; and surely you would not compare the pro- 
fits on wool against wool and mutton both, of Cots- 
wolds, Avhen each fleece of the latter will bring 
more money than that of the former, and the //nil- 
ion of the Cotswold will sell for five times as much 
as (lie jlcccc of the other. Now what intelligent 
reader of your journal, farmer or not, will not set' 
that I, who have based my calculations solely on 



consumption at prices that part bred yearlings bring 
every year from butchers that come from 100 to 
300 miles to purchase, have taken great pains to 
avoid " misleading the public mind by puffs," while 
you, by instancing sales for breeding purposes and 
wool that may and will vary every year, are endea- 
voring to accomplish the very purpose of "mis- 
leading the public mind by puffs" that you charge 
me with. A fine "protection," truly. You give 
them such as the wolf would give to the lamb. In 
this the public seems to need protection, not by, 
but from you. \ 

You speak of your sale of ram lambs to the 
butcher for three dollars before he ever saw them, 
and abated fifty cents because you thought it an 
over estimate, no doubt. You were right — while 
$6 50 is refused here for part bred lambs after the 
butcher saw them. You at a city, we at least 100 
miles off, over which our butcher has to pay trans- 
portation. Now which to the farmer is the most 
profitable breed, by your own showing'? Need I 
ask such a question 1 Your statements of my 
dealings in sheep shows lamentable ignorance, but 
as it cannot be of much interest to the public, I 
must decline wasting time on it. Dealers with me 
will see your errors and know whether I have dealt 
liberally with them or not, and as far as yourself 
is concerned — think as you please — I do not con- 
sider it of any consequence, as I cannot consent to 
manage my matters to please you. But Mr. Mor- 
rell as authority about Cotswold sheep! This is 
rich. When his book was prepared no Cotswold 
sheep had been imported, and most probable he 
had never seen one ; certainly knew nothing about 
them. I doubt even to this day if he ever owned 
or even saw a thoroughbred — and he as authority 
about Cotswold sheep against the best breeders in 
England, even before you were born ! Pshaw — is 
this not trifling with the intelligence of your readers'? 

I frequently purchase mixed bred and part bred 
ewes — sometimes in numbers of ten, twenty and 
thirty at a time, for various reasons. Gentlemen, 
not willing to go to the prices for thoroughbreds, 
wishing only to raise muttons, request me to do so 
for them. I put such with my imported buck be- 
fore going away. I charge nothing for his services 
or my attention. I charge nothing and make no- 
thing by them, and frequently buy them and com- 
mon ewes to raise muttons from for sale and for 
my own use, (thoroughbreds are too costly to alter,) 
and I shall continue to do so. If gentlemen wish 
such, they can be supplied. 

Now as to grazing sheep. They were hardly 
mistaken as to seven to the acre, but probably not 
in the way of your idea of grazing—" sheep chew- 
ing up running briars by the yard" — but as they 
graze their cattle, not turn them on their grass 
lands until the grass is well up. I am willing to 
believe with you that seven of your breed of ram- 
bling, "active sheep" would not do well on that 
land, lor it takes food to sustain the rambling that 
tramples over the grass, ami thus injures, as well 
as consumes the grass, but the Cotswolds are 
ish," not "active shoe})" — fill themselves 
ami Lay down and ruminate like cattle — have great 
propensity to Hit, and instead of rambling oil' their 
food convert it into fat. I connot yield their judg- 
ment to either your theory or judgment, as you 
may choose to call it, and I really think had you 
seen the yearlings that left here this summer and 
i'all and the pastures they were taken from, so burnt 
from drought that it would have puzzled you to 
form an idea as to what they fed on — bought by 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



369 



the butcher (without having been fed one mouthful 
of grain) at $8 50 each — it would have shaken 
even your faith in your own opinion of their profits 
to the farmer. 

Josiaii Wm. "Ware, 
Near Berryville, Clarke County, Virginia. 
October, 1851. 



Guano for Melons. — We had a very fine melon 
patch which was well nigh destroyed by the striped 
bug. The vines had just commenced running, and 
in two or three days, the bugs had stripped nearly 
every leaf. As a desperate remedy, we applied a 
handful of guano, on top of the hill, under the run- 
ning vines, sifting on the hill as far as the vines 
had run, taking care that it did not fall on the leaf. 
In twenty-four hours not a bug was to be seen; 
the vines had assumed a healthy and vigorous ap- 
pearance, and are now loaded with fraiit. This ex- 
periment was not on one vine only, but hundreds. 




THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 
RICHMOND, DECEMBER, 1854. 



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TO OUR READERS. 

With this number closes the 14th Volume of the 
Planter and another year of our editorial career. 
Gratifying evidence of the favorable estimation in 
which our labors have been held is afforded by a 
steadily progressive increase in the number of our 
subscribers, and also of an awakened interest in 
the topics to the discussion of which our pages 
are devoted — by the large number and variety of 
original communications which grace its pages — 
communications which, for ability and practical 
utility, will compare favorably with those of any 
journal of like character in this country. We would 
gratefully acknowledge our indebtedness to the 
friends who have so kindly aided us, and would 
add, that if this paper is destined to win its way 
to a more general acceptation — a more enlarged 
circulation and a wider sphere of usefulness, it 
will be under the continued favor of its friends in 
furnishing, in larger measure, this chief element 
of its success, as a vehicle of useful and entertain- 
ing matter. We would, therefore, in conclusion, 
say to our good friends, write ! write ! ! write ! ! ! 



JOURNAL OF TRANSACTIONS OF THE VIR- 
GINIA STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY 

Just published and for sale at the Southern Planter 
office. Price 50 cents a copy, neatly bound. 

The above work contains, besides the regular 
proceedings of the Executive Committee, the fol- 
lowing Premium Experiments and Essays : 

Essay on the Theory and Laws of Rotation of 
Crops, by Edmund Ruffin. 

Essay on the Analysis of Marls in lower Virginia, 
by Professor William Gilliam of the Virginia Mili- 
tary Institute. 

Experiment to Test the Effects (in profit or loss) 
of the Usual Mode of Saving Corn Fodder, &c. by 
Edmund Ruffin, Jr. 

Experiment to Test the Action of Lime as Manure 
above the Falls of the Tide-water Rivers of Virgi- 
nia, on Different Soils, by Commodore Thomas Ap 
C. Jones. 

Experiment in the Tillage of Indian Corn, by 
Commodore Thomas Ap C. Jones. 

Experiments on the Benefits and Products of 
Guano, compared to Costs, by Thomas Jones, Jr. 

Experiments with Tide Marsh Mud as Manure, 
by John R. Bryan. 

Experiments with Sulphate of Barytes as a Ma- 
nure, by Robert R. Barton, M. D. 

Essay on Enriching and Improving Worn-Out 
Lands, by Commodore Thomas Ap Catesby Jones. 

Essay on the Properties and Value of the South- 
ern Pea, or Cornfield Pea, by P. M. Edmondston. 

Essay on the Treatment and Management of Miich 
Cows, by Lewis Bailey. 



Mr. F. N. Watkins, of Farmville, Prince Edward 
county, Virginia, is a permanent Agent for the 
Southern Planter. 






370 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



FURTHER EXTRACTS FROM THE PAPERS 
OF THE NOTTOWAY CLUB. 



We are indebted to the above Association for a 
mass of useful matter, the production of which is 
owing to an excellent rule of the Club requiring 
each member to furnish an original essay, or a 
written report of one or more experiments during 
the year. An admirable expedient to overcome 
the almost universal repugnance of farmers to 
writing, and to show with what force and effect 
they can generally express themselves when under 
the pressure of unavoidable necessity. We wish 
we had the power to impose some such obligation 
upon every intelligent farmer in Virginia. We 
should thereby indefinitely enlarge the common 
stock of useful agricultural knowledge, and secure 
to each writer such improved facility in the ex- 
pression of his thoughts as would render it no 
longer a burden, but rather a pleasure to commu- 
nicate them. We can at least commend this rule 
to universal adoption. The selections we have 
made are introduced at this time because they are 
deemed seasonable to the wants of those of our 
readers who may contemplate a change in their 
existing systems of rotation, as the time for com- 
mencing preparations for the corn crop is the ap- 
propriate season to remodel the subdivisions of the 
farm with reference to that object. We shall con- 
tinue to give occasional selections from these pa- 
pers, reserving their introduction to the seasons 
deemed most appropriate to a profitable considera- 
tion of their contents. 

THE BEST SYSTEM OF MANAGEMENT. 

Mi. President,— Public attention is manifestly 
alive to the importance of improving the agricul- 
tural resources of Virginia. We live in an age of 
progress. Improvements are being rapidly made 
in all the departments of the arts and sciences. 
Rail roads and telegraphs are bringing into close 
proximity distant cities and countries. Machinery 
is lightening the burdens of manual labor by its 
adaptation and application to most of the industrial 
pursuits of man, and an increasing knowledge of 
chemistry is rendering all nature subservient to the 
wants and comforts of society. He who does not 
avail himself of those advantages in this go-a-head 
age will assuredly be left far in the distance by his 
more enterprising competitors in the race of im- 
provement. We rejoice that the friends of agricul- 
ture are not idle spectators. While improvements 
are progressing in other departments of productive 
labor, "the cultivation of mother earth," the no- 
blest, most important and useful -of them all, the 
foundation and main spring of every other human 
pursuit, is not without its trophies of progress and 
improvement. Although no systematic plan has 
generally been adopted among us, it is encouraging 
to know that many are inquiring after the right 
way, and others are farming on principles which 
will ultimately result in successful achievement in 
the work of improving our farms, the necessity of 
which is apparent to us all. With the hope of eli- 
citing inquiry and calling the attention of the Club 



to the subject I propose to give my views (not our 
practice) on the best system of management, hav- 
ing regard to present profits and prospective im- 
provement. 

The capacity of soils to give remunerating re- 
turns for the capital and labor invested in agricul- 
ture depends mainly on the amount of organic and 
inorganic matter which they contain, their open- 
ness and friability, their capacity to imbibe the at- 
mospheric influences, to receive and retain moisture 
to a given extent, and to part with it when redun- 
dant and excessive. To obtain all these desirable 
ends and to bring all these advantages to the aid 
of the farmer, the time-honored three-field rotation 
must be abandoned, with its no less venerable and 
destructive concomitant, hard grazing. This lies 
at the root of the matter. They are principals and 
accomplices in the great work of destruction, which 
have well nigh ruined our country, once the garden 
spot of the world, the Canaan of the whole earth. 

It is not my purpose here to repeat all the objec- 
tions to, and evils of, the three-field rotation, at- 
tended with hard grazing, for they are legion. I 
will, however, mention a few of them. And 

First. Two exhausting grain crops in immediate 
succession, one a hoe crop, the cultivation of.which 
requires the land to be frequently ploughed and 
kept clean by the use of the hoe — thus exposing 
the land to the injurious influences of our long 
summer suns and the washing of the heavy rains 
to which our climate is subject, must necessarily 
and rapidly exhaust both the organic and inorganic 
matter contained in our lands, by abstracting those 
principles necessary to mature the growing crop, 
and by evaporation and leaching, during the long 
period in which land is exposed to those influences. 

Secondly. The three-field rotation (corn, unac- 
companied with grazing,) does not afford time 
enough for the land in its present exhausted condi- 
tion to throw up a sufficient crop of vegetation to 
remunerate for the supply of organic matter taken 
from it in the production of the two previous ex- 
hausting crops. Let us suppose, for a moment, 
(which is not fact,) that each severed crop is equally 
exhausting, and that the crop of grass the year of 
rest is equal to the draft on the land in the produc- 
tion of one of the exhausting crops, in the three 
years rotation, there still remains to be supplied the 
organic matter which was taken up from the land 
to grow and perfect the other severed crop, to say 
nothing of the waste of the inorganic matter of the 
soil to which it had been exposed in the production 
of the two severed crops. It is manifest, therefore, 
that the term of rest should be lengthened suffi- 
ciently to restore to the land the full amount of 
inorganic and organic matter taken from it in the 
growth and perfection of the two preceding crops. 

Under a judicious three-shift system, unaccom- 
panied by grazing, it may be possible that a soil 
originally good, should continue productive for a 
length of time, through the ameliorating effects of 
the heavy crop of vegetation during the years of 
rest, together with the benefits of protection from 
the baneful influences of the sun and the absence 
of close treading by the hoof. But this is not the 
custom of our farmers. Immediately after the 
small grain crop is removed, the fields thus heavily 
taxed by the production of two grain crops, arp 
closely grazed by the stock of the farm, and, per- 
baps, of the neighborhood. And hence arises a 
third objection to the system under review, to wit: 
the closing up of the pores of the land and the 
destroying of its friability by excluding the fer- 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



371 



tiiizing influence of the atmosphere and greatly 
diminishing or entirely destroying the absorbing 
powers of the land. 

Humus, that substance or principle, which agri- 
cultural chemises tell us, is so indispensably neces- 
sary in the constitution of productive soils and 
the vigorous growth of plants, is nothing more 
than the residuum of solid vegetable and animal 
substances, reduced by decompositionto a pabulum 
fitted to, and capable of, being taken up by the 
roots of growing plants through the agency of the 
atmosphere and water. Many plants are almost 
self-sustaining, deriving most of their growth and 
support from the atmosphere, while others, by their 
long tap-roots, strike deep into the subsoil and 
draw a large portion of their nutrition from depths 
beyond the reach of other plants. Thus a well 
clothed verdant field, untrodden and ungrazed, is 
by the appointment of Providence, silently selecting 
from the great storehouse of nature, food adapted to 
the growth and maturity of vegetation, by the death 
and decomposition, of which more fertilizing mat- 
ter is returned to the land on which grew, than by 
its production, was taken from it. Grass and grain 
are the two great sources of national independence 
and individual wealth. No nation was ever long 
independent, happy and free, who neglected the one 
or despised the other. They are inseparably united 
by an all-wise Providence, and folly marks the con- 
duct of those who would dissolve their union. 
Tillage exhausts the fertility of soils. Grass, indi- 
rectly, but certainly, restores it. The beneficial 
effects of inorganic or mineral manures are greatly 
increased by being turned in with large quantities 
of organic or vegetable matter. A field thus hea- 
vily covered with vegetation will bear a much 
larger application of lime or marl than if naked, 
and I doubt not but that every person present has 
witnessed and is ready to admit the same results 
from the application of guano and other putrescent 
manures, under like circumstances. I have heard 
the idea advanced, that stock were productive la- 
borers, bringing home and depositing, at night, the 
fruits of their daily toil. This may be true, if my 
stock graze my neighbors' lands, but certainly false 
if they graze my own. If it is good economy to 
haul dead vegetable matter to our farm-pens and 
on our arable lands with the view of improving 
their productiveness, it is surely very injudicious 
to graze off the growing vegetation, absorbing as 
it does from the atmosphere through its leaves and 
bringing up by its roots from the subsoil fertilizing 
materials, which, by its decomposition, would be 
returned to the land on which it was grown. Clo- 
ver, lucern, peas, buckwheat and many other mem- 
bers of the vegetable kingdom, deriving their prin- 
cipal support from the atmosphere and the subsoil 
and clay, costs the farmer nothing but space on 
which to grow, and protection from depredation of 
the tooth and hoof. 

In conformity with these views it is my inten- 
tion immediately to divide my farm into four shifts 
of one hundred acres each, and from each of these 
fields to set apart twenty acres for tobacco lots, all 
to be enclosed by a strong, substantial ring fence. 
Dividing fences will be dispensed with, in view of 
economizing labor and timber, and of guarding at 
the same time against injurious grazing. I shall 
then have eighty acres, or 278,724 hills in corn, 
planted five feet by two and a half; and twenty 
acres, or 80,000 hills, in tobacco, the usual distance. 
It is my intention to enclose a part of my farm for 
a standing pasture and rigidly to exclude all stock 



from the arable land through the first rotation" 
Every appliance within the means of the farmer 
should be used to improve each field for corn and 
tobacco. Particular attention should be paid to 
farm-pen and compost manures, together with a 
liberal outlay in lime, plaster, bone-dust and guano, 
as on these mainly depends the success of the sys- 
tem. Every portion of the field in small grain 
should be seeded in clover or such other cultivated 
grasses as may be adapted to the varying quality 
of the land, until the entire farm is set in grass. 
Ten efficient hands and six working horses are 
thought sufficient to cultivate the foregoing crops 
well and leave ample time for the improvement of 
the farm and for other minor incidental duties and 
labors. 

The tobacco lots should be made rich enough to 
produce a crop averaging a pound for every four 
hills, or 20,000 lbs., and the corn shifts raised to 
that state of fertility that will insure an abundant 
supply of grain and provender for the use of the 
farm. The four-field rotation is preferred to the 
three, as being less scourging, and for other reasons 
as stated above; and to the five-shift rotation, be- 
cause requiring less land and labor to carry it into 
successful operation. It is also less exhausting 
than the five-field system, with an intermediate 
fallow crop, and it is believed will more speedily 
resuscitate our exhausted lands. It will not reduce 
the area of of our cultivated fields to the same ex- 
tent as the five-field rotation will do before we have 
by partial improvement enabled the fields thus re- 
duced in size to meet the wants of the farmer by 
their increased productiveness. 

I will here suggest a probable improvement on 
the foregoing, which is to add another twenty acre 
lot for tobacco, which will enable the farmer to 
fallow to that extent for wheat, or it may be used 
for truck patches or seeded to oats, as the circum- 
stances of the farm may require. Oats, however, 
are a crop of but little value, and are only allowa- 
ble, because our lands will not, in their present 
condition, supply an abundant crop of corn and 
provender for the use of the farm . 

By strict attention to the above system there can 
be but little doubt that at the expiration of the 
rotation, the yearly production of the farm will 
have increased from fifteen to twenty per cent, 
with a good prospect of progressive improvement 
for all time to come. 

I am aware, sir, that my opinions on the subject 
of stock are in conflict with the opinions of a ma- 
jority of the Club. I will, however, take this oc- 
casion to say that in the present condition of mid- 
dle Virginia, with exhausted fields and barren com- 
mons, stock raising, beyond the absolute wants and 
comforts of the family, is incompatible with the 
improvement of our lands, and to that extent is 
unprofitable to the farmer ; for he who improves 
his stock at the expense of his land, is most as- 
suredly sacrificing the greater to the lesser interest ; 
and he who grazes his arable land to improve his 
stock, may please his eye and gratify his taste, but 
will impoverish his farm and lighten his purse. 
The farmer who enriches a field and incurs the ex- 
pense of seeding it to clover or other grasses, and 
grazes hard by his stock, is guilty of as great folly, 
in my judgment, as an overseer I once knew who 
covered his tobacco lot with wheat straw, and then 
burnt it off for the sake of the ashes ; he impove- 
rishes an entire field to manure a few cow-pens. 

Ths Avise man has said "there is a time for all 
things," true ; but the time for middle Virginia to 



372 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



embark in the stock raising business has not ar- 
rived; our farms are too poor; our grass too short; 
our great staples are too high ; we cannot, or will 
not, spare the time from the cultivation and ma- 
nagement of our corn, wheat and tobacco, to follow 
the cows, fold the sheep and herd the swine. As 
spon would a Mississippi cotton grower or a Loui- 
siana sugar planter devote the necessary time and 
attention to stock, to insure success, as a Virginia 
tobacco planter and wheat and corn grower. A 
reasonable supply of beef, butter and milk, mutton 
and pork, is all that we ought to expect from the 
present condition of our farms. 
Respectfully, 

A. A. Campbell. 

FIVE-FIELD ROTATION. 

Mr. President, — In obedience to one of the rules 
of our Club, requiring a written statement of some 
experiment made during the year, or an essay, or 
the results of some operation, I would submit the 
following, showing the effects so far, of a change 
from the three-field rotation, first to the four and 
then to the five-field rotation. My farm, called 
Springfield, was cultivated on the three-field rota- 
tion, from the beginning of the year 1832, (and 
had been previous to that, to the time whereof 
the memory of man runneth not to the contrary,) 
to about 1843; from 1843 to 1852, on the four-field 
rotation ; 1852 and 1853, on the five-field rotation. 
The largest crop of wheat made on the farm while 
on the three-field rotation, was about 400 bushels, 
and the largest crop of corn, 288 barrels ; the lar- 
gest crop of wheat made while under the four- 
field rotation, was 589| bushels, and 250 barrels of 
corn. The crop of wheat of 1852, the first year of 
the five-field rotation, measured 1,083 bushels, 
and the crop of corn measured 291 barrels. The 
crop of wheat of the present year, the second on 
the five-field rotation, measured 1,053 bushels. 
The crop of corn of this year, will not fall much 
short of 275 barrels, though the corn field of this 
year is but little over half the surface it is de- 
signed to be hereafter. To recapitulate ; the lar- 
gest product of wheat on the three-field rotation, 
400 bushels— largest on the four-field, 589| bush- 
els—the largest on the five-field rotation, 1,083 
bushels — difference in favor of five-fields, as com- 
pared with three, 683 bushels ; as compared with 
four, 494 bushels — results which clearly show to 
my mind the advantages of a long over a short ro- 
tation ; and I feel entirely confident that a longer 
rotation still, will add still another increase to the 
main staples, corn and wheat, and should not di- 
minish the amount of the tobacco crop, though 
it ought to diminish the surface cultivated, and 
that it will add in a still greater ratio to the value 
of the stock kept upon the farm. 

W. R. Bland. 



Form the Germantown Telegraph. 

SADDLE GALLS. 

Mr. Editor, — "A merciful man," says the scrip- 
tural adage, " is merciful to his beast." But there 
is such a thing as one's not being merciful some- 
times, in consequence of not knowing how to be. 
A fanner has a horse, whose back is covered with 
Wind-galls, but the good woman is out of Hjeal, 
and Dobbin, as Burns says, " maun gang to mill." 



Wind, or saddle galls, as they are perhaps more 
correctly denominated, are of quite frequent oc- 
currence on the backs of horses — almost as com- 
mon, indeed, as corns on ladies' |pet; they admit, 
however, of an easy remedy. As soon as they ap- 
pear, the animal's back is thoroughly washed in 
cold water, and this operation is repeated, till the 
swellings disappear or are entirely dispersed. But 
should the application of the " simple element" 
not prove successful — as sometimes it does, not — 
take one gill of sharp vinegar, one gill of spirits, of 
any kind, and one table spoonful of sweet oil ; mix 
the whole well together, and rub the back till 
cured. In the management of the horse, a little 
care and observation, will often enable one to ob- 
viate serious evils. I have known horses — and 
valuable ones, too — rendered unserviceable for 
weeks, merely by neglecting to inspect their backs 
after a long and fatiguing drive on a hot day, andi 
beneath a saddle " ill-fitted," or too small. 

Lower Dublin. Agricola. 



REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE' 
OF THE VIRGINIA STATE AGRICULTURAL 
SOCIETY. 

The Executive Committee in discharge of their 
duty to make a report to said Society submit the 
following : 

The Society at its last meeting unanimously or- 
dered the election of a Permanent Secretary; and 
the Executive Committee about to depart for their 
several homes, and seeing the immediate necessity 
of electing such an officer charged at once to enter 
upon the performance of his duties, elected Mr. 
Frank: G. Ruffin to that post, deeming him the 
most suitable person they could find. 

The next step to be taken was a view of their 
finances, in order to meet the expenditure neces- 
sary to accomplish the other objects of the So- 
ciety. They found their funds scant, as the report 
of the treasury will more fully show, and their 
means of operation correspondingly limited. 

At the meeting of the Society last fall, an appeal 
was made to the members to endow it by means of 
individual contributions, and by guaranteeing theirf 
respective counties to raise such sums as mightl^ 
seem proper to them. The response to that appeal! 
was creditable to the generosity and public spirit! 
of Virginia; individuals for themselves and foi 
their counties, and for their cities also, came for- ^ 
ward and guaranteed a certain sum amounting to 
upwards of thirty thousand dollars. 

In addition to this fund there was another of the 
same nature previously existing, which swelled the 

first named amount to dollars. This whole 

amount the Constitution requires to be permanently 
vested, the interest thereon only to be used by the 
Executive Committee. 

The money pledged, except in a few cases of ex 
pressed reservation, became due on the first of May 
last. But very little was paid in at that time, and 
a good deal still remains d^ue and unpaid. This 
remark is not made in any spirit of censure against 
the gentlemen who gave the pledges, many of whom 
we know have been put to inconvenience by theii 
liberality, but merely to explain for other reason 
bhe state of funds at the Society's disposal. Noi 
is it meant to convey the idea that any serious de- 
ficiency is expected to result from the tardiness o! 
some gentlemen, and the defaults, if there shall be 



Hi! 

an 

?pl 
hi 

'i'l'i 

is 
etc 

ei\ 
lie; 
eiis 
tot 
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fen 
h 
loii 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



373 



ry, of others. So far from it, it is expected that 
le surplus contributions of several counties, par- 
cularly of some on the south side of James river, 
ill nearly, if not quite, atone for all such delin- 
aencies. 

The whole permanent fund has been invested, 
rst in the Savings' Bank of this city, where each 
?posit drew its amount of interest, and after- 
ards, as successive accumulations made it neces- 
iry to do so, in stock of the city of Richmond, 
jcording to an order of the Executive Committee, 
hich required the Treasurer to invest in stocks 
' the city of Richmond, or of the State of Virgi- 
a, preferring the kind for which the lowest pre- 
ium was required by the then existing market 
Ltes, and having due reference to the time which 
ich stock might have to run. _ 

As these investments have, for the most part, 
3eh recently made, very few of them have as yet 
roduced any revenue to the Society ; and the Ex- 
mtive Committee, having an eye to current and 
jcruing demands, have not felt authorized to in- 
ide it for purposes to which, otherwise, they 
ould gladly have appropriated it. 

In addition to this source of revenue, there is 
Le still more uncertain supply furnished by the 
mtributions of annual members, now amounting 
> more than five thousand, who pay each two dol- 
,rs the first year of their admission to the Society, 
id one dollar for each year thereafter, so long as 
ley remain members. Of this number many owe 
tore than the annual contribution, very few owe 
ss; but what each owes, and what is the aggre- 
ite of the whole, cannot now be known. After 
msultation as to the best mode of collecting these 
lms, the Secretary was directed to employ the 
leriffs of the different counties, where no more 
litable agency could be obtained, to collect at a 
ite of compensation not to exceed ten per cent., a 
ite deemed so small that it was in every instance 
f application, accompanied by an appeal to the 
iiblic spirit of those officers. The accounts have 
) far been sent to as many of these officers, as 
ave signified their willingness to undertake the 
Election upon the terms proposed. But it is to 
e regretted that in a large proportion of the coun- 
es, the sheriffs have not up to this- time replied to 
le circulars addressed to them, and have thus au- 
lorized the inferences that they decline acting 
[together, whilst the Secretary, from want of in- 
>rmation, except in a few places, has not been en- 
bled to select any other agent, and the payment 
f dues from them cannot be expected to any great 
xtent. 

What the sums to be collected may amount to 
annot now be told from the facts, first, that in the 
urry of recording the names of the numbers that 
pplied for admission last fall many mistakes were 
rade which the individuals themselves can alone 
orrect; and, second, that the sheriffs will hardly 
lake returns until they collect their taxes. But 
\ is estimated that the whole amount to be col- 
jcted, the money expected from new annual mem- 
ers, and what may be taken in at the gate during 
tie Fair, will not much exceed, if at all, the ex- 
enses of the exhibition and the demands of the 
i rem i urn list. 

Anxious to obtain means which should enable 
hem to enter upon the discharge of their duties 
m a becoming scale, the Executive Committee, as 
oon as the Legislature granted to the Society a 
harter, which merely gave it the necessary vitality 
ff a corporation, applied to that body for endow- 



ment of a hundred thousand dollars to be invested 
in the stock of the State, and granted on terms and 
with limitations, which it was thought would in- 
sure its success. But though a bill to this effect 
passed the Senate with one dissenting voice of 
those present, a degree of unanimity believed to 
have been attained by no other new measure, yet 
it never was reached on the calendar in the House 
of Delegates, but with every reasonable assurance 
of its passage if it had been taken up, it was lost 
through the unfortunate dissension as to other 
measures which are known to have arisen in that 
honorable body. 

In the month of March last, Mr. Edmund Ruffin 
was appointed by the unanimous vote of the mem- 
bers present, Agricultural Commissioner for the 
period of eight months. Soon afterwards he en- 
tered upon his duties, and has gratuitously per- 
formed sundry valuable services, which will be 
found in his report to the Executive Committee, 
which will at proper time be communicated to the 
Society. 

It is to be regretted that no means have been 
devised for publishing the transactions of the So- 
ciety. The rates at which all publishers proposed 
to print them forbade the publication; and after 
proper inquiry all design of doing so was suspended 
for the present. Yet the hope is entertained that 
some means will be speedily devised to accomplish 
this important object. 

Arrangements for appointing an Agricultural 
Chemist to the Society, or for connecting the So- 
ciety, with some one or more of the Colleges of the 
State were not prosecuted to the completion for the 
same want of means, and it is questionable if any 
plan of that kind can be judiciously and scientifi- 
cally carried out until the Legislature, by endow- 
ing the Society, or by its own direct action in the 
premises, shall provide for a thorough geological 
survey and exploration of the State — a work de- 
manded not less by all other interests, than by the 
one this body has undertaken to represent. 

The suite of rooms that the city of Richmond 
has agreed to give to the State Agricultural So- 
ciety, has not yet been put at their disposal. The 
delay in their construction has been caused by the 
necessity of the city's occupying for purposes of 
civil and municipal administration the site of the 
building they propose to erect for the Society's use, 
but they will soon be enabled to use their own offi- 
ces, and can then be enabled to complete the one 
they have offered to this body. 

The number of Societies and Clubs that have 
been formed within the past year, a number much 
larger than has ever heretofore existed in Virginia, 
attest the interest that has arisen ; and the connec- 
tion that many desire and some have made with 
the State Agricultural Society, shows, that with 
few exceptions, they are but branches of a parent 
stem. To all such bodies the Committee have re- 
commended that each Society or Club, desiring to 
be auxiliary to the State ..Society, shall adopt and 
include among its standing rules the following : 

"Besides any other discretionary or voluntary 
services, it shall be the especial duty of each mem- 
ber of the Society (or Club) annually to commence 
and attempt to complete, at least two experiments 
on some one or more subjects of practical agricul- 
ture on some doubtful or disputed questions,, and 
designed to throw light thereon ; which experiments 
shall be conducted carefully and accurately, to the 
best of the ability and means of the experimenter, 
and the circumstances noted minutely, and with 



174 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



the results, be reported in writing, as simply and 
concisely as may be, but minutely and fully, at the 
next annual meeting, and whether the results be 
deemed successful and profitable or discouraging, 
or the whole experiment be deemed a failue; and 
in default of such reports, either of progress or 
completion of the experiments by each member at 
each annual meeting, the defaulter shall pay to the 
Treasurer $ for each experiment wanting. 

" Of the annual income of the Society, not less 
than one-half of the whole amount shall be appro- 
propriated as premiums offered for well conducted 
experiments on subjects of practical agriculture." 

Resolved, That every auxiliary County Society or 
Club, is requested to transmit to the Socretary of 
the Executive Committee of the State Agricultural 
Society, all their completed and approved written 
communications conveying useful, practical instruc- 
tion in agriculture, and which has not been pre- 
viously published; which communications shall be 
received and disposed of in the same manner, as if 
made directly to the State Society ; and if any such 
report of experiments of other communications 
shall have previously obtained a premium from the 
Society for which it was prepared, it will not be 
the less entitled to compete for and receive a pre- 
mium offered by the State Society, if otherwise 
properly claiming and deserving such honor and 
distinction. 

_ Resolved, That every such auxiliary County So- 
ciety or Farmers' Club may, and is requested to 
send one delegate to the general annual meetting 
of the State Agricultural Society ; and each dele- 
gate of auxiliary Societies shall have all the rights 
and privileges in such general meeting of other 
and regular members of the State Society. 

By this bond of union, simple, but strong, a net 
work of Agricultural Societies in harmonious ope- 
ration may overspread the State, and an incalcula- 
ble amount of practical, experimental knowledge 
become diffused at an expense too small to be com- 
pared with the value of the investment. 

In their exhibitions the Executive committee have 
aimed to impart truths of great moment by means 
of an imposing spectacle. But they endeavor, at 
the same time, to set an example of the precepts 
they would promulge. An analysis of their pre- 
mium list will show that of the $8638 which they 
offer in prizes, $3480, or 40 per cent, of the whole, 
are offered for experiments and essays and merito- 
rious written communications; <$630 for crops; 
$2320 for animals ; $950 for implements ; $138 for 
fruits, flowers and vegetables; $665 for useful sub- 
jects, and a few others which pertain to the useful 
and substantial arts and pursuits of agriculture. 

The proportion of premiums for useful subjects, 
as here shown, will, it is believed, be found to bear 
a larger ratio to those intended for display than in 
any other premium list whatever. 

All the rail roads and public improvements of the 
State which are tributary to Richmond have come 
forward in the most liberal spirit, and, granting 
precisely such deductions on their charges as were 
asked at their hands by the Executive Committee, 
have contributed nearly, if not quite as much to 
the success of this year's Fair, as they did to the 
last, when their liberality contributed so essentially 
to our success. 

The Executive Committee cannot, in justice to 
the city of Richmond, omit to state that by her 
Council and her citizens individually, she has con- 
tributed to the Society in land and money the sum 
of $54,000, or even more than that by several thou- 



ili 



sand, if we take into view the enhanced value 
the beautiful lot which she ha^ placed at our di 
posal as long as we choose to enjoy it, and farthe 
to say that the skill and taste of one of her mo 
useful citizens, (Mr. T. T. Giles,) have adorned tl 
grounds and fitted them for our use and recepth 
as no other grounds in the Union are fitted up. 
is to be hoped that this liberality to an institutk 
whose benefits are but secondary to her, will notl 
without its influence on those whose direct intere 
it is to foster and promote it. 

Before closing their report, the Executive Cor 
mittee cannot, in justice to their own feelings, ai 
to those of many in the body of the Society, on 
a tribute to one of their late associates. The hai 
of death has snatched from amongst us the ve - 
stoutest of our little band, and it could not ha- 
taken from the State a man more esteemed by b' 
friends, or who had been more useful to the publi 
than Gen. Bernard Peyton. During a long peri< 
of his life a merchant, a part of his life a soldic 
he at all times aspired to the dignity of rural lif 
and exulted in the calling and the name of farme 
and meeting death in the very field of his laboi 
he left few stronger heads and no purer hearts, b 
hind him. 

The Executive Committee are fully conscioi 
that for the want of adequate means they ha 1 
been unable to carry out many important measur 
which, in the ardor of their zeal, they had fond 
hoped to accomplish. Yet, so far from being di n 
couraged, they cannot, on reviewing the brief hi 
tory of this Society, repress a feeling of gratific 
tion at the eminent success of their labors. 

It is believed that the records of no similar i 
stitution in the world, exhibit an instance of su 
cess at once so speedy, complete and brilliar 
Less than three years ago, when all former effoi 
to establish a State Agricultural Society had si 
nally failed, on a dark and gloomy winter's evenin 
a small band of determined patriots, numberii 
little more than one hundred, still hopeful and u 
dismayed, assembled at the capital of their Stat 
to make a last effort to rouse the dormant energl 
of Virginia, and to establish a Society that shou 
be worthy of the intelligence of her farmers ar 
the ancient renown of this noble Commonwealt 
The meeting was continued from day to day, a Co 
stitution adopted, officers elected, and the Socio 
put in successful operation. Its members and r 
sources rapidly increased. New zeal was infuse 
into the agricultural community, and aided by tl 
magnificent liberality of the city of Richmond, v 
were enabled before the close of the second ye; 
of its existence, to hold the first annual exhibit!* 
of the Society — an exhibition which, in taste ar 
magnificence, has scarcely been equalled in ar 
part of the world, and which not only gratified oi 
State pride and interested our own people, but a 
tracted the attention of the whole Union to the va 
undeveloped resources of the Commonwealth, ai 
called forth the admiration of enlightened sira 
gers from all quarters, at the moral, physical, ai 
intellectual sublimity of the spectacle. The fa 
mers of the State and the citizens of Richmol 
seemed to catch inspiration from the scene, ai 
promptly contributed from their own means, 
sum sufficient to place the Society on a permane) 
footing. 

Since that memorable meeting, the effects 
which on the fortunes of the State none can est 
mate, much practical information has been diffuse 
through the instrumentality of the Society ; nc|o: 



". 



3 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



!75 



seal for improvement had been awakened; and, 
jotwithstanding a partial failure of the crops of 
ihe State, through Providential visitations, the re- 
sources of our people are considerably increased ; 
emigration has ceased, and immigration has com- 
nenced ; the price of lands has rapidly advanced ; 
mr schools and colleges are crowded to over- 
lowing; so that it may probably be said with 
ruth that Virginia has now, in proportion to $opu- 
ation, more youths in a course of thorough edu- 
cation, than any other State in the Union. Over 
hese beneficent results, in part at least to be attri- 
buted, to the success of our Society, we have just 
cause to rejoice. The close of another year finds 
is on the eve of a still grander exhibition. With 
>ur grounds greatly enlarged and improved, a most 
iberal premium list, zealous preparations for an 
sxtensive exhibition, and a vast throng of our en- 
ightened farmers in attendance from every part of 
he Commonwealth, numbering thousands beyond 
hose present on the former occasion, we have every 
eason to expect a most brilliant and attractive 
pectacle. With these cheering evidences in the 
>ast, how can we doubt our future success. Let 
he farmers of Virginia come up to the annual ex- 
hibitions with their votive offerings, forgetting all 
ocal and party distinctions, remembering that they 
Lave a common home and a common destiuy, and 
ordially and harmoniously cooperating in our glo- 
mus cause, and the beneficent effects of our labors 
rill descend to distant generations, aad our latest 
losterity will have cause to bless the day that in- 
durated the Virginia State Agricultural Society. 



PAYMENTS TO THE SOUTHERN PLANTER, 

To the 28th of November, 1854. 

All persons who have made payments early enough to 
e entered, and whose names do not appear in the following 
eceipt list, are requested to give immediate notice of the 
mission, in order that the correction may be made in the 
ext issue : 



'. L. Campbell to June 1856 

L D. Campbell to July 1855 

ames L. Rausone to November 1855 

Jharles L. Christian to September 1855 

Villiam Hocker to September 1855 

reorge Hocker to January 1855 

Miomas T. Bouldin to July 1856 

'nomas P. Crawford to August 18^5 

Villiam H. Campbell to January i856 

I. Harrison to July 1855 

'ohn J. Lackland to January 1855 

'ohn Selden to July 1855 

I. W. Lackland to April 1855 

L. B. Duncan to July 1855 

'. M. Ragsdale to January 1856 

|, H. Mason to September 1855 

)bed Hussey to January 1855 

Villiam P. Dickinson to November 1855 

tichard Irby (2 copies) to July 1855 

Villiam Irby to July 1855 

. H. Dobbin to January 1854 

oseph L. Barrow to July 1854 

|. L. Hurt to November 1855 

I. C. Williams to July 1855 

Jol. B. H. Barnes to July 1855 

)r. Thomas H. Clagett to July 1855 

!homas C. Reeks to September 1855 

ohn R. Walker to November 1855 



William Hughes to July 1854 
Marcus Durrett to July 1854 
N. Lufborough to July 1856 
J. W. A. Saunders to January 1855 
William Morton to May 1855 
Albert McDaniel to January 1856 
Dr. A. Dold to August 1854 
Capt. R. Jennings to January 1855 
John S. Cowherd to January 1855 
Edward T. Tayloe to January 1856 
Vincent Phillips to January 1856 
Joseph A. Earley to November 1855 
W. L. Earley to January 1855 
Isaac N. Baxter to September 1855 
Henry J. Harris to July 1855 
Richard Green to November 1855 
R. A. Banks to January 1855 
J. M. Fray to July 1855 
Thomas D. Edmunds to January 1855 
Richard V. Watkins to July 1855 
John F. Miller to January 1856 
William Maxey to January 1856 
George Johnson to November 1855 
Thomas S. Henry to September 1855 
James J. White to January 1856 
H. B. White to January 1856 
Wm. M. Hannah to January 1856 
George W. Turner to September 1855 
J. R. Mann to January 1856 
Dr. J. P. Tabb to January 1855 
J. L. Deans to January 1856 
Capt. C. Breckenridge to January 1856 
J. W. Anderson to November 1855 
H. M. Bowyer to June 1855 
Wm. E. Gaskins to January 1856 
Col. Joseph Tulley to November 1855 
R. K. Fitzhugh to July 1855 
L. W. Rose to January 1855 
John Ruff, Sr. to June 1855 
John G. Lane to November 1855 
W. H. E. Merritt to July 1855 
George W. Pettit to September 1855 
James E. Harris to September 1855 

E. B. Jones to January 1856 

C. R. Qhristopher to March 1854 
B. C. Jones to January 1856 
Sharpe Carter to January 1855 

B. A. Donald to November 1856 
Samuel B. Finiey to July 1855 
Sterling C. Anderson to January 1856 
L. Campbell to January 1855 
Ethelbert Le Grand to November 1855 
R. H. Cunningham to June 1855 
Jeremiah Morton to June 1855 

C. J. Meriweather to May 1855 
George S. Ayre to January 1855 
James B. Newman to September 1855 
J. B. Lasley to July 1855 

F. W. Smith to January 1856 
T. F. Nelson to November 1855 

Dr. B. P. Morriss to September 1855 
Harvey Handley to April 1855 
Thomas A. Hardy to January 1855 
Ed. H. Herbert to January 1855 
N. A. Holeman to September 1855 
H. H. Peck to December 1855 
Col. George C. Robertson to September 
James S, Walrond to January 1855 
Maj. J. B. White to July 1855 
Col. G. Moseley to January 1855 
George W. Bassett to January 1857 
David La Prade to October 1855 
James Roy Micou to January 1855 



SI 00 



1855 



1 
3 

2 
1 
1 

1 
1 
1 
1 
3 
1 
1 
1 
4 
1 
1 
1 
1 
2 
2 
1 
1 

o 

1 

1 

2 
1 
2 
1 
1 
1 
1 
1 
1 
1 
2 
o 

1 
1 

2 
1 
1 
2 
1 
2 
1 
2 
2 
1 
1 
1 
1 
1 
3 
1 
3 
1 
4 

1 

10 00 
1 00 
3 00 



00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 

oo 

00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
50 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 
00 



,76 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



CRYSTAL PALACE.— World's Pair, New York, United 
States of America — Association for the Exhibition of 
the Industry of all Nations. 

EXCELSIOR. 

The Association for the Exhibition of the Industry of all 
Nations awards to Elisha S. Snyder of Charlestown, Jef- 
ferson County, Virgina, the highest premium Bronze Medal, 
with special approbation, for the combination he. has effected, 
and the practical application he has given the same, in his 
Labor Saving Machine for Threshing, Separating, Cleaning 
and Bagging Grain. Hon. Theodore Sedgwick, President 
of the Association ; Hon. Henry Wager, Western New York, 
Chairman; Watson Newbold, Esq. Columbus, New Jersey; 
Col. John W. Proctor, Danvers, Massachusetts; Maj. Philip 
R. Freas, Germantown, Pennsylvania; Hon. Henry S. Bab- 
bit, Brooklyn, Long Island, acting Secretary in Class 9, 
Jury C. 

My Patent Premium Threshing, Separating, Cleaning 
and Bagging Grain Machine, is for sale, which received 
the first premium at the Crystal Palace, New York, over 
all Threshing Separating, Cleaning and Bagging Grain 
Machines on exhibition, thus proving conclusively that sim- 
plicity in construction, cheapness in price and durability in 
my machine, is being fully appreciated, and the old and 
new costly inferior complicated Separating Machines, must 
yield their places to a superior Labor Saving Machine. 
The celebrated Machine for Threshing, Separating, Clean- 
ing twice, Screening and Bagging Grain by one simple 
operation. The greatest labor saving Machine in the world 
for separating all pure and impurities. This Machine throws 
the straw to itself, the chaff to itself, the wheat in the bag, 
the screenings to itself, and the smut and cheat to itself. 
Every thing has a place, and every thing is in its place to 
suit the conveniences of the farmer. For simplicity, dura- 
bility, cheapness and capacity, it has no equal in the world. 
As for what has been stated in the different papers concern- 
ing Mr. Zimmerman's Machine receiving the first premium 
at the Crystal Palace, New York, is false, and not true. It 
is also stated that Mr. Zimmerman received a number of 

premiums at and other fairs. That I know nothing 

about; perhaps he did; but it is very easy to win the race, 
as the boy said when he ran by himself. But, my honora- 
ble friends, this was not the case at the World's Fair, New 
York. Mr. Zimmerman had a number of other boys to 
run with besides himself, which made the race more diffi- 
cult for him; so much so, that he, Mr. Zimmerman, was 
neither first nor second; so you may judge where he was. 

These are facts that cannot be denied. The undersigned 
would inform the public that his Farmers' Labor Saving 
Machine for Threshing, Separating, Cleaning, Screening 
arid Bagging all kinds of Grain, is for sale. Farmers wish- 
ing to buy the best Machine in use, will address Joseph 
Glaze, Frederick City, Maryland. Those wishing to pur- 
chase the Patent Right to manufacture the Machines, will 
address me at Charlestown, Jefferson County, "Virginia. 

July 1, 1854— 12t ELISHA S. SNYDER. 



PURE GAME FOWLS.— The subscriber takes pleasure 
in the announcement to the public his stock of Game 
Fowls, which he keeps on hand and for sale. Thorough 
breeds from the best stock of Mexican, Kinney, Butcher, 
Caroline, Creole and Earl of Derby Game. Prices ranging 
from two to ten dollars per pair, according to quality and 
age. Address J. McL. ANDERSON, 



octf 



Ruther Glen P. O., Caroline County, Va. 



SITUATION AS MANAGER WANTED.— Any gen- 
tleman of Virginia or North Carolina having a large 
estate and who desires to engage, as manager of the same, 
a well educated and experienced farmer in whom implicit 
confidence can be placed, can hear of an individual who 
can furnish the highest evidences of his capability and 
trustworthiness. 

Address . JAMES J. BORDEN, 
de3t Washington City, IK C. 

• WM. A. BUTTERS, 

BOOKSELLER AND STATIONER, 
au No. 157 Main Street, Richmond, Va. 



THE CBTNCHA ISLANDS. 

AS many ships to our address are under charter to pre 
ceed to these Islands to load Guano, we beg to subm 
some particulars relative to the detention of ships and th 
expenses of loading. 

All vessels may expect to lay out the full number of the; 
lay days before loading is completed. A bonus of $10 1 
$15 per day, for every day saved, is sometimes paid as 
gratification to officials. Most ships are kept a month aftt 
arrival, before an order is given to ballast, after which it 
decided whether they are to load by lighter or by "Mangi 
era," or shoot, by which the Guano is run into the hold. 
The "Manguera" discharges from 400 to 500 tons p< 
day. All ships dry up very much, from being exposed tol 
hot sun, and nearly all are obliged to caulk before leavin; 
unless they have been very recently caulked. Vesse 
should be provided with oakum and pitch, and Englis 
Caulkers can be obtained at $4 per day and board. Am. 
rican coin or Sovereigns are best for disbursements — the fo 
mer passing at par, and the latter at $5 each. Captains 
vessels, short of funds, can obtain money of reside: 
Houses, if well accredited, at 6 per cent, premium upc 
sight bills, or draw upon their charters at 12 per cent, pr 
mium. The following were the Port Charges and disburs 
ments for a ship of 700 tons : 
Callao.— Stamps, $5 ; Sailing License, $11 •• • $'16 00 

Tonnage Dues, 25c per ton 175 00 

Clearance dues, Pisco 4 00 

Com'n on Charter 150 00 



At the Islands 345 00 

Manguera Fees, mooring • • • $20 00 

Pilot attending 24 00 

Trimm'g Fees, 17c reg'r ton 119 00 



163 00 



Crew to load from Callao and 
back, 16 men three months 
each, at $20 per month- • 960 00 

Com'n shipping & boat hire, 

$2 each 32 00 

Market bill for beef and vege-. 

tables, 3 months 300 00 

Water bill for the Islands • • • 50 00 

Crew shipped to go home, 16 
men, at $35 per month, 2 
months in advance, $70 
each, is -.1,120 00 

Com'n ship'g and boat hire, 

$5 each 80 00 

Water to go home 30 00 

Captain's expenses at Callao 

and Lima 25 00 



2,597 Of 
200 0( 



Add for caulking ship 

" " gratification to trimmers and 
pilots 30 



0( 



% $3,335 0( 

There is another charge for hire of water casks (2 cei 
per gallon,) to carry water from Callao to the Islands, win 
the charter says is to be delivered "free of expense." T 
water has to be bought, and if the ship has no spare casl 
they have to be hired. There is also a chance of losi 
$50 on the boats or lighters used in ballasting or loadh 
vessels arriving purchasing of those leaving and wh 
loaded, but not always obtaining as much as they expend* 
se — tf HUSSEY, BOND & HALE. 



BROWN & SHOOK, General Commission and Fc 
warding Merchants, corner Union and Franklin stree 
Richmond, Virginia. All business carefully and prompl 
executed, 
mar — ly 



UNITED STATES HOTEL, 

(formerly union,) 

Corner of Main and Nineteenth Streets, Riclimom 
J. E. NORRIS, Proprietor, 
martf Price of Board, per day, $1 50. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



377 



WOOL DEPOT. 

Richmond, June 22, 1854. 

Dear Sir, — Having been engaged for years past in the sale of Wool, we are fully aware of the difficulties that the 
Wool Growers of this State have labored under to obtain for their Wool its fair market value. For this there are two 
feauses — one is, that in each lot of Wool, indeed in each bag of Wool, there are several grades, and each purchaser has 
to buy some Wool that does not answer his purposes; he could not, therefore, afford to pay the full value for an article 
that he did not want, and which he only bought because it was not assorted. ' All who are familiar witli the sale of 
tobacco, are fully aware of the loss that the planter sustains who does not assort his tobacco. It is the same case with 
Wool, to a considerable extent. 

Another reason is, that the receipts of Wool have been light, and so scattered that it was difficult to get together a 
sufficient quantity to attract the attention of purchasers. We have found this operate so strongly that we have nfit 
generally attempted to make sale of small parcels of Wool, but allowed our receipts to accumulate; and we have 
generally obtained from three to five cents per pound more for such large parcels than could be had for small lots. The 
Wool interest of Virginia is now rapidly increasing, and we think is destined, in a short time, to become an extensive 
trade. Already there is a sufficient quantity grown, if concentrated to one point and properly graded, to overcome, to 
some extent, the difficulties referred to above. We think this can be best accomplished by a well conducted Wool 
Depot. This city appears to be the most accessible point for a majority of the Wool Growers in Virginia. 

Being already in this trade, and having an extensive acquaintance with the producers as well as the manufacturers 
and dealers in Wool, we have determined to open such a Depot in this city, in connection with our present business. 
In order to conduct it in the most satisfactory manner, we have engaged the services of Mr. John Waterhouse, who 
was long and favorably known as the efficient Agent of the late Woollen Factory in this city. 

All the Fleece Wool sent to us and tub washed Wool, so far as it is practicable, will be graded, and each quality put 
together, unless the owner prefers that his Wool should be sold alone — in that event he will so direct us. 

Our charges will be — 

Commission for selling, 2h per cent. 

Storage, grading, fire insurance, advertising and labor, ' • 1 cent per lb. 

We shall always sell for cash, unless we find it to the interest of the owners to sell on time. In that event, we will 
charge 2£ per cent, guarantee. We will be prepared to cash all such sales as soon as made, deducting the interest. 

We hope the establishment of such a Depot will meet with your approval, and that we may be favored with your 
consignments. Yours, most obedient, CRENSHAW & CO., 

Grocers and Commission Merchants, North Side of the Basin, Richmond, Va. 

§3^° Liberal advances will be made on consignments of Wool, when required. 

Genuine No. 1 Peruvian Guano always on hand, and for sale on the best terms. C. & CO. 

autf 



OTEPHEN H. 
O and Shoes, 



FISHER, Manufacturer of Boots 
No. 228, Broad Street, north side, be- 
tween 3d and 4th streets, Richmond, Virginia, keeps con- 
stantly on hand a full assortment of ready made Boots and 
Shoes of his own manufacture, for Ladies' and Children's 
wear, which he will sell as low as can be purchased in this 
city. Boots and Shoes for Gentlemen and Boys on hand, 
©r made to order at short notice. Servants' Shoes of all 
qualities always on hand. All work warranted. 

IQgf Farmers are invited to give him a call. ocly 

G1_ENERAL AGENCY AND COMMISSION BUSI- 
T NESS. — The subscriber tenders his thanks for the 
many calls heretofore received, and again offers his services 
on reasonable terms. Now for sale many Farms in Mary- 
ryland and Virginia, Stallions, Bulls, Bucks, Boars, of im- 
proved stock; improved Fowls of all kinds; Mares, Cows, 
Ewes, Sows; Ewes one-half and three-fourths Cotswold; 
Calves at three months old, one-half Alderney ; South Down 
Ewes with their lambs. For particulars address (post paid) 
the subscriber, 

MARTIN GOLDSBOROUGH, 
38 Holliday Street, Baltimore, Maryland. 
P. S. — Answers to letters particularly desired. M. G. 
may — tf 

ALBANY TILE WORKS, corner of Patroon and Knox 
streets, Albany, N. Y. Drain Tile of the following 
descriptions and prices suitable for land drainage, always 
on hand in large or small quantities of the first quality, 
delivered at the docks and railroad depots free of cartage : 
Horse-shoe Tile. 

Ah inch calibre, $18 per 1000 feet. 

3£ do. 15 do. 

2£ do. 12 do. 

Sole Tile or Pipe. 

3 inch calibre, $18 per 1000 feet. 

2 do. 12 do. 

Large Tile for drains about dwellings, yards, &c, of 
various sizes, $4 and $8 per 100 feet. Sole Tile, 4 inch 
calibre, for sink drains at $4 per 100 feet. Drain your land 
and save your crops. Orders from a distance will receive 
prompt attention. A. S. BABCOCK. 

Albany, April 20, 1854. jun— tf 



VALUABLE ALBEMARLE FARM FOR SALE.— The 
subscriber offers for sale that valuable and well known 
farm, the D. S., situated on the waters of Ivy Creek, 3h 
miles from the University of Virginia, 4£ from Charlottes- 
ville, and immediately on the Staunton and Charlottesville 
Turnpike, and Virginia Central Rail Road, in one of the 
most beautiful sections of the State, and in a neighborhood 
long proverbial for its highly cultivated society, its fertile 
lands, its pure and abundant water and general healthful- 
ness; also possessing the greatest facilities to the best of 
markets. The D. S. contains 695 acres, about one hundred 
acres in timber, and the balance in a fine state of improve- 
ment. It has for many years been considered one of the 
most productive farms in the county, producing finely all 
the various crops of this section. There is an abundant 
supply of running water in every field, and large portions 
of the farm could be converted into watered meadow. The 
improvements are good and of every variety. Being anxious 
to sell, terms will be made very accommodating. Address 
, GEO. B. STEPHENS, 

ap — tf Woodville Depot, Albemarle, Va. 



FINE STOCK FOR SALE.— I offer for sale a Devon 
Cow, 4jj years old, that took the first Premium at the 
First Cattle Show of the Virginia State Agricultural So- 
ciety as the best Devon Cow over three years old. A large 
and very well formed Durham Cow, 11 years old, a very 
large milker; and two promising Durham Bull Yearlings. 
Also, seven Cotswold Sheep — one Buck und six Ewes — 
all young. I have, also, on hand a few pair of superior 
Essex, Chester County and Grade Pigs, which I wish to 
sell. TH. A. HARDY. 

Norfolk, Va., Dec. 1, 1854.— 2t* 



IMPROVED ESSEX PIGS.— The subscribers are now 
ready to engage pigs from fall litters, got by their supe- 
rior boars "Lord Weston" and "Uncle Tom." Prices — 
$25 per pair; $15 a single pig. Also the reserved lot of 5 
from a spring litter, which won the first prize at the New 
York State Show this year, consisting of 3 boars and 2 
sows — price $20 a piece. In all cases the money must be 
forwarded before shipment of the pigs, which will be well 
boxed and sent by express or otherwise, as desired. 

W. P. & C. S. WAINWRIGHT. 
Rhinebeck, Duchess Co., N. Y. — nov2t 



37: 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 



A MORRIS, 97 Main Street, is constantly sup- 
jl1l« plied with all New and Standard Agricul- 
tural Works. The subscriber respectfully invites 
the attention of the public to his extensive assort- 
ment of Books on Agriculture, among which may 
be tuuiiti — 

The Chr-mical Field Lectures for Agriculturists, 
by Dr. J. A. Stockhardt: translated from the Ger- 
man: edited with notes by James E. Tesehemasher. 
The Field Book of Manures, or the American 
Muck Book; treating of the nature, properties, &c. 
of all the principal manures in common use, by 
D. J. Brown. 

The American Farm Book, or Compend of Ame 
rican Agriculture, being a practical treatise on soils, 
manures, draining,.&c. and every staple product of 
the United States, with the best methods of planting, 
cultivalingand preparation formarket, by R.L.Allen 
Elements of Agricultural Chemistry and Geology, 
by James F. W. Johnston, M. A. 

The Monthly Journal ofAgriculture, containing 
the best current productions in promotion of agri- 
cultural improvement, including the choicest prize 
essays issued in Europe and America, with original 
contributions from eminent farmers and statesmen, 
3 vols. 8vo., John S. Skinner, Editor. 

The Principles of Agriculture, by Albert D. 
Timer. 

The Farmer's and Planter's Encyclopaedia of 
Rural Affairs, embracing ail the most recent disco- 
veries in agricultural chemistry, adapted to the 
comprehension of unscientific readers, by C. W. 
Johnson, Esq. 

European Agriculture and Rural Economy, from 
personal observations, by Henry Colman 

Chemistry in its Appf 
Physiology, by Justus Liebig, M. D 

The Book of the Farm, detailing the labors of 
the farmer, ploughman, field worker, &c, by Henry 
Stephens. 

Elements of Scientific Agriculture, or the Con- 
nection between Science and the Art of Practical 
Farming, by John P. Norton, M. A. 

An Essay on Calcareous Manures, by Edmund 
Ruffin: 5th edition, amended and enlarged. 

The Farmer's Barn-Book, by Clater, Youatt, Skin- 
ner and Mills. 

Together with many other valuable works on 
farming, the treatment and management of cattle, 
&c. A. MORRIS, 

Bookseller, Stationer, and Dealer in 
feb— If Piano Fortes, 97 Main street. 



THE? 
yea 



STOVES AMD FAICY IRON CASTING 

Exhibited at the Virginia, State Agricultural Fair 

By Messrs. Bowers, Snyder & Carter. 

~SE Gentlemen erected Works, about tw 

ars since, by which they have been exter 

sively supplying the State with articles for whic 

we have heretofore depended entirely upon norther 

foundries. 

Their Cooking Stoves have given entire satisfas 
tion to all Virginia housewives who have used then 
On the door of one of these we notice a represents 
tion of a sheaf of wheat, in which the heads an 
even the distinct grains stand out in beautiful relie 
They exhibit a specimen of parlor stove especial! 
worthy of notice. Its style and finish are high! 
ornamental. Its chief merit consists of a door dt 
signed to increase the draught of the fire, which i 
made to revolve vertically upon a pivot. 

These manufacturers, in a modest, unpretendin 
way, are rendering good service to the State, by de 
veloping her resources in this branch of domesti 
industry. E. B. Spence, 

H. M. Smith, 
James Pae, 
Committee on Household Implement. 

I have sold principally, for the past two year*! 
the stoves manufactured by Messrs. Bowers, Snyde; 
& Carter, at the Richmond Stove Works, and hav 
found them to give my patrons entire satisfaction 
both in their operation and durability. 

Charles D. Yale, 
130, Main Street, Richmond, Virginia, Depot foi 

Bolton & Yale's "Caloric Air Furnace." 

jan 1854— ly 



- 



ALBEMARLE FIGS. 

I AM prepared to receive orders for Albemarle 
Pigs — a breed made by crossing several varieties, 
which will grow to good size, and fatten easily at 
any age. This breed received some of the highest 
prizes at the Virginia State Fair. 1 have, also, four 
boar pigs, from my large Delaware Sow, (estimated 
lo weigh, nett, near one thousand pounds,) which 
will be" ready for delivery in a few weeks. Address, 
(postpaid,) JOHN R. WOODS, 

ja — tf Woodville Depot , Albemarle, Va. 



EAGL.E FOUNDER Y. 

THE subscriber having removed to the largi 
Foundery, just erected by him and fitted ou 
with machinery of the latest and most approvec 
style, is, in addition to the manufacture of Tobacc< 
Flattening Mills, prepared to receive orders for Sta 
tionary Steam Engines, Saw and Grist Mills, Agri 
cultural Machines, Tobacco Presses of every de 
scription, and all kinds of Iron and Brass Castings 
He pledges himself lo execute faithfully, and wit! 
dispatch, all work entrusted to him, and respectfully 
solictsacall from hisfriendsand the publicgenerally 
The highest cash prices paid for old cast iron 
brass and copper. PHILIP RAHM, 

ja— ly Cary, between Pearl and 15th sts 



BOOKS, PIANOS, MUSIC, &c. 

JAMES WOOD HOUSE, Wholesale and Re 
tail Dealer in Books, Piano Fortes, Station 
ery, Music, &c. 139 Main St., Richmond, Virginia 
Constantly on hand, a lull supply of standard 

AGRICULTUnAL WORKS. " 0C — tf 



ANALYSIS OF SOILS, «&c. 

THE undersigned is prepared to execute the an- 
alyses of Soils, Guano, Marls, Plastt r. &c. &c. 
at the Laboratory of the Virginia Military Institute. 
Packages may be forwarded through Webb, Bacon 
& Co. Richmond, or Echols & Pryor, Lynchburg. 
Persons desiring further information will please 
address WILLIAM GILHAM, 

Prof. Chemistry and Agriculture, V. M. I. 
Feb. 1, 1852. Lexington, Va 



SINTON & SONS' NURSERY, NEAR 
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA. 

AS the season for planting has arrived, the sub- 
scribers would respectfully call the attention of 
their friends and the public generally, to their large 
and extensive collection of Fruit Trees, embrac- 
ing, perhaps, a selection that has not been surpassed, 
for the climate of Virginia, and nearly all propa- 
gated from fruit-bearing trees in their own orchard. 

Catalogues, with directions for planting, may be 
had at William Palmer's Seed and Plough Store; 
at Peyton Johnston & Brother's Apothecary Store; 
at C.J. Sinton & Co's. Hardware Store, and at Lo- 
gan Waller's Commission House, where any orders 
left will be punctually attended to, and letters ad- 
dressed to the subscribers, Richmond, will receive 
prompt attention. 

nov— tf JOSEPH SINTON & SONS. 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER 



379 



'ARM, STOCK, CROPS, NEGROES, &C, FOR 

SALE. — The subscribers are authorized to sell a valu- 
e farm in the county of Buckingham, 5£ miles from the 
Lirt House, containing upwards of 800 acres, having on 
very necessary improvement, consisting of a handsome 
> story dwelling just completed, barn with threshing 
chine, stables, corn crib, carriage and ice houses, black- 
ith's shop, &c, with a kitchen and meat house about to 
erected. It has also a fine garden and an orchard of 
■ice fruit, embracing almost every variety grown in Vir- 
ia. It will be sold with the growing crops, (175 bushels 
wheat and 100 bushels of oats have been seeded) stock, 
s and implements of every description, and 16 first rate 
n and house servants, one of whom is a good black- 
ith. 

rhis firm is situated in a region proverbial for health 
I agreeable society, 15 farms and dwellings being in 
w front the dwelling. 

rhe owner desiring to remove to the South, and being 
villing to break up the relations existing among his ne- 
es, will dispose of the whole at a great bargain. 
? or terms, &c, apply to 

MARTIN GOLDSBOROUGH, Baltimore, or 
RUPFIN & AUGUST, Richmond, Va. 
un— tf 

UPERIOR SWINE AND PREMIUM POULTRY.— 

I am prepared to engage pigs by my large Byefield and 
lerior Suffolk boars, from matchless sows of the following 
eds : Byefield, Suffolk, Skinner, Essex, Chester, Dela- 
re, Cheshire and Russian — most of them of mammoth 

fhe finest collection of ornamental and domestic Poultry 
Virginia — receiving the premium as the finest collection 
I upon individual pairs. They consist of the following: 
ihma Pootra, Imperial Chinese, Colatta, Dorking, Span- 
d Hamburg, Seabright and African Bantams, Sumatra 
sasant Game, Ablin Game, Mexican Game, Ebon Game, 
jsted Turkey, Purple Turkey, Pure White Turkey, Bre- 
n Geese, Hong Kong Geese, Wild Geese, Crested Black 
I White Ducks, Java Ducks, Penguin Ducks, Rouen 
cks, Aylesbury Ducks, Pure White Guinea Fowls, Ita- 
i Pea Fowl, Madagascar or Lopped Eared Rabbits — ears 
inches long, 5 broad. 

rhe above are bred in separate apartments, and can be 
ained at moderate prices by addressing 

JOHN G. TURPIN, 
nar — tf Clover Dale, near Petersburg, Va. 



1PROVED SUPER PHOSPHATE OF LIME— The 
subscriber is manufacturing the above at his Bone Mill, 
hort distance from the city, of the best and purest kind, 
rmers are requested to examine his before purchasing 
swhere; the quality will speak for itself, and his price is 
same as that manufactured out of the State, 
nay— tf R. R. DUVAL. 



1REAT REDUCTION IN PRICES OF HATS AND 
r BOOTS.— J. H. ANTHONY'S Fashionable Hat 
3RE, Columbian Hotel Corner. The cheapest place in 
i city of Richmond to buy hats and boots is at the above 
re, where every article sold may be relied on as repre- 
ited. By this means he has gained a good run of cus- 
i, and his customers feel satisfied. Below is a list of his 
ces, which will be strictly adhered to: 
Best quality moleskin, - - - $3 50 

Second quality moleskin, - - 3 00 

Best quality silk, - - - 2 50 

Second quality silk, - - - 2 00 

Fine Calfskin Sewed Boots only three dollars and fifty 
its. 

Also, Caps, Shoes and Umbrellas. 

J. H. Anthony has made an arrangement with one of the 
3t makers in the city of Philadelphia to supply him with 
landsome and substantial calfskin sewed Boot, which he 
11 sell at the unprecedented low price of three dollars and 
y cents. The attention of gentlemen is respectfully soli- 
ed, as they are the best and cheapest boots that have ever 
m offered for sale in this city. He intends to keep but 
s one kind, and sell them at one price, 
mar '54— tf 



|^REAT PREMIUM FAN, patented December 20, 1853. 
\Jf Montgomery's Celebrated Double Screen Rockaway 
Wheat Fan, has, during the past year, been proved to be 
the best Fan ever offered in the Middle States, having taken 
premiums over all that have been offered to the public from 
every quarter of the United States. It took the first pre- 
mium at the Maryland State Agricultural Society's Exhibi- 
tion, in October last, where all the most celebrated Fans 
were in competition. 

The first premium at the Virginia State Agricultural So- 
ciety's Exhibition, in November last. 

The Maryland Institute awarded silver medals to it at its 
Exhibitions in 1852 and 1853, as superior to all others on 
exhibition. 

The first premium was awarded at the Talbot County 
(Maryland) Show, in 1852; and 

The first premium at the Prince Gecwe's County (Mary- 
land) Exhibition, in 1853, by the speciaf vote of the Society, 
in consequence of its superiority and value, it being con- 
trary to their standing rules to award premiums to articles 
made out of the county. 

We annex the following certificate from a respectable far- 
mer of St. Mary's county, and any number of others could 
be published if necessary, all tending to show the decided 
superiority of this Fan over any others that have ever been 
introduced in the Middle States — and as the manufacturers 
devote their whole attention to this one article, and rely for 
its continued success upon the faithfulness of its make, as 
well as the superiority of its principles of construction, far- 
mers and others may rely on having their Fans made of 
the best materials and workmanship. 

St. Geeamers, St. Mary's Co., Md., Oct. 6, 1853. 

This is to certify, that I have tried Messrs. J. Montgo- 
mery & Brother's Wheat Fan in some tailings I made in 
cleaning a part of my crop, which I did not think could be 
made worth anything; it extracted from a bushel and a 
half of filth about three pecks of pure wheat. I must say 
that I never saw a Fan that can even come in competition 
with J. Montgomery & Brother's Rockaway Wheat Fan, 
for screening wheat. . Benjamin M'Kay. 

REFERENCES. 
City of Baltimore : John S. Williams, foot of Commerce 
street; Messrs. Seth & Godwin, No. 4 Bowly's wharf; E. 

B. Harris, No. 4 Bowly's wharf; Michael Dorsey, Light 
street; Thos. J. Hall, Light street; N. E. Berry, Lombard 
street, near Charles; R. D. Burns, foot of Bowly's wharf; 
Mr. Wilmer, No. 2 Bowly's wharf — all commission mer- 
chants. 

Virginia references: Hon. William S.Archer, Virginia; 
Gen. B. Peyton, Virginia; Hill Carter, Virginia; Lewis G. 
Harvey, Virginia; Rowlett Hardy & Co., Petersburg; A. 

C. Lane, Richmond; Robert Cole, Richmond, Virginia; M. 
Heartwall, D. T. Payner, James B. Lundy, J. Ravenscroft 
Jones, Geo. W. Field, Col. Isham Trotter, John Winbeiks, 
Wra. Towns, Jas. Hays, Sr., Dr. Wm. W. Oliver, Samuel F. 
M'Gehee, William M. Watkins, William I. Scott. 

We are prepared to sell State or County rights to those 
who wish to manufacture our Fan. 

All orders addressed to the undersigned at the Baltimore 
City (Md.) Post Office, will be promptly attended to. 
J. MONTGOMERY & BRO. 
No. 155 N. High st, between Hillen and Gay streets, 
may — ly Baltimore. 

GENERAL AGENCY FOR THE SALE AND PUR- 
CHASE OF LANDS— FRANK : G. RUFFIN, Secre- 
tary of the Virginia State Agricultural Society, and N. 
AUGUST, Notary Public and Accountant, offer their ser- 
vices to the public as General Agents for the sale and pur- 
chase of lands in Virginia, and in the Southern and West- 
ern States. Those wishing our services, having lands for 
sale, are requested to furnish us with a full description of 
snch property, and the terms, &c, upon which they are 
willing to sell ; and those wishing to purchase are requested 
to inform us of the locality in which they wish to purchase, 
the price they are willing to pay, &c. Our charges will 
be moderate. 

Office at the office of the Virginia State Agricultural So- 
ciety. 

jan — tf 



I 



! 



380 



THE SOUTHERN PLANTER. 




SCOTT'S LITTLE GIANT PATENT CORN AND 
COB MILL, 

Patented May 16, 1854. 

The attention of Planters, 
IL, Fanners and Stock-feed- 
ers in general, are respect- 
fully called to this Mill as 
the most important article 
of the kind now in use ; not only well adapted for grinding 
Cob Meal for Stock, but Grits for the table, and especially 
Bread Meal from corn not fully ripe or dry in the fall. 

In setting this Mill no mechanic or frame work is wanted, 
only requiring to be fasted to a floor or platform. Easily 
adjusted and used by any body, even a child. 

The Little Giant has received the first premiums at 
the late Agricultural Fairs of Missouri, Kentucky, Mary- 
land and other States; and that in the most complimentary 
manner; as well as the most ready commendations from 
the thousands witnessing its performance. 

These Mills are guaranteed in the most positive manner ; 
and No. 2 warranted to grind 10 bushels of feed per hour 
with one horse, and offered at the low price of $44, all 
complete, ready for attaching the team — No. 4, at 866, 
grinds 20 bushels per hour with 2 horses. 

Manufactured by SCOTT & MOCKBEE, No. 7 Bal- 
derston Street, near Light Street, Baltimore, Maryland. 
Liberal discount to dealers. State and County Rights for 
sale. 

From the Cincinnati Gazette. 

Corn and Cob Crushers. — We stepped in yesterday 
to the establishment of Messrs. Scott & Hedges, No. 9 
Water Street, and witnessed the performance of Scott's 
Patent Corn and Cob Mill, called the "Little Gi- 
ant," and can assure those who are in need of a mill for 
grinding ear-corn for feed, or cracking corn and oats to- 
gether, that this article is the best adapted for that purpose 
of any thing we have ever 'examined. With one horse, 
they are able to grind at the rate of from 10 to 12 bushels 
per hour, breaking all the corn and pulverizing the cob 
completely. The whole mill, ready to hitch the horse to, 
weighing about 300 lbs, and sold at the low price of $44, 
and warranted at that — it does strike us it will soon find 
its way to every good farmer and economical teamster in 
the whole country. In regard to the style and workman- 
ship of this Little Giant, we must say it is a little ahead 
of the rest of the family, and no wonder, for it is Western 
born. no3t* 



CHOICE FOWLS FOR SALE.— The subscriber 
has the following kinds of chickens, ducks and geese : 
Ebon Sumatra, Bengal, Java, Pheasant and Mallacca game 
chickens ; the Aylesbury and Java ducks, and Hong Kong 
geese: each breed warranted pure and distinct. He has 
also various crosses of the above named chickens, which 
in size, beauty and symmetry surpass the original stock. 
All of which he will sell on reasonable terms, securely 
cooped and delivered either in Richmond or on the Canal, 
(free of extra charge.) Address 

DR. ERASMUS POWELL, 
oc3t* Powell's Tavern Goochland Co., Va. 

A CHANCE TO MAKE MONEY! PROFITABLE 
AND HONORABLE EMPLOYMENT!!— The sub- 
scriber is desirous of having an agent in each county and 
town of the Union. A capital of from five to ten dollars 
only will be required, and anything like an efficient, ener- 
getic man can make from three to five dollars per day; in- 
deed some of the agents now employed are realizing twice 
that sum. Every information will be given by addressing, 
(postage paid,) 

WILLIAM A. KINSLER, 
delt* Box 601, Philadelphia, Pa., Post Office. 

DEERING & DEDERICH'S HAY PRESSES— We 
are prepared to supply these excellent Presses at a 
short notice. They are warranted. 

PASCHALL MORRIS & CO. 

Agricultural Warehouse, 
269 Market Street, Philadelphia. 



FARMERS' AND PLANTERS' DEPOT, N. E. cot 
of 7th and Market Street, Philadelphia. — The most 
ried assortment of Agricultural and Horticultural Im 
ments, Seeds, Dairy Utensils, Fruit and Ornamental Tr 
&c, in the United States may now be seen at our W. 
house, and to which we respectfully invite the attentio 
Farmers and Planters. It having been our earnest en< 
vor to secure custom, by keeping only the most imprc 
and best made implements, we guarantee all articles 
by us fully equal to representations. Orders from a 
tance as punctually and faithfully filled, as if the purchi 
were present We have but one price, to which we stri 
adhere. Comprehensive, illustrated catalogues will be j 
nished gratis, on post paid application. 

PASCHALL MORRIS & CO. j 

Agricultural Warehouse, N. E. corner 7th anj 

oc3t Market Street, Philadelj 



NOTICE.— DRAYTON G. MEADE, (late of the 
of Addison & Meade,) and WILLIAM EACH 
having entered into a copartnership, under the nam 
MEADE & EACHES, for the sale of Agricultural Im 
ments, Seeds, Manures, &c, having bought out the et 
stock of R. S. Huck, and located at his old stand on Fai 
street, east side, between King and Prince, will contim 
keep on hand a full and complete assortment of the vai 
articles in their line of business, and will always be hf 
to see their friends, and all who may be pleased to 
them their patronage. D. G. MEADE 

WM. EACHE: 

fujp^ The undersigned having sold his stock of Agr 
tural Implements, &c, to Messrs. Meade & Eaches, ret 
his thanks to his friends for their past patronage, and 
spectfully asks a continuance of the same to his succes 

Alexandria, Oct. 1— 3t R. S. HUG 



WILLIAM P. LADD, Apothecary and Drugc 
No. 319, head of Broad Street, Shockoe Hill, J 
mond, Virginia, dealer in English, Mediterranean, India 
all Foreign and Domestic Drugs and Medicines ; also, Pa 
Oils, Vafnish, Dye-Stuffs, Window Glass, Putty, &c. 
sale on the most accommodating terms. 

fQf Orders from Country Merchants and Physic 
thankfully received and promptly attended to. 
jan '51— tf 



i 



AGENCY FOR THE PURCHASE AND SALE 
IMPROVED STOCK.— Stock Cattle of all the d 
ent breeds, Sheep, Swine, Poultry, &c. will be purch 
to order, and carefully shipped to any part of the Ui 
States, for which a reasonable commission will be chai 
Apply to AARON CLEMENT, Philadelph 

Refer to Gen. Wm. H. Richardson, Richmond, Virg 
N. B. — All letters, post-paid, will be promptly atte: 
to. 

ap '53— tf 



COOPER'S PATENT LIME AND GUANO SPRE 
ERS. — Cooper's Lime Spreader, Guano Spreader 
Lime and Guano Spreaders combined. Sole Agents, 
PASCHALL MORRIS & CO. 

Agricultural and Seed Warehou 
oc3t 269 Market Street, Philadel 



: 



H 



ALLADAY'S WIND ENGINE.— The best ma 
for raising water bv wind-power, in use. 

PASCHALL MORRIS & CO 

Agricultural Warehouse, N. E. corner ! 

oc3t and Market Street, Philade: 



OPAINS ATMOSPHERIC BARREL CHUR *.- 

O are now manufacturing these superior Churns < 
sizes. They are warranted equal to any in use. 

PASCHALL MORRIS & CO. 

Agricultural Warehou 
oc3t No. 269 Market Street, Philade' 



y- 



ARTIFICIAL GUANO for sale in quantities to suitp b 
chasers, at $25 per ton. Apply to 
oc3t RICHARD CAUTHORN, 15th Str< 



' 



TxIE SOUTHEKN PLANTER. 



381 



CONTENTS OF NUMBER XII. 



PAGE 

Address of Wm. Ballard Preston before the Virginia 
State Agricultural Society at its Second Annual Ex- 
hibition 353 

Jread 362 

hnut in Wheat 363 

Experiments in Using Lime and Salt, and the Relative 

Value of Peruvian Guano.and Kettle well's Salts- •• -363 
Lbram Renick and his Short-Horns. — The Springfield 
(Ohio) Cattle Show.— Weights of the Short-Horns-. 364 

Pol. Josiah William-Ware, again 387 

burnal of Transactions of the Virginia State Agricul- 
tural Society 369 

die Best System of Management 370 

^ive-Pield Rotation 372 

laddie Galls ' 372 

teport of the Executive Committee of the Virginia State 
Agricultural Society 372 



A GOOD COMPARISON. 

fgp 50 The Rev. William Roulatt, a well known Methodist 
lergyman, residing at Naples, draws the following amus- 
ng but apt comparison between Dr. McLane's celebrated 
/"ermifuge and a ferret: 

"A ferret, when placed at the entrance of a rat-hole, en- 
srs the aperture, travels along the passage, seizes upon the 
at, exterminates his existence, and draws the animal's de- 
unct carcass to the light. And in like manner have I found 
)r. McLane's American Vermifuge to operate upon worms, 
[lose dreadful and dangerous tormentors of children. This 
emedy, like- the ferret, enters the aperture of the mouth, 
ravels down the gullet, hunts round the stomach, lays hold 
f the worms, shakes the life out of the reptiles, sweeps 
lean their den, and carries their carcasses clear out of the 
ystem. This, at least, has been the effect of the Vermi- 
uge upon my children." 

A neighbor of Mr. Roulatt, Mr. John Briggs, adopts the 
imile of the reverend certifier, thus both giving their most 
mequivocal approval of this great specific, after having 
witnessed its operation upon their own children. Let others 
ry it, and be satisfied. 

§3?^ Purchasers will be careful to ask for "Dr. McLane's 
Celebrated Vermifuge," and take none else. All other ver- 
fiifuges, in comparison, are worthless. Dr. McLane's genu- 
fie Vermifuge, also his celebrated Liver Pills, can now be 
lad at all respectable Drug Stores in the United States and 
Canada. 

A GREAT BLESSING TO THE AFFLICTED. 
$3^" I^ r - McLane, the inventor of the celebrated Liver 
*ills, used these pills for several years in his practice; be- 
orc he could be induced to offer them to the public in such 
. manner as to make them known throughout the country, 
rhis learned physician felt the same repugnance that all 
ligh-minded men of science feel in entering the lists against 
hose unscrupulous empirics who obtrude their useless nos- 
rums upon the public, and rely upon a system of puffing 

sustain them. Convinced, however, of the real value of 
he Liver Pills, and influenced by the plain dictates of duty, 
he Doctor finally sacrificed his delicate feelings on the altar 

1 public good. His great medicine has not disappointed 
he expectations of the medical practitioners, at whose in- 
stance he was induced to forego his inclinations. From 
(very quarter do we hear the most gratifying accounts of 
ts wonderful curative effects — the East and the West, the 
Sforth and the South, are alike laden with "tidings of great 
oy" from the afflicted. These wonderful Pills have com- 
fletely conquered that great scourge of America, the Liver 
Dom plaint. 

§2^° Purchasers will be careful to ask for Dr. McLane's 
Celebrated Liver Pills, and take none else. There are other 
Pills, purporting to be Liver Pills, now before the public. 
[)r. McLane's Liver Pills, also his Celebrated Vermifuge, 
«tn now be had at all respectable Drug Stores in the United 
states and Canada. 

For sale by PURCELL, LADD & CO. 

delt Corner Main and 1 4th streets. Richmond. 



R EAD, 



CONSIDER AND ACT WISELY. 

IMPORTANT TO FARMERS! 



What is that 
you have got 
there boy, and /J 
what doing? n§ 



Ah! Massa, dis de Wells' Seed 
Sower — de berry best ting in de 
world to sow de clober and de 
v timoty seed, de plaster, de go- 
no, and de wheat. I 
sows 25 acres in one 
day massa — try 
him. 




It is only by the use of valuable improvements that we 
can reasonably expect to keep up with the age in which 
we live, and public opinion everywhere has placed M. D. 
Wells' Improved Patent Seed Sower in the first class of 
agricultural implements. The above drawing exhibits it 
in use, and any ordinary mind must at once be impressed 
with the certain conviction that it is an indispensable im- 
plement of husbandry, and that every good farmer' should 
have it. By its use you save time, which is money and 
labor which costs money, and experience in using it proves 
you will not be driven from the field unless by very rough 
weather, and the aimost mathematical precision with which 
the seed is distributed, compared with hand sowing, renders 
it self-evident in the opinion of the best farmers that a sav- 
ing or gain of two dollars per acre is made in two crops of 
grass and the succeeding crop of wheat, one year's inte- 
rest on an acre of land at $33|, and sowing three acres 
pays for a machine with lid at $6. 

The first premium was recommended for this machine 
at the late Virginia State Fair, and four of the committee 
(all having use for it) engaged one each ; and we think if 
governed by your interest you will do likewise. 

MOTT, LEWIS & WILLSdN, 
Sole agents for Richmond — Agricultural Implement 

fe— tf Store, No. 36, Main Street. 



IvJL rino Sh 



SHEEP. — Having increased my flock of Me- 
Sheep on my farm, in Orange county, to over 
800 I am now prepared to sell a few choice yearling Bucks 
and Ewes. To all who have any acquaintance with Col. 
Henry S. Randall of New York, and the reputation of his 
flock, it is only necessary to say that the yearlings I pro- 
pose selling are the product of ewes purchased of him when 
he sold out last year, and selected by him personally as the 
best in his flock. I have his letters, saying that he was 
offered the same price for his ewes by his neighbors, but 
that in starting the growth of fine wool in Virginia it was 
very important to have good sheep, and as he knew these 
were superior, he preferred selling them to go there. I 
shall sell no bucks except such as show marks of supe- 
riority. All who want to raise their flocks to a high stand- 
ard at once will do well to apply early, as I have but a 
limited number for sale. Address by mad, or apply to 
WM. G. CRENSHAW, or 
CRENSHAW & CO., 
june — tf , North side of the Basin, Richmond, Va. 

PERUVIAN GUANO.— Having on hand, and engaged 
to arrive, a large supply of Guano, we solicit orders. 
All who buy of us may rely on getting it genuine, as we 
sell none except what comes direct from the Peruvian agftnts. 
CRENSHAW & CO., 
june — tf North side of the Basin, Richmond, Va. 



M'CONNEXiE & BURTON, 
DENTISTS, 

Main Street, between 9th and 10th Streets, Richmond, Va. 

JOHN M'CONNELL. W. LEIGH BURTOX. 

ap— tf 



INDEX. 



Appendix to Professor Gilliam's Essay on the 

Analysis of Marls in lower Virginia, - 54 
Appendix to Mr. Edmund Ruffin's Essay on 

the Theory and Laws of Rotation of Crops, 55 
Apple Trees, how to Plant, - - 83 

Agriculture, Improvement of, in Virginia, - 86 
Address of John R. Edmunds, Esq., review of 

the ..... 88 

Agricultural Notice, ... 108 

Agricultural Machinery, Economy in the Use 

of _ .... HO 

Agriculture, Essay on, Nos. 1 and 2, • 135, 240 
Agricultural Society of Virginia, - - 169 

Agricultural Facts and Observations, collected 

and noted by the Agricultural Commissioner, 198 

257, 289, 821 
Answer to Colonel Ware's article on Sheep and 

Farming in the present number, - - 209 

Agricultural Fair in Fredericksburg, ~ 212 

Analyses of Soils, - 301 

An additional Premium, - 807 

Address of William Ballard Preston before the 

Virginia State Agricultural Society at its 

Second Annual Exhibition, - - 353 

Abram Renick and his Short-Horns, by Alex. 

S. Mathews, - - - ' - 364 



Beautiful Arbor, how to Grow a * 153 

Bread, Home-made - - - 183 

Bull's Head, - - - - 208 

Brass, how to Clean ... 245 

Brunswick Agricultural Society, - - 269 

Butter-Making, - - - 802 

Butter-Making, Experiments in - 308 

Barometer, ----- 311 

Brfiad, 362 

Best System of Management, - - 370 

C. 

Corn Fodder, Experiment to Test the Effects 
(in profit or loss) of the Usual Mode of Sav- 
ing, by Edmund Ruffin, Jr. - - 33 

Corn, Experiment in the Tillage of Indian, by 
Commodore Thomas Ap Catesby Jones, 35 



PAG 

Correspondence, Extract from - 8 

Clover Seed, how to Save - - - 11 

Chickens, - - - - - 14 

Corn, a Treatise on the Culture of - - 15 

Corn for Fodder, how to Cultivate - - 15 

Corn, Experiments in Suckering - 1£ 

Carbonate of Lime in Marl, - - K 

Cows, Quaker Management of Dairy - 2£ 

Cochin Chinas — a London Story, - - M 
County and Individual Pledges to the Virginia 

State Society, - - - 2-4J q- 

Cattle Distemper, - - - • - 21 

Confectionary, a few Words on - - 21 
Colonel Ware more in sorrow than in anger, 
Colonel Ware. Answer to - 

Coffee, Discovery of - - - 2i 

Cabbage Worms, - - - 3( 

Charcoal, Properties of - - - 3( 

Colonel Josiah William Ware, again, - 3( 

Close of the 14th Volume of the Planter, - 8( 



Derbv's Horticultural Review, - - 1 

Distemper in Cattle, - - 180, 206, 2( 

Drifting Soils, their Management, - 
Ducks, Selection, Management, Diseases, - 
Digging Machine, - - - - 

District and County Agricultural Societies, 
Destruction of Sassafras Bushes, 
Drought, Crops, Prices, &c. 



II 



Enlargement of the Planter, 

Errata, - 

Essay on Improving and Enriching Poor Land, 

by William D. Gresham, - 
Essay on Improving and Enriching Poor Land, 

by Benjamin F. Dew, - - - 

Errors, - 

Explanation of Com. Jones' Prize Essay, - 
Erratum, - 

Entries for the State Fair, - 
Experiments in Using Lime and Salt, and the 

Relative Value of Peruvian Guano and Ket- 

tlewell's Salts, ... - 



INDEX. 



383 



PAGE 

airs in Virginia, the late District - - 25 

ly and Joint-Worm, Lime as a Remedy for 83 
arming, the Four-Field or Mattaponi vs. the 
Five-Feld or Pamunkey System of - 84 

owls, Swinging Roosts for - - 87 

armer's Club, Thirty-First Meeting of the 90 
lour, Important Improvement and Economy 
in the Manufacture of - - - 141 

ruit, Drying Houses for - 151 

ighting Creek Farm, Report on - - 1G8 

arms Improved by Keeping Sheep, - 170 

ine Cattle, - - - 184, 312 

ruit and Flowers, how to Gather and Keep 
always Fresh, - 248 

owls, how to Raise and What Kind, - 268 

arm, Export on Mr. John Marshall's - 292 

arinaceous Aliment obtained from Straw, 297 
air Grounds, Plan of the - 306 

attenino- Animals, - 341 

ruit and Fruit Trees, - 321 

urther Extracts from the Papers of the Not- 
toway Club, - 363 
ive-Field Rotation, - - - 372 



'Uano, Experiments on the Benefits and Pro- 
ducts of, Compared to Costs, by Thomas 

Jones, Jr. - - - - - 36 

-uano, Applied to Corn, - - - 82 

rasshoppers in the Valley, - 85 

•uano, Application of, to Corn, - - 104 

ardens, Management of Small - - 137 

•ame Fowls, - - - - 138 

-uano for Corn — on the Application of - 181 

uano Deposites on the Chincha Islands, - 182 

•ate, a Cheap Plantation - - - 196 

;as for Country Use, - 207 

-raduated or Guard Ditches for Hill- Sides, 225 

ood Stock, Necessity of, in Virginia, - 260 

uano, - - - - - 269 

uano, the Mode of Using - 298 

rape, Pure Juice of the - 304 

Teen Corn as Forage,' - 326 

-ood Effects of Repeated Dressings of Guano, 330 

alls, Saddle - 372 

H. • 

[ydraulic Cement Piping for Conveying Wa- 
ter to Dwellings, - - - - 86 
[ogs, Oats and Late Corn for - - 147 
Lill-Side Ditching, Premium Essay on - 173 
[arvest Drink, Diet and Medicine, - - 178 
[unt's Merchant's Magazine and DeBow's Re- 
view, - - - - - 180 
[orse Stock, Selection of - - 197 
[arness Buckle, - - - - 299 
[arvest, Past Year from Extra Early Seeding, 340 

I. 

nvention, a New - - - .-29 

nsects in Wheat and Oats in 1769, 1732 and 

1755, - - 181 

mproved Short-Horns, - 212, 261, 275, 364 
ce House, - - - - - 308 



oint Worm Convention, - 246 

ournal of Transactions of the Virginia State 
Agricultural Society, ... 369 



t.. 



Lime as Manure, Experiment to Test the Ac- 
tion of, above the Falls of the Tide-Water 
Rivers of Virginia, on Different Soils, by 

Com. Thomas Ap Catesby Jones, - 34 

Lima Beans, - - - - 153 

Lime, Experiment with - 243 

Loudoun Agricultural Association, - 281 

Lime, Super Phosphate of - - - 294 

Lime, its Action, &c. - 302 

Lithographic Drawing of the Fair Grounds, 307 
Lexington (Kentucky) Fair, Description of, by 

Alexander S. Mathews, - - 337 

M. 

Milch Cows, Essay on the Treatment and Ma- 
nagement of, by Lewis Bailey, - - 52 
Miocene Marl, Facts and Testimony of Greatly 
Increased Production from the Use of, on 
Land Naturally Poor, by Edmund Runiyi, 100 
Maine Liquor Law, - 105 
Morgan Horses, - 107 
Maine Liquor Law, acceptance of Mr. Timber- 
lake's Challenge to Discuss the - - 180 
Manure, Saltpetre as a - - 182 
Milch Cows. Summer Feed for - - 203 
Milk Pans— Soiling Cows, - - - 247 
Mules, Some Words about - 297 
Management, the Best System of - - 370 



Nelson's Guano Attachment for Sowing Guano 

in the Drill with Wheat, - - - 120 

New Books, - 243 

New York State Agricultural Society, - 274 

North Devon Cattle for Butter, - ' - 311 



O. 



Osage Orange Hedge, 
Oddity let looee, 
Onions for Fowls, 



82, 112 
-. 164 



Parks and Pleasure Grounds, 

Present, an Acceptable 

Pea, Essay on the Values and Properties of the 
Southern, or Cornfield Pea, by P. M. Ed- 
mondston, - 

Premiums, Schedule of, for the Virginia Agri- 
cultural Fair, - 

Planting Tobacco with a Trowel, 

Planter Premiums, Award of 

Provisions, Packing for Market, 

Peas — When are they Poisonous to Hogs ! 

Peas, Compared with Guano — Grass Crop on 
Tide-Water, - 

Poor Land, Improving or Enriching, 

Produce, Shipment of 

Patrick Henry's Resolutions oh the Stamp Act, 

Pumpkin Seed, how to Select 

Profits of Sugar Culture, - 

Putrid, Noxious Gases, Disinfecting of 

Pea Culture for Manuring, - 

Preserving Butter, - 

Painting, - 

Pork, .... . 

Preston, Wm. Ballard, Address of, before the 
Virginia State Agricultural Society at its 2d 
Annual Exhibition, 



28 
28 



48 

56 

83 

147 

200 

215 

215 

231 
247 

274 
275 
291 
304 
329 
335 
336 
336 



353 







384 



INDEX 



F. 



PAGE 

27 
119 



Richmond and the Agricultural Society, • 
Reaper, Atkins' Self-Raking 
Report of Gen. Win. H. Richardson to the Vir- 
ginia State Agricultural Society, - 148 
Reviewer reviewed, - 16-1 
Red Lands of the South-West Mountains, Ana- 
lysis of the, by Maj. William Gilhani of the 
Virginia Military Institute, * - - 178 
Reply of Col. Josiah W. Ware to the Editor's 

article on Stock, - - - -216 

Rancid Butter, - 237 

Rail Roads and the Fair, - - - 274 

Rappahannock Agricultural Association, - 281 
Repeated Applications of Guano Losing Effect, 329 
Report of the Executive Committee of the 

Virginia State Agricultural Society, - 372 
Rotation, Five-Field - - 372 

8. 

Subscriptions to the Planter, - - 27 

Stock, Fine, for Sale, 28 

Sulphate of Barytes as a Manure, Experiments 
with - - - - - 38 

Stock, Necessity of Good, to Virginia Farmers, 
and how they may get it, - 56, 113. 

Loientifle Agriculture, by Prof. Gilham, 

Smut in Wheat, 

Sunny- Side Farm, Report on 

Stuccoing Houses, - 

Straw, Digested or Undigested 

Starch, how to Make Good, for Collars, 

Squashes and Pumpkins, - 

Steam among the Farmers, 

Soda Water, - 

Shanghai Cocks and Hens, with a Portrait, 

Stock, Prospects of - 

Sassafras, how to Eradicate 

Saltpetre as a Manue, - 

Sheep, how to Winter 100 from 2 Acres of Land, 

Summer Feed for Milch Cows, - - ' 

Silex in the Sou"? Is Ammonia the Solvent of 

Southern Planter, to the Readers of the 

Shipment of Produce, - 

Soiling Cows, - 

Smut in Wheat, Bluestone as a Preventive of 

Seed Wheat, Brining and Liming 

Salt, a Preventive of Weevil and Smut in Wheat, 

Sugar Culture, Profits of - 

Shanghai Fowls, - 

Super-Phosphate of Lime, - - - 

Seed Wheat and its Preparations, - 

Smut in Wheat and Remedies, Danger of Brine 
as a Steep, 

Softening or Disintegrating Stony or Hard Cal- 
careous Matters and Bones by the Fermen- 
tation of Putrescent Manure, 

Suckering Corn, - - - 

Saddle Galls, - 

Smut in Wheat, - 
Southern Planter, Close of the 14th Volume, 



145 
65, 98 
105 
105 
107 
136 
140 
142 
170 
173 
170 
177 
181 
182 
184 
203 
235 
242 
247 
247 
267 
281 
281 
291 
292 
294 
309 



325 
331 
372 
363 
369 



The Working Man's Way in the World, 

Tobacco, Planting with a Trowel, - 

Tobacco Houses, - 

Turkeys, .... - 

Tobacco, Culture and Management of in Con 
necticut, 

The Morgan Hunter, with a Cut, 

The Currycomb, - 

Tobacco Houses, Qnere about the Use of - 

Tobacco Crop of Virginia, - 

Tillage and Draining, Value of Deep 

Tomato Catsup, , - 

Toothache, Remedy for - 

The Eleven Chemical Changes, 

The Fair Grounds, - 

The Horse Course at the Fair, 

The State Fair, 

The Agricultural Fairs of Virginia, 

The Two Mr. Ruffins, -..'.- 

The Facts and Causes of Injury to Animals 
from Eating Peas, "..."" 

Tobacco, Essay on the Culture of - 

The Springfield (Ohio) Cattle Show, Descrip- 
tion of, by Alexander S. Mathews, 

The Best System of Management, - 

Transactions of the Virginia State Agricultural 
Society, Journal of 

To our Readers, - 



130 
144 
177 
144 



248 
259 
273 
273 
303 
30fl 
307 



30(j 

36< 
30* 



67, 
Commis- 



Virginia State Agricultural Society, Abstract 

of Reports of Committees to the 
Virginia State Agricultural Society, 
Virginia State Agricultural Society 

sioner of the - 

Vegetables and their Cookery. 
Vermin, to Destroy - - - 

Virginia State Agricultural Society, Liberality 

of Richmond to the - 

Virginia State Agricultural Society, Journal 

of Transactions of the ... 



II 
27 

29 

304 



Under-Draining, 



U. 



W. 



The Penny Post, ... - 28 

The People's Journal, - - 28 

The Southern Farmer, 29 

Tobacco, ----- 29 
Tide Marsh Mud as a Manure, Experiments 

with, by John 11. Bryan, - - 37 

Tobacco Plant-Beds, a Remedy for Injury to, 

by Flies, ----- 58 



Worn-Out Lands, Essay on Enriching and Im- 
proving, by Com. Thomas Ap C. Jones, - 

Wheat Crop and its Enemies, 

Working Agricultural Society, Plan and Con- 
stitution of a 

Water Fence, - 

AVheat Crop, "'■*,*" 

Wheat, Price of, in England, - ' - 

Write for the Planter, - 

Water Telegraph, - - - - 

W beaten Bread, - 

Wheat Threshing, - 

Wool Depot in Richmond, - 

Wire Grass, Shade to Destroy, 

Wood, Weight of Seasoned 

Wheat, Bluestone as a Preventive of Smut in 

Wheat, the Price of - 

Weevil in Grain, how to Destroy 

Want of Action, or of Profitable Results of 
Guano, - 

Wheat, Experiment in Re-Seeding - 

Wheat Trade in Fredericksburg, 

Weights of the Short-Horns, by Alexander S. 
Mathews. - 



lf\ 



L